In this article the author discusses 'Skutecnost' (Reality), a remarkable Czechoslovak emigre periodical published after the Communist takeover. The author was one of its founders and editors. 'Skutecnost' was started up in Geneva in late 1948 essentially as a students' monthly. The first number was published in March 1949. Owing to its high quality, openness, non-partisanship, forthrightness, critical approach, and non-conformism, however, 'Skutecnost' soon gained an extraordinary standing amongst emigre periodicals. Its programme and name reflect its affiliation with the realism of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), in the sense of its perspicacity and critical assessment of reality, advocated an active, uncompromising defence of democracy against totalitarianism, supported the integration of European values, castigated emigre politicking, boldly held up an unflattering mirror to its countrymen, and detested platitudes. Its critical jibes were a thorn in the side of many an emigre; the special issue criticizing the post-war expulsion of the Czechoslovak Germans, for example, caused an uproar. Its editor-in-chief was the Slovak journalist Karol Belak, and its regular contributors included a number of distinctive emigre figures from around the world, for example the literary historians Peter Demetz (b. 1922) and Jiri Pistorius (b. 1922), the journalists Ferdinand Peroutka (1895-1978) and Pavel Tigrid (1917-2003), the writers Jan M. Kolar (1923-1978) and Jiri Karnet (b. 1920), the historians Jiri Kovtun (b. 1927) and Zdenek Dittrich (b. 1923), and the politician Jaroslav Stransky (1884-1973). It increasingly published translations of articles by non-Czechoslovak authors, including emigres from other central and east European countries. Its range of action expanded considerably, when the selection of articles from 'Skutecnost' began to be published in Czech, English, and German versions in 'Democratia militans'. In his discussion the author mentions the conflict that arose after Meda Mladkova (b. 1919), an art historian and collaborator of 'Skutecnost', took over its administrative work and moved the editorial office to London in 1951. He concludes by stating that this initiative of the young generation of emigres contributed to overcoming the sense of disappointment, apparent deadlock, and genuine lack of programme amongst the Czechoslovak emigres.
In 1933, Turkey reformed its higher education using invitees fleeing the Nazis and for whom America was out of reach because of restrictive immigration laws and widespread anti-Semitic hiring bias at its universities. This visionary act on the part of Turkey's government had the collateral benefit of placing in escrow lives, knowledge, and creativity of many who went on to significantly change established paradigms of several disciplines in the English speaking world's sciences and professions. This paper discusses the Czech connection of four eminent scientists saved by Turkey. They are biochemist Felix Haurowitz, astronomer E. Finlay Freundlich, archeologist/ assyriologist Benno Landsberger, and applied mathematician Richard von Mises. Although none has achieved Nobel laureate status, over their professional careers each of these has collaborated with and or corresponded with a number of Nobelists. Among these are Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling, and Max von Laue. Except for Freundlich who ended up at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, the other three came to the United States. Von Mises went to Harvard in 1938, Landsberger went to the University of Chicago in 1945 and Haurowitz to Indiana University in 1949. The paper also discusses the fact that three of these intellectuals and many others requested and were given Czech passports by the Benes government-in-exile after having been stripped of their German citizenship by the Nazis while in Turkey and thereby rendering them stateless or in Turkish Haymatloz.
3
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
This article is a discussion of a lesser-known episode in the history of Czechoslovak emigres. In 1956, the year of the historically important Second Congress of the Czechoslovak Writers' Union, some of whose participants spoke out against the repressive aspects of Communist policy on the arts for the first time, a meeting of Czechoslovak emigre writers was held in Paris. It was organized by the Arts Council of Czechs Abroad, which was founded and run by the poet, literary critic, and publisher Robert Vlach (1917-1966). Called the 'Arts Council Congress', it was attended, for example, by Jan Cep (1902-1974), Frantisek Listopad (born Jiri Synek, 1921), Jaroslav Strnad (1918-2000), and Jan M. Kolar (1923-1978). The principal topics of the congress speeches and discussions were the starting point, possibilities, and position of the artist in exile (given by Pavel Zelivan, b. 1925, and Listopad), reflections on the most recent social, cultural, and political developments in Czechoslovakia (Jaroslav Jira, 1929-2005), and the possibilities and limits of communication with readers at home after the hypothetical return of emigres to their native country (a speech given by Cep). The congress sessions, the author argues, can reasonably be considered the height of work in the arts amongst the Czech emigres in the first half of the 1950s.
