18 July 1917. The New York Times

The New York Times

Harold Williams

To the Editor of The New York Times:

Few of your readers, I imagine, know anything about your special Petrograd correspondent, Harold Williams. And yet there is no one in Russia who writes with greater knowledge and, hence, with greater authority. He is a correspondent whose word can be absolutely trusted. Let me tell you something about him.

He was born in New Zealand about forty years ago. His father is a Wesleyan minister, and he himself, after a distinguished college career, was ordained to the same ministry. He was unable, however, to take any charge, owing to a sudden failure of his voice, and he turned about to prepare himself for the work of a teacher. With his natural disposition to thoroughness, he went to Germany and entered the University of Munich as a student for a doctor’s degree in the science of philology. He remained there two years, and received the highest degree the university could confer.

It was during his student life in Munich that I came to know him. As the rector of the American Church in Munich I had provided a reading room for all English-speaking students.

The fact that he had been ordained to the Christian ministry established at once sympathetic relations between us, and he became a frequent visitor at my house. Never have I come in close personal contact with a finer mind or a nobler spirit.

Just before his graduation he was offered a post in great American university. He came to me with the letter containing the offer and we talked it over. The post would give him an assured income and enable him to study and write at his leisure. “Just the thing you want,” I suggested. “Yes, it is just the thing I thought I wanted but I think I want something else now.” And then he told me he believed that journalism, intelligent, honest, fearless, offered the greatest opportunity for service.

And so this young man without money or influence turned his back upon a dignified academic profession, for which he was especially fitted, to take his chances in an unknown field; he was without any journalistic experience, and his doctor’s degree would be a little or no avail in such a venture. But venture he would, and venture he did.

I may say in passing that young Williams, while a student in Munich, had written a Filipino grammar, co-ordinating all the various dialects. He had mastered the German, Russian, and about a dozen other languages, and this marvelous linguistic knowledge gave him his chance.

In 1902 the correspondent of the London Times in Russia was expelled for reporting too truthfully one of the many organized persecutions of the Jews. He came to Munich on his way to London. I saw him, and he asked me if I knew any educated Englishman or American who knew Russian. I told him of Williams, and their meeting resulted in Williams becoming the Russian correspondent of The London Times. That is how he started in journalism. But he was not permitted to enter Russian territory, and his resourcefulness was brought to the test at once. In a short time he found that there was a Russian colony composed of the most intelligent exiles at Stuttgart. He soon established relations with this community, and finally took up his residence there. This put things Russian.

Six months after the ban was removed and he went to Petrograd, where he has since resided, but not always as the correspondent of The Times. He prefers a free pen, and has become an authority on life and character. His letters are published all over the world, in all languages, and no name carries greater weight or inspires greater confidence than Harold Williams.

Monroe Royce,

Rector, St. Thomas’s Church

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Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

All morning it rained, but at 2 o'clock the weather cleared up; by evening it had become cool. The day went as usual. In Petrograd, these days, there is much confusion and gunfire. Yesterday a lot of soldiers and sailors from Kronstadt started to go against the Kerensky government. See more

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Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

Gatchina, Russian Empire

After lunch we went to the cinema—“The Vampires.”

In Petrograd they are restoring order, only about 1000 people were hurt, counting women and children, the Cossacks had 20 killed and 70 wounded.

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Grigory Zinoviev

Petrograd, Russian Empire

What stands out in my mind, is a small, fleeting meeting in a choir gallery of the Tavrichesky Palace (by the cafeteria): Vladimir Ilyich, Trotsky, and the one who is writing these lines. “Shouldn’t we try now,” laughing, said Lenin, but immediately added, “no, we cannot take power now, because those on the front are not yet with us. Now, a soldier, deceived by liberals would come and slaughter Petersburg workers.”

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Elizaveta Naryshkina

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

Today is St. Sergius memorial day. There was a procession, an annual tradition commemorating the eradication of cholera in 1830. They held a prayer service in front of the main entrance. They brought me there in an armchair. There was a mass of people; lots of soldiers and students. They prayed wholeheartedly like in the old days, despite the revolution, and despite the fact that at that very moment in Petrograd, people were killing each other. I heard that yesterday was a very bad day.

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Ariadna Tyrkova-Williams

Petrograd, Russian Empire

The third day of unrest. Everything that the left called for, they got. Bolshevik hooligans, Germans, they’re all running the show. Today the authorities ordered everyone to stay at home, to give them the opportunity to “clean up Petrograd”. Thank God. Let them clean up. See more

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Anatoliy Lunacharskiy Anna Lunacharskaya

apt.17, 25/20, Lakhtinskaya, Petrograd, Russian Empire

I’ve just sent you a telegram so that you’d know at the very least that I’m alive. You’ll know all the details already from the newspapers of course, by the time you receive this letter. I’ve had to show solidarity with the Bolsheviks. But… they ignore my advice. True, the movement sprang up spontaneously, but it was nevertheless right in fighting against the partially armed uprisings prompted by the anarchists and the awful state of Petrograd’s underbelly, in keeping with our prior agreement. See more

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Marina Tsvetaeva

Borisoglebsky lane, 6, Moscow, Russian Empire

Yesterday I was on Tverskaya Street. A huge crowd was chasing away the Bolsheviks with a well-orchestrated whistling. There were shouts from among the soldiers “They’ve been bribed! They want Nicholas II!” “Comrades, shout louder, “Down with the Bolsheviks!””. Cars rushed by, bristling with rifles. The mood was ominous. See more

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17 July

"The Russian offensive has surged back. Brusilov claims that the Russian army will be unable to survive the winter"

Bolsheviks rebellion is suppressed

Prokofiev: "I live calmly 15 miles from Petrograd, where they are shooting and rampaging"