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Contents Preface Brigid Haines and Lyn Marven

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List of Abbreviations

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Libuše Moníková: Life, Works and Reception Brigid Haines

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Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše: Zum Tode von Libuše Moníková Friedrich Christian Delius

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Writing is a Murderous Occupation Libuše Moníková interviewed by Petr Kyncl

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National Performance and Visibility in Die Fassade Sarah Goodchild

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‘Könnten so nicht politisch Träume in den Himmel wachsen?’: Women’s Writing and Humour in Die Fassade Beth Linklater

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Falling Down: Images of Trauma in Moníková’s Fragmentary Novel, Der Taumel Lyn Marven

93

‘Die Zeit der Bilder ist noch nicht gekommen’: Ästhetische Erfahrung, Kunstproduktion und Werkverweigerung in Der Taumel Karin Windt

113

‘Kde Domov MĤj?’: Nation, Exile and Return in Eine Schädigung and Verklärte Nacht Graham Jackman

131

‘Die wunde Naht der Grenze’: Czechs and Germans in Libuše Moníková’s Treibeis and Verklärte Nacht and Erica Pedretti’s Engste Heimat Valentina Glajar

161

‘Barren Territory for Grand Narratives’? Czech History in the Works of Libuše Moníková Brigid Haines

179

Cannibalising Texts: Libuše Moníková Digesting Arno Schmidt Robert Weninger and John J. White

201

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Zwischen Alltag und Ausnahmezustand: Zu Positionierungen des Mythos im Werk von Libuše Moníková Dana Pfeiferová

229

‘Der Roman muß sich die Bilder holen’: Film Discourse in the Texts of Libuše Moníková Helga G. Braunbeck

245

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography Lyn Marven

281

Notes on Contributors

311

Index

315

Brigid Haines and Lyn Marven Preface This volume honours the work of Libuše Moníková, the Czech-born writer who died in Berlin in January 1998. The author of five novels, two volumes of essays, one volume of dramatic sketches and one novel fragment, Moníková made a unique contribution to German, Czech and world literature, for she wrote in German, not her first language, from a distinctly Czech perspective and with the underlying preoccupations of a Czech patriot in a manner which can best be described as encyclopaedic, drawing on, indeed incorporating into her texts, discourses as wideranging as film, science, history, myth, literature, anthropology and Egyptology. Positively reviewed abroad, her works remained until recently relatively unknown in the land of her birth. It is hoped that this volume, which contains articles by Czech, German, US and British scholars, as well as an appreciation by her friend and fellow writer F.C. Delius, an English translation of one of her last interviews, and the first comprehensive bibliography of her work, will help to bring her works to a wider audience and stimulate further research on this truly European writer. It is fitting that it should appear at a moment when, following the Czech accession to the EU on 1 May 2004, the Czech Republic is once again claiming its rightful place at the heart of Europe. The essays in this volume range from close readings of a single text, to surveys of themes, techniques or motifs within her œuvre, to comparative readings looking at Moníková’s intertextual references or other authors. In addition to her most visible concerns with national identity, history, memory and trauma, these contributions emphasise the comic, the personal and the ambiguity in her works, as well as the sheer breadth of Moníková’s interests and sources. The volume begins with a memorial address by Friedrich Christian Delius, first delivered at the memorial service for the author at the Literarisches Colloquium, Berlin in June 1998, which we are delighted to re-print here. A supporter of ‘die Fürstin Libuše’ during her lifetime, Delius reflects on her life, work and significance within German and European literature – underlining Moníková’s determination to bring Czechoslovakia and Europe closer together and to overcome boundaries. Petr Kyncl conducted an interview with Moníková only weeks before her death; it is translated here for the first time, by Ilona Bílková, Graham

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Jackman and David Short, and is taken up by Graham Jackman in his article. The interview’s Czech perspective is illuminating, and finds Moníková railing against her compatriots as well as Germans, and speaking about Czech literature and the toll taken by writing. Two contributions focus on Moníková’s avowed ‘Hauptstück’, the picaresque novel Die Fassade. Sarah Goodchild points out that Die Fassade, despite its initial wide reception, has often been treated as atypical of Moníková’s work. Goodchild’s article re-integrates it within Moníková’s œuvre, something amply confirmed by other articles in this volume which take up similar themes. She looks at narratives of the nation, and how they are performed in the text, focusing particularly on the function and impact of subversive, unofficial and personal histories. Beth Linklater’s article on humour, which concentrates on Die Fassade, also links this text with Moníková’s other works. She argues that Moníková’s satirical and comical narratives represent a challenge to both patriarchy and ideology, and thus have serious intentions as well as giving her readers a laugh. Moníková’s final, posthumously published text, Der Taumel, is substantial, despite remaining unfinished; its significance for her work is reflected in two contributions in this volume. Lyn Marven reads the expressions of trauma (often historical trauma) in the text, not least in the protagonist’s epilepsy. She shows how this text in turn allows us to reread the hysteria in other works, notably Pavane, as a displaced expression of trauma. Karin Windt’s close reading of the same text looks at the role and symbolism of painting (something which reflects Goodchild’s discussion of the artists’ work on the façade). She examines both art and the body as forms of memory which have political implications. Graham Jackman’s article looks at themes of nation and exile in Moníková’s first and last completed texts, Eine Schädigung and Verklärte Nacht. He demonstrates that the later text transcends the boundaries – particularly of nationality and gender – which the earlier one identifies within society. Czech history is a recurring theme both in Moníková’s texts, and also in this volume, underlying many of the other forms and themes examined. Valentina Glajar compares the representations of the fate of the Sudeten Germans in Treibeis and Verklärte Nacht and Moravian-German Erica Pedretti’s Engste Heimat. Moníková and Pedretti’s respective viewpoints highlight the complexity of the historical, national and ethnic narratives surrounding this still controversial issue,

Preface

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while often deflecting their concerns onto a personal, rather than political, level. Brigid Haines examines Moníková’s representation of Czech history: while her works show that that Czech history is, because of its fractured nature and the impact of trauma in the twentieth century, barren territory for grand narratives, they also give voice to Czech narratives of the nation. Dana Pfeiferová takes up some key Bohemian myths (which are also part of historical narratives) in her article. She examines Moníková’s variations on the founding myths of the Czech nation in Die Fassade, as well as the politically significant myths of heroism and utopia. Moníková’s texts evince her interest in a wide range of other discourses and artistic forms, and two contributions examine this intertextuality and intermediality. Robert Weninger and John White look at one of Moníková’s main ‘literarische Stützen’, Arno Schmidt. Their detailed intertextual reading examines both Francine Pallas’s teaching of Schmidt in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, her critical, feminist take on the author and his reception by her students, and Moníková’s parodic plays in Unter Menschenfressern. Helga Braunbeck’s wide-ranging article focuses on the interaction of film and literary narrative in Moníková’s work – as a frequent obsession of her characters, as techniques productively emulated within her prose texts (part of her humorous style, as Beth Linklater shows), and her own film-making in the little analysed Grönland-Tagebuch. Finally, the volume concludes with an extensive bibliography, the first on Moníková, which contains references to criticism in Czech as well as in German and English.

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List of Abbreviations The following abbreviations for primary texts will be used in the articles in this volume. Full bibliographical details are contained in the bibliography. The dates given below are the dates of first publication. S

Eine Schädigung (1981)

P

Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983)

F

Die Fassade. M.N.O.P.Q. (1987)

SAW

Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte. Essays (1990)

UM

Unter Menschenfressern (1990)

T

Treibeis (1992)

PF

Prager Fenster. Essays (1994)

VN

Verklärte Nacht (1996)

Tm

Der Taumel (2000)

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Brigid Haines Libuše Moníková: Life, Works and Reception The facts of Libuše Moníková’s life are intimately bound up with the fortunes of her nation.1 Born in 1945, she grew up in Špejchar, in Dejvice, Prague, which was then called Hradtschin, Prague XIX, in a family with two older sisters and a much younger brother.2 Moníková’s lifelong love of the cinema dated from her early childhood. The sisters were frequent visitors to the ‘Ponrepo’ cinema club, which showed classic films deemed by the Czech authorities to be politically harmless, and also to ‘FAMU’, the Film Academy of the Arts where, Moníková’s friend and fellow writer Eda Kriseová recounts, films were used by the teachers to warn the students about ‘ideological errors’. Though she says she would ideally have liked to have studied film (Czech filmmakers were world famous in the 1960s), places were very limited, and an inspirational German teacher encouraged her to study ‘Germanistik’ and ‘Anglistik’ at the Charles University, Prague instead, even though she had no knowledge of English at the time. Her academic success can be judged by the fact that her ‘Diplomarbeit’, on Brecht’s rewriting of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, was accepted as a ‘Doktorarbeit’, and part of it was published. Shakespeare was to remain a lasting interest.3 It is also worth noting that Moníková’s first publications, namely some of the literary essays later published together in Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte, were of an academic nature. Moníková was then awarded a year’s grant to study in Göttingen. But before she left for the Federal Republic two events occurred which were to affect her deeply: the unexpected and premature death of her mother, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1968. The shock of this betrayal – perceived by Moníková as in some ways a repetitition of the betrayal of Czechoslovakia by the Western powers at Munich in 1938 – underlies her later work. But she also drew inspiration from Jan Palach, the student who set fire to himself in 1969 in protest at his fellow Czechs’ lack of resistance to the invasion; Moníková could not forget that she was yards away at the time, typically, for her, in a cinema (PF 113). In the Federal Republic she met her future husband, Michael Herzog; they married in 1969 in Prague. At that stage it was unclear which country they would make their home, but the Czech authorities blocked her application to the Philosophy Faculty at the Charles University

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because of ideological hostility to her Western husband, effectively forcing the couple to move permanently to West Germany in 1971. However, Moníková retained dual citizenship and returned to Prague at least once a year to visit friends and relatives with the permission of the authorities. It is therefore difficult to class her as an exile alongside some other writers who, for political reasons, could not return to Czechoslovakia after 1968. Kriseová sees her in-between status as an advantage, commenting that Moníková was probably happiest when travelling between Prague and Berlin, though this position was not without its dangers: Kriseová recounts that Moníková timed her first visit home from Göttingen with her sister Marie to coincide with the first anniversary of the Soviet occupation so that they could join in the planned protests. However, due to a train derailment they arrived a day late and missed the action, though the smell of teargas was still in the air. A taxi driver, on hearing where they had come from, could not help commenting on the foolhardiness of the visit: ‘Aus Göttingen? Solche blöden Kühe habe ich noch nie gesehen’.4 After her move West, Moníková taught literature at the Universities of Kassel and Bremen before working full time as a writer and living in Berlin. A lifelong patriot, she was delighted to receive the T.G. Masaryk medal for her services to literature from Václav Havel in October 1997, a few months before her death in January 1998. For a variety of reasons, Moníková was heralded as a writer much earlier in the West than in the country of her birth; in fact her reception has followed two quite distinct trajectories in the West and Czechoslovakia, later the Czech Republic. Her first novel, Eine Schädigung (1981), which deals with a rape and its aftermath, aroused the interest of feminists in the West because of its clear feminist content, an interest which continued with the publication of her second work, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983). This partly autobiographicallyinspired novel depicts a woman, Francine Pallas, whose multiple estrangement as a Czech woman in academia in West Germany causes her to make visible her difference by taking to a wheelchair. Both works were included in Sigrid Weigel’s influential overview of contemporary German women’s writing, Die Stimme der Medusa, first published in 1989. Weigel’s reading focused on the theme of violence and the radical decentred embodied subjectivity of Moníková’s female protagonists.5 Others built on this work: Beth Linklater later read Eine Schädigung in the context of other contemporary German literature that mounts a challenge

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to rape,6 and Maria Kublitz-Kramer and Margaret Littler explored the relationships of these early female protagonists to the city.7 But it was with her third novel, Die Fassade (1987), that Moníková received widespread international recognition beyond feminist circles; indeed the focus on four unreconstructed male artists and the relative paucity of women in this novel was seen by at least one of her feminist readers as something of a betrayal.8 Die Fassade, for the manuscript of which Moníková was awarded the Alfred-Döblin prize in 1987, and which has been widely translated, is a comic tour de force in the picaresque tradition as well as a reflection on European history and culture and Czechoslovakia’s place within them. Its central metaphor – the restoration of a castle9 – serves, Sybille Cramer argued in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, as ‘ein riesiges Monument des europäischen Gedächtnisses’, the subversive humour making it a worthy descendant of Don Quijote,10 though its postmodern wealth of allusion, its ludic interweaving of different literary modes (Delius describes the novel as ‘ein Beispiel für die Sprengkraft von Fiktion’)11 and Moníková’s deliberately estranging use of the German language clearly alienated some reviewers. Renate Miehe in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, for example, while praising the novel as a fine example of postmodern collage, finds that the language contains painful ‘Schlaglöcher’ and ‘auch veritable Schnitzer’.12 Iris Denneler in the Tagesspiegel is less kind, finding the novel ‘eine Fleißarbeit’ which bored her.13 Peter Filkins in the New York Times Book Review declares the novel to be ‘a work more powerful and intriguing in its reach than in its detail’, praising the author’s talent but lamenting the ‘lack of cohesion, of the kind of armature needed to give structure to the kinetic energy of the novel’.14 Michael Hulse in The Times Literary Supplement can see the logic to the structure, finding that it ‘preserves a balance between realism, on the one hand, and a gleeful range of anti-realistic modes on the other’. The work, ‘a whole hatful of comic invention’, is, however, let down by the style, which he finds stiff in comparison to Conrad, who also wrote in a tongue not his own.15 Die Fassade was followed by a volume of plays, Unter Menschenfressern (1990), and a novel of exile, Treibeis (1992), set partly in Greenland, a country Moníková had never visited but had researched meticulously prior to writing her novel. In 1994 the German television station ZDF arranged for her to visit Greenland with a film crew; the resulting film, Grönland-Tagebuch, analysed in this volume by Helga Braunbeck, shows her depiction of Greenland to have been uncannily

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accurate. Prager Fenster (1994), a book of essays, was followed by her final completed novel, Verklärte Nacht (1996), a post-Velvet Revolution reckoning with relations between Czechs and Germans and a homage to her home city of Prague, set in 1992 on the eve of the breakup of Czechoslovakia into its component parts. Sadly, her final project, Der Taumel (2000), an ambitious novel set in the period of ‘normalisation’ in the 1970s after the crushing of the Prague Spring and published posthumously, remained unfinished.16 A flurry of academic articles resulted from Moníková’s visit to the USA in 1996 to attend the Women in German Conference, including a special issue of Monatshefte in 1997 containing articles by Helga Braunbeck, Sabine Gross and Ulrike Vedder,17 and articles elsewhere by Karen Jankowsky and Katie Trumpener.18 This second phase of Western reception widened out from a focus on feminist issues to a focus on gender questions more generally, and related these to ideas of memory, nation and history in Moníková’s works. This phase also reintegrated Die Fassade, seeing it not as separate from but integral to her literary output. Even more recently there have been several full-length studies of Moníková which contextualise her in different ways: Lyn Marven reads her works alongside those of two other women writers from the Eastern bloc, Herta Müller and Kerstin Hensel, seeing them as expressions of hysteria originating in trauma.19 Antje Mansbrügge’s monograph examines the principles of memory and ambiguity in Moníková’s work and relates these to concepts of authorship and subjectivity.20 Sarah Goodchild’s unpublished doctoral thesis examines the theme of ‘Heimat’ in her work.21 Alfrun Kliems reads her as an exile writer, comparing Moníková’s work to that of JiĜí Gruša and Ota Filip. She detects a contradictory tendency in Moníková’s use of myth: while the mythopeia of the nineteenth-century National Revival is subjected to ridicule, Moníková’s female protagonists draw strength from powerful women in Czech myth.22 Apart from these longer studies, significant articles in recent years consider the theme of memory, the Libuše myth, the interplay of power and history, and subjectivity in Moníková’s works.23 Feuilleton reception has continued too, with reviews of each new novel and several obituaries in 1998. Chief among her advocates have been Sybille Cramer and Iris Radisch, the titles of whose obituaries, ‘Die Böhmin am Meer’ and ‘Ein freier Mensch’, allude to the transgressiveness and unboundedness of Moníková’s persona and project.24

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The reasons for Moníková’s relative neglect in the country of her birth are complex, and have to do with the political climate as well as her choice of language and subject matter. Jan ýulík points out that the publication of Czech literature abroad has a long history, as independent Czech publishing has been driven out of the country at various points, most notably after the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, but also in the nineteenth century, after the communist takeover of 1848, and after 1968.25 The most significant Czech emigré publishing house of the recent period was 68 Publishers in Toronto, run by Zdena and Josef Škvorecký, which published the only Czech translation of Die Fassade to date (sadly a very poor one, an issue to which I shall return). ýulík stresses, however, that ‘the Iron Curtain was much more penetrable from the West than from the East’, which meant that the Czech reading public at home were ill informed about Czech writing abroad, even about the fame of Milan Kundera.26 The Czechs’ lack of knowledge of Moníková’s works is also unsurprising in view of the fact that she did not consider herself a Czech writer. This may seem perverse considering the superabundance of Czech themes and references in her work, her preoccupation with Kafka,27 whose Czechness is increasingly recognised in scholarship, and the obvious influence of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War on the form of Die Fassade. Nevertheless she was vocal in asserting her place within German literature, insisting, even in her acceptance speech for the Chamisso Prize (for non-native speakers of German) that those critics who found her use of the German language clumsy saw only her foreignness and overlooked her deliberate attempt to embark on the kind of language games produced by her other main literary forebear, Arno Schmidt (PF 43).28 She claims, however, that her primary motivation for writing in German was not literary but personal. Unlike for example Kundera and JiĜí Gruša, who also left after the Prague Spring and who began writing in Czech but switched after a period of time into French and German respectively, Moníková did not publish at all in Czech either before or after she left but wrote all her published works in German. She did begin writing Eine Schädigung in Czech but was only able to complete it when she switched into German; she claimed that this gave her the distance required to write such a traumatic tale (the rape of the central character is widely interpreted as an allegory of the violation of her country in 1968). The particular significance of the Czech language for its writers and the

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potential controversy aroused by abandoning it, especially for German, often perceived as the language of the oppressor, is pointed out by Viktor Šlajchrt: Libuše Moníková’s most striking literary gesture was her ‘rejection’ at the very outset of her mother tongue and its replacement by German. Yet the existence of the modern Czech nation is bound to its language and literature much more firmly than is usual elsewhere. The only terrain where the first Revivalists could cultivate the national life was the virtual space of language, reconstructed to a great degree artificially. When, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the dream of a handful of intellectuals of resurrecting the Czech language and nation came to fruition, Hubert Gordon Schauer asked the disturbing question of whether detaching oneself from the German language area and wearing oneself out building a tiny, linguistically different playground had been at all worthwhile. The nation, derived to a large extent from linguistics and poetry, almost excommunicated him for it. The almost mystical value attributed to the Czech language was aptly captured by Pavel Eisner in the title of his book, Chrám a tvrz (Temple and Fortress) [1946]. As if the safest refuge for a people short on piety and defensibility was language.29

Moníková shared this strong attachment to her own language but paradoxically claimed it was precisely this which made her write in German: ‘I have enormous respect for the Czech language. I adore Czech. That is why I write in German – I have the necessary distance from it which makes it possible to write about things which touch me directly’.30 It also of course enabled her to reach a wider audience and to inform her German readership about their Czech neighbours, a point I elaborate in my own contribution to this volume. In view of cultural policy at home and her choice of language it is little wonder, then, that Eine Schädigung and Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin were not reviewed at all by Czech critics on their publication in the West. Die Fassade was harder to ignore because of the award of the Döblin Prize and, in 1993, the Slovenian Vilenice Prize, about which Moníková speaks in the interview in this volume. The literary critic KvČtoslav Chvatík recognised that, though the novel was conceived in German and is ‘an organic component of German literature’, its theme is ‘very Czech and demonstrates the problem of the vulnerability of European culture with the example of a fateful political turning-point in recent Czech history’, making it ‘an original feat of Czech and German literature, a truly European book, the significance of which will be even more apparent as time elapses. Its theme is the most acute present and future of Central Europe’. The influence of Kafka and Hašek

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notwithstanding, he argued forcefully that the novel was actually about the aftermath of the Prague Spring: it was a history of the conquered written to counter the process of forgetting.31 Josef Boþek, in the literary review Tvar, found it very Czech too, and remarked upon what he perceived as Moníková’s love-hate relationship with Bohemia and her fellow Czechs.32 Though these two pieces were substantial and by leading critics, it was not until the works began to be available in Czech translation and indeed after Moníková’s death that there was anything more than a trickle of reviews. The Toronto translation of Die Fassade had been disastrously poor; this section from a 1993 interview conducted in Czech with Helena Kanyar-Beckerová illustrates the extent of the problem and the strength of Moníková’s disappointment: H K-B: After the German original I read the Czech translation of your Fassade, published by 68 Publishers, and I didn’t recognise the book. Kurt Tucholsky says of one translation of Joyce’s Ulysses: ‘Someone’s either committed a murder here, or photographed the corpse’. In your case it was murder. One example may suffice: ‘die zwei Spanner am Fenster’, that is ‘those two gawpers at the window’ at the start of Kafka’s Trial, are translated as ‘two loopers’, probably because the translator found in the dictionary that ‘Spanner’ is also a kind of butterfly. The book is awash with such errors. Even if the translator was a novice – this is a matter for the editors. Didn’t anyone edit it? LM: As far as I know, he had the help of an experienced translator. I even attended one meeting. It took place in a very noisy, smoky restaurant. They didn’t actually have any questions. This was during ‘normalisation’, when translators would meet in the most inappropriate places. Of course, it’s a catastrophe. H K-B: Is this why you have not yet sanctioned other translations into Czech? LM: Until the qualities of the publisher and translator are guaranteed as up to it. I know that translating an author into his [sic] mother-tongue is a thankless task bordering on the absurd, but that’s why it has to be someone who can cope. The final revision must of course be joint, but I cannot begin with corrections at a point where I’d actually have to change every word and the overall tone and be writing a new book. H K-B: Can you imagine translating a book yourself? LM: I cannot switch at random from one language to the other. With shorter texts it’s possible, but not with large forms, such as the novel. I have untold respect for Czech. I’m always amazed at how many writers there are here. Here I’d be more likely to make films. In German I have far fewer inhibitions and the greater distance that I need for writing.33

Thereafter Moníková did not sanction further translations for some time until Eine Schädigung was published posthumously in Slovak under the

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title Újma in 1999. (Czechs can read and understand Slovak as the two languages are very close.) Josef Chuchma explains the logic behind the appearance of the book in Slovak rather than Czech: Moníková had been a member of the editorial board of the feminist cultural journal Aspekt, published in Bratislava and distributed throughout former Czechoslovakia.34 Some of Moníková’s Kafka essays from the volume Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte were published under the title Eseje o Kafkovi by Nakladatelství Franze Kafky in Czech in 2000. But it was not until 2001 that the publisher Hynek began the systematic, if frustratingly slow publication of her complete works in Czech. They chose to begin with Treibeis under the title Ledová tĜíšĢ. I cannot comment on the quality of the translation, but one critic found a key translating decision controversial: KvČta Horáþková comments that ‘Renata Tomanová’s translation preserves Moníková’s economical style fairly faithfully. What is debatable, however, is her consistent use of a debased style of language [Common Czech] to characterise the girl Karla, for which it is hard to find any justification in the original’.35 Though the new translation of Die Fassade was completed some time ago, it has still not appeared. So what will Czech readers make of her work when they finally have access to it? Among the academic community there appears to be a divide between Prague Germanists, who are largely silent, perhaps unsurprisingly in view of Moníková’s robust criticisms of them over the years, and a few individuals from other institutions, particularly her most vocal advocate, Dana Pfeiferová, who have, since her death, organised two successful international conferences on her work. The first was held in Kravsko in 199936 and the procedings were published (in German and by a German publisher, Rowohlt) in the volume Prag-Berlin. As well as reminiscences by friends and her brother, Josef Moník, this volume contains useful articles on Moníková’s use of myth, humour and history, her reception of Ingeborg Bachmann and her desire to overcome the division of Europe.37 The second international conference took place in ýeské BudČjovice, in November 2003, and the proceedings will be published in Vienna by Präsens Verlag. Topics of papers included history, androgyny, poetics, ‘Böhmen am Meer’, intermediality and the metaphor of ice. Discussion revolved around Moníková as ‘Grenzgängerin’, the tension in her work, particularly Die Fassade, between a kind of modernist ‘Großromanpoetik’ and the postmodern desire to exceed genres, and two vexed and related questions: firstly, whether a potential Czech readership

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might be bored by the density of references to ‘die tschechischen Realien’ especially when relayed through their own language which may have the effect of making them seem banal, and, secondly, whether readers who are not Czech can ever fully understand these references, questions which had also dominated discussion at the first conference in Kravsko. Several Czech delegates defended the view that, particularly for the younger generation, it is precisely the close engagement with Czech history and culture and the processes of memory in her works which, in a time of hectic change, may prove invaluable, while Helga Braunbeck dealt with the naivety of the second question by pointing out that the extreme intertextuality and intermediality of her work makes any concept of an ideal or intended reader redundant: every reader’s competence is challenged. As for the general reader it is too soon to say whether the translations will be well received and prove Moníková wrong in her view that the works would have to be rewritten to satisfy Czech readers.38 Šlajchrt sees the delay in a systematic translation of her works as probably having done more good than harm, for since the Velvet Revolution of 1989, ‘the better-read public has had time to come to terms with the deafening torrent of unusual literary experiences, foreground effects don’t catch on the way they did, and what is welcome now is a more sophisticated range of flavours’.39 Josef Chuchma expressed the view that the ‘Western European consciously feminist optics’ of Moníková’s early works may be offputting to a Czech readership less tolerant of feminist aspirations,40 which perhaps explains Hynek’s decision to begin with Treibeis rather than the more obviously feminist earlier texts. I would join Tomáš Kafka, who, in his obituary of Moníková, mourns ‘the loss of what is yet to be found’ and comments that it is now the turn of Czech society to get to know her work.41 Notes 1

This account is indebted to an unpublished and untitled sketch in German by Eda Kriseová distributed at the Moníková conference at ýeské BudČjovice, 11-15 November 2003 (1-6), and to Moníková’s brother, Josef Moník’s reminiscence, ‘Meine Schwester, meine Mutter und einige Tiere’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999, 143-51.

18

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2

The admiration and envy shown by Francine towards her elder sister in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin are evidently autobiographically inspired. 3

See for example the opening of Treibeis, where Prantl teaches the children of Greenland about Elizabethan theatre, and Moníková’s preoccupation with Shakespeare’s ascription to Bohemia, in The Winter’s Tale, of a sea coast. See Brigid Haines, ‘“Liegt Böhmen noch am Meer”, or, When Writers Redraw Maps’, in Juliet Wigmore and Ian Foster (eds), Neighbours and Strangers: Literary and Cultural Relations in Germany, Austria and Central Europe since 1989 (= German Monitor, 59) (Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2004), 7-25. Shakespeare, and English literature generally, have long played an important role for the Czechs, by whom they are celebrated as a strong alternative to German culture.

4

Kriseová, untitled sketch, 4.

5

Sigrid Weigel, Die Stimme der Medusa, 2nd edn, tende: Dülmen-Hiddingsel, 1995, 120-3.

6

Beth Linklater, ‘“Philomela’s Revenge”: Challenges to Rape in Recent Writing in German’, German Life & Letters, 54/3 (2001), 253-271. 7 Maria Kublitz-Kramer, ‘“Was man nicht erfliegen kann, muß man erhinken”: Auf den “Straßen des weiblichen Begehrens” – Libuše Moníkovás Erzählung Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, in Kublitz-Kramer and Margret Brügmann, eds, Textdifferenzen und Engagement. Feminismus - Ideologiekritik – Poststrukturalismus, Centaurus: Pfaffenweiler, 1993, 101-113; Margaret Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation: The City in the Novels of Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, in Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Müller, University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998, 36-56. 8

See Regula Venske, Das Verschwinden des Mannes in der weiblichen Schreibmaschine: Männerbilder in der Literatur von Frauen, Luchterhand: Hamburg, 1991, 89-91. Moníková’s attitude to gender remained controversial to Western eyes: while Brandl in Der Taumel seems to be a continuation of Moníková’s early female protagonists, for example, experiencing bodily the weight of oppression resulting from totalitarian rule and thereby unsettling gender polarities in her work, he is still dignified by being routinely referred to by his surname, while Halina, like Jana, Francine, Karla and Leonora, is not. 9

The restoration is borrowed from life: Moníková’s lifelong friend and artistic mentor, the sculptor ZdenƟk Palcr, was one of four artists who, between 1974 and 1992, worked on the restoration of the façade of the Renaissance castle in Litomyšl in eastern Bohemia. The figures of Orten in this novel, Prantl in Treibeis and Brandl in Der Taumel are all based on Palcr.

Libuše Moníková: Life, Works and Reception

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10

Sybille Cramer, ‘Vaucansons Ente, das Rentier Foma Fomitsch, der Fahrradausweis des Josef K.: Die Fassade von Libuše Moníková – ein europäischer Roman’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/20 September 1987, 164.

11

Friedrich Christian Delius, ‘Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše’, this volume, 26.

12

Renate Miehe, ‘Unterhaltung für gebildete Stände’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 November 1987, 267.

13

Iris Denneler, ‘Verzettelt und vertan: Zu Libuše Moníkovás Roman Die Fassade’, Der Tagesspiegel, 7 October 1987, Literaturblatt, 10.

14

Peter Filkins, ‘Fractured By Reality’, The New York Times, 5 January 1992, section 7, 10.

15 Michael Hulse, ‘Palace of Europe’, The Times Literary Supplement, 15-21 July 1988, 788. Moníková’s style and language are one of many areas begging for a fullscale study. Others include her poetics, the representation of gender in her works and her extreme intertextuality. 16

Der Taumel is usefully analysed by Michael Schwidtal in ‘Kunst im Zeichen der Diktatur: Libuše Moníkovás Roman Der Taumel’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 48/4 (2000), 107-116, and by Karin Windt in ‘“Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten”: Verborgene und verworfene Geschichte bei Libuše Moníková’, in Gisela Ecker, Martina Stange and Ulrike Vedder, eds, Sammeln - Ausstellen - Wegwerfen, Helmer: Königstein/Taunus, 2001, 195-207. It is examined in this volume by Lyn Marven and Karin Windt. 17

Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 489-506; Sabine Gross, ‘Einleitung: Sprache, Ort, Heimat’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 441-451; Ulrike Vedder, ‘“Mit schiefem Mund auch ‘Heimat’” – Heimat und Nation in Libuše Moníkovás Texten’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 477-488. The special issue also contained an extremely useful composite interview conducted by Helga Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 19921997’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 452-467.

18

Karen Jankowsky, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe: Libuše Moníková’, Women in German Yearbook, 12 (1996), 203-215; Karen Jankowsky, ‘Between “Inner Bohemia” and “Outer Siberia”: Libuše Moníková Destabilizes Notions of Nation and Gender’, in Karen Jankowsky and Carla Love, eds, Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women’s Literature and Art, State University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1997, 119-146; Katie Trumpener, ‘Is Female to Nation as Nature is to Culture? Božena

20

Brigid Haines

NČmcová, Libuše Moníková, and the Female Folkloric’, in Jankowsky and Love, eds, Other Germanies, 99-118. 19

Lyn Marven, Body and Narrative in Contemporary Literatures in German: Herta Müller, Libuše Moníková, Kerstin Hensel, Oxford University Press: Oxford, forthcoming.

20

Antje Mansbrügge, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis: Lektüren zur Libuše Moníková, Königshausen & Neumann: Würzburg, 2002.

21

Sarah Goodchild, ‘Beyond Origins. Heimat and National Identity in Selected Works by Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University College London, 2001.

22

Alfrun Kliems, Im Stummland: Zum Exilwerk von Libuše Moníková, JiĜí Gruša und Ota Filip, Peter Lang: Frankfurt/Main, 2002.

23

Ulrike Vedder, ‘“Ist es überhaupt noch mein Prag?”: Sprache der Erinnerung in der Literatur Libuše Moníkovás’, in Helga Abret and Ilse Nagelschmidt, eds, Zwischen Distanz und Nähe: eine Autorinnengeneration in den 80er Jahren, Lang: Bern, 1998, 7-27; John Pizer, ‘The Disintegration of Libussa’, The Germanic Review, 73/2 (1998), 145-160; Brigid Haines, ‘“New Places from which to write Histories of People”: Power and the Personal in the Novels of Libuše Moníková’, German Life and Letters, 49/4 (1996), 501-512; Brigid Haines, ‘Subjectivity (Un)bound: Libuše Moníková and Herta Müller’, in Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles and Walter Pape, eds, Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences [= Yearbook of European Studies 13], Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1999, 327-344.

24

Sibylle Cramer, ‘Die Böhmin am Meer’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 January 1998; Iris Radisch, ‘Ein freier Mensch: Zum Tod der Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Die Zeit, 22 January 1998, 46.

25

Jan ýulík, ‘Czech Emigré Literature: An Attempt at a Definition’, [accessed 23 June 2004], 1-10 (here 1).

26

ýulík, ‘Czech Emigré Literature’, 3.

27

Moníková’s reception of Kafka is examined in Renata Cornejo, ‘“Schloß, Kafka, Fassade” – auf den Spuren Kafkas im Werk von Libuše Moníková’, Brücken: Germanistisches Jahrbuch Tschechien-Slowakei, n.F. 9-10 (2003), 303-14.

28

Moníková’s reception of Schmidt is examined in this volume by John J. White and Robert Weninger.

Libuše Moníková: Life, Works and Reception

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29

Viktor Šlajchrt, ‘Ve znamení vČþného ledu: Román Libuše Moníkové poprvé vychází v její rodné zemi’ in Respekt, 13/9 (2002), 21, trans. by David Short. 30

Libuše Moníková ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 36. She said similar things in several German interviews, for example, ‘Ich habe vor dem Tschechischen einen Respekt, der mich total hemmt’, Sybille Cramer, Jürg Laederach and Hajo Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 119 (1991), 184-206 (here 203).

31

KvČtoslav Chvatík, ‘Fasáda Libuše Moníkové a možnosti evropského románu’, Tvar, 2/17 (1991) 1,12-13, trans. by David Short. 32

Josef Boþek, ‘Radostné koulení osudového kamene : (Pokus o interpretaci vybraných aspektĤ románu Libuše Moníkové Die Fassade)’, Tvar, 9/6 (1998), 10-11.

33

Helena Kanyar-Beckerová, ‘ýeši jsou národ spolužákĤ. Rozhovor s Libuší Moníkovou’, Literární noviny, 4/36 (1993), 12, trans. by David Short.

34

Josef Chuchma, ‘Újma Libuše Moníkové: silná reakce na sprostotu normalizaþního nástupu’, Mladá Fronta Dnes, 8 July 1999, 19, trans. by David Short. 35 KvČta Horáþková, ‘Ledová tĜíšĢ vzpomínek’, in Host, 18/4 (2002), supplement, 6-7, trans. by David Short. Short explains that, ‘Common Czech is essentially the spoken language of Central Bohemia, spread now to most of the larger cities and even rural areas, largely overlaying much of what were regional dialects. Its evolution has been unfettered by the prescriptions of linguistic law-givers. Its use in literature is largely confined to direct speech as an overt indicator of the social or educational background of the speaker, who might be simply uneducated, rebellious, or young and speaking the everyday language of the street; its status is not like that of, say, Cockney, because of being so all-pervasive, though the flavour is similar’. Karla is certainly rebellious and young but this might not be enough grounds for using a different register of speech for her. Horáþková also notes rather too many spelling mistakes. 36

For a conference report, including details of papers not reproduced in the conference volume and an outline of discussions, see Hana Marková and Milada Vondráþková, ‘In memoriam Libuše Moníková: Internationale Konferenz der Universität Budweis und des Goethe-Instituts Prag’, Germanoslavica, 6 (11)/1 (1999), 124-28.

37

Michael Schwidtal, ‘Libuše, PĜemysl und Prometheus. Zum mythischen Erzählen’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 64-69; Sybille Cramer, ‘Eine humoristiche gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands: Prospekt zur Verbesserung Mitteleuropas: das Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag –

22

Brigid Haines

Berlin, 70-77; Jürgen Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht – 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968… Zum Historischen bei Libuše Moníková’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 8798; Dana Pfeiferová, ‘“Das Reich der Kunst erschaffen:” Ingeborg Bachmann im Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 78-84; Alena Wagnerová, ‘Die Teilung Europas als Schicksal und Thema Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 130-42. 38

Dana Pfeiferová and Milada Vondráþková, ‘Kafka mČl v nČmþinČ stejný akcent jako já: Portrét Libuše Moníkové’, Literární noviny, 10/2 (1999), 5. 39

Šlajchrt, ‘Ve znamení vČþného ledu’, trans. by David Short.

40

Chuchma, ‘Újma Libuše Moníkové’, trans. by David Short.

41

Tomáš Kafka, ‘Libuše Moníková þili ztráta dosud nenalezeného’, Mladá fronta Dnes, 19 January 1998, 11, trans. by David Short.

Friedrich Christian Delius Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše: Zum Tode von Libuše Moníková1 Memorial address given at the memorial service for Libuše Moníková on 10 June 1998 at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.

Die Nachrufe sind geschrieben und fast wieder verwelkt, die ersten Stiefmütterchen und Rosen wachsen auf dem Grab, und Libuše Moníková liegt auf dem Alten Sankt Matthäus-Kirchhof in Berlin-Schöneberg, wenige Schritte neben den Brüdern Grimm und wenige Schritte von der Frauenrechtlerin Minna Cauer entfernt. Uns, die wir sie lasen und kannten und schätzen und lesen, ist der Schock noch nicht gewichen, den ihr Tod hinterlassen hat. Ein vielfacher Schock. Sie hatte doch gerade erst die vermeintliche Mitte des Lebens hinter sich, ihr waren nur sechzehn Jahre Präsenz im literarischen und öffentlichen Leben vergönnt, und was für eine außerordentliche Präsenz! – und wir hatten noch so viel von ihr in den nächsten Jahren, Jahrzehnten erwartet. Ein viel zu früher und sehr grausamer Tod, der Verlust einer großen Autorin und der Verlust einer eigensinnigen Freundin – es ist in einer Rede nicht zu fassen, wen und was wir verloren haben. Unverwechselbar, unersetzlich, diese Worte passen ausnahmsweise – und auf die deutsche Literatur unserer, der sogenannten mittleren Generation bezogen, passen sie zum ersten Mal wieder seit 1979, seit dem Tod von Nicolas Born, der eine ähnlich tiefe Lücke gerissen hat. Bis zuletzt, mit allen ihren letzten Kräften hat Libuše an dem Manuskript Jakub Brandl gearbeitet, das als Roman unter dem Titel Der Taumel im Herbst 2000 erschienen ist. Im Dezember-Heft 1997 der Zeitschrift Akzente ist ein Auszug daraus erschienen, ich zitiere nur drei Sätze: Taumel, Schwindelgefühl, die seit kurzem vertraute Taubheit in der Hand und das Ticken im Kopf. Wir alle tragen unseren Tod mit uns, unbewußt, im allgemeinen Tumult und Rumor unbemerkt, bis uns unsere Verschütteten einholen. Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten.

