
Dante in Exile by an anonymous
artist.
Exile means to be away from one's home (i.e. city,
state or country), while either being explicitly refused permission
to return and/or being threatened by prison or death upon return.
It can be a form of punishment.
It is common to distinguish between
internal exile, i.e.,
forced resettlement within the country of residence, and
external exile,
deportation
outside the country of residence.
Exile can also be a self-imposed departure from one's homeland.
Self-exile is often practiced as a form of protest, to avoid
persecution, an act of shame or repentance, or isolating oneself to
be able to devote time to a particular thing.
Personal exile
Exile was used particularly for political opponents of those in
power. Governments sometimes find exile to be a politically useful
option for punishments since it prevents the exiled person from
organizing in his or her native land or from becoming a
martyr. People feared exile and banishment so much
because it effectively meant that he or she was going to die. In
European history, at a time prior to Roman invasion, people
subsisted in farm towns.
Internal Exile
Where the state controls a vast territory, it is possible to put
great distance between offenders and their families or associates
and still fix the location of the exile. Normally this will be in a
culturally or economically backward region.
Ovid was made to live on the Black Sea
, the very periphery of the Roman Empire. In imperial China the island of Hainan
, viewed as
the "end of the world", received many exiles. Other victims
of imperial displeasure (
Galeote
Pereira,
Vasco Calvo) were made to
live in places well within the bounds of "civilization".
Mikhail Bakunin and Prince Menshikov were made to live in
Siberia
, Russia's "Wild East". Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn spent years in
Communist Russia's vast interior, in what he was to term
The Gulag Archipelago, before finally
being properly deported to "a life in exile" beyond Moscow's
purview. See
sybiraks for more information
on people exiled to Siberia. Of course in this system and in modern
China's analogous
Laogai Archipelago there is
not much difference between "internal exile" and simple
Incarceration.
Personal Exile in Literature
Dante describes the pain of exile in
The Divine Comedy:
- «. . . Tu lascerai ogne cosa diletta
- più caramente; e questo è quello strale
- che l'arco de lo essilio pria saetta.
- Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
- lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
- lo scendere e 'l salir per l'altrui scale . . .»
- ". . . You will leave everything you love most:
- this is the arrow that the bow of exile
- shoots first. You will know how salty
- another's bread tastes and how hard it
- is to ascend and descend
- another's stairs . . ."
- Paradiso XVII: 55–60
Exile has been softened, to some extent, in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, as exiles have received welcome in other
countries and have either created new communities within those
countries or, less frequently, returned to their
homelands following the demise of the regime that
exiled them.
Government in exile
During a foreign
occupation or
after a
coup d'état, a
government in exile of a such afflicted country may be
established abroad. One of the most well-known instances of this is
the
Polish
government-in-exile, a government in exile that commanded
African armed
forces operating outside Africa after German occupation during
World War II. Another example was the
Free French Forces government of
Charles De Gaulle of the same
time.
Nation in exile
When large groups, or occasionally a whole people or nation is
exiled, it can be said that this nation is in
exile, or
Diaspora.
Nations that have been
in exile for substantial periods include the Jews, who were deported by Babylonian
king Nebuchadnezzar
II in 597 BC and again in the years following the destruction
of the second Temple in
Jerusalem
in the year AD 70.
After the
partitions of Poland in the
late 18th century, and following the uprisings (like Kościuszko Uprising, November Uprising and January Uprising) against the partitioning
powers (Russian
Empire
, Prussia and Austro-Hungary), many Poles have chosen – or
been forced – to go into exile, forming large diasporas (known as
Polonia), especially in France and the
United States.The entire population of Crimean Tatars (200,000) that remained in
their homeland Crimea
was exiled
on 18 May 1944 to Central Asia as a form of ethnic cleansing and collective punishment on false
accusations. At Diego Garcia
, between 1967 and 1973 the British Government
forcibly removed some 2,000 Chagossian
resident islanders to make way for a military base today jointly operated by the US
and UK.
Tax exile
A wealthy citizen who departs from a former abode for a lower tax
jurisdiction (a "
tax haven") in order to
reduce his/her
tax burden is termed a
tax exile.
Exile in Greek tragedy
To wander away from the city-state (the home) is to be exposed
without the protection of government (laws), friends and family. In
the ancient Greek world, this was seen as a fate worse than death.
Euripedes’
Medea–because of her actions (both in Iolcus and
Corinth)-made herself and her family (including Jason) exiles in
Corinth. She talks of her exiled state in Corinth: 'I, a desolate
woman without a city... no relative at all'. Jason justifies his
marriage, to a Corinth royal family member, as an attempt to better
this situation: 'When I moved here from the land of Iolkos... what
happier godsend could I have found than to marry the king's
daughter, poor exile that I was... that I should bring up our
children in a manner worthy of my house, and producing brothers to
my children by you, I should place them all on level
footing'.
The tutor in Medea further reminds us of how selfish men are.
Euripides likens all women's position to exile; in their having to
leave home to serve their husbands. So Medea was doubly in exile,
both in the ordinary sense, as a non-Greek foreigner, and as a
woman. In the same speech, Medea talks of her status as 'a
foreigner [falling] in the city['s ways]' and, on being married,
'we come to new behaviour, new customs'.
The theme of exile also appears in
Euripedes The Bacchae
when
Dionysus sends
Agave and her sisters into exile.
Dionysus: 'With your sisters you shall live in
exile' and later
Agave laments: 'Farewell my
city…show us the way Asian women, show us the way to bitter
exile'.
From
the Bacchae:
Dionysus:
All foreign lands now dance to his [Dionysus's] drum.
Pentheus:
That is why they are foreign and we're not.
Notable people who have been in exile
- Michael I, King of Portugal exiled to Austria in 1834,
following his defeat in the Portuguese civil war.
- Manuel II, King of Portugal exiled to England in 1910,
following the proclamation of the republic.
- Alfonso XII, King of Spain exiled before his access to the
throne 1868-1874.
- Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, son of the preceding, exiled
since 1931.
- Juan Emilio Bosch
Gaviño, dominican expatriate and later elected president of the
Dominican Republic was exiled
from his country from 1939 until May 30th, 1961 during the
dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo
Molina or "El Jefe".
- Assata Shakur,
Black Panther activist who escaped
from prison in the US in 1979 and has been in
self-exile in Cuba
since
1984.
- Julia the Elder, daughter of
Augustus, who exiled her from Rome until
her death (2 to 14 or 15).
- Seneca the
Younger, exiled from Rome
41–49 by
Caligula
- Charlie
Chaplin self-exiled from the [United States] 1952-1972 to Switzerland

