Hutchinson 2016. Hardback with dust jacket, 430 pp.
Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin's Bolshevik coup
in October, Petrograd (the former St Petersburg) was in turmoil.
Foreign visitors who filled hotels, bars and embassies were acutely
aware of the chaos breaking out on their doorsteps. Among them were
journalists, diplomats, businessmen, governesses and volunteer nurses.
Many kept diaries and wrote letters home: from an English nurse who had
already survived the sinking of the Titanic; to the black valet of the
US Ambassador, far from his native Deep South; to suffragette leader
Emmeline Pankhurst, who had come to Petrograd to inspect the indomitable
Women's Death Battalion led by Maria Bochkareava. Drawing upon a
rich trove of material and through eye-witness accounts left by foreign
nationals who saw the drama unfold, Helen Rappaport takes us right up
to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened.