Forty-sixth installment from the diary of my great-grandfather’s sister Alise, written during the First World War. When the diary starts, she is living just a few miles from the front lines of the Eastern Front, and is then forced to flee with her husband and two young daughters to her family’s house near Limbaži as the war moves even closer. Her third child, a son, was born there in February 1916. The family has now relocated to a home near Valmiera, and the Russian Revolution is in full swing. For more background, see here, and click on the tag “diary entries” to see all of the entries that I have posted.

New! If there is mention of a recognizable historical figure and event, I will provide a Wikipedia link so that you can read more about the events that Alise is describing.

September 16, 1917

The time has come, that nothing surprises me anymore. Yesterday, refugees from LÄ“durga arrived at our home. Mrs Pudis and her children and their rescued belongings. We must accept them and take care of them until we can find a place for them. It is impossible to count the crimes and experiences and the whole story of what they have experienced. Now anyone who has a good house and property isn’t safe, the possibility of being called “bourgeois” and being robbed or burned down is great. Bands of thieves and deserters are rampaging across Vidzeme, and there is no protection to speak of anymore. Now we are being destroyed by our own country. Only God knows, how all of this will end. Even our familiar, dear churches are being destroyed, altarpieces turned into toilets.

Not looking at all of the madness, we are still doing very well, even if the current situation is writing harsh and gloomy words on the page of our country’s history, still personally we are not suffering.