22 April 1917. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich

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

Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich

Sevastopol highway, 8, Gaspra, Ai-Todor, Yalta, Russian Empire

We completed our journey in the company of a convoy of sailors. When we arrived in Ay-Todor, we were presented with a list of all the things we were not supposed to do by a gentleman with the grand-sounding title “Special Commissar for the Provisional Government”. We were under house arrest and only allowed to move freely within the Ay-Todor-estate, in the few acres between the mountains and the seashore.

The commissar was a representative of the Provisional Government, while the sailors were acting on the authority of the local Soviet. These two representatives of revolutionary power were at constant loggerheads with one another. The sailors didn’t trust the commissar, and the commissar looked in horror at the hand-grenades in the belts of the revolutionary sailors. The Provisional Government commissar, who had been a member of the State Duma, and was from a wealthy family, was hoping that the revolutionary storm would soon blow over, the country would go back to normal, and power would remain in the hands of those with similar views to himself. Like all the irresponsible liberals of that time, he had ended up stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea, so to speak. With his deep insincerity, he did not for a moment deceive the cynical sailors. They did not conceal their contempt for him, and refused to obey his orders and even refused to stand up when he appeared.

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Elizaveta Naryshkina

Alexander Palace, Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

The Empress sent for me. She visited her daughters. Olga is very weak – her heart has been affected by the constant illnesses from which she has suffered over the last two months. She is very sweet, and Maria, who is in bed still recovering from pleurisy, is charming. The Empress worked, and was in a very kind and docile frame of mind. We didn’t talk about any pressing issues, merely about my own personal affairs. In such a peaceful setting, it is difficult to feel that one is in the middle of such terrible destruction and such grave danger.

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Vladimir Lenin

Petrograd, Russian Empire

The basic question of every revolution is that of state power. Unless this question is understood, there can be no intelligent participation in the revolution, not to speak of guidance of the revolution. The highly remarkable feature of our revolution is that it has brought about a dual power. This fact must be grasped first and foremost: unless it is understood, we cannot advance. We must know how to supplement and amend old “formulas”, for example, those of Bolshevism, for while they have been found to be correct on the whole, their concrete realisation has turned out to bedifferent. Nobody previously thought, or could have thought, of a dual power. See more

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Nadezhda Udaltsova

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

Organisation, talk talk and more talk. It’s the same with the Soviet of Artistic Organisations and the Educational Committee for the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. Work here, there and everywhere. I haven’t written my article for the magazine and my pieces still aren’t ready, but I think it should all be finished by 8 June. It’s an anxious time, generally. For some reason, the workers of the world are failing to unite. England doesn’t want to end the war. God, when will we see an end to this inhumane war? Can it really be so difficult to say to all these people of different nations “enough”? After all, the Russian people have told the whole world “Enough!”

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Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzova embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

At eleven o'clock to-night Albert Thomas arrived at the Finland Station with an impressive escort of officers and secretaries.

From the same train stepped about a score of famous exiles, who have come from France, England and Switzerland; so the station was decorated with red flags. A dense crowd was massed at all the approaches. Numerous delegations, carrying scarlet banners, were grouped at the entrance of the hall and the "Red Guard," which has replaced the civic police, lined the platform with the finest specimens of apaches, sporting red ties and scarves, of which the municipality can boast. See more

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Arthur Conan Doyle

New York, USA

If such a view of Christianity were generally accepted, and if it were enforced by assurance and demonstration from the New Revelation which is coming to us from the other side, then we should have a creed which might unite the churches, which might be reconciled to science, which might defy all attacks, and which might carry the Christian Faith on for an indefinite period. See more

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Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

It was a surprisingly nice spring day. I took a walk in the morning for half an hour. We went to Mass from 2 o'clock until 4:30. We worked and broke up the ice between the two bridges in front of the center house. I read for a long time after tea. Towards evening storm clouds gathered. I was very warm; Alexis took down the winter storm windows.

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