The Exile History Review

In Memory of Stanisław Żurakowski

2023-11-17T13:20:04+01:00

"Kultura" and Its Forgotten University in Exile

2024-01-12T09:18:34+01:00

Instytut Literacki Kultura (ILK) was the core of anti-communist resistance during the Cold War: it promoted independent political thought and understanding among central and eastern European countries while showing resilience against Communist regimes. Although ILK is mostly known for its monthly exile magazine Kultura, edited in Polish, its founder-editor Jerzy Giedroyc had anticipated another project in addition to a Literary Institute after the war. Foreseeing a long period of exile because of the Soviet occupation of Poland, he envisioned setting up a university for young Poles. His idea, which was delayed a few years because of the beginning of the Cold War, developed into a project with Józef Czapski to create a university for young refugees fleeing their communist countries from behind the Iron Curtain. After three years of preparation within ILK, the Free Europe University in Exile and its study center, Collège de l’Europe libre, were established in 1951 under the auspices of the American anti-communist organization National Committee for a Free Europe, yet Giedroyc and Czapski were excluded from its activities. The aim of this article is to trace the history of this essentially unknown initiative of the Polish exile group using archival holdings in Europe and the United States, and to highlight its importance within ILK.

Unknown Documents Related to Gen. Wacław Scaevola- -Wieczorkiewicz from the World War II Period

2024-01-12T09:18:32+01:00

Gen. Wacław Scaevola-Wieczorkiewicz was renowned for his commanding abilities, courage and conscientious character since the days of the legions. This caused him to quickly climb the military career ladder in the Second Republic. During this time, he acquired practical and theoretical experience, which earned him the general’s rank in 1927. He served longest in the military unit in Jarosław (1926–1935), to spend the last years before the outbreak of war at DOK (Corps District Command) number X in Przemyśl as its commander. During World War II (after the Polish campaign) he emigrated, thus beginning his soldier-refugee life. Among other places, he stayed in France (where he was assigned in the Chief Commander’s Training Inspectorate) and then in Switzerland, where he remained after the war until his death in 1969. This publication presents two hitherto unknown documents created during World War II, which concerned the person of Gen. W. Scaevola-Wieczorkiewicz. According to them, he was accused of abusing his authority as an officer in the construction of his own house in Rozwadów, near StalowaWola, and had to clarify the matter. This was important, since at that time several institutions were established in exile that sought and collected information that could later become the basis for lawsuits, especially against those associated with the pre-war Sanation. Those undoubtedly included Gen. W. Scaevola-Wieczorkiewicz. Presumably, the so-called “strong evidence” could not be collected, as Gen. Scaevola-Wieczorkiewicz did not appear in court as a defendant. Nonetheless, these two documents show, on the one hand, a meticulous effort to hold the previous power camp accountable and to remove it from any real influence on Polish refugee state policy, and on the other, they make clear the multifaceted nature of the potential allegations that could have formed the basis for an indictment.

Exiles on Main Street: The Centrality of Exile in Transatlantic Relations

2024-01-12T09:18:28+01:00

This article explores the meaning of exile in political theory and its importance within our understanding of political organization and more specifically transatlantic relations. Attention for the political ramifications of the movement of people across borders is divided among the study of diasporas, forced migration, and cultural transfer, as well as exile. The article covers the definition of the term and its use in the Western political tradition, focusing on its meaning and its relevance for conceptions of political progress under modernity. By examining the use of “exile” in relation to Latin American politics, the article puts forward a contrasting critical sketch of exile in transatlantic relations through the 20th century.

In Search of “Good Russians”: Ukrainian-Russian Encounters in the United States During the First Cold War

2024-01-12T09:18:26+01:00

The article is devoted to the topic of Ukrainian-Russian intellectual encounters in exile during the Cold War. The author focuses on Ukraine’s and Russia’s mutual representations in historical narratives in connection with their respective discourses of national identity. The article also describes sporadic attempts at establishing Ukrainian-Russian public dialogue in exile starting in the early 1960s. All of them were initiated and conducted by Ukrainian public activists and intellectuals. The author concludes that participants on both sides ascribed opposing meanings to historical terms. Russian authors, on the one hand, consistently used the modern designation “Ukrainian” as a synonym for “Little Russian,” which automatically situated Ukraine within the “pan-Russian” historical framework. Ukrainian historians, on the other hand, tried to reinterpret “Russian” as a modern national designation rather than an imperial one. Hence the Ukrainian-Russian dialogue had no chance of succeeding unless Russian participants agreed to rethink their discourse of national identity. It is no wonder that many American observers remained confused about the nature of Ukrainian-Russian debates: to them, they looked like a dead-end situation. Thus, rather than trying to find alternative interpretations of Ukrainian and Russian history, most Western specialists followed either one or the other respective national narrative.

