25 August 1917. Georgi Plekhanov

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

Georgi Plekhanov

Moscow, Russian Empire

You see, to this day I have always thought that most of Russia was populated by Russians – Slavs. I had thought that the dominant type here was Slavic, the “Novgorod” type, roughly speaking. That is to say – tall, mainly long-headed, (dolichocephalic), with fair hair. But what do I see when I look at all the workers, peasants and soldiers’ deputies in all the Russian, Petersburg and other Soviets?

A great many people with black hair, mainly short-headed, (brachycephalic) who speak with an accent and aspirate when they speak. Could it be, I think, that in all the years I have spent away from Russia, the anthropology of the population has changed so much? Since I have come here I think I have seen only two genuine representatives of the Novgorod type: Avksentiev and Steklov, but when I checked it turned out that Comrade Steklov is not a Novgorodian.

Joking aside, I must say that I was not only struck, but shocked, even, to see among the Russians such an excessive number of representatives of other peoples that have settled in Russia, however estimable they may be. It shows the immaturity of the Russian people.

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Alexander Blok

57, Ofitserskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Empire

There is so much to do that I have lost motivation and haven’t been working with particular efficiency. I am preparing a report, however, and Lyuba has been helping me with the stenography along with a few other hired hands. Our chairman and the others have left for the Conference, and I have been taking advantage of it—I swim ever more intensively and only work for half the day.

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Peter Kropotkin

The Bolshoi Theatre, 1, Teatral'naya ploshchad', Moscow, Russian Empire

at a State meeting

Also attending: Kerensky, Catherine Breshkovsky, KornilovCommander in Chief of the Petrograd command - from 18 March 1917, Nekrasov, Lvov, Rodzianko, Tsereteli, Guchkov, Plekhanov, Trubetskoy and others

Woodrow Wilson President of the Russian National Council Assembly

Washington, D.C., United States

I venture to take the liberty to send to the members of the great council now meeting in Moscow the cordial greetings of their friends the people of the United States, to express their confidence in the ultimate triumph of ideals of democracy and self-government against all enemies within and without, and to give their renewed assurance of every material and moral assistance they can extend to the Government of Russia in the promotion of the common cause in which the two nations are unselfishly united.

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Nadezhda Krupskaya with Vladimir Lenin

apt. 22, 1, Hagonskaya pl., Helsingfors, Finland

I was in Helsinki for a couple of days. Ilyich wanted to see me all the way to the station, right up to the last corner. We agreed that I’d come again.

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Ilya Ehrenburg

Moscow, Russian Empire

All of Moscow was living like a passenger at a railway station, waiting for the third bell. Round-ups of deserters were organised. There was swearing and shouting everywhere particularly on the trams, which crawled along, plastered with people. Desperate liberals drank champagne in the Metropol Hotel, paying with large packs of uncut “Kerenki” banknotes. See more

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24 August

"A great discovery. I read Dostoevsky’s The Idiot from start to finish"

The recent poem of Mandelstam

Moscow was flooded with prostitutes

1917. Zombies, drugs, and progress

Why did the Russian Empire collapse

+19

in Petrograd

+16

in Moscow