« The ruin of settler colonialism: Samia Rahimtoola, ‘Ruin Gazing: Robert Frost and the Afterlives of Settler Environmentalism’, The Yearbook of Comparative Literature, 64, 2018, pp. 144-171
About yet another settler exceptionalism: Josef Cole, The Longue Durée of Chilean Exceptionalism: Settler Colonialism, Political Violence, and Popular Culture, PhD dissertation, University of Washington, 2022 »

An old story about German settler colonialism in the east (it is worrying that it should come out now and that it should be told in these terms): Piotr Guzowski, ‘Eastward Migration in European History: The Interplay of Economic and Environmental Opportunities’, in Adam Izdebski, John Haldon, Piotr Filipkowski, (eds), Perspectives on Public Policy in Societal-Environmental Crises: What the Future Needs from History, Springer, 2022, pp. 325-332

19Jul22

Abstract: During the preindustrial era one of the major migration waves headed eastward to Eastern Europe, where scores of migrants, in their pursuit of happiness, hoped to fulfil their dreams, have their own farm or set up a company, achieve a higher social status, and benefit from religious freedom and tolerance. The first wave of migration was connected with German colonization and the establishment of settlements following the German law. The alluringly large expanses of “pristine” land, together with tax privileges and the prospects of relative autonomy, attracted scores of bold, enterprising and hard-working settlers to relocate to the East. Most of them were peasants and townsfolk from the German states and the Netherlands, but there were also Jews escaping discrimination in Western Europe as well as West-European Protestants and Catholics attracted by religious tolerance in the East. Prospects of freedom and economic success encouraged them all to choose Poland and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as their second homeland.


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