History
Famous Historic Exiles
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Exile↕ | Year Exiled↕ | From↕ | To↕ | Reason↕ | Legacy↕ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Napoleon Bonaparte | 1815 | France | Saint Helena (after Elba 1814) | Defeat at Waterloo | Died on remote South Atlantic island 1821, Hundred Days return after Elba escape made legend |
Leon Trotsky | 1929 | Soviet Union | Turkey then France then Mexico | Expelled by Stalin | Assassinated by ice axe in Mexico City 1940, founded Fourth International, Coyoacan house is museum |
Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) | 1959 | Tibet | Dharamsala, India | Chinese invasion and Lhasa uprising | Nobel Peace Prize 1989, built Tibetan government in exile, global face of nonviolent Buddhism |
Alexander Solzhenitsyn | 1974 | Soviet Union | Vermont, United States | Gulag Archipelago publication | Exposed Soviet camps to world, returned to Russia 1994 after USSR collapse, died 2008 in Moscow |
Victor Hugo | 1851 | France | Brussels then Jersey then Guernsey | Opposed Napoleon III coup | Wrote Les Miserables in Guernsey exile, refused amnesty, returned 1870 as hero of Third Republic |
Vladimir Lenin | 1900 | Russia | Multiple European cities | Revolutionary activities | Returned in sealed train 1917 via Germany, led October Revolution, founded Soviet state |
Ayatollah Khomeini | 1964 | Iran | Turkey, Iraq, France | Opposition to Shah's White Revolution | Led Iranian Revolution remotely via cassette tapes, returned triumphantly February 1979 |
Charles de Gaulle | 1940 | France | London, United Kingdom | Opposed Vichy armistice | Led Free French from London, June 18 radio appeal, returned 1944 to liberate Paris, became president |
Simon Bolivar | 1815 | Venezuela | Jamaica | Royalist defeat | Wrote Jamaica Letter outlining liberation vision, returned to free much of South America from Spain |
Ovid | 8 | Rome | Tomis (modern Constanta, Romania) | Offended Augustus with poem and error | Died in Black Sea exile, wrote Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto lamenting banishment, never recalled |
Dante Alighieri | 1302 | Florence | Ravenna and other Italian cities | Black Guelphs political purge | Wrote Divine Comedy in exile, died in Ravenna 1321, Florence offered posthumous return he never lived to see |
Karl Marx | 1849 | Prussia and France | London, United Kingdom | Revolutionary journalism | Wrote Das Kapital in British Museum reading room, died stateless in London 1883, Highgate grave |
Thomas Mann | 1933 | Germany | Switzerland then United States | Anti-Nazi stance | Nobel laureate denounced Hitler from exile, returned to Europe postwar, settled Zurich, wrote Doctor Faustus |
Juan Peron | 1955 | Argentina | Paraguay, Panama, Venezuela, Spain | Military coup overthrew him | 18-year exile in Franco's Spain, returned triumphantly 1973 to Argentine presidency, died 1974 |
Nabokov | 1919 | Russia | Europe then United States then Switzerland | Fled Bolshevik Revolution | Wrote Lolita and Pale Fire in American exile, never returned to Russia, died in Montreux 1977 |
Ho Chi Minh | 1911 | French Indochina | France, Soviet Union, China | Anti-colonial organizing | Three decades abroad learning Marxism, returned 1941 to lead Vietminh, declared Vietnamese independence 1945 |
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