Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'German Exile Literature'

Das Wort was a literary journal published by German Communist writers and fellow-travelers exiled in Moscow from 1936 to 1939. It was to be a mouthpiece for German literature in exile and to promote the Popular Front policy, which sought to unite disparate elements in non-Fascist Europe in opposition to the Nazis. Das Wort, under the editorship of German Communist writers whose close association with the Soviet Union had been well established in the previous decade, tried to provide a forum for exiled writers of various political persuasions, but was unwavering in its positive portrayal of Stalin's Soviet Union and the policies of that country. As the level of hysteria grew with the successive purges and public show trials in the Soviet Union, the journal adopted an even more eulogistic and militant attitude: any criticism or expression of doubt about Soviet policy was equated with support for Fascism. Thus the ability of the journal to contribute to the formation of a true common front in Europe to oppose Fascism was compromised from the outset by its total support for the Soviet Union. The Popular Front policy foundered on this issue, and that portion of German literature in exile which was to form the first generation of East German literature was inextricably bound to the Soviet Union well before the German Democratic Republic came in to existence.

Abstract This study examines the effect of exile on Theodor Wolff’s writings from 1933 to 1943. Wolff, a highly assimilated German Jew and renowned journalist and editor-in-chief of the ‘Berliner Tageblatt’ from 1906-1933, was one of the most influential cultural and liberal political commentators during World War I and the Weimar Republic. His political life and influence has been extensively researched, whereas his life in exile has not been explored. Enforced sudden exile in 1933 represented a turning point in Wolff’s life. Following the temporal sequence of Wolff’s ten years in exile, this study is divided into four chapters, starting with the early exile years from 1933 to 1936, followed by the immediate pre World War II period. The third chapter covers the German invasion and occupation of France in 1940. The last chapter sheds light on the two final years from 1942 to 1943. These four periods reflect his exile experience and gradual decline in living conditions, mood, and fundamental changes in his approach to writing. In exile Wolff devotes his time and effort to historical accounts and fiction – a difficult genre for a publicist and journalistic writer. He also embarks on autobiographical writings and during his final years in exile deals with the Jewish catastrophe unfolding in Nazi controlled Europe, raising issues concerning the so called ‘Jewish Problem’. This study draws attention to the effect exile had on an important German- Jewish writer, who in 1943 fell victim to the Holocaust. Wolff’s works, especially his exile writings survived the war and remain relevant today. The findings of this research provide some insight into a turbulent period in German and European history that drastically changed many lives. It also makes a significant contribution to the study of Theodor Wolff and to exile studies in general.

Doctor of Philosophy
Abstract This study examines the effect of exile on Theodor Wolff’s writings from 1933 to 1943. Wolff, a highly assimilated German Jew and renowned journalist and editor-in-chief of the ‘Berliner Tageblatt’ from 1906-1933, was one of the most influential cultural and liberal political commentators during World War I and the Weimar Republic. His political life and influence has been extensively researched, whereas his life in exile has not been explored. Enforced sudden exile in 1933 represented a turning point in Wolff’s life. Following the temporal sequence of Wolff’s ten years in exile, this study is divided into four chapters, starting with the early exile years from 1933 to 1936, followed by the immediate pre World War II period. The third chapter covers the German invasion and occupation of France in 1940. The last chapter sheds light on the two final years from 1942 to 1943. These four periods reflect his exile experience and gradual decline in living conditions, mood, and fundamental changes in his approach to writing. In exile Wolff devotes his time and effort to historical accounts and fiction – a difficult genre for a publicist and journalistic writer. He also embarks on autobiographical writings and during his final years in exile deals with the Jewish catastrophe unfolding in Nazi controlled Europe, raising issues concerning the so called ‘Jewish Problem’. This study draws attention to the effect exile had on an important German- Jewish writer, who in 1943 fell victim to the Holocaust. Wolff’s works, especially his exile writings survived the war and remain relevant today. The findings of this research provide some insight into a turbulent period in German and European history that drastically changed many lives. It also makes a significant contribution to the study of Theodor Wolff and to exile studies in general.

