Exile facts for kids

Exile means being sent away from your home country or area. People are often exiled for political reasons, like disagreeing with the government or trying to change who is in charge. In countries where people can vote and have a say (called democracies), people are usually not exiled. However, many famous people throughout history have been sent away from their homes.

Sometimes, exile means being sent out of the country completely. But other times, people are sent to a different part of their own country. This is called "internal exile." There's also "self-imposed exile," which is when someone chooses to leave their country as a protest against how it's being run.

What is Exile?

Exile is when a person is forced to leave their home or country. This can happen for different reasons. Often, it's because of political disagreements. For example, if someone speaks out against the leaders of a country, they might be forced to leave. This is more common in countries that are not democracies, where people have less freedom to express their opinions.

Different Kinds of Exile

There are a few ways someone can experience exile:

• Forced Exile: This is when a government or ruler makes someone leave their country. They are told they cannot come back.
• Internal Exile: Sometimes, instead of being sent out of the country, a person is sent to a faraway or isolated part of their own country. They are still exiled from their home area, but not from the country itself.
• Self-Imposed Exile: This happens when a person decides to leave their country on their own. They do this as a way to protest or show their strong disagreement with the government or the way things are being done. They choose to live somewhere else because they cannot agree with their home country's rules.

Famous Exiles in History

Many people throughout history have been sent into exile or chose to leave their homes.

Ancient Times

In the Old Testament, the Jewish people were famously exiled to Babylon. This was a time when they were forced to leave their homeland and live in a different land. In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, it was also common for people to be sent away from their cities as a punishment or to remove political rivals.

Modern History

For many centuries, Russia (and later the Soviet Union) sent many people into exile. Often, these people were sent to harsh labor camps in Siberia, a very cold and distant part of the country.

In the 1930s, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, thousands of people from Europe had to leave their homes. Many of these people, including famous writers, scientists, and artists, went to the United States to escape the Nazi government.

One of the most famous people sent into exile was Napoléon Bonaparte. After he was defeated in battle, he was exiled from France. First, he was sent to the island of Elba. Later, after another defeat, he was sent even further away to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he lived until he died.

The famous cellist Pablo Casals chose to go into self-imposed exile. He left Spain to protest against the government of Francisco Franco. Casals said he would not return to Spain until it became a democracy. Sadly, he died two years before Spain became a democracy, so he never returned home.

Related pages

• Government-in-exile
• Political asylum

Images for kids

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  Napoleon's Exile on Saint Helena by Franz Josef Sandman (1820)

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  The First Night in Exile – This painting shows a scene from the Ramayana, a famous story from Hinduism. It tells about Prince Rama, who was wrongly exiled from his father's kingdom. He left with only his wife and brother.

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  Dante in Exile by Domenico Petarlini

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  Jason and Medea, by John William Waterhouse, 1907

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  Rama on the way

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  Exiled Klaus Mann as Staff Sergeant of the 5th US Army, Italy 1944

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  Cover of Anna Seghers' Das siebte Kreuz