The Committee of Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna for the Temporary Relief of Victims of War (), commonly known simply as the Tatiana Committee (), was a war-refugee relief organization during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Organized in September 1914 and named after Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, daughter of Emperor

Nicholas II of Russia Nicholas II (Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov; 186817 July 1918) or Nikolai II was the last reigning Emperor of Russia, Congress Poland, King of Congress Poland, and Grand Duke of Finland from 1 November 1894 until Abdication of Nicholas II, hi ...

, the committee provided aid (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) to refugees and others affected by the war, organized schools and hospitals, provided grants to other charitable organizations. It was the central refugee relief organizations in Russia until the establishment of the Special Council of Refugees () on 30 August 1915. The Tatiana Committee was reorganized after the

February Revolution The February Revolution (), known in Soviet historiography as the February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution and sometimes as the March Revolution or February Coup was the first of Russian Revolution, two revolutions which took place in Russia ...

in 1917 – it dropped Tatiana's name, announced elections to key posts, allowed refugees to represent themselves. The reorganized committee was known as the All-Russian Committee to Assist Victims of War (). Deprived of its semi-official government status and state funding, the committee diminished significantly.

Establishment and funding

Established on 14 September 1914 by an imperial decree, the committee took its name from Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna, the 17-year-old daughter of Emperor

. The committee included 28 dignitaries from the Imperial Court and the State Council. It was chaired by state councilor . Tatiana Nikolaevna was not just a patron of the committee, but also a participant – she attended meetings and dealt with paperwork. The committee was initially funded by 900,000

rubles The ruble or rouble (; rus, рубль, p=rublʲ) is a currency unit. Currently, currencies named ''ruble'' in circulation include the Russian ruble (RUB, ₽) in Russia and the Belarusian ruble (BYN, Rbl) in Belarus. These currencies are su ...

from Emperor's personal funds. It received further funding from the state – about 14 million rubles between July 1915 and 1 May 1917. It also raised money from donations, charity balls, raffles, auctions, and other fundraising initiatives such as selling postcards with Tatiana's image. For example, during the celebrations of Tatiana's birthday on 29–31 May 1915, the committee raised 2.2 million rubles. The committee's employees took no salary.

Activities

Initially, the committee focused on helping war widows and soldiers' children, but it switched to assisting war refugees by the summer of 1915, providing them with food, clothes, and shelter. Newly arriving refugees were met at railway stations, registered, given food stamps and temporary shelter for 5–10 days, and then dispersed in provincial towns and villages. Other activities included reuniting separated families, establishing orphanages, schools, and hospitals, providing aid to non-refugees who had nevertheless suffered from the war, and providing grants to other local war-aid organizations. For example, the committee provided a 400,000-ruble grant to the (later reorganized into the

Central Welfare Council The Central Welfare Council (sometimes also translated as Main Social Services Council-- Polish, Rada Główna Opiekuńcza) was one of the very few Polish social organizations that were allowed to work under the German occupation of Poland in Worl ...

) and a 9,500-ruble monthly grant to the

Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers The Lithuanian Society for the Relief of War Sufferers () was a Lithuanian charity organization that was active from 1914 to 1918. It was founded by various Lithuanian political figures as a committee to assist Lithuanian refugees of the First W ...

. The Tatiana Committee established numerous local branches: 66 at the provincial level and 220 at the

uyezd An uezd (also spelled uyezd or uiezd; rus, уе́зд ( pre-1918: уѣздъ), p=ʊˈjest), or povit in a Ukrainian context () was a type of administrative subdivision of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, the R ...

and

volost Volost (; ; ) was a traditional administrative subdivision in Kievan Rus', the Grand Duchy of Moscow, and the Russian Empire. History The '' Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary'' (1890–1907) states that the origins of the concept is unc ...

