POLISH POLITICAL EMIGRATION IN THE 20TH CENTURY AND HISTORICAL MEMORY

One of the basic tasks that political emigration caused by World War II assigned to itself was the cultivation of memory - individual and collective - both about the most recent history associated with the short interlude of independence, and the more remote one, as e.g. memory of the Great Emigration of the 19th century. With time the scope of memory that had to be safeguarded expanded to include among others the events of World War II and the suffering of the Polish citizens during the period of Communist rule. Cultivation of memory became all the more urgent when in Poland, due to official state policy, the memory of many historical events was obliterated. Literature played an important role in coping with this self-imposed responsibility. After 1989, when political circumstances changed, part of this memory was symbolically transferred to the reborn state, although difficulties had to be overcome. Today, it is a task in its own rights to cultivate memory of the emigration which by analogy to that of the 19th century is described as the Second Great Emigration.