POLI 231 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Ivan Kalyayev, Grand Duke, The Just Assassins
13 Mar 2017
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Document Summary
Camus: les justes: based on true story. Russian revolutionaries planning to assassinate grand duke. True story with fictional elements added (stephan) First failed assassination attempt (because children affected by assassination attempt) After first failed attempt: debate about kaliayev"s failure to kill. Throwing the bomb in the grand duke"s carriage would have killed the. Everyone is sympathetic to him expect stephan, disgusted he didn"t do it. Stephan says nothing should have stopped his plan because 2 children dead is better then the thousands of other children which will die at the hand of the duke. He says there are moral constraints to the killing of children. Camus introduced him as a critique of the communist party over the fact that they had no moral constraints in what they did at the time. He finds it morally difficult in killing the duke even when he believes this is the best moral decision to make (cid:736) significance of second half of play.
