September 1, 2019
Like most gentiles in Russia, Prince Dimitri Markhov, a member of the Imperial Court, cares nothing for Jews. But when he sees the carnage of the Easter Sunday pogrom in Kishinev in 1903, he wonders what these people had done to deserve such brutality. His close friend, Tsar Nicholas II, tells him that the Jews brought it on themselves because of their innate avarice. Dimitri meets a Russian doctor, Katya Golitsyn, who also knows of the slaughter of the pogrom. This has an even bigger impact on Katya when she finds out that her great-grandfather had converted from Judaism to Christianity. She now feels a personal connection to these oppressed people. Dimitri and Katya fall in love and both are transformed by the revolutionary movement to overthrow the tsar and his autocracy. Dimitri comes to realize that tsarist rule is responsible for Russia’s misery, including the pogroms. He must make a choice between his loyalty to Nicholas and the revolution that will bring justice to millions of Russians.