4 May 1917. Peter Wrangel

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

Peter Wrangel

Petrograd, Russian Empire

The crowd, in a panic, was running towards the Mikhailovskaya square; whipping the horses, the coachmen were galloping. Groups of dirty, ragged fabric workers in caps and soft hats, in their majority with criminal, brutal faces, armed with assault rifles, and singing the "International" were moving in the middle of the Nevsky prospect.

In the crowd around you could hear indignant conversations—it was clear that resolute actions of the government would have been greeted with sympathy.

I walked along the Moika River to the house of the war minister to see Colonel Samarin, the head of Guchkov's cabinet. There I saw Colonel Baranovsky (who later occupied that post under Kerensky). I've shared what I just saw with him and expressed my bewilderment at the passivity of military agencies. "The government cannot allow the spilling of Russian blood," Samarin responded, "if Russian blood were spilled on government's orders, the whole moral authority of the government would be lost in the eyes of the people." I realized that we had nothing else to talk about.

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Elizaveta Naryshkina

Petrograd, Russian Empire

There was shooting on the Nevsky Prospect. The attack was organised by German emissaries. It turned out that they used exploding bullets that we do not use. Undoubtedly this movement has already existed and had its followers. See more

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Nadezhda Krupskaya with Vladimir Lenin

3, Staro-Nevsky avenue, Petrograd, Russian Empire

There was a large demonstration coming from the opposite bank of the Neva. The working working public greeted it, filling the sidewalks. There was another crowd approaching the workers's demonstration, in bowler hats and fedoras; they were greeted from the sidewalk by bowler hats and fedoras. See more

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Alexander Kolchak with Mikhail Rodzianko

Rodzianko's apartment, 20, Furshtatskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Empire

I got an invitation to come see Rodzianko at breakfast. During our conversation, Rodzianko expressed an optimistic view on the situation in the Black Sea. I've told him that I am experiencing the same internal turmoil as everyone. For now, I can contain this motion, by appealing to the remnants of reason, See more

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Marina Tsvetaeva

Foundling hospital, Moscow, Russian Empire

Heroism is against nature. To love your competitor is to sleep with a leper. Christ, for the most part, is the preacher of heroism.

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Georgi Plekhanov

Petrograd, Russian Empire

We have come very close to civil war. It is utterly useless to discuss the question of who has caused the current dangerous situation.

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Leonide Massine

Paris, France

We went to Paris for the new season at the Théâtre du Châtelet. It was our first visit since the beginning of the war. Parisians, generally jolly, it seemed, have changed under the threat of invasion.

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3 May

Rasputin’s murderer takes family portraits by Rembrandt from St Petersburg

"Dying at the front is now definitely perceived as dying in vain"

Freud: "I sometimes fall into such a mood that I no longer want to live"

1916: Year in Review.

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in Petrograd

in Moscow