Despite being an equal in the most significant partnership in British cinema, Emeric Pressburger has largely been overshadowed by his long term collaborator Michael Powell in both critical and academic studies. While there have been countless books on Powell and Pressburger as a team, those who have sought to separate the partnership have, until now, focussed almost exclusively on Powell. This thesis will attempt to redress the balance within Powell and Pressburger scholarship and attempt to break away from director-centric film studies. It will aim to examine Pressburger’s morally ambiguous characters, such as the recurring “good German” and his propensity to humanise characters who would normally be termed evil or corrupt, in conjunction with the central themes of displacement and exile within Pressburger’s screenplays and novels. The thesis will also utilise both unpublished and unfilmed material and demonstrate that the study of these works that exist only in archives provide a greater insight into the working practises of authors and filmmakers, while providing a valuable point of comparison to their more widely known works. Specifically, this thesis will address four separate aspects of Pressburger’s canon. First, it will discuss Pressburger’s war films which he made with Powell, which have suffered to an extent from neglect by many Archers’ scholars. It is clear that Pressburger’s key hallmarks and mirroring of his own experiences during the war can be seen to develop within these works and provide an ideal point of comparison with that of his later projects such as his novels. Chapter two will then examine the often overlooked filmed operetta, Oh ... Rosalinda!! (1955) along with Pressburger’s unfilmed screenplay The Golden Years (1951) a biopic of Richard Strauss, and provide a comparison to demonstrate the manner in which Pressburger’s love of opera overlapped with his development of complex characters and response to the war. Chapter three will analyse Pressburger two published novels, both of which have been largely ignored by both cinema and literary critics. Through the study of these novels, the difference in approach after the transition from screenwriter to novelist will be examined, along with the further development of his seeming neutrality in the portrayal of morally unsound characters. Chapter four will then focus on Pressburger’s two unpublished novels, The Unholy Passion and A Face like England, with consideration of Pressburger’s developing ideas of morality and forgiveness in his later years. In conclusion, by closely examining works that have been overlooked by Powell and Pressburger scholars, the thesis will shed new light on Pressburger, both as a filmmaker and an author and demonstrate the complexities of both his characters and his writing.

When Bertolt Brecht flees Nazi Germany in 1933 he spends fourteen years in exile where he writes some of his most significant works, among them, Leben des Galilei. In his Leben des Galilei, Brecht explores the relationship between the individual and society. Using the historical Galileo Galilei as context, Brecht elucidates the responsibility that scientists must accept for how their discoveries are put to use. With his Galilei figur, Brecht expresses his belief that scientific advancement should be employed for the societal advancement of the common person. Brecht wrote three versions of his Galilei work, each showing significant parallels to Brecht's experiences during the corresponding time period of his exile. This thesis will illustrate these parallels. It will first show that the Galilei thematic is to be found in the very first years of Brecht's exile. It then deals with the influences surrounding the writing of the first version while Brecht is in Denmark. The second part of the thesis focuses on Brecht's exile in America and the resulting second version of his Galilei work. Here, working with Charles Laughton on an English translation of the work, Brecht's Galilei undergoes a fundamental change. Brecht attempts to alter the positive perception of the first version's Galileo who cleverly outwits the Inquisition and secretly has his work the Discorsi smuggled out of Italy. Brecht now wants to portray Galileo as a traitor of the people, who missed his chance to help the common people overcome the suppression they were subjected to. This change is strongly influenced by Brecht's experiences in America and the dawning of the Atomic Age. The last section of the thesis deals with Brecht's return to Europe and the third version of Leben des Galilei written in East Berlin. This is a result of translating the American version into German and the addition of scenes and individual elements cut from the first version to make it more appropriate for American audiences. Brecht maintains and tries to heighten the negative portrayal of Galileo as traitor of the common people.

