The Burden on the Railways and the Repatriation of the Dead during the Great War

This chapter is specific research analysing the sources on the history of war burials in the capital of the Russian Empire, Petrograd (now St Petersburg). It deals with the dead soldiers whose bodies were brought to Petrograd for burial or taken from there to be buried in other Russian settlements during the war. Wanting to understand the reasons, the mechanism and the extent of this phenomenon, this chapter focuses on the railway aspect of the phenomenon of the repatriation of the dead. To do this, it is necessary to give an overview of the Russian railway system before the war, to trace the problems that the railways faced during the war, and to answer the question: did the transport of the deceased place a significant burden on the railways?