25 May 1917. Aleksandra Tolstaya with Alexander Kerensky

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

Aleksandra Tolstaya with Alexander Kerensky

napravleniye Minsk-Molodechno-Smorgon', Minskaya guberniya, Russian Empire

I drove up to the first detachment; the staff and the chief ran out of the tent to meet me: “Please, let us go to the rally. Kerensky is speaking. It’s really close, only just over three kilometres from here, he’s going to speak!”
I too wanted to hear him, so we all jumped into the car and drove off. We were too late. Kerensky had already spoken.

A huge crowd of soldiers had gathered. On a high platform, a thin man of about average height in a soldier’s overcoat was screaming something hoarsely, which was difficult to make out. It didn’t seem as though there was any clarity or conviction in his speech or in his appeals to unite in order to save Russia.
When we returned to our detachment and the doctors were enthusiastically exchanging words and admiring Kerensky’s speech, I was silent. I felt a bit uneasy. “Do they really believe that this man can save Russia?” I thought.

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Elizaveta Naryshkina

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

His Majesty came to see me with Alexei and Tatiana. They were very sweet. The Empress also said that she would return after five o’clock tea. I hugged the Emperor several times, and he kept kissing my hand... my heart was breaking. It’s the state of the army which aggrieves the Emperor above all; he doesn’t understand an army without discipline. The Emperor came later and spent two hours with me. See more

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Alexander Kerensky

Liflyandskaya guberniya, Riga, Russian Empire

The old power has been destroyed, and the people now in power have never touched the royal robes. This power will bring an end to the war with honour and dignity for the free state. Is this greater good not worth forgetting about one’s personal benefit?

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Marina Tsvetaeva

Borisoglebsky lane, 6, Moscow, Russian Empire

Christ bequeathed his great “desire” for a woman to all the Jews. A Jew who beats women is inconceivable.

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Mathilde Kschessinska

P. N. Vladimirov's apart., 10, Alekseevskaya str., Petrograd, Russian Empire

Many thought, probably the participants themselves, that with the disappearance of Rasputin everything would improve; the evil surrounding the throne would be removed, the malevolent forces on the Emperor would subside, Russia would finally breathe again, and the glory days would arrive. But oh, how everyone was mistaken. Maybe some of it counted. But from that very moment, everything began to roll towards the fateful conclusion.

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George Buchanan

4, Dvortsovaya embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire (British Embassy)

After having been accused by Princess Paley of JjL having made the Embassy a fojjer de propagande revolutionnaire, it was really hard that I should, shortly after my conversation with the Socialist Ministers, have been attacked by the Bolsheviks on the charge of its being the centre of the counter- revolutionary movement. Tseretelli's name — and this, considering his antecedents, was rather surprising — was also coupled with mine, and we were represented as being the chief promoters of the aforesaid movement. See more

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Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

I took a walk with Alexis during the morning. We went to see if the work was finished on the grounds for our tennis court in its old place. Before lunch I gave Alexis a history lesson. At 2:30 we went out into the garden. I helped the others dig up the beds in the flower garden between the first and the fourth porches, and then I returned to the garden and continued to work on our vegetable garden. The weather became cloudy and cool. In the morning we rode in the hospital car to the large palace of E. A. Naryshkin, at his request, to see some of our relatives.

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24 May

"Now, everyone is so busy with the revolution that, rightly, no one is going to new operas"

The Bolsheviks demand that we cancel debt from other countries

Trotsky: “Kerensky was and always will be an accidental figure, a placeholder for the real men of history”

1916: Year in Review.

in Petrograd

+11

in Moscow