Die drei schlichten Worte „Ich bin Spaniolin” im Titel der vorliegenden literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschungsarbeit beinhalten das fundamentale Bekenntnis der jüdisch-sephardischen Schriftstellerin Veza Canetti, dessen tiefgreifende Dimension sich im Laufe der biographisch-literarisch-historischen Untersuchungen offenbart haben. Innerhalb von drei konzentrischen Kreisen richtet sich der Hauptfokus auf die judenspanische Identität Veza Canettis. Ein extensiver historischer Rückblick auf das Goldene Zeitalter der Sepharadim auf der Iberischen Halbinsel sowie die Konsquenzen des Vertreibungsedikts von 1492 macht das Festhalten der Sephardim an der spanischen Sprache und Kultur plausibel. Danach wird die literarisch-soziopolitisch fruchtbarste Zeit für jüdische Künstler und Schriftsteller wie Veza (und Elias) Canetti im Roten Wien des Austromarxismus bis zur nationalsozialistischen Machtübernahme 1938 und das jüdische Exil in London erforscht. In jedem der konzentrischen Kreise ziehen sich vier relevante themenorientierte Elemente als roter Faden durch die Arbeit: 1. Das Judenspanische als Kommunikationssprache zwischen dem Ehepaar Canetti, 2. der einflussreiche literarische und künstlerische Freundeskreis der Canettis in Wien und im Londoner Exil, 3. die deutsche Literatursprache Veza und Elias Canettis, 4. eine minutiöse Analyse jener Werke, die thematisch mit dem jeweiligen der drei konzentrischen Kreise verbunden sind, d.h. das jüdisch-sephardische Erbe, das Leben mit jüdisch-sephardischen Wurzeln im Wien des sozio-politischen Wandels und zuguterletzt das jüdische Exil in London. Der erste konzentrische Kreis erforscht das jüdisch-sephardische Erbe Veza Canettis in seiner vollständigen Dimension im Hinblick auf das Leben ihrer Urahnen während des Goldenen Zeitalters Spaniens und Portugals, die Vertreibung der Juden und deren Neuansiedlung in Nordafrika, Nord-/Ost- und Westeuropa, im Osmanischen Reich, auf dem Balkan und Übersee. Die judenspanische Sprache hat sich bis in die Aktualität bewahrt, und zwar in Volksweisen, Sprichwörtern und der Literatur. Die Werkanalysen dieses konzentrischen Kreises beziehen sich insbesondere auf die spanischen Erzählungen „Der Seher” und „Pastora”, in denen die spanische Urheimat Veza Canettis mit der andalusischen Hauptstadt Sevilla als „innerer Idealstandort” leuchtend zutage tritt. Der zweite konzentrische Kreis untersucht die Einwirkungen der literarischen Strömungen wie die Wiener Moderne, die Neue Sachlichkeit sowie des politischen Wandels der ehemaligen Doppelmonarchie Österreich-Ungarn auf das Leben und Werk Veza Canettis. Hierin werden die beginnende literarische Gemeinschaft mit Elias Canetti, der jüdische Wiener Freundeskreis, die literarischen Vorbilder Veza Canettis, der Austromarxismus als die in Europa beispielhafte Sonderform eines gemäßigten Sozialismus und insbesondere der Inhalt ihrer sozio-politisch-feministischen Kritikpunkte an den bestehenden gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen ihrer Zeit erforscht. In der Wiener Zeit entstanden Veza Canettis bedeutendste Erzählungen, die zum Novellenzyklus (Roman) Die Gelbe Straße zusammengefasst wurden. Der Roman Die Schildkröten stellt ein Brückenwerk dar, denn er wurde von Veza Canetti in wenigen Wochen nach ihrer Ankunft im Londoner Exil geschrieben, ist aber zugleich ein lebendiges Zeugnis der Machtergreifung der Nationalsozialisten in Wien 1938 und Verdrängung und Verfolgung der Juden. Zum Glück gelingt den Canettis die rechtzeitige Flucht ins Exil nach London. Im dritten konzentrischen Kreis wird das jüdische Exil Veza (und Elias) Canettis in London untersucht. Wiederum sind die geflohenen jüdischen Freunde von wesentlicher Bedeutung, sowie die judenspanische Sprache, die Veza und Elias Canetti im privaten Umgang pflegen. Ferner wird den Briefen zusätzliche literarische Wertschätzung beigemessen. Die erforschten Briefe drücken die jüdisch-sephardische Identität Veza Canettis am ehesten aus und enthalten, vor allem die Buchsammlung der Briefe an Georges betreffend, etliche Hinweise auf das Judentum. Die in diesem konzentrischen Kreis untersuchten Werke sind weniger gesellschaftskritisch als in der Wiener Zeit und beschreiben sowohl Kriegserlebnisse wie die Bombardierung Londons („Air raid” und „Der letzte Wille”) , die Gegenüberstellung von Christen und Juden in „Toogoods oder das Licht”, wie auch Veza Canettis Beobachtungen der britischen Gesellschaft unter humoristischer Perspektive in ihrer Exilkomödie Der Palankin. Drei Werkübersichten, etliche Dokumente, Fotos und Briefe aus verschiedenen Nachlässen sowie zwei Gesprächs- bzw./Besuchsprotokolle im Anhang komplettieren die literaturwissenschaftlichen Forschungen der vorliegenden Dissertation und führen zu der Erkenntnis, dass eine profilierte Schriftstellerin sich mit ihren literarischen Schriften aus dem Schatten ihres langjährigen Ehemannes herauslöst und mit ihren jüdisch-sephardischen Wurzeln in eigenem Licht erstrahlt: Veza Canetti.
Three simple words ”I am a Spaniolin” in the title of the present literary research work appoint to the fundamental belief of the Judeo-Spanish writer Veza Canetti. The profound dimensión of this confession is confirmed trhoughout the biographical, literary and historical research for this thesis. The central focus concentrates – within three concentric circles– on Veza Canetti’s Judeo-Spanish identity including a vaste historical retrospection of the Golden Middle Ages for the Spanish Jews on the Iberic Peninsular, the consecuences of the expulsión of the Sephardim on 1492 in order to make comprehensible their adherence to the Spanish culture and language. Furtheron, the investigation of the fertile literary production of Jewish artists and writers like Veza (and Elias) Canetti during the Austromarxism in Red Viena til the take-over of the Nazis in 1938 and the consecuent Jewish exile in London is described in this thesis. In every concentric circle there are four relevant elements as a red line throughout this paper: 1) Judeo-Spanish as the language of private communication between the Canetti- couple, 2) the influence of their literary and artistic friends in Viena and in London, their exile 3) the German as a literary language for both Veza and Elias Canetti 4) An exhaustive work-analisis of those literary works which are directly related to the head-lines of each concentric circle, as the are the Jewish-Sephardic heritage, living with Jewish-Sephardic roots in Viena and last not least the Jewish exile period in London. The first concentric circle contains the most important part of this thesis: the Sephardic heritage with a wide historic background and analisis of Veza Canettis Spanish works Der Seher and Pastora. The second concentric circle contains the Viena-period. The literary value of the letters is as well contemplated within the third and last concentric circle, as letters are the expression of one’s own identity of Sephardic elements which are always present in Veza Canetti’s letters to her brother-in-law Georges and friends and editors. Three tables of Veza Canetti’s Works, numerous documents, photographs and letters out of different legacies, as well as two reports of conversations and visits, to be found in the Annex, complete the new results of this literary research thesis about Veza Canetti’s Judeo-Spanish roots.

