24 July 1917. Ilya Ehrenburg

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

Ilya Ehrenburg

Moscow, Russian Empire

I can't remember who introduced me to Mayakovsky; at first we were sitting in a cafe and discussing cinema; then he invited me over - to a small room at "Saint-Remo" in Saltykovsky lane, near Petrovka street.

As soon as we entered the room he said "Let me read to you..." I sat down on a chair, he was standing. He had read to me his finished poem "Human" not long before that. The room was small, there was no one but me present, but he was reading aloud as if he were standing in front of a crowd on Teatralnaya square. I was looking at shoddy wallpaper and smiling: bootlegs were indeed turning into harps.

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Feodor Chaliapin

Sevastopol, Russian Empire

Have just got back from Sevastopol, where I gave a concert to a large audience of sailors. The proceeds are to go to those injured in the war and to supporting popular education. I gave the concert dressed in a simple soldier’s jacket, which I was also photographed in. The sailors bore me aloft over their heads, and I sang them songs and made speeches. See more

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Vladimir Lenin

Petrograd, Russian Empire

Certain newspapers have started an insane witch hunt against us, accusing us of espionage and plotting with the enemy government. They implicate Ganetsky and Kozlovsky and provide no facts. See more

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Vasily Kravkov

Medvedovets, Russian Empire

A number of officers, after having reminded a herd of our deserting “free citizens” of the value of proper military order, have observed that the use of lashes and fists can produce the most wondrous results in curing our “people” of the bestialising pyschosis which drives them towards ever more acts of theft and violence. See more

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Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

During the morning I took a short walk with Alexis. Upon returning with him, I learned of the arrival of Kerensky. In the conversation he mentioned our likely journey to the south, in view of the proximity of Tsarskoe Selo to the restless capital. Because of her birthday, Olga went to services. See more

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The New York Times

A crowd today caught two Leninites who had been firing from a housetop with machine gun and tore them to pieces. The women swear death to all Leninites and Germans.

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23 July

"Terrible intelligence comes from the front"

"Should we say the Russian Revolution is founded upon the delusion that man is good by nature?"

Lenin’s Theses

1917. Zombies, drugs, and progress

Why did the Russian Empire collapse

+14

in Petrograd

+16

in Moscow