The Exile Mission. Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

in three successive partitions in 1772, 1793, and 1795. The two largest Polish national uprisings—the 1830 November Uprising and the 1863 January Uprising—failed under the overwhelming military might of the partitioning powers. But no oppressors could defeat the spirit of the Polish people, whose national anthem proclaimed, “Poland is not overcome yet, as long as we are still alive.” Even while continuing their armed resistance, Poles also struggled against the attempts of foreign administrations to make them forget who they were and to transform them into Germans or Russians. Poles consciously resisted the politics of denationalization and took special care to preserve and to develop Polish national culture, language, traditions, and history. Their dreams of an independent state became a reality in the Treaty of Versailles: Poland regained its independence as a new and democratic state in 1918, after 123 years of partition.

      The concept of the exile’s responsibility toward the homeland has roots as deep as the 1830 November Uprising, whose failure drove thousands of political émigrés out of Poland. Most of them settled in France, Great Britain, and Belgium, where they carried out activities intended to provide political and spiritual leadership to the nation. The Great Emigration (Wielka Emigracja), as it came to be known, produced important Polish intellectual and artistic legacies, weaving together the nation’s Romantic tradition and profound patriotic feelings. The poets Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Zygmunt Krasiński, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, historian Joachim Lelewel, and political writer Maurycy Mochnacki belong to the pantheon of Polish arts and letters.¹

      Adam Mickiewicz’s contribution to the astounding output of the Wielka Emigracja included the creation of a vision and a metaphor that described the role of Polish exiles, whom he called “Pilgrims.” “The Polish Pilgrims are the soul of the Polish Nation,” he wrote, and the Pilgrim’s vow is “to journey to the holy land, the free country.” On this journey, the Pilgrims were to be guided by “star and compass”: “And the star of the Pilgrims is heavenly faith, and the compass is love of country.”² Mickiewicz’s vision and other political writings of the Great Emigration laid the foundation for the exile mission, an unwritten set of beliefs, goals, and responsibilities of Polish emigrants, which placed patriotic work for Poland at the center of their duties toward the homeland. For many decades thereafter, the exile mission guided and defined the experience of émigrés in different countries, including the United States. During and immediately after World War II, the exile mission again became a motivating force for the Polish political diaspora on many continents. It also rested at the heart of the relationship between postwar political refugees and later generations of Polish Americans.

      In the nineteenth century, waves of Polish immigrants to the United States had adopted the nationalistic ideology of struggle for a free Poland.³ American Polonia considered itself the “fourth partition of Poland,” whose duty was to speak for the subjugated nation.⁴ The process of nationalization of the peasant masses in America took place among “contentious organizational competition in Polish immigrant communities, immigrant parishes and schools, patriot priests, the immigrant press, and the intimidating encounter with the host society.”⁵ The debates over the role of Polish immigrants within their own community, as well as in relationship to the Roman Catholic Church and the homeland, were reflected in disputes between American Polonia’s two largest fraternals, the Polish Roman Catholic Union (PRCU, 1873) and the Polish National Alliance (PNA, 1880). An elite collection of political émigrés active in the Polish community in the United States played a particularly important role in building national consciousness among the economic immigrants. They responded to the 1879 appeal of Agaton Giller, a political exile after the January Uprising, to organize the immigrant masses for patriotic work for Poland and to persuade them to accept the exile mission. Through the activities of those early nationalists, Polish immigrants developed a strong and meaningful relationship with the homeland. Gradually, this political culture based on the ideas of exile, displacement, and injury translated itself into New World nationalism, expressed in ethnic popular culture and literature as well as in political allegiance and relationship to the American state and its policies.⁶

      Although some of the first Polish communities on American soil were established by political exiles after the failed insurrections of the nineteenth century, it was the later, more massive, and largely economic immigration that gave character to the Polish settlement in the United States.⁷ About 64.5 percent of Polish immigrants worked in agriculture prior to emigration. Once they arrived in America, almost 90 percent settled in urban industrial areas, performing unskilled labor in factories in the East and Northeast. Poles also found jobs in mining and smaller industries in New England and the Middle Atlantic states. Those who decided to work in agriculture settled mostly in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana, or in smaller communities in the Connecticut River valley and upstate New York. More than 2 million immigrants left the Polish territories for America between 1871 and 1914.⁸ The Polish-American community, consisting of these immigrants and their American-born children, topped the 3 million mark by 1910.⁹

      Polish immigrants brought with them a traditional peasant culture based on religion (overwhelmingly Roman Catholic), a strong family structure, and a sense of community. Despite some sociological predictions of social disorganization resulting from the transition from a preindustrial agrarian setting to modern industrial life, Polonia communities survived and flourished in America. They were usually organized on the parish basis and centered on the church, its organizations, and the parish school. This parish-based structure and clerical leadership supplied the community with internal cohesion, religious and civic leaders, and space in which to practice and preserve old-country beliefs and traditions. Parish schools perpetuated these traditions in the education and upbringing of the American-born generations. Family structure adhered to the traditional bonds of extended family. Families were units whose economic survival was the responsibility of each family member. Males were the main breadwinners in the marketplace, but women and children also substantially contributed to the family budget. Moreover, women were charged with the duty of preserving the traditional values and customs within the family and passing them along to the next generation.

      The neighborhoods within the parish structure became important self-sustaining areas, where small businesses and services catered to the immigrant clientele. They also housed local mutual aid and insurance organizations that later gave rise to the establishment of large Polish-American fraternals, uniting thousands of immigrants under their auspices and defining Polonia’s ethnic identity. These fraternals fulfilled multiple and complex economic, social, and cultural roles. While their initial goal was to provide death benefit insurance and to cover funeral expenses, they also carried out fund raising for community purposes or the homeland. By offering participants a number of positions and functions, the organizations contributed to status competition within the community and gave an opportunity for the civic involvement of the immigrants. Fraternals also advanced the vigorous development of Poloniarun press and publishing houses that tied separate communities into a lively national network.¹⁰

      Polish Americans, the majority of whom were employed in industry, rapidly adjusted to the demands of working-class life. Together with other blue-collar industrial workers, Poles felt the impact of economic depressions, decreasing wages, and tense labor relations. The image, held by some, of a docile Slavic worker proved unfounded. Poles participated in collective labor actions during the 1880s and the 1890s and continued their involvement in strikes during the volatile first two decades of the twentieth century.¹¹

      The outbreak of World War I became a test of commitment to the ideals of a free Poland for American Polonia. In an enthusiastic show of support, Polish communities developed wide-ranging humanitarian aid programs and sponsored diplomatic and political actions, led by the famous Polish pianist and statesman Ignacy Jan Paderewski. They also raised about twenty-four thousand volunteers for the Polish Army in France, of whom nearly twenty thousand went overseas under the command of General Józef Haller to participate directly in the fight for an independent Poland. By the end of the war, approximately two hundred fifteen thousand Polish Americans had served in the U.S. armed forces.¹² Polonia’s financial contribution to the cause of an independent Poland proved to be no less impressive. According to some reports, Polonia raised more than $50 million for the cause, while purchasing $67 million in American Liberty Bonds and earmarking another