4
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
This article traces the process of the organization of the Czechoslovak People's Party and its programme in the first six years in exile. It focuses on the power struggle and general relations among its leading figures and interest groups. The author points out that the victory of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (CPCz) in February 1948 meant a turning point for the People's Party. Robbed of the opportunity to carry out its policy freely it henceforth worked in the country under a new leadership within the 'revived' National Front as a satellite of the Communists. At the same time, however, a number of its members gradually joined in the resistance to the dictatorship, which often resulted in harsh repressive measures against them and the Party, and many of its pre-takeover functionaries and members left for the West. Similarly to the leaders and members of other democratic parties in exile, they built up a new party structure and tried to maintain continuity in their institutions and programme. These efforts were from the start, however, accompanied by internal disputes and competition amongst the individual would-be leaders. The intensity and persistence of the disputes were, argues the author, due to the fact that the People's Party, unlike the other emigre parties, was without its chairman and leading party authority, Msgr Jan Sramek (1870-1956), who had been arrested while trying to escape Czechoslovakia. The People's Party in exile soon began to split in two: on the one hand, the uncompromisingly anti-Communist right-wing critics of the idea of the National Front gradually created their own party platform; on the other, within the People's Party in exile there was a struggle over the orientation of the programme, the leadership, and the senior members, which took place among factions around the general secretary of the party, Adolf Klimek (1895-1990), and the former minister of health, Adolf Prochazka (1900-1970). The author discusses mainly the twists and turns of this conflict. Whereas Klimek represented the more traditional Christian-Socialist line in the spirit of Sramek, the intellectual Prochazka was inclined to modernize the party in the direction of the Christian Democrats. The balance of power between the two factions changed, but neither one gained the upper hand. The author argues that this situation very nearly paralyzed the People's Party. It caused a great exodus of rank and file members, weakened the party's position in the non-partisan emigre institutions (like the Council of Free Czechoslovakia) and made it impossible to push through the priorities of its Christian political programme. Towards the end of the article, the author endeavours to look behind the 'curtain of personal relations,' focusing on 1945-48 in order to elucidate the positions, alliances, and rivalries amongst the important political figures of the Czechoslovak People's Party, which clearly continued in exile.
5
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
Lev Sychrava (1887-1958) was an important Czechoslovak journalist, the only top-ranking exile to take advantage of the 1955 amnesty offered by the Czechoslovak regime to those who wished to return home. The author tells Sychrava's story with an emphasis on this particular aspect towards the end of his life. First, he discusses Sychrava as a 'Masaryk and Benes man', connected to the fate of the First Republic: from his start in politics in the Czech Progressive State Rights Party in Austria-Hungary to his time as an emigre during the First World War, where he became a close collaborator of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), his short career as a legate in Paris, his career as Deputy Chairman of the Community of Czechoslovak Legionaries, from 1921, and particularly as Editor-in-Chief of the ex-Legionary daily 'Narodni osvobozeni' (National Liberation) from 1924. He remained in these posts till the German Occupation, which began in mid-March 1939. After the outbreak of war, Sychrava was interned in the Buchenwald concentration camp. After the Liberation in May 1945, he returned to his vocation, but remained there only till the Communist takeover. At the end of May he tried to emigrate, but was unsuccessful. A month later, however, he managed to leave the country with official permission. Once abroad he joined emigre organizations, and played an important part particularly in establishing the Edvard Benes Institute for Political and Social Studies, in London, in 1950, and in its subsequent work. At the same time, however, his views earned him the reputation among his fellow-emigres of being left-wing, and he found himself isolated. (Sychrava interpreted the show trial of Rudolf Slansky (1901-1952) and others, for example, as the victory of the Gottwald Stalinist line over the Trotsky line and as the arrival of democratic Socialism in Czechoslovakia). In 1952 Sychrava therefore inquired into the possibilities of returning home to Czechoslovakia. His efforts were more than facilitated by the amnesty for emigres to return home voluntarily, which was announced by President Antonin Zapotocky in May 1955. Operation 'Return', as it was called, was run by the State Security Forces (StB) with the aim of dividing and weakening the emigres. Sychrava took up the offer in December 1955. The author demonstrates that in returning home Sychrava fell prey to illusions about the regime and the possibilities of resuming his previous work in his homeland. The author describes the largely poor conditions Sychrava lived in as soon as the regime lost interest in him. Although he did not come out publicly against the emigres, the StB managed to use his one public meeting for their own propaganda purposes. Amongst the emigres, Sychrava's return to Czechoslovakia caused indignation, and his old friends at home treated him with scepticism, mistrust, and disdain, partly because, despite certain reservations, Sychrava in essence identified with Communist policy and made no secret of his anti-American sentiments. He ended up once again in social isolation, disappointed and embittered, and died of an illness in early January 1958.
