Radical mythology deemed December 14, 1825, the beginning of the Russian revolutionary movement. Tsar Alexander I had died three weeks earlier, and it was still not clear which of his brothers, Konstantin, who was in Warsaw, or Nicholas, who was present in the capital, would succeed him. Taking advantage of the confusion, a group of aristocratic army officers led their soldiers to the Senate Square, ostensibly to support the absent Konstantin but really to overthrow the monarchy. Nicholas