12 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

Sergievskaya 83, Petrograd, Russian Republic

The systematic arrest of arriving Constitutional Democrats continues. In “Izvestia” (that single daily newspaper), a decree was issued, in which Constitutional Democrats are declared OUTLAWS all over and subject to arrest.

Yesterday, there was some kind of meeting in the Tauride Palace; today they were declared “criminal”, the troops and the boys in blue are rounded up. They arrested so many, that I don't know where they are being taken. The possibility to grasp impressions has been and gone, and, barring the permanent contraction of the soul, there is nothing to feel. Frost. In the streets a deafening silence, darkness, no words. The winter is black and white, it is terror.

, and others

3 Comment

✍ Also today

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The Russian people are the most humane people. Their literature is the most humane in the world. Russia has always been, deep inside, a democracy. Yes, a Christian-Communist one, and it was, I believe, Dostoevsky, who said that this democratism takes the form of a patriarchal, theocratic, tsarist monarchy, rather than a social and aesthetic republic.

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Nicholas Roerich

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Maxim Gorky Ekaterina Peshkova

23, Kronversky ave., Petrograd, Russian Republic

I’m not sick as such, but I am a little out of sorts. My lungs are playing up a bit – it’s nothing, though: I’ve already been treated twice and I'm feeling better. But as for my nerves, they are utterly shot. Utterly. I’m not sleeping, and my mood is so heavy! I’m trying not to let it show to my nearest and dearest, but, really, how can you keep it hidden?

All is not well with Russia – very much not well!

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1 Like

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Moskovsky listok

Russian Republic

Russia on sale

The Bolsheviks decided to suggest that the United States buy Kamchatka. Negotiations between an American agent Jameson with Trotsky are based on this fact. However, the US government categorically refused Trotsky's suggestion.

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Franz Kafka

engrossed into reading Tolstoy

Zürau

There's no other sphere than art where conservatism is quite so lamentable.

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1 Like

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Carl Mannerheim

Petrograd, Russian Republic

At luncheon in the New Club, which was founded by high-ranking members of the Hunting Society, I found myself sitting between two grand dukes. News filtered through that the Bolsheviks had searched the Hunting Society’s premises and arrested several of its members, among them my friend Arseniy Karageorgievich, a cavalry officer and brother of the King of Serbia. See more

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2 Comment

Vladimir Lenin

Petrograd, Russian Republic

On the question of Hanecki, the narrow C.C. has passed a decision not to appoint him as representative in Stockholm. That is to say, it rescinded the previous decision of the C.C. I propose that this decision be countermanded on the following grounds. See more

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2 Like

2 Comment

Sophie Buxhoeveden

Petrograd, Russian Republic

In order not to disclose my situation, an acquaintance in Petrograd volunteered to get us some railway tickets. One evening in December he brought me three sleeping-car tickets for a train departing the next day; getting his hands on them had proved enormously difficult. The tickets were all for different towns on the Trans-Siberian Railway – a ploy which, as he believed, would allay any suspicions.

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1 Like

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