rss_2.0Sciendo RSS Feed for Germanistische Beiträgehttps://sciendo.com/journal/GBhttps://www.sciendo.comhttps://sciendo-parsed.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/6471dd15215d2f6c89db3616/cover-image.jpghttps://sciendo.com/journal/GB140216https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0009<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This paper is an attempt to peel out the core of historical and autobiographical reality in Klara Blumʼs poems, to show their militant character and ideological limits, and to analyze them as contemporary documents whose relevance lies less in the originality of their language than in the consistency of their historical and intellectual substance.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00092023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0010<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>A.E. Johann (1901-1996), relying on his experience of over sixty years of travelling around the world, left behind a wealth of literary and journalist material, in which he often addresses topics and issues related to the United States of America. This paper’s objective is to analyze the reflections and observations of this writer and journalist included in the travel report from the period of the Weimar Republic and entitled <italic>America. Untergang am Überfluß</italic> (1932) as compared with his later creative output of a more autobiographical nature and developed between 1989 to 1992 (<italic>Dies wilde Jahrhundert,</italic> 1989; <italic>Schön war die Welt. Erinnerungen an die großen Reisen,</italic> 1992). Thus, continuity and change in his perception and image of America will be investigated; moreover, at attempt will be made to answer the question to what extent this perception and image have evolved throughout six decades (or one should rather ask why this image hardly changes with the passage of time and the emergence of new circumstances).</p> <p>This once very popular writer, whose books were sold in high volume, for many years could not enjoy the attention and focus of literary scholars. Accordingly, this paper aims to expand the knowledge about him and boost the discussion on German (anti-) Americanism.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00102023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0004<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The novel “Wasserzeichen” was published at the Pop Publishing House in Ludwigsburg, Germany, in 2018. The destiny of the main character of the aforementioned literary work is undoubtedly linked to the Transylvanian city of Cluj-Napoca. After finishing high school in Brașov, the young Eginald – who is not the same as the author of the novel – arrives in Cluj-Napoca where he first goes to the Faculty of Protestant Theology, from which he is relegated; afterwards, he starts the courses of another faculty, but before finishing his studies he is arrested by the Securitate. The life story of the young Transylvanian Saxon turns out to be a troubled one – full of defining experiences for his existence. Due to the relationships with the people whom he meets there, the romantic entanglements, and the betrayals he experiences, he matures quickly. The 1^st person narrator becomes a true man in this predestinate space.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00042023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0008<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In his tale „Der Wortmann“, the Transylvanian-German author Traugott Teutsch tells the story of Peter Emerich, an influent man in his community, who is keen on getting rich and climbing up the social ladder, while preserving the image of an honest person. The article follows through different stages the evolution of his mindset up to the point where he repents of his past actions, tries to make amends for some of his mistakes and decides to lead an unselfish life of faithful service to the community. Guilt, repentance and redemption are some of the main topics followed in this article, which constituted also some of the founding stones of the Transylvanian-German collective mentality.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00082023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0019<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The book <italic>Dante und das Gedächtnis</italic> [Dante and Memory], published in 2021 by Schwabe Verlag Basel, is a complex interdisciplinary study addressing the issue of memory in the works of the medieval Italian writer and philosopher Dante Alighieri. The study is focused on a “historical approach”, but the investigation of the <italic>Commedia</italic> and <italic>Vita Nova</italic> makes use of narratological concepts as well. Monaco sets out to identify and interpret the reflections on memory present in Dante’s work.</p> <p>The well-documented and systematized study comprises a lot of new information about the poet, politician, and exile Dante Alighieri.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00192023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0006<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The German-speaking Saxon minority from Transylvania, a region in Romania, has almost disappeared due to the historical events after World War II and the fall of communism in December 1989. Therefore, the literary work that was created before 1990 is often considered to be a “lieu de mémoire”, a place of remembrance, for the Saxon culture. This article deals with the question whether Maria Haydl’s short stories can be considered as such or do they show too much influence of the politically imposed writing style in order to be authentic.