Leonid Andreyev was one of the major literary artists at the turn of the 20th century and is widely regarded as perhaps the most talented and prolific representative of the "Silver Age" period of Russian literature. The Seven Who Were Hanged is considered by many to be his masterpiece.

It tells the story of seven people (five men, two women) who are sentenced for execution by the Tsarist regime. Five of these are terrorists who failed in their attempt to assassinate a highly-placed minister. The other two are a simple-minded peasant who murdered his master and a lifelong brigand with many murders to his credit.

As a fascinating historical footnote, the book was translated into Serbo-Croatian by Danilo Ilić, the ringleader of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand which precipitated World War I. Ilić closely patterned the real-world assassination on details found in Andreyev's book, having been won over by what he perceived as the idealism, selfless sincerity, and courage of the young terrorists in the novel.

Andreyev has been called one of the "most powerful" writers of all time by Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, and he greatly influenced many of the great horror and fantasy writers of the century.