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Tracing the role of Eastern European emigrant politicians in the process of European integration

Posted on 23 March 2015

PauliHeikkilaDr. Pauli Heikkilä, researcher at the University of Tartu in Estonia, recently conducted a study on the collections of the European Movement held at the Historical Archives of the European Union. His project, titled “Empty chairs, empty promises. In the triangle of emigrant politicians, American organizations and European unification 1949 – 1972”, focuses on Eastern European emigrant politicians and their role in the European integration process.  For this post-doctoral research Dr. Heikkilä was awarded a Sørensen Grant by the president of the European University Institute, Prof. Joseph Weiler, which finances a one-month stay at the Historical Archives of the European Union.

Finnish researcher and Sørensen fellow spent the month of February at Villa Salviati searching for archival material for his new post-doctoral project, which has been developed as a continuation of his previous thesis “Estonia as a Captive Nation: National Perspective to the Assembly of Captive Nations”, conducted at the University of Tartu, and of his doctoral thesis, aimed also to describe the Estonian perspective to European integration. As Dr. Heikkilä asserts, his main focus of concern has always relied on finding a connection between Eastern countries’ national aspirations and the paths followed by international cooperation in the process of European unification. “So far I had only concentrated on the Estonians and their role on the international discussion regarding the European integration process. Now I have the possibility to take a larger picture, although it was something I had already thought of since the beginning”.

This research has been focused from three different and correlated perspectives. Dr. Heikkilä’s main goal is to approach the process of European integration within the frame of the Cold War period, paying special attention to the platform of communication created by the Assembly of Captive European Nations, composed by emigrated politicians from nine countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Hence, this project comprises both the internal and the external perspective of the emerging process of European integration. Research will also be done in the American foreign policy from this period, but, for now, Dr. Heikkilä is centered in the much less studied Assembly of Captive European Nations and in the position attained by emigrants from Eastern Europe in the process of integration. “The hypothesis goes that the triangle of relations is crucial to explain the development of the international Cold War”, affirms Dr. Heikkilä.

During these four weeks his work in the Historical Archives of the European Union has mainly focused on consulting fonds related to the European Movement. The archives of the European Movement were deposited at the Historical Archives of the European Union in 1990 by agreement with the College of Bruges.  The holdings which center Dr. Heikkilä’s research are the papers from the Commission de l'Europe centrale et orientale, the correspondence of the European Movement with emigrants’ national councils and the documents regarding the connections with the American Committee on United Europe. These fonds comprise also the meeting minutes of the Executive Council and Bureau, correspondence between the International Secretariat and several National Councils, Members and associate members, as well as resolutions of the Congress in The Hague, Brussels or Lausanne.

Although in the first steps of his post-doctoral project and still evaluating the way in which the investigative process must be developed in the following years, Dr. Heikkilä is willing to go further in this research, from which he aims to complete a monograph on the topic with his conclusions. The researcher stated his gratitude to the Sørensen Grants for allowing him to visit again the Historical Archives of the European Union, in which he had already stayed working for his PhD.

The European University Institute recently launched the 2015 edition of the Sørensen Research Grants. These grants, open to all current non-EUI postgraduate students, were created to promote research on the history of European integration through the primary resources held at the Historical Archives of the European Union. Deadlines for applications are: 31 March, 30 June and 31 October.

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