- The
14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso self-exiled to India
from
Tibet in 1959.
- Pablo Neruda
exiled 1948–1952 in Spain

- Bahadur Shah
Zafar, the last Mughal King exiled
to Rangoon
after 1857.
- Wajid Ali
Shah, the last King of Awadh exiled to
Calcutta
.
- Abd el-Krim, the
Riffian
guerilla leader, exiled from Morocco
to the island of Réunion
(a French territory).
- Niceto Alcalá Zamora,
President of the Spanish
Republic exiled since 1936.
- Manuel
Altolaguirre exiled from Spain, to Cuba
and Mexico
.
- Michel Aoun,
exiled from Lebanon
, to France
returned in
May 2005
- Reinaldo
Arenas exiled from Cuba
, to United
States
- Manuel
Azaña, President of the Spanish Republic exiled to France
in 1939.
- Nawaz Sharif
exiled from Pakistan
, to Saudi
Arabia
and then moved to England
and some other countries.
- Muhammad exiled from
Mecca in 622 to Medina
.
Returned
to Mecca
8 years
later.
- Mirza Tahir
Ahmad 4th Caliph of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community exiled
from Pakistan
in 1984, died in London in 2003
- Shahbaz Sharif
exiled from Pakistan
, to Saudi
Arabia
.
- Aloysius Ambrozic
- Regent of Hungary, Miklós Horthy exiled Cascais, Portugal

