15 February 1917. Andrei Shingarev

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

Andrei Shingarev

Shingarev's apartment, 22, Bolshaya Monetnaya street, Petrogradskaya side, Petrograd, Russian Empire

The situation is getting worse with every day. We are heading towards the abyss. A revolution would be our undoing, but we are surely heading for one. And even without a revolution everything is coming undone at a dizzying rate. The supply situation in Petrograd is already critical. If not today then tomorrow we will run out of bread. The soldiers are grumbling, and the garrison is unreliable. At least, as you know, our military power and technical capabilities have grown to unprecedented levels. Our spring offensive will be supported by a hitherto inconceivable quantity of shells. If we can just hang on till the spring…

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Sofia Tolstaya

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Paid the workers their wages. I often pity the working folk; you want to clothe them in better outfits, feed them up and show them all affection – especially the children.

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Ilya Ehrenburg

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

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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