Andreea Deciu Ritivoi

This project examines the political and rhetorical legacy of the first wave of eastern Europeans who fled to the United States in the 1950s seeking not only safety but also influence, both over their homelands and over American foreign policy toward the Soviet Union. Drawing on US and eastern European archives, it introduces the concept of the “exile ethos” as a political subjectivity that can be leveraged for political gains by people often caught between different categories, such as refugees, defectors, displaced persons, or simply immigrants. Unlike most existing scholarship, which either centers American politicians and institutions or treats exiles in hagiographic terms, this study explores the contradictions and complexities of exile.