Austro-Hungarian Prisoners of War and Refugees in the Volga Region in the Context of the Economic and Political Processes During WWI (Based on the Materials of the State Archive of Volgograd Region)

Drawing on the archival materials, the author describes some episodes of the stay of the Austro-Hungarian subjects in the Volga region in Russia in 1916-1917, when Tsaritsyn and Saratov gubernias housed a certain number of foreigners, who were divided into prisoners of war and refugees by their social status. In this paper, the author focues on their social and economic situation, financing, use of their labour in agriculture, relations with employers, their distribution by local authorities in the region and on the state level. Among questions considered are the wage rates of prisoners of war in peasant farms, the secury paid by the employer, living conditions, provision of food and clothing. In the context of wartime and difficult economic situation, the Russian authorities called for the “rational” use of prisoners of war, which meant using them in production or on farms as unskilled workers. However, despite these requirements, foreign citizens were sometimes recoreded as trying to find a job, basing on their pre-war knowledge and professional skills. On the other hand, this category of people did not remain indifferent to the political changes in Russia. As a result of the February and October revolutions, prisoners of war and refugees attempted to self-organise and establish contacts with representatives of the Provisional and later Bolshevik governments. Representatives of various nationalities organised committees and societies aimed at returning people to their homeland, overcoming the financial crisis, helping the needy fellow citizens, etc. Despite the political instability in the region and country, representatives of the Russian administration did their best to carry out systematic work on the registration and control of foreign citizens.

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