The russian disabled War expatriates union in Poland in the 1920-1930-s

The article is dedicated to the activity of the Russian disabled war expatriates union in Poland and is based on the documents stored in the so-called Prague City archive, which is kept at the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow, as well as documents from the Central Archive of the Russian Federal Security Service. It looks into the idea of the Union's first appearance in Poland and the organization aimed at providing aid to the disabled war expatriates before the opening of the Union branch in Poland. The article also enlightens the question of Union's professional activity, its structure and management, as well as the ways of providing aid to the ones in need. It puts forward categories of emigrants (current members of the Union and the ones “in trusteeship”) who had the right to receive financial assistance from the Union. The article not only shows the process of the Union affiliation, but also lists the main affiliation conditions. It highlights the fact that despite being focused mainly on providing aid to the disabled war expatriates, the Union also tried to provide help to the widows, children of the disabled and directly to the disabled orphans. For this purpose a separate fund was started called “Widows and orphans capital”, which received a monthly inflow of a certain interest rate of the total donations. The Union's scope of activity also included issues of providing free healthcare services or healthcare services at a fraction of the cost. The article shows the very structure of the Union, organizations that were aimed at the Union's activity supervision (“common meetings”, delegate convention) and dealt with matters of argument. Moreover, the article focuses not only on responsibilities, but also the rights of the Union members, the right to summon “common meetings” in particular. In addition, it highlights the question of the Union's cooperation with the Polish government, including the financing issues. In spite of the fact that since 1926 the Union had been receiving financing from the Polish government, the amount of money was hardly enough to pay the grants to the current Union members and the organization's utility services payments. However, the Union had to provide aid not only to its members, but also to the people who couldn't complete all necessary paperwork on time or those who found themselves in dire financial condition or the ones who lost their jobs and so on. That is why the Union organized various charity events like evening parties, balls, tea parties and the like on a regular basis, as well as concerts, mug and plate gatherings and the so-called Russian disabled day. However, despite quite various ways of receiving extra investment, the Union's financing was quite restricted, so that it even couldn't afford to buy its own headquarters. Moreover, the Union planned to purchase another accommodation.

Keywords

Authors

References