Preliminary Programme

The paper attempts to describe the interethnic relationship between Polish and Ukrainian immigrants in the United States by the way of a sociological interpretation of the historical process. Based on gathered archival materials, documents, other emigrant publications, as well as analysis of the ethnic press and interviews with members of the Ukrainian and Polish diaspora in the United States, various forms of interethnic interaction in a cultural and political sphere will be discussed. In this analysis, particular attention will be focused on the basic forms of intergroup behavior including but not limited to: spheres of cooperation, conflict relations, and mutual perceptions. This analysis is based on the assumption that contact and relationships between these groups in American society have largely been transferred from Europe to the diaspora. The paper therefore tries to reveal the correlation between these what “has happened” between members of the groups in European conditions and how this impacts intergroup relations in the diaspora. The significance of this analysis is that understanding these characteristics gives scholars a general picture of the relationship between Eastern Europeans in a diaspora situation which has not been heavily researched. (Show less)

This paper will examine the dynamics of class and education among the East German emigrants in exile in the Federal Republic of Germany between the onset of Ostpolitik in 1969 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Unlike other Central and East European exile communities during the Cold War, East German exiles did not organize a recognizable, cohesive opposition to the regimes they left behind. While a few famous exiles, including musician and poet Wolf Biermann, and journalist Roland Jahn worked to aid in the dissemination of East German dissenting voices in the West, the majority of East German emigrants to the West between 1969 and 1989 tended to become politically “invisible” as they were absorbed into West German communities and assimilated into life in the West.

Drawing on US and German archival documentation, as well as press sources, this study will explore the role of increasing cooperation between private and governmental organizations in the GDR and the FRG to facilitate the emigration (through ransoming and other means) of East German citizens to the West, and the comparative lack of political activity and organization among these emigrants in exile. In an analysis of both the migrant population and the prominent role assumed by the national West German press in publication of dissident GDR voices, this study argues that the unique composition of East German emigrants in this period contributed to a lack of political cohesion and action once migrants reached the West. (Show less)

This paper examines the MHBK (“Magyar Harcosok Bajtársi Közössége” or “Association of Hungarian Veterans”) illustrating but one example of early Cold War organizations established by Central and East European emigrants to provide western sources with intelligence information behind the Iron Curtain. Although these organizations had bona fide sources behind the Iron Curtain at the onset, they soon lost most or all of them and were heavily penetrated by security services as the communists consolidated their power in the satellite nations. By the mid-1950s, US intelligence cut the MHBK and other émigré intelligence groups off determining that the quality of their intelligence was of negligible value and dubious in its authenticity. What long-term effect if any, did this decision make in the ability of US intelligence to evaluate and react to the subsequent uprisings in the Soviet Satellites, most notably 1953 in East Germany and 1956 in Hungary? (Show less)

Using the example of Cahiers de l’Est, a journal published between 1975 and 1980, this talk will explore the connections established between different immigrant groups exiled in France during the Cold War. Frustrated because the French were not familiar with the literature produced on the other side of the Iron Curtain, several exiles came together in order to make “Eastern” literature known to the French public. This initiative is unique because, despite being a Romanian initiative, it brought together exiles from various communist countries: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Romania.

Drawing on oral sources, written interviews, personal diaries, the 20 numbers of Cahiers de l’Est and the Securitate (Romanian political police) archives, this presentation will analyze the relations established between the different exiles involved in this project: What motivated them to work together on this project? What relations existed between them, what network(s) did they belong to? What were the difficulties encountered? This study will therefore shed light on the dynamics that were at play in exiles’ actions in the Cold War context: Did the will to make their literature known to the French public help exiles overcome personal quarrels and interests, for “the greater good”? (Show less)