Welche Verschütteten, welchen Tod trug sie mit sich, vom ersten Schreiben an? Schwerer als Libuše dürften es hierzulande in den siebziger, achtziger Jahren nur wenige Autorinnen oder Autoren gehabt haben. Geschlagen vom Überfall des August 1968, in Prag ohne Zukunft und, wie

24

Friedrich Christian Delius

sie erst später begreift, ‘wegen der allumfassenden Diskriminierung von Frauen’ 1971 ins Exil getrieben in die Bundesrepublik, wo sie der üblichen Mischung aus Verständnislosigkeit und oberflächlichem Mitleid ausgesetzt ist. ‘In den ersten Jahren in Deutschland’, schreibt sie 1991, ‘war ich nicht fröhlich. Ich erinnere mich an das erste Mal, als ich lachte. Es war Arno Schmidts Caliban über Setebos; bis dahin legte ich alles von ihm beiseite – nicht schon wieder einen Joyce! Seit dem ersten Mal habe ich nicht aufgehört bei ihm zu lachen. In gewisser Hinsicht war er für mich ein Grund zu bleiben – ich war neugierig, was ihm noch einfällt’. Mit all diesen Hypotheken und Anregungen beginnt die Emigrantin, neben ihrer Tätigkeit an der Uni, einen Roman zu schreiben. Die Geschichte einer Vergewaltigung, auch eine große Parabel der Vergewaltigung der Tschechoslowakei durch die Sowjetunion. Sie merkt bald, sie kann das nicht in ihrer Sprache schreiben, sie muß ins Deutsche wechseln. Und als Eine Schädigung – unter welchen Mühen, das vermag ich nicht zu ermessen, fertig ist, hören die Demütigungen, die Schädigungen nicht auf. ‘Bei meinem ersten Buch’, schreibt sie später, ‘das von einer Vergewaltigung handelt und das ohnehin sperrig ist, machte mir ein Verlag den Vorschlag, ein deutsches Pseudonym anzunehmen, sie würden mein Manuskript herausbringen. Ich habe abgelehnt und wartete dann auf die Drucklegung fünf Jahre’. Aus einem herzhaften Gerechtigkeitssinn und aus einem feinen Stolz heraus hat Libuše Moníková immer wieder darauf bestanden, daß wir Deutschen doch bitteschön wenigstens die tschechischen Namen und Orte einigermaßen richtig aussprechen sollten. Das war für sie eine Frage des Respekts, der Gleichberechtigung. Ihren eigenen Namen nun sogar als Stigma, als einziges Hindernis für die heißerwünschte Publikation disqualifiziert zu sehen, also einer Art kulturellem Münchner Abkommen unterworfen zu werden, muß für sie die größte Kränkung gewesen sein – und sie hat sie tapfer fünf Jahre lang ausgehalten. Gabriele Dietze und dem Rotbuch Verlag kommt das Verdienst zu, die Drucklegung 1981 ermöglicht und ihr auch bei dem zweiten Buch beigestanden zu haben, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983). Diese Erzählung ist, neben Verklärte Nacht von 1996, das persönlichste Buch. Warum Libuše in den siebziger Jahren in Deutschland nicht fröhlich und nicht heimisch wurde, erfahren wir hier, in einem Werk von tiefer Komik. Im skeptisch-analysierenden Blick einer Frau, die sich als Dozentin

Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše

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vor strickenden Müttern mit einem zur Ideologie verhärteten Feminismus ebenso herumschlägt wie mit der beleidigenden Borniertheit gutwilliger Linker. In der Beschreibung eines Versuchs, als gesunde Frau das Leben einer Rollstuhlfahrerin zu führen und die Reaktionen der Mitwelt zu registrieren, schließlich in dem Unterfangen, die Geschichte der BarnabasFamilie aus Kafkas Schloß in Kafkas Auftrag in Kafkas Stil weiterzuschreiben. Dazu Filme, Janáceks Musik, Arno Schmidt als Motivationshilfen. Dies Buch, vielleicht ein sogenanntes Schlüsselwerk, läßt sich als Versuchsreihe lesen, untergründige, verborgene Zusammenhänge zu entdecken. Der entscheidende Versuch wird dann in den drei Romanen Die Fassade, Treibeis und Verklärte Nacht durchgespielt: der Welt zu beweisen, daß Shakespeare im Wintermärchen und Ingeborg Bachmann in ihrem Gedicht – 1968 im berühmten Kursbuch 15 veröffentlicht – recht hatten: Böhmen liegt am Meer. Das ist ein Leitmotiv für Libušes ganzes Werk geworden, einschließlich der vielen wunderbar anregenden, aufregend nüchternen Essays und Reden: Böhmen liegt am Meer. In allen Büchern wird die Tschechoslowakei gewissermaßen europäisiert – und den Europäern ihre tschechische Seite gezeigt. Jedes Buch liefert Belege, daß die Tschechoslowakei, Böhmen, Prag nicht am ‘Rand der Steppe’ liegen, sondern in Mitteleuropa. ‘Alle Romane spielen, egal wo sie spielen, in der Tschechoslowakei’ (Iris Radisch). Alle Hauptfiguren sind mit hemmungsloser Neugier auf die Welt gesegnet und sprengen, weil die politischen Verhältnisse so sind wie sie sind, die Grenzen, springen über Grenzen, sind Emigranten, Vaganten, Nomaden. Die Figuren tragen ihr Böhmen in die Welt, nach Deutschland, Österreich, nach Japan, Sibirien, Grönland, an die Meere. Meines Wissens hat kein Autor in den letzten Jahrzehnten uns Prag so nahegerückt, vergrößert und entschlüsselt wie Moníková. ‘Seit ich schreibe und mich aufgrund dieser Tätigkeit öffentlich äußere, versuche ich, Kenntnisse über das Land, aus dem ich komme, zu verbreiten und es möglichst würdig zu vertreten’, schrieb Libuše 1990. Sie hat sich damit selbst als Botschafterin definiert – und es muß ihr die größte Genugtuung gewesen sein, noch wenige Wochen vor ihrem Tod, am 28. Oktober 1997, dem Tag der Republikgründung, von Václav Havel mit der Masaryk-Verdienstmedaille belohnt worden zu sein. 1987 erhielt sie für ihr Manuskript der damals noch nicht fertigen Fassade in selten schneller Einmütigkeit den von Günter Grass gestifteten Alfred-Döblin-Preis. Dieser Roman brachte den sogenannten Durchbruch

26

Friedrich Christian Delius

– und ist selbst ein Beispiel für die Sprengkraft von Fiktion. Die Fassade, habe ich damals gesagt, mit ihren vielen Grenzverletzungen und Grenzüberschreitungen, ist einer der wenigen europäischen Romane, die gegen Mauern und Grenzen rebellieren. Mitten in aller Komik immer wieder Wut und Trauer über Grenzen, Einengungen, Unterdrückungen, über den ‘zerschlagenen Elan von 68, die schon vergessene Lust, sich mit dem Staat einzulassen, ihn von Grund auf zu verändern’. Die Fassade, ein durch und durch rebellisches Buch. Unnötig zu sagen, daß dieser Roman noch lange bleiben wird, egal, ob er als Künstlerroman oder als Heimatroman, als historischer oder politischer, als Reise- oder als Gelehrtenroman gelesen wird. Er ist zum Glück inzwischen so bekannt, daß man hier nicht mehr für ihn werben muß. Alle Figuren der Moníková, sagte ich, sind ständig in Bewegung. Auch im Roman Treibeis gibt es keinen Stillstand, weder räumlich, noch intellektuell, noch in der Liebe. Nach einem der komischsten Zusammentreffen eines Paares, das ich aus der Literatur kenne – nebenbei: wie schön, diskret und souverän Libuše Umarmungen und Sexualität beschreiben konnte, müßte einmal extra gewürdigt werden – purzeln Jan Prantl, der Prager Lehrer aus Grönland, und Karla, das Prager Stuntgirl aus Österreich, in eine Liebesgeschichte, deren Intensität und Sehnsucht beschleunigt wird von einer Unruhe, die auch durch ständiges Reisen und Erzählen nicht zu beschwichtigen ist. Es ist die Unruhe der Exilanten. Das bewegliche Gedächtnis der beiden Protagonisten, die, zwei verschiedenen Generationen von Emigranten angehörend, die Geschichte ihres Landes mit sich herumtragen, kommt erst durch die Reibungen der Liebe zur Sprache, neben- und gegeneinander. Verwicklungen und Widersprüche bleiben bestehen. ‘Sie gelangen an einen Punkt, wo jeder ein anderes Land vor sich hat, das sie Tschechoslowakei nennen, mit schiefem Mund auch “Heimat”’. In der Figur Karla könnte man etliche Striche für ein Selbstporträt der Autorin finden, die Jugend in Prag, die Familie, die Kinoerlebnisse, der frühe falsche Glaube an die kommunistischen Erlösungsversprechen, der Schlag von 1968, aber es ist bezeichnend, daß Libuše Moníková diese (möglichen) Übereinstimmungen nicht ausspielt, sondern, wie Roland Wiegenstein schrieb, ‘ihre traurigen Helden mit zärtlicher Diskretion bedenkt’. In der Verklärten Nacht, 1996, der Versuch, sich in das neue Prag wieder einzuleben, es neu zu benennen, es sich anzueignen. ‘Die Geschichte der Stadt ist eine Geschichte der gegenseitigen Antworten zwischen Tschechen und Deutschen, ohne daß eine Seite jemals gefragt

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hätte’, heißt es da. Bei der zweiten Lektüre habe ich mir den unscheinbaren Satz angestrichen: ‘Libuše prophezeit von ihrem Sockel den Ruhm der Stadt’ – die Rede ist von der Fürstin Libuše, zu der es im Werk der Autorin Libuše immer wieder Anspielungen gibt. Auf die Fürstin komme ich zurück. Libuše hat uns vorgeführt, daß die Literatur – neben vielem andern – die höchste Form von Heimatkunde ist, und darin ist die Moníková weniger den alpenländischen Autoren als vielmehr Uwe Johnson verwandt. Die späte, heftige Freundschaft zwischen beiden ist dafür nur ein Indiz: eine der letzten Postkarten, die Johnson schrieb, ging nach Bremen an Frau Moníková. Johnson mußte seine Landschaft, sein Land ebenfalls aus politischen Gründen verlassen, deshalb machte ihn die liebevoll exakte (Weit-)Sicht auf sein Mecklenburg zum politischen Chronisten zweier Epochen. Beharrlichkeit als Stilprinzip bei Johnson und Moníková. In gewisser Hinsicht ist sie moderner, weil sie sich mit großer Selbstverständlichkeit und Spielfreude der Mittel der Montage, des Comics, der Kolportage und der essayistischen und filmischen Techniken sowie der musikalischen Antriebskräfte bedient. Auch das verdiente einen Essay für sich: Moníková und die Musik. Nie hat sich Libuše geduckt, nie angepaßt. (Selbst in Japan, wo sich jeder vor jedem verbeugt, bewahrte sie ihre gerade Haltung und wurde sogar so kühn, den Japanern die Ethik der Samurai anzupreisen, was aber nur vornehmes Kopfschütteln auslöste). Sie ist vom ersten Buch, vom ersten Interview an mit einem trotzigen Selbstbewußtsein aufgetreten: als Autorin, als Pragerin, als Tschechin, als Frau und kompetente Fachfrau – und da, wo sie nicht kompetent war, als unersättliches Frage- und Neugierwesen. Aufrichtig, ohne das Pathos der Selbstgefälligkeit, und mit traumwandlerischer Eigensinnigkeit ist sie ihren Weg gegangen. Ihr Ernst hatte einen federnden, doppelten Boden, ihr Witz war von höchster Vernunft grundiert. Sie kokettierte mit nichts und mit niemandem. Eine diskrete Freundin, oft streng, aber mit einer Strenge, wie sie nur großen Humoristen zu eigen ist. Sie wird, da bin ich sicher, noch lange gelesen werden, weil sie der Sorte Schriftsteller zuzurechnen ist, die nicht das schnelle Einverständnis suchten, sondern die Intelligenz ihrer Leserinnen und Leser auf immer wieder überraschende Weise herausfordern und damit ein besonderes intellektuelles Vergnügen stiften. Politisch hellwach, literarisch unbestechlich, auf mutige,

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undogmatische Weise feministisch, enzyklopädisch denkend und auf vernünftige Weise komisch, mit ihren berühmten weiten Pullovern bürgerliche Etikette lässig unterlaufend, lieber Nomadin als Besitzerin, unerschrocken und mit Zivilcourage, nicht nur im Einsatz für die sterbenden böhmischen Wälder – es sei mir erlaubt, alle diese Eigenschaften und Verdienste hier nur summarisch zu streifen. ‘Ich bin dennoch nicht gänzlich pessimistisch’, schrieb sie in ihrem Essay Der Dichter als Brauch, Da die Inhalte aufgehört haben, subversiv zu sein, wird es die Form leisten müssen, wie seit je in freieren Zeiten. Und die Themen? Das heilige Triumvirat, von Arno Schmidt aufgestellt, behält seine Gültigkeit: Landschaft, Intellekt, Eros. Wie es um die beiden letzteren beschaffen ist, bleibt jedem einzelnen überlassen. Wie es um die Landschaft steht, geht alle an.

In der Laudatio zur Roswitha von Gandersheim-Medaille im Frankfurter Römer im Herbst 1995 habe ich ihr ein langes Leben, noch einige überraschende Bücher und eine spätere Ehrung als eine Fürstin Libuše der europäischen Literatur gewünscht. Heute muß ich sagen: Der Reichtum ihres Werkes reicht wahrlich aus, um sie zur Fürstin Libuše der europäischen Literatur zu erklären. Ich wünsche Leserinnen und Leser in allen europäischen Sprachen, die diesen Rang der Libuše Moníková erkennen und ihr gönnen. Ich danke Libuše für ihre so zurückhaltende wie zuverlässige Freundschaft. Ich danke allen, die ihr Werk gefördert und publiziert und rezensiert haben. Ich danke Michael Herzog und Wolfgang Coy dafür, wie sie Libuše begleitet, angeregt und gestützt haben. Ich danke Libuše für jeden Satz, den sie uns geschenkt hat.

Notes 1

First published in Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, Jahrbuch 1998, 183-188.

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Libuše Moníková interviewed by Petr Kyncl Writing is a Murderous Occupation1 Interview conducted in Czech with Moníková weeks before her death, and published posthumously in the journal Týden.

After the prestigious German Arno Schmidt prize the writer Libuše Moníková finally also received a major national award in the Czech Republic.2 Unfortunately only a few months before her death. Petr Kyncl: After so many international prizes and honours what did this latest distinction mean to you? Libuše Moníková: I have to admit that the news took my breath away. Being honoured by one’s own country ... PK: Are literary honours preferable to state distinctions? LM: For me as a writer, literary prizes come as more natural and more familiar, particularly international prizes, such as the Central European literary prize of Vilenica in Slovenia, where the presentation is made in a large cave full of stalactites. During the presentation ceremony, water drips on the prize-winner’s head and bats skim past their hair. The Slovenians evidently like the Czechs. The first one to receive the prize was Jan Skácel, but because of his infirmity he wasn’t able to descend into the cave, and the choir which every year rounds off the award ceremony went up into the daylight to sing for him. The second candidate, Milan Kundera, couldn’t go to collect the prize and sent his speech instead. So I’ve been the only Czech actually to go and descend into the cave. Since that time I’ve enjoyed going there. The Slovenians are hospitable, magnanimous and warm, and the country is beautiful. PK: The affinity between you and Slovenia has been enhanced by your donating the prize to help Bosnian refugees. LM: Slovenia is a small country and has selflessly taken in many people who had to leave their homeland, where war was raging. I was very happy to be able to offer help in that way. PK: It is also known that you remembered the Czech Republic as well and donated the Adalbert von Chamisso Prize for the re-afforestation of areas affected by atmospheric pollution. What is your experience of other Czech expatriates?

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Libuše Moníková and Peter Kyncl

LM: That is a sad story. They’re insecure, suspicious. During the period of ‘normalisation’, their contact with émigrés at international conferences was extremely cautious, without warmth. I thought that they would be glad to hear Czech spoken, but instead they would look around warily as I approached. There was no question of speaking to them. At the same time, some of their contributions at a conference on Kafka were first-rate. They were not interested in my essay on Kafka’s Schloß, a fundamental study of that novel. What I say or what I write does not interest them – at best what I am wearing. PK: Have you had any specific experiences of that? LM: In Vienna, at an international conference on the transformed political situation in Europe in 1990, and in the presence of Chancellor Vranitzky, I made a speech which cost me quite a lot of effort and time. In the whole audience, who listened with interest and attention, there was just one person who was purple in the face, shook his head and ignored me thereafter – some Germanist from Prague. The reason was my claim that the status of women in Czechoslovakia was far from commensurate with what they did and were capable of. My text appeared in all the Austrian and German papers – there were dozens of responses – but in Prague alone there was nothing. The only person to extend the normal courtesies in due form was a Slovak. After my speech he bowed, introduced himself as the cultural attaché and thanked me for ‘representing us in an exemplary way’. I find the separation of Slovakia painful, not least because of its beautiful language. PK: Are you a feminist? LM: Naturally. As a woman I could not fail to be. The worst thing is the Czech avowal – ‘I’m no feminist’. As if it were some sort of apology. When I think what pressures Czech women are exposed to – within the family, at work, in society – in addition to their work, their children and their professional duties and responsibilities, etc ... Through their appearance they have to indicate their conformity and femininity according to the obsolete ideas of certain old fuddy-duddies to whom chance has given control of other people’s destinies and who decide on promotions. I remember how, while I was still a student of German, one insignificant member of staff, a lecturer who was able to teach at Charles University without a doctorate, yielded to familiarity one day and said: ‘You see, my dear, you can look quite decent if you want to.’ That ‘assistant’ or lecturer had welcomed the ‘fraternal help’ in August 1968 and began a purge of the three university departments of which he was

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made head thanks to his party record. What kind of a country is it where any inferior informer is free to broadcast his opinion on what women and persons of note should look like and no one calls him to order? That fellow is now on a decent pension while his former victims, whose health was damaged during his time in office, have to count every penny. And the new ‘entrepreneurs’, the gangs of taxi-drivers and the twenty-year-old thugs who have taken over every restaurant from Hradþany to Malá Strana and rip off tourists! If only at the very least their signs in English and German and their ‘Böhmische Küche’ were correct! Instead, tourists discover that the dumplings which they have so been looking forward to are made of ready-mix and that the service is as dilatory, rude and dishonest as in totalitarian times. Where did they get the money from? In Russia today, the country’s elite can be recognised by their teeth. The best, proudest and most resistant individuals had their teeth knocked out during interrogations, they had them drilled out without anaesthetic in the cellars of the Lyublyanka and in the Gulags; in prison their teeth turned septic and fell out – and today they are the only ones who can’t afford a dentist, while the former rats, spies and agents of the KGB and those who had cost them their teeth ride around in limousines. PK: You write whole pages about Czech history and life. In the novel Treibeis you give an account of the assassination of Heydrich, the training of Czechoslovak paratroopers and pilots with the RAF in Scotland, you describe in detail the plots of Janáþek’s operas. In Fassade you present a ‘national farce’ in which PurkynČ, Jirásek, Rettigová and Smetana appear. Don’t you think that this may bore your readers in Germany and the wider world? LM: The information which I integrate into my novels is extremely powerful and exciting – the Czechoslovak Western resistance3 is a glorious period of our history, just as we learned in school about the Hussites – and whenever I walk along Resslova Street, in my heart I make a deep obeisance before the entrance to the crypt where seven paratroopers spent their last hours facing 350 members of the SS and Gestapo. My trauma is that after February 1948 all the participants in the Western resistance were interned in penal camps – by their own people! – and the few among them who managed to flee were hunted by dogs. When they finally managed to catch them, other prisoners, resistance fighters working in uranium mines, had to walk past their dead bodies in the prison yard and spit at them. I write because of that betrayal, that spitting at those who fought for their country, and I am not in the least interested whether

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German readers groan under the volume of information and dates. I am not even concerned that it might be too much for them. Czechs should not ask me these questions, and they really should not ask them at all. After all, the whole mess started with the Germans – Munich, then the Occupation, and today the tourists. PK: In your latest novel, Verklärte Nacht, you write about the changed situation after 1989. What has the response been like? LM: I don’t expect any. But then, it is partly my own fault. After all the usual questions about translations and Czech editions of my books I can only repeat: my books are dear. They cost me my health and years of my life. In the case of Fassade it was five years. Flaubert died of exhaustion after writing his last book, Bouvard et Pécuchet, which is one of the greatest novels of world literature. Writing is a murderous profession. Arno Schmidt, alongside Kafka the most significant writer in the German language in this century, knew that before his death. Future publishers of my books must like them and respect them. I will not grant copyright on books which have cost me so dear to any publisher or translator who does not convince me of his quality. Professional and human quality, which includes courtesy and attentiveness. Some publishers live under the delusion that they are exempt from that. In the Czech Republic anyone who tinkles the ivories is a maestro, every novice who publishes a poem is a master. In Czech there is no adequate name or mode of address for a woman artist. How did my compatriots address Božena NČmcová, who in the last days of her life did not leave the house in order to save her shoes and would thrust notes saying ‘Please spare me a bit of bread’ on passersby? It will continue to lie for centuries as a burden of guilt on the Czech nation that it allowed its greatest woman writer to starve to death – in her forty-second year – of mental exhaustion and malnourishment. It is a shame that Susanna Roth, who was on the point of translating those notes, died this spring. She did great service to Czech literature, like no other; without her translations no one in the world would know about Hrabal. Milan Kundera would not be famous world-wide – and how do my compatriots intend to repay her? For Hrabal she organised foreign editions, journeys, flights, and when the ‘maestro’ was not in the mood, he tossed the plans back at her feet. So, despite her advanced cancer, she had to pick them up and make new ones. Fortunately she took it in good part. PK: In your speech ‘On Germany’, which you gave in February 1997 in the State Theatre in Dresden, you addressed the audience ‘Dear Saxons, in this place I have an urgent request: do not leave your broken fridges,

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television sets, your wrecked cars and rubbish in the forests across the frontier; in recent times this has increased and does not contribute to good neighbourliness’. How did they react? LM: I don’t know. The only thing that surprised them was the form of address: ‘Dear Saxons’. At the end a large queue formed in front of the table with books which I was autographing. Those people all wanted to assure me that that rubbish was nothing to do with them. PK: After the broadcast of your most recent speech on the same topic – ‘On Germany’ – in Munich you received letters, some anonymous, saying that they should have burned you at the stake – together with Hus, Masaryk and Havel, after his ‘apology’ for the forced removal of the Germans. LM: Distinguished company – I am proud to be associated with them. I am used to the reactions of the former Sudeten-German ‘expatriates’. That ‘apology’ was bound to touch a nerve. The separation of Slovakia was further fuel to the flames of Sudeten-German resentment. See, the way you Czechs have treated the Slovaks, that’s how you treated us. PK: These speeches cost you a great deal in terms of health and strength, I imagine. LM: I am surprised ex post that I wrote that at all and especially that I delivered it. As well as having a difficulty with articulating, I was also not able to concentrate. The therapy is tough. I have a swollen face from the effect of the medicine, so that every morning as I look in the mirror, I ask myself, who is that washing their hands beside me. But perhaps it has been a long time coming. Perhaps I am not meant to have it easy. PK: Have you had it easy? LM: The loss of my country and my city … But my writing is actually compensation. PK: What is the literary situation in Germany? LM: Depressing. After unification all that remained in the former GDR were moral and aesthetic shards. Their literature is scorched earth. A handful of prominent figures remain who, because of their privileges, mourn the old days and cultivate nostalgia. I left my former publisher who published a cookery book – of Russian recipes! – by the former chief of the East German intelligence service without even informing their authors. PK: You left the International PEN Club, to whose West German president you wrote a sharp letter. LM: West German PEN was planning a merger with the former East German PEN Club, among whose authors were collaborators with the

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Ministry for State Security with lucrative positions as informers on other authors who were their personal friends and colleagues. After the opening of their files their activities came to light. I did not leave my country, my language, Prague and the sight of the Czech countryside in order to have this moral detritus force its way in through my window. PK: Your country, Prague, countryside – that is a hierarchy of absolute values which determine your life and your work. LM: Two experiences which shook my consciousness to the core: the Russian occupation in 1968 and the self-immolation of Jan Palach. Since then I have known that I am Czech; in my books I never cease to circle round those traumas – and the degrading Munich Agreement, when the Czechoslovakian delegation had to wait in the anteroom while others negotiated over the breaking up of their country! I dedicated my first book, Eine Schädigung, to Jan Palach. A young student is raped by a policeman whom she then kills, in the heat of the moment, with his own truncheon. PK: A radical solution. LM: The only one possible. I couldn’t allow her to live any longer, knowing that she hadn’t put up a fight, nor could I allow the policeman to live. PK: Your country. Your city. What else is part of your hierarchy? LM: The Czech language, my mother tongue. I have enormous respect for the Czech language. I adore Czech. That is why I write in German – I have the necessary distance from it which makes it possible to write about things which touch me directly. The transition from Czech to German as my literary language, which people ask me about all the time, was accomplished in the first chapter of my first book Eine Schädigung in the middle of a rape scene. The recollection of the sweating, sadistic, illiterate policeman, whom the law permitted to demand to see your ID and bully citizens at any time – it was in the middle of that scene, which brought to the surface all my fear and disgust at the socialist police, the informertypes who never change and who are now blithely finding themselves a niche here again, that I went over to German – in Czech the scene was unbearable. Czech, my mother tongue – there are whole sentences which have accompanied me from childhood, since I could first read. It’s like a magic spell: quotations, pictures, words which open a space for memory. PK: Can you remember any of them?4 LM: ‘Round barrel / a lynx drinks here / here is a cart / he is digging something’: ‘Sud kulatý / rys tu pije / tu je kára / ten to ryje’ (Božena

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NČmcová, Báchorky: Jak se Honza uþil latinsky/Folk Tales: How Hans learnt Latin).5 ‘Father was turning the tin in his hands’: ‘Pan otec toþil pikslou’ (Božena NČmcová, Babiþka/The Grandmother).6 ‘Little Hana, my little sunshine’: ‘Haniþko, sluníþko...’ (Alois Jirásek, Lucerna/The Lantern)7 ‘In the morning a maiden rose’ / ‘Hail to thee, oh Christmas Eve’ / ‘Fruit trees shall get the bones left over from dinner’ / ‘Play, have this wooden cockerel’: ‘Ráno raníþko panna vstala’8 / ‘Hoj, ty ŠtČdrý veþere’ / ‘Ovocnému stromoví od veþeĜe kosti’9 / ‘Hrej si, tu máš kohouta’10 (Karel Jaromír Erben, Kytice/The Garland) ‘But my mother did not come to their shores’: ‘Však nechodila k jejich bĜehĤm moje matka’ (VítČzslav Nezval, Na bĜehu Svratky/On the Banks of the Svratka River) ‘Kill him!’: ‘Mor ho!’11 (Samo Chalupka) ‘Your son will make you a bowl’: ‘Koryto ti synek udČlá’ (Jan Neruda, DČdova mísa/Grandfather’s Bowl) ‘The stag was grazing nearby’: ‘Jelen se pásl nedaleko’ (Božena NČmcová, O Smolíþkovi/Smolíþek)12 That sentence fascinates me – and calms me down – as long as it [the deer] respects forest growth. PK: What else? LM: You want from me a kind of Aleph of Czech literature. Aleph – that is a concept from mathematics, from set theory. Cantor used it to define its basic unit: the point in which all other points are contained. Jorge Louis Borges wrote a story with the same name… ‘Cry not that I am destroying your edifice’: ‘Aniž kĜiþte, že vám stavbu boĜím’ (Karel Hynek Mácha, untitled poem)13 ‘Wrecked harp’s note’: ‘ZbortČné harfy tón’ (Karel Hynek Mácha, Máj/May)14 ‘And we’ll shoot you too, lady’: ‘My do vás taky, paní’ (Ivan Olbracht, Anna proletáĜka/Anne the Proletarian)15 ‘People, be vigilant!’: ‘Lidé, bdČte!’ (Julius Fuþík, Reportáž psaná na oprátce/A Report Written on the Gallows)16 Škvorecký brilliantly amended this to ‘People, read!’: ‘Lidé þtČte!’ on the covers of the books which he used to publish in his most worthy17 publishing house 68 Publishers in Toronto. Personalities like him, or Milan Kundera – you should read his essays on the novel, on Janáþek – , or Miloš Forman, who in a dignified and ‘exemplary fashion’ represent

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their country, still do not find recognition and admiration in their own country. When will this country realise that it must value its own elite and be proud of it? The decathlon, ice hockey, tennis – the whole nation can identify with every single goal scored against the Russians – but everyone is suspicious of intellectual performance. This suspiciousness and smallmindedness of the Czech character can bring one to tears and despair. PK: The Czech character may be sceptical as to the performance of all those who had it good ‘out there’,18 whereas those who lived here had to put up with ‘normalisation’, chicanery, hustling… LM: ‘For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, the oppressor’s wrong, the law’s delay, the insolence of office, and the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes’ – Shakespeare has always been my favourite. Saudek translated it brilliantly. What Hamlet describes here is normalisation, which had a tragic effect on the mentality and behaviour of people, just like the decades of foreign dictatorship facilitated by its henchmen since the coup in 1948. As a Czech I miss painfully in my country people holding their head high, people who are proud, brave and ‘decent’ citizens. To put it simply, the best of what was represented by Charter 77. PK: Having criticised your fellow-countrymen, who have awarded you a high state distinction, are you not afraid that your criticism may outrage, or even insult them? LM: Since I left I haven’t ceased to envy, with pain and burning in my heart, those who were able to stay here and to experience that promised land and the city whose fame reaches the stars. You are asking me about my attitude towards the country and its people – read and translate my books – properly. The fact that my country has bestowed this distinction on me after such a long time is a great privilege and deep honour for me. Of course I am proud. Notes 1

This interview, conducted in Czech, was originally published under the title ‘Spisovatelství je vražedné povolání’, Týden, 5/7 (9 February 1998), 52-56. It is published here in a translation by Ilona Bílková, Graham Jackman and David Short with the kind permission of the editors of Týden. Endnotes are by David Short. 2

The award was the T.G. Masaryk Medal, awarded for her services to literature.

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3

That is, the resistance efforts of the Czechoslovak exiles during the Second World War. 4

Most of the quotations that follow are from works read compulsorily, or at least widely, by almost every generation of Czech children since they were written. 5

Our hero has been told that to be a gentleman he has to learn Latin. The four ‘lines’ are the first four snatches that he overhears from the first four gentlemen he passes. In isolation and combination they make little sense, but Honza is pleased with his rapidly growing stock of ‘Latin’. 6

‘Pan otec’ would probably be matched in English not by father, but ‘old man X’ [X = surname]. This ‘pan otec’ is head of the household down at the water-mill. His ‘tin’ is a tin of snuff. 7

The words here are spoken to Little Hana by a malevolent water-sprite.

8

From ‘Vodník’ (‘The water-sprite’), one of the many ‘folk[-ish]’ poems in Erben’s The Garland. 9

Two separate lines from ‘ŠtČdrý veþer’ (‘Christmas Eve’).

10

A line from ‘Polednice’ (‘The noon-witch’).

11

An old Slavonic call to attack an enemy. The actual meaning is disputed; ‘ho’ might not be ‘him’, but an emphatic particle. This is the only Slovak item here, but from a poem widely included in Czechoslovak early readers.

12

Smolíþek is an orphan whose welfare is in the volunteer hands of a golden-antlered stag, who has to rescue him twice from the clutches of his ‘kidnappers’, a group of jezinky, the cave-dwelling spirits of women who, in life, had abused their own children. Smolíþek is to be fattened up by them for the table and is finally rescued by the stag as he (Smolíþek) is on his way into the oven. 13

Mácha is the father of Czech Romanticism and the ‘national poet’.

14

One of the best known paradoxes from this classic of Czech Romanticism.

15

Words spoken by the militia to Anna, the proletarian girl, who has in this scene become the self-appointed leader of striking factory-workers.

16

This reportage was written by Fuþík in concentration camp and became a pillar of Czech communist literature, this particular slogan duly acquiring an almost

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independent status in the campaign against anti-communists, revisionists, imperialist spies and the like. 17

Or ‘meritorious’, the merit being in ensuring a forum for Czech writers, émigrés or underground, after 1968. 68 Publishers was founded by Josef Škvorecký and his wife, who published their own works in it as well as those of countless others, in small paperback format, many copies of which were smuggled into Czechoslovakia – a major part of the ‘worthiness’ of the endeavour.

18

The euphemism for ‘abroad’, especially as exile.

Sarah Goodchild National Performance and Visibility in Die Fassade In the past, Die Fassade has been omitted from discussions of Moníková’s novels or treated separately. In this article, I realign it with the œuvre of which it is an integral part, discussing in particular its presentation of the nation as a narrative. Starting from the metaphor of restoration which shows individuals shaping their heritage, I examine the various stories of the past performed within the novel and draw attention to parallels between Moníková’s vision of a more inclusive representation of nation and recent ideas from cultural theory of performance and hybridity. In doing so, I find that influenced by political realities, Moníková in the end must refrain from having her artists topple state-imposed culture. The issue of visibility becomes a crucial factor leading to pessimism. The failure of the heroes to leave their mark on official presentations of their nation highlights the exclusions of nation narratives.

Literary critics consider Moníková’s longest novel Die Fassade: M.N.O.P.Q to be her most important. It took her five years to complete and in 1987 she was awarded the Alfred Döblin prize for the unfinished manuscript. Its reception has differed considerably from that of her other texts. For a time those who surveyed Moníková’s work tended to omit Die Fassade1 though more review essays appeared on this book in the German press than on any other by the author.2 Certainly it stands apart in a number of ways from her other texts. Both its split perspective and the multitude of facts on divergent subjects make it difficult to trace the development of one dominant theme. Yet, as I hope to show, an attempt to grasp the nature of Moníková’s utopian project is not only a worthwhile undertaking in itself, but also one which need not be performed in isolation from the complete works. In fact, like the other texts, Die Fassade reflects the author’s hesitation, despite real misgivings, in finding the nation an undesirable place to live and points to the functions it continues to fulfil for the novels’ protagonists. Thus it demonstrably engages with a concern which is apparent in all Moníková’s texts. While Eine Schädigung and Pavane contain autobiographical elements and reflect the author’s emotional response to the changes in Prague after the Soviet invasion and the continuation of her conflictual relationship to her homeland, in Die Fassade Moníková examines and presents her nation more objectively, applauding and problematising it from a perspective of

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distance and playfulness. Die Fassade is political, but also fantastical and self-reflective. Moníková was motivated to write this symbolic, yet personal literary consideration of Czech identity in reaction to a growing ignorance in Cold War Europe of Czech history and a prevalent tendency of Westerners to situate Czechoslovakia culturally in the East.3 The initials of the five main characters which combine to form the novel’s subtitle are letters from the middle of the alphabet, and through these heroes Moníková relocates Bohemia back into the centre of European history.4 Yet in this novel Moníková is also presenting her own account of her Czech nation. In doing so, she pays tribute to conventional notions of nation: that a nation’s identity consists of the memory of its past and that national self-awareness should rest on an interpretation of national histories since interpretation creates unity out of fragmentation, a coherent story out of past events. And she takes on board much current thinking on the nation’s function and contemporaneity. Her heroes, for example, reveal its homogeneity and intactness to be an illusory projection which covers over internal differences and divisions.5 They thereby communicate an awareness that national culture is hybrid and develops in unpredictable ways, challenging the conventional modern notion that nations are organically evolved bodies. This is the façade which Moníková pierces, exploring new ways to view and present history and drawing attention to the internal differences and heterogeneity within the nation.6 Moníková’s novel negotiates the problematic relationship between the past and its representation as national history. The forgetting which is part of forging national identities is foregrounded in the novel. The Renaissance castle, covered in images which fade with time and are either lost or renewed, operates as a metaphor for national historiography through which Moníková explores how the past is mediated in the present and whose versions of the past become history. She examines how projected narratives of nation, that is, those dictated by the state, can be altered and looks for agency in the optimism of individuals. With her attention to the role of historiography in constructing national narratives and by asking who in fact makes national history, she broaches the issue of the authorship of nation and thus anticipates Homi Bhabha’s ideas on the spontaneous creation of nation by the people. For Homi Bhabha, perhaps the most cited commentator on the nation at the present time, nations are never homogeneous, but ceaselessly displaced and never complete. By proposing that national discourses can

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never be bounded, Bhabha’s theory redeems national life (while others reject it).7 In place of a relationship of conflict between ‘pure’ national discourses and their ‘strangers’ (other cultural/ethnic groups), he suggests that the hegemonic centre and the national people exist in a relationship of negotiation and agonism. The recognition that all culture is hybrid is a crucial part of Bhabha’s theory of national life and the agency he accords to its people, since it is because each individual articulates a slightly different identity that enables him/her to add to the national narrative. Bhabha writes: ‘It is from this incommensurability in the midst of the everyday that the nation speaks its disjunctive narrative’.8 Cumulatively, the nation’s people contribute to the production of a cultural entity, an ever-evolving nation. Their performances, that is, their everyday gestures and acts, become part of a whole which is visible and represented.9 As Karen Jankowsky and Helga Braunbeck have shown, Bhabha’s writing can help illuminate Moníková’s work: both explore (Bhabha through theory, Moníková through fiction) the notion that individuals can, on account of their difference, revitalise and hybridise national narratives.10 In figuring her heroes as participants in the narrative of their nation’s history, Moníková reflects in Die Fassade on the ability of individuals to shape their nation. For her, however, writing from the perspective of Eastern Bloc Europe during the Cold War, the existence of internal differences within the nation does not easily lead to a disruption of an official unified discourse. Her tone is less jubilant and her message far less programmatic: individual stories and contributions to a nation’s story are often smothered, not communicated, and never become part of a grand narrative and therefore part of history or official culture which is documented and handed down. Her heroes perform, go on stage, become creators of nation, but the characters’ personal memories do not add up to a collective memory and must remain the property of the individual. This pessimistic view is also found in later novels – in Treibeis, the nation is made up of conflicting memories and in Verklärte Nacht, patriotic sentiment, influenced by the political realities of the day, acts as a boundary to love. In the second half of Die Fassade, when her heroes are detained in the Soviet Union, Moníková reflects on how directives from above can produce expectations about the content of utterances and stifle individual meanings. Furthermore, she depicts subculture without celebrating it, but rather highlights its isolation.

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Restoration as Performed History The novel follows the endeavours of four Prague artists commissioned to restore a façade of a Renaissance castle in Bohemia. It opens with a long description of the task faced by the artists on the scaffolding and establishes the façade as a central metaphor for historical and other ideological discourses which form the various strands of the narrative. Since work on the façade constitutes an overarching idea or theory about the relationship between individuals and grand narratives and a reference point for interpreting the heroes’ participation in specific discourses in other strands of the novel, I begin my interpretation by examining the kind of interaction Moníková posits between artist and historical surface. I then turn my attention to some of the specific re-workings of national and imperial narratives performed in the shadow of the façade: Marie’s story of the events prior to the foundation of the first Czechoslovakian nationstate in 1918, the artists’ theatrical performance concerning the nineteenth-century National Revival and their enforced affirmation of Soviet ideology during their stay in Siberia. The façade of the castle is made up of row upon row of individual squares, each of which frames a different motif. In order to restore the faded designs, the artists apply a new layer of mortar to the wall and bring forth the motifs by chiselling this off to reveal the contrasting colour underneath. Their work is therefore a covering over and a selective retrieval of existing images. It is an ongoing process since the façade deteriorates as quickly as they can restore it. Only occasionally is the previous image retained in the restored image. More often, it can no longer be made out or the artists are feeling inventive and apply their own new images. Here restoration represents a process of remembering the past where history is not static, but rather subject to a constant process of reinterpretation and redefinition. By putting this reinterpretative work in the hands of her artist characters, Moníková emphasises our duty as individuals to maintain and reflect on our national histories, and shows that individuals are able to shape history in a conscious way. In the passages of the novel which depict the artists at work, their manipulation of the original is foregrounded: Inzwischen arbeiten alle im oberen Drittel. Patera variiert pflanzliche Ornamente, dazu figural Bewährtes: Pausbacken – Luna, Sonne; heraldische Panzerfäuste – das Stadtwappen von Prag. Maltzahn, Motorradfahrer, greift zu Verkehrszeichen, verwellt den Horizontalbalken der Einbahnstraße und nennt es ‘Yin und Yang’,

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verbindet das flache und das hohe Andreaskreuz vor Bahnübergängen, kreist sie in einem Rad ein und schraffiert vier Flügel: eine Windmühle. (F 31)

Another example of the many changes the artists make to the ‘original’ is Orten’s addition of a third eye to the Justitia: Aus der Nähe sieht Orten die Widersprüchlichkeit der Allegorie. Zur Handhabung der Waage braucht die Figur Ruhe und Konzentration, zur Nutzung des Schwerts Kraft und Schwung, für beides vor allem offene Augen. Er zeichnet der blinden Gerechtigkeit ein drittes Auge in die Stirn, strahlend blickt es über die Auffahrt. (F 10)

Moníková’s inclusion of a fictional allegory of justice on the façade is an overt allusion to one of her keys concerns in the novel. The injustice which the allegorical figure is unable to redress on account of her blindness is the Western historical imagination which figures Bohemia as some ‘far-away’ Eastern country on Europe’s periphery.11 The title of the first half of the novel, ‘Böhmische Dörfer’, plays on the German expression ‘Das sind mir böhmische Dörfer’, which originates from the idea of Bohemia being completely foreign and unknown (the English pendant would be ‘It’s all Greek to me’) and figures Bohemia as a blind spot in Europe which Moníková seeks to render visible.12 Moníková’s own interpretation of the central metaphor of the façade provided in interviews following the novel’s publication has contributed to a widespread consensus among the critics. Drawing on her characterisation of the artists’ work as ‘ein Akt des Sich-Erinnerns, Bewahrens’ and ‘Arbeit gegen das Vergessen’, it has been depicted by Jürgen Eder as ‘eine markante Metapher für die Arbeit am Mythos “Geschichte”’ and by Helga Braunbeck as ‘an allegory of historiography’.13 These formulations identify the restorative function of historiography, but overlook the inventive and creative aspect of the artists’ work which means that they are not just maintaining history, but actively changing it. In the following, I both elaborate this metaphorical aspect of the façade and consider to what extent the artists’ work can be read as contributing to the narrative of nation. In doing so, I highlight the ironic tone of the novel which in my view ultimately thwarts any faith in the agency of the people. Vilma: National Origins I While work on the façade operates as a metaphor for historiography throughout the first half of the novel, Czech history itself is retrieved and

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maintained in other strands of the narrative. After introducing and establishing her concerns with the ways in which a nation’s past is represented in the present, Moníková turns to the setting and characters which she builds up around Friedland and uses as a platform for exploring different approaches to the past. Behind the theoretical complex of the façade, she narrates the Czech nation in a parallel fashion to the artists’ redrawing of the motifs – not as something which steadily accumulates, but rather as a ‘repetitious, recursive’ undertaking in which the excesses and heterogeneous histories which the national discourse has elided in its hegemonic narrative are stressed.14 In chapter four, the third person narrative is replaced by interior monologue and the perspective shifts to the minor character Marie. Her reflections on her family history emphasise the role of individuals in remembering the nation’s past. Here an opportunity is found in the private realm for preserving stories which challenge, or run counter to, official histories. Furthermore, Marie’s story does not seek to conceal the personal interests involved in projecting meaning; since the past emerges from the perspective of a character in the novel, history is seen as being wholly embedded within specific present considerations on which it depends for its depiction and interpretation. As elsewhere in the novel, we find that the past is only accessible through the palimpsest of the present and that it is furthermore wholly contingent on present concerns. The author’s sustained emphasis on historical reconstruction as personal creation and thus as a subjective account fulfils within the realm of fiction a recent demand made on historiography that it make visible the traces of its relativity. Hayden White has been widely acclaimed for condemning traditional narrative accounts for their failure to acknowledge the personal and political interests involved in the creation of meaning.15 White has made a name for himself over the last twenty years for his ongoing attendance to the textuality of history and its implications for a discipline which claims to find the truth of the past. To call history ‘textual’ means that, firstly, we can have no access to a full and authentic past unmediated by surviving textual traces and, secondly, these textual traces are themselves subject to textual mediations when they are construed as ‘documents’ upon which histories are grounded. He stresses that the choice of a representational medium for history is dependent wholly on the social context of the text production and rejects the possibility that representation can be objective. Likewise, in Die Fassade, national history is made up of personal, rather than impartial tales.

