The Tragedy of Bloody Sunday Left Its Stain Upon the Nation, and No Character Will Go Untested by These Turbulent Times. As the year 1905 draws to an end, great changes sweep through Russia. The tragic events of "Bloody Sunday" usher in a sequence of massive and paralyzing national strikes that eventually force the tsar to turn his government into a constitutional monarchy, and it appears that the radical element has finally won. But for Anna Fedorcenko, the overwhelming tragedy of that fateful day was the slaying of her beloved husband, Sergei. While her loss is a painful struggle, it is Sergei?s sons who are most dramatically affected by their father?s untimely death. Andrei, the youngest, becomes driven to see his father?s death avenged, and thus his boundless energies are aimed toward the downfall of the monarchy. Yuri, the oldest, is also grief-stricken, but he approaches it with characteristic confusion and uncertainty and finds he cannot support his brother?s revolutionary fervor. As Russia plunges from World War I into the ensuing civil war between the Bolsheviks and an army of White Russians comprised of nobility and others opposed to Lenin, the family of Anna Fedorcenko is caught in the middle of conflicting national interests. Will their faith and love be strong enough to help them survive?