Macedonian Refugees from the Greek Civil War: From Separation to a Transnational Community

Abstract

The chapter analyses Macedonian-origin refugees from the Greek Civil War (1946-1949) who, together with ethnic Greeks, settled in the Polish People’s Republic. One of the core factors of Macedonian condition in Poland was a constant dependency on two other groups: Greeks and Poles. For that reason, they are described as “minority within a minority”. Their life trajectories create a pattern of selected phases: from ‘separation’ via ‘assimilation’ to ‘new space of identification’ - a transnational social space. Based on the Macedonian case study, the chapter discusses other research issues that are universal for migration studies: the question of refugees’ homeland(s), integration inside a migrant’s group and a dominant majority or the politics of remembrance, and its impact on creating a groups’ identity.