Europe In Exile

During World War II, London was transformed into a European city, as it unexpectedly became a place of refuge for many thousands of European citizens who through choice or the accidents of war found themselves seeking refuge in Britain from the military campaigns on the Continent of Europe. In this volume, an international team of historians consider the exile groups from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway and Czechoslovakia, analysing not merely the relations between the plethora of exile regimes and the British government in terms of its military and social dimensions but also the legacy of this period of exile for the politics of post-war Europe. Particular attention is paid to the Belgian exiles, the most numerous exile population in Britain during World War II.

This book aims to study the departure and reception of refugees in 19th-century Europe, from the Congress of Vienna to the 1870-1880s. Through eight chapters, it draws on a transnational approach to analyze migratory movements across European borders. The book reviews the chronology of exile and shows how European states welcomed, selected, and expelled refugees. In addition to presenting the point of view of nation-states, it reflects the experience of those migrating. The book addresses departure into exile, captured through the material circumstances of crossing borders in the 19th century, and examines the emergence of new ways to pursue political commitments from abroad. The outcasts are considered in all their diversity, with a prominent place accorded to women and children, many of whom also moved under duress. The book aims to shed light on the forced migrations of Europeans across Europe, while also considering the global dimension, looking at exile to the Americas or the French colonies. A final chapter examines the impossibility or difficulty of returning from exile to one’s country of origin, as well as the a posteriori memorial constructs around that crucial experience.

"Where else but chez Madame Girardin could you find such exquisite company as George Sand, Victor Hugo and Honoré de Balzac? In Edwardian London, Lady Desborough's 'Souls' group was frequented by Lord Curzon, Oscar Wilde and H.G. Wells. Max Eastman has said that at Mabel Dodge's Greenwich Village salon 'Everybody in the ferment of ideas could be found'--actress Eleanora Duse, recent Ivy League graduate Walter Lippmann, then unknown Gertrude Stein, poets Amy Lowell and E.A. Robinson, early feminist Margaret Sanger, radicals Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman and the dashing activist John Reed, with whom Mabel fell in love. In these thirteen essays such eminent writers and biographers as Victoria Glendinning, Harold Acton, Bruce Cook and Robert A. Rosenstone recreate the drama and 'ferment of ideas' of the salon--certainly one of the most unique institutions Westem culture has known. The rarely mentioned hostesses in whose drawing rooms the avant-garde in politics, literature and art gathered are revealed as subtle and sophisticated manipulators of the stormy personalities and often passionate intellectual exchanges. Salons have all but vanished, but vivid memories of them have not. Their stories, and the stories they inspired, form an interesting part of the history of high society in the past two centuries. Here, in brief evocations accompanied by photographs and illustrations, some of the glitter, the wit and the controversy surrounding the greatest salons--in London, Paris, Berlin, Prague and on both American coasts--is brought back to life."--Jacket.

Literature in Exile of East and Central Europe is a collection of articles discussing authors whose homelands range from the former Soviet Union to the former Yugoslavia. For the purposes of this book, East and Central Europe comprise Russia, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Romania, and former Yugoslavia. These writers were exiled as a result of unbearable political climates - be it nations of the Communist block, including former Yugoslavia torn by its civil wars, or in the case of Poland, its partitioning by neighboring powers in the nineteenth century. No other book has collected such a variety of discussions from this geopolitical region, featuring authors who chose exile over the extinguishment of their individuality. Organized by theme and geography, this book will be of interest to a wide group of readers: from the topic of exile to research in Slavic (Czech, Polish, Russian, and post-Yugoslav), Romanian, German, and comparative literature. Literature in Exile of East and Central Europe is a valuable supplement to courses in Eastern and Central European history, as well as a primary text for courses in East and Central European literature.

This collection of essays looks at the shared experience of exile across different groups in the early modern period. Contributors argue that exile is a useful analytical tool in the study of a wide variety of peoples previously examined in isolation.

Studies on exile in the 19th century tend to be restricted to national histories. This volume is the first to offer a broader view by looking at French, Italian, Hungarian, Polish, Czech and German political refugees who fled to England after the European revolutions of 1848/49. The contributors examine various aspects of their lives in exile such as their opportunities for political activities, the forms of political cooperation that existed between exiles from different European countries on the one hand and with organizations and politicians in England on the other and, finally, the attitude of the host country towards the refugees, and their perceptions of the country which had granted them asylum. Sabine Freitag is Research Fellow at the German Historical Institute in London. Rudolf Muhs is Lecturer in German History at the University of London (Royal Holloway).

Immersive, engrossing report on the European refugee crisis A mother puts her children into a refrigerator truck and asks, “What else could I do?” A runaway teenager comes of age on the streets, sleeping in abandoned buildings. A student leaves his war-ravaged country behind because he doesn’t want to kill. Everyone among the thousands of people who come to Europe in search of asylum each year possesses a unique story. But those stories don’t end as they cross into the West. In Lights in the Distance, acclaimed journalist Daniel Trilling draws on years of reporting to build a portrait of the refugee crisis as seen through the eyes of the people who experienced it firsthand. As the European Union has grown, so has a tangled and often violent system designed to filter out unwanted migrants. Visiting camps and hostels, sneaking into detention centers, and delving into his own family’s history of displacement, Trilling weaves together the stories of people he met and followed from country to country. In doing so, he shows that the terms commonly used to define them—“refugee” or “economic migrant,” “legal” or “illegal,” “deserving” or “undeserving”—fall woefully short of capturing the complex realities. The founding story of the EU is that it exists to ensure the horrors of the twentieth century are never repeated. Now, as it comes to terms with the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, its declared values of freedom, tolerance and respect for human rights are being put to the test. Lights in the Distance is a uniquely powerful and illuminating exploration of the nature and human dimensions of the crisis.

European Writers in Exile collects a series of original essays that address the writers’ universal existential dilemma, when viewed through the lens of exile: who am I, where am I from, and what do I write, and to whom? While we often understand the term “exile” to refer to writers who have either been forced to leave their home country or region or chosen self-exile, this term need not be defined so narrowly, and the contributors to this volume explore a range of interesting and evolving definitions. Various countries in Europe have long been both a refuge for people and writers from many countries and a strife-torn region which has forced many to flee within the continent or beyond it. The phrase “in exile” involves writers moving across borders in multiple directions and for multiple reasons, including for reasons of duress or personal quest, and these themes are addressed and critiqued in these essays. This volume naturally examines the cataclysmic and near-universal exilic experiences relating to the world wars, including essays on Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, Hannah Arendt and Leo Strauss. Additionally, essays address the unique early twentieth-century experiences of Emile Zola, Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, and James Joyce. More contemporary essay subjects include Milan Kundera, Norman Manea, Eva Hoffman, Caryl Phillips, and W. G. Sebald. This collection of transnational, globalized European literature studies envisions understanding the intersection of our contemporary world and various writers in exile in new cultural, historical, spatial, and epistemological frameworks. How does literary production in an increasingly globalized world—when seen from exile—affect a view back towards a country or region left behind? Or, conversely, how does exile push a writer to look outward to new (trans-)nationalized space(s)? These and other questions are important to investigate. Taken in sum, European Writers in Exile offers an academically rigorous, important, and cohesive volume.