Este tese aborda a obra do escritor judeu austríaco Joseph Roth, buscando entender a crítica que ele faz à modernidade como resultante de um ponto de vista singular, determinado pelo encontro entre dois mundos: o mundo do tradicionalismo judaico no Leste europeu e o mundo da monarquia habsburga, em seus anos finais. Pretende-se demonstrar que é tomando como referência os parâmetros destes dois universos que Roth dirige um olhar cético para a modernidade e para o mundo pós-1ª. Guerra Mundial. Ao mesmo tempo, pretende-se demonstrar como o conceito de exílio está inextricavelmente ligado a uma obra crítica com relação a seu tempo, embasada na memória de dois mundos em extinção. Trata-se, porém, de um exílio que se configura mais como a expulsão de um tempo do que como uma simples expulsão geográfica - o que o torna, de certa maneira, mais trágico. O exílio é também uma das categorias centrais da reflexão mística e filosófica judaica, e neste sentido busco apontar para as coincidências entre o tema do exílio em Roth e nas doutrinas desta tradição. Ao conceito de exílio corresponde, como seu duplo e seu oposto, o conceito de Heimat (terra-mãe), que em Roth se torna uma categoria abstrata, pertencente ao universo da metafísica e da memória, e ,como tal, objeto de culto e paradigma, à luz dos quais ele interpreta a realidade do universo europeu entre-guerras. Diante do que foi discutido sobre os temas acima, conclui-se que esta Heimat imaginária afigura-se como uma das suas obsessões literárias, em torno da qual ele construirá uma obra que é, sobretudo, a tentativa de restauração de uma paisagem humana desaparecida e um retrato profundamente nostálgico da memória de uma civilização, ancorada na Idade Média, e sepultada pelo tempo e pelas guerras.
This thesis discusses the oeuvre of the Jewish Austrian writer Joseph Roth, and aims at an understanding of his critique of modernity, which is seen as a result of a unique point of view, determined by the encounter between two worlds: the traditional world of Eastern European Jewry on one hand and the world of the final years of the Habsburg Monarchy on the other. I try to show that Roth takes a skeptical look at modernity and at post-World War I Europe using the paradigms of these two lost worlds.At the same time I aim at demonstrating how the concept of exile is deeply rooted in his critique of modernity. However he is dealing with an exile in time here, as opposed to a purely geographical exile - an exile that is far more tragic, since it is irreversible. Exile is also a core theme in traditional Jewish mystical and philosophical thought and I try to point to coincidences in the treatment of this topic in Roth and in traditional Jewish doctrines.The concept of exile has the idea of Heimat or homeland as its opposite, and in Roth Heimat becomes an abstract category, pertaining to the universe of metaphysics and memory, in the light of which he interprets European civilization of the 1920´s and 1930´s.I conclude by showing how this fictive Heimat turns into one of his literary obsessions, around which he will build an oeuvre, which is, more then anything else, an attempt at restoring a vanished human landscape, anchored in the Middle Ages and buried by time and by wars.