- Umberto II,
King of Italy exiled to Portugal

- Jean-Bertrand Aristide exiled from
Haiti
, to Venezuela
and United States (1990–1994), and then to Central
African Republic
and South Africa
(2004–present)
- Miguel
Ángel Asturias exiled from Guatemala
to France
- Francisco
Ayala exiled from Spain to Argentina

- Michel Bakunin
fled Russia

- Emperor Bao Dai of
Vietnam

- Paul Robeson, American singer,
lived the latter part of his life in exile in the Soviet
Union.
- Crown Prince Bao Long of Vietnam
- Infante Juan of Bourbon, Count of Barcelona, Head of the Spanish Royal House from 1941 to 1977 (1931–1977).
- Thomas Becket fled to France
- Gioconda Belli
exiled from Nicaragua
, to Mexico
- Isabella
II, Queen of Spain, exiled to
France
since
1868.
- Napoleon
I exiled from France to Elba
and, later,
St Helena
- Napoleon III,
exiled to England

- King
Kigeli V of Rwanda exiled from Rwanda
to Uganda and later received political asylum to live in
the United States
- Andrej Bajuk
- Willy Brandt
exiled to Norway
and
Sweden
, during the
Nazi era
- Bertolt Brecht
- Breyten Breytenbach
- Joseph Brodsky
exiled from Soviet
Union
to United States
- Lord Byron
self-exiled from United Kingdom, to Italy and Ottoman Empire
- Pau Casals, self-exiled during the
Spanish Civil War, vowing not to
return before democracy was restored in Spain. He died in exile, in
1973. Francisco Franco died in
1975, restoring the monarchy, which became constitutional by
degrees.
- Alejo
Carpentier exiled from Cuba
to Haiti
and Venezuela
- Frédéric Chopin exiled from
Poland
to
France
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
exiled in 58 BC in a political controversy that involved his
execution of
six members of a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman Republic. He was recalled a year later
to cheering crowds.
- El Cid, banned from Castile, served other Iberian kings
ending with the conquest of Valencia
- Dante Alighieri, Medieval
Itialian poet and author of the Divine
Comedy, Sentenced to two years of Exile and forced to pay a
fine when the Black Guelfs took control of Florence. However Dante
could not pay his fine because he was staying at Rome at the
request of Pope Boniface VIII and
was considered to be an absconder and sentenced to permanent
exile.
- Nadia Comăneci, famous
Romanian gymnast, self-exiled to United States
- Lluís
Companys, exiled from Catalonia
, Spain to France in 1939 after the Spanish Civil War
- Gustave Courbet, French painter,
died in political exile from France
- Celia Cruz, exiled
from Cuba
to United
States
- Humberto
Delgado, exiled from Portugal
to Brazil
and
Algeria
- Porfirio
Díaz, exiled from Mexico
to
France
- Ariel Dorfman,
exiled from Chile
, to United
States
- Du Fu
- Jean-Claude
Duvalier, exiled from Haiti
to
France
- Albert Einstein self-exiled from
Germany to the United States
- Farinelli self exiled from Italy to
Spain
- Lion Feuchtwanger,
- Sigmund Freud
self exiled from Austria
to United Kingdom
- Alberto
Fujimori, exiled from Peru
to
Japan
- Manuel Zelaya,
exiled from Honduras
to Costa Rica
- Eduardo
Galeano, exiled from Uruguay
to Argentina
and Spain
- Garibaldi exiled to South
America
- Francisco de
Goya exiled to Bordeaux
as afrancesado
- Jorge Guillén
- Heinrich Heine
- Victor Hugo exiled from France to
the Channel Islands
- Juan
Ramón Jiménez, fled to United States, Cuba
, and finally
to Puerto Rico
- Arthur Koestler
- Kim Dae-jung
- Idi Amin, exiled to
Libya
, and Saudi
Arabia
until his death.
- Konstantinos
Karamanlis
- Sultan Yusuf
Ali Kenadid, exiled from Somalia
to Yemen
and then
to Eritrea
- Ruhollah
Khomeini, exiled from Iran to Turkey
, then
exiled from Turkey to Iraq
.
Later exiled from Iraq to France.
- Pavel Kohout
- Milan Komar
- Jan Amos Komenský
- Tadeusz Kościuszko
- Lajos Kossuth
- Prince Norodom
Sihanouk, exiled from Cambodia
to China and North Korea
twice.
- Peter Kropotkin
- Lenin self-exiled to
Switzerland

