Romain Gary and the Polish Circle in London

This paper explores how Romain Gary drew on his French and Polish linguistic identities to integrate into the literary life of the French Resistance, as well as engage with Polish émigré writers in London on the notion of a peaceful postwar Europe. Despite the French army’s decision to deny him the rank of officer before the Second World War on the grounds of having been too recently naturalized -- Gary emigrated from Vilnius to Nice in 1928 -- he rose to become a hero of the Forces Françaises Libres, as well as a famous diplomat and French author. I discuss Gary’s involvement in de Gaulle’s FFL in London in terms of what historian Janine Ponty calls the triangular relationship between the French, the Polish, and the British — the first two of which were in exile in the third. Gary first published excerpts of Education européenne in the London-based journal La France libre, which the editor Raymond Aron described as a veritable Polish circle. The offices of La France libre, located near the FFL’s headquarters, were the site of Polish, French, and English mixing. The cultural life of the French government in exile mimicked, and also influenced, politics. Gary constructed his identity as a French writer within a pan-European and anti-Soviet movement in which Polish émigré writers played an important role. I will explore how the interaction between French and Polish émigré writers in London reveals a common effort among writers of different nationalities to lay the foundations of European reconstruction.