24 August 1917. Osip Mandelstam

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

Osip Mandelstam

Alushta, Crimea, Russian Empire

The stream of golden honey poured, so viscous,
slow from the bottle, our hostess had time to murmur:
‘Here, in sad Tauris, where fate has brought us,
we shan’t be too bored’ – glancing over her shoulder.

Everywhere the Bacchic rite, as if all were merely
dogs and watchmen – go, and you’ll see nothing –
the days like heavy barrels rolling by quietly:
far off, hut-bound voices – no response or meaning.

After tea we entered the huge brown garden,
dark blinds lowered like eyelids over windows,
past white columns to inspect the grapes then
glassy air sluicing the sleepy mountain slopes.

I said: ‘The vines live on here in ancient wars,
and curly-haired horsemen fight in leafy rows,
the science of Hellas in stony Tauris – these are
the noble golden acres, the rusty furrows.’

Well, like a spinning wheel, silence in the white room,
smelling of vinegar, paint, new wine in the cellar.
Remember the wife loved by all, in the Greek home,
how long she spent weaving? – Not Helen – that other.

Golden Fleece, where are you Golden Fleece?
The journey: a roar of ocean’s heavy waves.
Leaving his ship, its canvas worn by the seas,
Odysseus returned, filled with time and space.

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✍ Also today

Pierre Pascal

Petrograd, Russian Empire

A great discovery. I read Dostoevsky’s The Idiot from start to finish, unable to tear myself away. There is a character in the book called Myshkin – an idiot, a Christian, meek and kind with human frailties; a young boy, Kolya; a general’s wife - kind-hearted, but excitable woman; and another woman, Nastasya Filippovna, who has been corrupted through no fault of her own. See more

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George Buchanan

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

Letter to the Foreign Ministry

"I returned last night from a week's holiday in Finland and saw Tereschenko this morning. I told him that I was greatly disappointed to find that the situation had, if anything, changed for the worse, that hardly any of the disciplinary measures contemplated had been applied, and that the Government seemed to me weaker than ever. On my inquiring whether Kerensky was in agreement with the commander-in- chief on the question of the death See more

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Vasily Shulgin

near Sandunóvskie Baths, Moscow, Russian Empire

Moscow is now filled with “women of easy virtue” – or, to put it bluntly, prostitutes. They were assailing men on the way to the bathhouse, and the police were doing nothing to stop them. See more

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Nicholas II

Tobolsk, Russian Empire

Alexis only slept a little. During the night he moved in with Alix. His ear was better, and his arm only ached a little now and then. MarieThird daughter of Nicholas II is better. The day became quiet. All morning I walked around the deck. See more

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23 August

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1916: Year in Review.

+19

in Petrograd

+16

in Moscow