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Research Project: Ukraine as a Pamplisest: German-language Literature and the Ukrainian World from the Second Half of the 19th century until today

 

Ukraine as a Pamplisest: German-language Literature and the Ukrainian World from the Second Half of the 19th Century until Today

Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk

Funded by Fritz Thyssen Stiftung

Project duration
 2016-2018 (1st funding phase); 2018-2019 (2nd funding phase); 2020-2023 (final phase)
Description

The aim of the project is to study the images of a multinational Ukraine by means of representative fictional and non-fictional texts and to explore the most important developmental trends in the reception of Ukraine in German-language literature. The “(post-) Habsburgian” and the “(post-)Russian”/ “(post-)Soviet” traditions of reception are considered as the fundamental elements of literary Ukraine-reception, which developed since the second half of the 19th century in German-language literature and still shapes the literary presentation of Ukraine today. The central reception perspectives are studied through the works of two groups of authors.

The first group consists of authors, which explore Ukraine as a “foreign” or “other” country. To the second group belong authors of Ukrainian origin, who reflect(ed) their “small homeland” through the prism of their own migration experiences. Apart from the traditional representations of Ukraine, which are well known because of previous literary receptions, the literary production of newer topoi in current discourses about Ukraine are analysed as well.

The research focuses on the Palimpsest-metaphor and the overlapping of different models of representation and mapping of the literary image of Ukraine, which is in an area of tension between memory and invention. The research is divided in four phases of development of the literary reception of Ukraine in the German-language sphere. The phases were determined by the changing political status of Ukrainian territories and distinguished by the dominance of literary constructions of the Ukrainian sphere.

The first phase comprises the period of the first half of the 19th century, during which the German-language literature discovered the Ukrainian sphere as a “different world”, until the beginning of the First World War, which terminated the stable, political configuration of the Ukrainian territory. In this period the Ukrainian sphere, divided by a border between the Austrian-Hungarian empire and the Russian empire, was a synonym for the borderland of both empires for German-language authors.

The second phase consists of the time between 1914 and 1945, during which the Ukrainian sphere was reshaped multiple times on the political maps. The concept of the borderland is becoming dominant in the German-language literary reception of Ukraine, as well as the topic of the dissolution of empires, the collapse of old world order, the beginning of a new era and the development of new states.

The period between 1945 and 1991 is considered to be the third phase in the research project. The former Habsburgian and Russian territories are finally unified within the borders of the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic. In this period, the German-language literary representation of the Ukrainian sphere is led by different catastrophes (Holocaust, Second World War, Stalinist repressions, political and ethical violence, the nuclear catastrophe of Chernobyl etc.) and the nostalgic evocation of the Habsburgian paradise. These tendencies are subsumed under the term „Traum(a)land” (land of dream and trauma).

The fourth phase focuses on the construction of Ukraine in German-language literature after 1991. In addition to the “(post-) Habsburgian” and the “(post-)Russian”/ “(post-)Soviet” traditions of reception, the poetological instrument used by contemporary German-language authors for the (re)mapping of Ukraine is studied. 

MA- Thesis
Dorothee Theresa Adam, MA-Thesis: Die Konstruktionen von Eigen- und Fremdbildern auf dem Euromaidan – am Beispiel der Essaysammlung ‚Euromaidan – Was in der Ukraine auf dem Spiel steht‘ (2018)

Anna Fedosenko, MA-Thesis: „Babij Jar als Erinnerungsort in der Ukraine? Literarische Auseinandersetzung von 1941 – 2014“ (2018)

Publications Ievgeniia Voloshchuk: Was bleibt auf den Ruinen der Imperien? (Re-)Visionen des Grenztopos Galizien in den Werken von Joseph Roth und Juri Andruchowytsch. In: Michaelis-König, Andree (Hg.): Auf den Ruinen der Imperien. Erzählte Grenzräume in der mittel- und osteuropäischen Literatur nach 1989. Berlin: Neofelis, 2018, S.29-46.

Dies.: Kult-Dichter vs. Kult des Dichters: Das Porträt Taras Schewtschenkos in „Die verhinderte Rede von Kiew“ von Friedrich Dürrenmatt. In: Porόwnania. Czasopismo poświęncone zagadnieniom komparatastyki literackiej oraz studiom interdyscyplinarnym, H. (2)21. Poznań, 2017, S. 171-178;

Dies.: Ja okončatel'no otreksja ot Vostoka: poslerevolucionnaja Rossija v dnevnikovych zapiskach Jozefa Rota o ego putešestvii po SSSR [Ich habe mich endgültig vom Osten losgesagt: das nachrevolutionäre Russland in Joseph Roths Tagebuchnotizen über seine Reise in die Sowjetunion]. In: Studia Culturae, H. 4 (34/2017), S. 149-155.