6
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
Discourse, understood in its broadest meaning determines the sense of political emigration. It explains the genesis of political emigration, defines its identity, sets objectives, defines its axiology. Polish political emigration after World War II has made debate an important attribute of its activity. Applying this instrument, it referred to the past and analyzed the present. The considerations of this article are not a review of the most important debates that were run outside the country in the postwar period, although many of them have been cited. The author's aim was rather to draw attention to the importance of the phenomenon. Discourse can be seen as having value in itself, that is, to reconstruct, explore, as well as being the subject of analysis. It can, however, be understood differently, as material that can be used for a far deeper description of the activities carried out outside the country than a study on political thought, collective behavior or the attitudes of an individual.
7
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
This article considers things related to the question ‘How Does It Go On?’ in the works of Věra Linhartová (b. 1938). The author follows on from her article ‘Proměny subjektu v díle Věry Linhartové’ (Changes in the Subject in the Works of V.L., 1975), and explores the nature of the subject in Linhartová’s later works as well.
The motif of the homeland had appeared in the poetry of Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) even before he finally left Russia in 1920. Yet it plays the most important role in the poems he wrote in exile. Bunin created pictures of 'the small homeland': well-known, safe and peaceful area with the family circle and home in the centre of it. The main components of his world are home and the nearby cemetery. Bunin often identified these two concepts ('the grave as the man's last home', 'the home as the grave'), which determines the specific character of his idea of homeland: it is a sacred area, definitely opposed to the external, amorphous and valueless world. The homeland in Bunin's emigré poems has also an onirical nature, it exists only in memories and dreams of the lyrical ego, it resembles the 'paradise lost', an imaginary, idyllic Arcadia. The pictures of the homeland are connected with the theme of exile. The condition that the emigrant Bunin interpreted as his 'own Golgotha' caused by the tragic end of his earlier life and the solitude in exile.
This paper focuses on two example texts from the Mexican exile of Pere Calders and Max Aub: L'ombra de l'atzavara and De cómo Julián Calvo se arruinó por segunda vez. Based on the semiotics of space of Jurij Lotman, it will be shown how the characters of the selected texts reconstruct and reinvent their home country through the creation of a new space in the host land. This space will create the illusion of their idealised homeland.
10
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
This article considers the unusual phenomenon of exile in Czechoslovakia after the Communist takeover in 1948. It first briefly considers asylum in interwar Czechoslovakia, when, despite many Russian, Ukrainian, and German emigres in the country, the right to political asylum was not legislatively defined, being determined largely by international convention; this was so even after the war. Emigres in Czechoslovakia were granted asylum on the basis of a proposal by the Central Committee of the CPCz, modelled on an article of the Soviet Constitution and codified in the new Czechoslovak Socialist Constitution in 1960. Most Western emigres in Czechoslovakia were Greeks and Macedonians seeking asylum in the Soviet bloc after the Communist defeat in the Greek Civil War. About 12,000 came to Czechoslovakia in 1948–51. The next largest group was Italian, mostly ex-partisans, 214 of whom were in Czechoslovakia in late 1950. Then came the Yugoslavs, 152 in late 1950, opponents to the Tito regime after the split with Stalin. Among the 58 Spaniards, mostly workers and intellectuals opposed to Franco, two, Uribe and Modesto, were leading functionaries of the Spanish Communist Party. Also, 14 Americans emigrated to Czechoslovakia in the mid-1950s, as did people from other countries, including four Frenchmen, in particular the cultural attache Marcel Aymonin, another focus of the article. The author considers Aymonin in the context of Czechoslovak-French relations. Aymonin worked in Czechoslovakia as a teacher in Prague from 1933, then as cultural attache at the French Embassy, and, after the war, as head of the 'Institut Francais', Prague. In late 1949 he was transferred to Sofia. Returning to Prague in 1951 he sought asylum. The authoress seeks to explain what was behind this unexpected act, which was seized upon by Communist propaganda. She too thinks it was the result of Aymonin's opportunism, political intrigues, and, perhaps, love for Czechoslovakia. Aymonin was then employed in Czechoslovakia editing works of the French Stalinist Andre Stil and translating, before returning to France probably after 1968. By then he was already translating works by Kundera and Havel.
