26 February 1917. Maurice Paleologue

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

Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzova embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

The food situation in Moldavia is getting worse every day: the Rumanian army is rationed below subsistence level and the civil population is dying of starvation. The natural result of physical distress has been a shocking epidemic of typhus.

General Berthelot maintains that the sole remedy is an offensive north of the Dobrudja, carried out in such a way as to free one arm of the Danube and thus open a fresh line of supply. General Gourko, however, refuses to undertake this offensive, which he regards as extremely dangerous and in any case does not fit in with his strategic plans.

In this national trial - one of the most cruel which has overtaken any country - King Ferdinand, Queen Marie and Bratiano are real shining lights. All the evidence we are getting from Jassy agrees on that point. By his calm and fearless energy, the King is keeping up the nation's courage and rallying everyone to the defence of the flag; gravely and without any sort of affectation, he is carrying out his professional duties splendidly as sovereign and leader. Bratiano shows the same strength of character and calm and deliberate fortitude; he, too, is facing the necessary sacrifices in the same manly way. In the case of the Queen on the other hand, patriotism is taking the heroic form; there is a fiery and warm-hearted ardour about her, an enthusiastic and chivalrous ardour, something of the sacred flame. So she has already become a figure of legend, for her proud and winning loveliness is the very incarnation of the soul of her people.

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✍ Also today

Anna Vyrubova

Alexander Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

All has been quiet on the front since mid-December, and the Tsar has felt his presence at headquarters to be superfluous. Each day he has received news over the direct line in the evening. The Tsar’s snooker room is full of military maps, so that no one, not the children, not the servants and not even the Empress, has dared enter for fear of disturbing them. The keys were last seen with the Tsar. The recent snowstorms and the danger they represent to the supply question in the capital have given Their Majesties great cause for concern.

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Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

Gatchina, Russian Empire

We went to the Imperial Porcelain Factory, where we bought a few things.

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5 Like

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Boris Pasternak

Ushakovs' chemical plant, Tykhie Gory, Vyatsk guberniya, Russian Empire

Had some difficulties, and a terrible period of melancholy. On finally sitting down to get on with my previously started “prose”, I was struck by something I would now struggle to clearly describe, and driven by this strange mood I began to feverishly churn out something of real significance in verse. I say something, because I cannot for the life of me make out how exactly this new “Poem on One Dear” will work out.

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Leon Trotsky

1/2

Pacifist demonstration in Washington. 1917

America was busily getting ready for war. As ever, the greatest help came from the pacifists. Their vulgar speeches about the advantages of peace as opposed to war invariably ended in a promise to support war if it became “necessary.” It is a well-known axiom that pacifists think of war as an enemy only in time of peace.

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Pablo Picasso

Italy, Roma, Via del Babuino, 9, Hotel de Russie

In Rome of an evening whores ply their trade in automobiles - at walking pace - they accost their clients with smiles and gestures and stop the car to negotiate the price.

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Vladimir Lenin Inessa Armand

Zurich, Switzerland

We have got to come out as strongly and bluntly as possible against the ridiculous pacifism of the French (achieving socialism without revolution, and so on) and the ridiculous belief in democracy.

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Nadezhda Udaltsova

82 apartment, 65, Smolenskiy blvd, Moscow, Russian Empire

We ran with Malevich and filed a transfer request for Moscow, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. It’s impossible to do anything alone but there’s no one else. Exter was sick. There’s some kind of emptiness and solitude, and we’re senselessly beating on the walls, and there’s no one there or left.

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6 Like

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Vladimir Dzhunkovskiy

near Volno, Belorussia, Russian Empire

The most tragic incident occurred in the Kiev Grenadier Regiment, which I was part of not long ago. One of the regiment’s companies staged a mutiny. A bunch of scoundrels led by a volunteer, who managed to escape, snuck up to the dugout where the regiment commander and battalion commander sat, fired several shots through the window, followed by grenades. Mashkovskii, one of the officers, was killed on the spot and another four officers were wounded.

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25 February

Luminaries of the Russian avant-garde perform folk songs

The Lenten festival of Maslenitsa is celebrated in Russia

Stravinsky is commissioned to conduct his Firebird in Rome and Milan

From one revolution to another

Russia in 1917

1916: Year in Review.

-5

in Petrograd

-17

in Moscow