This study focuses on selected texts and authors associated with the cultural centre exil in Vienna which promotes the culture of migrants and minorities, mainly Roma and Sinti, in Austria. Since 1997 exil has awarded the annual prize writing between cultures. The literary prize addresses authors with a migrant background’ whose mother tongue is not German but who write in German. Texts entered for this prize should cover (in the broadest sense) one of the following topics: being foreign, being different, identity, flight, expulsion, arriving, integration or living between cultures. Attached to the centre is the publishing house edition exil. The thesis investigates the negotiation of cultural identities of migrants at the intersection of the cultural centre exil individual life histories and literary creations. Tensions and contradictions between institutional and individual discourses are identified and are related to the literary works of the authors Seher Çakr, Dimitré Dinev, Anna Kim, Grace M. Latigo, Julya Rabinowich, Simone Schönett and Sina Tahayori. My analysis is informed by a theoretical framework which incorporates concepts of cultural identity, canonisation and the construction of community, and combines a cultural sociological approach with a textual one: the analysis focuses on qualitative interviews with selected authors as well as literary texts. I hope to demonstrate the tensions between cultural integration and exclusion and to investigate the place authors around exil negotiate for themselves. The aim of the project is to highlight exil’s as well as the authors’ contribution to the Austrian literary field and to provide a better understanding of their early literary works and their self-conception as writers.

In the years immediately following the Second World War, the main part of Latvian literature was produced by writers living outside Latvia. To this day Latvian literature continues to be written outside Latvia, albeit to a much smaller extent. This study examines those Latvian novels, written outside Latvia after the Second World War, which depict the realities of the early years of exile. The aim of the study is to describe the image of the world of exile as depicted in these novels. Borrowing from Bakhtin's concept of the chronotope, images relating to time and space in these novels are examined in order to discern a mental topography of exile common to all these novels - a chronotope of exile. The novels are read as part of a collective narrative, produced by a particular social group in unordinary historical circumstances. The novels are regarded as this social group’s common perception of its own experience of this historical reality. The early years of exile fall into two distinct periods: first, the period of flight from Latvia and life in and around the Displaced Persons camps of postwar Germany; second, the early years of settling in a new country of residence after emigration from Germany. A model of the perceived world is constructed in order to compare these two periods, as well as their divergence from a standard perception of oneself in the world. This model consists of various time-spaces radiating concentrically out from the individual – ranging from the physically and psychologically near-lying time-spaces of one’s personal and intimate life, through everyday social time-spaces, as well as formal societal time-spaces, to the more distant abstract and conceptual perceptions of one’s place in the universe. Basic human concepts such as home, family, work, intimate relationships, social administration, and most notably the homeland – Latvia – are plotted at various points within these models. Divergences between the models describing the perception of time and space in the two early periods of exile thus become apparent.

Through a study of the work of three important writers, this thesis engages with the traumatic memories of the second half of the twentieth century in Czechoslovakia in order to highlight the value of literature in widening critical understandings of the continuing legacy of this complex era, which was dominated by totalitarian regimes under the Communist governments which gained control after the upheaval of the Second World War. Whilst these years were not unilaterally traumatic, many lives were dramatically affected by border closures and by the experience of living under a regime that maintained control through methods including confiscation of property, surveillance, arbitrary imprisonment, show trials, and executions. Many of the stories of this era could not be published openly because of censorship, and the persecution of intellectuals led to a wave of emigration, during which a number of writers moved to France. Using theories of trauma, exile, illness, and of self and other, this thesis opens up a dialogue between the work of three writers who engage, albeit from very different perspectives, with this little-explored intersection between Czech and French. The first chapter explores Daniela Hodrová's translated Prague trilogy as a first-hand witness to her nation's dispossession and as a form of resistance to the deletion of memory. The second chapter considers the painful transgenerational legacy of the era as it plays out in the work of bilingual writer Jean-Gaspard Páleníček. Chapter Three considers the ways in which the Prague novels of established French author Sylvie Germain negotiate the fine line between an appropriation of the stories of the other and a moral responsibility to bear witness. By bringing these authors together for the first time and locating their work within French Studies, my work foregrounds the need for Western criticism to pay attention to other valuable voices who can contribute to our understandings of the traumatic experience that has shaped modern history.

Cette thèse consacrée à Die Ausgewanderten de W.G. Sebald (1992) procède à une étude microscopique et détaillée de l'écriture dans sa singularité, une radiographie du texte et de sa matérialité hétérogène. L'étude montre la structure binaire sous-jacente de l'ouvrage, la complexité des stratégies stylistiques et narratives, la manière dont le signifiant se soumet à l'impératif catégorique du signifié mais aussi la prééminence de signes tangentiels et obliques ; elle s'intéresse également à la singularité de l'enchaînement des discours rapportés et met en lumière le geste mélancolique du narrateur sébaldien. Il apparaît que l'intertextualité revêt une spécificité particulière puisque la polyphonie sébaldienne est orientée différemment de celle envisagée par M. Bakhtine. La deuxième partie s'attache à étudier la critique de la civilisation (Kulturkritik) dans une œuvre fortement marquée par la constellation idéologique de l'École de Francfort et plus précisément par " La Dialectique de la Raison " de Horkheimer et d'Adorno. La prose allemande muséale de l'auteur, qui rappelle celle d'Adalbert Stifter mais aussi, par ses emboîtements narratifs, emprunte la virtuosité bernhardienne, est incrustée de " moments " de bonheur ou de beauté qui mettent en évidence et soulignent l'inouï du monde concentrationnaire. Les thématiques de l'exil et du pays natal sont au centre des intérêts de la troisième partie. L'étude s'attache à montrer que l'ouvrage réécrit en quelque sorte une littérature de l'exil que l'auteur, professeur de littérature de langue allemande, a eu l'occasion de fréquenter mais aussi d'analyser. C'est un " chœur d'exilés " qui se fait entendre dans Die Ausgewanderten et qui manifeste la tragédie de l'homme moderne.