Mercenaries of a Phantom War The “Hostile Emigration” in Yugoslavia’s Globalized Ideology of Insecurity

2024-01-12T09:18:23+01:00

Yugoslav state security services became infamous for organizing dozens of targeted killings against hostile emigrants abroad. What can be regarded as an interlinked chain of violence and counter-violence has more to it. First, there is the experience of external threats (not only) common to Communist leaders. But in the Yugoslav case, the global non-aligned position of the country strengthened the insecurity felt by the leadership. This was caused by a close identification with Third World countries affected by Cold War interventions. Officials and politicians concerned with security matters interpreted the continuing aggression of the “hostile emigration” as part and proof of a subliminal “Special War” against the socialist self-administration system. As a response, the state security stepped up the lethal operations in the host countries of the “hostile emigration”. The study starts with the development of anti-Communist and pro-Soviet exile activism in the post-war period. It traces the reinforcement of the danger posed by hostile émigrés back to the early 1960s, when Yugoslavia became a prominent member of the Non- Aligned Movement. Also, it analyses the roots of the “Special War” and shows how this idea of external intervention was transferred to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). The consequences of the adaptation to the Yugoslav conditions are addressed as well as the outcome for the treatment of the “hostile emigration.” A critical assessment of émigré terrorism is followed by the presentation of exemplified cases. This essay seeks for a better comprehension of the mental disposition behind the drastic measures applied by Yugoslav secret services. Therefore, it is focused on the importance of the antagonistic emigration for the concept of the “Special War.”

From “Exile” to “Diaspora”: The Shift in Self-Identification among Refugee Latvians, 1944–2023

2024-01-12T09:18:40+01:00

The 175,000- Latvians who fled their northeastern European homeland in the final year of World War II (1944–45) eventually resettled in some four continents and twenty different host societies. Their tasks were many, ranging from “freeing” Latvia among the politically minded to building a new life in their host societies. For some ten years after the war, their official status remained uncertain, as did the terms they used to describe themselves. Eventually, the agreed upon frame of reference became trimda (Eng. exile). It was the rare social, cultural, and polit-ical activity that was not discussed within the exile framework, and an impressive cultural superstructure was built upon it from the 1950s to the 1980s. This framework, however, became anachronistic after 1991 and the collapse of the USSR. Western Latvians could no longer claim to be in exile, but relatively few of them showed a willingness to return to the old homeland. Two decades of discussion about identity eventually led the new Latvian government and social-science researchers in Latvia to propose the term diaspora for all Latvians living outside the country’s borders. This term has been generally accepted, even by the still living World War II refugees and their descendants, who now refer to themselves as the vecā trimda (Eng. old exile) component of the diaspora.

New Tools against the Soviet Union in the Political Work of the Latvian Diaspora in the 1970s–1980s: The Case of Human Rights Violations in the Soviet Union

2024-01-12T09:18:21+01:00

Starting with, and initiated by, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe in the first half of 1970s, the topic of human rights violations in the Soviet Union, and specifically in the Baltic states, became part of the Latvian diaspora’s political argumentation when lobbying against the Soviet Union in host countries. Almost unknown before, this topic was very prominent in the political activities of the 1970s and 1980s up until the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The issue of human rights violations in the political argumentation of the Latvian and Baltic diasporas as a whole has always been inextricably linked to the main political goal of these diasporas – the restoration of the right to political self-determination for the Baltic states. Without self-determination, human rights cannot be realized – this is how the basic principle of the diaspora’s position could be summarized. The diaspora’s rapid focus on human rights violations in particular demonstrates its ability to react quickly to current trends in society and to use issues of current public concern to shape its communication and advance its political cause.

Baltic Refugees of World War II and Their Descendants: Resettlement and Adaptation in Four Lands

2024-01-12T09:18:18+01:00

At the end of World War II, an unprecedented burst of politically motivated emigration occurred from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, to escape incorporation into the Soviet Union. This report describes processes of resettlement and adaptation in four lands: Sweden, Canada, Australia, and the United States of America. The analysis examines how refugees’ and descendants’ experiences were shaped by selectivity of evacuation, camps for displaced persons, clustering patterns, and host country policies. The traumas, disruptions, and deprivations experienced during several years of war, foreign occupation, and rootlessness in refugee camps did not prove to create enduring disadvantages, as the second generation more than made up for the ground lost (at least for several years) by their parents. The yearslong journey of the refugees in finding new homes and new careers turned out to be most conducive to the creation of a global network of cohesive, viable, and interdependent ethnic communities. The Baltic refugees prefer to think of themselves as maintaining the traditions of their homelands, but they learned to do some important things differently on the way to new lands, through a process of social levelling and cooperation within their own local ethnic group, as well as through interacting with other local communities of their own kind, with other Baltic groups, and with their new neighbors in the host countries. Later generations will not continue to do everything like their elders did, but substantial numbers of descendants still show a rather high degree of commitment to maintaining their cultural and even linguistic heritage in some form.

Interpretation of the World by Aleksander Bregman, a Far-Sighted Commentator on International Affairs in Exile, in the London-Based "Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza"

2024-01-12T09:18:15+01:00

The article presents the views and journalistic activities of the foreign-educated doctor of political science, émigré Polish journalist, correspondent, anti-communist Aleksander Bregman, a pioneer of Polish-German reconciliation, who preached the unpopular post-World War II views of German reunification, and the creation of an economic community of European states. This international relations expert was one of the few publicists in exile who managed to make a name for himself outside the circle of the Polish diaspora. Gifted with Benedictine diligence, he left behind countless articles scattered in the émigré press, English, French, Swiss and German journals, as well as many books whose contents are still relevant today. He was also a contributor to Radio Free Europe. Throughout all of his wartime and subsequent exile life in the UK, he was particularly associated with the London-based Dziennik Polski i Dziennik Żołnierza, where he served as editor-in-chief from 1959 to 1962. In Poland, the magazine was completely banned from printing until 1989. Methods used in writing the article: qualitative press content analysis, press, heuristic, historical-critical microbiography.

Preface

2023-12-18T11:44:25+01:00