THE GRINDING MILL: Reminiscences of War and Revolution in Russia

From the years 1913 to 1920, Prince Lobanov-Rostovsky kept notes and a journal, and this forms the basis of a detailed, almost day by day account, of the war and the revolution, as experienced by a young nobleman who was in the very heart of it. Occasional flashbacks to his boyhood; a straightforward account of the training, the life, the formality of the pre-revolutionary army service; the heart-breaking strain of the war campaigns; the complete reversal of accepted standards with the Revolution. Luck played into his hands, and he escaped, first to the forces of the White Russians, later away from Russia, but he saw enough to realize the upheaval of all he had known of life. There is no particular sparkle, no deliberate playing up of the dramatic values of his material. But it is a new facet and an intimate picture of one man's experience.