Captives of the First World War in the Kurgan district

The article deals with the process of locating foreign war prisoners in the Kurgan district from September 1914 to January 1917 and provides the data on their number and placement process. The author studies in detail the employment of captives in the economy of the district and characterizes the food, monetary and other regulations. The article also contains the information about companies and jobs where captives were involved and analyzes the legal rules applicable to captives and their practical implementation. The overview of the governance structure of captives is given. On the basis of extensive archival material, the author provides many early-unknown or little-studied historical facts about Trans-Urals in a given period. The conclusion is made about the importance of captives' labor for the economic development of the Kurgan district during the First World War. The war prisoners were deeply involved in the economic development of the Kurgan district, their number was considerable, and they represented the major group of the population. It is also worth mentioning that the conditions of captives affected directly the military situation in the country - if at the beginning of the war, they were actually recognized by the Russian army, to its completion the allowance has been abbreviated in order to save the military.