About the work
Les Justes (The Just Assassins) is a five-act drama by Albert Camus based on the 1905 bomb attack by Russian Socialist Revolutionaries on Grand Duke Sergei and on the memoirs of the assassin Boris Savinkov. It premiered on 15 December 1949 at the Théâtre Hébertot in Paris, directed by Paul Œttly, with Serge Reggiani and Maria Casarès in the lead roles.
Plot
A group of Russian revolutionaries plans a bomb attack on a grand duke; Kaliayev, tasked with throwing the bomb, hesitates when he sees children in the carriage, raising the question of how far violence can be justified in the name of justice.
Cultural significance
Camus portrays his assassins as people who see the killing as both 'necessary and inexcusable'; in 1957, amid the unrest in Algeria, he still called the play's questions urgent, and it remains one of his most frequently staged dramas.