Authors

Discussion

Historians Peter Gatrell (1999), Eric Lohr (2003), and Joshua Sanborn (2005) have shown that that the journeys of refugees from Russia’s European front took them across the breadth oft he Empire to far-flung places in Western Siberia, Turkestan and the Far East. Their arrival elicited sympathy from local administrators and spurred into action volunteers but also revealed cracks in the social fabric of places like Tashkent (Sahadeo, 2007). Still, we know relatively little about the lives of refugees and those who tried to help them in these remote regions. This paper considers the situation of displaced persons in Turkestan through the lens of relief, to contribute to a fuller understanding of the impact of the First World War on this region. 

Drawing on material from the National Archives of Uzbekistan, this paper will consider local efforts to aid refugees and suggest ways in which local conditions shaped experiences of displacement and the provision of relief in Turkestan. By considering interactions between the local population and displaced persons, it also contributes a new perspective on the ways in which the presence of refugees and large numbers of prisoners of war shaped experiences of the war in Turkestan. More broadly, the paper considers what the study of relief can tell us about the importance of displacement in War and upheaval in Central Asia.