level by October 1915. While the committee faced criticism that it was an establishment of the imperial regime, it undertook some novel initiatives to help the refugees. At the end of 1916, the committee distributed a detailed questionnaire soliciting feedback from the refugees. In spring 1917, it organized an exhibition of refugee handicraft in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

to showcase that they were hardworking people, demonstrate and appreciate cultural differences, and tell stories of refugee plight. The committee also helped refugees fleeing the

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, and

Assyrian genocide The Sayfo (, ), also known as the Seyfo or the Assyrian genocide, was the mass murder and deportation of Assyrian/Syriac Christians in southeastern Anatolia and Persia's Azerbaijan province by Ottoman forces and some Kurdish tribes during ...

s in the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an empire, imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Centr ...

. In its mission the committee competed with the All-Russian Union of Towns (VSG; ) and the All-Russian Zemstvo Union (VZS). While they shared the same humanitarian goals, there were political tensions between the organizations, particularly when it came to registering refugees and gathering national statistics. The VSG and VZS, based on local self-government institutions of city dumas and

zemstvo A zemstvo (, , , ''zemstva'') was an institution of local government set up in consequence of the emancipation reform of 1861 of Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexander II of Russia. Nikolay Milyutin elaborated the idea of the zemstvo, and the fi ...

s, were well suited for this task, but the central government did not trust them and delegated the task to the Tatiana Committee. By spring 1916, it counted more than 3.3 million refugees.

