Caught in the Revolution: Living Voices of Eyewitnesses to the Collapse of the Russian Empire
9.99 €
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Caught in the Revolution: Living Voices of Eyewitnesses to the Collapse of the Russian Empire
9.99 €
It's the spring of 1917. Petrograd is in turmoil—rallies thunder along Nevsky Prospekt, flags and orders are changing. Foreigners—journalists, diplomats, engineers, governesses, soldiers—catch up in this whirlwind. They write letters and diaries, unaware that their entries will become living testimony to the last days of Tsarist Russia.
An English nurse who survived the sinking of the Titanic now saves the wounded on the city streets. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst comes to Russia to meet with the fighters of Maria Bochkareva's Women's Death Battalion. Journalists, diplomats, and engineers watch history being written before their eyes—some with delight, others with horror and incomprehension. Some see it as the birth of a new era, others as senseless destruction, and still others are simply trying to live another day and preserve their dignity.
The streets are engulfed in looting, panic, reprisals, and executions. "Women's shoes were stripped off their feet in the street, men's clothes... the crowd surrounded the thieves and beat them to death." "Those cadets who surrendered were lined up and thrown into the water." These random lines from eyewitnesses convey a sense of the end of an era, when the familiar world is literally crumbling before our eyes.
Relying on forgotten archives and little-known testimonies, Helen Rappaport weaves together dozens of voices into a single narrative—disturbing, poignant, and vivid. This is a report from the past, where each eyewitness sees their own piece of the catastrophe, and together they piece together a panorama of a crumbling empire.
An English nurse who survived the sinking of the Titanic now saves the wounded on the city streets. Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst comes to Russia to meet with the fighters of Maria Bochkareva's Women's Death Battalion. Journalists, diplomats, and engineers watch history being written before their eyes—some with delight, others with horror and incomprehension. Some see it as the birth of a new era, others as senseless destruction, and still others are simply trying to live another day and preserve their dignity.
The streets are engulfed in looting, panic, reprisals, and executions. "Women's shoes were stripped off their feet in the street, men's clothes... the crowd surrounded the thieves and beat them to death." "Those cadets who surrendered were lined up and thrown into the water." These random lines from eyewitnesses convey a sense of the end of an era, when the familiar world is literally crumbling before our eyes.
Relying on forgotten archives and little-known testimonies, Helen Rappaport weaves together dozens of voices into a single narrative—disturbing, poignant, and vivid. This is a report from the past, where each eyewitness sees their own piece of the catastrophe, and together they piece together a panorama of a crumbling empire.
See also:
- All books by the publisher
- All books by the author
- All books in the series Russia at a Turning Point: Books on Turning Points in History