KERENSKY AS THE PHANTOM OF THE 1917 RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS. THROUGH THE EYES OF RUSSIAN WRITERS AND POETS

Abstract

Vladimir Kantor is examining the tragic and life-changing situation in Russia in 1917, the year of two revolutions, when Russian literature found itself in search of a new hero who could lead the country out of the catastrophe. Starting from March 1917, many writers believed they had found such a person in Aleksandr Kerensky. Russian poets and writers in unison hailed Kerensky as the new Napoleon, who would rein in the Russian revolt just like Napoleon did with the French one. Kerensky was aware only of the positive implications of this comparison. The article reveals the politician’s true role through comparative analysis of characterizations by his contemporaries.

He began to live up to the phantom and act in the way that his admirers expected from him, losing his identity in the process. He surrounded himself with prominent figures, appointing the famous Social Revolutionary, terrorist and writer Boris Savinkov as his war minister. As the army commissar for ideology he selected Fyodor Stepun, a writer and philosopher. Most prominent artists from that period were all commissioned to paint Kerensky’s portrait. According to Stepun, Kerensky’s speeches were typified by an almost Schillerean ecstasy.

But it was his most liberal law system that spelled doom for Russia and himself. The French National Convention rested upon terror and the guillotine, while Kerensky issued a decree abolishing the death penalty in Russia. In war times, amid raging banditry and with a disintegrating army, this decree proved to cause more irreparable damage than some of Peter I’s most ill-advised laws, and Kerensky used to hold Peter in high esteem. He relied on the power of rhetoric, which had propelled him to prominence during the February revolt, but the times had changed. He was nicknamed ‘negotiator-in-chief’, yet his skills were no longer effective with the mob. The mob was waiting for a show of strength and an order.