This dissertation evaluates the career and work of the underappreciated Austrian-Jewish-American novelist, dramatist, essayist and screen writer Gina Kaus (1894 - 1985). The dissertation's approach is interdisciplinary in nature, drawing from the fields of German, American, exile, literary, feminist, performance, global, cultural as well as film studies. The unusually diverse corpus of Kaus's work in both the literary and filmic medium makes such an interdisciplinary approach indispensable. The dissertation argues that Kaus's specific female and little visible exile experience was shaped and accompanied by a significant, social, cultural, political, linguistic and geographical change. It reconstructs and consciously reinserts Kaus' transatlantic accomplishments into the larger exile history. My dissertation offers close reading of Gina Kaus's second play Toni (1928) and positions her piece within the larger landscape of the Weimar Republic and Vienna during the 1920s. The analysis incorporates a feminist reading, which focuses on the performances of gender and the representation of femininity and illustrates the destabilization of gender and sexual identities during the Weimar period. The analysis of Die Überfahrt (1932), Kaus's second bestseller novel, discusses her novel as a Zeitroman (novel of the times). It contextualizes her book in terms of its readership and the literary market while examining it as a comment on the political, financial and social circumstances of 1920s Weimar culture. A thorough investigation of two films for which Kaus invented the story and collaborated on the screenplay, namely The Wife Takes a Flyer (directed by Richard Wallace, USA, 1942), an Anti-Nazi comedy, and Three Secrets (directed by Robert Wise, USA, 1950), a melodrama, challenges the persistent idea that Kaus's work for Hollywood was incapable to live up to her earlier literary and theatrical successes as an author of the Weimar period. My particular focus on the representation of femininity and female agency sheds light on how the émigrée Kaus, who had been known as an ardent feminist in Europe, successfully managed to subvert ideas of heteronormative gender and power discourses even within the restrictive limits of the Hollywood apparatus. The dissertation further investigates the understudied text form screenplay and the practice of screenwriting. It examines for the first time various unpublished film script versions of the The Wife Takes a Flyer and Three Secrets and thus promotes the film script as a textual form worthy of investigation and integration in both literary and film studies. The script analysis pays attention to the collaborative nature, considers the various versions and revisions the script underwent, offers a comparison to the movies and evaluates the script in its multi-functionality, style, and aesthetics. The scripts also give insight into the ways in which Kaus's exilic consciousness permeates her scriptwriting. My close analysis of Kaus's autobiography, which was published in 1979 and targeted at a German-speaking readership, uncovers the ways in which exile is reflected in the practice of autobiographical writing. The dissertation focuses foremost on the narrative strategies as well as omissions in Kaus's attempt to re-inscribe herself into the literary and artistic scene of Vienna and Berlin; and her effort to position herself among the prominent and predominantly male German-Jewish diaspora in Hollywood. I also shed light on her ability to adapt to the United States and her decision to remain and become a citizen. Her perception of exile as an opportunity, rather than as a limitation is an important new aspect in the existing exile research. Among the Jewish-German exile community in Hollywood, Gina Kaus had a truly transnational career and deserves more credit for her filmic works.

