The Russian army and the population in the First World War: front-line everyday life and events

Abstract

The article is intended to analyze the practice of front-line daily relations between the Russian army and the population in the First World War. The work done on new archival materials uses the concept of a military frontier that created a situation of distancing ethnic groups in the western outskirts and army structures in the theater of operations. The main forms of manifestation of the relationship between the army and the population in the field of ensuring security, supply, human contacts and the general perception by the army of ethnic groups in the socio-political context are explored. The author comes to the conclusion that the experience of relations between the army and the population in the course of front-line everyday life on these aspects led to the formation of negative perception of the population in the army, gave rise to mutual alienation of servicemen and residents not only in the territory of the enemy, but also on the territory of the Allies and even on its own territory. Attempts to remove mutual alienation between the army and the population were of an eventual nature, but they did not solve the problems of alienation and hostility at the personal level. Their final decision was seen in the central event - the end of the war and the beginning of social and political reforms in Russia itself.