as 'Part LIII' - it should have been 'Part LVIII'.
On the eve of 1917, police are reinforced in Vetluga to
stem 'muzhik' (peasant) unrest. Fuad Bey gets news
about the war, bakes bread, starts a German dictionary
and an inmate newspaper.//
The Russian Police
Sharpen Swords
26 December 1916
Tuesday
The weather is
still bad, cloudy, bitter cold. News: the Russian
newspapers are talking about Cemal Paşa’s
execution. The supposed
reason was that he usurped the wide authority given to him. But I
don’t
know. God forbid such things should happen at a this time. If
it’s true then that’s very
bad…
//Ed. Note: Cemal Paşa was assassinated in Tbilisi in 1922//
...the Russian police here are said to be sharpening their swords and
twenty more police are
being brought here. The reason is that the
Russian government is scared of the mujiks’ rebellion. The stupid
government knows that its people want peace and that
peace would
be good for
it, as well. It’s still duping its people. Today the only thing
I did was have Franz correct a
few words. I went to bed an hour after
midnight. The other fellows in the room went to bed later
than me.
27 December 1916
Wednesday
The weather is
quite nice, cloudless, sunny…not very cold either.
Taking full advantage of
this I spent a lot of
time outside. News: the
American government has sent a note to all the
combatants. In the note
it
states that come what may peace will be made and with rather
threatening words says America will work against those parties that
don’t
accept this…Çerkes Mehmet gathered us all together at
night.
He said he had spoken with the Lieutenant Colonel at the kazarma
(main barracks) and passed along to us his advice, which was
that we
should avoid any and all situations that would
compromise our honor
while in captivity. He went on at length about this. At
night we joked
around
wth Mustafa a bit. We had a new German lesson today but we
couldn’t understand the basis of it
very well.
28 December 1916
Thursday
The weather is
still rather nice but toward evening the sky began to get
cloudy. The cold is
still not very bitter. I
went out in front for a stroll a
couple of times. News: Switzerland informed
the combatants that it
has
accepted the American note. Again, I heard about a vile incident, as
follows: Captain Kır
Mustafa (Tahir’s relative) who lives in
the
Lieutenant Colonel’s house (Lebedof) wanted to molest one of the
Austrian soldier-servants
there but was stopped from doing so. The
soldier was prevented from
making a complaint about it and the
Russians were kept unaware. I’m very regretful about
vulgarity like this.
This man is 40-50 years old. It’s one thing if this
shameful act were
restricted to
him but it reflects on all of us, the nation, the government
…for that reason
it’s a stain. Today I
didn’t spend too much time on my
lessons. I went to bed rather early.
29 December 1916
Friday
The weather has
gotten bad. Quite a storm about. A lot of snow has
fallen. Anymore snow covers everything. It’s
bitter cold, too. News: a
respose will be given to the ote on the 25th
of the month. Süleymen
Efendi got out of jail today. Kazim went to
jail tonight. Today another
vile and regrettable incident: Major
Mehmet Bey and Captain Mustafa
Efendi, who live in Malaşova, made a lewd proposal to an
Austrian
soldier. If it’s true, what a scandal…what a horrible scandal! After
the
evening meal we
worked on German and then I listened to Çerkes
Mehmet who was talking about the
Commander and some things he
had done. It makes me mad that he’s always talking and thinking about
the Russians.
30 December 1916
Saturday
The weather is
bad, really bad, snow falling continually. The wind is
cold enough to freeze a person. It’s
bitter cold. We weren’t able to go
outside. News: the Germans have sunk two English
submarines. War
again in Romania. The Romanians have retreated. We didn’t have
a
lesson today.
There are three kinds of bread here. One is black, one is
middle and one is
white. The black one is
very dark and heavy. It’s
difficult to eat. A funt (12 oz./409.5 grams) costs
eight kopeks. The
middle
one is neither black nor white. This used to be made well but
not anymore. Both of them are
like half-cooked. The white one is quite
good, it’s cooked well. The middle one costs 10
kopeks per funt and the
white one is 15 kopeks. Since it’s cheap and, thinking
that we might as
well
eat a more pure and clean bread, we gave it a try yesterday by
buying a small sack of flour. We
baked it in the oven in our kitchen.
Since it was the first time it came out
salty and not very well
cooked.
Nevertheless, we got an idea about Russian bread. Day by day as
captivity drags
on, it’s more aggravation and distress.
A Serious and
Comic Newspaper Named 'Sunrise'
31 December 1916
Sunday
The weather is
still bad. Snow is continually falling. The wind is as it
has been. Toward
evening the snow and wind
died down. We strolled
around down below a bit. The cold has eased somewhat. News:
supposedly
France and England have responded to the note as follows:
‘We want to be of service to
humanity. We want to make peace. But
we cannot accept that our enemy be
victorious and we have the
means
and provisions to fight o for a few more years.’ – along with some other
statements… the
defeated still make claims of victory. Today again we
baked bread in the oven
in our kitchen. This
time it came out quite well.
It cost 12
kopeks per funt. On the outside it costs 18 kopeks now.
Let’s
see if we can eat nice, clean bread by buying flour, if we don’t run into
too much difficulty.
Today we heard that four soldiers who were taken
prisoner in Galicia came here. I planned today to
make a German
dictionary comprised of about 3,000 words and got started. Up to three
o’clock at night, European time, I
worked to write the words starting
with the letter A in the dictionary.
Süleyman agreed today to the
proposal I made to him about giving lessons. Also today we decided
to
write a newspaper with both serious and comic articles named
'Gündoğan' (Sunrise).
//END of PART LIX//
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder