Rhetorik der Erinnerung

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the retreat of socialism, there occurs to the present day a continual conflict bordering on an outright war about the preservation of the memory of pre-1989 times. Nevertheless, only sporadic study has been done on maintaining the literature of the Soviet-occupied zone and later East Germany (or of the other countries of the Soviet Block for that matter). The theme of this volume centers around current aspects of remembrance culture in the socialist countries both before and after 1989. The contributions show how the interplay of narrative, iconic, and ritual forms of collective memory came to be formed. This is exemplarily done using individual texts and authors. The result reveals how generation-specific experiences and memories were produced in the texts. This look at authors and their texts emphasizes how overstepping the tolerance boundaries of closed societies can be interpreted as disturbing normality and a destabilization, with corresponding sanctions. German text.