Caught in the Revolution--advance copy

I received an exciting advance copy to review this week, Helen Rappaport, "Caught in the Revolution; Petrograd, Russia, 1917--a World on the Edge." (St. Marin's Press, due February 2017). It's written from research using foreigners' diaries and letters who were eye witnesses caught in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Review copies don't have the photos ;-(  but the list of eye witnesses is certainly interesting. The list includes Julia Dent Grant, granddaughter of president Grant, the black valet of the American ambassador, as well as many journalists and correspondents. One really piqued my interest, Emmeline Pankhurst, and I'll have to do a bit more research on her.

 

We visited this city in 2006--traveling there by train from Helsinki, Finland. St. Petersburg was created in 1703 by Peter the Great who wanted a seaport, then the name changed to Petrograd in 1914 (burg is German and grad is Russian for city), then Leningrad in 1924 for Vladimir Lenin, and then after the Communist regime collapsed, the people voted to change it back to St. Petersburg.