THE PROBLEM OF INTEGRATION OF EMIGRANTS IN EWA WINNICKA’S REPORTS «ANGOLE»

Abstract

The article analyzes the reports of Ewa Winnicka «Angole», published in 2014, through the prism of literary studies. The main attention is paid to the problem of integration of Polish emigrants in Great Britain. The article also focuses in part on the problem of finding the emigrant identity faced by the generation of emigrants who left Poland after the country’s accession to the European Union. In her reports, the author tries to present the emigrant as a stranger, a stranger who seeks to break into an unfamiliar, alien world. Therefore, in the article it seems appropriate to analyze the problems faced by the emigrant in order to quickly adapt and integrate in the country of settlement. The study examines the theoretical aspects of the concept of «integration», thematic boundaries of migration literature, based on literary analysis describes the integration of young Polish emigrants in the UK, which certainly affects the formation of a sense of national identity. Based on the interview, Ewa Winnicka describes various stories of Polish emigrants living in Great Britain. After going abroad, all the heroes are forced to change their profession, way of thinking, way of life, style of behavior, and therefore – to transform their own identity. The narrators in the analyzed reports are oppressed emigrants who choose the conquest of a new country as their main goal in order to become a «colonizer» of Western Europe. It has also been shown that emigrants’ sense of identity is closely linked to integration and adaptation processes, which are based on the daily choice of ways to recognize values important to the emigrant. To seek, to hide, to transform, to adapt, that is, to create the concept of a new life – these are the components of building a new, different identity of the emigrant. After all, a new social role (which can be forced, necessary or voluntarily performed) gradually leads the emigrant to a reorientation of lifestyle, to the dream feeling – to be his own among others.