Eyewitness 1917


Book Description

A dramatic account of a year of two revolutions in Russia, told through extracts from contemporary diaries, letters and memoirs and illustrated with many previously unpublished photographs. In the lead-up to the centenary of the Russian Revolution in 2017, a team of researchers led by writer Mikhail Zygar posed a question: how to make the story of one of the most extraordinary years in Russian and world history relevant to today? Their answer lay in going back to the source material - diaries, memoirs, letters, news reports - and presenting it as a digital project, a daily feed delivered through social media platforms. This was Project 1917: each day subscribers would receive posts not from twenty-first-century contemporaries but from those living through the events of a hundred years earlier. The reader was able to eavesdrop on intimate conversations, trenchant commentary and ferocious debates on all sides of the revolutionary struggle. The reaction was remarkable: posts were 'liked' and 'retweeted' by thousands, many of them prompting real-time responses, as if readers hoped to strike up a direct conversation with figures from the past. In the two years since 2017, Project 1917, in collaboration with Pushkin House and Fontanka publishers, have worked to bring this rich source material together as a book. Presented in 12 chapters and illustrated throughout with archive photography, the book charts the course of an extraordinary year encompassing two revolutions, the end of the Romanovs and the rise of the Bolsheviks. Eyewitness 1917 is almost entirely unmediated - it is an account of the year in the words of those who lived through it: not just powerbrokers like Nicholas II, Kerensky and Lenin, but many others whose voices are often not heard - private citizens, ordinary soldiers, child diarists. The result is a dramatic retelling of the revolutionary story, as the reader shares the excitement and confusion of those caught up in events beyond their control. Mikhail Zygar is a Russian journalist, writer and filmmaker, and founding editor-in-chief of the independent Russian news channel Dozhd (2010-15). His bestselling book All the Kremlin's Men is based on interviews with Vladimir Putin's inner circle; his most recent, The Empire Must Die (2018), documents the demise of Russian civil society from 1900 to 1918.




Petrograd 1917


Book Description

"It's damned hard lines asking for bread and only getting a bullet!" The dramatic and chaotic events surrounding the Russian Revolution have been studied and written about extensively for the last hundred years, by historians and journalists alike. However, some of the most compelling and valuable accounts are those recorded by eyewitnesses, many of whom were foreign nationals caught in Petrograd at the time. Drawing from the Bodleian Library's rich collections, this book features extracts from letters, journals, diaries and memoirs written by a diverse cast of onlookers. Primarily British, the authors include Sydney Gibbes, English tutor to the royal children, Bertie Stopford, an antiques dealer who smuggled the Vladimir tiara and other Romanov jewels into the UK, and the private secretary to Lord Milner in the British War Cabinet. Contrasting with these are a memoir by Stinton Jones, an engineer who found himself sharing a train compartment with Rasputin, a newspaper report by governess Janet Jeffrey who survived a violent confrontation with the Red Army, and letters home from Labour politician, Arthur Henderson. Accompanied by seventy contemporary illustrations, these first-hand accounts are put into context with introductory notes, giving a fascinating insight into the tumultuous year of 1917.




The Russian Revolution 1917


Book Description

Author of the only full-length eyewitness account of the 1917 Revolution, Sukhanov was a key figure in the first revolutionary Government. His seven-volume book, first published in 1922, was suppressed under Stalin. This reissue of the abridged version is, as the editor's preface points out, one of the few things written about this most dramatic and momentous event, which actually has the smell of life, and gives us a feeling for the personalities, the emotions, and the play of ideas of the whole revolutionary period." Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.




The Russian Revolution 1917 Eyewitness Account Volume


Book Description

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.







Eyewitnesses to the Russian Revolution


Book Description

This comprehensive chronicle of the Russian Revolution is told through the eyewitness accounts of journalists, political leaders, and ordinary citizens. More than a century ago, workers and peasants in Russia turned the world upside down when they overthrew their tsar, took over their factories, farms, and schools, and set out to build a new society. In this gripping reader, participants and firsthand observers of the revolution tell the inspiring, heroic, and sometimes tragic story of what happened in Russia over the course of 1917. Introduced and edited by Todd Chretien, Eyewitnesses to the Russian Revolution includes contributions from Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Lenin, John Reed, Louise Bryant, and others.




The Two Revolutions


Book Description

With a foreword & post-script "The achievements of the Russian revolution", by John Keep.







Earthly Signs


Book Description

A moving collection of autobiographical essays from a Russian poet and refugee of the Bolshevik Revolution. Marina Tsvetaeva ranks with Anna Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and Boris Pasternak as one of Russia’s greatest twentieth-century poets. Her suicide at the age of forty-eight was the tragic culmination of a life buffeted by political upheaval. The essays collected in this volume are based on diaries she kept during the turbulent years of the Revolution and Civil War. In them she records conversations of women in the markets, soldiers and peasants on the train traveling from the Crimea to Moscow in October 1917, fighting in the streets of Moscow, a frantic scramble with co-workers to dig frozen potatoes out of a cellar, and poetry readings organized by a newly minted Soviet bohemia. Alone in Moscow with two small children, no income, and a missing husband, Tsvetaeva struggled to feed her daughters (one of whom died of malnutrition in an orphanage), find employment in the Soviet bureaucracy, and keep writing poetry. Her keen and ruthless eye observes with compassion and humor—bringing the social, economic, and cultural chaos of the period to life. These autobiographical writings not only give a vivid eyewitness account of Russian history but provide vital insights into the workings of Tsvetaeva’s unique poetics. Includes black and white photographs.




The Russian Revolution, 1917


Book Description