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00062023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0014<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The present article initially covers the meaning of <italic>Pomānǝ</italic>, a noun loaned from the Romanian language into certain idioms and collocations of the Transylvanin-Saxon vernacular. It goes on to cover this loan word‘s constructions documented in the North-Transylvanian craft vocabulary, mainly hybrid formations, including their meaning and their type of word formation. The verb <italic>pomenin</italic> loaned from the Romanian language into the Transylvanian-Saxon vernacular is presented in its transitive, intransitive as well as reflexive usage in meaningful vernacular records and outlines its morphological integration into the Transylvanin-Saxon language. Both loan words come with etymological explanations. The vernacular records are taken from <italic>South Transylvanian</italic> and <italic>North Transylvanian specialist and vernacular literature</italic> as well as from the <italic>Transylvanian-Saxon Dictionary.</italic></p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00142023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0020<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The present contribution provides an analysis of Dirk Oschmann’s volume, <italic>Freiheit und Fremdheit. Kafkas Romane</italic> [Freedom and Foreignness. Kafka’s novels]. The main idea, already announced in the title, is followed throughout the entire volume. A corpus of texts consisting of Kafka’s three novels and some of his best short stories is analyzed (<italic>Die Verwandlung, Bericht für eine Akademie</italic>, and <italic>In der Strafkolonie</italic>). The selected texts are considered stories of internal or external displacement that address and depict freedom and foreignness mostly using spatial displacement. The method used is <italic>close reading</italic>, the author carefully interprets text passages, goes into details, nuances of meaning, and linguistic features of the Kafkaesque texts. The analysis draws on syntagms and statements made by characters who discuss these themes.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00202023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0013<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In the context of the emergence of various online dictionaries and platforms that also address phraseological units, their usefulness is being questioned and their potential examined in order to illustrate new directions in the development of digital phraseography. The article shows special traits in the formation of lexicographical content in two selected online dictionaries, using the lemma “cat” as example.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00132023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0011<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Cosmin, a twelve-year-old Roma boy from Transylvania, only goes to school for a short while. For his mother, it is more important, that he, the only male of a household with many mouths to feed, help her with work. But Cosmin’s teacher does not give up and proposes a bargain: If Cosmin’s mother lets her children go to school, she will get electricity from the school to be able to watch TV. Due to this arrangement, Cosmin returns to school for a few days, becomes a little thief and embarks on a journey that can become an opportunity for him. A kind of a bildungsroman, a coming of age novel focused on the ups and downs between two worlds on Romanian soil, that could not be more different from one another: the Romanian majority and the Roma minority. This article sets out to document life at the brink of society, with all of its facets.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00112023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0003<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>Using the example of Herta Müller‘s novels written after her emigration into the Federal Republic of Germany, the article shows how digital tools can be used to classify the fragmented space that unfolds in the writings of the Nobel Prize winner into a clear model structure. Quantitative research methods are combined with a database-driven GIS analysis toolkit to illustrate the weighting of the fictionalized locations given their gravity centers and polarities. The series of maps show both the density and spread of the action places, as well as the meanings which are attached to the literary space.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00032023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0001<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>All three hitherto published novels by Dana Grigorcea do explicitly refer to Romania. Had her first novel been set in the Danube Delta and her second in Bucharest, so the plot of the recently released novel <italic>Die nicht sterben</italic> is located in the touristic town B. (= Buşteni) at the foot of the Carpathian Mountains. Based on Bram Stoker’s <italic>Dracula</italic> as literary pre-text, the plot of <italic>Die nicht sterben</italic> interweaves elements of Romanian history, Romanian contemporary events as well as elements of the family history of the first-person narrator. The present paper is focused especially on the female narrator’s bodily, erotic and flying fantasies. The social and moral revolt which manifests itself first and foremost in the vampiresses’ urge to impale, subsides in the end in uncritical idyllic and narcissistic self-reflection.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00012023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0007<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The present study shed some light on the so-called <italic>Türkenbüchlein (The Turks Booklet)</italic> by analyzing, in what extent, a literary work on the history, culture, and religion of the Turks a widely disseminated book in the 15^th century, belonging to Georg from Hungary (also “Der Ungenannte Mühlbächer,” “Rumeser Student,” Captivus Septemcastrensis, c. 1422–3 July 1502), is still worth reading. Undoubtedly, it would be necessary to investigate what made the book so popular in the past and what could make it a bestseller today. The article reveals the story of the book`s creation and success, as well as, the multifaceted personality of the main character.