212 EMIGRACJA
common loathing of the communist regime which in their eyes was an illegal
usurper. The ancient feuds between the National Democrats and the Pilsudski-
ites, between the pro-Sanacja element and the anti-Sanacja element, still preoc-
cupied emigre circles forty years after they lost relevance in Poland.
Ethnic and religious divisions have been no less evident than purely political
ones. It is a notorious fact that ethnic and religious groups in emigration lose all
sense of sympathy with regard to other communities with whom they were once
closely associated in their countries of origin. Polish Jews abroad seek out their
Jewish co-religionists and rarely seek contact with Polish organizations. Polish
Catholics establish themselves' in Catholic parishes, and rarely seek contact
with Jewish organizations. Ukrainians, Germans, Lithuanians, Czechs each go
their own way. People who in Central Europe were once neighbours and
friends, have become strangers in London and New York. It is the source of
much prejudice, and of much needless friction. For those who still take pride in
the country of their ancestors, it is understandably hurtful to meet others who
deny their origins, or who, whilst admitting to be 'from Poland' or having Polish
as their mother tongue, none the less ostentatiously deny that they are Polish.
Social divisions persist, too. It is true that a certain camaraderie of misfortune
sometimes helps to narrow the gulf between emigres of differing social origin.
Yet a small cosmopolitan coterie of wealthy and intermarried aristocratic clans,
who used their fortunes to invest in property or to open Swiss bank accounts,
were able to involve themselves in the social, commercial, or intellectual life of
all the European capitals with an air of complete confidence. They include all
the magnatial names of pre-Partition Polish society. In the same way, profes-
sional people with exportable qualifications or with influential foreign contacts
could rapidly establish themselves and prosper. Their lifestyle stands a world
apart from that of the average proletarian migrants who work as miners,
labourers, seamstresses, or domestics, and who struggle for decades to feed their
families and pay the rent.
In the popular view, however, the strongest Polish impact on the inter-
national scene was probably made not by emigre groups, but by individuals.
Musical, scientific, and artistic talent is the most readily marketable commod-
ity; and all the unpronounceable Polish names best known to the world at large
belong to talented individuals who have made their way through their excep-
tional skills, personalities, or temperaments. As might be expected, wandering
Poles have made disproportionate contribution to travel and exploration, and
to related subjects such as cartography, ethnography, and geology. Sir Pawel
Edmund Strzelecki (1796-18730 mapped the Australian interior and named its
highest mountain Mount Kosciuszko; Aleksander Holynski (1816-1893)
explored Lower California and predicted the Panama Canal; and a whole series
of Polish deportees in Russia, from the famous Maurycy Beniowski (1746-86)
to Bronislaw Pifsudski (1866—1918), who pioneered the scientific discovery of
Siberia, Central Asia, and the northern Pacific. Their compatriots turn up unex-
pectedly in the most far-flung places, like Michal Czajkowski (1804-86) known