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In the following, I discuss the story Marie tells of Vilma as an example of a national narrative which does not iron out complexities, but also one which is not communicable to a wider audience. Marie is essentially a peripheral figure in the novel. She is not involved in the restoration work on the façade and is left behind once the artists embark on their journey to Japan. Yet she becomes one of the most memorable characters because of her involuntary involvement in a comical love triangle in which a younger man’s desire hinders her attempts at forming a more equal relationship with one of the artists. 16 Marie is introduced in the first part of the novel as a doctor in the local hospital whose ‘aseptische[r] Flair’ (F 230) attracts the rivalling affections of Qvietone and Orten. Qvietone, an entomologist in the local museum, followed her to Friedland and managed to finish a PhD in the months preceding her own arrival there – in ‘seinem libidinösen Schub’ (F 52), as the narrator tells us. Fourteen years her junior, her admirer, who ‘verfiel bei ihrem Anblick in einen Freudentaumel’ (F 52), is an embarrassment to Marie, particularly when she hears that he has named a new species of desert woodlouse after her. Marie’s story of her father’s cousin Vilma and her flight across Eastern Europe in the aftermath of World War I is embedded in the novel during a visit to an underground cavern with Qvietone. As he climbs over a wooden rail to fetch her a ‘limestone rose’, he loses his footing and falls down a ravine. In a panic, Marie searches for the exit and while she is making her way back to town she recalls Vilma’s story. She is reminded of Vilma by the sight of her own outstretched hand as she spontaneously reaches out to her admirer. The gesture makes her think of how Vilma must have held out her hand to her husband Jan as his body disappeared into the swamps of Belorus. ‘Sie sah ihre Hand, die sich nach ihm streckte, manchmal war es seine Hand, und manchmal war es Vilmas Hand, die in den Sümpfen Weißrußlands die Hand ihres Mannes vergeblich zu fassen versuchte, bis es nichts mehr zu fassen gab’ (F 70). For Marie, reconstructing her family history is clearly a way to interpret and experience events in her own life by comparing her situation to that in which others found themselves in the past. In this instance, when she puts herself in the place of Vilma who has her husband’s suicide on her conscience, she is conflating her panic and concern for her friend – she has until now ‘noch nie so intensiv an ihn gedacht’ (F 69) – and indulging in her feelings of guilt in order to deal with the fact that she has left him behind: ‘in die Gedanken an Qvietones Entkommen [schossen]

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Mahnungen hinein, Sentenzen von fossiler Fatalität, mit denen sie bei ihrer Schuld verharrte, sie auslotete und genoß’ (F 69). The history which follows is therefore depicted as relevant as it interacts with and informs the present. The chapter which begins with Qvietone’s fall now diverts from the main diegetic level (Friedland in the 1970s) and transports the reader back to 1917, when Vilma was forced to leave Ukrainian Tarnopol which was being plundered by the Germans. For the remainder of the chapter, Marie recalls this remarkable woman’s life, which spanned the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the founding of the first independent Czechoslovak Republic and the Nazi occupation. It is a fascinating account which shatters dichotomies which are central to standard historical accounts (for example, the Revolution as a struggle between the Reds and the Whites) in favour of experience which defies categorisation and runs counter to the narratives imposed by history. By beginning with the end of the war, it also disturbs the focus of historiography on the events of 1914-1918 and blurs the standard opposition between war and peace. Forgotten histories, such as the anarchist movement led by Nestor Machno, are remembered and the unambiguous roles commonly assigned to historical figures dissolve into complex webs of affiliations which take more than one reading to unravel. Jaroslav Hašek, whose story is included as a parallel to Vilma’s, sympathises first with the Czech Legion and is instrumental in their acquiring independence from the Austrians, before switching his allegiance to the Reds: ‘Hašek [...] argumentiert für die Fortsetzung des Kampfs in Rußland: erst wenn die Weißen geschlagen sind, kann die Revolution zu Hause siegen’ (F 72). Vilma and Jan themselves support first the Reds, then the anarchists, while Jan originally came to the Ukraine with the Austrian army. Vilma is categorised variously ‘als Tschechin, als Russin, als die Frau eines Deutschen – von Kulaken, Menschewiken, Esseren, Bolschewiken’ (F 86). The designation of her outsider status changes in accordance with the changing political views. Thus meaning and coherency are subordinated in this account to a view of non-conformity and experience which falls outside the traditional definition of war as military conflict between nations and in binary opposition to peace. Marie’s account of the birth of her nation as a history of political difference produces a ‘community-in-discontinuity’ and is a form of remembrance which does not create a group identity.17 It can be aligned with Foucault’s concept of genealogy:

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The purpose of history, guided by genealogy, is not to discover the roots of our identity, but to commit itself to dissipation. It does not seek to define our unique threshold of emergence, the homeland to which metaphysics promises a return: it seeks to make visible all of those discontinuities that cross us.18

Braunbeck has commented on the non-coherence of Moníková’s national narrative, which for her functions as a ‘validation of subjective experience, as a (dissident) counter-production to official historiography, and as a representation of a fragmented national biography’.19 The story of Vilma and Jan demonstrates how history can be told from the perspective of an individual. It redirects the attention of history away from the traditional foci of political figures and central events. The references to the Russian Civil War and the Red Army and the contextualisation of the couple’s activities within a broader political situation clearly identify it as an historical account. But the historically more central conflict between the communists and White Russians becomes peripheral to the movements of the Czech Legion, reclaiming what would become Soviet parts of Eastern Europe as sites of Czech as well as Russian history. By relating what is generally recounted under the auspices of Russian history from the perspective of Czech and Slovak involvement, and by viewing events in terms of their impact on the birth of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the narrator places a Czech perspective on events otherwise known (by German readers, for example) from the perspective of the Russian Revolution. Vilma’s story is narrated from the perspective of Marie and the reader has the impression that she is reconstructing her cousin’s past from her own information, perhaps letters or stories passed down by those who knew Vilma. However, throughout this episode, this narrative voice remains impersonal and at no point speaks to us explicitly as Marie. This makes the account seem more historical, thus blurring the boundaries between history and the stories of individuals. It also produces a coherency in the narrative voice of the novel which gives Vilma’s story much the same immediacy and priority as the remainder of the text. There are no stylistic differences between the embedded story and the rest of the novel. Objective description alternates with passages which are internally focalised and encourage our emotional involvement in the story. Changes in pace do, however, differentiate this section from the main story. The narrative lingers on particular events and then speeds up noticeably towards the end which, together with the tale’s epic dimensions, lessens its immediacy so that we do in fact remain at a greater distance from Vilma than from Marie. We can on the one hand forget Marie, while on

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the other hand the change in pace ensures that the episode remains distinct from – and subordinated to – the main diegetic level. Although we do momentarily forget her, the use of Marie as the implied narrator of chapter four means that the subjective nature of narrative can be laid bare. In this way, history is not allowed to stand alone, to be told for its own sake. Rather, its telling is seen to be dictated by the circumstances and needs of the person who is recalling. The border between fact and fiction is deliberately blurred in Marie’s account since she tells us nothing about the source of her information. We are told twice that she never knew her cousin and the narrator comments at the end of her narrative that Vilma avoided all contact with her relatives leaving them to rely on other sources for their information: ‘mehr über sie erfuhren sie aus der Presse’ (F 88). Like the artists’ confrontation with original images submerged underneath subsequent restoration, Vilma’s story can only be reproduced third-hand. The story of Marie’s past follows on immediately from Vilma’s, suggesting its influence on the former. Here we can observe a variation of a theme which recurs in other novels by Moníková: female figures who are identified as independent and ambitious by refusing to comply with their fathers’ wishes that they become nurses. Leonora in Verklärte Nacht is plagued in her dreams by this paternal demand and Pepi, the castle caretaker’s teenage niece in Die Fassade, plans to go to university, ‘[a]uch wenn mein Vater den Ehrgeiz hegt, mich als Krankenschwester zu sehen’ (F 211). Francine’s sister in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, a psychiatric doctor, is a further character in whom the notion of a woman leading the life which others expect of her is linked with the medical profession. Marie’s first thought when she concludes her story of her cousin’s life is that her medical career was her father’s idea: ‘Nach dem Wunsch des Vaters studierte Marie Medizin, “weil Ärtze im Krieg nicht erschossen werden”’ (F 88). Marie’s profession thus represents for her not only her own submissiveness, but also her lack of courage since in her father’s opinion doctors’ lives are not put at risk. In this context, Vilma embodies everything Marie herself seems to lack. Vilma followed the Czechs in the Ukraine to Kiev and then remained behind in Samara with the supporters of the Revolution. There she nursed Jan who had typhoid, fled further south with him and continued homeward to Prague after he had committed suicide in order not to be a burden to her. There she continued her political involvement, helping German socialists find work in Prague and organising an air raid to England.

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Vilma’s intrepidity fuels an awareness of Marie’s own cowardliness and she stylises herself as the vulnerable female: ‘ein weiches Tier ohne Schale, M wie Molluske’ (F 69). The past helps Marie to understand the present. It opens up to her an arena where she can consciously explore the problems she faces in her own life. Marie’s admiration of Vilma clearly produces her strong feelings of inadequacy, and makes her life appear too comfortable and conformist. She derives the courage from the memory of Vilma to emancipate herself from her father’s preconceptions concerning her life and to pursue her own interests (cinema, art and music). Times have changed since her cousin was alive and Marie retains the financial security of a medical career, but balances this – and this is what she has learnt from Vilma’s example – by devoting her free time to her passions. She remembers how as a student she was unable to muster any enthusiasm for her studies and ‘statt in der Vorlesung zu sitzen ins Wasser starrte’ (F 88). When she met a sculptor and was introduced to his work, she felt ‘einen verzweifelten Neid’ and ‘wußte, daß sie betrogen war’ (F 88). His enthusiasm for his work made her realise that others lead lives which they have freely chosen. The inclusion of Vilma’s story further intimates that her example gave her the courage to run away from her career, and, won over by its promise of financial freedom, to rechannel her newly found inner strength back into her studies: ‘Mit der zweiten Wiederholungsprüfung schaffte sie das Studium, im Unterschied zur Mehrheit der ehrgeizigeren Kommilitonen, die die Nerven dazu nicht hatten’ (F 88-89). Thus remembering an historical figure becomes a vehicle of self-definition; remembering the past a strategy which can help shape our values. The resumé of Marie’s life contains parallels to Vilma’s; while Vilma danced for the soldiers after the war, Marie poses for artists and becomes ‘für sie die vage Muse’ (F 89), and like her cousin after her husband’s death, she prefers a single existence. The act of narrating is a form of dialogue through which the narrator can reach an understanding of her present position.20 Marie’s reverence for her father’s cousin stems from her feelings of inadequacy and she tries to broach this difference and cope with her lack of self-regard by reliving parts of Vilma’s life.21 Vilma’s story challenges the notion of a nation as a homogeneous body of people by stressing political and social groupings which form regardless of, and beyond, the generalisations of national interests. Jan in particular fails to display the loyalties expected of him as a German. Using the character of Marie, Moníková shows that history is neither a coherent

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story nor purely what is written in history books, but that it also takes the form of stories that we carry within us and which provide individuals with direction in their lives. By telling the history of the origins of the first Czechoslovak state as family history which is passed on by individuals and survives alongside conventional history, Moníková emphasises remembering the past as a task carried out by individuals. However, the interiority of Vilma’s story to Marie’s reflections is also problematic since it perpetuates the exclusion of both women’s history and alternative histories (here of Czech refugees in post-war Eastern Europe) from ‘proper’ history. In her discussion of the literature of World War I, Friederike Emonds has highlighted the central role of war narrative in shaping national identity.22 Contending that men’s experiences have traditionally formed the basis of the historiography of war, she criticises the male-defined master narrative of war which enters into the cultural memory of a nation while women’s experiences are seldom institutionalised. While Marie’s story of Vilma deconstructs the static position of the female character who awaits the soldier’s return, and further serves as a model of inspiration for Marie, her story remains in the private sphere of personal recollections. This reflects the author’s pessimism towards the ability of individuals to influence master narratives, reflected in the subversion of Friedland into an emblem of communist history at the end of the novel. Marie does not keep Vilma entirely to herself and tells Orten about ‘ihrer nie gekannten Verwandten’ (F 215) in reply to his story of his first love whose courage he was unable to match. However, while Orten’s friend is remembered for her artistic achievements in the dictionary of modern art, the extent to which Vilma is known beyond the press reports of her time remains open to conjecture and her story presumably remains the exclusive property of Marie. History as Farce: National Origins II The second sustained example of historical reception is a comedy which the four artists perform in the castle theatre to pass the time until more materials are delivered. The genre of the farce participates in the novelistic project of remembering the past by reviving a distinctly Czech theatrical tradition.23 The artists play the roles of historical personages and speak with their voices and in doing so closely resemble Bhabha’s national people in the performative mode.24 In making fun of the past, they exploit the gap between the original statement and its Derridean ‘supplemented’

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reiteration central to Bhabha’s notion of performance. Derrida uses the term ‘supplement’ instead of ‘repetition’ in order to stress the difference between a first and second utterance; the original can never be reproduced exactly as it was. Thus a performance of nation is also a subversion of existing representations. The Friedland artists perform Czech history by acting it out and providing commentary on it: by over-emphasising and pushing the traits of their characters to ludicrous extremes, their performance cannot be mistaken for an authentic reconstruction of the past. Podol has assigned each of the artists the role of one of the Czech national revivalists from the nineteenth century. After an evening researching their parts, they then present in spontaneous dialogues their characters’ main achievements in the castle theatre. By acting out the activities of these ‘Erneuerer’, the artists, themselves occupied with the restoration of national culture, pay tribute to their forebears and to a tradition of creating and consolidating Czech culture which reminds us that nations are not simply born, but are consciously and creatively constructed.25 Litomyšl, where the novel is set, is rich in associations with the national revival – many of the personalities the artists recall lived there or had connections to the town. Podol plays Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová, a pioneer in her encouragement of the widespread use of the Czech language. She popularised Czech cuisine and educated young women in Litomyšl. Patera takes the part of BedĜich Smetana, who used folkish themes in his compositions and was born in the local brewery, Orten is Jan Evangelista PurkynČ, a physiologist who developed Czech as a scientific language, and Maltzahn plays Alois Jirásek, a historian and writer who helped shape a consciousness of Czech national history and who taught for a time in the town’s school. The farce humorously recalls the revivalists’ efforts to ‘Czechify’ and particularise their culture. At the same time, the artists enter into competition with one another, each intent on proving that his particular character was the most patriotic. This in turn leads to their attempts to undermine the achievements of the other characters and results in a caricature of nationalism, but also in a simultaneous remembrance and discrediting of real ‘Czechness’. Rettigová criticises PurkynČ’s use of latinate nouns (‘Für Nerven wünsche ich mir ein tschechisches Wort!’ F 121) and complains about Smetana’s reliance on German: ‘das Libretto zu Dalibor hat Wenzig für Sie deutsch gedichtet. Und sogar, und das ist die größte Schmach – auch die Originalfassung der “Libuše”! Beides mußte

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erst von Spindler übersetzt werden’ (F 122). PurkynČ likewise considers Smetana to be contaminated by foreign influences and finds it ‘bedenklich, wenn der gefeierte Komponist sich ausgerechnet für seine beliebteste und nationalste Oper einen Konfidenten der österreichischen Geheimpolizei als Librettisten aussucht’ (F 129). By introducing rivalry among the actors, each of whom is bent on proving his character to be the most patriotic, Moníková finds a way to imagine the nation’s origins which pays attention to contradictory moments and forces in national culture. Rettigová’s citation and preparation of authentically Czech recipes reveals that the dishes have been borrowed from other cultures and simply renamed so that they seem to be Czech. Her offal is a Hungarian speciality to which she adds cream and dumplings. Further changes made to the names and ingredients of dishes in the actor’s own time highlight in a comical manner the ongoing adaptation of national culture to the changing political climate and to state-imposed discourses. Rettigová’s entrée selection includes ‘Metternich-Salat, umbenannt nach dem Turnvater und Sokol-Gründer in Tyrš-Salat’ and ‘Prager Eier, vor 1968 noch als Russische Eier gegessen’ (F 119). The farce undermines the intactness of the nation, insisting that contamination is internal to even the putatively most Czech of cultural artefacts. The façade of the chateau likewise displays a history of discontinuity. It bears the traces of a history of foreign ownership (the coats of arms) and is decorated in an Italian style, which in turn looks back to an ancient tradition. Friedland represents the nation which only seems homogeneous and fixed from afar, whose homogeneity exists in the eye of the observer. On closer examination, traces of foreign intervention and accident become visible. The farce also produces an historical narrative which contains and consciously reflects on its ‘inexpungeable relativism’ (White) in a more radical fashion than Marie’s personal commemoration of Vilma. The ‘actors’ lack professionalism and are unable to sustain their character for any length of time. The narrative is set out like the script of a play, and indicates moments when the artists slip back into their real selves by using the name of the actor instead of the character. Mixed performances when the actor is partly in and partly out of character are likewise documented (Maltzahn/Jirásek or PurkynČ/Orten). Their disinclination to suppress their moments of irritation at each other’s acting causes frequent interruptions to the play as well as spontaneous manipulations of the characters. Orten, for example, irritated by Podol’s over-acting, pronounces the latter’s

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proposal to replace the Latin word ‘Nerven’ with the Czech ‘Gefühlsfädchen’ as ‘beschissen’ and then defends his harsh words by claiming that he is only being in character: ‘Frau Rätin, sie sehen ja, ich kann auch volksthümlich’ (F 121). The comical interlude has no audience and there is no indication that the artists are rehearsing for a performance. At one point, Podol laments the fact that no-one will learn about their admirable undertaking: ‘Du solltest [...] ein paar Aufnahmen machen, der Denkmalschutz soll sehen, wie wir hier die Tradition pflegen’ (F 137). The matter of the nonexistent viewers is an important point for it connects the artists’ reconstructions of historical personages to their ‘performances’ on the façade. These are likewise not available for public viewing – the individual accents they apply become lost through the imposition of distance and the viewer can take in the overall effect only. This raises the important question of the individual’s role in constructing a national history, which has already been problematised in relation to the artists’ work on the façade. The fact that Moníková raises the problem of how an alternative version of history might be received seems to belie any affirmation of the possibility of individual agency conceived in the performative aspect of culture. Instead, while the performative is seen to be a mode to which all individuals have access, Moníková questions the visibility of the people’s enunciations and their capacity to subvert the pedagogical presentations represented by the unified and homogeneous appearance of the façade. The tension in the novel between making history and making it known announces a scepticism towards the people’s performance by questioning its meaningfulness. The conclusion to the farce contradicts the play’s explicit intention to revive nationalism. PurkynČ, who has been crouched over his microscope for some time, suddenly proclaims the positive result of his experiment on a human heart: ‘Die Erregung setzt aus’ (F 152). The other actors try to rescue the situation of the capitulated heart, but their closing line which insists on the longevity of Czech sentiment (‘Das tschechische Herz kennt keinen Starrkrampf!’ F 142) is an unconvincing reversal of the scientifically proven fact. This episode is a clever and compact reflection of Moníková’s ambivalence towards national culture. On the one hand, it commemorates those who contributed to creating a specific Czech identity while on the other hand it reveals the latter’s artifice and scorns national feeling.

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The Façade of Soviet Ideology In the second part of the novel, Moníková turns her attention to her nation’s colonised present, figuring the Soviets as imperial rulers who deploy a discourse of brotherhood between fellow Slavs in order to legitimise their intervention in Czechoslovakia. The artists’ extended stay in Siberia is unintended and the hospitality of the Soviets is portrayed as a truly deceptive façade, concealing actual captivity. When the restoration work at Friedland finishes for the season, Orten learns that he has been offered a contract for a film set in Japan and the others, hoping for work and a little adventure, spontaneously decide to accompany him. On the way, the artists’ plane lands unexpectedly in Novosibirsk. Here they do some sightseeing, and end up by mistake in Akademgorodok. They become the official guests of the community of researchers but are eventually held there as suspected state enemies. In ‘Potemkische Dörfer’, an expression meaning a deceptive image, the author leads her artists to a new site where a national identity is paraded.26 The difference is that in Bohemia the artists were able at least in part to develop their identity freely, while in Siberia the official state-imposed fantasy appears wholly rigid. Akademgorodok is a showcase location and the Soviet counterpart to Friedland. Founded in the 1960s as a research centre for the country’s elite scholars, it consolidates a national identity based on scientific progress. The keenly awaited foreign visitors (their guide, Dobrodin, would obviously have preferred to show around real Westerners, however since 1968 they have stopped coming) are shunted through the various research units and told about the latest findings. The hosts praise the eternal friendship between Czechs and Russians in order to persuade the artists to stay and admire the city. Their inclusion of the Czechs in the socialist narrative as ‘brothers’ is a tactic which elides the reality of Soviet occupation in the same way that the significance of the place as a scientific community erases Soviet colonialist expansionism in Siberia. By designating the Czechs as brothers, the Soviets visibly manipulate the past and justify their annexation of neighbouring countries on the basis of historical kinship. As Derek Sayer points out in his recent Czech history, the idea of the Czech people had indeed been constructed in the nineteenth century out of images of the popular, that is, various notions of an indigenous Slav people united by common interests which the communists then later ‘twisted’ into evidence of a shared tradition of class struggle.27

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They could also recycle Jan Hus and Jan Žižka as class warriors because they had been secularised as heroes of this ‘popular’ nation (F 311). In particular, Jan Kollár’s idea of ‘Slav reciprocity’ and his classification of the Czechoslovak language as a Slavonic dialect, which had had a lasting influence on mass opinion, served as ammunition for Stalinist policies in the 1950s. Kollár had conceived of the notion of the narod (people) to unify the Slavs, and he saw disunity as the main obstacle to Slav reciprocity. Moníková’s travellers do not agree with their Soviet host’s classification of them as brothers, but are forced into compliance because they are afraid of what might happen to their lost luggage and passports if they do not. They find the Russians ‘größenwahnsinnig’ (F 393), and even Podol needs no translation when he hears the words ‘njeruschimaja druschba’ (unbreakable friendship); the phase has incensed him too much in the past: ‘das bleibt hängen’ (F 312). When Podol eventually does resist the imposed narrative of brotherhood by beating up a proud participant in the occupation of Prague and drawing attention to the actual relationship of oppressor and oppressed, the travellers find that their passports have been confiscated. In order to attain their freedom, they must now demonstrate their goodwill towards their hosts. They have no choice but to reiterate official Soviet discourse. After three such demonstrations they are successful in proving their friendly intentions: they perform a classical Russian comedy (Gogol’s Inspector), Podol sculpts a dove of peace, and finally they challenge the scientists to a game of ice-hockey. While in the first part of the novel, the artists had freely participated in the propagation of national ideology, Moníková now shows us that within totalitarian systems the people’s performance is not an expression of one’s own agreement. Nonetheless, the heroes’ demonstrations of admiration for Russian culture and their reiteration of Soviet supremacy are not mere recreations of the discourse in which they have been required to participate. Rather, echoing the poststructuralist notion of the indeterminacy of the sign, they mimic the discourse, repeating it but at the same time altering and subverting it. The heroes’ performance of a classic Russian drama both reiterates and supplements official national culture. The heroes recuperate agency through acting since, if we follow Bhabha’s thinking, this is enacted at the level of enunciation and discernible in the indeterminate moment of narrating the event. Their poor knowledge of Russian and inability to adhere to the text produce an imperfect rendition. Moreover, their choice of text introduces a more intentional (Derridean) supplementarity into

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their tribute to Russian literature. The play is about a community which hurriedly conceals its dire state of affairs in order to make a good impression on a visitor whom they suppose to be the government inspector. It can thus easily be interpreted as commentary on Akademgorodok, itself an artificially unified community which conceals the actual oppression of minorities beyond its borders. Much in the same way that socialist writers used classical themes as a vehicle of critique, by performing a play which belongs to the official national canon, the heroes both say what is expected of them, successfully convincing their captors of their compliance (Maltzahn reports their success: ‘Dobrodin meint, wir wären einen Schritt weiter gekommen’ F 308), and state their real opinion that the academic city is a façade of progress and unity pasted over backwardness (‘Ist das ihre zeitgenössische Kunst? Das kenne ich schon aus den fünfziger Jahren!’ F 294) and coercion (‘keiner sagt uns was. Die Sekretärin hat auch immer nur Ausreden’ F 296). Podol’s gift of a sculptured dove of peace is likewise a performance which is both obedient and unruly. While the director of the institute for nuclear physics accepts it as an ‘Andenken an die Freundschaft zwischen unseren Völkern’ (F 312), the dove does not at all resemble Picasso’s rounded stylised bird and its features are empty of symbolic force. Orten ‘bewundert Podols Sicherheit, mit der er seine Vorstellung von einer Taube realisiert, ohne Rücksicht auf die aufgezwungene Symbolik’ (F 312). Instead of connoting peace between two nations, the object makes Orten thinks of Podol’s studio: Der schielende Vogel versetzt ihn aus diesem sterilen Saal mit Isolierplatten an den Wänden in Podols Atelier mit bemalten Schränken und Klöppelarbeiten seiner Frau an den schrägen Wänden, mit dem Blick auf dem Hradschin und die Dächer der Kleinseite, mit lauernden Katern und nistenden Schwalben. (F 312)

The fact that the bird is cross-eyed lends it a certain character which Orten connects with the atmosphere of Prague. In his imagination, Prague is romantic and idiosyncratic, and set apart from the rationality of Akademgorodok with its prosaic street names and modern buildings. Behind the Soviet Façade The travellers eventually succeed in leaving Akademgorodok and its façades (except for Qvietone who is enthused by the research opportunities there) and discover in their further wanderings minority communities in Siberia who seem to be successfully eschewing state

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integration policies and maintaining their own culture, identity and lifestyle which the new Soviet empire seeks to replace. Most of the secondary literature on the Fassade finds in these episodes an attitude of optimism towards the performative dimension of nation. Braunbeck recognises in them elements of fantasy and utopia, but omits to consider the implications of these in her overall analysis. In her account, Moníková’s novel depicts the nation as ‘a complex tradition of shared historical experience and cultural production’ in which the people ‘can and will participate actively, albeit subversively’.28 The all-female nomadic community where Orten convalesces from the effects of a snowstorm certainly does participate in subversive activities. When state officials try to compel them to conform, the women change them into reindeers. Elueneh, the community leader, shows Orten one of the victims who had wanted to include her people in a census: ‘Dieser Gaffer ist der Koordinator von der letzten Volkszählungskommission. Ich warnte ihn noch, Genosse, bei uns gibt’s nichts zu zählen [...]. Sieht eigentlich ganz vernünftig aus, nicht? Du hättest ihn vorher sehen müssen’ (F 380). Those who come to destroy the environment are dealt with in a similar manner: Elueneh explains, ‘Ehe ich zulasse, daß diese Stümper die Flüsse umlenken, hier weitere Bäume fällen und die Tiere töten, vermehre ich lieber meine Herde’ (F 380). Her way of dealing with male intruders is also aimed against unwanted advances – those who want to stay in the community may do so, as Elueneh explains, ‘auf unsere Weise’ (F 379). Their resistance is thus also resistance to patriarchal structures. The introduction of fantasy into the narrative differentiates this utopia from the more realistic, albeit humorous depiction of Akademgorodok, in which Moníková’s concessions to Soviet achievements in the fields of architecture and classical music are the only mitigations of an otherwise critical and generally realistic depiction. The change in narrative tone to the fantastic seems to me to be crucial for making sense of the travellers’ penultimate station of their Siberian journey (they also spend time in Irkutsk before boarding a train to Moscow). The depiction of the community is utopian and extravagant: women can influence the sex of their babies and choose to give birth to girls only, and their herbs give Orten the power of flying and an insatiable sexual appetite. The fact that Ulbus is not included in official statistics seems to confirm that we are not dealing with a community for whose existence there is any evidence. Elueneh exists in a fictional space which

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is reached by getting lost. The travellers lose their bearings three times before Orten is found by the women: in the snowstorm which interrupted their flight out of Novosibirsk, when chased by members of the communist youth league when they leave the Eskimo settlement and Orten has lost the others when he wakes up in a yurt. Thus, Elueneh and her people appear to exist not only outside of the Soviet state, but also on a different level of reality to the novel’s main diegetic level. The shift in narrative tone to the fantastic introduces fictional excess into the novel. This is an important point because it means that with their cultural performances they cannot, as Bhabha suggests that an insurgent populace does, ‘inform[-] the nation’s narrative address’.29 In conclusion, the fact that Elueneh’s community and Akademgorodok exist on different levels of reality within the novel reflects Moníková’s doubt that expressing the conflicts and differences within the nation’s homogeneous exterior could disable the state’s will to power. By rejecting patriarchal power structures and a culture based on inhabiting a particular place, the female community topples the most entrenched characteristics of European society and provides a space of respite from an otherwise gloomy black comedy. Thus Moníková opens up a utopian space as a space for reflection, but ultimately stops short of endorsing it. Orten’s unsuccessful attempt to capture Eleuneh’s likeness on the façade when he arrives back at Friedland suggests that the female nomads can have no impact on an official or widely accessible national culture. Much like Jana’s suspiciousness towards Mara’s colony in Eine Schädigung, in Die Fassade Moníková cannot envisage any productive role for a separatist female community in the fashioning of a nation. The episode questions whether nations are altogether desirable structures and reveals them to be founded on patriarchy, yet rejection is no solution either. A reading of the episode with Elueneh which stresses the community’s political ineffectualness aids an understanding of the novel as a whole, since the dominant message is that, in the end, a nation is preferable to disunity despite its exclusions. The heroes’ ultimate allegiance to the nation is made explicit in the novel’s third and concluding section, in which they return to their work despite their acute dissatisfaction with the abuse the façade has suffered in their absence.

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Von unten nimmt man von einem Sgraffito in zehn Meter Höhe nur den seriellen Eindruck wahr, und nach drei Jahren nicht einmal mehr den. (F 10)

Die Fassade contains sentiments similar to Monikova’s other muchdiscussed texts. Moníková’s hesitancy to react to the problems and flaws of the national community with rejection (and an advocation of exile, nomadism or diaspora, for example) is already apparent in her first short novel, Eine Schädigung. Jana’s physical injury during the communist take-over of Prague is expressed as a product of a phallocentric urban environment, and her ensuing uncertainty as a feminist dilemma. Yet, her unwillingness to join Mara in her separatist existence outside the city already demonstrates that, for the author, the failures and oppressions which encumber certain discourses (in this case the allegorical use of women’s bodies in imagining the city) do not preclude these from functioning in an overall positive way. This means that even though Jana experiences a number of seemingly insurmountable difficulties as a woman in the city, Moníková hesitates to pronounce the city an undesirable place to live and points to the functions it continues to fulfil for her protagonist (the tranquillity of the hidden garden, for example). Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin likewise fluctuates between longing for the nation and repudiation. Exile and glorification of the lost place, depicted as coextensive, are established at the outset. In this novel, the answer to nostalgia for one’s origins is to mourn adequately the loss which produces it. This then creates the pre-requisite for the protagonist’s detachment from her nation leading to an expression of optimism in the transcendence of origins. A less defamatory view is found again in Moníková’s later work. Treibeis, for example, portrays the renunciation of national affiliation as emotional coldness. Here, the theme of reception recurs: clear differences emerge between national ‘realities’ and one’s personal image of one’s nation. Karla eventually appears to part company with her companion for fear that too many unpleasant revelations about her nation might ruin a belief in a place and a fantasy of belonging which provides security against senselessness and the certainty of death. Here, national identity is re-examined in terms of a helpful fiction even while its exclusionary mechanisms and its illusory projection of unity are laid bare. Die Fassade is part of an œuvre which oscillates between nationalism, which expresses itself in a sense of responsibility to preserve her nation's past but also in a kind of patriotism which jettisons foreign elements, and a quest for liberation from national ties. The former is seen

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as hindering orientation in a new country (Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin), necessitating a forgetting of history (Treibeis) and operating via false oppositions between nationals and foreigners (Verklärte Nacht). Distance from the national community is the primary cause of nationalist sentiment. Moníková's protagonists leave their nation because they no longer feel able to identify with the national narrative. Once in exile, however, a longing for the lost nation sets in, reflecting the fundamental human desire for meaning and coherence which the nation in retrospect seems to have provided.30 Of particular pertinence to my discussion of this work has been the issue of agency and visibility. By drawing attention to the difference between the participation of heterogeneous experience in the forging of a national narrative and the interpretation of this experience by official state-run bodies who propagate it, Moníková questions whether, and to what extent, the people’s different voices can be heard within the nation. The fact that visitors to the castle can only look at it from a distance and therefore receive a false impression of the façade as an organic whole is an acknowledgement that we cannot help but try to create coherence out of chaos. The difference between the hotchpotch of motifs on the façade and the public’s perception of a uniform decoration implies that the creation of coherent narratives is a basic human trait. In this way, Moníková acknowledges in this novel the fact that while the homogeneous nation is oppressive, it is also the result of a fundamental human desire for meaning and coherence and a fear of contingency.

Notes 1

While not feeling the need to justify her omission, Ulrike Vedder clearly has been deterred by the text’s multiple perspective. In her analysis of Moníková’s depictions of nation and Heimat, she concentrates on the perspective of the individual, explaining that in the works she includes ‘geht es – jenseits von Ontologisierung und Symbolisierung – um einen irritierend “schiefen Umgang mit Heimat und Nation”. Und dies geschieht zum einen durch die Konfrontation nationaler Bilder und Mythen mit einem Ich, einem instabilen Ich’, Ulrike Vedder, ‘“Mit schiefem Mund auch Heimat” – Heimat und Nation in Libuše Moníkovás Texten’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 477-88 (here 478). This imbalance in the secondary literature in favour of the novels with a main female protagonist is currently being readdressed. Brigid Haines, for example, initially excluded Die Fassade since it exceeded her concern with the imbrication of power and the individual, Brigid Haines, ‘“New Places From Which to

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Write Histories of Peoples”: Power and the Personal in the Novels of Libuše Moníková’, German Life and Letters, 49/4 (1996), 501-12. However, the novel forms a focal point in her contribution to this volume. 2

The work of Karen Jankowsky has been the exception prior to the publication of the current volume. See Karen Jankowsky, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe: Libuše Moníková’, Women in German Yearbook, 12 (1996), 203-15, and ‘Between “Inner Bohemia” and “Outer Siberia”: Libuše Moníková Destabilizes Notions of Nation and Gender’, in Karen Jankowsky and Carla Love, eds, Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women’s Literature and Art, State University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1997, 119-46. 3

See PF 22-23 and 57; also Jankowsky, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe’, 203-04.

4

In doing so, Moníková cites an anecdote from history: in the fifteenth century, the Austrian emperor Frederick III inscribed the initials AEIOU (‘Austriae est imperare orbi universo’) on all of his possessions and on all official buildings in order to highlight Austria’s centrality both politically and geographically. See Katie Trumpener, ‘Is Female to Nation as Nature is to Culture? Božena NČmcová, Libuše Moníková, and the Female Folkloric’, in Jankowsky and Love, eds, Other Germanies, 99-118 (here 115). 5

Cultural theorists such as Aijaz Ahmad and Pnina Werbner stress the existence of a mixed, or hybridised culture and exploit this awareness in order to weaken the power of categorial oppositions. These have served the promotion of understanding and identity, but also occasion forgetting and oppressions. 6

The awareness of different interests within a whole, however, does not extend to Slovak culture and history and this omission holds up the separateness between Czech and Slovak cultures and ethnicities, and thus preserves organic borders. 7

See Julia Kristeva’s vision of a future society determined by polynational confederations, Julia Kristeva, Nations Without Nationalism, trans. by Leon S. Roudiez, Columbia University Press: New York, 1993, or Donald Pease’s claim that national narratives of belonging disguise actual subjection to state power, Donald Pease, ‘National Narratives, Postnational Narration’, Modern Fiction Studies, 43 (Spring 1997), 1-23. 8

9

Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture, Routledge: London, 1994, 161.

‘The scraps, patches and rags of daily life must be repeatedly turned into the signs of a coherent national culture, while the very act of the narrative performance interpellates a growing number of national subjects’, Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 145.

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10

Jankowsky uses Bhabha’s work to express the particular achievements of Moníková’s heroes: ‘The artistic and rebellious endeavors of the Friedland restorers demonstrate not just the performative abilities of individuals to change the narration of their country’s history, but also to reshape key symbols from the pedagogic narration of nation’, Jankowsky, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe’, 205. Helga Braunbeck draws on Bhabha’s ideas on the forgetting involved in reinvention in order to stress that Moníková’s writing produces counter-narratives to official historiography, Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 489-506 (here 489-90).

11

Paradigmatic for Western Europe’s ignorance of Czechoslovakia is a remark made by Neville Chamberlain who called it ‘a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing’. BBC radio broadcast from 27 September 1938, The Times, 28 September 1938. See also PF 9.

12

In an essay, Moníková comments on the German expression and compares it to the Czech equivalent, ‘Spanish villages’, which in her eyes is slightly more excusable since Spain really is a long way away from Bohemia: see PF 17.

13

Sibylle Cramer, ‘Die Dauer der Welt beruht auf dem Fleiße des Schriftstellers: Ein Gespräch mit der deutsch schreibenden tschechischen Autorin Libuše Moníková’, SZ, 19/20 September 1987, 164; Jürgen Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht – 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968 ... Zum Historischen bei Libuše Moníková’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag - Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], 8798 (here 87); Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 497.

14

Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 145.

15

Hayden White, ‘Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth’, in Saul Friedlander, ed., Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the ‘Final Solution’, Harvard University Press: Cambridge/Mass., 1992, 37-53.

16

The constellation of one woman and two men recurs throughout Moníková’s work – Francine in the Pavane has a husband and a lover, and in Verklärte Nacht Leonora imagines a choreography for one female and two male dancers which she calls a pas de trois. The autobiographical source of the latter example has been alluded to by her friend and colleague, Erica Pedretti, Erica Pedretti, ‘Das Leben ist seltsam, vielseitig und lustig’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 54-60.

17

18

Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 198.

Michel Foucault, ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader, Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1984, 76-100 (here 95).

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Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 497.

20

Marie shares the propensity of Moníková’s female figures to identify with personages from myth or history, in her case albeit on an intellectual rather then a physical level. While Vilma is historically marginal, Francine and Leonora identify to differing extents with figures from legend (Libuše and Hatshepsut).

21

Going to the cinema functions in the same way as her imaginative reconstruction of her cousin’s life. Identifying with characters in films enables Marie to deal with her single lifestyle and her recurrent role as confidante for unhappily married men by ironising it. The narrator tells us that Marie ‘lebte den Kitsch aus dem Kino, mit einem Schuß Selbstironie’ (F 90).

22

Friederike Emonds, ‘Contested Memories: Heimat and Vaterland in Ilse Langer’s Frau Emma kämpft im Hinterland’, Women in German Yearbook, 14 (1998), 163-82.

23

In Verklärte Nacht, Leonora tells us that Czech farce had been performed in the ‘Ständetheater’ in Prague since the eighteenth century (VN 82). Braunbeck writes that farces were staged in Litomyšl’s castle theatre in the nineteenth century, Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 496.

24

Bhabha distinguishes the people’s performances from the projected or official narrative of nation which he terms the pedagogical mode. As I understand him, his pedagogical narrative form denotes an ideological discourse, an image of how the nation should be which is hegemonically regulated. The performative mode refers to the repetition by individuals of national culture which can never produce similitude, Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 147-54.

25

Benedict Anderson stresses the creative aspect of national invention, preferring this to the notion of falsification or fabrication, Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Verso: London, 1983, 15.

26

Potemkin was a Russian politician and field marshal and a favourite of Catherine the Great. During her visit to the Crimea in 1787, he is said to have had artificial façades and props erected in the villages in order to conceal from the empress the region’s actual impoverishment.

27

Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1998.

28

Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 498.

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29

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Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 154.

Elisabeth Bronfen and Benjamin Marius, ‘Hybride Kulturen. Einleitung zur AngloAmerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte’, in Elisabeth Bronfen, Benjamin Marius and Therese Steffen, eds, Hybride Kulturen: Beiträge zur Anglo-Amerikanischen Multikulturalismusdebatte, Stauffenburg: Tübingen, 1997, 1-29, (here 2-3).

Beth Linklater ‘Könnten so nicht politisch Träume in den Himmel wachsen?’1 Women’s Writing and Humour in Die Fassade Libuse Moníková defined humour as an essential part of her aesthetics. Yet her first two novels were not noted for their comedy. Die Fassade, on the other hand, is a text in which humour plays a vital role. This essay explores the author's use of multiple comic techniques and effects in that text, focussing on situational comedy, comic detail, and joketelling. Moníková's humour has many differing functions, but most important is its subversion, challenging both received notions of ‘women's writing’ as ‘serious’ and also the dominance of totalitarian state systems.

