30 December 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

4, Pesochnaya Street, Petrograd, Russian Republic

Your fabulous enunciation,
Like whistling of a bird of prey,
Creates a true representation
Of silken eyelids, I dare say.

"What" -- and the head has fallen
"Why" -- I am asking you
And far away the leaves are calling:
We live upon this planet too.

So let them say that love is flighty -
Flightier hundred times is death.
The soul is striving still and mighty,
Our lips fly toward it with each breath.

And in your whisper, so much silk,
And so much air, and so much light,
That as if blinded we both drink
The sunless brew of windy night.

, and others

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✍ Also today

Alexandre Benois

38, 1st line of Vasilyevsky Island, Petrograd, Russian Republic

Rasputin was killed one year ago today. My God, it's been quite some time, so much trouble has occurred! And so many of his prophecies have come true...

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Alexander Zamaraev

Totma, Vologodskaya guberniya, Russian Republic

It's Sunday. It's very windy outside, there's a blizzard. I'm reading a book I borrowed from the library - "The Giant Split" by Mordovtsev. It's about Patriarch Nikon, protopope Avvakum and the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich. The Tsars used to be of such cruel disposition, and the people were so naive and superstitious.

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Nikolai Avksentyev

Peter and Paul fortress, Petrograd, Russian Republic

is arrested

Andrei Shingarev

Peter and Paul fortress, Petrograd, Russian Republic

Solitude is indeed a good thing. Sometimes it is necessary, and it has come to me just at the right time to allow me to think about everything that has happened to me in the past few months. See more

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Anna Akhmatova

Sreznevskikh's ap., 9, Botkinskaya, Petrograd, Russian Republic

Mandelstam often visited me, and we rode in a cab on the incredible bumps of the revolutionary winter among the famous fires that burned almost until May, listening to a rifle rumbling from an unknown place. So we went to the Academy of Arts, where were evenings in favor of the wounded and where we both performed several times.

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Alexander Kolchak

Tokyo, Japan

Today is a day of great significance for me: having been summoned to see Sir Green at the embassy I received a message from him that will determine my immediate future. See more

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George Buchanan

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

Trotsky has addressed a message to the people and Governments of all Allied countries. The Russian Revolution has, he declares, opened the door for an immediate general peace, and if only the Allied Governments will avail themselves of the present favourable opportunity, general negotiations may be commenced at once. See more

, and others

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Nikolai Berdyaev

Bol'shoy Vlasyevskiy Lane, 4, Moscow, Russian Republic

The Russian revolution has an anti-nationalistic character, and it has turned Russia into a bloodless corpse. Yet despite this anti-nationalistic character, the peculiarities of our nation, the “Russian style”, have significantly determined the course of this unhappy and destructive revolution. See more

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Mathilde Kschessinska

9 Vokzalny lane, Kislovodsk, Russian Republic

I have many friends and acquaintances in Kislovodsk, and we were constantly gathering together in someone’s place for tea, dinner or to play cards, to calm our souls a little bit. To be alone is painful in such troubling times. See more

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29 December

Bolsheviks have canceled retirement benefits

"Nothing, of course, will be left of the previous cultural inheritance after Bolshevism, only an empty steppe, upon which we will have to cultivate a new culture"

“Russia will wipe the Bolshevism out, and the names of its leaders will be cursed by future generations”

Nightmare before Christmas

Death of Rasputin. Murder conspiracy and its consequences

in Petrograd

-5

in Moscow