"Sunday 9 January 1905: Hundreds of thousand of workers assemble in the streets of St Petersburg. They are in their Sunday best and accompanied by their elderly relatives and children. There are no banners or slogans though some carry icons or church emblems, for this is to be a peaceful demonstration led by an Orthodox priest, Father Gapon. They set off for the Winter Palace, bearing to the Tsar their petition for a constitution. ‘Sire!!’ it reads. ‘We workers have come to you to seek justice and protection. We are in great poverty, we are oppressed and weighed down with labors beyond our strength. We are insulted, we are not recognized as human beings…’
For two cold hours they stand waiting in the snow for Tsar Nicholas to appear and receive their petition. A shot rings out, and they stamp their feet. Another, and they laugh that it must be blanks. A third, and suddenly women and children slump lifeless int eh snow. Still they assure themselves that this must be a mistake, for the Tsar would not shoot down unarmed civilians. But now the gendarmes are galloping in the crowd, and the slaughter has begun. The shooting continues all day long. The dead are counted in the hundreds, the wounded in the thousands, their blood spilt on the Schlusselberg Highway, the Troitsky Bridge and the Nevsky Gates. But the police cart away the bodies so quickly that it is impossible to know the full toll.
2 comments:
This reminds me of this:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/13/mexican-day-of-the-d.html
Which I was gonna post.
I check this isn't happiness almost every day...great find.
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