A “Clash of Definitions”? Polish Émigré Scholars and the Cold War Discourse ofWestern Civilization

In the course of the twentieth century, the idea of “the West” as a community of shared cultural values acquired fundamental importance in international politics. What constitutes the identity of this community and how exactly its geographical scope should be defined has often been a matter of debate. This article examines how Polish scholars, who spent part of their academic careers in Cold War America and opposed the communist regime in their homeland, participated in such debates and how they imagined the relationship between Poland and “the West”. Focusing on three individual cases representing different generations of the émigré community, the article shows to what extent Polish émigré scholars’ ideas about the identity of “the West” were compatible with contemporary American discourse, how they were related to concepts of “modernization,” and how they evolved in the context of generational change.