References

{{reflist, refs= {{cite book , first=Louisine , last=Abrahamyan, chapter=The Condition of Armenian Refugees and Orphans as Reported in Armyanskiy Vestnik , page=117 , title=Mass Media and the Genocide of the Armenians: One Hundred Years of Uncertain Representation , year=2016 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1lPeCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 , editor-first1=Stefanie , editor-last1=Kappler , editor-first2= Sylvia , editor-last2=Kasparian , editor-first3= Richard , editor-last3=Godin , editor-first4= Joceline , editor-last4=Chabot , publisher=Palgrave Macmillan , isbn=978-1-137-56402-3 {{cite journal , first=Irina , last=Belova , journal=Vestnik Baltijskogo Federalʹnogo Universiteta Im. I. Kanta (Online) , url=https://journals.kantiana.ru/upload/iblock/ff7/Belova_51-62.pdf , script-title=ru:Беженцы Первой мировой войны из западных районов Российской империи: обеспечение жизнедеятельности в местах временного проживания , script-journal=ru:Вестник Балтийского федерального университета им. И. Канта , year=2013 , language=ru , issn=2310-3698 , pages=54, 58 {{cite book , first=Irina , last=Belova , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=om65DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT122 , chapter=‘Human waves’: refugees in Russia, 1914–18 , title=Europe on the Move: Refugees in the Era of the Great War , editor-first1=Peter , editor-last1=Gatrell , editor-first2=Liubov , editor-last2=Zhvanko , year=2017 , publisher=Manchester University Press , pages=90–91 , isbn=9781784994419 {{cite book, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ImZhDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT190 , title=A Minor Apocalypse: Warsaw during the First World War , first=Robert , last=Blobaum , publisher=Cornell University Press , isbn=9781501707872 , page=129 , year=2017 {{cite book, first=Peter , last=Gatrell , title=A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I , url=https://archive.org/details/wholeempirewalki00gatr , url-access=limited , publisher=Indiana University Press , year=2005 , isbn=978-0253213464 , page
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��42 {{cite journal , first=Peter , last=Gatrell , title=War, Refugeedom, Revolution: Understanding Russia's refugee crisis, 1914‑1918 , journal=Cahiers du monde russe , issue=58 , volume=1–2 , year=2017 , accessdate=31 March 2020 , url=http://journals.openedition.org/monderusse/10073 , doi=10.4000/monderusse.10073 , pages=123–146, url-access=subscription {{cite journal , last1 = Gleason , first1 = William E. , date = July 1976 , title = The All-Russian Union of Towns and the Politics of Urban Reform in Tsarist Russia , journal = The Russian Review , volume = 35 , issue = 3 , pages = 290–302 , doi = 10.2307/128405 , jstor = 128405 , quote = Originating in the civic campaign to mobilize human and material resources for World War I, the All-Russian Union of Towns' (''Vserosiiskii Soiuz Gorodov'') official objectives were to expedite the evacuation of soldiers and civilians from the war zone and to staff hospitals for the sick and wounded. {{cite web , first= Andrei P. , last=Kerzum , url=http://encblago.lfond.spb.ru/showObject.do?object=2812191820 , script-title=ru:Комитет Е.И.В. вел. кнж. Татианы Николаевны по оказанию временной помощи пострадавшим от военных действий (Татьянинский комитет) , script-work=ru:Энциклопедия благотворительности: Санкт-Петербург , publisher=Фонд имени Д. С. Лихачева , language=ru , accessdate=2017-05-15 {{cite book , first=Melissa Kirschke , last=Stockdale , title=Mobilizing the Russian Nation: Patriotism and Citizenship in the First World War , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xtt7DQAAQBAJ&pg=PA110 , publisher=Cambridge University Press , year=2016 , pages=110–111, isbn=9781107093867 {{cite book, first=Mark von , last=Hagen , chapter=War and Transformation of Loyalties and Identities in the Russian Empire, 1914-1918 , series=Annali della Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli , year=2000 , title=Russia in the age of wars 1914-1945 , editor-first1=Silvio , editor-last1=Pons , editor-first2=Andrea , editor-last2=Romano , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_bCWJc2nHdkC&pg=PA18 , page=18 , isbn=8807990555 , location=Milano , publisher=Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli {{cite book, title=The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra , first=Helen , last=Rappaport , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vADHAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA256 , publisher=St. Martin's Press , year=2014 , isbn=9781250020215 , pages=235, 256 {{cite web, url=https://rusarminfo.ru/2019/03/02/kak-armyan-v-gody-genocida-spasal-komitet-docheri-nikolaya-ii/ , script-title=ru:Как армян в годы Геноцида спасал комитет дочери русского царя , date= 2 March 2019 , publisher=RusArmInfo , language=ru , accessdate=31 March 2020 {{cite web, first= Rasa , last=Sperskienė , url=http://www.mab.lt/Pirmasis-pasaulinis-karas-pradzia/08-Tatjanos.html , title=Tatjanos komitetas , publisher=Lietuvos mokslų akademijos Vrublevskių biblioteka , year=2014 , work=Lietuvos visuomenė Pirmojo pasaulinio karo pradžioje: įvykiai, draugijos, asmenybės , language=lt , accessdate=2017-05-15 {{cite book , first=Ivan , last=Vasiliev , journal=Васильев И.н. Процесс Ликвидации Местных Отделений Татьянинского Комитета Весной – Летом 1917 Г. На Примере Петроградской Губернии , url=https://www.academia.edu/41055415 , script-chapter=ru:Процесс ликвидации местных отделений Татьянинского комитета весной – летом 1917 г. на примере Петроградской губернии , script-title=ru:Революция 1917 года в России: новые подходы и взгляды , year=2019 , publisher=Publishing House of the Russian State Pedagogical University Named after A.I. Herzen , editor-first=A. B. , editor-last=Nikolaev , language=ru , pages=95–96 , oclc=1141736511 , isbn=9785806427794 {{cite book, title=Iš Agaro krašto: 1885–1941 , language=lt , url=http://knyga.lietuvai.lt/w/images/b/b3/Martynas_Yčas._Iš_Agaro_krašto_1885-1941.pdf , first=Martynas , last=Yčas , location=Kaunas , publisher=Candela , year=2009 , isbn= 978-9986-400-21-9 , page=145 Refugee aid organizations Russian Empire in World War I Organizations based in the Russian Empire 1914 establishments in the Russian Empire Organizations established in 1914 1917 disestablishments in Russia Organizations disestablished in 1917