As a way of evading prosecution or avoiding imprisonment, individuals sometimes live in exile. The most prominent examples are political figures whose regimes have been overthrown, such as Napoleon in St Helena or the emperors of the Roman Empire in the city of Tomis on the Black Sea (now Constanta). Many religious leaders have also been banished, such as the prophet Mohammad or Baha’ullah. Even poets have lived in exile, including Ovid in his poem Tristia and the German writer Klaus Mann with his novel Das siebte Kreuz.
During wartime or after coups d’etat, deposed governments or rulers may establish governments-in-exile, which operate outside their claimed territory and continue to claim legitimate authority of the state they once controlled. The most famous example was the government-in-exile of Charles de Gaulle’s Free French forces during the German occupation of Poland and France in World War II. Other examples include the Polish Government-in-Exile and the Dalai Lama’s government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India.
A government-in-exile operates a capital-in-exile, which is usually located outside its proclaimed territory. In some cases, the capital of a government-in-exile is moved to different locations, as with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic established after the Spanish withdrawal from what was formerly the Spanish Sahara during the POLISARIO insurgency in the late 1970s. Such governments-in-exile can perform a number of state functions, and their representatives often travel back and forth between their home country and their headquarters in exile.