13 October 1917. Sergey Prokofiev

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

Sergey Prokofiev

Yessentuki, Russian Republic

My life ran as follows: I got up at half-past seven because the children next door started crying. However, I had nothing against getting up at such an early hour. I did Miller's gymnastics followed by cold showers until they began to affect my sleep. Then I started doing gymnastics every day, only took cold showers every other day.

Then I’d take a walk, have coffee and go to morning work. I’d take out drafts of "They are Seven" and, sitting in an armchair, look at them and think. And little by little the vast empty spaces began to be filled with texture and pattern: the skeleton began to grow muscular. Alongside this, random harmony was removed, and genuine harmony went in its place. This work lasted an hour. Then I sat on the balcony and read Kant. And sometimes, I instead wrote "The Toadstool" or caught up on my diary. Lunch at one o'clock, and from two to four cinematography: large empty rooms with a beat-up piano; I would practice on it, arranged equipment and learned the 3rd Sonata. Assuming I’ll give a series of concerts in the fall and having a whole summer without a piano behind the scenes, it was useful to think about one’s technique. From five to six, I was again on my balcony, continuing the morning work, then a walk, dinner in the evening, and to relax, a chapter from aesthetics. Sleep at a half-eleven. That’s how the week passed.

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Viktor Chernov

mansion of von Derviz, 27, Galernaya str., Petrograd, Russian Republic

It has to be stated with bitterness: they waited. They waited for what everyone had predicted, everyone who had come into contact with the village and had understood them. We waited for the beginning of large-scale agrarian unrest.

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Zinaida Gippius

Sergievskaya 83, Petrograd, Russian Empire

Today the Germans made an assault on Aixelles. There is growing anarchy in the country. The shameful Democratic Conference ended with its usual shamefulness. This ‘pre-parliament’ opens in a matter of days, it’s really a vaudeville for travel. The ‘dying’ government coalition is equally rotten. See more

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Konstantin Somov

Petrograd, Russian Republic

We worry, both Anyuta and I—Ezel and Dago have been taken. See more

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Maria Bochkareva

Germans, finally, gave in and started a massive artillery attack on our troops. There hadn't been a case of artillery fire for a long time, so heavy cannon fire caused severe confusion among soldiers. Many were wounded. Some were killed. The battalion lost four people dead and 15 wounded. See more

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Marina Tsvetaeva

is going to Crimea

Joseph Stalin

Petrograd, Russian Republic

They talk of economic breakdown. Write of economic breakdown. They blackmail with the ghost of economic breakdown, oftentimes nodding at the “anarchically” minded workers. But no one wants to openly admit that capitalists frequently create and purposefully aggravate the economic breakdown by closing factories and condemning workers to unemployment.

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Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

Gatchina, Russian Empire

At 3 o’clock Natasha and I went to Birch Gates, from where we walked to the island of Love, where we found a broken, toppled statue. Then we walked along the shore, past the old orangeries and into the zoo, passed by the bird enclosure. I forgot to say that all birds were sold off in the summer.

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