Ilya Ehrenburg

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

Ilya Ehrenburg

Moscow, Russian Empire

27.08.17

Tolstoy described the conversations of the summer of 1917 thus, “Will we perish or not? Will Russia be or not? Will they slaughter the intelligentsia or let us live?” The other said, “Leave it, old chap, there’s no point in slaughtering us, rubbish, I don’t believe it, but they will ransack the grocery stores;” a third reported, based on a reliable source, that “by the first, the city will start dying out from hunger.”

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Ilya Ehrenburg

Moscow, Russian Empire

25.08.17

All of Moscow was living like a passenger at a railway station, waiting for the third bell. Round-ups of deserters were organised. There was swearing and shouting everywhere particularly on the trams, which crawled along, plastered with people. Desperate liberals drank champagne in the Metropol Hotel, paying with large packs of uncut “Kerenki” banknotes. See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

United Kingdom

03.08.17

Everyone in France has their gaze, longing and bitter, fixed on Russia. I’ve been to the front, to Paris, to suburban villages, and everywhere I’ve heard the same question: See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

Petrograd, Russian Empire

25.07.17

In the Vyborg quarter they curse the “bourgeois”, on Nevsky the “Bolsheviks”. On a tram an old man declared:

- It’s the yids, I say kill them... See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

Moscow, Russian Empire

24.07.17

I can't remember who introduced me to Mayakovsky; at first we were sitting in a cafe and discussing cinema; then he invited me over - to a small room at "Saint-Remo" in Saltykovsky lane, near Petrovka street. See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

St.Petersburg, Russian Empire

22.07.17

On the streets, deserters were caught; The patrols who checked the documents themselves were like deserters. Two officers took away from a woman a bag of sugar. "Herods!": she yelled. When she was left, one of officers shouted that soon she would be executed. Kerensky indulges the bag-makers, but sooner or later he will be put to justice.
Then the officers, not being shy of passers-by, divided the catch among themselves. In shops it was possible to buy Havana cnigars, Sevres vases, verses of Countess de Noah. Then the officers, not being shy of passers-by, divided the catch among themselves. In shops it was possible to buy Havana cnigars, Sevres vases, verses of Countess de Noah. In confectioneries coffee was served with honey (sugar was gone) and instead of cakes - thin slices of white bread and jam. The cabmen did not talk about the oats anymore, only they sulked sullenly.

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Ilya Ehrenburg

London, United Kingdom

06.07.17

I have been searched many times in my life, but no one has displayed such mastery in that art as the English. They forced me to take off my boots and carried them off somewhere; they examined all the seams on my jacket and my pants; they took away my notebook for inspection. And yet the Englishman who did all this perpetually wore a kindly smile—one could not even get angry at him. See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

Paris, France

02.07.17

Finally, I’ve been given a passport on behalf of the Provisional Government; but I still had to obtain a visa. It was the first time I’d heard that word, before the war there were no visas. The day came where I had all three visas – English, Norwegian and Swedish. See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

Paris, France

18.05.17

Before the war I have seen one of Diaghilev’s ballets that caused a scandal—Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” But I have never seen anything like what happened at the “Parade.” People, sitting in the orchestra, rushed towards the stage, and angrily screamed, “Curtain!” See more

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Ilya Ehrenburg

05.04.17

Of course, a frenzied crowd smashing a town and killing people is appalling. Man is terrible, and is capable of destroying everything when blinded by hatred. Beastly anger, anger, and insanity. But a hundred times worse is the cruelty of a cold, sober mind, it’s a death sentence for an entire country, carried out for strategic or diplomatic purposes. See more

Ilya Ehrenburg

France

25.02.17

The Senegalese are getting on very well with the Russian soldiers. A shared child-like simplicity of spirit, naivety and kindness has brought them together. They spoke, as it were, over each other’s heads, not understanding a word and yet spending hours together communicating in smiles over bottles of beer. The good-natured Russians say: “don’t get hung up on his black skin. What kind of soul he’s got, that’s what you need to look at”.

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Ilya Ehrenburg

5th military hospital, Julien Michelet st., Paris, France

15.02.17

In the military hospital at Vanves, Paris, Russian lance corporal Stepan B. is being seen to by a French nurse. She tells him about what the Germans did to her home town of Lunéville. A Russian nurse translates:

“…And an entire block was burnt to the ground. Thirty-two houses. The men were taken out of town and shot. The Église Saint-Jean was torched, as was the Jewish synagogue; and they went round to the neighbours and grabbed the old woman…”

She explains everything at length, and the soldier sighs:

“That isn’t good, the poor woman!”

Then the French nurse says, smiling, “But when you Russians get to Germany you’ll show them what’s what. I only want one thing – I want all the Germans slaughtered.”

The Russian nurse translates. Stepan looks at her, bewildered, flummoxed.

“How’s that, then?.. What, are we animals?.. Oh no, young miss, that simply isn’t on…”

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