ИСТИНА

The study is dedicated to the Spanish émigrés in London in 1823-1834: Blanco White, Alcalá Galiano, Mora, Espronceda, Duque de Rivas and others. It is an attempt to explore the state of exile as a highly paradoxical cultural position with its advantages and disadvantages. Suffering a rupture with their own culture and coming in touch with another one, in their view more privileged and sophisticated, the exiles experienced themselves as, both, representatives of "their native land" among "the aliens" and mediators between "the aliens" and their fellow natives. At the same time, they were exporting the blend of Spanishness and Britishness to Latin America, the region that to them was neither thoroughly familiar nor totally strange. This peculiar “in-betweenness” had a specifically aesthetic dimension which reflected itself in the unusually intense and varied literary activities. Interpreting the exile experience in terms of language behaviour and literary creativity is the core issue of my study.