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Petrogradskaya Gazeta
Petrograd, Russian Empire
Where are the city’s potatoes? The rascals have raised their prices to 55 kopecks for two ounces. With the rascals exasperating the populace with their prices for this produce and prepared to transform it into a delicacy inaccessible to the poor, people have the right to ask: “City potatoes bought in bulk from Estland [Estonia], where are you?” Why do you lie idly under wraps, why do you not go on sale to the public? It’s high time, city potatoes, for you to provide some competition to the potatoes being sold by the rascal greengrocers. Or could it be that you became a casualty of your winter journey from Estland to Petrograd? Or have you sprouted or rotted? Respond, then! Where are you, and what has befallen you?
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Alexandra Kollontai
«Turisthotell», Holmenkollen, Norway
The war’s borders have extended yet again. The world is filled with the blood and tears of mothers and wives. And there is no end in sight ...
Rotaru Vlad Matei
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Julius Martov
Zurich, Switzerland
There’s a fierce cold in the air and, even when ensconced in a café, you still can’t quite warm up properly. I’m still hatching plans to “abscond” to Geneva for a couple of weeks once I’ve got all this urgent work finished.
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The New York Times
The first official expression of Russia’s attitude toward the address of President Wilson before the Senate was made today in the form of the following statement from the Foreign Office:
“Russia always has been in full sympathy with the broad humanitarian principies expressed by the President of the United States, and his message to the Senate , therefore, has made a most favorable impression upon the Russian Government. Russia will welcome all suitable measures which will help prevent a recurrence of the world war. Accordingly we can gladly indorse President Wilson’s communication.
“President Wilson’s views on free access to the seas find an advocate in Russia, because she considers it necessary to have free access to the seas''
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Leon Trotsky
1522, Vyse Ave, Bronx, NY, USA
We rented an apartment in a workers’ district, and furnished it on the instalment plan. That apartment, at eighteen dollars a month, was equipped with all sorts of conveniences that we Europeans were quite unused to: electric lights, gas cooking- range, bath, telephone, automatic service-elevator, and even a chute for the garbage. These things completely won the boys over to New York. For a time the telephone was their main interest; we had not had this mysterious instrument either in Vienna or Paris. The janitor of the house was a negro. My wife paid him three months’ rent in advance, but he gave her no receipt because the landlord had taken the receipt-book away the day before, to verify the accounts. When we moved into the house two days later, we discovered that the Negro had absconded with the rent of several of the tenants. Besides the money, we had intrusted to him the storage of some of our belongings. The whole incident upset us; it was such a bad beginning. But we found our property after all, and when we opened the wooden box that contained our crockery, we were surprised to find our money hidden away in it, carefully wrapped up in paper. The janitor had taken the money of the tenants who had already received their receipts; he did not mind robbing the landlord, but he was considerate enough not to rob the tenants. A delicate fellow, indeed. My wife and I were deeply touched by his consideration, and we always think of him gratefully. This little incident took on a symptomatic significance for me – it seemed as if a corner of the veil that concealed the “black” problem in the United States had lifted.
Rafael Padial, Stephan Wintner and 1 other
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26 January
Bertrand Russelclass="underline" “The world is too ugly, and Wilson the only bright spot – a very bright one - on the horizon.”
Trotsky on New York. “Here Cubism reigns supreme on the streets, and the philosophy of the dollar reigns supreme in people’s hearts. “
A drug den is closed in Petrograd
Rosa Luxemburg
prison, Wronki, Russian Empire
When the whole world is falling to pieces, I only seek to comprehend what happened and why it happened. Beyond that, I still have everything that gives me joy: music and painting and clouds and doing botany in the spring and Mimiand you and much more besides. In short, I am immensely rich and intend to remain so until the end. Surrendering oneself to sorrow is intolerable and incomprehensible to me.
Harsh Trivedi, Marc Adam and 1 other
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Alexandre Benois with Vladimir Nabokov
38, 1st line of Vasilyevsky Island, Petrograd, Russian Empire
I tried to induce him (Nabokov) to give me some decisive answers on the question of war and peace. But in vain. Nabokov is in thrall to the idea of pacifism while simultaneously believing it “necessary to see the war through to the end”. As if this “end” were not also the end of everyone of his own ilk, and more generally speaking, the end of a culture which, berate it though we might, we ultimately love. At any rate, we cannot expect that the madman propelled by fate to the country’s very zenith will heed the voice of reason, or even simply the imperative of self-preservation – his own no less than that of the entire country with which he has been entrusted!
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Bertrand Russell
London, United Kingdom
I feel quite played out –– I don't suppose I shall come to life again till after the war. The world is so beastly –– Wilson is the one bright spot –– and he is very bright.
Greg Morrone
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Konstantin Somov
Petrograd, Russian Empire
For the first time since the New Year I painted today at the Zvantseva School. Petrov-Vodkin led the day’s session. He corrected a number of paintings, but not mine. After the session finished and the students left we argued.
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Elizaveta Naryshkina
Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire
It’s bitterly cold again, so I didn’t venture out. Paid a visit to the wounded. The Latvians fought excellently and would have pushed on to Mitava, were it not for the fact that in one of our regiments, which had taken their place in the trenches, everyone ended up drinking themselves silly! Everyone without exception, starting with the officers. The soldiers wanted to continue the offensive, but there was no one to command them; they followed the example of their superiors, and the Latvians were forced to retreat!!!
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Nikolai Wrangel
Petrograd, Russian Empire
There is no real military presence in the capital. The Petrograd Garrison consists of many, too many, men, but instead of disciplined soldiers one finds only a dissolute, undisciplined, and leaderless mass of untested recruits and reservists.
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Leon Trotsky
1522, Vyse Ave, Bronx, NY, USA
Here I was in New York, city of prose and fantasy, of capitalist automatism, its streets a triumph of cubism, its moral philosophy that of the dollar. New York impressed me tremendously because, more than any other city in the world, it is the fullest expression of our modern age.