L’œuvre migrante de Walter Bauer, immigrant allemand ayant quitté l’Allemagne en 1952 et s’étant établi à Toronto, est digne d’intérêt, car elle exprime le malaise de l’auteur face à sa situation d’exilé. Bauer, amoureux de l’Allemagne et de sa culture, doit en effet tenter de vivre avec la honte du passé nazi de son pays natal. Incapable de faire cohabiter l’amour et la honte, Bauer fait donc face à une crise identitaire à laquelle il répond en tentant de se reconstruire une identité nouvelle. Le Canada y jouera un rôle à la fois positif et négatif. C’est de ce rôle du pays d’accueil pour la réussite de l’écrivain migrant dans sa quête identitaire dont il sera question dans ce mémoire de maitrise. En nous appuyant tant sur le poids du passé pour l’auteur que sur l’espoir qu’il porte en ses possibilités de reconstruction identitaire au Canada, nous pourrons faire ressortir l’idéal identitaire de Bauer : être un homme des deux pays, chez lui sur les deux continents. En analysant le traitement de l’expérience immigrante que nous retrouvons dans son œuvre, nous arrivons à la conclusion que le choc de la réalité vient cependant mettre à rude épreuve cet idéal et, ultimement, l’empêche de le concrétiser. L’idéal de l’auteur, né du contact de la fracture identitaire suite à la Deuxième Guerre mondiale et de l’espoir d’une nouvelle naissance représenté par un Canada idéalisé, est donc rendu impossible à cause du Canada réel qui le met dans une situation d’aliénation.
German-Canadian Walter Bauer’s writings are a striking example of the identity struggle he faced as an exiled person. Walter Bauer, who profoundly loved his native country, Germany, and its culture, had to learn to live with the shame inherited from the National-socialist regime. In his work, he is incapable of reconciling his beloved Germany with the horrors of the war and is faced with an identity crisis, leaving him with the need to rebuild his identity. His host country, Canada, played an ambivalent role in this quest, both positive and negative. This master’s thesis explores the role of Canada in the identity quest of the migrant writer Walter Bauer. By analysing both the burden of the German past and the promise of renewal given by Canada, it describes the identity ideal towards which Bauer strived: to be a man from both Canada and Germany, to be at ease on both continents. The way in which the author represents the immigrant experience through his work leads us to conclude that the clash with reality ultimately questions this ideal. The writer’s identity crisis, resulting from the Second World War and his false hopes of a new beginning in an idealised Canada, ends in alienation lived.

