14 May 1917. Nicholas II

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

Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

It was a nice warm day. During the morning I took a nice long walk. At 12 o'clock I gave Alexis a geography lesson. During the day we worked again in our vegetable garden. Even though the sun was scorching, we continued working successfully, I read until dinner time to myself and in the evening I read aloud. Yesterday we learned of the resignation of General Kornilov as Commander-in-Chief of the Petrograd Military District and this evening about the dismissal of Guchkov,

All of this happened because of the irresponsible interference in the direction of military power by the Soviet workers' deputation, which is very far to the left.
What has providence prepared for poor Russia? Well, It will be as God wills it.

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✍ Also today

Alexander Blok

57, Ofitserskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Empire

We (the whole world) have become scarily cut off. We need something completely new.

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Nadezhda Krupskaya with Vladimir Lenin

Kshessinska mansion, Petrograd, Russian Empire

I was more and more burdened by my work in the secretariat. I wanted to go to direct mass work. I also wanted to see Ilyich more often, for whom I was becoming increasingly and greater alarmed for. He was being persecuted more and more. You walk in Petersburg and hear some housewives talking: “And what should we do about this Lenin, who came from Germany? Should be drown him in a well." Of course it was clear where all this talk about bribery and betrayal was coming from, but it was not fun to listen to it. It’s one thing when a bourgeoisie speaks, and it’s another matter when the masses speak.

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Alexander Kerensky

is delivering a speech to the front delegates:

Petrograd, Russian Empire

Comrades, for 10 years you have endured and kept silent. You knew how to perform the duties that the old hated regime imposed on you. You knew how to shoot people when the regime demanded so. Why don’t you have patience now? Is the Russian free state the state of rebellious slaves?

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Alfred Knox

Petrograd, Russian Empire

I addressed a letter to-day to the Ambassador. I commenced by quoting my letter of April 14th, with Prince Lvov’s reply that the army was a better fighting machine than it had ever been and that it was quite well able to deal with agitators, and continued :“ I returned to Petrograd from a visit to the Northern Front on April 28th. I gave you my opinion of the deplorable state of things at the front. Units have been turned into political debating societies; the infantry refuses to allow the guns to shoot at the enemy; parleying in betrayal of the Allies and of the best interests of Russia takes place daily with the enemy, who laughs at the credulity of the Russian peasant soldier.

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Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzova embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

The War Minister, Gutchkov, has sent in his resignation on the ground that he is powerless to change the conditions under which supreme authority is held, "conditions which threaten to have consequences fatal to the liberty, safety, and indeed the very existence, of Russia."

Generals Gourko and Brussilov have asked to be relieved of their commands. See more

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13 May

“Maybe…we really don’t need Russia?”

Kerensky decides that the war must be continued at all costs.

The Empress’s Maid of Honour: “I am consoled by reading prophecies about the end of the world.”

1916: Year in Review.

From one revolution to another

Russia in 1917

+12

in Petrograd

in Moscow