The model of entanglement and change in literary history: peculiarity and performance of a pattern for pre-national literature

ABSTRACT

The model of entangled history appears to be extremely helpful for the literary history of multilingual and multiethnic spaces, since it not only transcends how nations are fixed in the sense of state, ethnicities, and language, but also reveals the manifold entanglements of structures relationships, interactions, and the like. The processes of change in literary history from an epochal structure to an everyday one set the shape of the literature as a whole and of the single text, and as a rule they appear different when seen from a global perspective rather than a local one. Therefore, how suitable the interlacing model is for describing and analyzing these conversion processes needs to be examined.

KEYWORDS:

• Entanglement
• literary change
• literary history
• German literature
• baltic German literature
• cultural transfer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Although it is customary in English to speak indiscriminately of ‘Baltic German,’ with regard to German terminology there is a differentiation that is important for the self-image of this (former) population, which also applies to the dispute in literary studies over the question of the designation ‘German-Baltic’ (deutschbaltische) or ‘Baltic German’ (baltendeutsche) literature. The term ‘Baltic German’ is rejected today because in National Socialist racial propaganda, Germans abroad were seen, for example, as Baltic variant of the German people (and their literature), while the opposite term emphasizes the German variant of the Baltic people, and thus much more strongly expresses the connection to the Baltic states. For the history of literature, the still ethnically-dominated concept of ‘German-Baltic literature’ is questioned. See, Bosse 2004; Klöker 2015.

2. The following volumes deserve particular mention: Schwidtal, Undusk, and Lukas 2007; Lukas, Plath, and Tüür 2011; Lukas, Schwidtal, and Undusk 2018; as well as a special issue of the journal Keel ja kirjandus (Undusk and Lukas 2011).

3. This approach is quite similar to ‘New Historicism,’ which emerged from Renaissance research and studies the connections between synchronic texts of different origin (Baßler 2003, 147) and is interested not only in esthetic but also nonliterary criteria in its analysis of texts (Werberger 2012, 112). Here I pass over the model of ‘cultural contact,’ which is close to the model of entanglement, but accents other aspects. For example, contact can be a momentary action or it can be permanent.

4. A few examples of key concepts are: literacy, mastery of languages, (learned) education, (financial) opportunities to acquire reading matter, writing as an (additional) source of income, or as a hobby, etc.

5. See also Müller (2014): ‘Entanglement histories that keep an eye on the world or at least on a macro level do not make national or homogenous literary histories or literary-historical works that work in small pieces obsolete. On the contrary: entanglement history depends very much on them.’

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council Grant IUT 28-1: Põimunud kirjanduslood: Eesti kirjakultuuri diskursiivne ajalugu / Entangled Literatures: Discursive History of Literary Culture in Estonia.

Notes on contributors

Martin Klöker

Martin Klöker studied German literature and linguistics at the University of Osnabrück, where he also received his PhD in 2004. Working there on the Handbuch des personalen Gelegenheitsschrifttums in the years 1996–2010 he became familiar with Baltic libraries and archives and focused on Baltic German literature. Since 2014 he has been employed as an extraterritorial senior researcher at the Under and Tuglas Literature Center of the Estonian Academy of Sciences.