On the 1917 Revolution in Petrograd

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Helen Rappaport, On the 1917 Revolution in Petrograd. Wall Street Journal, Jan 29, 2017 (under the heading 'Five Best').
https://www.wsj.com/articles/helen-rappaport-1485545535

Note:
(a) "The Dissolution of an Empire
By Meriel Buchanan (1932)

1. As the daughter of the last British ambassador to Imperial Russia, Meriel Buchanan spent eight years [in Russia] * * * In the run up [to the revolution], she captures the splendors of St Petersburg (renamed Petrograd in 1914): opera and ballet at her beloved Mariinsky Theater
(i) Meriel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meriel
(Name of a French commune, Mériel, has been used as a given name in English-speaking world)
(ii) Saint Petersburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg
(Russian: Санкт-Петербу́рг, tr. Sankt-Peterburg; "On Sept 1, 1914, after the outbreak of World War I, the Imperial government renamed the city Petrograd, meaning 'Peter's City,' to remove the German words Sankt and Burg")
(iii) Mariinsky Theatre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariinsky_Theatre
(The theatre is named after Empress Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Tsar Alexander II [reign 1855-1881 (assassination)] )

(b) "The Red Heart of Russia
By Bessie Beatty (1918)

2. Beatty was one of a quartet of US reporters whom she defined, in her dedication of 'The Red Heart of Russia,' as 'Four Who Saw the Sunrise.' The phrase sets the tone of an admiring, but not uncritical, brave-new-world account of the Russian Revolution, published in October 1918, pre-empting that of her more celebrated colleague, John Reed."

John Reed (journalist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Reed_(journalist)
(1887 – 1920 (died of typhus in Moscow); best remembered for his first-hand account of the Bolshevik Revolution, Ten Days That Shook the World [1919] )

The book covers the eve, the ten days (Nov 7, 1917 when the Provisional Government fell -- to Nov 18)

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(c) "Donald Thompson in Russia
By Donald Thompson (1918)

3 * * * Following the 'screaming, howling mob' down the Nevsky Prospekt * * * His solution to Russia's problems was simple: The Provisional Government should take Lenin and Trotsky out and string them up."
(i)
(A) Nevsky Prospect
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevsky_Prospect
(Russian: Не́вский проспе́кт, tr[ansliteration]. Nevsky Prospekt; is the main street in the city of St Petersburg; Planned by Peter the Great)
(B) prospekt (street)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prospekt_(street)
(section 2 Etymology)
(C) Alexander Nevsky
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Nevsky
(1221 – 1263)
(ii) string up
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/string%20up

(d) "Runaway Russia
By Florence MacLeod Harper (1918)

4. * * * [She] also ran the gantlet of the mutinous Kronstadt sailors, who she recalls 'all looked like cutthroats.' "
(i) Kronstadt rebellion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion
(was a major unsuccessful uprising against the Bolsheviks in March 1921; The rebellion originated in Kronstadt, a naval fortress on Kotlin Island in the Gulf of Finland [qv])
(ii) Kronstadt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt
(German: Krone for "crown" and Stadt for "city)

(e) "An Ambassador’s Memoirs,
1914-1917
By Maurice Paléologue (1925)

5. The French diplomat Maurice Paléologue * * * he had observed the slow suicide of an empire 'governed by fools” from the moment he arrived in 1914. He had a unique grasp of Russian high society (among which French was still the lingua franca), which continued partying even as revolution broke out, and viewed the Slavic mentality as 'extraordinarily anarchic and destructive.' He despised the philistine Bolsheviks, whom he described in withering terms—Lenin was 'a compound of Savonarola and Marat' "
(i) Philistine (n)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Philistine
(ii) philistine (n): " 'person deficient in liberal culture,' 1827, originally in [Thomas] Carlyle, popularized by him and Matthew Arnold, from German Philister 'enemy of God's word' "
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=philistine
(iii) Thomas Carlyle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Carlyle
(1795 – 1881; Scottish)
(iv)
(A) The English surname Carlyle is "variant spelling of Carlisle [and pronounced the same]."  Both this surname and the next are from Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.
(B) The English surname Carlisle is "habitational name from the Cumbrian city of Carlisle, in whose name Celtic cair 'fort' has been compounded with the Romano-British name of the settlement, Luguvalium."
(C) Carlisle, Cumbria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlisle,_Cumbria
("strength of [a Celtic god named] Lugus")