Trabzon and Samsun during Turkey’s Struggle for Liberation and Independence in Mikhail Frunze’s and Evgeniy Lansere’s Travel Diaries (1921–1922)

The article strives to restore historical impression of the Turkish cities Trabzon and Samson located on the Anatolian littoral of the Black Sea and episodes of their daily life during the period of National Struggle for liberation and independence under the leadership of Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha on the base of Mikhail Frunze’s travel diary “A Trip to Angora” («Поездка в Ангору») and Silver Age artist Eugene Lansere’s travel diary “Summer in Angora” («Лето в Ангоре»). Frunze visited Trabzon and Samsun in November-December, 1921 during his journey to Ankara and once again in January, 1922 en route back to Russia from Ankara. Lansere also visited Trabzon and Samsun in June, 1922 during his journey to Ankara and repeatedly passed Trabzon in October of the same year, going home to Russia from Turkey. Both Frunze and Lansere became direct eye-witnesses of these cities’ everyday lives during the days of National Struggle in Turkey. Moreover, in their travel diaries they narrated valuable data regarding everyday life, roadsteads, economics, and their meetings with Turkish officials in those cities. Travel diaries of Mikhail Frunze and Eugene Lansere supplement each other in a very precise way, restoring impressions of Trabzon and Samsun. We provide here Eugene Lansere's sketches of the Persian camel caravan in Trabzon, his sketch of passengers and cargo transportation from steamships to the shore in Samsun, while a drawing of wooden barge can serve an additional visual source to Frunze’s records on Trabzon and Samsun.