Inner emigration
Inner emigration (German: Innere Emigration, French: émigration intérieure) is a concept of an individual or social group who feels a sense of alienation from their country, its government, and its culture. This can be due to the inner emigrants' dissent from a radical political or cultural change, or due to their belief in an ideology that they see as more important than loyalty to their nation or country.
The concept also applies to
The similar term internal émigré was used in the
In a private letter to the vocally rebellious fellow poet Titsian Tabidze, future Soviet dissident Boris Pasternak urged his friend to ignore the attacks against their poetry in the press: "Rely only on yourself. Dig more deeply with your drill without fear or favor, but inside yourself, inside yourself. If you do not find the people, the earth and the heaven there, then give up your search, for then there is nowhere else to search."[1]
The most controversial use of this concept refers to Germans who agreed with the writers of
while outwardly appearing to conform.The term inner emigration was most famously used by novelist
Origin of the concept
After the
- Young people from the best circles of society, who bear the most famous names, display feverish activity heightened still further by their inner emigration and political aversions. They dance, they gallop, they waltz, the way they would fight if we had a war, the way they would love if people today still had poetry in their hearts. They do not attend the parties as court, ugh! There they would meet their lawyer or their banker; instead they prefer to go to the Musard, there they might at least meet their valet or their groom; wonderful! It is possible to dance in front of such people without compromising oneself.[3]
Living in exile in the United States in the 1940s, the German writer Thomas Mann was concerned with the issue of German
- Our disgrace lies before the world, in front of the foreign commissions before whom these incredible pictures are presented and who report home about this surpassing of all hideousness that men can imagine. "Our disgrace" German readers and listeners! For everything German, everyone that speaks German, writes German, has lived in Germany, has been implicated by this dishonorable unmasking.[5]
Frank Thiess argued that only those who had experienced life under the
Controversy
The moral issues surrounding inner emigration have long been a subject of debate.
Still others like Bishop
Yet other Germans, like Oskar Schindler and Wehrmacht Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, used the outward appearance of conformity as a shield for the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust.
At the 1998
Other uses
The concept may apply more broadly to include others, such as visual artists, as well as writers.
On 31 October 1958, the
See also
- German literature: Nazi Germany
- Irish republican legitimism
- Reichsbürger movement
- Shy Tory factor
- Sovereign citizen movement
- Spiral of silence
- Union of Slavic Forces of Russia
Notes
- ISBN 0-253-20915-3
- ^ de Girardin, Delphine (1860–1861). Oeuvres complètes de madame Émile de Girardin, née Delphine Gay.... Tome 4 / [introduction par Théophile Gautier]. Retrieved 2015-07-14 – via Gallica.
- ISBN 9780030056697.
- ISBN 9781135314101.
- ISBN 9780801849695.
- ISBN 9780521785730.
- ^ Grenville, Anthony (August 2012). "Thomas Mann and the 'inner emigration'". The Association of Jewish Refugees.
- ^ Klieneberger (1965), p. 175.
- ^ "The Fallacy of 'Inner Emigration'". Dialog International. 24 March 2007. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
- ^ Klieneberger (1965), p. 172.
- ^ Klieneberger (1965), p. 178.
- ^ Sims (2005), p. ?.
- ^ Wenke (2010).
- S2CID 146264513.
Their emotional withdrawal from Ireland led to a profound sense of social and political dislocation, which in turn encouraged a communal retreat, a loss of power, and a form of 'inner emigration' among the Anglo-Irish.
- ISBN 9780191651274.
- ^ Olga Ivinskaya, A Captive of Time: My Years with Pasternak pp. 251–261.
References
- Klieneberger, H. R. (1965). "The 'Innere Emigration': A Disputed Issue in Twentieth-Century German Literature". Monatshefte. 57 (4): 175. JSTOR 30161451.
- Sims, Amy (2005). "The unsettling History of German Historians in the Third Reich". In Donahue, Neil H.; Kirchner, Doris (eds.). Flight of Fantasy: New Perspectives on Inner Emigration in German Literature, 1933–1945. Berghahn Books.
- Wenke, Monika (2010). Aspects of Inner Emigration in Hannah Höch: 1933 – 1945 (Thesis). University of Cambridge. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
Further reading
- Donahue, Neil; Kirchner, Doris (2005). Flight of Fantasy: New Perspectives on Inner Emigration in German Literature, 1933–1945. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1571810021.