31 March 1917. Lili Dehn

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

Lili Dehn

Alexander Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

The long, monotonous days passed—^we endured them alternately with the calmness of despair and with gratitude for their dullness. Once we witnessed a sight of horror. Hearing a sound of military music, and the tramp, tramp of many people, we went to the windows, and saw a funeral procession wending its way across the snow-covered Park. But this was no ordinary funeral ; the dead were some of the soldiers who had been killed at Tsarkoe Selo on the first day of the Revolution. It was a red burial—the coffins were covered in scarlet, the mourners were dressed in scarlet, and scarlet flags waved everywhere. Seen in the distance the procession looked like a river of blood flowing slowly through the Park. Everything was red and white, and the superstitious might have inferred from this a presage of the innocent blood so soon to be outpoured… since the snow was not whiter than the souls of the young and beautiful who are now safe in the keeping of a God of Justice, who most surely will repay!

None of us could forget the impression produced by this funeral; blood seemed everywhere, and terror lurked in the shadows. The soldiers were buried in the Park, within sight of the Palace — another refinement of torture for those whose imaginations were already over excited. Our nerves were frayed, although I do not think that we were guilty of giving way to our emotions. But it was difficult to maintain our composure when insolent officers treated us in a shameful manner, or a soldier called the Empress by some filthy epithet. One soldier, however, was a Bayard. He possessed an English name, and his father taught in a school at Riga. This man was really extraordinary. He was not only polite, but he invariably tried to show us that he did not share the Revolutionary outlook.

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