Caught in the Revolution

Helen Rappaport’s masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eye-witness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold. Between the first revolution in February 1917 and Lenin’s Bolshevik coup in October, Petrograd was in turmoil – felt nowhere more keenly than on the fashionable Nevsky Prospekt where the foreign visitors and diplomats who filled hotels, clubs, bars and embassies were acutely aware of the chaos breaking out. Among this disparate group were journalists, businessmen, volunteer nurses and expatriate socialites. Many kept diaries and wrote letters home. Helen Rappaport draws upon this rich trove of material to carry us right up to the action – to see, feel and hear the Revolution as it happened.