Current Fellows

The project deals with proposals and ideas about European unification presented by Eastern European emigrant politicians during the Cold War. Their ultimate plan was to restore liberal democracy in their home countries, and unification was a parallel goal to that. However, the concept and content of the idea of Europe was not shared by all emigration, but it divided the political elite. Furthermore, their American sponsors and Western European colleagues gradually abandoned the Eastern partners and started to create contacts to the civil society of the Soviet bloc. The research is based on extensive archival material of Assembly of Captive European Nations (a collective organization for emigrants from nine countries), Free Europe Committee (a clandestine American organization to provide them official funding), and European organizations for unification, such as European Movement and Council of Europe. I have already collected the relevant material at the Immigration History Research Center in Minneapolis, Hoover Institute at Stanford and Historical Archives of European Union in Florence. During the fellowship, the goal is to complete a scholarly monograph on this topic. Additionally, I’ll write an article on the evolution of the concept of Europe within Anti-bolshevik Bloc of Nations, a right-wing emigrant collective.