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00072023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0016<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>One of the most memorable moments of Joe Biden’s inauguration as president of the USA was that of Amanda Gorman reciting her inaugural poem <italic>The Hill we Climb</italic>. The translation of this text led to a far-reaching controversy in the international media while at the same time raising a series of theoretical questions in the field of translation studies. The present paper intends to discuss certain theoretical issues such as the translator’s visibility and literary translation related to forms and relations of power by placing them in the context of the shift of theoretical paradigms in translation studies which started in the second half of the 20^th century.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00162023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0002<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article follows the two volumes of essays <italic>The King Bows and Kills</italic> (2003) and Always the same snow and always the same uncle (2011) written by Herta Müller. Politics and aesthetics define the Nobel laureate’s writing, with her essays anchored in Romania’s recent history. They are of a political nature, offer retrospectives on their life in Romania beyond the Iron Curtain, insights into the dictatorial past, persecution by the secret service, the betrayal of closest friends, but also contain reflections on the role of the language, the preference for Romanian, on the use of “The King” in their fictional texts, explain their “alien gaze”. Always the same snow and always the same uncle focuses on the deportation of the Romanian Germans to the Ukraine, with the information serving as a companion work to the novel <italic>Hunger angel</italic>. The betrayal of closest friends is also discussed, whereby the insight into their files and the past of Oskar Pastior/Otto Stein’s files are used.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00022023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0012<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The stories about the <italic>Vaser Valley</italic> in the northern Romanian Forest Carpathians have not only fascinated the population of the region, but also famous writers who have always tried to collect the stories and tales from the historical region of the <italic>Vaser Valley</italic>. The best-known author of this region, who turned his lifelong work into this spectacular project, is the German-speaking ethnologist and writer, of Romanian origin, Anton-Joseph Ilk. His book <italic>Die mythische Welt des Wassertales</italic> includes a remarkable collection of legends and tales from this region, presented in their orally transmitted stories. The main themes of the stories naturally include customs and traditions, whereby certain values and principles were passed on not only to the children and grandchildren, but also to all succeeding generations.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00122023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0005<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>In comparison to the Transsylvanian-Saxon or to the German-speaking Bukowina literature the modernists exerted a more reduced influence on the literature of the Banat Swabians. Franz Xaver Kappus (1883-1966) influenced the literary modernists in the Western part of Romania especially through his expressionistic texts. He became famous thanks to his correspondence with Rainer Maria Rilke. The masterpiece <italic>Die lebenden Vierzehn (The Fourteeen SURVIVORS)</italic> (1918) is swayed by a collective catastrophe and represents a certain kind of utopia, which anticipates the end of the world. A dread causing image with a peculiar unreality shapes the event. Kappus’ fantasy does not shrink back from images of dread and horror. As in the expressionistic literature any destruction of the harmonious beautiful principle comes about in dread. The grotesque features belong to the expressionistic character of the book. It is interesting that the dreadful and the grotesque show their demonic side and with it they destroy the familiar reality. Such a development demonstrates that Kappus follows a tradition to which also E. T. A. Hoffmann, Frank Wedekind, Franz Kafka or Georg Heym belong. There are also streaks of naturalism in the novel.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00052023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0018<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>This study aims to present the linguistic landscape of a transylvanian city, namely Mediaș, using the Linguistic Landscape method. It is investigated in which areas of the public space the languages of the historical national minorities are present. The corpus includes inscriptions from the public space that have been analysed and classified according to certain criteria.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00182023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0017<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article is devoted to a historical German settlement in present-day Slovakia, since the small German minority of the lumberjacks/woodcutters (Slovak. Huncokári) has received little attention. The urgency of the need for research is also pointed out, since there are only very few speakers of this dialect left. The article therefore informs about some background of the settlement history, the present state and about approaches for ethnological field research.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00172023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-0015<abstract> <title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> <p>The article deals with the promotion of the German language abroad through Germany’s foreign cultural and educational policy. An important concern of the German intermediary organizations abroad is access to culture and education across geographic, political and social borders, but scientific and economic policy. interests, which benefit the needs of the German market, also play a major role. Regarding the fact that more and more skilled workers who are ultimately lacking in their countries of origin are migrating to Germany, the article questions whether it is always a so-called triple-win model.</p> </abstract>ARTICLEtruehttps://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/gb-2022-00152023-04-22T00:00:00.000+00:00en-us-1