About This Module
Screenshot of a map from Maharaja’s Children: A Brave Bunch in India.
This module explores how authoritarian states try to control the movement of people as a way of consolidating power and controlling citizens.
But the module offers an unusual way into this theme. It asks: what did authoritarian control over migration look and feel like to a child? The setting is Poland in 1940, as World War II was unfolding in Europe. With the Soviets now occupying Poland, Stalin could displace Polish populations at will. This happened to eight-year-old Wiesław “Wiesio” Stypuła and his family, who were forcibly relocated to the Soviet interior. Over the next six years, Wiesio endured more forced migrations, ultimately ending up in a part of then British colonial India in 1946. Wiesio shared his incredible story as an adult, and his oral history is featured in this module’s primary source: Maharaja’s Children: A Brave Bunch in India. Historian Pragya Kaul Guido uses Wiesio’s story to help students consider how the regulation of movement can function as an authoritarian practice. The teaching plan invites students to reflect on how their own movements might be surveilled, constricted, or controlled in their own contexts. As part of Authoritarianism 101, this module enables teachers to explore the theme of authoritarian practices, but the documentary also features material on everyday life for deportees.
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Contributor
Pragya Kaul Guido
Pragya Kaul Guido earned her PhD from the University of Michigan’s Department of History. She is also a Council Member (At Large) for the American Historical Association.
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