6 December 1917. Zinaida Gippius

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

Zinaida Gippius

With every day the Bolshevik “government” that consists of criminal riffraff (with the exception of scoundrel-ringleaders and other adherents) gradually pulls in the security forces. A thug, Orlov-Kievskiy, is now a commissar.

At the benefit concert at the Intimate Theatre, they performed a romance by Rachmaninov, based on (old) lyrics by Merezhkovsky “Christ has Risen.” One sailor from the audience did not like the meaning of the lyrics (Christ would have cried had he seen the earth covered in blood and hatred of our days). So the sailor shot at the singer, point blank. Grazed his hair, almost killed him.

That’s how things are here. The main stairwell of the Smolny is covered in red wine and has frozen like that. And it is the Residenz-Palace!

✍ Also today

Alexander Zamaraev

Totma, Vologodskaya guberniya, Russian Republic

It's very cold.

, and others

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Russkoe Slovo

In defense of the Constituent Assembly:

Reports have come in from the front that some armies are forming a special joint team to come to Petrograd on the 11th of December in order to defend the Constituent Assembly from attack by the Bolsheviks. The team will be made up of ten regiments of all branches of the service.

, and others

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Anton Denikin

Slavyansk, Russian Republic

In our carriage, which was packed full of soldiers, suspicions were aroused by the fact that I had been lying for so long on the top bunk, and talk started up below. See more

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Marina Tsvetaeva

Feodosia, Crimea, Russian Republic

I infinitely and easily surrender, when it comes to my soul. I fear that I will not get a ticket for the train, and incidentally, I do not fear at all that this train takes me away from humanity, who… human, of whom… See more

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Leonid Andreyev

Vammelsuu, Finland

Now everyone is blaming Kerensky, that he was weak and did not take steps to counter the Bolsheviks and the impending revolt in time. This is correct, Kerensky in his weakness and his compliance is guilty before Russia—and what had they, all these democrats, done to prevent the revolt? Nothing! See more

Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich

Gatchina, Russian Republic

In the morning, soldiers from the aviation school came and impressed, rather confiscated, wine, 80 bottles, and sugar. All this they’ve done according to the decree of the Soviet. Notably, they have broken some bottles right there and drank their contents.

, and others

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George Buchanan

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

Trotzky has published a reply to the effect that the Allied Governments had been made aware of his intention to propose a general armistice by the appeal, which the Soviet had addressed to the democracies of the world on November 8. If his note had reached the Embassy rather late, this was entirely due to secondary causes of a technical character. I hear that the Soviet disapproves of Trotzky's recent attitude towards me.

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Nicholas II

I felt a little better and was without fever; I did not go outside into the air. From a book I made a list of my roles for our coming presentation of the French play, "Les Deux Timides." Toward evening I finished that task — it took one and a half writing tablets.

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5 December

The Bolsheviks requisition the Alexander Nevsky Lavra

Vladimir Dzhunkovskiy is arrested

Woodrow Wilson compares the Russian and the German people

1917. Zombies, drugs, and progress

Why did the Russian Empire collapse

Map of the Royal dynasties of Europe

Romanovs dangerous liaisons

-11

in Petrograd

-13

in Moscow