- Lotte Lehmann
- Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio exiled
8 years from Castille for slander.
- Fernão Lopez self-exile to
Saint Helena
- La Lupe, to Puerto Rico and United States
- Heinrich Mann
self-exile to Switzerland
and to the United States
- Thomas Mann
self-exile to Switzerland
and to the United States, moved back to
Switzerland
- Ferdinand
Marcos self-exiled from the Philippines
to Hawaii
- Karl Marx self-exiled from Germany to
Great Britain
- José Martí
- Giuseppe Mazzini
- Rigoberta
Menchú, exiled from Guatemala
, to Mexico
- Aleksandr Danilovich
Menshikov
- Ezekiel
Mphahlele, exiled from South Africa
to Kenya
, Zambia
and United
States
- Adam Mickiewicz
- Mobutu Sese Seko
- Mireya Moscoso, fled to
Spain
- Kwame Nkrumah
exiled from Ghana
to
Guinea
- Juan Carlos
Onetti exiled from Uruguay
to Spain until his death
- Ovid
- Shahrnush
Parsipur, exiled from Iran
to the
United
States of America
- Víctor
Paz Estenssoro, exiled from Bolivia
to Argentina
, Perú
- Carlos Andrés Pérez, exiled
from Venezuela
, to Colombia
, Costa
Rica
, and United States
- Marcos Pérez Jiménez, exiled
from Venezuela
to United States and Spain
- Juan Perón
exiled from Argentina
to Paraguay
and Spain
- Saint-John Perse exiled from
Vichy France to United States
- Bob Powell
- Ferenc Puskás from Hungary to
Spain
- Victor Raúl Haya de la
Torre, fled to Mexico

- Franc Rode
- Romain
Rolland, fled to Switzerland

- Wilhelm Röpke fled Germany
during Nazi rule
- Prince Sauryavong Savang,
lives in exile in Paris, France
- Crown Prince Soulivong Savang,
lives in exile in Paris, France
- Jorge Semprún, exiled from
Spain, to France
- Sultan
Mohamoud Ali Shire, exiled from Somalia
to the Seychelles
- Costas
Simitis, exiled from Greece
, to
Germany
- Prince Mangkra
Souvannaphouma, lives in exile in Paris, France
- Prince Nguyen Phuc Buu Chanh of Vietnam
, lives in exile in the United States
- Prince Hso Khan Pha lives in exile
in Canada
- Fernando Savater
- Benjamin
Seheneexiled from Rwanda
to Uganda and, later, to Canada
- Emperor Amha
Selassie I, lived in exile in Switzerland
and Great Britain and United States.
- Emperor Haile Selassie of
Ethiopia
- Crown Prince Zera Yacob
Amha Selassie lived in exile in Djibouti
, Israel
, Great
Britain, and United States
- Juliusz Slowacki
- Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn exiled from the Soviet Union
, returned after the fall of Communism
- Mário Soares
- Álvaro Cunhal
- Américo Thomaz
- Marcelo Caetano
- Wole Soyinka
- Alfredo
Stroessner exile from Paraguay
to Brazil
- Sun Yat-sen
- Oliver Tambo
- Leon Trotsky,
exiled to Siberia
, and later
to Turkey
, France,
Norway
and
Mexico
- Xiao Qiang, exiled from China, to
United States
- Miguel de
Unamuno confined to Fuerteventura
, fled to France.
- Clement
Vallandigham, exiled to the Confederate States of America,
to Bermuda
, then Canada
- Caetano
Veloso, exiled from Brazil
to United
Kingdom
- Bruno Walter
- Wilhelm II of Prussia and Germany, exiled from Prussia and Germany
to The
Netherlands

- Mohammad
Zaher Shah exile from Afghanistan
to Italy
- Nicholas I of
Montenegro
- Carlos
Salinas de Gortari self-exiled to Ireland

