"Sizzling years! While in the pre-trial detention center, at different times I read several works relating to the turbulent beginning of the 20th century in Russia - the era of wars and revolutions: “Cursed Days” by I. Bunin, “St...

"Sizzling years!
While in the pre-trial detention center, at different times I read several works relating to the turbulent beginning of the 20th century in Russia - the era of wars and revolutions: “Cursed Days” by I. Bunin, “St. Petersburg Winters” by G. Ivanov, essays “Faces” by E. Zamyatin, “State and Revolution” and some other works by V. Lenin. This series can be supplemented with “The Cynics” by A. Mariengof, which I read earlier, before the pre-trial detention center.
The listed authors, of course, are very different, but after reading these works, it’s as if
understanding and feeling of this historical era are formed. And perhaps this era received a precise expression from A. Blok:
Sizzling years!
Is there madness in you, is there hope?
From the days of war from the days of freedom -
There is a bloody glow in the faces.
This was written 110 years ago, in September 1914, in the second month of the Great War, when everything
the terrible thing was just beginning.
Yours Vasya N., pre-trial detention center-1, St. Petersburg"