Summary of Helen Rappaport's Caught in the Revolution

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In 1916, Arno Dosch-Fleurot, a seasoned journalist working for a popular US daily, had arrived in Petrograd fresh from a gruelling stint covering the Battle of Verdun. He was excited to be in Russia, but he had preconceived ideas about Russia that were based on reading Dostoievsky’s Crime and Punishment, Tolstoy’s Resurrection, and George Kennon’s Darkest Siberia.

#2 There were many foreign journalists in Petrograd just before the revolution. The reports of these reporters were being syndicated in the West, and there was an established coterie of other, mainly British, reporters in the city.

#3 The British colony in Petrograd was doing relief work with the thousands of refugees pouring into the city.

#4 The sight of so many pitiful children with insufficient clothing and often no shoes had galvanized a surge of expatriate philanthropic work. The British embassy was used to sort donated clothes and shoes for the refugees.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822522893

IRB Media

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Insights on Helen Rappaport's Caught in the Revolution

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 1916, Arno Dosch-Fleurot, a seasoned journalist working for a popular US daily, had arrived in Petrograd fresh from a gruelling stint covering the Battle of Verdun. He was excited to be in Russia, but he had preconceived ideas about Russia that were based on reading Dostoievsky’s Crime and Punishment, Tolstoy’s Resurrection, and George Kennon’s Darkest Siberia.

#2

There were many foreign journalists in Petrograd just before the revolution. The reports of these reporters were being syndicated in the West, and there was an established coterie of other, mainly British, reporters in the city.

#3

The British colony in Petrograd was doing relief work with the thousands of refugees pouring into the city.

#4

The sight of so many pitiful children with insufficient clothing and often no shoes had galvanized a surge of expatriate philanthropic work. The British embassy was used to sort donated clothes and shoes for the refugees.

#5

By 1916, the Anglo-Russian Hospital had been opened by the Dowager Empress and the Tsar’s two eldest daughters, Olga and Tatiana. It was quickly filled to overflowing with serious cases, many of them with terrible septic wounds.

#6

The war may have seemed far away to some, but not the heightened sense of social tension that Dorothy Seymour encountered in Petrograd. She was lucky to have a well-connected family, but many of the VADs were missing their English Cross Blackwell jam and had to share cramped, inadequate quarters.

#7

By 1917, the Petrograd winter was hard for everyone at the hospital to endure. British nurses Grant and Moir were desperate to get home, while many other British subjects were stranded all over Russia.

#8

The first day of the Russian New Year, a day of intense cold, was marked by a glittering reception for eighty members of the diplomatic corps in the ballroom of the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo.

#9

The last public appearance of the last ruler of the mighty Romanoff dynasty was in Petrograd, at the reception held by the Tsar for the Allied delegation led by Lord Milner. The Tsar had seemed to have no idea that he was standing on a volcano.

#10

The visit by the Allied mission to Russia was a complete failure. It had dragged on for three weeks, and no practical result had emerged from all the diplomatic verbiage. The Allies sent Russia huge consignments of materiel, but she had neither the means nor the will to take advantage of them.

#11