GENERAL VLADIMIR POLTAVTSEV’S UNPUBLISHED MEMOIRS ABOUT THE PARTICIPATION OF ARMENIANS IN THE CAUCASIAN CAMPAIGN OF WORLD WAR I
Significant studies, articles, memoirs, and collections of documents and materials have been written about Armenians, particularly Armenian volunteer detachments, on the Caucasian or Russian-Turkish front of the First World War. Among these is the unpublished memoir of Vladimir Nikolayevich Poltavtsev (June 4, 1875 – January 19, 1937), a general of the Russian army, a participant in the White movement, and an émigré major general. Poltavtsev graduated from the Kiev Infantry Junker School (1897) and the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff (1904). During the Russo-Japanese War, he was in the active army but did not participate in combat operations. He participated in the First World War and the White movement. In 1917, he was promoted to the rank of major general. On the eve of the First World War, on October 11, 1913 , and at the beginning, he held the positions of Chief of Staff of the Azerbaijan (Atropatene) detachment stationed in Northern Persia and the Caucasian 2nd Rifle Brigade within it, then the division (1913-1916), and other positions, and was awarded the Order of St. George with Weapons and other decorations . During the trial of Lieutenant General N. A. Marx , he was a member of the field military court (1919), and then emigrated to Yugoslavia, Belgrade , where he was a member of the editorial board of the newspaper “Русский голос” (“Russian Voice”).
Poltavtsev’s unpublished manuscripts are preserved in the archive of the former Quartermaster General of the Caucasian Army, Major General E. V. Maslovsky (1876-1971), which is located in the B. A. Bakhmetev Archive at Columbia University in the USA and in the State Archives of the Russian Federation.
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