1 August 1917. Alfred Knox

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

Alfred Knox

On August 1st General Kornilov issued an order, pointing out that the Russian army from the very beginning of its existence had never known such disgrace as had been earned by the treachery of “ certain units ” of the 11th and 7th Armies. “ In the gloomy nightmare of those days it was only the valour of those infantry units that remained true to their duty, of all the storm and cyclist battalions, of all the artillery, Cossack and cavalry units, that opposed the advance of the enemy.” The order ended with a recognition of the heroism of the officers: “ Officers and you few soldiers of infantry who have remained faithful and have not disgraced yourselves by shameful flight and treachery, I turn to you. Your feats are immortal, your heroism is worthy of history, of the veneration of future generations. . .Abandoned by treacherous soldier comrades misled by mad propaganda, you alone remained at the front, and opposing the enemy masses with your personal bravery, you fell in an unequal fight, one against hundreds.”

But the coward rabble was without shame. Two days earlier, on July 30th, a meeting at Kronstadt, addressed by delegates from the 5th and nth Armies, had passed a resolution, demanding amongst other “ reforms ” the abolition of the death penalty and of the military censorship, the disbandment of all storm units, the confiscation of the printing-press of the bourgeois papers and the admission of delegates to Tsarskoe Selo to satisfy themselves that the ex-Emperor was guarded sufficiently strictly.

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Ivan Shmelev

Moscow, Russian Empire

I found myself in one of Moscow’s suburbs. Each street invariably ends in a garden or a cul-de-sac. There is a pleasant August aroma of warm and wet gardens blended with the bitter smell of dried poplar leaves. Ripe red rowanberries laugh in the evening sun. A girl with a white plait sits under a fence, handfuls of berries gathered on her knees, utterly given over to a wondrous assignment - the threading of the berries into a coral necklace. See more

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Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

Three years ago Germany declared war on us; how I wish all had survived those three years! God help and save Russia. It was very hot. I took a short walk with Tatiana, MarieThird daughter of Nicholas II and Anastasia, and again a whole patrol from the Third Infantry Regiment came along. We worked in the same place as before. We cut down three trees and finished yesterday's fir tree. Now I am reading the novel by Merezhkovsky, Alexander I.

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Maxim Gorky

23, Kronversky ave., Petrograd, Russian Empire

Three years of merciless, senseless war; three years of daily bloodshed among the finest peoples of the earth; the priceless spirit of the cultural nations of Europe is being exterminated. The most villainous sort of these nations accuse those of their compatriots with the audacity to believe in global brotherhood of being dangerous madmen and heartless utopians with no love of country. See more

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Zinaida Gippius

Kislovodsk, Russian Empire

May this anniversary forever be damned. Three years of war.

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Mikhail Rodzianko

32, Kirochnaya street, Petrograd, Russian Empire

A different course of events could not be expected. However, people's minds start to clear up, thank God. Of course, all false teachers lost their authority. Ideas of communism were completely wrecked. Now it's obvious that instead of the motto "liberté, égalité, fraternité", people prefer cruel despotism based on violence, blood and murders. See more

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Konstantin Paustovsky

Moscow, Russian Empire

I have decided to visit my mother in the autumn. Moscow has exhausted me. In all the time I have been here I haven’t had the time to read anything besides a heap of political pamphlets, hurriedly printed on second-rate paper, detailing the fierce skirmishes of the various political parties. I maintained the fantastic dream of getting around to re-reading Tolstoy’s War and Peace. It seems today as if this novel was written two hundred years ago.

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+20

in Petrograd

+17

in Moscow