This is a finding aid. It is a description of archival material held in the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Unless otherwise noted, the materials described below are physically available in our reading room, and not digitally available through the World Wide Web. See the Duplication Policy section for more information.
Size | 0.5 feet of linear shelf space (approximately 246 items) |
Abstract | The Transcaspian Provisional Government (Zakaspiiskoe vremennoe pravitel’stvo) was one of the forces contending for power in Turkmenistan between 1918 and 1919. The government was formed 11-12 July 1918, in the wake of an uprising against Bolshevik authorities in Ashgabat (Ashkhabad). The government underwent several reorganizations as military and domestic challenges mounted. Its Executive Committee (Ispolnitel’nyi komitet), headed by F.A. Funtikov and composed of, among others, Lieutenant General I.V. Savitskii, L.A. Zimin, V. Dokhov, Iu. Makarov, and N.N. Diterikhs, was disbanded in January 1919. It was replaced by the Committee for Public Safety (Komitet obshchestvennogo spaseniia), a "directorate" (direktoriia) of two Turkmen and three Russian representatives, including L.A. Zimin and Major General A.E. Kruten’. Lieutenant General Savitskii was appointed commander of the Transcaspian forces in March 1919, as General Malleson began to pull troops out of the region and General Denikin assumed military jurisdiction. Following the withdrawal of the British Military Mission in April 1919 and several military defeats, including the capture of Ashgabat by the Red Army, the Transcaspian Provisional Government dissolved in August 1919. The collection contains documents of the Transcaspian Provisional Government, including economic, military, and diplomatic reports, official correspondence, directives, identification documents, and other materials. Many of these documents are authorized copies produced between 1918 and 1920. The collection also contains a few items of personal correspondence, mainly concerning provisional government officials E.P. Dzhunkovskii and I.V. Savitskii. |
Creator | Transcaspian Provisional Government |
Curatorial Unit | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Library. Rare Book Collection. |
Language | Russian |
Processed by: Mary Mellon, July 2014
Encoded by: Amanda Loeb, August 2014
Diacritics and other special characters have been omitted from this finding aid to facilitate keyword searching in web browsers.
Back to TopThe following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.
Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.
The Transcaspian Provisional Government (Zakaspiiskoe vremennoe pravitel’stvo) was one of the forces contending for power in Turkmenistan between 1918 and 1919.
The government, composed primarily of Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries, was formed July 11-12, 1918, in the wake of an uprising against Bolshevik authorities in Ashgabat (Ashkhabad). The government received financial assistance, supplies, and military support from the British Military Mission under General Wilfrid Malleson, and also coordinated with White Army forces under General A.I. Denikin.
The government underwent several reorganizations as military and domestic challenges mounted. Its Executive Committee (Ispolnitel’nyi komitet), headed by F.A. Funtikov and composed of, among others, Lieutenant General I.V. Savitskii, L.A. Zimin, V. Dokhov, Iu. Makarov, and N.N. Diterikhs, was disbanded in January 1919. It was replaced by the Committee for Public Safety (Komitet obshchestvennogo spaseniia), a "directorate" (direktoriia) of two Turkmen and three Russian representatives, including L.A. Zimin and Major General A.E. Kruten’. Lieutenant General Savitskii was appointed commander of the Transcaspian forces in March 1919, as General Malleson began to pull troops out of the region and General Denikin assumed military jurisdiction.
Following the withdrawal of the British Military Mission in April 1919 and several military defeats, including the capture of Ashgabat by the Red Army, the Transcaspian Provisional Government dissolved in August 1919. The Red Army established control of the region by February 1920.
Evgenii Petrovich Dzhunkovskii (1867-1953) was a veterinarian and civil servant in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del) before the revolutions of 1917. In early 1918, he became a founding member of the Turkestan Union in the Fight against Bolshevism (Turkestanskii soiuz bor'by s bol'shevizmom). In the Transcaspian Provisional Government, Dzhunkovskii served as aide to the Chairman of the Executive Committee until its dissolution. In March 1919 he became the aide for civilian affairs to General Savitskii. After the loss of the region to the Red Army, Dzhunkosvkii emigrated. He died in France and is buried at the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery outside of Paris.
Back to TopThe collection contains documents of the Transcaspian Provisional Government, including economic, military, and diplomatic reports, official correspondence, directives, identification documents, and other materials. Many of these documents are authorized copies produced between 1918 and 1920. The collection also contains a few items of personal correspondence, mainly concerning E.P. Dzhunkovskii and I.V. Savitskii.
Major topics include: Political attitudes across the Transcaspian region, Georgia, and Persia (Iran); financial situation and requests for economic aid; local military recruitment and training; military operations; foreign relations, mainly with the British Military Mission under General Wilfrid Malleson; manufacturing, agricultural production, and trade; and communication with other anti-Bolshevik organizations, including White Army forces under Admiral A.V. Kolchak and Orenburg Cossacks under A.I. Dutov.
Correspondents include: E.P. Dzhunkovskii and other officials within the Transcaspian government and armed forces (Lieutenant General I.V. Savitskii, N.N. Diterikhs, Iu. Makarov, L.A. Zimin, Major General A.E. Kruten’, Colonel B.N. Litvinov), General Wilfrid Malleson, General I.G. Erdeli, and Major General V.G. Naumenko.
Materials are predominantly in Russian; documents in English and French are noted at the folder level.
Back to TopArrangement: chronological.
Processing Note: Collection materials were bound in two volumes at the time of acquisition. Documents have been disbound and kept in the same order (roughly chronological). Pages and items are numbered according to the order in which they were bound. Loose correspondence has been inserted in chronological order. Newspaper issues have been removed and cataloged separately from the collection.
Folder 1 |
Ephemera |
Folder 2 |
1918: June-DecemberIncludes a copy of the agreement between the British and Transcaspian governments (August 1918); two secret circulars from the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Persia (November-December, 1918); and calculations for establishing a Kirgiz cavalry (French). |
Folder 3 |
1919: January-FebruaryIncludes one secret circular from the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Persia. |
Folder 4 |
1919: MarchIncludes a copy of a report from Tiflis on the Georgian-Armenian conflict, activities of German and British troops, and other topics. |
Folder 5 |
1919: March-April |
Folder 6-7
Folder 6Folder 7 |
1919: AprilIncludes a report from the Committee of Public Safety to General Erdeli, requesting financial and military aid; and Iu. Makarov's notes on negotiations with the British (copies in Russian and English). |
Folder 8 |
1919: April-MayIncludes "Short description of the military and financial help shown by the British Military Command to the Government of the Transcaspian Province in the period of August 1918 to April 1919" (English); and a report from the Committee of Public Safety to General Erdeli requesting aid. |
Folder 9 |
1919: June |
Folder 10 |
1919: JulyIncludes documents related to the evacuation of Ashgabat. |
Folder 11 |
1919: July |
Folder 12 |
1919: July-November |
Folder 13 |
MiscellaneousIncludes a request for information on Litvinov (1930); and a copy of a report authored by Litvinov in 1918. |