Polish Culture in Britain Literature and History, 1772 to the Present

This edited volume explores the historical, cultural and literary legacies of Polish Britain, and their significance for both the British and Polish nations. The focus of the book is twofold. First, it investigates the history of Polish immigration and the ways in which Polish immigrants have conceptualised their own experiences and encounters with Britain and the British. Second, it examines how Poles and Poland have been represented by Anglophone writers in both fictional and non-fictional forms of discourse. Inevitably, these issues are intertwined. Polish experiences of Britain have been shaped, in part, by British ideas about Poland, just as British notions of Poland have been transformed by the emergence of large and culturally active Polish communities in the UK. By studying these issues together, this volume develops a wide-ranging and original analysis of Polish Britain.

1 Introduction.-Part I Before 1918.-2 From the Moon to Kennington Common: British Perceptions of the Poland and the Poles 1750–1850.-3 Brave and Patriotic Poles: British Politics and Polish Independence, 1830–1847.-4 Why Britain? The Motives and Circumstances of Polish Political Refugees’ Arrivals to the United Kingdom in the 1830s and 1840s.-5 Polish History in Britain: The Work of Napoleon Feliks.-6 “Poland Has No Claim on You”: By Celia’s Arbour and British Representations of Poland in the VictorianEra.-Part II After 1918.-7 Polish Post-World-War-II Exiles in Britain: The London Wiadomos´ci and Its Cultural Milieu.-8 Migrant Lives and the Dynamics of (Non)belongingin the Polish-British Works of A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg, and Agnieszka Dale.-9 A Country Constructed from Memories: Representations of Poland and Poles in Migrant Writing in theTwenty-First Century.-10 Poles Among Others: Literary Perspectives on Polish Migrants in Britain Since 2004.-11 The Good Pole in an Ailing Britain: An Imagological Approach to Polish Migration in British Literature