WAR BEYOND THE FRONTLINE: REFUGEES IN INTERNAL GOVERNORATES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24919/2519-058X.18.226510Abstract
The purpose of the research is to discover the causes and character of mass migration and refugees at the territory of the Russian Empire during World War I, as well as to analyze the state policy in the field of refugees’ care and to define the role of community and national aid organizations in it. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, system-formation, and the use of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, retrospective, perspective, generalization) and special historical (historical genetic, historical typological, historical systemic, historical comparative) methods. The scientific novelty of the article is that the number of refugees, the legislative regulation of the organization of help to these victims of war, the conditions and effectiveness of the work of the state, community and national committees in the field of refugee care, and some individual components of their daily lives were determined on the basis of previously unknown archival and printed documents. The Conclusions. The consequences of the mass and forced evacuation of the population from Western provinces of the Russian Empire were tragic. The authorities themselves initiated the local residents eviction, explaining it by the demands of the war, and then took responsibility to provide them with aid and financed it. The counting on their quick return home after several successful military operations turned out to be wrong, and millions of people turned into refugees remained helpless and in need of help for a long time. The situation required not only state institutions to be involved in the work, because the state alone could not cope with the problem. Refugee care was held by the Russian community organisations and national committees of aid to the victims of the war (Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Latvian, etc.). Despite the work undertaken by the Russian authorities in the field of providing comprehensive social support to refugees, cooperation between the authorities and various aid organizations has been complicated, but not only by incomprehensible legislation. The cumbersome bureaucratic apparatus of the Russian Empire, the crisis of the authorities hampered promptness, while the refugees demanded immediate assistance.
Key words: refugees, aid organizations, the Russian Empire, World War I, state, community and national committees.
References
Convention. (n. d.). Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. URL: http://www.unhcr.org/protection/basic/3b66c2aa10/convention-protocol-relating-status-refugees.html [in English]
Derzhavnyi arkhiv Kharkivskoi oblasti [Kharkiv Region State Archive – KRSA]
Deyatelnost. (1916). Deyatelnost Komiteta Ee Imperatorskogo Vysochestva Velikoy Knyazhny Tatiany Nikolayevny [Activities of the Committee of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna for the Temporary Relief of Victims of War]. Izvestiya Komiteta Ee Imperatorskogo Vysochestva Velikoy Knyazhny Tatiany Nikolayevny po okazaniyu vremennoy pomoshchi postradavshim ot voyennykh deystviy – News of the Committee of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna for the Temporary Relief of Victims of War, 2, 10–12. [in Russian]
Galperina, B. D. (Ed.). (1999). Sovet ministrov Rossiyskoy imperii v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny. Bumagi A. N. Yakhontova (zapiski zasedaniy i perepiska) [The Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire during the First World War. Papers by A. N. Yakhontov (notes of meetings and correspondence)]. S.-Peterburg: Dmitrij Bulanin, 558 p. [in Russian]
Gatrell, P. (1999). A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia During World War I. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 318 p. [in English]
Gatrell, P. (2000). Domestic and international dimensions of population displacement in Russia, 1914 – 1918. In S. Pons, & A. Romano (Eds.), Russia in the Age of Wars 1914 – 1945 (pp. 37–52). Milano: Feltrinelli. [in English]
Gatrell, P. (2015). Tsarist Russia at War: the View from Above, 1914 – February 1917. The Journal of Modern History, 87 (3), 668–700. doi: 10.1086/682414 [in English]
Gosudarstvennyy arkhiv Rossiyskoy Federatsii [State Archive of the Russian Federation – SARF]