‘Mehr Humor – Mehr Subversität des Stoffes und der Form’2 Women’s writing is conventionally considered a serious business. Add stereotypes of nation as well as gender to the equation and German women’s writing must surely be the most humourless of all possible genres. As late as 1990, Marianne Schuller bemoaned the fact that the feminist movement was characterised by ‘ein spezifischer Ernst’, or even by a ‘Lachverbot’: a prohibition ordained by men which had its roots in nineteenth-century bourgeois morality and remained valid in the twentieth century.3 Three years earlier, Sigrid Weigel had argued that the same was true of writing by women, ‘[d]ie Weiblichkeits-Gebote von Schönheit, Anmut und guter Moral scheinen bis in die Schrift der Frau hineinzuwirken. […] Für Frauen scheint der Eintritt in die Öffentlichkeit, in die Literatur und in die Sprache bis heute ein ausgesprochen ernsthaftes Vorhaben zu sein’.4 Women have traditionally been the objects of male laughter, rather than laughing subjects. Defined by their emotions, they have rarely been allowed to enjoy the distance from themselves which is necessary for the creation of satire. Furthermore, there is no notable tradition of women’s humour with which they are encouraged to engage. As Gail Finney notes, ‘women’s humor has not been recognised and treated by the critical literature on comedy because it has not been expected’.5 Yet, as these critics also contend, laughter can represent a form of subversion entirely compatible with the aims of those forms of women’s writing which endeavour to challenge the political status quo. Weigel thus

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concludes that, ‘wenn man das Lachen als Angriff auf die starre Herrschaft der Vernunft betrachtet, als Ausdruck von Un-Sinn oder als Lust an der Unvernunft, so täte den Frauen das Lachen bitter not’.6 In humorous fiction women can disrupt expectations of ‘normality’. They can ridicule those aspects of the ‘herrschenden Männlichkeitswahns und all seiner Rituale’ which appear especially absurd.7 Women’s comedy can also emphasise ‘process’ rather than ‘closure and resolution’.8 Moreover, through its capacity to make clear, to utilise and also to mock the split between body and word, humour can question the supposedly unified (and implicitly male) subject, and can successfully point to the ambiguous nature of the self. Because humour requires an audience, it can show how identity is not essential, but is, rather, relational and reliant on interaction. As Schuller demonstrates, ‘[d]as Lachen hat es mit Widersprüchlichkeit und Doppeltheit zu tun. Es ist zutiefst unrein. […] Im Lachen ist das Ich, dieses imaginäre Statut, nicht mehr Herr im eigenen Haus’.9 For women writers, the liberating potential of the comic thus lies in its ability to question norms and to expose the discursive production of accepted meanings. The theorist who has most famously demonstrated the manner in which humour can play with power and envisage alternatives is Mikhail Bakhtin. In Rabelais and His World, submitted to the Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow in 1940 but withheld from publication until 1965, Bakhtin paints a vivid picture of a medieval world that conquered the fear and dogma of ‘official’ culture through the comedy of the ‘unofficial’ – inherent in popular forms such as carnival, festivals, feasts, the figure of the fool, the realm of parodic literature and the language of the market-place.10 Laughter, Bakhtin argued, ‘clarified man’s consciousness and gave him a new outlook on life’. It ‘celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order; it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions’.11 Bakhtin’s theories have been criticised as overly utopian and, at times, ahistorical.12 In addition, it has been argued that he ignores the way in which carnival disorder functions as a licensed safety valve and thereby ultimately perpetuates authority. Carnival can also mock, or indeed violently abuse, those groups marginalised from the centre and classed as ‘other’ – including women.13 Yet, as Pam Morris correctly concludes, Bakhtin does ‘affirm the possibility of sustaining consciousness of an alternative social order even in the midst of authoritarian control and repressive orthodoxy’.14

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Bakhtin’s theories of laughter are quoted at length by the East German author Irmtraud Morgner in her 1983 novel Amanda: Ein Hexenroman, where the witches’ laughter represents the ‘Sieg über die moralische Furcht, die das Bewußtsein des Menschen knechtet, bedrückt und dumpf macht’.15 Morgner is a woman writer who consistently defied the negative situation which Weigel and Schuller lament. From the 1960s onwards her work used a wide range of comic techniques in order to encourage laughter, which she saw as ‘eine Widerstandskraft gegen die Lähmung durch Angst’.16 Morgner is an especially important figure in terms of the creation of a tradition of subversive female comedy in German. Importantly, she was also writing in an East German, rather than a West German, context; a context which neither Weigel nor Schuller take into consideration. Yet it is by no means the case that she stands alone. The Czech-German writer Libuše Moníková also defined humour as an essential part of her aesthetics. It is clear from numerous interviews with the author that she regarded the comic as necessary both on an artistic level and as a political strategy. She considered feminism to be constrained by the tendency to think in terms of victimhood and said, ‘[i]ch bin für Frauen ehrgeizig. Ich wünschte, sie könnten zu sich selbst mehr Distanz gewinnen, über sich selbst lachen, in den Büchern zumindest’.17 Thus in her ‘Thesen zu women’s writing’ she called for ‘Literatur von Frauen, die komisch, humorvoll, bissig, satirisch wäre. […] Mehr Humor – Mehr Subversivität des Stoffes und der Form […] Mehr Experimentierlust, übergreifende Formen: Kabarett, Karnevalistik – Masken, “rote Nasen” …’.18 Here Moníková does not merely link humour with entertainment,19 but with her wider project of producing a literature which must, in times of war and unparalleled technological advances, be aesthetically subversive: ‘[d]a die Inhalte aufgehört haben, subversiv zu sein, wird es die Form leisten müssen, wie seit je in freieren Zeiten’.20 Helga Braunbeck considers one element of Moníková’s subversive aesthetics to be the ‘Umkippen […], von der Tragik in die Komik’ which is, she argues, typical of Moníková’s interest in borderline or marginal aesthetic forms.21 Moníková herself contended that ‘[ü]ber große, tragische Themen kann man kaum noch tragisch schreiben oder mit vollem Ernst. […] Das Tragische und das Komische, das geht so Hand in Hand’.22 Moníková also believed that laughter could be an important tool for learning, due to the distance which humour can create, offering a new perspective which often exposes the farcical elements of life. As she

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commented, ‘[a]us der Geschichte kann ich auch einen Slapstick machen, je schlimmer, desto distanzierter und skurriler’.23 The authors whom Moníková constantly cited as important influences on her writing were, therefore, those who use comedy well: Ich bin jedem Autor dankbar, bei dessen Lektüre ich lachen kann und gleichzeitig lerne. Deswegen sind meine Favoriten die großen Humoristen und Polyhistoren – von Jean Paul bis Arno Schmidt. […] Dazu kann noch ein Dutzend gezählt werden, vorrangig Tieck, Heine, Karl Kraus, Tucholsky […] Kafka […]. Skurriles in der deutschsprachigen Literatur findet sich nicht so selten, wie man zuerst denken würde.24

Notably, all of these writers are men. The absence of women makes the lack of a German tradition of female humour clear, and it also indicates the urgent need for women to take up and develop the male traditions which certainly do exist. In many of Moníková’s statements, as in Morgner’s, there is a sense in which women from socialist states are better able to achieve this goal than women from, for example, West Germany.25 In interview with Jürgen Engler, for example, Moníková states: Ich kam aus einem Land, in dem Frauen normalerweise berufstätig waren und in den frühen Siebzigern mir auch wesentlich selbständiger schienen als im ‘Westen’. Sie waren fähiger, in jeder Hinsicht belastet – im Beruf, zu Hause, als ‘Bürgerinnen’ –, aber ohne Larmoyanz; humorvoller, gelassener, ohne Härte.26

In both Morgner’s and in Moníková’s writing, socialist women are represented as self-assured and confident, and therefore able to laugh at themselves, as well as at others. Furthermore, the need for protest is, perhaps, stronger under totalitarian rule. Both authors argue that laughter, when considered as a victory over fear (as is the case in Bakhtin’s writings), is likely to flourish in conditions where freedom of speech is curtailed, and that it will be based on a shared understanding. In interview with Stefanie Schild, for example, Moníková claims that the people of the former Eastern Bloc states enjoyed a ‘selbstverständliche Art von Solidarität. Ein wortloses Verstehen, ein[en] kollektive[n] Humor’.27 Post1989, then, in the new era of ‘democracy’, the need for jokes was not so urgent. As Moníková commented in 1991, ‘momentan in der Tschechoslowakei geht es mit den Witzen bergab’.28 ‘Das Tragische und das Komische, das geht so Hand in Hand’29 Moníková’s first two novels were not, however, noted for their humour. Eine Schädigung, published in 1981, deals with violence and identity

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formation through the portrayal of rape. The attack is extremely violent and Moníková’s account focuses on the victim’s pain.30 The rape is not depicted humorously, but the text does contain occasional moments of irony directed towards socialist institutions, signaling those developments which become more apparent in later texts, including Moníková’s speeches, essays and plays.31 The protagonist Jana is, for example, fined for a 32 minute delay in returning her tram on the night of her rape, thus adding extremely petty insult to extremely damaging injury (S 80). The humour of Moníková’s second novel, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983), is also ironic. This text recounts the thoughts and experiences of Francine Pallas, a Czech academic living in West Germany, whose distanced position is manifested in her decision to use a wheelchair, despite not being disabled. Here the author’s irony is more noticeable and more biting. It is aimed at students, at certain manifestations of Western feminism, at the university system, and at how the able-bodied regard and treat the disabled. Sibylle Cramer characterises both Eine Schädigung and Pavane as ‘düstere Prosa’.32 Yet for Moníková both texts, and particularly Pavane, do contain humorous scenes. The examples she cites in interview with Cramer include Pallas’s farcical race with the driver of an electric wheelchair, ‘[d]er Elektroarsch’ (P 136). In her old-fashioned and simple chair Pallas cannot hope to catch her opponent, so she simply picks it up and runs. At various points in the text, Pallas’s experiences with her new mode of transport give rise to humorous situations which contrast in a grotesque manner with her apparent disability.33 Moníková’s depiction of a seminar on women’s writing, where the students spend most of their time knitting, is extremely satirical (P 22-27). The summary of a colleague’s thesis on this knitting phenomenon – ‘Häkeln und Hegeln’ (P 22) – extends the satire to academia. Small comic asides, such as the characterisation of the young couple in Pallas’s apartment block, also add to the humour of the text: ‘Sie verwenden Aufkleber; auf ihren Rädern im Hausflur steht “Auto? nein, danke”, auf ihrem Auto steht “AKW? nein, danke”’ (P 13). In many senses, then, Pavane can be regarded as a ‘Werk von tiefer Komik’, although the main tone of the text is serious and in places even bitter.34 The irony and black humour shown in Eine Schädigung and Pavane are utilised often in Moníková’s third and most famous novel, Die Fassade, upon which I shall concentrate in the third section of this essay. In Treibeis (1992), the fictional text which followed Die Fassade,

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Moníková further develops the aesthetic of humour which typifies her third novel. Similar techniques are used in order to create some highly farcical scenes. The most memorable is the one in which the two protagonists meet, where Jan Prantl attempts to rescue stunt girl Karla from a film rehearsal, which he wrongly imagines to be a threat to her life. He also manages to destroy the main special effect of the film, a monstrous (and rather expensive) mythical bird. Karla’s first word to her future lover is thus ‘Idiot!’, as the film crew around her become birds themselves: ‘das ganze Filmteam brüllt, droht, schreit, gakkert und [schlägt] mit den Flügeln’ (T 73-74). The episode induces laughter not only in the reader but also in the characters themselves: ‘Er fängt an zu lachen, umarmt sie fester, spürt, daß sie schon die ganze Zeit lacht’ (T 74). The debt that this episode owes to film techniques is made clear in the text. Karla compares Prantl’s antics to those of Peter Sellers in Hollywood Party (T 76). Prantl himself also recognises the comedy inherent in the events of that day: Ich habe mich verirrt, war betrunken, bin abgestürzt, von einer Viper gebissen, ließ mir einen gefährlichen Kode aufdrängen, getarnt als Vokabeln, entkam knapp einem Anschlag mit einer präparierten Banane und den Nachstellungen von zwei feindlichen Agenten, wurde beinah vom Postbus überfahren, um endlich von einer Gemse direkt zu dir und zu deinem Greif geführt zu werden. (T 78)

Other farcical elements in Treibeis include the English researchers’ wild pursuit of Wittgenstein’s vocabulary book (chapters 3 and 5), Prantl and Karla’s adventurous escape from the scene of their crime (chapter 4) and Karla’s grotesque portrayal of her visit to Japan, where she attempts to dispose of her gift of a book about Hiroshima and a piece of cake (chapter 6). The juxtaposition of these two items views the worst tragedies of history through the comic, exemplifying in an especially bleak manner Moníková’s contention that ‘[d]as Tragische und das Komische, das geht so Hand in Hand’. Prantl travels from his adopted home in Greenland to Austria in order to participate in a pedagogic conference. In a manner reminiscent of Moníková’s attack on academia in Pavane, this is portrayed with heavy irony.35 The teachers playfully represent their various countries of origin. The British pair Screwley and Plumpton, are, for example, ridiculed not only through their names, but also their stereotypically ‘English’ appearance: ‘Kurze Hosen machen sich an den beiden nicht gut. Screwleys Knie sind käsig spitz, Plumpton hat rote Kniescheiben’ (T 68). The German participants have ‘eine[n] Zug zum Fanatismus, auch

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politischen’ (T 99). Comments such as ‘[a]uch der Russe und der Ukrainer leben in ständigem Widerspruch zwischen ihrem Durst und ihrer Währung’ (T 44) ironise both the characters and the socialist nations they represent. As in Die Fassade, such statements not only create humour, they also suggest a more serious political message, criticizing the systems in which the teachers work. Treibeis also makes use of political and linguistic jokes. At this level Moníková’s humour relies on detail. For example, Screwley’s assertion that Wittgenstein was forced out of school ‘Nicht nur durch alberne Alliterationen, sondern auch durch vulgäre Verleumdungen!’ (T 425) works solely with the letters ‘a’ and ‘v’, and is a play on the alliteration he cites. Other jokes in the novel are specifically anti-Russian, satirizing Stalin and Pavlov.36 Verklärte Nacht (1996) and Der Taumel (published posthumously in 2000) make less use of comedy. Even here though, there are glimpses of humour, such as the story of Tereza’s escapades with her pet iguana (Tm 136-144) or the beginnings of Leonora’s relationship with Asperger, ‘[f]ür einen Deutschen […] ziemlich witzig’ (VN 93). In Verklärte Nacht, the author’s characteristic irony is directed towards various examples of the new Czech capitalism post-1989, and towards men. Moníková contrasts, for example, ‘[d]ie Frauen, kaputt von der Arbeit – von der Familie, den Kindern, den Männern’ with ‘[d]ie Männer, kaputt vom Bier’ (VN 12). In Der Taumel, Moníková makes direct reference to the role that she believes jokes played in the former socialist societies: ‘[die Witze] einigten die Bevölkerung’ (T 19). A typical example of such an antisocialist joke, which comments on the way in which socialist states failed to run their economies efficiently and independently, is given in the speech ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’: ‘ob der Sozialismus in der Sahara möglich wäre: Im Prinzip ja, aber in ein paar Monaten müßte man den Sand importieren’.37 ‘Erst als sie sich wie die Deppen aufführten, die Knochen anschlugen, das Publikum zum Lachen brachten, hat man sie fahren lassen’ (F 329) Published in 1987, Die Fassade was the book with which Moníková achieved prominence in the German literary landscape, and for which she was awarded the prestigious Alfred Döblin prize.38 Like Morgner’s Amanda, this is a rambling, montage work, consisting of literary intertexts, plays, songs, extracts from films, dream sequences, and

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digressions into the specialist discourses of the scientific, mythical, historical, and artistic. Similarly, too, it presents the reader with a panorama of different characters, events and settings. In both texts the major themes revolve around questions of history. Moreover, in both humour plays a vital role. Critics have frequently noted that Die Fassade marked a departure from Moníková’s previous writing. Helga Braunbeck, for example, contends that ‘the narrative mode of the picaresque novel, humour, satire, and the comical have replaced the mourning and melancholy of the first two books’.39 Yet in contrast to the reception of Amanda, the humour of Die Fassade has seldom been examined in depth. In line with the general reception of Moníková’s work, the novel has, rather, been considered in terms of its obvious (and crucial) concerns with Czechoslovakia and with Prague, with history as Moníková’s overarching theme, with the role of the body, of subjectivity and of gender in her work, as well as with the status of the author as a Czech who writes in German. Whilst a number of reviewers do take account of the ‘sarkastischen politischen Anspielungen’ and ‘witzige[n] Seitenhiebe auf die aktuelle politische Situation in der Tschechoslowakei’ in this ‘sehr ernste[n] und zugleich sehr komische[n] Buch’, they rarely go beyond such comments.40 Sibylle Cramer is the only critic to recognise properly the crucial part that humour plays within Die Fassade: Das Komische ist mehr als ein bloßes Darstellungsmittel. Es ist der umstürzlerische Geist der Erzählung, der Wertungshierarchien der Geschichte auf den Kopf stellt, ein Instrument des Widerstands gegen die Geschichte, die Sieger schreiben, denn es vermittelt eine Geschichtserfahrung jenseits dessen, was groß, wichtig, bedeutsam ist. Es pluralisiert die Geschichte zu Geschichten und setzt sie damit als ideologische Konstruktion ab.41

Cramer here compares Moníková with her Czech compatriot Jaroslav Hašek, ‘der […] gezeigt hat, daß der literarische Humor subversiv arbeitet’, and correctly notes the way in which this accords with the female author’s project of rewriting history ‘von unten’ – that project which Moníková shares with Morgner.42 In Die Fassade, Moníková uses a wide variety of humorous techniques. This variety both influences and reflects the mosaic of topics, aesthetic forms and narrative levels which characterises the text. In this survey I shall refer to three of these techniques: situational comedy, the use of comic detail, and joke-telling. I shall concentrate on the first, which, as is also the case in Treibeis, is the technique Moníková adopts to greatest effect. These strands are, however, interlinked; clearly jokes are

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often told in humorous situations, which also rely on comic detail. All three techniques are characterised by a pointed use of irony and by unusual juxtapostions. The purpose of Moníková’s humour is multilayered too. Firstly, it functions to lighten the tone and to help the reader through the occasionally difficult nature of a text which deals with unusual topics at great length.43 Where they are made amusing, these topics come alive. Secondly, humour provides an important means of characterisation; through laughter the reader approaches the characters with sympathy and enjoyment. Thirdly, and most importantly, in the senses outlined in section I the humour is subversive, challenging not only received notions of ‘women’s writing’ as ‘serious’, but also the dominance of totalitarian systems such as those of post-war Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. This is, as Moníková insisted, ‘ein politischer Roman’.44 Humour thus makes an important contribution to its message and effect. Die Fassade consists of two main sections, ‘Böhmische Dörfer’ and ‘Potemkinsche Dörfer’, and a much shorter third section, ‘Ohn’ Unterlaß’. All three are narrated mainly in the third person, although there is no one unifying perspective. In the first section the reader is introduced to the four main characters, the middle-aged artists Maltzahn, Orten, Podol and Patera. In order to support their families, the men have taken on the job of restoring the façade of the ‘Staatsschloß Friedland-Litomyšl’ (F 26) in Eastern Bohemia.45 This is a huge and seemingly thankless task which functions as the main symbol in a text which repeatedly questions the nature of artistic endeavour and of memory and forgetting. The stories of many other characters are also interwoven with those of the four artists. Castle employees – such as the archivists Qvietone and Nordanc, or the caretaker Jirse – and relatives and friends – such as Orten’s lover Marie (who is also the object of Qvietone’s affections) – also take on important roles within the text. In the second section, the artists and two of their companions attempt to travel to Japan, where Orten has received an invitation to restore a frieze. However, the group never reaches its destination, and finally returns to Czechoslovakia only after they have saved themselves from some strange, dangerous and also comical situations. The text repeatedly uses techniques and motifs familiar from comic films, where everything descends into fiasco. As Orten comments, the protagonists have ‘eine fatale Neigung [...] stets die falsche Maschine, den falschen Lastwagen, den falschen Schlitten zu besteigen’ (F 371). Many of the absurd situations in which the characters find themselves are highly comic, often containing many nonsensical,

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unexpected and even farcical elements. These scenes are also highly visual and often make fun of socialist institutions. One of the most successful examples of this situational slapstick occurs early in the first section, when a group of farm workers, who have earned the right to visit the castle through their hard work, find their tour interrupted as one of their number objects to Podol’s restoration of his family’s coat of arms. The mock-epic battle which ensues between the artists and the members of the ‘Kollektiv[] “Achtundzwanzigster Oktober” des Staatsgutes Stadice’ (F 33) would appear to owe a great deal to the films of Charlie Chaplin.46 The fight takes place with mortar, gravel, water, stones from the castle façade and bags of sand, and represents a highly unproductive use of the valuable restoration materials. The artists balance precariously on ladders, scaffolding and bits of wood as they empty buckets of paint over the workers below. At one point Maltzahn uses a bowl from the castle’s crockery collection to scoop damp wood shavings – damp because ‘auf der Etage gibt es keine Toilette’ (F 39) – out of the window and onto the opposition. On a superficial level, this fight is simple fun. All the participants end up laughing and are eager to narrate the events of the day in the pub that evening. Their laughter thus encourages that of the reader, who can once again enjoy the commotion as if she were watching it unfold in front of her. In addition, though, the farcical nature of the battle is used in order to ironise great socialist campaigns of the past. The leader of the visiting group, Bullack – whose comic name is reminiscent of both a bulldog and a policeman – cries ‘Für das Vaterland!’ and ‘Für Stalin!’ (F 38) as he slips on a pile of mortar thrown by Podol. The scene also mocks the officially organised ‘pilgrimages’ to historical sites which were encouraged in socialist states,47 offering ‘Anreiz für maliziöse Glossen zum staatlichen Bildungsprogramm’.48 The agricultural tourists have earned the right to visit the castle because they have increased ‘den Rüben- und Kartoffelertrag insgesamt um siebzehn Prozent’ and have doubled ‘die Eier- und Hühnerproduktion gegenüber dem Plansoll’ (F 33). Yet the members of this group do not even know what the name of their collective refers to and they are unsure as to whether to choose ‘Kultur oder weitere Biere’ (F 37). In the context of the clownish mêlée in which they engage, the workers’ socialist titles, such as ‘die verdiente Schweinezüchterin Svidnická’ (F 37) or ‘der aufwärts strebende Traktorist Otto Zeta, Held der sozialistischen Arbeit’ (F 38), sound inappropriate and ridiculous.

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Here, as elsewhere in the text, Moníková uses the official language of socialism in order to deride it. Further examples of such situational humour in Die Fassade include the theatrical performance given by the artists (chapter 6), and Qvietone’s original scientific experiments with firebugs and newspapers (chapter 8). In the former example, the restorers, who cannot work because they have squandered their materials in the fight, are rehearsing for a play involving famous figures from Czech history. The humour arises firstly from the contrasts between the men and the figures they are playing – ‘their constant slipping in and out of their roles’ – and secondly from the juxtaposition of different historical eras.49 The combination of two usually unrelated elements is one of the methods Freud famously identified as being at the heart of much humour. He calls this technique ‘Verdichtung’, or ‘Unifizierung’.50 The ‘Unifizierung’ in this playlet is thematised in an exchange between Maltzahn, acting the Czech historian and writer Alois Jirásek (1851-1930), Orten, as the pioneer of experimental physiology Jan Evangelista PurkynČ (1787-1869), Patera, as the composer BedĜich Smetana (1824-1884) and Podol, who, in a comic sex change, is playing the cook, writer and patriot Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová (1786-1845):51 Jirásek, immer gereizter: ‘Frau Rettigová, […] Sie [sind] hier ein noch viel größerer Anachronismus […] als Janáþek […]. Um in dieser Runde mit uns sein zu können, müßten Sie jetzt hundert Jahre alt sein!’ Betroffenes Gesicht der Erweckerin. PurkynČ: ‘Sie gehört ins 19. Jahrhundert, wie Sie auch, Jirásek. […]’ Jirásek: ‘Sie können schweigen, Sie sind auch schon tot!’ Smetana: ‘Wir wollen jetzt nicht pingelig sein.’ (F 131)

Patera/Smetana’s use of the term ‘pingelig’ in the context of death brings out the comedy inherent in this situation, as does the incongruity of Maltzahn/Jirásek’s attempt to silence a dead man. The humour of Qvietone’s experiments also arises from unexpected contrasts, as well as through the academic seriousness with which he explains his obscure research into the habits of firebugs, which he is breeding on different sets of newspapers in the castle library. The experimental characteristics attributed to the newspapers of different countries transpose the categories of the Cold War into a bizarre new context. Ironically, the Czech insects appear to favour the capitalist press: ‘auf Oggi sammelt sich eine Enklave, eine kleinere jeweils auf der Prawda und auf Dagens Nyheter, Ogonjok ist voll besetzt und die

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Financial Times sogar in mehreren Schichten. “Darauf sind sie wie wild”, erklärt Qvietone’ (F 171). In chapter 5 of Die Fassade, the reader is given a foretaste of the possible comic predicament that can arise due to the chaos of socialist transport systems. Orten recounts some of the problems connected with a previous trip to Japan: Zuerst konnte die Maschine nicht starten, weil der Pilot noch Melonen für seine Familie besorgen mußte, dann konnten sie den Kopiloten nicht finden, der hatte sich in der Zwischenzeit betrunken und schlief seinen Rausch in der Kantine aus. […] [W]ir blieben eine Nacht auf den Schienen liegen, auf einer Ausweichstrecke, weil wir den Militärtransport, der dort nach Wladiwostok durchfuhr, nicht sehen durften. (F 107-8)

The humour here is created by the contrast with Western expectations of air travel, and from the banality of the reason for the delay: melons! As with Podol’s jokes about bananas – ‘“Ab wann gibt es eigentlich auf Stilleben Bananen?”, fragt Podol. “Gar nicht? Das ist wie im Sozialismus”’ (F 32) – references to a lack of tropical fruit fit into received knowledge about socialism and play with stereotypical patterns of comedy. The melons form a comic link between the two sections of the book, for the second part opens with the protagonists stuck in a Russian aeroplane, in which ‘die Privatmelonen des Piloten’ (F 237) are rolling through the gangways and between the passengers’ legs. The bizarre term ‘Privatmelonen’ adds a further dimension of linguistic humour to the scene. This journey, which the artists share with diverse fruit, vegetables and animals, is the first of those described in ‘Potemkinsche Dörfer’, all of which go wrong in humorous fashion. In this instance the plane fails to reach its destination and the group is abandoned in the depths of Siberia. They then hitch a ride in a lorry, but are unfortunately led astray by Qvietone, who is the only member of the group who can speak good Russian and communicate with the lorry driver. And at this point in the story Qvietone is, unfortunately, under the influence of hallucinogenic mushrooms. They end up in the strange university town of ‘Akademgorodok’, where they are forced to wait for quite some time as their socialist credentials are investigated. The group’s stay in the Kafkaesque ‘Akademgorodok’ is increasingly prolonged, and increasingly cold. This purpose-built city, dedicated to the pursuit of scientific knowledge, was established between 1958 and 1965. Once the ‘brain of Russia’, it is described by Moníková in particularly comic fashion, a description which foreshadows the sad

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demise of the project post-perestroika.52 Here Moníková’s irony is directed both towards the pointless bureaucracy which typifies academia in general, and at some of the higher socialist functionaries who populate this particular institution. On arrival, for example, Anatoliji Wassiljewitsch Dobrodin, who enjoys the title ‘stellvertretender Leiter des Geologischen Instituts und Sekretär der Kommunikationszentrale’ (F 252), has to decide how much attention and information the Czech ‘delegation’ – unfortunately ‘Prager Künstler statt amerikanischer Wissenschaftler’ (F 277) – should receive. The institute even has a name for this, ‘bitpers’ or ‘bits pro person’ (F 252). Other characters are called ‘Login’ and ‘Logoff’, a play on words which similarly mocks the technical nature of the institute. Further jokes are derived from the different languages spoken in the institute, from the lengthy tours the group have to endure, and from their poor knowledge of Russian. Qvietone’s interest in bugs, for example, is linked with the American Indian Roger Snafu’s job of ‘debugging’ computers, which is variously translated as ‘[e]r entfernt hier irgendwelche Käfer’, ‘er entlaust es hier’ and ‘er entfernt Wanzen’ (F 272). In a process of ‘Verdichtung’,53 Snafu’s former American boss, Commander Grace Hopper, becomes ‘Grashüpfer’, which leads Qvietone, in his overly scientific manner, to want to differentiate between the ‘Feld-’ and the ‘Laubheuschrecken’ (F 272). Many of these jokes depend upon prior knowledge for their effect, especially knowledge of other languages. In fairy-tale manner the group can only escape Akademgorodok through the accomplishment of three tasks. The first is an impromptu performance of Gogol’s famous comedy The Inspector General (1836). The choice is ironic, for the play tells the story of a young civil servant, Khlestakov, who finds himself stranded in a small provincial town, much as the artists and their audience are stranded in Akademgorodok. By mistake, Khlestakov is taken by the local officials to be a government inspector, who is visiting their province incognito, just as the artists are taken for important scientists. The play is itself amusing, particularly to a Russian audience able to relate it to their own situation. The performance also uses some of the same comic techniques as the artists’ production in chapter 6, for each member of the group has to play multiple roles. Podol again finds himself cross dressing, playing not only the General, but also the General’s wife. The restorers also have to perform in Russian, which the audience finds extremely amusing. For their second task the artists create an original piece of sculpture, a dove of peace. This certainly

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impresses their hosts, but the group are still required to demonstrate their sporting skills in order finally to be able to leave. They have to take part in a farcical game of ice hockey, the humour of which is reminiscent of the slapstick fight between the artists and the agricultural brigade. Indeed much of the game consists in the participants attacking one another, causing rather a lot of unorthodox fouls. In Cramer’s opinion this scene is ‘ein Paradestück komischer Vorgangsschilderung’, which turns Cold War relations, and in particular the events of 1968, upside down; ‘das Lachen erklärt die Verlierer zu Siegern’.54 Although the Czechs only score one goal, it is this goal which is the most celebrated: ‘das letzte Drittel haben die Tschechen gewonnen! Das Publikum tost, aus irgendeinem Grund sind sie begeistert, Podol wird auf den Schultern getragen – alle umarmen sie, […] sie können morgen fahren’ (F 326). The ice hockey game, in which the artists can do little more than attempt escape whenever and however possible, is the most successful of the artists’ productions, for it creates the most laughter. As Orten reflects: ‘Die Aufführung vom “Revisor” hat nichts gebracht, Podols Relief hat nichts gebracht […]. Erst als sie sich wie die Deppen aufführten, die Knochen anschlugen, das Publikum zum Lachen brachten, hat man sie fahren lassen’ (F 329). The group’s next enforced stop is on the outskirts of Tura, in Northern Siberia, where they find themselves stuck in a snowstorm. Helped by Oleg, a fellow traveller whom they meet in a truck from the airport, they take refuge in a deserted hut, which they only leave when absolutely necessary. This provides much visual humour, as Moníková paints detailed pictures of the men poking their bottoms out of the doorway in order to defecate. Podol uses these ‘toilet’ scenes in his caricatures (F 357), which capitalise on the humour of the situation. In many places in the text the humour of the dialogue comes from its crude nature, which is especially unexpected in modern literature. For Bakhtin, however, the base is a crucial part of that bawdy laughter which opposes the authoritarian and mocks religious repudiation of the flesh. As Wayne Booth states, ‘the excremental is itself a source of regeneration’.55 For Freud also ‘ergeben sich aus dem Bereiche des Sexuellen und Obszönen die reichlichsten Gelegenheiten zum Gewinne komischer Lust’.56 In Die Fassade, then, a snowman has his carrot ‘in der unteren Hälfte’ (F 388) rather than his face. The artists also hold a lengthy discussion on their bowel movements, comparing their faeces to famous sculptures, ‘es geht […] darum, über Dali hinaus, die Defäkation als kunstschaffenden Akt zu verstehen, und umgekehrt!’ (F 198). In these ‘Fäkalscherze für die

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gebildeten Stände’, high culture is attacked within both the dialogue and Moníková’s narrative.57 The humour of the group’s stay in Tura derives mainly from the antics surrounding Maltzahn’s toothache. The fact that his name ends in ‘Zahn’ neatly emphasises this comedy. The dentist Maltzahn visited in Akademgorodok had, it now transpires, filled his tooth with a small radio, as a means of tracking the group. Instead, however, the radio plays Maltzahn various types of music or snatches of news broadcasts. Here too, the aim is not simply to entertain, but also to satirise the authorities’ paranoid fear of spies that was characteristic of the Cold War. Maltzahn’s extreme pain is juxtaposed with the oddity of what he is forced to listen to, and once again the contrasts are highly amusing: Maltzahn verkriecht sich in die Ecke, wird von dort aber durch einen zu klaren Empfang von Radio Aserbaidschan vertrieben. […] mit unerträglicher Klarheit schneiden die autonomen Sowjetrepubliken mit ihren Nationalsprachen ins Programm von Radio Moskau ein, übertönen Ust-Ilimsk und verbinden sich in seinem Kopf zu einem akustischen Aleph. (F 350-51)

Here the detailed humour, which provides a comic version of Francine’s ‘[m]ein Leben ist eine Abfolge von Literatur- und Filmszenen, willkürliche Zitate’ (P 19), is grotesque. This effect is heightened by the song that Maltzahn hears as he paces the room, crying out in pain. The song mocks young soldiers who find it hard to adapt to army life and are always complaining of their ‘Wehwehchen’ (F 351). Moníková describes Maltzahn’s anguish and the contrasting radio programmes he picks up at great length; the comedy of a potentially horrific situation is richly exploited. The humour of Die Fassade thus relies, in the first instance, on these specifically humorous situations. Moníková also, however, introduces numerous comic details throughout the text. This is often the result of one particular symbol, of a small feature of language, or of an isolated funny sentence found within a more serious passage of writing. Again this technique makes the reader’s task less burdensome, but it also emphasises Moníková’s satire. In Orten’s dream-like and somewhat confusing stay in the matriarchal community of Ulbus, for instance, men have been turned into reindeer, because they prove more attractive and more useful in that form. Ironically, it is only politicians who do not make good animals: ‘[s]ie sind faul, können nichts, haben keine Ausdauer, können nicht ziehen. Zum Schlachten sind sie zu alt, das Fleisch ist zäh’ (F 379). This single idea immediately lends humour to an episode which

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unsettles the reader due to its unclear status within the text. It also ridicules one of Moníková’s favourite targets: socialist politicians. The main symbol in the text is that of the castle façade itself. As a palimpsest which is mirrored in the montage structure of the novel, it suggests both how history is constantly being rewritten, and also how art and life are intricately related. As a concrete object it also functions as the source of much of the text’s humour. The details of the restorers’ work include, for example, some of the more unusual images they carve into the Renaissance façade, including what they happen to be eating and drinking at any one time, a ‘Brezel’, ‘Schinken’ and ‘eine Halbliter Bier’ (F 32). The extraneous detail of the half-litre emphasises the light tone and, like the countless other images which the restorers remodel, ‘ironizes the state’s enlistment of the ancient castle to construct a tradition for a government that was in existence only since World War II’.58 As elsewhere in the text, it is juxtaposition, in this instance between the high culture of renaissance artwork and the low culture of modern food, that produces the humour. Further comic details of the restoration include the fact that all of the women Podol creates have his wife’s legs, and where the women are pictured with animals it appears as if the artists have depicted ‘Sodomie an den Giebeln’ (F 193). Podol also uses ideas such as the opening line of Kafka’s Der Proceß, written 352 years after the castle was finished, and images from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) to inspire his artwork. The fact that years later – as Orten reflects (F 229) – historians will attempt to decipher the contrasting images of ‘[d]ie Allegorie der Gelegenheit und Josef K.s Fahrradausweis, Fräulein Bürstners Bluse an der Fensterklinke und der blasende Wal daneben – Moby Dick’ (F 230), adds further comedy to this allegory of history. Elsewhere in Die Fassade the detail of the humour is to be found in single words or small asides, as we have seen with Moníková’s use of technical terminology in Akademgorodok. For Freud it is this economy which makes a joke so successful, ‘[e]s scheint alles Sache der Ökonomie zu sein’.59 For example, the play on the word ‘einfach’ in the final section of the book concisely sums up the humour of the previous section. Svodoba asks, ‘[i]hr seid ein halbes Jahr einfach so weggewesen?’, to which Orten replies, ‘[s]o einfach war es nicht’ (F 425). In the very first chapter of the text the narrator’s short comment, ‘hat er bisher nicht realisieren können’ (F 10), deflates Podol’s rather fanciful suggestions for nameplates he had hoped to design, such as ‘Zu den zwei Arschbacken’ or ‘Zum Personalausweis’ (F 10). It also reminds the reader that in a socialist

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state art was not always a matter purely of personal choice. In the final section of the book the artists return to Litomyšl for the May Day celebrations. A window display of ‘rosa Hüfthaltern und BHs’ (F 426) is decorated with a picture of Lenin. The narrator comments that ‘[m]it dieser Wäsche hätte es jeder Fetischist schwer’ (F 426), mocking not only the events themselves, but also the great communist leader. Another example of a humorous aside is given in the description of Marie’s calculated attempt to dispose of Qvietone by sending him into a dark cave in order to fetch a ‘limestone rose’. Her comment, ‘[z]uerst mußte die Sache mit Qvietone bereinigt werden’ (F 90), refers somewhat lightly not only to their relationship, but also to a potentially tragic accident, and is entirely in contrast to the sympathy one might expect. When Qvietone does reappear, Podol and Orten also make light of his fall. They consider putting his leg in plaster to create an original sculpture: ‘stell dir vor, du hast einen original Orten am Bein, aus feinstem Bildhauergips’ (F 92). This scene also evinces the technique of linking the tragic with laughter, which Moníková often adopts. It is a mode of humour which acknowledges the potential horror of modern life, whilst at the same time making this endurable by naming it and by demonstrating its inextricable connection with the comic. By laughing at others’ pain, the reader is also invited to laugh at her own inadequacies. This close relationship between the tragic and the comic is also to be found in Marie’s story of her second cousin Vilma Janská, which she tells in chapter 4 of Die Fassade. The portrayal of Marie reaching out her hand to help Qvietone is heavily ironic: after encouraging him to jump to his death she throws him his jacket, ‘für alle Fälle’ (F 68); ‘noch nie hatte sie an ihn so intensiv gedacht’ (F 69). This cruelly comic scene is explicitly contrasted with the real tragedy of Vilma reaching out her hand to save her husband from drowning in the Russian swamps, a loss which causes her to miscarry their child (F 82). As Cramer notes, ‘[d]ie erzählerische Ironie, die hier waltet, macht das Komische des Schrecklichen und das Schreckliche der Komik sichtbar’.60 Large sections of Die Fassade consist of dialogue, an aspect of the book which allows for many humorous exchanges.61 For example, when the reader first meets Jirse, the caretaker at the castle, he is humorously characterised as selfish through a conversation in which he replies to others’ questions solely with information about himself. Each ‘wir’ is answered with an ‘ich’ (F 13). The friendly banter between the restorers includes a great deal of comic teasing about their carvings and drawings.

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A grand ship, for example, is mistaken for an iron, and a cornucopia for a dustbin turned upside down (F 33). One notable facet of this use of dialogue is the role of joke-telling within Die Fassade. Jokes, as Freud detailed, can create laughter through a number of different methods, including ‘Verdichtung’, ‘die mehrfache Verwendung des gleichen Materials’, ‘Verschiebung’, ‘Unifizierung’, ‘die Darstellung durchs Gegenteil’ or ‘durch Ähnliches’, ‘Auslassung’, ‘Anspielung’ and ‘das Gleichnis’.62 He identifies ‘characterizing’ jokes, and innocent and hostile jokes.63 Whilst the former merely illustrate different characters or groups of people, the latter are either ‘feindselig’ (as in satire), ‘obszön’, ‘zynisch’ or ‘skeptisch’.64 Many of these techniques and types are used in Die Fassade. They are mostly given voice by Podol, whose characterisation is largely dependent upon his role as entertainer. His anecdotes, witty stories and caricatures range from light-hearted silliness to biting satire. They enliven conversations and stimulate laughter, both on the diegetic level and for the reader. Podol’s impossible tales of the orangoutang he infuriates by laughing at him playing with sand, or of the elk who acts as a taxi for an escapee monkey are, for example, followed by the comment ‘Alle lachen’ (F 30). Similarly, on the train journey as the protagonists finally return home, Podol’s jokes create a sense of solidarity amongst the travellers. ‘Die ersten Witze heben an’ (F 410) as they begin to feel more comfortable. In interview with Sibylle Cramer, Jürg Laederach und Hajo Steinert, Moníková is concerned that all the functions of these jokes should be understood. She states: ‘es geht nicht darum, daß meine Bücher etwa Sammlungen von Witzen sind, sondern sie sollen etwas charakterisieren’.65 To be understood, jokes need to be decoded by the listener, thus they function firstly as a particularly effective means of communication. Secondly, Moníková’s jokes also serve as ‘ironic-critical, but consensual comments on current events highlighting the incongruities of a society; a “barometer of opinion of a society”’, and ‘a “frustration valve”’.66 As Lutz Röhrich argues, the joke ‘concerns general social problems and is, therefore, to be evaluated as an indicator of culture and social structure’.67 The jokes in Die Fassade ironise Czech politics, events in history, art, and individual characters. They often mock political systems and their mechanisms, symbols of political power, and politicians. Some deride socialism directly, such as Podol’s joke about bananas. Others attack socialist institutions, for instance academia (F 297), or the police:

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Zwei Polizisten finden einen Ermordeten vor dem Kino und schreiben eine Meldung […]. Wie schreibt man ‘Kino’, fragt der eine. Weiß ich nicht, Komm, dann schleppen wir ihn vor die Metzgerei! (F 429)

This joke is ‘charakterisierend’, in that it relies upon the widespread prejudice that police officers are generally stupid.68 It also depends upon faulty reasoning for its humour, one of the techniques employed in joking identified by Freud – if the policemen cannot spell ‘Kino’ then neither can they possibly spell ‘Metzgerei’. These jokes are, however, not told simply in order to make an audience laugh, they are also a form of protest. As Freud contends, ‘[i]ndem wir den Feind klein, niedrig, verächtlich, komisch machen, schaffen wir uns auf einem Umwege den Genuß seiner Überwindung, der uns der Dritte […] durch sein Lachen bezeugt’.69 This is especially important in totalitarian societies, for, as Bakhtin shows, laughter can function as a means of escape (albeit only a notional escape) from complete control by others.70 Through fostering a feeling of self-esteem within a particular group, jokes can help to secure the identity of the transmitter of the joke, as well as of its recipient. This communal aspect of joke-telling is referred to early in Die Fassade, when Podol is said to know all the latest ‘Witze vom Häschen und dem Bären, mit denen sich die Nation zur Zeit über Wasser hält’ (F 30). Indeed he tells these bear and rabbit jokes, which emphasise the occasionally crude nature of the text’s humour, in the pub after the brawl with the agricultural workers: Kommen Häschen nach Hause, verdreckt und stinkig, und die Mutter fragt: Kinder, was habt ihr bloß gemacht? Ach, wir haben wie immer brav gespielt, und dann kam der Bär und hat sich mit uns den Arsch ausgewischt! (F 45)

In its satirical portrayal of Czech-Russian relations this joke reinforces a collective Czech identity (however weak) in the face of Russian tyranny. Elsewhere in the text too the Czechs are repeatedly portrayed as sheep. These comments represent a form of ‘ingroup humour’.71 The joker and audience (including the reader – who in this instance, like Nordanc, is an honorary Czech) belong to the same group, within which morale is strengthened. Conclusion The communal nature of humour and its related function as an expression of resistance are important not only for Moníková’s role as a Czech writer, but also for her role as a woman writer. In her analysis of Die Fassade the

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feminist critic Regula Venske expresses regret that Moníková’s third novel has male protagonists, worse still, male protagonists who demonstrate an especially sexist attitude towards women.72 Moníková herself, when asked about this, claims that her men are ‘überzeugender und realistischer’73 than female figures, who would be ‘zu gefährdet’ up on the scaffolding, ‘sie könnten herunterfallen, sich erkälten’.74 This statement is as ironic as much of Die Fassade itself, and betrays the author’s annoyance that she should have to justify her choice of characters. In her ‘Thesen zu women’s writing’, she adds, ‘[w]arum nicht über Männer schreiben, sie zum Objekt unserer literarischen Begierde machen? Sie haben uns für ihre schöpferischen Phantasien jahrtausendelang benutzt’.75 In fulfilling this aim, however, it can be argued that the vehicle of much of the humour of Die Fassade is its men, implicitly reinforcing the idea of women as serious, and detracting from a feminist interpretation of the novel. Thus Venske claims that the fact that it is male characters who act in the novel means that ‘der Text [partizipiert] an der Konstruktion des Männlichen als Norm’.76 Similarly, Braunbeck maintains that in Die Fassade it is ‘male agency’ which has replaced the ‘female victimhood’ of Eine Schädigung and Pavane.77 Whilst criticisms such as these may, in part, be justified, feminist writing cannot simply be about ‘images of women’. If it is to be truly challenging, it must be subversive in its aesthetics as well as its content. Whilst the protagonists of Die Fassade are men (and in the case of Podol, a traditionally sexist man), their portrayal has, as Moníková points out, ‘viele Facetten […]. Ich zeige sie auch mit ihren Schwächen, sie sind manchmal lächerlich. Dann sind sie auch wieder eigentlich liebenswert, aggressiv’.78 The narrative voice is not unified either, and is not explicitly male. Indeed the humour of the text questions the very notion of a unified and omniscient perspective. Furthermore, in the political and literary context bemoaned by Schuller and Weigel the use of a traditionally male form, that is, humour, by a woman writer represents a feminist challenge in itself. And in her use of humour Moníková is not simply ‘a woman speaking like a man’.79 She adopts this form in a vivid and varied manner, employing farce and slapstick, comic characters, pointed political irony, comic juxtaposition, humorous detail and joke-telling in a wide variety of situations and descriptions. She goes beyond the limits of conventional realism by using humour in order to play with language, and to defy notions not only of narrative unity, but also of linear plot, closure, and reliable interpretation. As Cramer argues, ‘[m]it [dem Komischen] werden

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Machtverhältnisse, Normen, Denkstereotypien attackiert und auf den Kopf gestellt’, norms and stereotypes of history, of literature and of ‘women’s writing’: ‘Der Widerstand der Autorin gilt der Opferstruktur imaginierter Weiblichkeit, auch in der Selbstdarstellung der Kunst’.80 Like Morgner’s novels, Die Fassade is therefore a book by a female author which does exactly what Marianne Schuller hopes for when she expresses ‘den Wunsch nach Karnevalisierung des feminischtischen Habitus und der feministischen Diskurse’.81 The laughter of Die Fassade is ‘ein Lachen, das eben nicht nur andere trifft, sondern auch das Selbst und damit das Andere des Selbst zum Zuge kommen läßt’, and as Schuller asks, ‘[k]önnten so nicht auch politisch Träume in den Himmel wachsen?’.82 The answer, in Moníková’s writing, is an affirmative ‘yes’; for it is only when their audience laughs that her artists are liberated: ‘Erst als sie […] das Publikum zum Lachen brachten, hat man sie fahren lassen’.

