20 August 1917. Alexandra Kollontai

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

Alexandra Kollontai

Vyborg female convict prison, Vyborg side, Russian Empire

In the middle of the night, I woke up to a burst of indecent noise. Hysterical female screams: “Help! They’re destroying me! They’re killing me!” Footsteps, male voices. Noise. And again those splitting female screams. On this sort of night, it’s no good to be in prison. In the morning, the wardress, the one who had five cats, explained that the criminal wing is full.

Last night, they brought in a group of prostitutes caught in some of the city’s less reputable establishments. One of them, “a hysteric,” in the wardress’s opinion, balked—she didn’t want to go into the cell, at least not into that one. In the end, they had to call in guards from the men’s division. She fought, she bit. They tied her hands and threw her into the cell.

Today, the wardress went to see her, and she was huddled up in a corner, pointing at the corner opposite: “See? See?” The wardress didn’t see anything. The corner was just like all the other corners in the cell.
“And the man?”
“What man?”
“That one there, the most natural man you could think of, do you really not see?”
The wardress liked the phrase “natural man.” She chuckled for a long while.
“They all see ‘natural men.’ She must be a coke addict. A madwoman.”

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