English summary: If one tried to pinpoint a salient topos in German literature since 1989, one could with some justification to the claim that the principle of rememberance has been the common thread running through very different genres and texts, but also through the generations. The end of real socialism brought with it profound political, social, and cultural change, accompanied by uncertainties and disorders. The new status quo has given the principle of remembrance a new impetus in literature. The end of the ...
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English summary: If one tried to pinpoint a salient topos in German literature since 1989, one could with some justification to the claim that the principle of rememberance has been the common thread running through very different genres and texts, but also through the generations. The end of real socialism brought with it profound political, social, and cultural change, accompanied by uncertainties and disorders. The new status quo has given the principle of remembrance a new impetus in literature. The end of the division of Germany and global changes have brought about a remodelling of the functional memory insofar as it now serves to revisit and re-evaluate the past. Events, themes, and traces of the past bring to mind what for a long period was hidden, rejected, rendered invalid or discarded. The war and the Holocaust, but also flight and expulsion and bombing campaigns are viewed in a different light. Nor is it only a question of what is remembered, but also of how such events are remembered, of the form of remembrance in literature. The contributions to this volume use selected texts and authors to illustrate which generation-specific experiences and memories are depicted in literature. The aim is thus to bring to light a rhetoric of remembrance. German text. German description: Das Ende des Real-Sozialismus geht mit einem tiefgreifenden politischen, sozialen und kulturellen Wandel und entsprechenden Verunsicherungen einher. Der neue Status quo hat dem Prinzip Erinnerung in der Literatur neuen Schub gegeben. Mit der Aufhebung der deutschen Teilung und den globalen Veranderungen ist es zu einem Umbau des Funktionsgedachtnisses gekommen - Vergangenes wurde neu bewertet. Ins lebendige Gedachtnis gelangen nun auch jene Vorgange, Themen, Spuren, die uber einen langeren historischen Zeitraum ausgeblendet, ausgemustert oder verworfen waren. Krieg und Holocaust erscheinen ebenso in einem neuen Licht wie Flucht, Vertreibung oder Bombenkrieg. Auch aus diesem Grund geht es nicht bevorzugt darum, was, sondern vor allem darum, wie erinnert wird. Gefragt ist nach Formen der Erinnerung in der Literatur. Die Beitrage des Bandes zeigen an ausgewahlten Texten und Autoren, welche generationsspezifischen Erfahrungen und Erinnerungen in welcher Weise in der Literatur inszeniert werden. Ziel ist also, einer Rhetorik der Erinnerung auf die Spur zu kommen.
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