Notes With thanks to Katharina Hall, Mererid Puw Davies and Dan Healey. 1

Marianne Schuller, ‘Wenn’s im Feminismus lachte …’, in Schuller, Im Unterschied: Lesen/Korrespondieren/Adressieren, Neue Kritik: Frankfurt/Main, 1990, 199-210 (here 208).

2

Libuše Moníková, ‘Einige Thesen zu women’s writing’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 50 (1997), 30-31 (here 30).

3

Schuller, 208.

4

Sigrid Weigel, Die Stimme der Medusa. Schreibweisen in der Gegenwartsliteratur von Frauen, tende: Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1987; repr., 1989, 169. 5

Gail Finney, ‘Comparative Perspectives on Gender and Comedy: The Examples of Wilde, Hofmannsthal, and Ebner-Eschenbach’, Modern Drama, 37/4 (1994), 638-50 (here 639). 6

Weigel, Die Stimme der Medusa, 170-71.

7

Weigel, Die Stimme der Medusa, 172.

86

8

Finney, ‘Comparative Perspectives on Gender and Comedy’, 639.

9

Schuller, ‘Wenn’s im Feminismus lachte …’, 201.

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10

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. by Hélène Iswolsky, Indiana University Press: Bloomington, 1984. 11

Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 9.

12

See for example Michael André Bernstein, ‘When the Carnival Turns Bitter: Preliminary Reflections Upon the Abject Hero’, in Gary Saul Morson, ed., Bakhtin: Essays and Dialogues on His Work, University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1981; repr. 1986, 99-122.

13

On Bakhtin’s exclusion of a ‘female’ point of view in his work see Wayne C. Booth, ‘Freedom of Interpretation: Bakhtin and the Challenge of Feminist Criticism’, in Morson, ed., Bakhtin, 145-76.

14

Pam Morris, ‘Introduction’, in Pam Morris, ed., The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev and Voloshinov, Edward Arnold: London, 1994, 1-24 (here 22). 15

Irmtraud Morgner, Amanda: Ein Hexenroman, Aufbau: Berlin, 1983; repr. Luchterhand: Frankfurt/Main, 1984, 412-15 (here 412). 16

Eva Kaufmann, ‘Interview mit Irmtraud Morgner’, Weimarer Beiträge, 9 (1984), 1494-1514 (here 1514).

17

Helga Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 452-67 (here 458).

18

Moníková, ‘Einige Thesen zu women’s writing’, 30.

19

See Moníková in interview with Jürgen Engler, ‘Autoren ohne Humor werden schnell langweilig, selbstgerecht’, Jürgen Engler, ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 45/5 (1997), 9-23 (here 19).

20

Libuše Moníková, ‘Ortsbestimmung: Danksagung zum Chamisso Preis’, in Ulrich Janetzki and Wolfgang Rath, eds, Tendenz Freisprache: Texte zu einer Poetik der achtziger Jahre, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1992, 121. Also ‘Der Dichter als Brauch: Eine quasi-ethnographische Überlegung’ (PF 30-39, here 36).

21

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, 461.

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22

Moníková in interview with Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 19921997’, 461.

23

Moníková in interview with Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 19921997’, 460.

24

Moníková in interview with Engler, ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht’, 18. Moníková particularly admired the humour of Arno Schmidt, an author who was highly influential for her work in general, as can be seen not only in numerous interviews, but also in, for example, Pavane. One of the seminars taught by Pallas is ‘Arno Schmidt – Kritik durch Witz’ (P 18). In interview with Cramer, Moníková comments, ‘[i]ch konnte bei Schmidt zum erstenmal ausgiebig lachen und gleichzeitig sehr viel lernen.’, Sibylle Cramer, ‘Die Dauer der Welt beruht auf dem Fleiße des Schriftstellers: Ein Gespräch mit der deutsch schreibenden tschechischen Autorin Libuše Moníková’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/20 September 1987, 164. Moníková makes similar comments on Jean Paul and Thomas Pynchon in ‘Mich vollends hungerte nach etwas Festem von Diskurs’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], 37-40 (here 39). In the essay ‘Der gute Geschmack und Ladislav Klíma’ she adds Czech writer Ladislav Klíma to those whose comedy she admires (PF 63-71, here 68). 25

Austria is a different case, and has its own comic traditions.

26

Moníková in Engler, ‘Wer nicht liest kennt die Welt nicht’, 15, my emphasis.

27

Moníková in Stefanie Schild, ‘Zuhause in der Literatur: Libuše Moníková’, Münchner Merkur, 12 December 1996. See also Moníková in interview with Sibylle Cramer and others, ‘[j]e repressiver das System, desto besser die Witze’, Sibylle Cramer, Jürg Laederach and Hajo Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 119 (1991), 184-206 (here 191).

28

Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 191.

29

Moníková in interview with Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 19921997’, 461.

30

See Beth Linklater, ‘“Philomela’s Revenge”: Challenges to Rape in Recent Writing in German’, German Life and Letters, 54/3 (2001), 253-71.

31

In the speech ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, for example, Moníková directs her irony towards the Germans, Libuše Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 100-120. In the short play ‘Tetom und Tuba: Ein Volksdiskurs nach Nestroy und anderen Wienern’ (UM 7-28), the development of so-called ‘civilisation’ is satirised, as are the famous characters (such

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as Freud) and texts which she adapts. 32

Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 199.

33

The possibility of viewing disability with humour is also thematised in Pallas’s description of the ‘Behinderten-Spartakiade’ as ‘ungeheuer komisch’ (P 119).

34

Friedrich Christian Delius, ‘Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 48-53 (here 49). See also the version of Delius’s address in this volume, 25.

35

This description is autobiographical. See Moníková: ‘[m]ein pädagogischer Kongreß ist Satire auf den pädagogischen Betrieb, den ich gut kenne. Ich absolvierte anderthalb Jahre in Bremen das Referendariat und dann genauso lange das Lehreramt in einer Gesamtschule. […] Die Sätze, Thesen, zitierten Kompendien auf dem Kongreß sind authentisch – keine Fiktion, leider, kann ich hinzufügen’, in Engler, ‘Wer nicht liest kennt die Welt nicht’, 19.

36

See, for example, T 99, 111.

37

Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, 107.

38

Die Fassade has been translated into eleven different languages. It was translated into English in 1991: The Façade. M. N. O. P. Q., trans. by John E. Woods, Knopf: New York, 1991; Chatto & Windus: London, 1992.

39

Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 489-506 (here 495). See also Christoph Neidhardt, ‘Moníková’s Traurigkeit hat sich in Ironie verkehrt, ihre Klagelieder sind zu Witz und Spott geworden’, Christoph Neidhardt, ‘Hinter Schweinskopf, hinter nacktem Hintern die verlorene halbe Welt’, Die Weltwoche, 8 October 1987, 82. Sibylle Cramer describes the ‘komische[-] Färbung der Prosa, die Libuše Moníková erworben hat beim Schritt von der Pavane zur Fassade’, in Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 188. Caroline Neubaur argues that this book achieves ‘seine Distanz vor allem in der Komik’, Caroline Neubaur, ‘Laudatio zum Berliner Literaturpreis’, in Thomas Hürlimann, ed., Der Berliner Literaturpreis 1992, Gatza: Berlin, 1992, 123-26 (here 124).

40

Elsbeth Wolffheim, ‘Fatalismus – ohn’ Unterlaß’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 9 September 1987; Martin Lüdke, ‘Odyssee mit Zauberern und Amazonen’, Der Spiegel, 5 October 1987; also in Martin Lüdke, Für den SPIEGEL geschrieben, Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1991, 89-93.

41

Sibylle Cramer, ‘Lobrede auf Libuše Moníková’, Akzente, 38 (1991), 229-35 (here

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234). See also Sibylle Cramer, ‘Eine humoristisch gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands: Prospekt zur Verbesserung Mitteleuropas: das Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 70-77. 42

Cramer, ‘Lobrede auf Libuše Moníková’, 234. Jaroslav Hašek (1883-1923) is best known for his comic odyssey The Good Soldier Švejk and His Fortunes in the World War (1921-22). He also appears in Vilma’s story (F 70-87).

43

This aspect should not be underestimated. Indeed in interview with Engler, Moníková recognises that, ‘[d]as Kaleidoskop der Daten […] überfordert die Leser eher, als daß es sie anregen würde. Wenn ich Glück habe, sind es Geschichten, in die die große “Geschichte” verpackt ist, für einige Leser spannend, amüsant oder so geschrieben, daß sie bei der Lektüre bleiben.’, in Engler, ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht’, 18. The difficulties of the text are evinced in reviews which complain that this is ‘eine Fleißarbeit auch für den Leser, der nach knappen 450 Seiten einiges an Durchhaltevermögen bewiesen hat’, Iris Denneler, ‘Verzettelt und vertan’, Der Tagesspiegel, 7 October 1987, Literaturblatt, 10. See also Wilfried Schoeller, ‘Bröckelnder Putz: Früh gefeiert, zu früh publiziert’, Die Zeit, 9 October 1987.

44

Cramer, ‘Die Dauer der Welt’.

45

The Litomyšl castle was built from 1568 to 1573. See Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 85 and Braunbeck ‘The Body of the Nation’, 495.

46

See Cramer, ‘Die Dauer der Welt’: ‘diese pantomimischen Elemente des Romans sind Teil einer filmischen Dramaturgie, deren Herkunft aus den anarchisch-surrealen Filmburlesken der Stummfilm- und frühen Tonfilmzeit unverkennbar ist’.

47

Karen Hermine Jankowsky, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe: Libuše Moníková’, Women in German Yearbook, 12 (1996), 203-15 (here 207).

48

Wolffheim, ‘Fatalismus – ohn’ Unterlaß’.

49

Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 496.

50

Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke, ed. by Anna Freud and others, S. Fischer: Frankfurt/Main, 1940, VI: Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 18, 71.

51

Jankowsky comments that Podol’s cross-dressing ‘ironizes any clear-cut opposition between gender roles for men and women’, Karen Hermine Jankowsky, ‘Between “Inner Bohemia” and “Outer Siberia”: Libuše Moníková Destabilizes Notions of Nation and Gender’, in Karen Jankowsky and Carla Love, eds, Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women’s Literature and Art, State University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1997, 119-46, (here 136).

Beth Linklater

90

52

See the description given by Colin Thubron, In Siberia, Penguin Books: London, 1999, 63-67.

53

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 18.

54

Cramer, ‘Eine humoristisch gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands’, 76. See also Jürgen Eder, ‘Die wenigen Seiten über das – natürlich politisch konnotierte! – Eishockeyspiel in Akademgorodok gehört zum Amüsantesten, was die deutsche Literatur der achtziger Jahre zu bieten hat’, Jürgen Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht – 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968 … Zum Historischen bei Libuše Moníková’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 87-98 (here 96).

55

Booth, ‘Freedom of Interpretation’, 161.

56

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 253.

57

Renate Miehe, ‘Unterhaltung für gebildete Stände’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 November 1987.

58

Jankowsky, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe’, 207.

59

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 43.

60

Cramer, ‘Die Dauer der Welt’.

61

The use of dialogue represents another link between this text and film. For an elaboration of the importance of film in Libuše Moníková’s work, see the contribution by Helga Braunbeck in this volume.

62

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 18, 33, 53, 71, 75, 79, 83, 85, 87.

63

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 57, 98.

64

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 105, 105, 121, 128.

65

Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 191.

66

Angelika Soldan, ‘To Live Together, but Laugh Apart? German-German Communication Problems as Mirrored by Jokes’, Humor, 11/1 (1998), 79-85, (here 79).

67

Lutz Röhrich, ‘Joke and Modern Society’, in Lutz Röhrich and Sabine Wienker-

Women’s Writing and Humour in Die Fassade

91

Piepho, eds, Storytelling in Contemporary Societies, Narr: Tübingen, 1990, 127-36 (here 129). 68

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 57.

69

Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, 112.

70

See Röhrich, ‘Joke and Modern Society’, 130: ‘a society which is politically suppressed will always produce political jokes’.

71

Soldan, ‘To live together, but laugh apart?’, 84.

72

See Venske, ‘Die von Kritikern bei Erscheinen des Textes hierzu verschiedentlich formulierte Frage, ob es sich dabei um eine “Anpassung an die Männerliteratur oder Auseinandersetzung damit” handle […] muß angesichts ihres Preisgekrönten Romans Die Fassade wohl doch eher zugunsten des ersteren beantwortet werden. Hier sind die Helden […] vier Männer, und auch der Blick auf die weiblichen Figuren ist ein männlicher, um nicht zu sagen: sexistischer. […] Letzlich partizipiert der Text an der Konstruktion des Männlichen als Norm’, Regula Venske, Das Verschwinden des Mannes in der weiblichen Schreibmaschine: Männerbilder in der Literatur von Frauen, Luchterhand: Hamburg, 1991, 89.

73

Moníková, ‘Einige Thesen zu women’s writing’, 30.

74

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, 458.

75

Moníková, ‘Einige Thesen zu women’s writing’, 30.

76

Venske, Das Verschwinden des Mannes in der weiblichen Schreibmaschine, 90.

77

Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 495.

78

Regula Venske, Mannsbilder – Männerbilder: Konstruktion und Kritik des Männlichen in zeitgenössischer deutschsprachiger Literatur von Frauen, Georg Olms: Hildesheim, 1988, 285.

79

Toril Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics: Feminist Literary Theory, Routledge: London, 1985, 143.

80

Cramer, ‘Eine humoristisch gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands’, 75, 73.

81

Schuller, ‘Wenn’s im Feminismus lachte’, 208.

82

Ibid.

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Lyn Marven Falling Down: Images of Trauma in Moníková’s Fragmentary Novel, Der Taumel This article examines Libuše Moníková’s unfinished final novel, Der Taumel (2000), in the light of recent trauma theory. Der Taumel represents trauma through the protagonist’s epilepsy, as well as in its setting, Prague in the period of ‘normalisation’. Through imagery, especially of burial, Jakub Brandl’s epilepsy is linked with the horrors of World War Two, and the text further explores the relation between art and trauma. Der Taumel also draws on motifs employed in earlier texts – notably the figures of illness and falling – allowing us to re-read Moníková’s œuvre as a narrative of the traumas of the twentieth century.

In the ‘Nachwort’ to Der Taumel (2000), Libuše Moníková’s editor, Michael Krüger, writes that the text was to be her second major work, along with Die Fassade (1987), her most widely received text. While it remained unfinished, the posthumously published text is nonetheless a substantial piece of work – only Die Fassade and Treibeis (1992) are longer; the published text contains eleven mostly completed chapters, and a further dozen pages in fragmentary form, amounting to around half of the planned 400 pages.1 Set in Prague in 1978, during the repressive period of ‘normalisation’ following the suppression of the Prague Spring by Warsaw Pact forces, Der Taumel focuses on an epileptic artist, Jakub Brandl, who is under pressure from the state. Brandl’s epilepsy, an illness of falling, is an image of trauma within the text, as is the recurring motif of being buried alive. These images, which are familiar ones in Moníková’s texts, also provide a key to re-reading earlier texts and enable us to construct a narrative of trauma which is increasingly directly articulated in Moníková’s work. Moníková’s depictions of trauma locate her works within a growing tradition of trauma literature in the post-war, and now post-Cold War period. Trauma is the subject of growing interest in cultural and literary studies, which see it as ‘a vantage point from which to define the modern predicament of mutually entangled histories, communities and writings’.2 Cathy Caruth, whose writing on the subject is central to literary critical interest in it, defines trauma as ‘a response, sometimes delayed, to an overwhelming event or events’.3 Trauma describes the structure of an experience: it is located in the fact of being overwhelmed and in surviving,

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rather than the event itself. Frequently it is the result of a confrontation with death, but other extreme experiences, such as exile, rape or torture (all of which feature in Moníková’s work in one form or another) can also induce trauma. Trauma affects language and the structures of memory: the traumatic experience cannot be integrated into a narrative memory and exists only as gap or blank spot; it therefore cannot be articulated. Although the memory of the traumatic event is unavailable to conscious recall, it remains as a foreign body in the psyche and returns in the form of flashbacks, hallucinations or dreams, which are surprisingly literal. Trauma is characterised by its belatedness, and consists in continually reexperiencing the event. For Moníková, the representation of trauma was a way into writing and as a notion it is central to her exploration of Czech national identity. Her first text, Eine Schädigung, set in an unnamed city resembling Prague, deals with the rape of a female student, Jana, by a policeman. Jana experiences the trauma of rape as a loss of language. The text allowed Moníková to find her writing voice: she began writing the text in Czech, but switched to German, the language in which she continued to write. Czech identity is repeatedly associated with trauma in Moníková’s work through events in national history. The rape of a young girl by her supposed protector lends itself to an allegorical reading in which it represents the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, an event which Moníková herself has described as ‘die Quelle, das Urtrauma, aus dem ich schreibe’, and which is continually alluded to in her texts.4 Moníková also talks of the ‘nationales Trauma’ (PF 81) of the Munich Agreement in 1938, which saw Czechoslovakia effectively handed over to the Nazis by the Western powers. In its imagery as well as its setting, Der Taumel continues to demonstrate this concern with the traumas of history. Moníková’s œuvre is structured by repetition and self-reference – something which already points to the iterative nature of trauma – and many of the elements of Der Taumel are familiar from previous texts.5 A bibliophile artist, the character of Jakub Brandl combines characteristics of several of Moníková’s protagonists – his name recalls Jan Prantl in Treibeis, as well as the Prague Baroque painter Jan Petr Brandl (16681735); he is a literary descendant of the artists in Die Fassade and in his character as well as his marital problems he is reminiscent of sculptor Jan Orten in particular.6 Brandl’s epilepsy is a form of ‘Körper-Sprache’, and as such recalls both Jana’s experience of, and recovery from, rape in Eine Schädigung, and Francine Pallas’s limp in Pavane für eine verstorbene

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Infantin.7 Although the text is written in the third person, the narrative perspective is close to Brandl and reproduces the memory and narrative gaps resulting from his seizures: one attack is represented as a blank, a line break between Brandl’s dizziness and his coming to (Tm 75). In this way, the text becomes a form of ‘Körper-Sprache’, with bodily expressions and gestures recreated in and by the text. Linked to this bodily expression are Brandl’s visions, somewhere between dreams and hallucinations induced by his seizures: Moníková’s characters frequently experience altered states of consciousness, and Brandl’s visions echo Francine’s hungover visions of Kafka and Leonora’s feverish imaginings after her accidental dip in the Vltava in Verklärte Nacht. As in the earlier texts, Brandl’s visions revolve around imagery which relates to the thematic concerns of the text, rooting these images in the physical. While individual aspects of the text are not new, however, their particular confluence does point to different concerns. Brandl’s symbolic illness is notable for being ascribed to a male character. The ‘KörperSprache’ of Moníková’s first two texts is an effect of the close relation between narrator and protagonist in Eine Schädigung or the first person narrative of Pavane, and is thereby associated with individual female protagonists. This configuration is discarded in Die Fassade, a more distanced, third person narrative which follows a group of men. Treibeis goes some way towards reconciling these two different types of narrative: protagonist Jan Prantl has a disabled hand which was the result of a parachute jump during World War Two, but his symbolic injury is not reflected in narrative form (and the narrator of the text may in fact be the female protagonist Karla, who narrates the final chapter). In the close relation between narrator and male protagonist, and its incorporation of Brandl’s bodily experiences, Der Taumel cuts across this female-male dichotomy which implicates both narrative and the representation of the body. Also significant in Der Taumel is the focus on Prague in the 1970s, and these two aspects, the narrative of ‘Körper-Sprache’ and the setting, are linked: Brandl’s epilepsy expresses the trauma of the contemporary Czechoslovakia. Der Taumel is the first of Moníková’s texts to depict directly the repressive regime in the period of normalisation (Die Fassade is set during the time, but avoids treating it openly); it opens with Brandl having attended a violent ‘Gespräch’ and details the pressure he is put under as an artist because of his liberal views and his contacts abroad. Brandl’s seizures are often a delayed reaction to his treatment in

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interrogations: his neighbour Halina refers euphemistically to them as ‘diesen … Zuständen’ (Tm 85. Moníková’s ellipses), suggesting that the form of Brandl’s illness symbolises the conditions of Czechoslovakia at the time. In a recent article on the text, Karin Windt notes that ‘[g]ewaltsame Willkür und Sinnlosigkeit’ – corporeal characteristics of the epileptic seizure – ‘[kommen] in Brandls Erfahrung im Überwachungsstaat zum Ausdruck’.8 Der Taumel is the only text to represent directly the trauma of recent Czech history. Moníková makes a connection between this central trauma and the wider historical traumas of the twentieth century: the trauma of the Second World War in particular is represented through Brandl’s uncle Jaroslav, who fought during the war, and by Brandl’s artist neighbour Halina Potocka, a Polish Jew who by chance avoided death in a concentration camp. Brandl’s epilepsy is traumatic in origin as well as form: his seizures are an image of the loss of memory which constitutes trauma. Epilepsy is a condition characterised by recurring seizures, caused by paroxysmal brain disturbances.9 Its archetypal manifestation is the fit where the sufferer falls to the ground, hence its old name of the ‘falling sickness’. The epileptic seizure causes memory loss, and involves the loss of control over one’s own body. The condition has a range of physical symptoms, from the body going rigid (tonic phase) and convulsions (clonic phase), in the typical ‘grand mal’; it can also induce hallucinations during and after seizures. Complex seizures involve a loss of consciousness, and are often preceded by minor symptoms, referred to as the ‘aura’. Epilepsy can result from head injuries – as Brandl’s might – and in this case it is known, appropriately, as post-traumatic epilepsy.10 There is also a psychological element to the illness: some forms of epilepsy are triggered by specific stimuli or situations, which may be of a psychological rather than physiological nature. Epilepsy has always been considered a symbolic illness: in earlier times, it was referred to as the ‘sacred disease’ because of its unpredictability; as it strikes without warning, sufferers were considered to be touched by God – or the devil.11 It has also been linked to genius and creativity, and in Brandl’s case his paintings and the form of his seizures mirror each other.12 Brandl displays several types of physical symptoms within the text. As well as full seizures, he experiences partial seizures which cause dizziness, ‘Taumel, Schwindelgefühl’ (Tm 15) – hence the title of the text; numbness in his hand and nausea; and hallucinations, seemingly as the onset, or after-effect, of his attacks. His attacks may be triggered by visual

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stimuli: coming back from an interrogation in a snowstorm, Brandl experiences dizziness: ‘Die Schneeflocken wirbeln im Wind, das Gestöber wird dichter. […] Das Flimmerm [sic] vor den Augen, der Taumel, der Magendruck nimmt zu’ (Tm 67). The outside world and the images in his head – the snowflakes which ‘wirbeln’ and the ‘Flimmern vor den Augen’ – reflect one another, as the boundary between inside and outside, reality and vision weakens. In addition, Brandl also loses consciousness on returning from the interrogation which opens the text: ‘Kurz darauf verlor Brandl das Bewußtsein. / Wie er ins Bett gekommen war, wußte er nicht’ (Tm 9). Although this may or may not be a seizure – it is immediately followed by a description of one of his hallucinations, but it may be that Brandl simply faints or loses consciousness in a delayed reaction to his treatment in the interrogation – it certainly points to the close connection between the psychological and physiological in the text. Here we are reminded of Francine’s limp in Pavane, which is a form of hysteria, a psychosomatic disorder. In fact, the similarity between hysterical and epileptic fits meant that the two conditions were not distinguishable from each other until recently; in the 1945 preface to The Falling Sickness, his history of epilepsy, medical historian Oswei Temkin declared, [t]here is no unanimity about the range of the concept of epilepsy, and the nature of the disease is as yet obscure […] it is very difficult, if not impossible, to draw a distinct borderline between epilepsy and certain cases of severe hysteria.13

I will return to the connection between Francine’s hysteria and epilepsy later; both are reactions to, or expressions of trauma. Brandl’s epilepsy appears to be traumatic, or perhaps even psychosomatic, in origin. His first seizure coincides with him catching sight of his uncle, who has returned from the Second World War in a wheelchair: Jaroslav is ‘eine Wachsfigur, eine siebenundzwanzigjährige leere Hülse in Montur, menschliche Trümmer’ (Tm 14). Brandl sees his badly injured uncle at the top of the cellar stairs, and ‘taumelt plötzlich […] torkelt rückwärts […] Brandl krümmt sich, mit Schaum vorm Mund, mitten in der Kohle’ (Tm 14). Does he fall because he has a seizure, or does the fall cause the seizure? The head injury – a trauma in a medical sense – could trigger an onset of epilepsy. Only the ‘Schaum’ appears to indicate a seizure, the typical foaming at the mouth (interestingly, a symptom once associated with the god of war).14 That Brandl ‘krümmt sich’ could point to the convulsive phase of a seizure, or he could just be doubled up with pain; but the other verbs, ‘taumeln’ and ‘torkeln’, are far less specific and would be consistent with an attack of dizziness or even

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with Brandl simply losing his balance through shock at the sight of his uncle. In this ambiguity, his falling is already portrayed as a response to the horrors of contemporary history.15 The highly symbolic appearance of the illness in Brandl’s life, and of the motif within the text, allows us to read it as a metaphor in both cases. Paradoxically for a condition which involves blackouts, his illness is a form of memory. We are told that ‘Brandl [behielt] die fallende Krankheit als Erinnerung’ (Tm 15) of his uncle, and his uncle’s trauma; he also seems to inherit his uncle’s memories of the war. Jaroslav was buried in a bunker on the Atlantic Wall, and was the sole survivor, unearthed after months underground; he could not overcome his experiences – ‘Zum Trauern war die Leere und die Schwärze zu groß’ (Tm 13) – and he died soon after being sent home to his family. The close relation between death and the form of Brandl’s illness is emphasised: Taumel, Schwindelgefühl, die seit kurzem vertraute Taubheit in der Hand und das Ticken im Kopf. Wir alle tragen unseren Tod mit uns, unbewußt, im allgemeinen Tumult und Rumor unbemerkt, bis uns unsere Verschütteten einholen. Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten. Die Begrabenen vom Atlantikwall haben ihn eingeholt. (Tm 15)

Beyond the specific references to Brandl’s uncle’s experiences, the narrative invokes a historical context which takes in the whole of the twentieth century, ‘Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten’. Here Moníková highlights the psychological as well as physical horrors of modern times. Brandl’s affliction simply acts out explicitly what we have all repressed, namely the knowledge of our own mortality. Brandl is not the only epileptic to figure in the text; epilepsy is a recurring motif and is furthermore linked with art on several levels. One of Brandl’s neighbours, Procházka, is a medical student who keeps a skull in his room: the object of his first forensic report, it belonged, he deduced, to an epileptic who later committed suicide. The man had been treated by trepanation, a technique formerly used for epilepsy; his skull bears the marks of this operation and the damage caused by his falls. In the fragments at the end of the text it emerges that the skull belonged to a poet. Coincidentally – and typically for Moníková’s texts – Procházka also talks to Brandl about Napoleon’s scientist Savigny, who went blind during an expedition in Egypt as a result of ‘Anfälle einer Hirnstörung, diagnostiziert als Schläfenlappen-Epilepsie’ (Tm 36). Savigny’s affliction led to creative activity: ‘Seine letzte Arbeit waren die Phantombilder, die durch seinen Kopf jagten. Er hatte sie gezeichnet, wollte sie klassifizieren, wie vorher die Insekten. Eine Taxonomie des Wahns’ (Tm 36). Epilepsy

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is also specifically associated with literature: Brandl twice makes the odd remark ‘sein oder nichtsein –, aber Hamlet war kein Epileptiker’ (Tm 132, also 189; the doubling probably due to the fragmentary state of the novel, rather than an intentional repetition); in this context, Hamlet’s famous dilemma recalls the sudden loss of consciousness in an epileptic fit. Halina and Brandl also discuss Dostoevsky, himself famously an epileptic, and who portrayed epileptics in his novels.16 Dostoevsky’s illness is suggested to be psychosomatic, induced by the violent death of his father; and is also posited as the key to understanding his work: ‘Die meisten Biographien gehen über sein Gebrechen hinweg, als wäre es nebensächlich’ (Tm 94), remarks Halina. These references self-consciously point to Brandl as another epileptic in literature, and signal that his illness is anything but ‘nebensächlich’ for Moníková’s text. It is also central to Brandl’s own artistic activity. The hallucinations which are part of Brandl’s seizures provide the connection between his illness and his paintings. Visions are often part of the ‘aura’ which precedes a seizure proper; epileptics report heightened perception as one sign of an imminent attack. In the text, Brandl’s seizures are preceded by a manic burst of creative activity, and his painting turns into a kind of hallucination. In one sequence, inside and outside, that is, vision and painting, merge, and converge on imagery of war: Er stürzt sich auf die Fläche, mischt Farben durcheinander, trägt sie blind, besessen, mit der zittrigen Hand auf, darüber dünne Striche Rot, Blutrot. Graue, weiße, schwarze Farbschichten, aus denen ihn mit der Fortsetzung des Bildes Fratzen anstarren, verquälte verzerrte Gesichter und Gestalten, Leiber, Tiere und Menschen ineinander verknäuelt, in Agonie. Quer durch die Nacht kommen aus der Dunkelheit Blitze und explodieren in seinem Kopf, in immer kürzeren Intervallen. Mit äußerster Anspannung krallt er sich in die Palette, starrt auf die Leinwand, hält sich an seiner Arbeit fest. Er möchte einen schwachen, entfernten Strahl vor seinen Augen verfolgen; er würde ihn zu einem anderen, helleren Licht hinüberge and leiten, zu einem anderen Bild, zum Aufatmen. Er verliert ihn unter dem Anprall der Blitze, die mit zunehmender Wucht aufeinander zustürzen, sich in seinem Kopf überkreuzen, ihn erfassen, verschütten. Lehm, Erde in den Augen, im Mund, in der Nase, in der Lunge; Betonsplitter, berstendes Glas, Stacheldraht dringen in seinen Schädel, pressen seinen Kopf in eine Maske. Er liegt in ein Gerät eingespannt, auf einer Maschine, die Rotation beschleunigt sich. (Tm 74-75)

The repetition of the verbs (zu-)stürzen and (an-)starren emphasise the convergence of inner and outer, with Brandl’s movements towards his

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painting mirrored by the imagery of faces and flashes coming at him. The physical and the visual also converge, with symptoms of the attack forming part of the imagery – Brandl’s ‘zittrige[-] Hand’, may be the first sign of an imminent attack; the reference to ‘Anspannung’ and ‘sich krallen’ suggest the rigidity and tension of the first (tonic) phase of a seizure; the final description of his spinning around (notably also ‘in ein Gerät eingespannt’, more tension), the clonic convulsions. The ‘Blitze’ connect visual symptoms – flashing lights – with the imagery of war, and are also an image of the activity of the brain itself during the seizure, its sudden discharges of matter. Significantly, Brandl imagines himself being buried, needing to ‘Aufatmen’, and the flashes ‘verschütten’ him: these sensations recall his uncle, trapped in a bunker for months during the war. Consonant with the traumatic origin of his inherited memories, Brandl physically (re)experiences being buried alive, feeling ‘Lehm, Erde in den Augen, im Mund, in der Nase, in der Lunge’. Interestingly, the image of being buried alive recalls both Francine identifying with Libuše in Pavane and Leonora imagining herself as the mummified Hatshepsut during her fever in Verklärte Nacht. These two scenes show the two female protagonists of the earlier texts identifying with the mythical founder of Prague and the semi-mythical female Pharaoh respectively, in descriptions which challenge the authenticity of the body. Leonora’s vision is more rooted in her body than Francine’s, being a product of her delirium. In the figure of Brandl, Moníková takes this one step further – although Brandl does have visions, his imagined burial is something he also feels, in the physical symptoms of the epileptic seizure. His trauma is represented directly, without recourse to a distant, mythical figure of identification, in a form which stresses the authenticity of the body and its suffering. Halina survived because she was hidden, confined in something resembling a coffin. This pseudo-burial provides the point of similarity between her, Brandl and Jaroslav. Halina is compelled to return to the trauma in her art: in the fragments at the end of the published text, Halina takes up ceramics, ‘[b]äckt lauter Leichen in ihrem gemieteten Keramikofen. Lauter Särge. Kindersärge’ (Tm 180). These artefacts enact what would have been her fate in Treblinka, with her parents: Brandl calls it a ‘Selbstinszenierung’ – ‘Diese dramatische Selbstinszenierung geht ihm zu weit’ (Tm 179). Halina continually returns to this scene, unable to overcome it, as Brandl notes: Brandl has a counterpart in Polish Jew Halina Potocka, whose

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trauma is as visible in the text as Uncle Jaroslav’s. Halina had an uncle who suffered from epilepsy (a textual echo of Brandl and Jaroslav); she happens to pass Brandl’s flat when he is having a seizure and comes in to look after him, and this random encounter (reminiscent of Thomas Asperger taking care of Leonora in Verklärte Nacht) is the beginning of their friendship. The treatment of Halina, a polyglot silversmith who lived in Paris and now has a flat above Brandl in Prague, is emblematic of the shift in concerns within this, Moníková’s final text. The expatriate character who has an affinity for Czechoslovakia has a precedent in André Nordanc in Die Fassade, a native Luxembourger who adopts Czechoslovakia as his home, and Thomas Asperger in Verklärte Nacht, a German living in Prague, whose father was from the Sudetenland. Moníková’s protagonists, by way of contrast, are frequently exiled from Czechoslovakia – Francine, Prantl, Karla and Leonora are all expatriates, through choice or historical circumstance, something which only serves to strengthen their sense of Czech national identity. Halina is different though – a self-confessed nomad, she rephrases Brandl’s question of where she lives as ‘Wo ich mein Zelt habe?’ (Tm 88), and introduces herself as being ‘“[v]on der anderen Seite des Jordans”, sie lächelt schief. “Halina Potocka, aus Grodno. Genauer, aus einer Seifenkiste”’ (Tm 77). Halina has no national identity as such – unlike Nordanc and Asperger, who both identify with two countries – instead her identity is defined, indeed formed, by trauma. The ‘Seifenkiste’ was her hiding place as a child during the war, and she had been hiding there when her parents were rounded up and transported to Treblinka. In a sense, the crate gave her life, and so Halina names the soap-crate as her place of birth. Halina’s trauma is the fact of her own survival, rather than her parents’ death. Sie hat ihre Spur wieder, die endlose Schleife, das Möbius-Band ihrer Obsessionen. […] Vielleicht muß sie die Geschichte so lange erzählen, bis sie sie losgeworden ist. Gleichzeitig weiß er, daß die Geschichte zu ihr gehört, daß sie sie nie zu Ende erzählen wird, immer noch in der Kiste in der Schneiderwerkstatt ihres Onkels in Grodno kauert. (Tm 101; see also 186, a fragment headed ‘Halina-Särge’)

Trauma ‘is not transformed into a story, placed in time, with a beginning, a middle and an end (which is characteristic for narrative memory)’.17 Like many sufferers of trauma, Halina does not want to overcome her experience, which would be tantamount to forgetting it. She insists on, and holds on to, her trauma: it is the basis of her identity, and carries a message about the horrors of the Nazi period, for those who survived as well as those who did not.