Dies.: Fenomen jevrejskoj Ukrainy i ego literaturnye proekcii [Das Phänomen der jüdischen Ukraine und seine literarischen Projektionen]. Collegium, H. 27, Kiew 2017, S. 161-171.

Dies.: Vaterland, Heimat und Theater: Topoi der Theaterkritik im autobiografischen Roman Da geht ein Mensch von Alexander Granach. In: Brittnacher, Hans Richard/ Lühe, Irmela von der: Kriegstaumel und Pazifismus. Jüdische Intellektuelle im Ersten Weltkrieg. Frankfurt /M.: Peter Lang, 2016, S.353-369.

Dies.: Juden auf Wanderschaft: Die Verkehrsmittel in Hiob Joseph Roths. In: Pacyniak, Jolanta / Pastuszka, Anna (Hg.): Zwischen Orten, Zeiten und Kulturen. Zum Transhistorischen in der Literatur. Frankfurt/M: Peter Lang, 2016, S. 145-155.

Dies.:“... aus den dunkelsten Tiefen der Verzweiflung und des Verzichtens“: Stefan Zweigs Galizien-Bilder in Zeiten des Ersten Weltkriegs, in: Małgorzata Dubrowska/Anna Ruthka (Hg): Reise in die Tiefe der Zeit und des Traums – (Re-)Lektüren des ostmitteleuropäischen Raumes aus österreichischer, deutscher, polnischer und ukrainischer Sicht, Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL, 2015, S. 43–54.

Dies.: Vodojmyšča sozialsizmu, tvist na Červonij plošči ta „nezručnyj“ Ševčenko: try pogljady Fridricha Djurrenmatta na Radjans’kyj Sojuz 1964 r. [Wasserbecken des Sozialismus, Twist auf dem Roten Platz und der „unbequeme“ Ševenko: Drei Ansichten Friedrich Durrenmatts auf die Sowjetunion aus dem Jahr 1964], in: Ulrich Weber/Ievgeniia Voloshchuk/Alexander Chertenko (Hg): Minotawr u labirunti: tworist‘  Fridricha Djurrenmatta mizh tradycijeju ta subversijeju“, Kiew: Dmytro Burago Verlag, 2015, S. 83–115.

Dies.: Galicijskoje pograni ‘je v tvorčestve Josefa Rota [Grenzland Galizien in Joseph Roths Œuvre]. In: Jurij Girin (Hg.): Problemy kul’turnogo pograni ‘ja. Pamjati professora V.B. Zemskova. Мoskau: Maxim-Gorki-Institut für Weltliteratur der Russischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2014, S. 419–441.

Dies.: Čy možlyvo zibraty rozkydane kaminnja? Generacijni konsteljaciji v romani „Jov” Josefa Rota [Kann man zerstreute Steine sammeln? Generationskonstellationen in Joseph Roths „Hiob“]. In: Slovo i as. Naykovo-teorety nyj žurnal, H. 11 (2014), S. 60–78.

Dies.: Die ukrainische Welt in Essayistik und Prosa Joseph Roths. In: Hans Richard Brittnacher u. Wiebke Amthor (Hg.): Joseph Roth — Zur Modernität des melancholischen Blicks, Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2012, S. 151–163.

Borys Bigun: Na granice meždu ukrainskoj i jevrejskoj kulturami: tvorčestvo Vja
eslava Šnajdera [An der Grenze zwischen der ukrainischen und der jüdischen Kultur: das Werk von Vjačeslav Šnajder]. Collegium, H. 27, Kiew 2017, S. 192-197.

Ders.: ‚Bluždajuščije zvjozdy‘: konferencija o jevrejskich pisateljach [‚Blondzhende Stern‘: Die Konferenz über die jüdischen SchriftstellerInnen aus der Ukraine]. Collegium, H. 27, Kiew 2017, S. 158-160.

Alexander Chertenko: Galicija i preodolenie prošlogo v sbornike esse Lotara Bajera „Meždu vostokom i zapadom“ [Galicien und die Vergangenheitsbewältigung in Lothar Baiers „Ostwestpassagen. Kulturwandel — Sprachzeiten“]. In: Spadčyna I.Ja.Navumenki i aktual’nyja prablemy litaraturaznaŭstva. Zbornik naukovych atykulaŭ, 2016 (3), S. 163-167.

Team Prof. Dr. Ievgeniia Voloshchuk (project leader)

Dr. Borys Bigun (literary scholar)
Mgr. Alexander Chertenko (literary scholar)