То, чему не поверят...

Excerpt from “An Extraordinary History” by N.K. Melnikov from chapters 35 to 55.

The first and only edition. Prison memoirs of the First World War, written by Nikolai Melnikov (1875-1935?), Russian writer, poet and journalist. A correspondent for the Russian newspaper “Novoye Vremya” since 1901, Melnikov lived in Berlin. During the First World War he was held in German captivity as an enemy citizen. This "passage" is an account of his hardships in captivity, the treatment of Russian prisoners in a German prison, and the attempts of his wife (possibly German-born?) to secure his release. The complete work was never published, and this excerpt appears to be the only surviving account. Melnikov was also the author of a brochure on the separation of church and state, “Two Worlds” (Berlin, 1907) and a collection of poems, “Poems” (Berlin, 1910). From 1928 he lived in France, where he published this “passage” and apparently held lecturer positions in Paris until 1935.