PRZESTRZENIE WYGNANIA W AUTOBIOGRAFICZNYCH NARRACJACH EMIGRANTEK Z POKOLENIA MARCA ’68
SPACES OF EXILE IN AUTOBIOGRAPHIC NARRATIVES OF WOMEN-ÉMIGRÉS OF THE MARCH ’68 GENERATION

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses the question of exile. The author focuses on spatial-material dimensions of power relations that constitute sequences of exile experience: from stigmatization to leaving one’s home place and country to early steps abroad. How does one strive to overcome the humiliating experience of expulsion on different stages and in different places: prior to departure, during travel and upon arrival in new “havens”? How are spaces of exile remembered as both sites of remembrance and neglected “anti-places”: street violence, left-behind apartments, customs offices, railway stations, border checkpoints etc.? The author looks at accounts of women who left Poland in result of an anti-Jewish campaign launched by the ruling party in response to pro-democratic protests in March 1968. Scapegoating politics and repressive measures pushed some 15-20,000 people to leave Poland as stateless refugees. Focus on women’s accounts might help understand exile not merely as gendered experience, but primarily, and beyond essentialist traps of the “feminine,” as a universal condition. The analysed narratives provide legitimate voice contributing to collective memory and identity of their generation and diasporic community.

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