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Halina is only at home in her memory, in the traumatic images to which she continually returns throughout the text; her multilingual nomadism is not the positive figuration invoked by Rosi Braidotti, but an existential rootlessness, enacted in language and space.18 The violent origin of Halina’s nomadism is signalled also through her association with the ‘Hüterinnen des Feuers’, who live in the Sahara desert in Egypt. This semi-mythical band of nomadic women described by Halina is a revision of Elueneh’s community Ulbus in Die Fassade.19 Nomadism takes on new associations in Der Taumel: far from being a foil for a patriotic national identity, as Elueneh points up the Czech nationalism of the men in Die Fassade, it is revealed to be a response to violence. The community is made up only of women, and is located, [i]n einem Tal am Randgebirge zur Sahara […]. Sie sind unnahbar, unsichtbar, unhörbar, und doch da. […] Sie sind beweglich, nie an einem Ort, aber in der Nähe des alten Deir el-Medineh kann man manchmal ihre Spuren finden, bevor der Sand alles zuweht. (Tm 90-92)

The snow of Elueneh’s community is mirrored in the sands of the desert; both are unwelcoming, marginal and ephemeral places. Like Ulbus, one does not look for the women, they find – or leave – you. Both communities avoid contact with men, but the Egyptian nomads are far more violent than their Siberian counterparts: ‘Früher gab es Überfälle, Vergewaltigungen, Kastrierungen, die Frauen wurden ausgepeitscht, totgeschleift… Später nicht mehr. Die Frauen bekommt keiner zu Gesicht, sie töten leise’ (Tm 91). Whereas in Die Fassade Elueneh’s reaction to threats from outside, from men, is both comic and magical – she turns them into reindeer – here, in keeping with the context of trauma, the women’s response is brutal and physical. In this, the Egyptian nomads are also reminiscent of the violent Maiden’s War, which surfaces in Leonora’s delirium in Verklärte Nacht. According to Czech legend, after the death of Libuše, the founder of Prague, her female followers fought and killed the men who ousted her, but the women were themselves brutally destroyed by Libuše’s widower, PĜemysl. The women’s castle was razed to the ground, ‘auf daß kein Beleg existiere von der einstigen Macht und Wehrhaftigkeit der Frauen’ (VN 117). In its existence as a gap in history, an absence of traces, the Maiden’s War demonstrates the nature of trauma in the same way as do the ‘Hüterinnen des Feuers’, who are unapproachable and unavailable to the senses, ‘unnahbar, unsichtbar, unhörbar, und doch da’ (Tm 91). An interest in Egypt unites Brandl and Halina, and provides further intratextual connections. In the fragments at the end of the published text,

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Brandl has visions of Egypt and the nomadic women, which incorporate his meeting Halina with the tale she told of the ‘Hüterinnen des Feuers’. Brandl appears to find some kind of release in the Egyptian desert: Die Farben, das Licht hat er gefunden. Sie gibt ihm Gewürze, er kann fliegen oder in der Wüste schwimmen. Im Treibsand. Danach kann er zurückgehen. Die Verschütteten stehen auf. Am Ende eines langen Tunnels ist Licht. Am Ende des langen lichten Tunnels ist Dunkelheit. Ruhe. Durchsichtigkeit. Sterne. Mond. Luft. Sonne. Azur des Meeres, die Silhouette der Stadt. Prag. Fata Morgana. (Tm 180)

Opposites – flying and swimming, darkness and light, sun and moon, city and sea – coexist in Brandl’s vision, and Moníková also alludes here to the familiar, paradoxical trope of ‘Böhmen am Meer’ – ‘Azur des Meeres, die Silhouette der Stadt. Prag’. Jan Orten in Die Fassade has a similar experience: given hallucinogenic substances by Elueneh (in an episode which may be entirely the product of his imagination), he imagines he is flying and subsequently rediscovers his creative impulses (F 376, 382). Brandl finds both colour and light in his vision, the former signalling painting, his creativity, the latter alluding to the traumatic image of burial. For Brandl, the light at the end of the tunnel turns into welcoming darkness, a darkness which is precisely not unconsciousness but visibility. This seems to imply that he finally manages to overcome and escape the recurring image of being buried, and shortly after this, two almost identical paragraphs read: Die Anfälle hörten auf. Das nächtliche Aufbäumen, Schaum vorm Mund. Verdrehte Augen, das Schnappen nach Luft. Die Wüste füllte alles aus. Das ägyptische Licht. Die Ideologie, die Lüge, das Geschwätz verflüchtigten sich in der Glut und im Flimmern der Sterne. (Tm 183)

Although these are fragments and their intended context is therefore uncertain, they suggest that Brandl’s seizures stop as a result of a trip to Egypt – whether any of this is real or simply imagined, remains unclear. The end of his attacks is symbolised by the resurrection of the buried: ‘Die Verschütteten stehen auf’, which finally allows him to move on from his recurring visions. The references to Egypt recall Leonora’s interest in Egypt and Hatshepsut in Verklärte Nacht and furthermore suggest an intertextual allusion to Ingeborg Bachmann’s Der Fall Franza, where Franza, a hysteric prone to blackouts, travels to Egypt and the desert in the hope of being healed. Bachmann’s text is ‘eine Reise durch eine Krankheit’ and ‘ein Buch über ein Verbrechen’.20 Franza stands for the oppressed and

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murdered of the twentieth century, in a (similarly uncompleted and fragmentary) text which shows the persistence of fascism in other forms of oppression. In the chapter entitled ‘Die ägyptische Finsternis’ (compare Moníková’s reference to ‘das ägyptische Licht’ above), Franza is buried in mud from the Nile by her brother; when the mud hardens and she feels she is trapped, she has another breakdown. Franza also identifies with the female Pharaoh, Hatshepsut, whom she sees as a symbol of the annihilated woman, whose voice is suppressed but cannot be totally erased: ‘Siehst du, sagte sie, aber er hat vergessen, daß an der Stelle, wo er sie getilgt hat, doch sie stehengeblieben ist. Sie ist abzulesen, weil nichts da ist, wo sie sein soll’.21 Hatshepsut’s conspicuous absence is an image of trauma, of the visible, but unreadable gap. Both Pavane and Verklärte Nacht allude to Bachmann’s text: the former through the protagonist Francine, a hysteric whose doctor sister calls her Franza; the latter through Leonora’s identification with the mummified Hatshepsut. In Der Taumel, Moníková sounds a more hopeful note than Bachmann: whereas Franza is not cured in Egypt, but instead dies after being raped behind a pyramid, the desert seems to help Brandl recover from his symbolic illness. Der Taumel takes up individual details and motifs from earlier texts, which can be re-read in the light of the trauma narrative that it reveals. In particular, in the form of Brandl’s epilepsy, it echoes and modifies the two figures of hysteria and falling, which structure Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin and Treibeis respectively. Hysteria is a psychosomatic response to trauma played out on the body itself; it is both physical and symbolic.22 It is evident in Pavane in Francine’s limp and her use of a wheelchair, although elements of mimicry and performance, which are characteristic of hysteria, can be found in other later texts.23 Hysteria is a psychosomatic disorder which is characterised by the imitation of other illnesses; the hysteric’s symptoms mutate, forever changing to evade being worked into a medical narrative. Typical physical symptoms include feelings of numbness or paralysis, suffocation and loss of consciousness in the archetypal hysterical fit. Hysteria mimics epilepsy in the hysterical fit, the blackout which is a physical enactment of the traumatic gap in the psyche. The two conditions mirror each other: JeanMartin Charcot’s early descriptions of hysterics at the Salpêtrière Hospital consciously invoke the medical condition: they begin with an ‘aura’ and proceed to a period called ‘epileptoid, or “hystéro-épilepsie”, because it resembles an epileptic fit’.24 On the one hand, then, hysteria and epilepsy resemble each other,

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the one a psychosomatic, the other a physiological condition, both of which can take similar forms. As we have seen, however, it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between them; Brandl’s epilepsy in particular may be psychosomatic – that is, a reaction to trauma in a psychological, rather than medical sense. One could see his seizures as simply another hysterical symptom, where his body acts out, and makes visible, the violence it is subject to from the state, just as Francine’s limp makes visible the way in which society deforms the individual who fails to conform (or the way in which individuals deform themselves in order to fit in). In such a reading, the hysteria which can be traced in Moníková’s completed texts continues to manifest itself, albeit in a slightly different form, in her final work. But yet this cannot fully take account of the way in which Brandl’s illness is rooted specifically in trauma: in its cause (his fall), its form (the loss of consciousness), its triggers (the violence of the state) and the attendant visions (of the war). Moníková attempts in this text to represent trauma directly; Brandl’s epilepsy is far more than a metaphor or a hysterical symptom, it is a reminder of the irreducible physicality, the embodiedness of the subject, a timely and political message in this context. In this way, Moníková’s entire œuvre can be seen as a narrative of trauma expressed ever more directly, located first in the allegory of Eine Schädigung (text as metaphor), then the psychosomatic symbolism of Francine’s hysteria (body as metaphor) and, finally, in the body and experiences of Brandl. The dominant textual metaphor of Moníková’s work shifts from injury to illness – from ‘Eine Schädigung’ and Francine’s limp, to Brandl’s seizures, as it were – as the focus also changes from the external cause of trauma, to its effects on the psyche of the individual. It is notable that the text deals with internal affairs of the state, as opposed to Eine Schädigung’s allegorical representation of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. Brandl’s epilepsy is an internalisation of trauma, in contrast to the external trauma of the rape in the earlier text. This shift from injury to illness also characterises the relationship between Brandl in Der Taumel and male characters in earlier texts. The bodies of two male characters function as a physical memory, as a metonym for the past: Jirse the ex-Nazi, a minor character in Die Fassade, has a wooden leg (a comic reprise of Francine’s limp), which forever ties him to his past, and in Treibeis, the protagonist Prantl has a deformed hand, which he injured in a parachute jump as part of the Czech resistance during WWII. The numbness in his hand which warns Brandl of an imminent attack seems to

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be a textual memory of Prantl’s hand, but in Brandl’s case it is part of a pathology rather than an injury. Prantl and Brandl are further linked by the figure of falling: Prantl in his parachute jump, Brandl in his ‘falling sickness’. Cathy Caruth sees the device of falling in Paul de Man’s work as a specifically modern emblem of trauma, representing spatial and temporal suspension.25 Taking up Caruth’s view of falling as a ‘marker of the abysslike structure of trauma’, Eleanor Kaufman sees its significance in linking both thought and the body; she thus characterises the trauma itself as ‘inner falling’.26 In rather literal fashion, falling – particularly the parachute jump, closely tied up with Czech history and World War Two – embodies the belatedness of traumatic impact: jumping and hitting the ground are not simultaneous. The image of falling links Der Taumel with earlier texts: Ulrike Vedder identifies the figure as a key one in Treibeis in particular, and one which invokes key events from Czech history.27 Vedder links the Inuit text, ‘Hilf mir ich falle’ (T 38), quoted by Prantl, with Prantl and Karla’s meeting (they tumble down a hill) and, further, with both of their pasts: Prantl’s as a parachutist, and Karla’s exile from Czechoslovakia.28 In Kaufman’s analysis, falling ‘instantaneously links the thought or memory world […] with the bodily sensation of falling from the sky’.29 For the two protagonists of Treibeis, memories are coupled to movement: falling down the hill, Prantl is ‘um Jahre zurückversetzt, als er sich in der Luft drehen konnte, im freien Fall’ (T 74). Karla also takes up the traumatic image of free-fall: when she describes hearing that the Czech border had been closed while she was in Germany, she mentions a friend who, in shock, ‘redete vom freien Fall’ (T 143). Karla also relates her visit to Hiroshima, an emblem of the terror from above, where bombs, rather than people, fell from the sky. In Moníková’s work, falling thus symbolises the traumas of Czech history, as well as locating these within the wider history of the twentieth century. Caruth suggests one reason for the contemporary interest in trauma: In a catastrophic age, that is, trauma itself may provide the very link between cultures: not as a simple understanding of others but rather, within the traumas of contemporary history, as our ability to listen through the departures we have all taken from ourselves.30

Moníková’s own departure from her country is at the heart of her interest in contemporary and recent history. The trauma of rape in Eine Schädigung was Moníková’s way into writing, and she appears to have been returning to the notion in the posthumously published Der Taumel.

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Der Taumel moves towards a representation of trauma, both in the image of the protagonist’s epilepsy and in its historical setting – Prague during the repressive period of ‘normalisation’ after the violent suppression of the Prague Spring. Moníková recognised the imperative of writing about this time, as Michael Krüger comments, Dieser Roman mußte geschrieben werden. Wenn man in dieser Perspektive die Verhörszenen liest, kann man ahnen, worin die Notwendigkeit bestand, diesen Roman als Vermächtnis zu hinterlassen. Es ging ihr ja nicht nur darum, eine schändliche Episode in der Geschichte ihres Landes zu verewigen, sondern sie wollte vor allem zeigen, wie die moralische Aushöhlung die Menschen bis zur Unkenntlichkeit verändert hatte. (Tm 191-92)

Moníková was pressured to leave Czechoslovakia in 1971, at the beginning of the period of ‘normalisation’ which followed the Prague Spring. The blind spot in Czech history was also a blank for her, and tied up with her own exile. A second separation came with the splitting of the state of Czechoslovakia into its component parts four years after the Velvet Revolution, a process depicted in Verklärte Nacht from the point of view of a expatriate returning to Prague. It was only after this second radical break that Moníková turned to the state’s most repressive period, in the fragments of Der Taumel. In the same way that many authors from the former GDR have since 1989 chosen to write about its past, rather than portray the ‘Wende’ or reunified Germany, distance, time and political changes allowed Moníková to look back at the repressed period of Czech history. Emblematic of Moníková’s desire to focus directly on this traumatic history is her treatment of Prague. Prague is the locus of Moníková’s work, its architecture and topography are the stage for her concerns with identity and history. Whereas in earlier texts, Prague is, in Ulrike Vedder’s words, ‘ein[-] leere[s], wenn auch nicht namenlose[s] Zentrum[-]’, an image of the traumatic gap in the psyche, in both Verklärte Nacht and Der Taumel, it is fully present and represented.31 Walking through the city, Brandl observes, [d]ie ungeheuere Fratze im Profil der Stadt mit ihrer barocken Pracht, ihren wirbelnden, bewegten Statuen an Palästen, Brücken, Kirchen. Der Taumel, der Tanz dieser gestalteten Steine, die vergeistigte Dynamik vertrugen sich nie mit der asiatischen Stumpfheit der Befreier von ’45. (Tm 19-20)

Prague’s grotesque face, the ‘ungeheuere Fratze’, recurs in Brandl’s visions of the war. In this description, Prague itself appears to move, through the sheer repetition of terms: ‘wirbelnd’, ‘bewegt’, ‘Tanz’ and

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‘Dynamik’. Most significantly, Prague too is linked with the idea of ‘der Taumel’. The term, applied to Brandl’s epilepsy, signals disorientation and horror, and links the city with the historical traumas it has suffered along with its populace. It is Prague, as much as Brandl’s illness, which is invoked by the title of the text. Moníková presents her beloved Prague as a traumatised city. Its dizzying features signal the vertigo of history tout court. Moreover, Der Taumel illustrates the different possibilities that art offers for communicating trauma. Art can provide an outlet for the expression of trauma, performing a therapeutic function, as painting does for Brandl, or it may merely reiterate and reinforce its impact: Halina’s ceramic coffins are emblematic of her resistance to integrating her trauma into a narrative. Alternatively, the work of art can recreate effects through artistic devices, and still bear witness to the memory of the trauma by locating it within a wider historical context – although it remained unfinished, it seems that Der Taumel was intended to do just that.32 The text may have been Moníková’s own attempt to overcome trauma, to ‘zu Ende erzählen’ the fragmented, forgotten history of a country which no longer existed by the time she was writing the text. Notes 1

Two extracts from the text had previously been published, ‘Jakub Brandl’, in Akzente, 44/6 (1997), 512-36 (chapters 1, 2 and 6 from Der Taumel) and ‘Der Leguan’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999, 157-65 (second half of chapter 8). 2

Mary Jacobus, Preface to Diacritics, 28/4 (1998) [Trauma and Psychoanalysis], 3.

3

Cathy Caruth, in Cathy Caruth, ed. and Introductions, Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1995, 4. 4

Moníková in interview with Frank Dietschreit, ‘Sehnsuchtsort: Libuše Moníková über tschechische Alpträume, Heimatliebe, Leben und Schreiben im Exil’, Wochenpost, 40 (26 September 1996), 36-37 (here 37). 5

Characteristically for Moníková’s texts, Der Taumel contains details of tram lines in Prague, features a description of a Kurosawa film and characters talk knowledgeably about history and scientific classification systems.

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6

Michael Schwidtal suggests that both Orten and Prantl are based on the Czech sculptor and friend of Moníková, ZdenČk Palcr (presumably also the model for the minor figure of the reticent sculptor Palzer in Eine Schädigung), in Michael Schwidtal, ‘Kunst im Zeichen der Diktatur: Libuše Moníkovás Roman Der Taumel’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 48/4 (2000), 107-16 (here 112). As with many such repeated details, the repetition of this reference seems to point to intratextuality within Moníková’s œuvre, rather than extra-textual referentiality; it is more significant that the character of Brandl echoes Prantl, Orten and Palzer than that all four refer to Palcr. 7

On Eine Schädigung and Pavane as examples of ‘Körper-Sprache’, see Sigrid Weigel, Die Stimme der Medusa, 2nd edn, tende: Dülmen-Hiddingsel, 1995, 120-23. 8

Karin Windt, ‘“Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten”: Verborgene und verworfene Geschichte bei Libuše Moníková’, in Gisela Ecker, Martina Stange and Ulrike Vedder, eds, Sammeln – Ausstellen – Wegwerfen, Helmer: Königstein/Taunus, 2001, 195-207 (here 198). 9

See Richard Appleton, Gus Baker, David Chadwick and David Smith, Epilepsy, 4th edn, Martin Dunitz: London, 2001. 10

One thinks here also of Borges’s Funes the Memorious, whom Moníková analyses in ‘Portrait aus mythischen Konnexionen’ (SAW 107-18). Funes’s memory is affected by a head trauma (sustained falling off a horse), so he remembers everything in minute detail; this proliferation of memory paradoxically resembles the effects of trauma, as it prevents the creation of proper narrative memory, which relies on selection and ordering, and means that his memories are immediate and overwhelming.

11

See Mervyn J. Eadie and Peter F. Bladin, A Disease Once Sacred: A History of the Medical Understanding of Epilepsy, John Libbey: Eastleigh, 2001; and also Oswei Temkin, The Falling Sickness: A History of Epilepsy from the Greeks to the Beginnings of Modern Neurology, 2nd edn, revised, The Johns Hopkins Press: Baltimore, 1971. 12

On the link between the illness and artistic creation, see Marie-Thérèse Sutterman, Dostoïevski et Flaubert: Ecritures de l’épilepsie, Presses Universitaires de France: Paris, 1993, 7-10.

13

14

Temkin, The Falling Sickness, ix.

Hansjörg Schneble, Krankheit der ungezählten Namen: Ein Beitrag zur Sozial-, Kultur- und Medizingeschichte der Epilepsie anhand ihrer Benennung vom Altertum bis zur Gegenwart, Verlag Hans Huber: Bern, 1987, 20.

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15

Brandl’s fall is also reminiscent of Oskar Matzerath’s, in Günter Grass’s Die Blechtrommel (1959); Oskar’s fall (and subsequent stunted growth) is a key symbolic element of Grass’s portrayal of the horrors of Germany during and after the Nazi period.

16

See also Sutterman, Dostoïevski et Flaubert.

17

Bessel A. van der Kolk and Onno von der Hart, ‘The Intrusive Past: The Flexibility of Memory and the Engraving of Trauma’, in Caruth, ed., Trauma: Explorations in Memory, 158-182 (here 177).

18

Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, Columbia University Press: New York, 1994. Margaret Littler reads Eine Schädigung and Pavane through Braidotti, in Margaret Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation: The City in the Novels of Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, in Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Müller, University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998, 36-56. 19

Alternative, marginal communities, often of women, also feature briefly in Eine Schädigung and Pavane: the artists’ colony to which Mara offers to take Jana in the former, and the women’s settlement on Femø, which Francine views sceptically, in the latter.

20

Ingeborg Bachmann, Das Buch Franza, ed. by Monika Albrecht and Dirk Göttsche, Piper: Munich, 1995, 200. Dana Pfeiferová looks at references to Bachmann’s work primarily in Die Fassade in Dana Pfeiferova, ‘“Das Reich der Kunst erschaffen.” Ingeborg Bachmann im Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, Prag – Berlin, 78-84.

21

Bachmann, Das Buch Franza, 107.

22

For an excellent analysis of hysteria and its traumatic etiology, see Elisabeth Bronfen, The Knotted Subject: Hysteria and its Discontents, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 1998.

23

See Lyn Marven, ‘Women in Wheelchairs: Space, Performance and Hysteria in Libuše Moníková’s Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin and Ines Eck’s Steppenwolfidyllen’, German Life and Letters, 53/4 (2000), 511-28; also Lyn Marven, Body and Narrative in Contemporary German Literatures: Herta Müller, Libuše Moníková, Kerstin Hensel, OUP: Oxford, forthcoming.

24

Bronfen, The Knotted Subject, 180.

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25

Cathy Caruth, Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1996.

26

Eleanor Kaufman, ‘Falling from the Sky: Trauma in Perec’s W and Caruth’s Unclaimed Experience’, Diacritics, 28/4 (1998), 44-53 (here 49 and 52 respectively).

27

Ulrike Vedder, ‘Die Intensität des Polarsommers: Zu Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 41 (1994), 15-17.

28

Vedder, ‘Die Intensität des Polarsommers’, 16.

29

Kaufman, ‘Falling from the Sky’, 52.

30

Caruth, in Trauma, 11.

31

Ulrike Vedder, ‘“Mit schiefem Mund auch ‘Heimat’” – Heimat und Nation in Libuše Moníkovás Texten’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 477-88 (here 479).

32

Beverly Driver Eddy defines trauma narratives (as opposed to the more limited testimony) as ‘a survivor’s attempt to overcome a recurring, intrusive memory by recreating a life story and locating that memory within a larger, historical context’, in Beverly Driver Eddy, ‘Testimony and Trauma in Herta Müller’s Herztier’, German Life and Letters, 53/1 (2000), 56-72 (here 57).

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Karin Windt ‘Die Zeit der Bilder ist noch nicht gekommen’: Ästhetische Erfahrung, Kunstproduktion und Werkverweigerung in Der Taumel This article takes as its theme the aesthetic experiences of the Czechoslovakian painter Jakub Brandl in socialist Prague in the 1970s, his artistic activity and refusal to exhibit his paintings. For this artist figure, this refusal and his decision to isolate himself and withdraw from public life constitute a survival strategy. Moreover, he suffers from epilepsy, which can be read as the material expression of a corporeal memory in which images of the victims of war and the experience of war-time violence are stored. Brandl attempts to transfer these images into his paintings. He keeps the works of art, the aesthetised result of empirical knowledge, hidden, in order to protect the images from the distortions of the dictatorship. As well as throwing light on metaphorical readings of the text, this article furthermore considers the relationship between cultural transmission and history on a poetological level.

‘Die Wege in die Welt waren die Wege zu den Bildern’ (Tm 66): Bilder als metonymisches Gedächtnis Der Maler und Kunsterzieher Jakub Brandl lebt im tschechoslowakischen Prag der ‘Normalisierungszeit’.1 Es ist das Jahr 1978 und das ehemals ‘goldene Prag’ ist zu den ‘gemäßigten tristen Zonen von Mitteleuropa’ (Tm 8) verblaßt, was sich auf das Klima der bespitzelten tschechischen Gesellschaft beziehen läßt, deren Atmosphäre sich in Libuše Moníkovás letzter Erzählung Der Taumel als grau, unbeweglich, desillusioniert und bedrohlich erweist.2 Von einem solchen ‘tristen Prager Abend’, durch die in grünliches Fernsehflimmerlicht getauchten anonymen benachbarten Fensterfronten bebildert, wendet sich Brandl ab und ‘taucht ein in die verlorenen Paradiese von Rousseau’ (Tm 154), jenem am Surrealismus geschulten, zu Lebzeiten erfolglosen naiven französischen Maler. In einem imaginierten Vortrag für seine StudentInnen spricht Brandl über Henri Rousseaus Bilder: Die Federn der Vögel, die Blüten, so groß wie Bäume! – Die Poesie, die Phantasie, die Abwesenheit jeglicher Technik! Jede Masche, jede Strategie fehlt! Keine Perspektive, pars pro toto. Hier – ein Blatt so groß wie ein Zweig – Metonymie! Er merkt, daß er für seinen Kurs übt. Er überlegt, was er in seinen Vortrag übernehmen könnte. Er grinst,

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wenn er sich diesen Vortrag vorstellt, ebenso fiktiv wie seine Zuhörerinnen. (Tm 154)

Das metonymische Prinzip eines auf das Ganze verweisenden Bilddetails in dieser Bildbeschreibung findet sich in einem früheren Essay Moníkovás wieder.3 Moníková thematisiert dort die Strukturprinzipien naiver Gemälde, welche ‘ohne Perspektive, ohne abstrahierende Techniken’ (SAW 107) auskommen und deren Bilddetails ‘alle gleichwertig und plastisch’ sind: ‘ein Blatt bedeutet so viel wie ein Baum’ (SAW 107).4 Die Bildwerke der nicht namentlich benannten ‘naiven Maler’ (SAW 108) folgen Moníkovás Auffassung nach also einem metonymischen Prinzip, bei dem ein beliebiger Ausschnitt des Wahrgenommenen auf das Ganze verweist. Rousseau arbeitet, nach Brandls Bildbeschreibung, ähnlich, indem die Metonymie selbst als Bildzeichen des vergrößerten Blatts abgebildet ist: ‘pars pro toto. Hier – ein Blatt so groß wie ein Zweig – Metonymie!’ (Tm 154). Das Fehlen von Perspektive und jeglicher Technik drückt jedoch keineswegs Beliebigkeit aus, denn der Maler hat ja – so Moníková im Essay – die Möglichkeit zur ‘Selektion der Eindrücke um eines Bildes, einer Geschichte willen’ (SAW 108). Hinzu tritt die Tatsache, daß der Maler seine Darstellung innerhalb der Grenzen eines Rahmens vornimmt. Nur so, in der gewählten Reduktion von Gesamtheit auf Details, und innerhalb eines Rahmens komponiert, entstehe eine BildGeschichte. Das ‘Ganze’, auf das die Bildinhalte metonymisch verweisen, kann als die ‘große’ Geschichte verstanden werden. Das Rousseaubild wird in Brandls Betrachtung somit zur Metapher kultureller Überlieferung, die sich durch ‘Poesie, die Phantasie, die Abwesenheit jeglicher Technik’ (Tm 154) auszeichnet – eine romantisch-utopische Phantasie. Überträgt man die Metapher auf den Roman Der Taumel, stellt der Text als narratives Bildwerk ebenfalls einen 'Rahmen' dar, in dem individuelle Erlebnisse der Figuren und historisch-kulturelle Geschehnisse komponiert und ausgewählt dargestellt sind. Nach Moníková kann ein solches selektiertes oder gerahmtes Gedächtnis als eine ‘Erfahrung, als Warnung für die Nachkommenden’ (SAW 108) eingesetzt werden, literarisch vermittelte Erfahrung schließt also in Moníkovás Verständnis das didaktische Moment der mahnenden Lehre ausdrücklich mit ein und kennzeichnet so ihre Schreibposition als moralisch motiviert. Moníkovás eigene ‘Rahmungen’ beschränken sich nicht auf die Poesie und die Phantasie, sondern bilden insbesondere die von der Geschichtsschreibung Vergessenen, und die verdrängten Katastrophen der Gewaltgeschichte im ‘Jahrhundert der Verschütteten’ (Tm 15) ab.

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Allerdings wird in Der Taumel, der als Künstlerroman in der Sphäre des Ästhetischen angesiedelt ist, die Frage der Gedächtnisarchive an die der ästhetischen Erfahrung und Produktion angebunden, welche ich anschließend kurz umreiße. Im ästhetischen – und dadurch immer auch schon nicht unmittelbaren, sondern vermittelten – Rückgriff auf vergangene historische Erfahrungen kann Moníkovás Hauptfigur die ‘Welt’ erfassen und als veränderbar begreifen: ‘Die Wege in die Welt waren die Wege zu den Bildern’ (Tm 66). Bezüglich der Perspektive auf ästhetische Erfahrung stellt schon der Titel des Romanfragments einen Ausgangspunkt dar, indem er neben der Funktion als universale Metapher des ‘Taumels der Welt’ spezifischer – als ein durch Reizüberflutung ausgelöster Effekt von Schwindel – einen subjektiv-sinnlichen Wahrnehmungsaspekt betrifft. Den Begriff der ‘ästhetischen Erfahrung’, der sich ursprünglich auf bildende Kunst bezog oder bei Hans Robert Jauss weiter gefaßt auf Literatur, werde ich im Sinne John Deweys erweitert verwenden.5 Dewey zieht keine generelle Trennungslinie zwischen nichtkünstlerischer Praxis und Kunstproduktion, und ich folge diesem Gedanken, denn weder soll es hier um das klassische ‘Kunstschöne’ gehen, noch um die Definition dessen, was den ästhetischen Modus von anderen Erlebensmodi, wie beispielsweise dem kognitiven, praktischen, moralischen oder religiösen, abhebt, wie es Christoph Eykman skizziert.6 Vielmehr geht es hier um die Formen einer aisthesis, welche eine phänomenologische Perspektive thematisiert, die physiologische Sinnesreize, also Körpererfahrung, mit Erkenntnisbereichen verbindet. Die Hauptfigur Jakub Brandl steht als ehemals prominenter surrealistischer Künstler und Mitglied im Vorstand des tschechoslowakischen Künstlerverbandes unter Beobachtung von Polizei und Geheimdienst. Obwohl er weder mißliebige Auslandskontakte pflegt noch Bilder ausstellt oder sich politisch betätigt, wird er bespitzelt und mehrfach von der Polizei verhört und mißhandelt. Er ist ‘innerlich emigriert’ und lebt zurückgezogen zwischen seinen Bildern, seinen zahlreichen Büchern und Kunstfolianten und unterrichtet nur noch seine Klasse mit jungen Studentinnen an der Kunstakademie. Als ein Haltepunkt und imaginative Gegenwehr angesichts des Zugriffs der weitreichenden Staatsmacht, die bis in die Psyche der Menschen hinein die sozialistische Ideologie zu verankern sucht, dienen Brandl jene Bilder der europäischen Kunstgeschichte, die ein ‘gutes Gedächtnis’ darstellen. Als er sich auf der Polizeistation beim erneuten Verhör durch den

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diensthabenden Major Schramm befindet, flüchtet Brandl innerlich aus der Situation: Schramm schaltet die Tischlampe an, draußen ist es dunkel geworden, ein Windstoß gegen die Fenster. Graue Streifen am Himmel, schattiert, wie bei Hercule Seghers. Brandl bleibt bei den großformatigen Radierungen in seiner Vorstellung, den schroffen Landschaften des Holländers aus dem 17. Jahrhundert, hängen, um nicht diesen Büroraum mit seiner Einrichtung, der altmodischen Tischlampe mit ihrem grünlichen Milchglas und warmen Licht, als eine Art Zuflucht vor dem unwirtlichen Wetter zu empfinden. (Tm 55)

Brandls ästhetische Flucht ist hier von psychischer Dissoziation kaum zu scheiden. Es ist kein müßiggängerisches Schweifen eines ‘romantischem Blickes’, der die Wahrnehmung des Umraumes zum eigenen Wohlgefallen ästhetisch überlagert, sondern eine notwendige Strategie, mit der willkürlichen und zermürbenden Situation eines unsinnigen Verhörs beziehungsweise mit einer solchen Situation der totalen Machtasymmetrie fertig zu werden.7 Es gibt aber auch Ereignisse, die Brandl in eine innere Vorstellungswelt ganz anderer Art drängen, in Bilder, die keinen Fluchtpunkt darstellen. Als Jugendlicher hat ihn der Anblick seines nach Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs aus Frankreich zurückgekehrten Lieblingsonkels Jaroslav, der als tschechischer Freiwilliger auf der französischen Seite gegen die Deutschen gekämpft hatte, grundlegend erschüttert. Zum Kriegsende hin wurde Jaroslav am Atlantikwall in einem Bunker verschüttet und nach Monaten in Dunkelheit und Stummheit als einziger Überlebender gerettet. Als der halbwüchsige Jakub aus dem Kohlenkeller kommt, den Eimer in der Hand, und dem zurückersehnten Onkel plötzlich im Flur begegnet, erblickt er ‘eine Wachsfigur, eine siebenundzwanzigjährige leere Hülse in Montur, menschliche Trümmer, erloschene Augen starren vor sich hin, ohne jegliche Zuordnung’ (Tm 14). Der Anblick des Zerstörten und der tiefe Schreck über die Entmenschlichung des so lange lebendig Begrabenen lösen einen Krampfanfall aus: Brandl torkelt rückwärts, der Kohleneimer liegt verschüttet am Fuß der Treppe, Brandl krümmt sich, mit Schaum vorm Mund, mitten in der Kohle; der Staub in der Nase, im Mund wird ihn bei diesen Wiederholungen nicht mehr verlassen. (Tm 14)

Diese Erfahrung brennt sich dauerhaft in Brandls Körpergedächtnis als Ursprungsmoment ein: ‘Als [Jaroslav] nach zwei Monaten starb, behielt Brandl die fallende Krankheit als Erinnerung’ (Tm 15).

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Wenn Brandl einen Anfall erleidet – im Verlauf des Romans provoziert durch die Mißhandlungen und psychischen Bedrohungen Brandls durch die Geheimpolizei –, füllt dieser ihn mit Schreckensbildern der ‘Begrabenen vom Atlantikwall’ (Tm 15) und Kriegsszenen aus. Brandl empfindet im Krampf physisch ‘die schwarze Leere des verschütteten Bunkers’ (Tm 11), die ihn zu ersticken droht und ohnmächtig macht. Brandls gegenwärtige leidvolle Erfahrungen in der Tschechoslowakei werden mit jenen historischen Gewalterfahrungen verknüpft, wie sie sein Onkel Jaroslav erlebte. Letztere verweisen nach Brandls Auffassung auf das ‘Jahrhundert der Verschütteten’ (Tm 15) insgesamt. Somit stehen historische und aktuelle Gewaltform in einem historischen Kontinuum, wobei Brandls Körpergedächtnis als ein Verknüpfungspunkt von erlebter subjektiver Geschichtserfahrung mit der überindividuellen europäischen Geschichte fungiert. Das Gefühl des Verschüttetseins, das Brandl im Anfall empfindet, bezieht sich dabei nicht allein auf die Zerstörung der Gewaltopfer, sondern beschreibt metaphorisch auch deren Marginalisierung in der offiziellen Geschichtsschreibung.8 Die Körperschädigung und der Produktionsprozeß sind bei Brandl eng miteinander verbunden.9 Einem herannahenden epileptischen Anfall, der sich durch seine taubgewordene Hand ankündigt, widersetzt Brandl sich, indem er das Symptom ins Bild umsetzt und sich geradezu an der Arbeit festhält, um nicht der gewaltsamen Anästhetisierung durch den Anfall zu erliegen: ‘Er kann den Pinsel nicht greifen, krallt sich ein, schmiert die Farbe mit den Fingern über die Fläche, rasend. Bluten wäre einfacher, schneller als Farbe, direkt’ (Tm 16). Dieser schmerzhafte produktive Akt erzeugt ein erkennbares, sichtbares Ergebnis: Die Bilder zeigen ‘die Kämpfe, die Explosionen in seinem Kopf, die Torsionen [...], sie tragen die Wahrheit; kleine Siege, Überlistungen, Zeugnis von einer Leere’ (Tm 16). Während die Epilepsie Brandl lähmt und bewußtlos macht, ist das rasende Wüten am Bild ein Weg, den Schmerzbildern Ausdruck zu verleihen und seine Erinnerungsbilder zu fixieren. In ihnen steckt, zwar vermittelt, denn eigentlich sind es nicht seine eigenen, aber noch unverstellt von Rezeption und Interpretation, die komprimierte Wahrheit des Erfahrenen. Daß Brandl gleichsam physisch in den Bildraum hineintaucht und die ordnungsschaffende Distanz zwischen sich als Subjekt und dem Bildobjekt aufhebt, bezeugt die Gequältheit seines Tuns, weit entfernt von abgezirkeltem ästhetischen Genuß, der nur aus Distanz zum Objekt entsteht. Moníková betont den körperlich-materiellen Aspekt der Kunstproduktion besonders, so daß sich die ästhetische Erfahrung als

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schmerzhafte Einschreibung in den Körper vollzieht und dadurch weit abrückt vom kantschen ‘Kunstschönen’ und einem ‘interesselosen Wohlgefallen’. Der Satz ‘Die Wege in die Welt waren die Wege zu den Bildern’ (Tm 66) berührt neben der Frage der ästhetischen Rezeption umso dringlicher die der Produktion oder Gestaltung. Wenn die Kontingenz der entfesselten Gewaltbilder den Empfänger dieser Bilder zu ‘verschütten’ droht, muß er einen Weg – nämlich über das Auslagern dieser Bilder, die künstlerische Bildproduktion – zurück zur ‘Welt’ finden. Den Bildern einen Rahmen zu geben, sich ihnen gestaltend zu widersetzen, bedeutet, das Bewußtsein zu behalten. Der Malprozeß als ein Ringen um Ausdruck, bevor die Dunkelheit der Krampfanfälle kommt, ist ein Kampf zwischen Bewußtsein und Bewußtlosigkeit oder, wie Schwidtal es ausdrückt: ‘Die “Zustände” zwischen Bewußtlosigkeit und Überbewußtheit sind Ausdruck der Erinnerung und mitleidenden Vergegenwärtigung der verdrängten individuellen und gesellschaftlichen Katastrophen des 20. Jahrhunderts’.10 Bewußtsein und Wahrnehmung sind hier die physisch-ästhetische Erfahrung Brandls, die sinnliche Schmerzerfahrung seiner Epilepsiekrankheit, die er in sein Bildschaffen umsetzt. Moníková nimmt aisthesis wörtlich, denn ästhetische Erfahrung ist hier keine ‘Praxis des Vollzugs eines erkennenden Sehens’11, sondern eine sich in den Körper einschreibende phänomenologische und materielle Perspektive, die ein Panorama an sinnesraubender Schmerzerfahrung entfaltet.12 Metaphorisch gelesen sind diese ein Sinnbild für ein ‘vergessenes Gedächtnis’, welches unwillkürlich und eruptiv wiederkehrt.13 Die Kunstproduktion wiederum ist ein Sinnbild für die Möglichkeit, die vergessenen Anteile abzubilden und letztendlich, den wiederkehrenden Un-Sinn der Geschichte pars pro toto zu gestalten. Dies erweist sich daran, daß Brandls Bildtableau andeutungsweise der Kriegsszene ähnelt, die zu Beginn des Romans als von Brandl nachempfundene Erfahrung Jaroslavs erzählt wird: Er stürzt sich auf die Fläche, mischt Farben durcheinander, trägt sie blind, besessen, mit der zittrigen Hand auf, darüber dünne Striche Rot, Blutrot. Graue, weiße, schwarze Farbschichten, aus denen ihn mit der Fortsetzung des Bildes Fratzen anstarren, verquälte, verzerrte Gesichter und Gestalten, Leiber, Tiere und Menschen ineinander verknäuelt, in Agonie. Quer durch die Nacht kommen aus der Dunkelheit Blitze und explodieren in seinem Kopf, in immer kürzeren Intervallen. Mit äußerster Anspannung krallt er sich in die Palette, starrt auf die Leinwand, hält sich an seiner Arbeit fest. (Tm 74)

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Brandls Beurteilung seiner künstlerischen Tätigkeit spiegelt sich im Resümee seiner erdachten Vorlesung über sein (künstlerisch und kommerziell) erfolgloses Alter Ego Henri Rousseau. Brandl empfindet die Gewißheit, daß dem Maler trotz aller Demütigungen der Stolz blieb: ‘Dieser inwendige rasende Stolz hat Wahrheit. Und einen Grund: er weiß, was seine Arbeit wert ist. / – Er ist wie ich’ (Tm 166). Brandl ist davon überzeugt, daß seine Bilder die ‘Wahrheit’ tragen, daß sie wertvoll sind. Dieses Wissen bildet den einen Pol in seinem Schwanken ‘zwischen Resignation und Auflehnung’ und hilft ihm, trotz der ‘Deformation, die eine allgegenwärtige Diktatur durch Verfolgung und Überwachung bewirkt’, seine Integrität zu bewahren.14 Indem sie in solch großer Nähe zur eigenen Körperlichkeit erzeugt sind, sind die Bilder so sehr Teil seiner selbst, daß Brandl zur Wahrung der Integrität diese ebenfalls vor Deformationen zu bewahren sucht. Brandl stellt das gebrochene Bild des ‘universellen Intellektuellen’ dar, welcher ‘im Gegensatz zu den Agenten von Staat und Kapital, für Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit einsteht’.15 Innerhalb des repressiven und willkürlichen Systems mit seiner ‘Zerknitterungstechnik’ – so nennt Brandl die Reihe der sinnlosen Verhöre, der Bespitzelung und der täglichen Schikanen –, versucht der Künstler, einen inkommensurablen Bereich zu verteidigen und durchzuhalten ohne die Würde zu verlieren. Nichtsdestotrotz entsteht in Brandl, der von der ‘Wahrheit’ seiner Bilder bisher überzeugt ist, durch das ‘Zerknittern’ (Tm 66) allmählich Argwohn.16 Er lauerte auf verborgene Fehler, den inneren Riß zwischen ihm und der Leinwand, die Fratzen, die ihm ausweichen. Zwischen ihm und der Welt ist ein Spalt, der nicht gekittet wird. Eine Rinne, durch die der Sinn sickert, entweicht. Die Welt anhalten. (Tm 15)17

Hier ist mit ‘Welt’ die im Bild ästhetisch vermittelte historische Erfahrung gemeint. Brandl kann die inneren Bilder in einem gerahmten Moment stillstellen und fixieren und sich durch die Bildproduktion einen Zugang zur Welt schaffen. Erst indem er die Gedächtnisbilder niederlegt, läßt sich ‘die Welt anhalten’, d.h. Gedächtnis erhalten.18 Der ‘Spalt’ erinnert an Lukács, für den die Philosophie ‘ein Symptom des Risses zwischen Innen und Außen, ein Zeichen der Wesensverschiedenheit von Ich und Welt, der Inkongruenz von Seele und Tat’19 ist. Während Lukács jedoch die nachaufklärerische transzendentale Heimatlosigkeit des Menschen als Ausgangspunkt für diese Symptomatik postuliert, setzt Moníková bei Brandl – ganz diesseitig – die politische Realität, beziehungsweise die polizeiliche Demütigung und die ‘nationale Posse von Spitzeln und Bespitzelten’ (Tm 54) als Ausgangspunkt ein. Brandls innerlicher Riß, die

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einhergehenden Zweifel resultieren aus der körperlichen und seelischen Verletzung im Verhör, als bei ‘dem Gespräch nach dem Schlag seiner Stirn auf die Tischplatte’ etwas in ihm platzt (Tm 10). Damit situiert Moníková das im Formschaffen des Künstlers liegende Bedürfnis, den bestehenden Riß zwischen Ich und Welt zu schließen, historisch in der tschechoslowakischen Realgeschichte am Beispiel einer konkreten Figur. Außerdem führt sie die universelle Gewaltgeschichte und Brandls individuelle Geschichte im Ausdrucksfeld der Ästhetik zusammen. Einer Ästhetik, die in ihrer Engführung zur phänomenologischen Welt ästhetische Erfahrung als ‘unter die Haut’ gehenden materialistischhistorischen Zusammenhang denkt. ‘Die Zeit der Bilder ist noch nicht gekommen’ (Tm 97): Brandls Werkverweigerung Neben den aufkeimenden Zweifeln an der fehlenden Richtigkeit seiner Bilder steht Brandls Problem, seine Bilder, die ebenso ungeschützt sind wie er, vor dem staatlichen Zugriff zu verbergen. Seine Bilder empfindet er als ungeschützt im Kontext einer staatlich dominierten, vorgeschriebenen Ästhetik. Brandls letzte Ausstellung, die von tschechischer Seite als ‘dekadent’ gerügt wurde, hatte er als Absolvent der Hochschule in den Sechzigern in Polen (vgl. Tm 76). Er hat allerdings kein Ausstellungsverbot, sondern entzieht der Öffentlichkeit, auch der ausländischen, sich und seine Werke: ‘Keiner fragt nach mir. Ich frage auch nicht nach den anderen. Schon gar nicht aus dem Ausland’ (Tm 56). Es ärgert ihn, daß seine Nachbarin und Gefährtin Halina sich mit Leuten aus dem Ausland und Medienvertretern trifft. Während sie findet: ‘In diesem System ist Bekanntheit der beste Schutz’ (Tm 117), muß Brandl an Major Schramm und seine Leute denken, vor denen es keinen Schutz gibt. Das virulente Klima der Indoktrination stellt außerdem einen Kontext dar, in dem es unvorstellbar erscheint, daß in ihm eine freie ästhetische Kunstrezeption entstehen könnte: In den Kellern lagern Tonnen von Pappmaché-Heraldik, in den fünfziger Jahren hatte die Produktion von revolutionären Symbolen Konjunktur. [...] In Zeichenstunden übte man großflächige Symbolbewältigung mit dem Anbringen von Ziffern. So wurde indoktriniert; [...] aber das Schmieren, die Nachlässigkeit, als Symbol mit höherer Bedeutung, vom Lehrer aufgegeben, fing schon an. Das Nachlassen der Beobachtungsgabe, das Schludrige, das Kaschieren. Das

