이주, 그리고 정치적 행위로서의 문학 번역과 / Migration and Literary Translation and Reception as Political Acts

The paper focuses on the Polish diaspora in the aftermath of WWII. Informed by a wealth of primary sources, including unpublished archival material from Poland, England and France, the paper explores the political significance of this migration itself and of the migrants’ cultural activities, particularly literary translation and dissemination. To the Poles, the end of WWII brought about not liberation as propaganda proclaimed, but occupation by the Soviet Union. Many officials, army members, displaced persons, and last-minute refugees in a position to choose decided to remain in the West. This often seemed the only available gesture of protest and a testimony to what they saw as Eastern aggression and Western complicity. The diaspora counted with a high percentage of intellectuals, many determined to work from this freer locus operandi for their homeland’s independence. Many believed to be the custodians of the "true" national culture unspoilt by Soviet occupation who needed to preserve it for the posteriority. Some, particularly the circles connected with the former government-in-exile in London, had ideas for building a "country-in-exile". Others, particularly those gathered around the journal Kultura in Paris, sought interaction and shaping life and thought also behind the Iron Curtain. Yet, both of these diasporic opinion-making centres saw literature as an important tool for their mission and translated and published foreign works and found ways to disseminate them also in communist Poland. The paper looks into how their work was often the result of collaborations around the globe and engaged also in cultural actions covertly sponsored by the USA’s cold war funds. It reflects on how the migrants’ cultural production contributed to the national culture: a separate branch free from communist limitations but also influencing and responding to the production behind the Iron Curtain, both official and clandestine. It also reflects on changes as the expected temporary migrant status grew into a more permanent residence and as younger generations of exiles followed their colleagues’ footsteps.