V.P. Shelgunov and the Aid to Russian Prisoners of War in the Netherlands and Belgium during the First World War

This article focuses on Vasilii Petrovich Shelgunov (P.V. Balashov, 1866-1943), a Russian revolutionary who fled his country in 1908 and settled in Brussels as the Belgian correspondent of the liberal daily Russkie vedomosti. In 1914, he covered the outbreak of war in Belgium and the fate of Russian émigrés therein; as of 1915 he organized the aid to Russian prisoners of war (POW) in the Netherlands; and in 1920 he facilitated the return of these POWs from Belgium to Soviet Russia. As a transnational intermediary he had more freedom of action than official diplomats, but at the same time his status as an alien made his susceptible to slander and abuse. In exchange for (unofficial) services rendered to Belgium, he was allowed to stay in Belgium, where he dedicated himself to the promotion of Soviet culture. Building on extensive archival and literary research, this article wants to rescue from oblivion the life, deeds and networks of a forgotten transnational intermediary and migrant who played a pivotal role in the relation between Russia and the Low Countries in and around the First World War.