Beginning in mid-19th century Russia during the repressive reign of Tsar Nicholas I, Tom Stoppard's sweeping epic spans a period of thirty years as it tells the panoramic story of a group of Russian intellectuals, headed by the radical theorist and editor Alexander Herzen, the novelist Ivan Turgenev, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky and the aristocrat-turned-anarchist Michael Bakunin, who lead a band of like-minded countrymen in a revolutionary movement in which they strive to change and fix a political system by using their minds as their only weapon.

The action begins in 1833 with Part One - Voyage, set in the Russian countryside as well as in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Part Two - Shipwreck, begins thirteen years later outside Moscow and follows the characters' exile to Paris, Dresden and Nice. Part Three - Salvage, takes place over a period of twelve years in London and Geneva.