Prisoners of war austro-hungarian medical workers in Nizhny Novgorod (1914-1917): a collective portrait

The article reveals the process of reconstruction of the main characteristics of the social status of doctors and medical students of the Austro-Hungarian army who were in Russian captivity and held in Nizhny Novgorod in 1914- 1917. The relevance of the research is connected with the insufficient development of this topic in historiography. The source base is the materials of the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod region. Lower Novgorod and the county towns of the province during the First World War were important detention centers for prisoners of war of the countries of the Quadruple Alliance. Nizhny Novgorod also became one of the most important stages of the evacuation of the wounded and the concentration of military medical medical institutions. The article notes that these factors directly influenced the maintenance of medical prisoners of war. During the war, about 60 doctors of the central powers were captured in Russia. Of this number, 6 specialists, that is, every tenth, were kept in Nizhny Novgorod. The author pays attention to the origin, religion, education, the order of promotion and the conditions of captivity of Austro-Hungarian doctors. Data on the status of the registration of prisoners of war in the region are being introduced into scientific circulation. The research is based on the principles of historicism, scientific objectivity, and determinism. Methods of analysis, synthesis, comparative-historical, chronological are applied. The novelty of the research consists in obtaining new knowledge about the conditions of origin, service, captivity and peculiarities of accounting for medical personnel of the armed forces of Austria-Hungary during the First World War. The author highlights the main features of the collective portrait of the Austro-Hungarian medical staff and medical students held in Nizhny Novgorod, based on the analysis of personal data.