The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Old women no longer had to carry buckets of water from the town wells. “What’s come over all of you?” they would say, puzzled. “Before we’d look both ways before going out, but now you’ve all become so good all at once. Must be the Holy Spirit entered your hearts. Well, thank you little grandkids; come into the house, maybe there’s some candy for you,” they would say and wink conspiratorially. But we, proud and pleased, always declined “payment” for our good deeds. I should add that during those hot summer days cats would serenely stretch out on the broad beams of gates, and dogs, relaxed to their fullest, serenely slumbered in the dusty streets. Also, after a premature cracking of our piggy banks, the broken windowpanes in town were all replaced.

I also want to say that from August on, my pack leader was none other than Stepka. At my insistence mother sewed a scout’s uniform for him as well. He

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immediately became a scout and in two months’ time so distinguished himself that he was transferred to the cub scouts as pack leader. Our pack was the best. Stepa had so much energy that beside his usual responsibilities he occasionally took charge of the “combined detachment” of cub scouts who gathered on their own initiative to play on our property. No one called him Stepka anymore; it was Stepa or Stepusha. He was rid of that onerous “-ka” ending.

Once after watching us, father called Stepa over and told him that when he grew up he would be the sergeant-major of the best regimental training unit in the whole division. Stepa shook his head and protested that he would become the leader of the scouts and cub scouts in the whole province.

In October of that year the second revolution took place. In 1918 after the German troops departed, the screams about “freedom” reached a frenzy, but freedom itself somehow vanished. The gimnazium was closed and the scouts were banned. We, the ex-scouts, met secretly for a long time without uniforms or any signs of distinction. The only distinction we had was our handshake with the left hand and our wonderful loyalty to each other, even though we had not been scouts for very long.

Two years later our family left Gomel. I lost from sight but not from memory the wonderful friends of my childhood.

Chapter Twelve

Nikolai Filatov, A Soldier’s Letters

The views of Nikolai Filatov on the war and revolution are of historical and cultural interest, as is the manner of expression of this self-educated peasant soldier. The run-on text of each letter has been divided into paragraphs and capitalization of proper titles added, but an attempt has been made to preserve in translation other idiosyncrasies of the author’s language without drawing attention to them with the conventional notation sic. They include punctuation errors, tense and person inconsistencies, run-on sentences, a few fragments, non sequitur clauses and questionable lexical choices. One ellipsis in brackets in letter 2 [. . .] is from the original. Other comments in brackets and footnotes are the translator’s. Taken from Nikolai Filatov, “Soldatskie pis’ma 1917 goda” [A Soldier’s Letters of 1917] in Vospominania. Paris: YMCA Press, 1981.

1. FRONT LINE TRENCHES

March 5th, 1917

How do you do greatly-respected Olga Valerianovna, I send you my greetings and wish you good health. I write you, Olga Valerianovna the following. We are still in position. The night of 28 February–1 March, precisely at midnight, in our entrenchments along the entire front we shouted “hooray” on the occasion of the English forces taking a city. At first we were told it was Gaa [Hague?], now they say it is an entirely different city, but that can be put off for now. Now lies ahead a more serious turnover, which happened in Russia. The matter is as follows. On March 4th at 8:00 PM we received at our position a telephoned telegram with news of the Russian Emperor’s abdication.

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This incident causes us much talk and discussions. Some say this means the end of the Russian State, and some say that the sovereign was deposed by Germans, of whom there are still many in Russia who occupy senior posts. But no one knows correctly. Today the officers announced that the sovereign himself no longer wanted to reign for reasons of health, but no one believes that. In response to our questions about who will be tsar, the officers say that everyone supposes that the brother of the former sovereign, Grand Prince Mikhail Aleksandrovich will be chosen.