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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the experiences of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in Turkestan through the lens of international relief efforts in order to contribute to a fuller picture of displacement in Central Asia during and in the immediate aftermath of the First World War.

Paper long abstract:

During the First World War, hundreds of thousands of refugees and prisoners of war arrived in Turkestan, creating a direct connection between remote regions of the Empire and Russia’s European front (Sahadeo, 2007). The revolts that broke out across Central Asia in the summer of 1916 forced 250’000 Kyrgyz and Kazakh nomads to flee across the border to China, attempting to escape the widespread violence. However, despite the significant implications the presence of large numbers of displaced persons had for the region, their role remains underexplored (Chokobaeva, Drieu and Morrison, 2020). This paper examines one facet of these displacements, the experiences of German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war in Turkestan through the lens of international relief efforts in order to contribute to a fuller picture of displacement in this particular historical context.

There is a growing body of literature on prisoners of war during this period, and the groundbreaking work of Gerald H. Davis (1993), Reinhard Nachtigal (2003) and Alon Rachamimov (2002) has examined different aspects of wartime captivity in Russia, including the provision of relief by various national Red Cross societies. However, these accounts predominantly focus on the experiences of prisoners of war in Siberia. This paper will nuance our understanding experiences of captivity and relief by exploring the ways in which they were shaped by the geographic and historical context of Turkestan, which foreign observers such as Alf Harald Brun (1931, p.4), a Danish delegate in Tashkent, considered to be an ‘isolated and distant’ part of the Russian Empire.

Drawing on archival documents and published primary sources from Switzerland, Germany, Austria and the former Soviet Union, this paper brings a transnational perspective to the study of Central Asia during the First World War. The accounts of prisoners of war and relief workers constitute a novel lens through which to study the events of 1916 and provide unique insights into the challenges of caring for displaced persons in the region. This paper suggests that while regional particularities led to unique experiences and challenges for relief workers and prisoners of war alike in Turkestan, it is possible to make connections with the experiences of POWs and responses to their situation in other locations. 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.