Ricerc@Sapienza

The First World War caused a massive population displacement that involved approximately 6 million people. The problem of refugees was a direct consequence of war operations and characterized both the Western front, for example Belgium, and even more the enor-mously vast areas of the Eastern front. In Russia “refugeedom” was articulated on the ground of the dichotomy civil vs. military power. On the one side, the army evacuated entire areas, expelled people and generated increasingly flows of refugees, on the other, lo-cal authorities, the Union of Zemstvos and the Union of Towns, with the support of organizations such as Ekopo, dealt with the demands of social services throughout the empire, trying to reduce and mitigate the effects of this humani-tarian emergency.