Prisoners of the First World War in a New Homeland: The Practices of Adaptation

The article examines the adaptation practices of former prisoners of war of the First World War, who remained permanently in Russia/USSR and ended up on the territory of modern Kazakhstan.The study is based on the materials of archival and investigative cases of the period of the Great Terror (1937-1938), deposited in the archives of Kazakhstan.The historical excursion introduces the problems of the history of captivity, gives an idea of the number and location of prisoners of war in Turkestan and the Steppe region, the ethnic and national composition of the contingent, the migration mobility of prisoners of war and their participation in the civil war in Russia.The Soviet repatriation and option policy of the first half of the 1920s and the specifics of the return migration of prisoners of war and refugees from the Central Asian and Ural-Siberian regions are analyzed.The problems of adaptation and integration of prisoners of war are studied through the analysis of Soviet legislation regarding foreigners in the sphere of naturalization and integration, as well as the practices of its application.The dynamics of national and civil status, migration and social mobility, and marriageability are shown.Personal documents, including materials of correspondence with foreign addressees (relatives and friends), provide personal, economic and political arguments both in support of departure and the desire to remain permanently in the USSR.It is established that captivity for former prisoners of war became not only a trauma, but also a social marker, securing for them the status of "the former", which ultimately made them marginal in Soviet society.