Organised by Susanne Frank (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin/EXC 2020), Research Area 1: "Competing Communities".

The terms "exile" and "writer (or artist) in exile" are part of the conceptual lexicon of empire and authoritarian politics. They presuppose politically motivated flight or ejection from the people and the land of one’s belonging. Although placed outside the borders of that land, the writer in exile still in some way longs and labors for—and consequently belongs to—some future form of its social organisation.

We want to question the terms "exile" and "writer in exile," distinguishing among the different reasons writers might find themselves outside the borders which they grew up inside of, the different ideologies they use to make sense of their displacement, and the different ways in which they construct or fail to construct a "home." Particular attention will be paid to twentieth- and twentieth-century waves of immigration to the West from the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the political formations that succeeded them.