A Whole Empire Walking Refugees in Russia During World War I

During World War I millions of civilians on the eastern front, including Poles, Latvians, Jews, and Armenians as well as Russians and Ukrainians were forcibly uprooted. This is the first book in any language to describe their experience and consider the social, political, and cultural meanings of refugeedom before and after the collapse of the Tsarist Empire. Involuntary migration - in part the consequence of defeat on the battlefield, in part the result of deliberate action by tsarist generals - led government officials and educated society to question prevailing modes of thinking about social identity and the nature of social order in an unravelling polity. Following detailed discussion of the origins of displacement and its political implications, Peter Gatrell provides a close analysis of humanitarian initiatives and of the relationships between settled communities and refugees. Particular attention is given to the experience of displacement and to the process whereby the category of refugee came to be constructed. Other chapters consider the gender dimension of refugeedom and the participation of refugees in the war economy. In a fresh treatment of nationality issues in late imperial Russia, Gatrell demonstrates that displacement and refugeedom helped to crystallise national identity. A final chapter looks at the impact of the revolution, devoting particular attention to the impact of economic and social collapse on the plight of refugees. A whole empire walking is essential reading for historians of late imperial and revolutionary Russia and for anyone interested in World War I as a critical juncture in modern history.