Polish “Armies in Exile” and Czechoslovak “Resistance Abroad”, 1938-1948
3rd session of CEFRES in-house seminar
Through the presentation of works in progress, CEFRES’s Seminar aims at raising and discussing issues about methods, approaches or concepts, in a multidisciplinary spirit, allowing everyone to confront her or his own perspectives with the research presented.
Location: CEFRES Library and online (to get the link, write to cefres[@]cefres.cz)
Date: Tuesday, November 11, 2025 at 16:30
Language: English
Speaker: Adam AKSNOWICZ (CEFRES / CEU)
Discussant: Johana KŁUSEK (Czech Academy of Sciences)
AbstractIn this seminar, Adam Aksnowicz present select themes of his doctoral dissertation, tentatively entitled Towards What Homeland? (Trans)National Armies in Exile and Renegotiations of Polish National Narratives, 1938-48. This study critically analyzes the historical complexities, divergent trajectories, and persistent legacy of Polish “armies in exile” established on French, British, and Soviet territories during the Second World War. Challenging dominant national-patriotic historiographies and traditional conceptual models that limit historical research, Ihe draws from global, transnational, and comparative approaches to highlight wider geopolitical entanglements of Polish military exile and analyze the prominent symbolic-cultural positionality of exile armies in renegotiations of nation, state, and homeland. Not simply a subordinate armed branch of the civil government in exile, Aksnowicz argues that military leaders constituted parallel authorities of national representation in exile, with their armies functioning as institutional centers for cultivating and propagating rival nation and state-building projects in preparation for armed return to the homeland. By also presenting comparative cases of Western and Soviet-backed Czechoslovak formations of the “resistance abroad,” he aims to foster a broader discussion surrounding East-Central European political exile in ongoing historical and memorial debates.