- The Prince Edward,
Duke of Windsor, by virtue of his marriage to Wallis Simpson and his falling-out with the
Royal Family and his brother
King George VI, to
France
- John Calvin,
exiled from Switzerland
to France, but later let back into Switzerland, due
to change in government
- Hector Gramajo, fled the United
States to avoid facing charges filed under the Torture Victim Protection
Act
- Cesar Vallejo,
fled from Peru
to France
in fear of further incarceration by the government. He would
spend the rest of his life in France, mainly, Paris.
- Benazir Bhutto, exiled from
Pakistan to Dubai
- Taslima
Nasrin, exiled from Bangladesh
to India
, then
Sweden
- Andres Eloy
Blanco, exiled from Venezuela
to Mexico
until his
death in 1955.
Fictional characters in exile
- Omnius, an artificial intelligence, is
banished forever to an alternate universe in the final novel in the
Dune series of science fiction works.
- Yoda went into self exile after the Great
Jedi Purge in Episode III of Star Wars.
- In Dragon Quest VIII:
Journey of the Cursed King, after defeating Sir Leopold, the
player's party are blamed by Captain Marcello for an attempted
assassination of the Lord High Priest, causing High Priest Rolo and
the player's party to be subsequently banished to Purgatory Island.
- In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is exiled to
Mantua after killing Tybalt.
- He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named goes to self exile
in Albania
after losing his physical form in Godric's Hollow
in 1981.
- Ender Wiggin is exiled from Earth
after winning the Bugger War in the Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game.
- In the book The Lord of
the Rings by J. R. R.
Tolkien, Aragorn is the heir in exile to the throne of
Gondor.
- In the television series Avatar: The Last Airbender,
Prince Zuko is exiled from the Fire Nation by his father, and tasked with
finding the Avatar.
- Chancellor Sutler is in
self-exile in the film V for
Vendetta.
- In the British sci-fi TV series Doctor Who, The Doctor was exiled to Earth
by his own people, the Time Lords for interfering in the affairs of
other planets. He was also forced to regenerate in order to help
conceal his identity. All this happened in the 1969 story The War Games. This was the last Doctor Who
story to feature Patrick Troughton
as the Doctor. He was eventually forgiven by his own people and
allowed to roam the Universe again in the 1972–73 adventure
The Three Doctors, by
this time starring Jon Pertwee as the
Doctor.
- In the TV series 24, Jack Bauer went into self-exile, after being
threatened with being extradited for torture in a Chinese prison
camp following the events of Season 4. He eventually fled to the
fictional African Nation of Sangala in 24: Redemption. The original title for
Redemption was actually Exiled, but was changed to
Redemption because the crew too hastily named it.
- Oedipus went into self exile after
finding out that he had killed his father and slept with his mother
(Sophocles)
- Medea sent herself into exile to follow
Jason into Corinth (Euripedes).
- Agave went into self exile after killing
her son Pentheus (Euripedes)
- Thyestes was sent into exile after
raping his brother's wife (Aeschylus)
- Orestes was sent into exile by his
mother Clytaemnestra but returned to kill her in the garb of a
stranger (Aeschylus)
- Simba, shortly after his father's death
went into exile from the Pridelands for much of his childhood and
teenage life in The Lion King. He
later returns to avenge his father's death and take his rightful
place as king of the Pridelands.
- A Dwarven Clan Chief in Brisingr was exiled from the Dwarven
Land when he attempted to assassinate Eragon.
- Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock is depicted in several
stories as being branded a pirate and exiled from Earth by the
government; most notably in Arcadia
of My Youth.
- Fictional former Law & Order
and Law & Order:
Criminal Intent Detective Mike Logan (portrayed by
Chris Noth) was exiled by the NYPD after publicly
assaulting fictional New York City councilman Kevin Crossley in the
1995 Law & Order episode Pride. The 1998 TV Movie Exiled: A Law & Order
Movie shows Logan at the "NYPD Graveyard" in Staten
Island, New York
in both in a personal (feelings of resentment,
isolation, and anger) and professional exile (demoted to lowest
possible job; no longer considered "a real detective'.)
- Prince Nuada went on an exile after
his father merged with the human race in Hellboy II:The Golden
Army.
See also
References