Some Determinations on Turkish Prisoners of War in Ukraine and Other Regions of Russia During I.Worl War

Abstract

In this paper, the situations of Turkish soldiers who were captured by the Russians in I. World War and some policies about those prisoners of war and their implementations by the Ottoman Government and succeeding Turkish Grand National Assemly were dealt with. The life of Turkish prisoners in Ukraine, Caucasia and Russia is full of various troubles and dramas, as the incisive bill of the war. The Turkish local folks who witnessed those dramas endeavoured to provide humanitarian assistance for Turkish prisoners as much as possible. It is known that they set up various assistance commitees to that end. The Ottoman Government and succeeding Turkish Grand National Assemly dealt with their situations and attempted to do whatever they could to bring the Turkish prisoners in Russia to Anatolia. The question of Turkish prisoners was one of the issues to discuss in the frame of good fellowship of Turkish Ankara Government with the Soviets. The Turkish government in Ankara signed up a treaty to exchange prisoners with the Soviet Russia on 28th Marc 1921. About 6 monts later, on 17th September 1921, a similar prisoner exchange treaty was signed up with the Republic of Soviet Socialist Ukraine in Moscow. Despite some problems confronted from times to times, a myriad of Turkish prisoners of war returned to Anatolia as a result of these treaties. However, there were some prisoners who could not return to Anatolia, who died of various kinds of tortures, and a few who got married in Russia and settled there. In this paper, the problems the Turkish prisoners of war in Ukraine and other regions of Russia confronted and some relevant events were evaluated in the frame of archive documents and other sources.