Niniejsza rozprawa jest pierwszą próbą monograficznego zarysowania "mapy" twórczości i recepcji Eleonory Kalkowskiej: polsko-niemieckiej autorki i dramatopisarki; istotnej, choć zapoznanej, agentce sieci transnarodowego modernizmu. W dotychczasowych badaniach historycznoliterackich Kalkowska funkcjonowała przede wszystkim jako autorka paru sztuk (głównie napisanych w latach 1929-1932 „Sprawy Jakubowskiego” i „Doniesień drobnych”), które przyporządkowały jej dorobek do nurtu politycznego Zeittheater okresu Republiki Weimarskiej. Niniejsza rozprawa dowodzi, że był to jeden z powodów marginalizacji Kalkowskiej w zarówno niemieckiej, jak i polskiej historii literatury. Nie bez znaczenia była też kwestia niejednoznacznej, wielopozycyjnej przynależności narodowej, która na różnych płaszczyznach interferowała z recepcją jej twórczości i wpłynęła na wymazanie autorki z unarodowionych kanonów literackich. Do najważniejszych zadań niniejszej rozprawy należało zatem – z jednej strony – zaprezentowanie przypadku Kalkowskiej jako autorki tekstów znacznie wykraczających poza wąskie ramy kategorii Zeittheater (takich jak m.in. młodopolski zbiór opowiadań "Głód życia" z 1904, feministyczno-pacyfistyczny tom poezji "Der Rauch des Opfers" z 1916, "herstoryczna" sztuka poświęcona carycy Katarzynie ["Katharina", ok. 1926] czy "L'Arc de Triomphe", który zaświadcza o zainteresowaniu pisarki tematyką egzystencjalną). Zaś z drugiej strony, opisanie mechanizmów interferencji pomiędzy kategoriami przynależności narodowej, narzucanymi Kalkowskiej (która określała siebie jako "ucieleśniony skrawek Paneuropy"), a recepcją jej twórczości (i ostatecznie: marginalizacją jej dorobku w obrębie unarodowionych historii literatury). Główne metodologiczne inspiracje, patronujące niniejszej rozprawie, są zaczerpnięte ze studiów, rozwijanych w ramach tak zwanego "zwrotu przestrzennego". Autorka wykorzystuje koncepcje z takich jego nurtów jak geopoetyka, studia nad modernizmem transnarodowym i uchodźczym (exile studies), a także z zakresu feminizmu umiejscawiania. Istotną dla niniejszej rozprawy jest również idea "światowej republiki literatury" Pascale Casanovy, która opisała m.in. mechanizmy rządzące transnarodowym polem literackim oraz wymagania, stawiane pisarzom języków o "niższej" pozycji w hierarchii "światowego" literackiego prestiżu. Rozprawa jest podzielona na trzy części, których granice podyktowane zostały przez biograficzno-chronologiczne ramy. Część pierwsza ("Migracje") obejmuje lata 1883-1918 i etap nomadycznych poszukiwań Kalkowskiej (zarówno artystycznych, jak i geograficznych). W drugiej ("Zamek i poetka") zrekonstruowana została działalność pisarki w modernistycznym, kosmopolitycznym Berlinie okresu weimarskiego (1919-1933): jej starania o trafienie na scenę oraz punkt szczytowy kariery, gwałtownie przerwany przez dojście NSDAP do władzy. Część trzecia ("Exodus") dotyczy uchodźczych lat Kalkowskiej (1933-1937), spędzonych w Paryżu i Londynie pomiędzy tysiącami innych wygnańców, którzy w późniejszej historii literatury nazwani zostali formacją "modernizmu uchodźczego". W tym świetle przypadek Kalkowskiej jawi się jako ważne ogniwo w historii różnych "geomodernizmów". Zamykający rozprawę „Epilog” pokazuje, w jaki sposób wpisuje się ona w nowe nurty badań historycznoliterackich.
This doctoral thesis is the first attempt to draw a monographical ‘map’ of works and reception of Eleonore Kalkowska, Polish-German modernist poet and playwright, an important, yet forgotten, border-crossing agent of transnational modernism network. In previous studies, Kalkowska functioned mainly as an author of few plays ("Josef" and "Zeitungsnotizen"), written between 1929-1932, which connected her only with political Zeittheater of Weimar Republic. This dissertation argues that it was one of the reasons for Kalkowska’s marginalization in – both Polish and German – literary history. Another factor of this marginalization was Kalkowska's ambiguous, multipositional national affiliation, which interfered with her works and its reception differently in different locations, and ultimately led to her erasure from ‘nationalised’ literary canons. Therefore, the main axis of this thesis is, on the one hand, to present Kalkowska’s case beyond the category of Zeittheater (as an author of e.g. modernist Polish short-stories collection "Głód życia" [The Hunger of Life, 1904], feminist-pacifist poetry from "Der Rauch des Opfers" [The Smoke of Sacrifice, 1916], herstorical play on Catherine the Great ["Katharina", ca. 1926] or "L’Arc de Triomphe" [Triumphal Arch, ca. 1934], which shows Kalkowska’s interest in existential issues). And on the other, is to describe the mechanism of interferences between national categories, which was imposed on Kalkowska (who was describing herself as an „embodied piece of Pan-Europa’s body”), and the reception of her works (eventually: a marginalization from nationalized literary histories). Main methodological inspirations of this thesis are taken from literary studies, which were developed as a part of ‘spatial turn’. The author uses concepts from ‘geopoetics’, studies of transnational modernism and exile studies, last but not least – locational feminism. An important concept for this thesis is also the idea of the ‘World Republic of Letters’ by Pascale Casanova, who described e.g. the mechanisms governing the transnational literary field and the requirements posed to writers from languages of ‘lower’ positions in the hierarchy of ‘world’ literary prestige. The doctoral thesis is divided into three parts, framed by the chronological and biographical boundaries. The first ("Migrations") tackles the years between 1883-1918 and the stage of Kalkowska’s nomadic explorations (both artistical and geographical). The second ("The Castle and the Poetess") shows Kalkowska’s years in modernist, Weimar Berlin (1918-1933) – it analyses her artistic networks and constellations, describes her way onto the stage and the high point of her literary career, which was abruptly interrupted by Hitler's rise to power. The third part ("Exodus") tackles the years of exile, which Kalkowska spent in Paris and London, among thousands of other exiles, who were eventually named as a formation of ‘exile modernism’. In this light, Kalkowska’s case appears to be an important link in the history of different ‘geomodernisms’. An Epilogue, which closes this thesis, shows how it corresponds with the new currents of literary history studies.

Hilde Spiel (1911-1990) had gained a respectable literary reputation when she emigrated to England in 1936. At that time she was working on her fourth novel. It reflected her own experiences, as did most of her prose. She later turned to journalism to earn a living. Following the war she frequently returned to Austria. But even after her "final return" in 1963, she maintained strong personal and professional ties to Britain. She could never resolve the resulting dilemma of divided loyalties which she expressed in her autobiography by asking, "Which World is my World?" In exile Spiel decided to switch languages, usually producing both a German and an English version of her works. Detailed comparisons show the difficulty of making the transition to a foreign tongue and the considerable obstacles involved in eventually reversing the process. These changes also entailed significant textual revisions. In her own distinctive way Spiel confronted many of the problems germane to a woman of her generation. Her life and work were shaped by conflicting influences--literature and journalism, family and profession, her husbands Peter de Mendelssohn and Hans Flesch-Brunningen, past and present, her attachment to England and her passionate devotion to Vienna. Ultimately, she could not reconcile her image of the city's "Golden Autumn" that had produced such a wealth of cultural achievement with her impressions of present day Austria where she found provincialism and malice prevailing. Spiel's critical intelligence and sense of ambiguity define her style as a writer whose elegant and expressive language is evident even in her smallest pieces. The quality of her novels, to be sure, is not always consistent and her opinions are often controversial, even contestable, but Hilde Spiel's voice continues to deserve our attention.