The study is concerned with the activities of the Hungarian communist exiles in the period immediately following the fall of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in summer 1919. The term Hungarian communist exiles designates the specific ethno-political group composed of representatives and adherents of the fallen regime, who left Hungary after their military defeat and engaged in organizing the communist movement in other countries. They became important figures in building up the communist movement in Central Europe, especially in the former territories of the Kingdom of Hungary. Study of the broad theme is limited to the transmission of the communist ideology, organizing of the communist movement and the movement and activity of members of the Hungarian communist exile group in the Central European region, Czechoslovakia and especially Slovakia in the years of the so-called revolutionary wave, namely 1919 – 1921.
12
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
This article is a commentary on the texts of the Catalan exiles of the Spanish Civil War, developing the topos of Poland, which has been present in the writings of Catalan Nationalists since the XIX century. The analysis starts with the Historia dels moviments nacionalistas [1912-1914] by Antoni Rovira i Virgili, then follows with fragments of Dietari del primer mes de la guerra [1939] by Carles Pi i Sunyer, and his long poem Diàleg de les Verges Negres de Polònia i Catalunya [1939], to finish with the articles of César Pi i Sunyer (1939) and Manuel Serra i Moret [1947]. All of these writings, which idealize the Polish patriotism and the history of Poland and ascend it to a category of a myth, arose from the yearning for Catalonia and the awareness of the common fate of victims of the totalitarian Europe.
13
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
The article shows the role that so-called refugee camps or refugee centres play in the development of the identity and culture of refugee groups. In organized refugee camps their inhabitants can be controlled, distribution of aid is facilitated and repatriation programme is easier to carry out. Therefore refugee camps are considered, both by the authorities of refugee receiving countries and UNHCR and humanitarian organisations, as the most effective and cheapest form of their protection. However, such camps are not conducive to the integration of the refugees with the host society, which would be desired in a situation when a quick return to their home country is not possible. A long stay in camps and manifestation of power over refugees by camp staff create grounds for the development of a new identity of refugees. This identity is associated with the specific moral attitude and behaviour code, which is manifested as the 'culture of resistance'. What binds such groups of refugees is the political community of identity and interests and a feeling of enslavement of the 'people in exile', which differentiates refugees from people living outside the camp. The author emphasizes that nation-forming processes can take place without the involvement of the state apparatus and territory. Keeping refugees in camps for a long time can have serious consequences. In conclusion the author describes the reasons for this state of affairs - on the one hand it is the national character of modern states, which defend themselves against the inflow of immigrants, and, on the other - the international system of their protection, which maintains a large number of unemployed refugees in emigration for many years. This system paradoxically strengthens the problem of refugees and creates new difficulties.
14
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
The present article argues that the expansive movements of creativity through exile, transplantation, and participation in trans-national projects have played a defining role in East - Central European literature. The literary cultures of this area have often used their diasporic expansions to reaffirm but also problematise their national distinctiveness. The interplay between national and diasporic, local and global, has called into question any organic or totalizing concept of East - Central European literary and cultural evolution. The contours of this cultural region have remained variable, open to alternative mappings. Exiled writers play a significant role in this continuous redefinition. The cultural projects pursued by them were often hybrid, allowing for trans-national agendas, as in the case of Emil Cioran, Witold Gombrowicz, Milan Kundera, Imre Kertesz, and others who followed a trajectory of the cultural detours and repositioning. The problematisation of national and ethnic/local identity has gone even further in the work of 'hybrid' minority writers, especially when confronted with the drama of exile and uprooting. Consider the case of the recent Nobel-prize winner, Herta Muller. Muller's fiction, published after her emigration to Germany, represents the difficulties of life under both totalitarianism and the exilic condition, emphasizing the conflicting facets of her identity. Her work tries to reclaim a more inclusive, borderless notion of East - Central Europe, cutting across former Cold War divisions. While the late nineteenth-century East - Central European exiles sought a redeeming narrative that could reconnect their present to a mythic past, the Avant-garde writers of the early twentieth century broke radically with the past, deconstructing both Eastern and Western traditions. In addition to encouraging contributions from various cultural 'peripheries' (Russian formalism, Czech structuralism, Romanian Dadaism, Hungarian and Serbian futurism), the historical Avant-garde managed to redefine the centres of Western cultural influence, bringing Europe closer to the idea of a polycentric culture. The collaboration between transplanted and native writers is equally important in post-1989 East - Central Europe, as the literary cultures of this area are submitted to a process of critical re-examination and cross-cultural reconfiguration.