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genaue Hinsehen wurde ihnen nicht beigebracht. Das Übertünchen fing an. Die Lüge. (Tm 71-72)20

Die Irrtümer und Lügen der jüngsten Zeit sind das Gegenteil des künstlerischen Anspruchs, wie Brandl ihn hat. Dabei geht es hier nicht um die Frage einer Autonomie der Kunst jenseits von Ideologie, sondern darum, daß Brandls wahrheitsträchtige Bilder durch sie umrahmende ‘richtige’ Erzählungen historisch situiert und eingebettet werden müßten. Ohne diese sekundären Erzählungen ginge der historisch-zeitliche Bezug verloren, das Bild-, oder Gedächtnisarchiv würde geschichtslos und zugleich ideologisch vereinnahmt und verfälscht. In der kulturpolitisch stillgestellten tschechischen Kunstwelt kann also eine Auseinandersetzung mit der traumatischen Gewaltgeschichte, die Bezüge zur Gegenwart herstellt, nicht unbeeinträchtigt öffentlich werden. Im fortschrittsorientierten System hat der kritische Blick auf die Verwerfungen der Geschichte und seine schmerzhaften Berührungspunkte mit der sozialistischen Gegenwart nichts zu suchen. Man kann – nach dem bekannten Diktum Horkheimers und Adornos – Brandls Rückzug als Weigerung verstehen, seine ‘richtige’ Kunst im ‘falschen’ Leben zu zeigen: ‘Die Zeit der Bilder ist noch nicht gekommen’ (Tm 97). Brandls moralischer Ansatz, der Wahrheit, Ästhetik und Politik zusammenbringt, ähnelt dem Konzept, wie es der ehemalige Dissident, tschechische Ex-Staatspräsident und Schriftsteller Václav Havel in seiner Schrift über den Versuch, in der Wahrheit zu leben entwarf.21 Sein Konzept eines posttotalitären Systems beinhaltet die Abkehr von einem ‘Leben in Lüge’, und die Zuwendung zu einem ‘Leben in Wahrheit’, das er in verschiedenen Dimensionen, die existentiell, noetisch, moralisch und politisch angesiedelt sind, entwirft.22 Im Unterschied zu Havels Konzept, in der die Wahrheit als politische Kraft einen Machtfaktor darstellt, ist sie für Brandl – isoliert wie er ist – ein fragiler Wert, den zu schützen er kaum imstande ist. Ihr eignet im politisch-öffentlichen Kontext eher der Charakter der Machtlosigkeit, wie sie Horkheimer faßt.23 Erst im Blick auf zukünftige Zeit erscheinen Brandls Bilder die Macht ihrer Richtigkeit ausspielen zu können.24 If of Der Rückzug Brandls gilt auch für die ihn umgebende Szene der oppositionellen Avantgardekunst, die er mit Zynismus betrachtet und der er sich keinesfalls zurechnen lassen will. Brandl sieht von den oppositionellen Künstlern vor allem Oswald Machor als Scharlatan an. Er ist Kopf einer avantgardistischen Künstlergruppe, nach Brandls Auffassung bestehend aus ‘Dilettanten’ und ‘geschäftigen Wichtigtuern’

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(Tm 29), sie produzieren ‘“Aufruhr!” – Aktionskunst gegen die Stagnation im Lande!’ (Tm 30). Daß Machors ‘Meisterwerk’ ein ‘Pappmaché-Stuhl mit einem verknoteten Bein’ (Tm 30) ist, weist zum einen reale Bezüge auf25 und verweist zum anderen auf die Nähe zur ‘Pappmaché-Heraldik’ (Tm 71) der staatlichen Symbole. Beides verachtet Brandl und kritisiert deren Materialästhetik, der konnotativ ‘Oberflächlichkeit’ zugeordnet ist, welche für ihn mangelnde Tiefe an künstlerischer Aussagekraft bedeutet. Das größere Übel aber sieht Brandl darin, daß die ‘oberflächliche’ Kunst nicht nur ‘falsch’ ist, sondern geradezu dem ‘falschen’ Leben zuarbeitet und sich vom Staat funktionalisieren läßt, ‘damit der Staat nach außen ein Alibi hat’ (Tm 55). Für Brandl rücken solche Künstler in die Nähe der ‘Vorzeige-Delegierte[n]’ (Tm 54) und anderer ‘anständige[r] Leute’ (Tm 54), die in der ‘graue[n] Zone’ (Tm 54) der innerlichen Emigration weilen, um sich und ihrer Familie Vorteile zu sichern. Das Zitat ‘Die Wege in die Welt waren die Wege zu den Bildern’ (Tm 66) nimmt noch eine weitere Bedeutung an, wenn man unter ‘Bildern’ auch die Einbildung, die Imagination versteht und Brandls Verhältnis von ‘Wahrheit’ zu Realität und Imagination, betrachtet. Brandls Vermischung von Realität und Vorstellung ist nicht ausschließlich, wie in der Verhörsituation, ein Rückzug und eine Flucht, sondern entspricht seiner Vorstellung eines Zugangs zur Welt. Das Imaginäre ist eine Sphäre, die nur knapp eine Spurbreit neben der Wirklichkeit steht, und keineswegs das ganz Andere.26 Brandls Räsonnieren über Rousseau und die kursorischen Bildbeschreibungen beispielsweise enden mit dem Ausruf ‘seine Erfahrungen!, seine MexikoImaginationen’ (Tm 153). Die historisch widerlegte Behauptung Rousseaus, am Mexiko-Feldzug beteiligt gewesen zu sein (tatsächlich hat Rousseau seine Inspirationen im Jardin des Plantes geholt und war nie in Mexiko), hindert Brandl nicht daran, Rousseaus Phantasien als Erfahrungen gelten zu lassen. Dieses Verhältnis ist nicht ohne Grund im Ästhetikkontext situiert. Ästhetische Erfahrung lebt – ein literarisches Leitmotiv und poetologisches Fundament Moníkovás – aus der steten Überlappung, Überschneidung, dem Einanderdurchdringen von Gelebtem und Gelesenem: ‘die Grenze zwischen dem Gelebten und dem Gelesenen verlief unmerklich’ (Tm 6). Aus diesem Grund ist Brandls Körper und Geist eine Matrix, in der sich eigene historische Erfahrung und die anderer Menschen gleichrangig eintragen können und zu einem Konglomerat verschmelzen. Brandl ist ein Punkt in den konzentrischen Kreisen einer nichtlinearen Geschichte, die Wirklichkeit und Imagination,

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Realgeschichte und Mythos vereint: ‘Als würde zur Zeit sein Leben in konzentrischen Kreisen laufen, wohin ihn die anderen ziehen möchten, in ihre Bahnen: in die beweglichen Sechziger, nach Ägypten, in die Welt’ (Tm 93-94). Brandls Werkverweigerung, die sich einerseits gegen die Unwahrheiten des sozialistischen Systems richtet, bezieht sich in zweiter Linie auf die kapitalistische Vereinnahmung durch den ‘Westen’. Seinem Kollegen Machor wirft Brandl vor, daß seine ‘Objekte in Privatgalerien reicher pro-linker Snobs im Westen hochschnellen, ausgestellt als politisches Zeugnis! “Die Demolition”! Komm mir nicht vor Augen, und nächstes Mal bring Aspirin oder was zum Kotzen!’ (Tm 29). Für die Ökonomisierung von Kunst im Rahmen der westlichen Gesellschaft, zudem in Kombination mit der Politisierung von ‘versagender’ Kunst, hat Brandl nur Verachtung übrig if: Das Schlimmste ist, jedes künstlerische Versagen, in Form und Ernst, wird nachträglich als politische Aussage interpretiert, die Beobachter und Käufer, Gaffer – aus dem Westen, naiv und von der ‘Authentizität’ beeindruckt –, wagen nicht, es näher und kritisch anzusehen. (Tm 118)

Diese Kritik am kapitalistischen Westen und der linken Kulturelite spricht ihr den Ernst und die notwendige ‘inhaltliche Tiefe’ ab. Die sieht Brandl eher in der ‘Klarheit, Absolutheit’ (Tm 114) der Bilder seines geschätzten verstorbenen Freundes JiĜí verwirklicht und sie bedarf seinem Maßstab nach grundlegend der Wahrheit und ökonomischer Unabhängigkeit. Die Vermarktung von Kunst und die Verwandlung von Bildern in eine Ware setzt er kongruent zu ‘Oberflächlichkeit’. Das lehrt Brandl auch seine jungen SchülerInnen im Zeichenkurs. Die ‘Klobigkeit’ und ‘Schwere’ der gebückten Körper in der Vertreibung aus dem Paradies, einem Fresko von Masaccio, und ‘diese Rücksichtslosigkeit, keine Glattheit’ des Motivs stellt Brandl in Kontrast zum barocken Raffael: ‘Vergessen Sie die Puttenärsche von Raffael! Kunst hat mit Dekoration nichts zu tun! Jetzt ran!’ (Tm 23). Daraufhin stürzen sich die jungen Kursteilnehmer auf die Vorlage, ‘beflügelt durch die Wahrheit der Darstellung und Brandls Erklärungen’ (Tm 23). Die Künstlerfigur Brandl ist eine Variante des Konzepts des verhinderten Künstlers, wie es Alexandra Pontzen in ihrem Werk über Modelle negativer Produktionsästhetik in der Künstlerliteratur beschrieben hat.27 Pontzen diskutiert die Bedeutung der negativen Produktionsästhetik unter anderem anhand der Existenzform des verkannten Genies. Sie arbeitet heraus, daß es beim verhinderten Künstler meist um Fragen des Darstellbaren beziehungsweise des Nichtdarstellbaren geht. Brandls

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Problem besteht jedoch nur vorübergehend in der Darstellbarkeit, wenn er an seinen Bildern zweifelt. Vorrangig geht es ihm um die Frage der Rezeption und der Kommunikation. Brandls Werkverzicht ist ein Weg, seinem Umfeld, dem Staat, dem Ausland das kommunikative Potential seiner Bilder zu verweigern. Brandls Haltung verweist darauf, daß Kunst nicht unbeschädigt kommunizierbar ist in einem Staat, der selbst die Produkte kritischer Künstler noch vereinnahmen kann, ‘damit der Betrieb läuft’ (Tm 54). Diesem Nützlichkeitsaspekt oder der westlichen Ökonomisierung sollen Brandls Bilder nicht untergeordnet werden. Sie sollen weder dekorativ sein noch oberflächlich-modisch von westlichen Linken als ‘Oppositionskunst’ goutiert werden. Brandls heimliche Kunstproduktion soll seine Erzeugnisse dem Zugriff der politischen Geschichtsverfälscher und Wahrheitsverdreher vorenthalten. Seine metonymisch lesbaren Aussagen über die historische Realität dürfen nicht durch äußere Korruption in ihrem Wahrheitsanspruch gemindert werden.28 Was Brandl unterdessen in der bilderlosen Sphäre tut, während er auf die andere Zeit wartet? Er ‘verläßt sich auf die Stadt, auf die Straßen, die Statuen. Die Zeit der Bilder ist noch nicht gekommen’ (Tm 97). Das erweiterte Zitat, in der die Stadt Prag zum Symbol für die in ihr vorhandenen, äußerst lebendigen Erneuerungskräfte wird, enthält eine ästhetisch-politische Aussage. ‘Prag’ ist ein komplexes Sinnbild für einen lebendigen Geist, der sich in langer historischer Tradition stets gegen verschiedene Widersacher zu behaupten wußte: ‘Der Taumel, der Tanz dieser gestalteten Steine, die vergeistigte Dynamik vertrugen sich nie mit der asiatischen Stumpfheit der Befreier von ’45’ (Tm 20). Neben der barocken und verläßlichen Kraft der Prager Steine sind es nur die neugierigen, ernsten Studentinnen, seine ‘Musen’ (Tm 24) Dora und Tina, die es vermögen, seine Leere, ‘den nächtlichen Spalt zwischen ihm und der Welt’ (Tm 24) zeitweise zu verringern. In der zukunftsweisenden kreativen Leichtigkeit und Klugheit der Prager ‘Jugend’ liegt ebenfalls Brandls schmale Hoffnung, daher liegt sein Interesse in der vermittelnden Seite, ist es ihm so wichtig, die StudentInnen das genaue Hinsehen zu lehren.29 Die letzten Seiten des unbeendeten Romans enthalten Textfragmente, die einen Ausblick auf den uralten topos der ägyptischen Wüste bieten, und denen Erlösungsmomente innewohnen. Die geschilderte Wüstenszene beinhaltet erzähltechnische Merkmale der ‘idyllischen’ Szene, welche abgeschlossen und abgeschieden ist und in der die sinnliche Wahrnehmung dominiert.30 Die räumlichen Details harmonieren

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miteinander und mit der sie erlebenden Person. Es herrscht die Illusion des Zeitstillstandes, welche in diesem Textausschnitt, zusammen mit der visionären Räumlichkeit das erlösende Moment bildet. Brandl phantasiert die Wüste als einen weiten Raum, der ihn vor der verschüttenden Dunkelheit der historischen Vergangenheit und der Leere der politischen Gegenwart bewahrt: ‘Die Wüste füllte alles aus. Das ägyptische Licht. Die Ideologie, die Lüge, das Geschwätz verflüchtigten sich in der Glut und im Flimmern der Sterne’ (Tm 183). Die imaginierte Vision läßt das Licht der Sterne alles überstrahlen. Diese ersonnene Alternative zum erstickenden Bunker erinnert an die ‘seligen Zeiten’ des Epos mit seinen ungeschiedenen Ursprüngen, in dem der den Mythos verkörpernde Sternenhimmel noch ‘die Landkarte der gangbaren und zu gehenden Wege’ war, wie Lukács in seiner geschichtsphilosophischen Gattungstheorie befand.31 Viel später, im allmählich entstehenden Roman, glänzt nur noch ‘Kants Sternenhimmel’ ‘in der dunklen Nacht der reinen Erkenntnis und erhellt keinem der einsamen Wanderer [...] mehr die Pfade’.32 Nach dieser Lesart geben die letzten Textfragmente des TaumelRomans der Seite des Mythos in seiner zeitlosen wegweisenden Strahlkraft den Vorzug vor einer rein aufgeklärten Dunkelheit (wie sie der Romanform seit der nachaufklärerischen Zeit eignet). Schließt man an dieses Bild in Brandls Vision noch Benjamins Sicht auf vergangene Prosaformen an, in denen historische Zeit und Erinnerungen noch ungeschieden in einem mythischen Ursprung geborgen sind,33 so verdeutlicht sich, daß das Wüstenbild utopische Hoffnung mittels solcher mythisch aufgehobener Zeitlichkeit thematisiert. Der visionär-imaginative Ausblick Brandls bietet einen vorübergehenden, durch seine Stellung als letzte Äußerung im Textfragment nun abschließend gewordenen Gegenpol zum verschüttenden Körpergedächtnis und seinen darin aufbrechenden Bildern grausamer historischer Erinnerung. Zusammenfassung Kunstproduktion, Werkverweigerung und Kunstrezeption des Malers Jakub Brandl lassen sich stets auf zwei Ebenen lesen: Als individuelle Erfahrungen einer Künstlerfigur, dem die totale Verweigerung, Selbstisolation und der Rückzug aus dem ‘öffentlichen’ Leben eine Überlebensstrategie ist und als Sinnbild. Denn Brandl ist der konkrete Verbindungspunkt zwischen subjektiver Erfahrung und überindividueller Geschichte, indem sein krampfender Körper ein Medium für das von der

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offiziellen Geschichtsschreibung ungesehene Gedächtnis ist: Brandls schmerzhaft-sinnliches Körpererleben in der Epilepsiekrankheit ist ein Sinnbild für ein sich aktualisierendes historisches Gedächtnis, welches im Aufbrechen erneut eine vernichtende Kraft zu entfesseln droht. Künstlerisch ausgelagert und im Bildwerk umgesetzt erst werden Brandls Erinnerungsbilder zum erkennbaren Gedächtnisarchiv. Diese fungieren – ebenso wie der ganze Roman – als gerahmte Ausschnitte von Geschichte, die mitteilbar wären. Als Vermittler eines bildlichen Ausdrucks des Grauens der europäischen Geschichte findet Brandl jedoch (noch) keinen Raum für seine ästhetischen Zeugnisse, der frei wäre von den ideologischen Verfälschungen warenförmig-kapitalistischer Aneignung oder den ideologischen Funktionalisierungen im sozialistischen Staat. Die ‘Wahrheit’ der von ihm dokumentierten Erfahrungen und imaginierten Bilder von Gewalt, Brutalität und Krieg muß daher geschützt werden. ‘Wahrheit’ hat hier keinen ontologischen Status, sondern ist, eher zur ‘Richtigkeit’ heruntergebrochen, an die Realität menschlicher Lebenswelten und somit historisch angebunden. Brandls ästhetische Erfahrung in Der Taumel ist ein Kreuzungspunkt verschiedener Formen von Überlieferung, welche Realität und Imaginiertes, Mythisches und Wirkliches gleichrangig nebeneinander stellen ohne die konkrete Wirksamkeit gewaltsamer Realgeschichte zu leugnen.

Anmerkungen 1

Die Figur Brandl ist dem tschechischen Bildhauer ZdenƟk Palcr nachempfunden. Vgl. Michael Schwidtal, ‘Kunst im Zeichen der Diktatur: Libuše Moníkovás Roman Der Taumel’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 48/4 (2000), 107-16 (hier 112). 2

Der Taumel ist unvollendet aus dem Nachlaß erschienen und umfaßt elf Kapitel. Zehn Seiten Fragmente und anderthalb Seiten Entwurfs-Splitter sind dem unvollendeten Roman, der doppelt so lang werden sollte, angefügt.

3

Vgl. Moníková, ‘Portrait aus mythischen Konnexionen’ (SAW 107-18). In Moníkovás literaturtheoretischen und kulturpolitischen Essays lassen sich verschiedentlich Kommentare zu Überlieferungsformen von Kultur und Geschichte finden, die die poetologische Basis ihrer Romane bilden.

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4

Moníková vergleicht diese Strukturprinzipien mit dem ‘totale[n] Gedächtnis’ der Figur Funés aus einem Text von Jorge Luis Borges, ‘Das unerbittliche Gedächtnis’, in Labyrinthe (1959). Funés hat eine totale Perzeption, d.h., er kann nichts, was er einmal gesehen hat, vergessen. Er sieht in jeder Sekunde des Hinschauens jedes Objekt neu, erstmals, immer wieder und kann die Einzeleindrücke nicht zu einer ‘einheitlichen Benennung zusammenfügen’ (SAW 107). Sein Gedächtnis ‘als ein kaum gelichtetes Substrat, ein Reservoir von unbenannten Bedeutungen kann als Andeutung eines welterschaffenden Potentials des Mythos gelten’ (SAW 107). 5

Hans Robert Jauss, Ästhetische Erfahrung und literarische Hermeneutik, 2. Auflage, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1984; John Dewey, Art as Experience, Capricorn Books: New York, 1959, 260

6

Vgl. Christoph Eykman, Ästhetische Erfahrung in der Lebenswelt des westeuropäischen und amerikanischen Romans, Francke: Tübingen, 1997.

7

Bei dem vorherigen Verhör versuchte Brandl, seine Würde zu bewahren, indem er es zum ‘Gespräch’ umdefinierte, also eine symmetrische Begegnung daraus konstruierte (vgl. Tm 6). 8

Vgl. dazu Karin Windt, ‘“Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten”: Verborgene und verworfene Geschichte bei Libuše Moníková’, in Gisela Ecker, Martina Stange, Ulrike Vedder, Hg., Sammeln – Ausstellen – Wegwerfen, Helmer: Königstein/Taunus, 2001, 195-207. Der Aufsatz thematisiert marginalisierte Geschichtserinnerung und (männliches) Körpergedächtnis im Spannungsfeld von Individuum und Kollektiv. 9

Krankheit, die in wechselseitig wirkender Verbindung zu Kreativität steht, ist ein Leitmotiv bei Moníková, das sich auch in ihren anderen Texten findet. Vgl. auch ihre mythologischen Verweise und Anspielungen (nach Lévi-Strauss) auf eine den Kranken wie Lahmen oder Blinden eigene besondere Weisheit oder Begabung. 10

Vgl. Schwidtal, ‘Kunst im Zeichen der Diktatur’, 111.

11

Vgl. Jürgen Stöhr, Hg., Ästhetische Erfahrung heute, DuMont: Köln, 1996, 8. Ästhetische Erfahrung entstehe aus der Schnittmenge von Rezeptionsästhetik und kunstgeschichtlicher Hermeneutik und sei eine ‘Theorie anschauender Sinnvermittlung und die Praxis des Vollzugs eines erkennenden Sehens’. Paradigmatische Grundlagen seien dabei die ‘Geschichtlichkeit des Verstehens’ und seines Gegenstandes.

12

Vgl. auch Antje Mansbrügge, die Brandls Epilepsie symbolisch als ‘körperliche Überreaktion’ auf die staatliche ‘Praxis der Vereinnahmung’ liest, Antje Mansbrügge,

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Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis: Lektüren zu Libuše Moníková, Königshausen & Neumann: Würzburg, 2002 (hier 256). 13

Vgl. dazu Sigmund Freud, ‘Konstruktionen in der Analyse’, in Studienausgabe, Ergänzungsband, hg. von Alexander Mitscherlich, Angela Richards und James Strachey, Fischer: Frankfurt/M., 2000 (1975), 393-406 (hier 397-98): ‘Alles Wesentliche ist erhalten, selbst was vollkommen vergessen scheint, ist noch irgendwie und irgendwo vorhanden, nur verschüttet, der Verfügung des Individuums unzugänglich gemacht’. Freud bezieht sich hier auf eine das Individuum und die Gesellschaft betreffende historische Wahrheit, die im Wahn Ausdruck findet.

14

Vgl. Schwidtal, ‘Kunst im Zeichen der Diktatur’, 107.

15

Michel Foucault, Von der Subversion des Wissens, übers. von Walter Seitter, Fischer: München 1974.

16

Nicht zuletzt durch die Poetik der Qual und des Schmerzes. Da Schmerz als unhintergehbar gilt – Schmerz ist nur er selbst –, steckt im Schmerzerleben ein Wahrheitsanspruch. Als ihn später die Atelierkollegin Halina, deren Familie in Treblinka ermordet wurde, bestätigt: ‘Ja, Ihre Bilder stimmen’, kann er es ‘zum ersten Mal’ (Tm 85) ertragen, die Fratzen, die ihn aus seinen Bildern anstarren, anzusehen. Brandl und Halina tauschen ihre quälenden Erfahrungen untereinander aus. Da die ‘endlose Schleife, das Möbius-Band ihrer Obsessionen’ Halina gefangen hält und sie erstarren läßt, ist für sie der Taumel seiner ‘Anfälle ein Glücksfall’ (Tm 85), denn sie sind immerhin eine Ausdrucksform für den Schrecken.

17

Brandl verkörpert in diesen Phasen eine zur steten Wiederholung des Wahrgenommenen/ Erlebten/ Gelesenen gezwungene Figur. Er komprimiert den Wahrnehmungsanspruch, den Moníková beim Schriftsteller ausmacht, für den ‘Wahrnehmung’ eine Besessenheit ist. Vgl. Moníková, ‘Portrait aus mythischen Konnexionen’ (SAW 117).

18

Vgl. auch Vilém Flusser, der die Zeitmetapher des Sandhaufens mit der Kunstfrage verbindet. Der Sandhaufen ‘ist der Spielplatz der Künste. Kunst ist das absichtliche Herstellen von unwahrscheinlichen Klumpen im zerrinnenden Haufen’, Vilém Flusser, ‘Drei Zeiten’, in Vilém Flusser, Nachgeschichte, Fischer: Frankfurt/Main, 1997, 291. Moníková nutzt hier ebenfalls das Bild des Sandhaufens als Ergebnis einer ästhetischen Handlung, die vorübergehend Harmonie erzeugt und die Zeit stillstellt (Vgl. Tm 17: ‘Brandl sah, daß das Kind die Atome, den rinnenden Sand vor ihrer Beliebigkeit anhalten wollte. Die Welt anhalten’).

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19

Vgl. Georg Lukács, Die Theorie des Romans: Ein geschichtsphilosophischer Versuch über die Formen der großen Epik, 2. Auflage, Luchterhand: Neuwied, 1963, 22.

20

‘Täuschung’ wird von Moníková in einem Essay über Kafkas Proceß als der Gewalt komplementär angesehen, Moníková, ‘Genese eines wahnhaften Systems’ (SAW 2268). Symbolsetzung könne gewaltsam täuschen: Das Individuum kann durch ‘Entstellung der Tradition und durch das Aufdrängen von Symbolen um seine Wertvorstellungen betrogen und zu falschen Erwartungen oder zur Hoffnungslosigkeit gebracht werden’ (SAW 30). Sie koppelt hier genaue Wahrnehmung an ‘Wahrheit’. Der oberflächliche Blick wiederum erzeugt die Lüge. Moníkovás Auffassung einer Verbindung von Imagination und Realität, die im Roman deutlich wird, zeigt, daß mit ‘Lüge’ hier nicht Kulturerfindung gemeint ist, sondern der interessegeleitete politische Betrug auf Faktenebene: die staatliche Geschichtsfälschung und politische Lügen; selbst die Unbestechlichkeit von Ziffern steht hier infrage. 21

Václav Havel, Versuch, in der Wahrheit zu leben, übers. von Gabriel Laub, Rowohlt: Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1989.

22

Havel, Versuch, in der Wahrheit zu leben, 28.

23

Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, hg. von Alfred Schmidt und Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, VII: Vorträge und Aufzeichnungen 1949-1973, Fischer: Frankfurt/Main, 1985 (1961), 173. 24

Folgende dritte Position zur Wahrheitsfrage von Foucault, daß nämlich ‘die Wahrheit weder außerhalb der Macht steht noch ohne Macht ist’, entspricht wiederum nicht Brandls Auffassung. Interessanterweise verkörpert die Brandldarstellung aber genau jenen mythischen Wahrheitsbezug, den Foucault in der auf das Zitat folgenden Einklammerung beschreibt: ‘daß die Wahrheit weder außerhalb der Macht steht noch ohne Macht ist (trotz eines Mythos, dessen Geschichte und Funktionen man wiederaufnehmen müßte, ist die Wahrheit nicht die Belohnung für freie Geister, das Kind einer langen Einsamkeit, das Privileg jener, die sich befreien konnten)’, Michel Foucault, Dispositive der Macht: Über Sexualität, Wissen und Wahrheit, übers. von Elke Wehr, Merve: Berlin, 1978, 51.

25

Das historische Vorbild für Machor ist Milan Knížák, in den Sechzigern provokativer Happeningkünstler, seit 1999 Direktor der Prager Nationalgalerie.

26

Brandls surreale Kunstphilosophie sieht die Stimmigkeit oder ‘Wahrheit’ von Kunst nicht in einem rein mimetischen Abbildungsverhältnis der Malerei. Seine Auffassung von ‘Wirklichkeit’ umfaßt ebenso Erfahrungen wie Imaginationen und führt damit

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romantisches Denken weiter, wie es beispielsweise Novalis mit seiner bekannten Idee vom ‘poetisierten Leben’ entwarf, das Wirklichkeit und Vorstellungskraft zusammenfügen wollte. 27

Alexandra Pontzen, Künstler ohne Werk: Modelle negativer Produktionsästhetik in der Künstlerliteratur von Wackerode bis Heiner Müller, Erich Schmidt Verlag: Berlin, 2000.

28

Vgl. zur Frage der Autonomie von Kunst und ihrem Verhältnis zur Gesellschaft als deren Kritik, Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, hg. von Rolf Tiedemann, VII: Ästhetische Theorie, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1970. 29

Vgl. zur politisch gerahmten Einteilung in die drei tschechoslowakischen Generationen von 1918, 1948 und 1968 Annabelle Lutz, Dissidenten und Bürgerbewegung, Campus: Frankfurt/Main, 1999.

30

Eykman, Ästhetische Erfahrung, 21.

31

Lukács, Die Theorie des Romans, 30.

32

Ebd. Es geht hier um den (vielzitierten) Zusammenhang der Form des Romans als einen ‘Ausdruck der transzendentalen Obdachlosigkeit’, Lukács, Die Theorie des Romans, 35, in Abgrenzung von der historisch frühen (beispielsweise homerischen) Eposform. Letztere sah er als paradigmatische Form an, deren zeitloser Gültigkeit und naturhafter Einheit eine metaphysische Seinstotaliät innewohnt. Im Roman hingegen ergäbe sich nurmehr eine bloß ‘geschichtliche Totalität der Empirie’, (ebd.).

33

Walter Benjamin, ‘Der Erzähler: Betrachtungen zum Werk Nikolai Lesskows’, in Gesammelte Schriften, II 2: Aufsätze, Essays, Vorträge, hg. von Rolf Tiedemann und Hermann Schweppenhäuser, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt/Main, 1999 (1977), 438-65 (hier 454). Benjamin thematisiert das Epos und die sich daraus entwickelnden Erzählformen mit ihren je verschiedenen Gedächtnisformen. Das ‘verewigende’ Gedächtnis wird dem Romancier zugeordnet, und handelt von einem Helden. Es wird dem Erzähler und seinem ‘kurzweilige[n]’ Gedächtnis, welches sich den ‘vielen zerstreuten Begebenheiten’ (454) widmet, gegenübergestellt. Die beiden Gedächtnisformen entstanden aus dem Zerfall des Epos, in dem sie schon beide beinhaltet waren, aber noch ungeschieden, und jenseits von historischen, somit zeitlichen Kategorien. Ähnlich ist in der Wüstenszene mit ihrem mythisch-visionären Charakter jede zeitliche Kategorie aufgehoben.

Graham Jackman ‘Kde Domov MĤj?’1 Nation, Exile and Return in Eine Schädigung and Verklärte Nacht The notion of exile is considered as a theme in Libuše Moníková’s life and work, utilising ideas developed by Edward Said and Abdul J. JanMohamed. Eine Schädigung is examined in the light of the work of Ernest Gellner and Homi K. Bhabha to show how divergent concepts of Czech nationhood create boundaries which are the source of the condition of exile experienced by Moníková’s protagonists in her subsequent texts. Verklärte Nacht is interpreted as a counterpart to Eine Schädigung, depicting an exile’s return home and culminating in an imagined union transcending all these boundaries – personal, gender, national and international.

Despite the many obvious differences between them, there is a striking symmetry between Moníková’s first and last completed fictional works, Eine Schädigung (1981) and Verklärte Nacht (1996). Eine Schädigung, written not long after Moníková’s arrival in Germany in 1971, describes the process by which its protagonist, the student Jana, becomes estranged from her home environment, presumably Prague. As a counterpart to this, Verklärte Nacht recounts the experience of the dancer Leonora Marty on her return to Prague in 1992 after many years of living abroad – though no date is mentioned, the events can be located in time with precision through the references to the impending splitting of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which took place on 1 January 1993. These two works can be seen as forming the matching outer terms of a chiasmic structure within Moníková’s five completed works of fiction. In the centre stands Die Fassade (1987), the only Moníková text with a collective hero – and one composed entirely of men. It is also the only one of these five works in which the central figures, for all their extraordinary travels in Siberia, are actually permanently resident in Czechoslovakia (as it then was). On either side of Die Fassade stand two works written from the viewpoint of Czechs living abroad: in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983) the academic Francine Pallas who, as Moníková herself did, teaches literature at a German university, and the former parachutist Prantl and the stuntgirl Karla in Treibeis (1992). The relationship thus created between Eine Schädigung and Verklärte Nacht is heightened by a still more striking counterpoint: the former opens and the latter ends with a scene of sexual intercourse. In the

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former, Jana is brutally raped by a Czech policeman while working as a night-time tram-driver, to which Jana responds by killing the policeman with his own truncheon and throwing his body into the river. The scene in Verklärte Nacht is in every respect the opposite of this, being marked by mutual willingness, tenderness and ecstatic joy. The final paragraph begins: Verklärte Nacht. Wievielmal wir uns um die eigene Achse drehen, um die des anderen, sein Kopf zwischen meinen Armen, zwischen meinen Beinen, warm, rund, schwer, es erinnert an eine Geburt und an ein Sterben, die Grenze ist nicht auszumachen. (VN 148)

The paragraph ends as follows: ‘Ineinandergreifen setzt von neuem ein. Wir wissen nicht, wem welcher Körperteil gehört, es gibt keine Teile. So schlafen wir ein’ (VN 148). ‘Die Grenze ist nicht auszumachen’ – used at so significant a moment, the word ‘Grenze’ carries a variety of meanings: not only the boundary between birth and death or even those that surround and define two bodies and two persons, but also political and historical boundaries, especially when, as here, the two lovers are a Czech and a Sudeten German. In this essay the various ‘Grenzen’ evoked in these two works will provide the focus for an examination of nationhood and of the consequences of crossing boundaries, that is, the condition of physical and mental separation from one’s native land and people – in fact, of what I will for the moment term ‘exile’. The appropriateness of this term will be considered later. Eine Schädigung In Eine Schädigung we see psychological barriers being created as a result of Jana’s brutal experience in the opening pages. One of these runs, not surprisingly, between men and women. Jana’s experience heightens her awareness of men’s dominance and exploitative treatment of women: ‘Bisher waren es Männer, mit denen sie rechnen mußte, sie bestimmten die Grenzen’ (S 32, my emphasis). This feature is emphasised in Jana’s encounter with the taxi-driver (S 33-36), in her visit to the intellectual Svidor (S 85-88), and even in the films that she sees (S 72). The barriers between men and women are indicated most clearly when Jana is visited by Mara’s friend Peter while in the throes of violent period pains. Peter, though an exception to the generally negative portrait of men in this work, is completely at a loss in face of her distress: ‘Zum erstenmal ist der Geschlechtsunterschied so kraß, in dieser Totalität ist er

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nicht mehr auszugleichen. […] Dieses Geschlecht ist überwältigend fremd. Das männliche Geschlecht hat keinen Ausdruck dagegen’ (S 56). Significantly, however, Jana is scarcely less appalled by the meek submission of many women to male domination. Women are divided against each other: while some, like Jana, Mara, the woman who helps her after the rape, and Irene, a former school friend, rebel, most of those Jana sees in the street are compliant and subservient: ‘Die bereite Unterwürfigkeit, die trostlose Dummheit, die sich in selbstgefälliger Stumpfheit und Mißform äußerte, brannte wie Verrat’ (S 32). Their clothing above all illustrates their accommodation to male preferences; to Jana, recently a victim of rape, they appear to be inviting a similar fate (S 33).2 Jana establishes a ‘Grenze’ between herself and this acquiescent condition by her abrupt departure from the ‘Klassenabend’ being held on a tram travelling slowly up Václavské NámƟstí (Wenceslas Square). Those whom Jana hoped to see, ‘d[ie] frühere[-] Elite’ (S 96) have alighted when she gets on, leaving her with those who depend on their husbands and babies for their sense of achievement and identity: ‘Sie trat an den Ausgang: “Warte doch bis zur Haltestelle, wir steigen auch schon aus”, einige Arme streckten sich nach ihr. “Aber nicht mit mir”, sagte sie und sprang ab’ (S 100). Jana’s resistance to violence and her rejection of sexual acquiescence are above all an assertion of identity. Moníková represents Jana’s assault on the policeman as a kind of language or a form of selfexpression: Es brachte sie aus der Stummheit zur Artikulation, in einen Zustand, in dem sie sich wieder benennen konnte. Aus den Hebungen und Schlägen des Armes rissen Begriffe auf, Bezeichnungen für ihren Körper. Für die Umgebung reichte es nicht, zuerst mußte der Baukasten der eigenen Person gefüllt sein. (S 24)

In Jana’s eyes, the policeman’s fate is not comparable to what she has suffered – potential annihilation of self and, worst of all, an impulse to feel guilt and shame and thus to acquiesce in one’s own destruction: Dem Schlimmsten war er entgangen, er hatte keine Verzweiflung kennengelernt. Dort, wo von dem Boden des Bewußtseins sich im Opfer Bereitschaft hebt, Zweifel, ob die Mißhandlung nicht zu Recht geschieht. Die Fesseln an den Händen rufen ein Schuldgefühl hervor. (S 25)

The assertion of selfhood and of the inviolability of the self, body and mind, means defining oneself against everything outside oneself. Accordingly, we see Jana losing her naive sense of belonging to her home

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city. At the beginning Jana confidently leaves her tram at the top of the hill and runs down to meet it at the bottom, by the river.3 Just as the oldfashioned tram is ‘ein Zeichen der Verbindung der Bürger mit ihrer Verwaltung’ (S 9), so she too is at ease with her surroundings and with the city: Der Atem ist ausgeglichener, sie läuft jetzt leicht und sicher, die Umgebung bedrückt sie nicht mehr. […] Der Wind vom Fluß hat sich erhoben und strömt gegen den Berg, das Mädchen taucht in seine Stöße, läßt sich tragen und mitbewegen, spürt ihre eigene Leichtigkeit. (S 11)

Suddenly she runs into a newly erected gate. Where once there was openness there is a now a barrier – ‘der Weg ist hier jetzt gesperrt’ (S 13) – and this, with the ensuing rape, marks the beginning of a growing estrangement, with barriers dividing Jana from what was hitherto normal and familiar. This process begins with the police themselves: Bisher war ihr nicht eingefallen, daß ihr etwas passieren könnte. Der Polizist war ein Beschützer der öffentlichen Ordnung […]. Sie waren selbstgefällig und brutal, aber das Mädchen hatte keine Erfahrung und konnte nicht beurteilen, in welchem Maße. Am Anfang überwog bei ihr sogar ein gewisses Vertrauen in die Uniform. (S 15)

Her sense of estrangement extends to her response to the material fabric of the city itself, which now seems hostile and threatening.4 On venturing out, she senses ‘die sich verdichtende Umklammerung, in der die Straße sie hielt’ (S 33). The city itself appears to be encircled, hemmed in by the recently built blocks of flats on its periphery: ‘Die Stadt schrumpfte zusammen unter dem Betongürtel der Neubauten’ (S 71). Still more menacing and confining, however, is the new city administration building on a hill above the city, which overlooks the site of her encounter with the policeman. Its threatening presence conveys a sense of being under surveillance: Die Aggressivität stammte von ihnen, wie sie hier standen, eine primitive Drohung, die Aufforderungscharakter hatte. Jetzt war sie hier allein in ihrem Schatten, vielleicht beobachtet und registriert, sie näherte sich der Sperre mit dem Gefühl eines Erfaßten. (S 36-37)

The regime is characterised at some length in chapter 4; police numbers have increased and demonstrators are excluded from the university (S 49). A police barrier around the area where the policeman was killed and the limitation on places where Mara’s boat may be moored reflect the evergrowing constraints on freedom: ‘Man bewegt sich von einem Verbot zum anderen, und der Raum dazwischen wird immer enger’, Mara says (S 40).

