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Romain Rolland

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Age: 51

Lives in: Sierre, Switzerland

Interests: Literature, history of art, history of music, drama, theater, symphonic music, opera Views: Pacifism, socialism

Occupation: Writer

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

20.11.17

The Bolsheviks are in power. Lenin, Trotsky, Lunacharsky, are national commissioners of Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and National Education. There is a truce offering with Germany. The Allies refuse to recognise the government of the Russian Revolution. And pacifists are blamed for all problems!

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

25.10.17

A registered message from Odessa. God knows, how it came to me! “Monsieur, I am sitting in my bedroom, reading your article ‘The Lesser of Two Evils’ as I listen to someone playing the ‘Marseillaise’ on the accordion outside the window. See more

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

19.10.17

BiryukovPavel Biryukov is a publicist, a biographer of Leo Tolstoy. said that the Americans are making inroads into Russia and believe that they outclass her not only morally but materially as well. They’ve dispatched hundreds of missionary laymen there to convert the Russians to their faith. They take their mission of “God and the dollar” very seriously.

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Romain Rolland Albert Einstein

Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

21.08.17

It pains me to think that you have lost your optimism, which so struck me on the occasion of our first meeting two years ago. Personally, I have preserved a profound faith in our future. See more

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Albert Einstein

The most effective way out of the impasse, it seems to me, is the following: America, England, France and Russia will conclude an eternal treaty, which will established agreed-upon minimums and maximums of armaments. This union will be open to any further states that possess democratically elected parliaments, with ministries accountable to parliamentary majorities. But while German politicians continue to push for a change in the balance of power in the near or distant future, we should not dream of any serious changes to the current situation.

Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

15.08.17

The Russian revolution is being suppressed by the Allies. The Bolsheviks are being persecuted. Capital punishment has been reinstated in the army. Poor Kerensky is a Danton-like marionette, his strings in the hands of England and President Wilson. See more

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

21.07.17

Counter-revolution is happening in Russia. It is a repeat of the Paris Commune of 1848. Lenin is in hiding, Kerensky is a dictator serving the allies. The bourgeoisie in Germany, France and other countries should be relieved.

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

22.06.17

Recently, the deposed king of Greece, George, was roughed up in Lugano.

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

26.05.17

I sympathise with socialism, under the condition that it does not adopt the oppressive methods of the classes with which it fights, and does not violate the freedom of the individual.

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Byron Hotel, Villeneuve, Switzerland

20.05.17

Speaking to the House of Commons, Lord Robert Cecil said “Making peace now would be ridiculous”. Really. Two million corpses, and you think it is funny?! The discourse of these English statesmen is so tactlessly cynical. What’s the difference between this and the German atrocities? The only difference is that they are colder.

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

18.05.17

The opening of Saisons Russes in Paris. For the whole of Paris (and English officers) this represented the ascension of cubism to the throne, on the stage of du Châtelet. Picasso, Eric Satie. The snobs had their mouths agape with admiration.

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Saint-Légie, Switzerland

09.05.17

The membership of the Provisional Government is still a conundrum. Born of a popular revolution, it is now made up of people who are as far away from the spirit of revolution and as close to the spirit of a coup d’etat as it as it is possible to imagine. The Minister of War in the Provisional Government, Guchkov, is the former alter ago of Stolypin the “hangman”. The Foreign Minister, Milyukov, is an imperialist who supports continuing the war “to a victorious end”. It is impossible to place one’s trust in any of the generals. See more

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Anatoliy Lunacharskiy

Luckily, Martov, the leader of the moderate faction (the Mensheviks) is coming with me to Russia. A dedicated internationalist, endowed with all the qualities necessary in an outstanding statesman. He lacks the gift of oratory possessed by Lenin and Trotsky, but surpasses them in spirit and judgement.

Switzerland

07.05.17

I am deeply concerned by this Russian fickleness, especially at such a fateful moment. I believe it is their exclusively psychological intelligence, their critical irony, which has made their characters so malleable. They take pleasure from strange, difficult and confusing situations, thriving on the risk and romance and enjoying their victories over others, who they mercilessly ridicule and play with like a marionette pulling at strings. See more

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

24.04.17

News from Russia: “Liberal” England forbids the publishing of Russian socialist newspapers in Russia, checks Russian passports in Russia, has laid its paws on an area in the North of Russia, and has seized the revolutionary Trotsky of a Swedish ship and arrrested him.

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Sierre, Switzerland

12.04.17

I was chatting to Lunacharsky at a musical evening. I heard from him that Lenin had left for Russia three days ago, travelling through Germany in a sealed carriage with four revolutionary comrades, Jews and Zionists. There were heated discussions before they left. The patriotically inclined socialists had spoken out against Lenin, whereas others accused him of indiscretion. As for Lenin, it is pointless trying to argue with him. See more

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Grand Hotel Chateau Bellevue, Sierre, Switzerland

06.04.17

Guilbeaux, in confidence, told me about a serious plan of his friends, Russian revolutionaries, that seems to me to be very serious. Having exhausted all usual and unusual ways of trying to get entry into their country, having been denied by France and England, unsuccessfully trying to have the International Red Cross involved, they had a daring thought to try to get in touch with the general consul of Germany through their friends in Switzerland. See more

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Age: 51

Lives in: Sierre, Switzerland

Interests: Literature, history of art, history of music, drama, theater, symphonic music, opera Occupation: Writer Views: Pacifism, socialism