Haid, E. (2017). Galicia: A Bulwark against Russia? Propaganda and Violence in a Border Region during the First World War. The Journal of Modern History, 24 (2), 200–213. doi: 10.1080/13507486.2016.1257574 [in English]
Iz deyatelnosti. (1915). Iz deyatelnosti otdela po ustroystvu bezhentsev zemskogo i gorodskogo soyuzov [From the Activities of the Department for the Provision of Refugees of the Zemstvo Union and Union of Towns]. Izvestiya Glavnogo komiteta Vserossiyskogo zemskogo soyuza pomoshchi bolnym i ranenym voinam – News of the Main Committee of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union of Aid to Sick and Wounded Warriors, 27, 60–88. [in Russian]
Korzeniowski, M., Mądzik, M. & Tarasiuk, D. (2007). Tułaczy los. Uchodźcy polscy w Imperium Rosyjskim w latach Pierwszej wojny światowej [Wandering Fate. Polish Refugees in the Russian Empire during the First World War]. Lublin: UMCS, 238 p. [in Polish]
Kurtsev, A. N. (1999). Bezhentsy Pervoy mirovoy voyny v Rossii (1914 – 1917) [Refugees of World War I in Russia (1914 – 1917)]. Voprosy istorii – Questions of History, 8, 98–114 [in Russian]
Lohr, E. (2003). Nationalizing the Russian Empire: the campaign against enemy aliens during World War I. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 256 p. [in English]
Lubny-Gertsyk, L. I. (1926). Dvizheniye naseleniya na territorii SSSR za vremya mirovoy voyny i revolyutsii [Movement of the Population on the Territory of the USSR during the World War and Revolution]. Moscow: Planovoye khozyaystvo, 124 p. [in Russian]
Lykhachova, T. M. (2010). Polski bizhentsi v Rosii (serpen 1914 r. – lystopad 1917 r.) [Polish Refugees in Russia (August 1914 – November 1917)] (Candidate’s thesis). Kharkiv. [in Ukrainian]
Rossiyskiy gosudarstvennyy voyenno-istoricheskiy arkhiv [Russian State Military Historical Archive – RSMHA]
Samatyya, V. R. (2003). Problema bezhentsev v Belarusi v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny [The Problem of Refugees in Belarus during the First World War]. Belorusskiy zhurnal mezhdunarodnogo prava i mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniy – Belarusian Journal of International Law and International Relations, 2, 71–74. [in Russian]
Serdiuk, O. V. (2002). Bizhenstvo v Ukraini pid chas Pershoi svitovoi viiny [Refugees in Ukraine during the First World War] (O. P. Reient, Ed.). Problemy ìstorìï Ukraïni XIX – počatku XX st. – Problems of the History of Ukraine of XIX – beginning XX cc., (4), 111–132. [in Ukrainian]
Shcherov, I. P. (2000). Migratsionnaya politika v Rossii. 1914–1922 gg. [Migration policy in Russia. 1914–1922]. Smolensk: Smolensk State Pedagogical Institute, 314 p. [in Russian].
Thorpe., J. (2011). Displacing Empire. Refugee Welfare, National Activism and State Legitimacy in Austria-Hungary in the First World War. Refugees and the End of Empire. Imperial Collapse and Forced Migration in the Twentieth Century, 102–126. London: Palgrave Macmillan doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230305700 [in English]
Tsentralnyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukrainy, m. Kyiv. [Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv – CSHAUK]
Tsentralnyi derzhavnyi istorychnyi arkhiv Ukrainy, m. Lviv. [Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv – CSHAUL]
Tsovyan, D. G. (2005). Deyatelnost gosudarstvennykh organov i obshchestvennykh organizatsiy po okazaniyu pomoshchi bezhentsam v gody Pervoy mirovoy voyny. 1914 – 1917 gg. [The Activity of State Bodies and Community Organizations to Assist Refugees during the First World War. 1914 – 1917] (Candidate’s thesis). Moscow. [in Russian]
Zakony (1916). Zakony i rasporyazheniya o bezhentsakh [Refugee laws and regulations]. (Vol. 1). Moscow: Mysl, 63 p. [in Russian].
Zhvanko, L. (2019). Mizhnarodno-pravovi instrumenty OON v konteksti vyrishennia hlobalnoi problemy bizhentsiv ta mihrantiv [UN International Legal Instruments in the Context of Addressing the Global Refugee and Migrant Problem]. European Historical Studies, 14, 83–100. doi: http://doi.org/10.17721/2524-048X.2019.14.83-100 [in Ukrainian]
Zhvanko, L. M. (2012). Bizhentsi Pershoi svitovoi viiny: ukrainskyi vymir (1914–1918 roky) [Refugees of the First World War: the Ukrainian Reality]. – Kharkiv: Virovets A. P. “Apostrof”, 568 p. [in Ukrainian]
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
