The Quick Are the Dead

It is a fact: the courageous M.V. Rodzianko, president of Russia's Duma in 1917, persuaded Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate. It is also a fact that Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko fled Petrograd and the Bolsheviks disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair. In his fictionalized life, portrayed in The Quick are the Dead, Rodzianko fought his own Civil War. During his treks across Russia he is aided by Dmitrii Devlov, his secretary at the Duma and the murderer of three of Mikhail's friends! In the days before the Revolution, Mikhail visited each crime scene, but his eyes are closed to the evidence that points to Devlov. After the war, the two tavarish immigrated to a Russian enclave in Belgrade. Who would expect Rodzianko to be harassed by his fellow exiles? They said he caused the Civil War!