15
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
This study draws attention to methodological problems conntected to the study of emigration of the Czech, German and Jewish population from the ceded Czech-Moravian-Silesian border regions of Bohemia and Moravia shortly before the outbreak of World War II. When studying this topic, it is not possible to reduce the population that migrated to a mere group of so-called refugees because a large number of migrants who were fleeing their homes, also comprised civil servants on active service. The study further evaluates the results of earlier historical research. It expands earlier knowledge by the inclusion of newly acquired facts from the archival materials of the Ministry of Interior kept in the National Archives in Prague. Their analysis made it possible to fill in the missing elements of contemporary knowledge on the structure and quantity of refugee streams in the territory of the Second Czechoslovak Republic. Archival documents show that the forced desertion of homes in the border regions affected more than 370 000 inhabitants of all nationalities, the majority of whom were Czech nationals. The movement of inhabitants was not a one-way process. In connection with an expected plebiscite, the holding of which was envisaged by the Munich Agreement, refugees were returning. The inhabitants of the border regions were urged not to move into the Republic. Thereby the Ministerial Council wanted to prevent the flight of citizens from disputed territories and potentially the loss of further territories. Reasons which the refugees stated in questionnaires they completed, were later used to map their motives for deserting their own homes. The analysis showed that economic reasons predominated with the Czechs, whereas the Germans were primarily fleeing for political reasons. Yet, the roots of the flight might have been concealed even in these reasons and the historical reality in this sense could have been multifaceted.
The paper is a reconstruction of the life of a Hungarian magnate active at the Hungarian court of Sigismund of Luxembourg, Nicholas of Szecseny and Salgo. It is also a sounder into the life at the court of the King of Hungary. As a result of his eccentric and exceptional character Nicholas of Salgo became a victim of the hatred of some of Sigismund’s courtiers. This fact led to a plot, due to which he was condemned and exiled from Hungary. He spent the last years of his life in Venice. The documents in the Venetian archives concerning Nicholas’ possessions, which were not studied up to now, provide substantial additional evidence on his Venetian exile, his eccentric way of life and exceptional education.
17
Dostęp do pełnego tekstu na zewnętrznej witrynie WWW
The largest Tibetan diaspora in the world lives in India. This year it is celebrating fifty years of its existence. A large percentage of this community are 'born refugees' - a young generation, who have never seen Tibet and the only reality that they know of is India. What is striking is a very limited impact of the Indian culture on the view and attitudes of young Tibetans. Young Tibetans have an ambivalent attitude to their 'new motherland'. On the one hand they realise that Indian authorities have offered their families an asylum and have extended considerable financial support within the framework of refugee adaptation schemes. They know that they should be grateful for that. At the same time, however, they feel like second class citizens - they have no electoral rights, they have no passports, they cannot buy land. In everyday life Tibetans hardly ever make friends with members of a host society. Marriages with them are even less frequent. They perceive them as xenophobic and dull. They oppose Buddhist equality to social inequalities imposed by the caste system. They despise the Indian policy for corruption and exploitation; they do not trust the Indian justice system. This article attempts to answer the question how young Tibetans born in India perceive Indian culture and how they minimise its influence upon their own lives. The author also discusses the extent to which such practices are the result of the intentional policy of the Tibetan Government in Exile, oriented to non-assimilation and building of a pan-Tibetan identity in the diaspora
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.