"A Winter’s Tale: The Last Stand of the Decembrists." Topic

"Tsar Alexander I was dead to begin with, dead since 1 December in fact. Soldiers of the garrison of St Petersburg and the Imperial Guard had sworn allegiance to his brother Grand Duke Konstantin. However the Grand Duke had never wanted to be Tsar and abdicated in accordance with a secret manifesto signed by the dead emperor that transferred the succession. Into the gap stepped his younger brother Nicholas. Reluctantly at first because he didn't know about the manifesto and then becasue he wouldn't accept it.

This infuriated, or at least confused a large section of the garrison, and a secret society that would become known as the Decembrists took advantage of it. These were army officers bent on social reform, properly known as the Union of Salvation. The leaders of the northern part of this movement, liberals who wished constitutional monarchy based somewhat on American lines, were swift to try and persuade the St Petersburg garrison not to swear allegiance to Nicholas, and on 26 December (14 Dec OS), 3,000 mutinous troops, mostly from the Moscow Lifeguard Regiment, Grenadier Lifeguard and Marine Guard battalions marched on Senate Square in the heart of St Petersburg…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Google the 1975 Soviet film The Captivating Star Of Happiness. It has some well presented scenes about the events in St Petersburg. And not a bad film altogether.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand