First published in German as Polens Wilder Westen: Erzwungene Migration und die kulturelle Aneignung des Oderraums, 1945–1948 (2013), and soon after in Polish translation, Beata Halicka's much acclaimed book on “forced migration and cultural appropriation” in territories delegated to Poland in 1945 has finally appeared in an unchanged English translation. Conducted under Karl Schlögel at Frankfurt/Oder's Viadrina University, Halicka's research adds to a rich and ongoing post-1989 German, Polish, and Anglophone scholarly conversation. Back in the Solidarity era, Krystyna Kersten's pioneering analysis of Poland's communist seizure of power devoted considerable space to how forced migration fostered a lawless environment that ultimately predisposed uprooted settlers to reconcile themselves to communist rule.1 While still attentive to top-down perspectives, scholars including John Kulczycki, Katharina Matro, Zbigniew Mazur, and Grzegorz Strauchold have since focused on grassroots experiences by diverse Polish settlers.2 Alongside a range of regional studies,3 urban case analyses by...
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