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The physical presence of the city is a metaphor for the growing repressiveness of the political regime, and so, of course, is the sexual violence of the opening scene. Indeed, its sexual character is essential to Moníková’s portrayal of the situation. The looming towers of the new administration building are obvious phallic symbols linking the repressive city administration, causally or analogically, with the sexual violence and pervasive misogyny which Jana encounters. Moníková’s portrayal of Svidor, whose treatment of Irene and Jana illustrates the use of women as ‘Trophäen’, illustrates the extent of this identification: ‘Es gab keinen wesentlichen Unterschied zwischen ihm und dem Beamten. Beide hatten Drohungen bereit, der Beamte unverschlüsselt und schneller’ (S 88). Despite the obvious resemblance to the period of ‘normalisation’ in Czechoslovakia after the events of 1968, the political and historical situation is not specified and is seemingly not the primary focus of Moníková’s attention, with no hint of the presence of an occupying power, the Soviet forces which guaranteed the control of the ‘radikale[n] Flügel’ (S 9). Her attention is focused rather on the behaviour of Jana’s fellowcitizens. Some collaborate with the new regime: ‘Dann fanden sich schon immer mehr Zuläufer, die die Arbeit des Regimes machen’ (S 49); people see others as potential or actual enemies, leading to mutual mistrust and aggression: Eine fremde Stadt mit einer fremden Sprache, von fensterlosen Türmen gelenkt, die die Leute undeutlich verschmiert reden ließen und einander überwachen, nur die Jagd auf einen Dritten machte sie voreinander sicherer. (S 71)

In the same passage Moníková describes mothers with their children in the street: ‘verhinderte Schläger nahmen mit ihren Blicken den Polizisten die Arbeit ab’ (S 71). Almost worse in Jana’s eyes, however, are the fearfulness, passivity and lack of resistance of most people: ‘Ohne jeden Aufwand halten sie die Leute in Schach, die ganze Bevölkerung lähmt sich in Angst’ (S 49). The towers of the new building, despite being largely unoccupied, achieve their effect by psychological means: ‘psychologisch arbeitet es vollkommen, schon der Anblick lähmt’ (S 48).5 Thus women’s passive acceptance of their position is linked to the wider passivity of the population at large. Jana, by contrast, is moved by her experience with the policeman to a passionate rejection of all forms of fear and acquiescence, both sexual and political: ‘Die Aufregung, die Jana von der allgemeinen Bedrohung ansteckt und in Widerstand versetzt, hat ihre Angst verzehrt’ (S 50). A few pages earlier she comments: ‘Die Furcht ist das Unglück, deshalb aber ist

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nicht Mut das Glück, sondern Furchtlosigkeit’ (S 44). Thus she is shocked by the notion that the ‘Kolonie’ which Mara and her friends have established far away, near the border, is based upon a 99-year lease: ‘Die sperrende Zahl stört sie, es ist ein administrativer Erlaß, der garantiert und zugleich wegnimmt; alles Zuteilen ist Raub’ (S 47). The echo of Proudhon’s ‘La propriété, c’est le vol’, is indicative of Jana’s ‘utopische[-] Lebenserwartung’ (S 47), an anarchic, utopian impulse which rejects all boundaries and demarcations. Eine Schädigung is dedicated to Jan Palach, of whom Moníková wrote: Nicht gegen die fremde Übermacht ist seine Tat gerichtet, die er allein [zum Abzug] nicht bewegen kann, sondern gegen die Trägheit im eigenen Lande, gegen die Apathie, gegen das langsame Sichgewöhnen – auch an das Schlimmste. (PF 106)

In his extreme and violent act Palach might be said to have been redrawing the boundaries of the national community to exclude himself – he would not be a part of it. A similar desire to distance herself from her compatriots motivates the departure from the homeland of Karla in Treibeis, who, like Jana, has a good deal in common with Moníková herself: Ich wußte, mir kann nichts mehr passieren. Nur die Tschechen, als sie anfingen, es hinzunehmen […] lieber Handlanger, Dolmetscher für die Okkupanten, als sich mit dem Volk auf der Straße gemein machen – lauter Kleinbürger. Ich ging. (T 142-43)

Jana too, in raising higher the walls around the inviolable self, both physically and mentally, is simultaneously redrawing the boundaries that define the ‘body of the nation’, to use Helga Braunbeck’s phrase, leaving herself on the outside.6 Her ‘Absprung’ from the tram is a metaphor for a more fundamental separation, the logical outcome of which is departure. She has not yet resolved to leave, but once Mara has left, ‘werde ich alles hier viel schwerer empfinden. Und wenn ich dann abfahre, wird es definitiv sein’ (S 50). Physical separation from the city and from her homeland thus seems the inevitable outcome.7 Such a departure would mirror Francine’s rewriting of Olga’s story in Das Schloss, with which Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin ends: ‘Sie wendet sich ihrem Weg zu, der blühenden und staubigen Apfelbaumlandschaft der Chaussee – she’s leaving home, bye bye’ (P 148).

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Nation Jana’s rebellion against her compatriots’ passivity, leading to a moral or psychological boundary between herself and them and, by inference, a physical one between her beloved Prague and herself, is ultimately the consequence of conflicting notions of the nation. It is not merely a question of ‘Where is My Homeland?’, as the first line of the Czechoslovak (and the Czech Republic’s) national anthem has it, but also of what kind of homeland and nation it should be. The attitude which Jana rejects may be related to that conception of Czech national identity which gained currency during the Czech ‘national resurrection’ in the nineteenth century, mainly through the writings of the historian František Palacký, the ‘father of the nation’, and which was in large measure adopted by Tomáš Masaryk, the founder and first president of Czechslovakia at the end of the First World War. In his DČjiny národu this þeského v ýechách a v MoravƟ (History of the Czech People in Bohemia and Moravia), published in 1876-78, Palacký describes the Czech people as: Small, indeed, but richly gifted, unusually progressive, enlightened, devoted to productive and useful work; not aggressive but heroic, fighting gloriously not only for its own life and its own independence and freedom but for the highest treasures of human society; meriting much from mankind, but through the disfavor of fate, the malice of its neighbors, and the lack of inner concord, sentenced to cruel suffering.8

The neighbours referred to here were pre-eminently the Germans: we may […] say that Czech history as a whole is based chiefly on conflict with Germandom, or on the acceptance and rejection of German customs and laws by the Czechs. … [It is] a struggle waged not only on the borders but in the interior of Bohemia, not only against foreigners but among native inhabitants, not only with sword and shield but with spirit and word, laws and customs.9

For all the references to heroism and to ‘fighting gloriously’, Palacký sees the Czechs essentially as victims of history; despite his evocation of the Hussite resistance to ‘Catholic-German “crusades”’10 as the time when the Czech nation came closest to fulfilling its historical mission, it was primarily the peaceful, spiritual and moral qualities of the nation that he emphasised – significantly, Palacký did not seek Czech independence but only autonomy for the Czechs within a federal Habsburg Empire. In this he was for a long time followed by Masaryk, who became a convert to full independence only during the First World War, when he saw an opportunity presenting itself with the impending collapse of the Empire. Masaryk, even more than Palacký, stressed the moral, non-

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militant dimension of Czech nationalism, though with less emphasis on the anti-German element in Palacký’s thought.11 Masaryk went further, however, in seeing the realisation of Czech nationhood as part of a wider movement within world history; in Masaryk’s view, according to Ernest Gellner, the Czech revolution is both vindicated, and incidentally, made feasible, by the fact that it is a part and an example of a much wider and global process, a replacement of theocracy and absolutism by democracy, which incidentally carried with it the independence or selfdetermination of nations. There is not the slightest element of defiant affirmation of the will of one nation.12

The Czechoslovak education system which Masaryk established inculcated, according to Gellner, the following ‘syllogism’: ‘Major premise: world history is our guide and guarantor. Minor premise: world history has chosen democracy and the West as its agents’. How, in the light of this syllogism, were the Czechs to react to the shattering blows of 1938 and 1939-40? But what if the major premise continues to be persuasive, and the historical Trend is still authoritative? But a new minor premise is now available: history appears to be endorsing a new force in the East, […] there can be no thought of resisting Stalin. […] [T]he syllogism which he prepared […] led inevitably […] to the passive acceptance of 1948 [the Communist coup in Czechoslovakia].13

In the light of Gellner’s analysis, the kind of passive acceptance rejected by Jana in Eine Schädigung is not simply the result of a lack of the courage to stand up for oneself but a legacy of the nation’s collective philosophy. Another way of viewing Jana’s implied rejection of this passive acceptance is in terms of Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of ‘counternarratives’. Palacký and Masaryk played what Bhabha describes as a ‘pedagogic’ role: ‘the people are the historical “objects” of a nationalist pedagogy, giving the discourse an authority that is based on the pre-given or constituted historical origin or event’.14 Others, however, may develop ‘[c]ounter-narratives of the nation that continually evoke and erase its totalizing boundaries – both actual and conceptual’ and which ‘“split[-]” […] the national subject’ and ‘disturb those ideological manoeuvres through which “imagined communities” are given essentialist identities’.15 The counter-narrative implicit in Jana’s attitude, which increasingly divides her from her compatriots, would doubtless be one in which the Hussite rebellion against German and papal domination in the 15th

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century and the daring deeds of their leader Jan Žižka would have received more than the lip-service paid them by Masaryk. Exile Though written in the Federal Republic, Eine Schädigung depicts the process of estrangement from a perspective inside the unnamed homeland and also within a spatial and temporal horizon of Jana’s immediate experience. In both Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin and Treibeis, by contrast, the perspective is that of Czechs living abroad (as was their author at the time), and both these texts may be seen as explorations of, and reflections on, that experience. In both works the Czech nation is a central object of reflection. How far is it appropriate to describe the protagonists of these two works as ‘exiles’? Abdul J. JanMohamed distinguishes between ‘exiles’ and ‘immigrants’ as follows: the exile’s stance towards the new host culture is negative, the immigrant’s positive. That is, the notion of exile always emphasizes the absence of ‘home’ […]; hence, it implies an involuntary or enforced rupture between the collective subject of the original culture and the individual subject. The nostalgia associated with exile […] often makes the individual indifferent to the values and characteristics of the host culture […]. The immigrant, on the other hand, is not troubled by structural nostalgia because his or her status implies a purposive directedness towards the host culture […].16

Francine in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin might be said to be closest to the immigrant in these terms, since, like Moníková herself, she speaks German, teaches at a German university, and has a German husband, albeit named Jan, who was seemingly the reason for her coming (‘Weil ich dich in dieses Land geholt habe’ P 137). Yet she remains on the margins of society, ever on the move and divided between her present life in Germany and recollections and dreams of home – a condition reflected perhaps in her love for two men, Jan and Jakob. In Pavane Francine constructs an image of her people discontinuously, through discrete observations, images and motifs, the historical perspective of which contrasts with the contemporaneity of Eine Schädigung, yet which essentially shares Jana’s critical vision. The dream sequence which makes up chapter 8 is a montage of motifs from Czech history, ‘unsere[-] vergebliche[-] Geschichte’ (P 79), as she calls it. It ends with Francine, in the role of Libuše, the legendary founder of Prague, confronting, even

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challenging, the lion of the Bohemian coat of arms, which is bedraggled, emaciated, and ‘gewöhnt, verfolgt zu werden’ (P 78). Earlier on, she refers to her compatriots as having the ‘kokette[-] Fatalität habitueller Verlierer, der immer am leichtesten Aufgegebenen – in München, in Jalta, 1968’ (P 21). After Francine has taken to her wheelchair to experiment with the stance of powerlessness, the text ends with a threefold act of rejection: Francine first imagines an alternative narrative of her people’s future, in which, in the role of Libuše, she undoes the humiliations of past and present. Then, in the final chapter, she burns the wheelchair in a ‘Steinbruch’ like that at the end of Der Proceß – with a reference also to ‘d[ie] Hussitenfestung Tábor’ (P 146) – and concludes her re-writing of the Barnabas story, as referred to earlier. Treibeis appeared in 1992, almost a decade later than Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, when one might have expected the national theme to have become less prominent.17 This is, however, far from being the case. Despite the Greenland setting of the opening chapter, the absurd international education conference, and Prantl’s encounters with sundry other nationalities along the way, the text focuses increasingly on Prague, Czechoslovakia, and their history, principally since 1918. Prantl’s narrative of events during and after the Second World War complements Karla’s accounts of her upbringing in the Communist state after 1948, culminating in 1968. Both are counter-narratives to the official versions which Karla had received at school. Though the critical rejection of passivity is continued here, (for example in Karla’s accounts of 1968 and in an ironic reference to Czechs’ enjoyment of the ‘Nimbus der Überfallenen, des Opfers’ T 99), the overall picture that emerges is somewhat closer than hitherto to the flattering Palacký image. The Czechs are more obviously helpless victims of their more powerful neighbours, Germans and Russians especially, yet also have their heroes, such as Hus and Hieronymus (T 104-5) and the wartime resistance fighters. They also have heroic deeds to boast of, such as the killing of Heydrich (Palacký’s ‘not aggressive but heroic, fighting gloriously’), while the Germans come closer to the negative role assigned them in Palacký’s national history. Both Karla and Prantl may truly be seen as exiles; it is as if the cost to the individual of those boundaries which we saw being established in Jana’s experience is becoming not less, but more apparent in Moníková’s work. Karla’s exile status is obvious: she has only recently left Prague (the book is set in 1971), has no permanent residence and, though she left freely, she cannot now return. Prantl, who also left voluntarily, has in over

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twenty years built up an alternative existence for himself and might be thought of rather as an ‘immigrant’. Yet his choice of the initially extremely alien culture of Greenland, a place as far removed as possible in character, if not in distance, from his native land, is a metaphor for a painful effort to forget.18 Edward Said’s words ring true for both of them: ‘Exile is predicated on the existence of, love for, and bond with, one’s native place; what is true of all exile is not that home and love of home are lost, but that loss is inherent in the very existence of both’.19 At the end, the emotional bond with home overcomes all Karla’s distaste for her compatriots’ passivity and occasional treachery: ‘Es kann heißen, wie es will, dort bin ich heimisch’ (T 233). However, as Eine Schädigung already suggests, exile is not simply a matter of existing between two territories and belonging to neither. There has been little critical comment on the violence which Jana perpetrates upon the policeman, justifiable or at least excusable though it may be.20 Yet the ruthlessness of the assault and the absence of any sense of remorse afterwards indicate that Jana’s self-assertion and defence of her own inviolable boundaries have been achieved at a high price, that of repressing her instinctive, emotional sympathy towards her fellow human beings. This effect can be seen in the text itself: except in her conversations with Mara and Irene, the unaware, joyously running Jana of the opening becomes an embattled figure, forceful in her language and extreme in her interpretations of others, for example in her reference, quoted earlier, to mothers with children in the street as ‘verhinderte Schläger’. Bhabha quotes Freud’s comment that ‘it is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left to receive the manifestation of their aggressiveness’.21 Boundaries are seldom points of contact or thresholds but rather borders, designed to keep out real or imaginary enemies and therefore to be jealously guarded. But when the individual develops a ‘counter-narrative’ and thus ‘erases’ the existing boundaries through which the nation is defined, the new boundary divides the self from one’s nation and community, so that the ‘aggression’ is directed at something of which one is, or was, oneself a part. Jana’s case exemplifies this: her initial act of rebellion and articulation of personal identity takes an extreme form, that of physical violence, directed not outwards, against the occupying Soviet power, but inwards, against her own community. Yet she is – or was – herself part of that community – and thus, in a sense, the violent act of

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rupture is directed against herself. The ‘Schädigung’ of the title is more than the physical violence of rape. This psychological price of the assertion of an individual, divergent vision of the nation is seen clearly in Treibeis. Prantl’s Greenland is a metaphor for the freezing of his emotional life which Karla accuses him of; he has ‘seine Erinnerungen seit zwanzig Jahren aufs Eis gelegt in das tiefe Kontinentaleis von Grönland’ (T 190) and is tempted by male solitude – ‘Männer fahren allein, in Kayaks, verschlossen’ (T 87) – and by various traditions of honourable death, such as the Samurai’s code and the Inuit’s lonely death amid the ice.22 The case of Karla is much like that of Jana: both are passionate, embattled figures who show what Said sees as a quality of the exile, ‘an intransigence that is not easily ignored. Willfulness, exaggeration, overstatement: these are characteristic styles of being an exile, methods for compelling the world to accept your vision’.23 Significantly, the love between Karla and Prantl begins before they have been able to find out anything about each other. They are united through a fall, through letting go, detaching themselves from all personal and historical determination and plunging finally into the timelessness of the waters (T 74-5) – the same motif occurs in Pavane too.24 But the boundaries that have been created through counter-narratives again run painfully through the self – and between the two of them. Each has their own narrative, determined by personal experience, and as they tell them, ‘gelangten [sie] an den Punkt, wo jeder ein anderes Land vor sich hat, das sie Tschechslowakei nennen, mit schiefem Mund auch “Heimat”’ (T 215). That the love between Karla and Prantl, two damaged souls, should be depicted (by Karla) in the form of a joust seems to illustrate his Samurailike coldness and her fierce, embattled spirit. Moníková as exile And what of Moníková herself? Needless to say, neither of JanMohamed’s definitions exactly fit her. Her position was highly ambivalent: she rejected the appellations ‘Exilautorin’ and even ‘tschechische Autorin’: Ich bin eindeutig deutsche Autorin und meine Produktionsmittel […] sind einfach hier, das ist die Sprache, das sind die Verlage und dazu die Leser. Das ist auch die erste Kritik und die Kontrolle. […] Es ist nicht wenig, über Böhmen zu schreiben, aber es ist jeweils nur ein Teil. Und Deutschland ist eigentlich ständig präsent als Spiegel, einfach als der Boden, auf den diese Daten fallen.25

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Yet, as Hajo Steinert says to her in the same interview, ‘Sie sind noch sehr mit Ihrer Heimat, mit Prag, verbunden’.26 In her 1990 essay ‘Semiaride Landschaft mit Küste’, in Prager Fenster, she wrote: ‘[ich] versuche […] Kenntnisse über das Land, aus dem ich komme, zu verbreiten und es möglichst würdig zu vertreten’ (PF 18-19), while in another essay, from 1991, she says of Germany, ‘[e]in paarmal habe ich mich hier zugehörig gefühlt’ (PF 79). To see oneself as a representative of one’s homeland and to feel oneself only occasionally ‘zugehörig’ suggests that Moníková can hardly be seen as an ‘immigrant’, even if the term ‘exile’ is too simple. Her position appears rather to be one of a continuing tension between, on the one hand, her most fundamental loyalty – and her most insistent theme – and, on the other, the location in which she lives and the language in which she writes. It is as if the boundaries created for her character Jana by her experiences run through her own person also. The recurrent use of Czech phrases in Moníková’s texts is a significant indication of this doubleness – or division. Perhaps we might say that the border, a boundary but also a point of contact – between two languages, two cultures, and two politico-historical entities – is adopted by Moníková as a vantage point from which to write. She sees herself as mediating between the two: if she were to translate her books into Czech, she says, ‘[d]ann würde ich vielleicht überwiegend über die Deutschen schreiben für die Tschechen’.27 Following Adorno, Edward Said has argued that exile is a metaphor for the position of the intellectual in general, while Lukács famously claimed that the novel is the formal expression of ‘transzendentale Obdachlosigkeit’.28 However, Said has also dwelt upon the detachment afforded by the exile’s position on the margins, between cultures: I speak of exile not as a privilege, but as an alternative to the mass institutions that dominate modern life. […] Seeing ‘the entire world as a foreign land’ makes possible originality of vision. Most people are principally aware of one culture, one setting, one home; exiles are aware of at least two, and this plurality of vision gives rise to an awareness of simultaneous dimensions, an awareness that – to borrow a phrase from music – is contrapuntal.29

This is the kind of role played by Moníková in many of her essays, where she frequently writes as a ‘European’30 – in ‘Semiaride Landschaft mit Küste’, for example – or even as a citizen of the world, as in ‘Kabbala der Welt. Blick in das Jahr 1991’ (PF 91-97). Yet her perspective on Europe and the world remains stamped by her Czechness. When, in her essay ‘Kirschfeste’ (PF 9-17), she ironically

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creates an ideal Europe, it is through ‘die Annexion Europas an Böhmen’ (PF 9, part of the subtitle of the essay), an exercise in which Europeans are judged primarily – though not exclusively – in terms of their treatment of the Czechs. Significantly, the longest of the essays in Prager Fenster is devoted to Czech-German relations, as if written from the perspective of that border whose crossing was the decisive step in her creative life. So in the end exile perhaps remains the most appropriate word. In an interview which she gave in Czech to the weekly magazine Týden after she had been honoured by the Czech Republic in 1997, a few months before her death, her reply to the question ‘Have you had it easy?’ includes a reference to the ‘loss of my country and my city’.31 As Simone Weil said, ‘to be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognised need of the human soul’.32 Perhaps, then, we might see Moníková as what Abdul R. JanMohamed has termed the ‘specular border intellectual’ which he contrasts with the ‘syncretic border intellectual’. While the latter, ‘more “at home” in both cultures […] is able to combine elements of the two cultures in order to articulate new syncretic forms and experiences’, the former, while perhaps equally familiar with two cultures, finds himself or herself unable or unwilling to be ‘at home’ in these societies. […] [T]he specular border intellectual subjects the cultures to analytic scrutiny rather than combining them; he or she utilizes his or her interstitial cultural space as a vantage point from which to define, implicitly or explicitly, other, utopian possibilities of group formation.33

At times, Moníková envisages modes of transcending the pains of separation. One is literature itself: this thought is developed at the end of her essay on Ingeborg Bachmann’s poem ‘Böhmen am Meer’, where she develops the idea of exile freely accepted for the sake of a home in literature itself: Für die Welt der Verankerten, Abgesicherten ist die Dichterin verloren, solange sie noch an ein Wort grenzt, und an ein Land, das Land der Worte, der Literatur. Selbstaufgabe, Demut, Hochmut sind der Preis für Kunst. Böhmen am Meer ist das unerreichbare Reich der Poesie am Horizont […] dauerhaft zu bewohnen nur um den Preis der Fortgabe. (PF 61-62)34

Yet Moníková was, one feels, too much of an idealist to settle for this ‘Fortgabe’. ‘Böhmen am Meer’ is also her name for the re-ordered Europe envisaged in the essay ‘Kirschfeste’ and for the utopian, unattainable ‘Land meiner Wahl’ that is evoked in the Bachmann essay:

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Am Ende bleibt sie [Bachmann’s poetic persona] ein dahintreibendes Floß, eine schwimmende Insel im Meer der Einsamkeit. Böhmen als Hoffnung am Horizont, unerreichbar. […] Das kann ich verstehen, auf mich beziehen sich die letzten Zeilen im wörtlichen Sinne: ein Böhme, ein Vagrant, der nichts hat, den nichts hält, begabt nur noch, vom Meer, das strittig ist, Land meiner Wahl zu sehen. (PF 61)

One cannot help but note that in using terms such as ‘embattled’ and ‘combative’ in speaking of Jana, and still more Karla, one is also describing some aspects of Moníková’s own public persona, as revealed in her essays and speeches on political issues. Her forthrightness about European nations, notably the British and the French because of their role in 1938, but also about the Germans and the Russians, is apparent in many of the essays in Prager Fenster. She was, however, frequently even more outspoken in speeches and interviews. A few quotations from the Týden interview must serve to illustrate this. In response to a question about the amount of Czech history narrated in her novels, she replies, with passionate, if uncharacteristic, illogicality: ‘I am not in the least interested whether German readers groan under the volume of information and dates. […] After all, the whole mess started with the Germans – Munich, then the Occupation, and today the tourists’.35 She also comments on her letter of protest against the (then) proposed link between the West and East German PEN Clubs; of some ex-GDR writers she says: After the opening of their files their activities came to light. I did not leave my country, my language, Prague and the sight of the Czech countryside in order to have this moral detritus force its way in through my window.36

Her compatriots fare no better in this interview: This suspiciousness and small-mindedness of the Czech character can bring one to tears and despair. […] As a Czech I miss painfully in my country people holding their head high, people who are proud, brave and ‘decent’ citizens.37

She also comments sharply on the post-1989 scene in Prague, on Czechs’ attitudes to emigrés like herself, to women writers such as Božena NČmcová and women in general, and to her own writing. When asked about responses to Verklärte Nacht, Moníková replies: I don’t expect any. […] Future [Czech] publishers of my books must like them and respect them. I will not give copyright on books which have cost me so dear to any publisher or translator who does not convince me of his quality. Professional and human quality, which includes courtesy and attentiveness.38

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Yet the same interview reveals her emotional attachment to her homeland: in one of the final sentences she quotes the famous words attributed to the legendary Libuše: ‘Od té doby, co jsem odešla, nepĜestala jsem, bolestnČ, palþivƟ závidČt tČm, kteĜí mohli zústat a vidČt tu zaslíbenou zemi a to mČsto, jehož sláva hvČzd se dotýká’ – ‘Since I left I haven’t ceased to envy, with pain and burning in my heart, those who were able to stay here and to experience that promised land and the city whose fame reaches the stars’.39

One is inclined to suggest that something of what Brecht, himself an exile, wrote in ‘An die Nachgeborenen’ might apply to Moníková too: Dabei wissen wir doch: Auch der Haß gegen die Niedrigkeit Verzerrt die Züge. Auch der Zorn über das Unrecht Macht die Stimme heiser.40

Verklärte Nacht The fact that Moníková’s untimely death has made Verklärte Nacht her final completed work may tempt us, unwarrantedly, to see it as providing closure to her entire œuvre. Though we should reject this temptation – she was, after all, working on Der Taumel till shortly before her death – it does appear in some senses to represent a point to which her earlier work has been tending, thematically, if not formally. From the latter point of view Verklärte Nacht might be thought a step backward: it is less fragmented, less humorous, less dislocated – less ‘postmodern’ – than the preceding three novels.41 Yet this is not a matter of loss of artistic nerve; the decentredness of those works is accounted for by the decentredness of their protagonists and of the divorce between their temporal and their spatial dimensions. In Pavane and Treibeis the nation and its history are ‘imagined’, to use Benedict Anderson’s term, or ‘narrated’, to use Homi K. Bhabha’s, from beyond the borders.42 Here, however, an exile returns to encounter the reality of the nation and the movement of its history on her native soil. In this sense, the somewhat more ‘conservative’ form of the work is appropriate to its protagonist’s ‘recentring’ in time and place. Verklärte Nacht falls into two sections, of which the first, to the end of chapter 5, is largely devoted to that encounter. Leonora Marty, the dancer and leader of a ballet company, has remained behind after the rest of the company has left Prague to experience the city anew. The remaining chapters focus, in a much more obviously linear fashion, on her meeting with the Sudeten-German Thomas Asperger. In the first section we see Leonora constructing, as it were, ‘her Czechoslovakia’ (the work is set in

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1992, shortly before the splitting of the Czech Republic from Slovakia), asking ‘Kde domov mĤj?’. The Prague of the 1990s is being tested against her memories of it – and her memories against the contemporary reality. In the opening three pages, as Leonora makes her way to the great Strahov stadium, the second biggest in the world, built originally for the Sokol gymnastics displays between the Wars but appropriated after 1948 for the quinquennial Communist Spartakiads, places are used to evoke history. Every stop on the line 22 tram (they can be traced easily on a map of Prague) is saturated with history: from the medieval ‘Hungermauer’ and the disastrous defeat in 1620 at Bílá Hora to the changes since 1989. What Leonora says of Masada is true also of Moníková’s Prague: ‘Jeder Name ein Schlag ans Hoftor […] die Schichten der Epochen und Zeiten übereinander’ (VN 79-80). Leonora’s recollection of the Spartakiads of her childhood indicates how ambivalent the notion of the ‘nation’ is and how complex the task of ‘nation-building’. On the one hand she realises how the old Sokol tradition was appropriated after 1948 to ‘imagine’ a nation in Communist terms. She remembers the techniques and slogans: ‘Über die Schönheit unseres Landes, über den Frieden, die Kriegsgefahr aus dem Westen’ (VN 9); ‘Huldigung an unsere Slowaken und ihren Nationalaufstand’ (VN 13, Moníková’s emphasis); ‘Die lebenden Bilder der Spartakiade. Aus den tausenden Körpern, alle der gemeinsamen Sache ergeben’ (VN 14-15). In this process the individual was of no account: human beings were mere bodies, on which the state could ‘write’ its vision of a united nation, regardless of the injuries and deaths incurred during the often dangerous gymnastics. Individual identity was obliterated: ‘Die eigentliche Leistung bestand darin, den eigenen Punkt wiederzufinden’ (VN 11). Yet at the same time, these events were, for the participants, a great occasion: though pressurised to take part, they did so with ‘merklicher Lust an der Abwechslung’ (VN 10), ‘in kollektiver Euphorie’ (VN 12). This seeming contradiction illustrates Bhabha’s notion of ‘pedagogic’ and ‘performative’ versions of the nation. On the one hand, ‘the people are the historical “objects” of a nationalist pedagogy’, of the kind referred to earlier (here that of the Communist state), while on the other, the people are also the ‘subjects’ of a process of signification […] to demonstrate the prodigious, living principle of the people as that continual process by which the national life is redeemed and signified as a repeating and reproductive process. The scraps, patches, and rags of daily life must be repeatedly turned into the signs of a national culture.43

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‘The people’ create ‘the nation’ by their practice, in a way that may not conform to the conscious pedagogics of their leaders or of intellectuals. And just as the ‘performative’ partially nullified the pedagogic in the 1950s, so it does in post-revolution Czechoslovakia. Through the engagement of personal memory with what is now ‘politically incorrect’, these events still exercise a powerful hold over those who participated: ‘Die Filmaufzeichnungen aus den fünfziger Jahren, unlängst im Fernsehen gezeigt, haben eine Welle von Rührung und Begeisterung hervorgerufen’ (VN 14). Similar use of place to evoke history is also found in later chapters – almost all the sites mentioned are part of conscious efforts at different times to ‘create’ a nation. Thus in chapter 2 Leonora recalls the German ‘Ständetheater’ and the Czech National Theater (Národní Divadlo) (VN 38-39), competing efforts to define the ‘nation’: ‘Die Geschichte der Stadt ist eine Geschichte der gegenseitigen Antworten zwischen Tschechen und Deutschen, ohne daß eine Seite jemals gefragt hätte’ (VN 39). She then visits Vyšehrad, with its remnants of the royal palace, its reminder of the mythical past of Libuše and Horymír, its burial ground where the great figures of the Czech national revival in the nineteenth century are memorialised, and its unlovely Communist ‘Kulturpalast’. In this and the following chapter Moníková mentions two of the institutions that Benedict Anderson sees as powerful instruments in the ‘imagining’ of nations: museums (in this case the Police Museum, formerly, and more ominously, the Museum of National Security – VN 4245) and newspapers. From the latter Leonora learns how the Czechs compelled the Russians to hasten their withdrawal after 1989 – for once a moment of Czech courage and self-assertion of the kind that Leonora, like Moníková’s other protagonists, so desires. Altogether less creditable, though, are the shockingly long list of the Czech equivalent of the GDR’s ‘IM’, the treatment of former dissidents, and the failure to put an end to ‘den längsten Strich Europas’ (VN 63). As Leonora says, ‘Auch das ist mein Land’ (VN 64). It is now Leonora who is the position of Bhabha’s ‘pedagogue’; we witness a confrontation of her ‘narrative’, her desired view of home, with the empirical reality of the day. She is distressed by the state of things that she has found in Prague: a flood of Western goods, vandalised telephone boxes, rising crime, rising prices, the ‘Klondike-Mentalität’ (VN 35) among those seeking to exploit Czech traditions – and the foreign tourists (VN 33-35). Her ‘pedagogic’ version of ‘nation’ is being challenged by the

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people’s daily ‘performance’, a conflict in which there can be only one winner. This brings us to Moníková’s presentation of her protagonist, Leonora. Though we know nothing of the reasons for her leaving home, her life and person are marked by precisely those lines of separation that we have been considering. Though back in her beloved Prague – ‘Ich will die Stadt für mich allein haben’ (VN 25), she says, like a lover – she has minimal human contact. She speaks of a meeting with ‘Bekannten und ehemaligen Kommilitoninnen’ (VN 37) but we see nothing of it, and the text remains monological throughout the first five chapters, apart from her disastrous visit to her old school-friend Radek and a word or two from the ‘Bademeister’ at Podolí. She lives in the rented flat like a stranger, as if camping out, with virtually no food in the fridge and no contact with other residents: ‘Es wäre schön, jemanden zu haben, ein Tier, das auf mich wartet, aber nicht hier, nicht in dieser Wohnung, die mir nicht gehört’ (VN 71). Asperger says of her: ‘Mit Ihnen ist es wie auf einer Insel […] keine Berührung, kein Kontakt mit der übrigen Bevölkerung’ (VN 124), and Leonora herself comments: ‘Ich versäume jede Zugehörigkeit, jede Gemeinschaft’ (VN 136). Leonora’s only efforts at interaction with her environment are with a plant in the flat, which she destroys by over-watering (VN 71), and two animals: a cat, and a bird which has found its way inside. Both may be seen as images of Leonora herself. Of the cat she says: ‘Sie ist scheu, als wäre sie halbwild oder ich hier fremd’ (VN 71), and of the bird: ‘eine Amsel, sie kauert am Rand, verfroren oder verletzt, der Wind muß sie hereingedrückt haben’ (VN 73), ‘ein tropischer Vogel, was soll er in der Kälte’ (VN 79). This is Leonora too: an exotic creature that has strayed into the cold of Prague, ill at ease and defensive. She realises that she does not belong; in the flat, looking at the stray, random objects left about, she contrasts them with her own aesthetically ordered – or perhaps one should say, theoretical – existence: Meine Aktivitäten […] ähneln einer Inszenierung. […] Sie leben unmittelbar ins Reine, ohne zu probieren, während ich immer noch auf dem Schmierpapier das Konzept durchstreiche. […] Alles muß stimmen; zum Thema komme ich vor lauter Anforderungen nicht. Das Leben – wie man sagt; ich kann nur nicht begreifen, daß es schon alles sein sollte. (VN 72-73)44

She confesses her envy of the ‘Normalität, […] den Alltagssorgen, die ich nicht teile’ (VN 46), and while her friends are envious of her freedom, she envies their ‘Gebundenheit’ (VN 46). At the swimming baths an implicit

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contrast is made between her youthful body – as if unmarked by time – and those of the Prague women, which testify to the work of lived time upon them (VN 48-49). Once a part of the ‘body of the nation’ at the Spartakiad, she is now separated from it. The later reflections on the career of Leni Riefenstahl rework the same motif: agelessness as a concomitant of a commitment to nothing but artistic perfection, as if she were all camera and nothing else (VN 120-23). Leonora is not actually an ‘exile’ in the sense of Jana, Karla or even Francine – perhaps ‘nomad’ would be a better term.45 Nevertheless, Moníková has made of her a figure whose being is defined by separation from home; at the risk of conflating her various protagonists, it is as though she too bears the cost of Jana’s and Karla’s rejection of the nation’s behaviour and consequent separation of herself from it – and thus from part of herself too. As the illustrations above show, Leonora feels that she has lost her hold not only on Prague (‘Ist es überhaupt noch mein Prag?’ VN 125) but also on life itself. This central concern is presented through the figure of Emilia Marty in Janáþek’s opera VČc Makropulos (Die Sache Makropulos), with whom Leonora is related not only by name but also by her artistic identification with the role in her ballet version. Kept alive by the elixir which her alchemist father tried out on her, Emilia enjoys ageless beauty, untouched by time – like Leonora – and, also like her, lives a nomadic life. Finally, she returns to Prague to die and thus to re-establish contact with the processes of life. The Latin phrase used in Leonora’s stage set for the ballet ‘Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat’ (VN 85) illustrates the point: all time wounds, only death kills.46 For one seemingly unmarked by time, to die is therefore, paradoxically, to rejoin the stream of life, hence Emilie Marty’s desire for death (time understood, not as History, as in Masaryk’s thought, but as lived human time). In a passage presumably translated by Moníková herself from the original Czech libretto she expresses her despair: ‘Aber an mir ist das Leben stehengeblieben! Und kann nicht weiter. Die schreckliche Einsamkeit! Es verdrießt das Gutsein, es verdrießt die Bosheit. Langweilig die Erde, langweilig der Himmel! Und der Mensch erkennt, daß in ihm die Seele gestorben ist’ (VN 87).47 Janáþek’s, and Moníková’s, central motif to illustrate their protagonists’ condition is coldness; Emilia Marty is ‘[k]alt wie ein Leichnam’ (VN 88). In Leonora’s case, this motif, the cold of Prague in December, obviously links with its use in Treibeis, but here Prantl’s cold is combined with Karla’s fierce nature. Leonora herself recalls her

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‘Wutausbruch’ at her treatment at the hotel (VN 36); her judgements on contemporary Prague and its people are harsh and her treatment of Thomas initially brusque. She expresses all her opinions with exaggerated, imperious decisiveness – not for nothing does Thomas address her as ‘Hoheit’ (VN 131). Everything meets with either total approval or total disapproval – it is as though she lives in a world of blacks and whites, often damning, seemingly on principle, even things that she likes. Thus she initially rejects the comfort that Thomas introduces into the flat; the food that he cooks is ‘genau die Küche, die ich schon immer nicht vertragen konnte. Es schmeckt erstaunlich gut’ (VN 131). She is, as Thomas says, ‘sogar in der Küche Chauvinistin’ (VN 132): there is only one way – the Czech way – of killing carp and only one time to eat them. Her fierce intolerance, so much at odds with other parts of her personality, emerges in a dialogue with Thomas: ‘“Sie würden am liebsten alle rausschmeißen, nicht? Die Deutschen, die Amerikaner.” “Stimmt!” “Die Tschechen auch?” Mitsamt ihrer samtenen Revolution und dem ganzen Kitsch!”’ – as if she would prefer Prague freed of all the troublesome human beings who fail to live up to expectations. ‘Sie sind eine Rassistin’ (VN 102), Thomas not incorrectly replies. As might be expected in view of the many links with Eine Schädigung, the principal expression of Leonora’s blend of coldness and fierceness is her attitude towards men, illustrated in several episodes and motifs: the Viktorka story of chapter 2, of which Leonora would like to make a ballet, the Masada episode in chapter 4, and the stories of the Egyptian queen Hatshepsut and the legendary Czech figure Šarka, both introduced in her hallucinatory dream while ill (VN 117-20).48 On the other hand, the companionship of women is celebrated in the hotel scene (VN 37) and at the swimming pool. Leonora also recalls her father’s attempts to make a ‘typical woman’ of her, while it is her mother who wishes her to follow her intellectual and artistic leanings (VN 109-10). A cruel, unfeeling attitude to men is central to the Emilia Marty story in the opera, which is echoed, rather clumsily perhaps, in Leonora’s not very well motivated visit to her former school friend Radek in the first chapter. He is depicted as one who would like power over her – the wheelchair motif is introduced again here. Leonora provokes him sexually, much as Irene does Svidor (S 89-92), before rejecting him; the kiss on the neck (VN 27) recalls Emilia Marty’s ‘Narbe am Hals’ (VN 86). How, then, should we view the concluding Thomas episode, which occupies the final part of the text (about two-fifths of the whole) and

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especially its rhapsodic conclusion? This section is markedly different from what precedes it: not only is there suddenly dialogue instead of monologue, but the text now has a clear narrative line, despite the discontinuous mode of narration and the insertion of reflective or dream sequences. The title of the work is our guide. It suggests a dreamlike episode in which longings are fulfilled – Leonora thinks of Schoenberg’s work as possible music and title for an imaginary ballet including the events on the evening of her meeting with Thomas (VN 125). Perhaps this is how the ending should be read, as an imaginary, symbolic resolution of conflicts and a healing of the breaches and divisions by which Moníková’s texts are marked. The decisive event is again a fall, as in Pavane and Treibeis – a sudden letting go, falling out of the constraints, the habits of thought and behaviour by which we are normally held. It is, moreover, a fall into the Vltava, or at least a pit filled with its water – the same Vltava associated in Eine Schädigung with the dead policeman. So it may be seen as a kind of death: when Leonora goes swimming, she describes it as a ‘Rückkehr in das Urelement’ (VN 47), whether the ‘Urelement’ be Prague, or childhood, or the primal waters. A further death image can be seen in Leonora’s long sleep while ill. Thus her recovery is a kind of resurrection, symbolised by the blood which stains her bed – another echo of Jana’s experience: ‘Gibt es keine zuverlässigere Möglichkeit, sich des eigenen Lebens zu vergewissern?’ (VN 127). From the extremity of deathly cold she thus returns to life and finally to love. One essential element is Thomas Asperger himself, who unites within himself all the apparent dichotomies which mark both Jana and Leonora. Thus it is he, not Leonora, who establishes friendly relationships with other residents – and with the cat. He is male, yet has all the domestic and caring capacities associated with the traditional woman: ‘Er ist mütterlich’ (VN 148). By obvious contrast with Peter in Eine Schädigung, he is no way disconcerted by the evidence of a woman’s menstrual cycle and treats it with a matter-of-factness that puts to shame Leonora’s attempts to conceal it. Then there is the issue of nation and nationality – she is Czech, he a Sudeten German. Yet they share the same fall and its consequences, symbolically represented in the sight of the two currencies hanging up to dry side by side on the line (VN 110-11). As the German and Czech versions of his name suggest, Thomas / Tomáš is both German and Czech and even speaks both languages (contrary to Masaryk’s view that no

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German could become a ‘Czech’).49 Indeed, though a descendant of a ‘Sudeten German’ family, his ancestors include many other nationalities (VN 138). And as a German he belies all the clichés present in the collective Czech mind, and in Leonora’s: though one grandmother was a Nazi, his father was himself as much a victim of them as any Czech, and later suffered at Czech hands too (VN 139). History is again being renarrated in these final pages, first that of the Czechs and Slovaks, about to be separated by another new boundary, then the still more painful historical relationship between Czechs and Germans (VN 143-44).50 Competing narratives, much more explosively different than those which divided Karla and Prantl, are here brought together into one that recognises the failings on both sides, so that ‘die Grenze ist nicht auszumachen’. The union between Leonora and Thomas at the end may thus be viewed as a utopian allegory of a reconciliation between those historical neighbours and enemies, Germans and Czechs, turning the jealously defended border into a point of meeting and friendship. Moníková has used her position as ‘specular border intellectual’ to do as JanMohamed suggests: ‘define, implicitly or explicitly, other, utopian possibilities of group formation’.51 The continuing Czech-German dialogue des sourds over the ‘Beneš decrees’ serve only to show how urgently needed such alternative possibilities are. Moreover, Thomas’s affiliations with other nations and the appearance in the text of Russians, Slovaks and others, confirming Moníková’s assertion that Prague is essentially a European city, suggest that this reconciliation is a model of her imagined version of Europe and the creation of that idealised ‘Böhmen am Meer’ that she has often invoked. Yet to view the ending solely as a political allegory seems to leave out far too much of the text. It is also a further stage in Moníková’s exploration of the exile’s position and is thus the logical outcome of the trajectory that I have endeavoured to trace in her work as a whole. From being an outsider, and an uncomfortable one, in both senses, Leonora begins a process of reintegration – but only through Thomas. Reconciliation on that historical plane is linked to a wider one; perhaps Moníková is imagining a condition in which the exile can return, in which the ‘pedagogic’ and the ‘performative’ can ultimately be reconciled, and in which the advantages of the ‘specular’ position on the margin can miraculously be combined with the warmth of being at last at home in the ‘Land meiner Wahl’. In that dream the pain of having to distance oneself

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from that which one loves, and the rift thus created within the self, would finally be healed. At the end the ice is broken, the barriers are down: ‘Einen fremden Körper berühren. Ein Wagnis’ (VN 147). Significantly, the text moves from the ‘ich’and ‘er’ of its penultimate paragraph to the ‘wir’ and the ‘sich’ (in the sense of ‘each other’) of the final one. Leonora has dared to break out of her icy solitariness; all the divisions, demarcations and power struggles are over: ‘eine Grenze ist nicht auszumachen […] es gibt keine Teile. So schlafen wir ein’ (VN 148). The ending that Moníková has written seems to suggest that return and reintegration exercise a powerful pull upon the exile. In the Masada episode in chapter 4 Leonora wonders whether the heroic, principled stand is really worth it. Though it is an inexact fit, we may see the relations between the Jews and the Romans as an analogy for that between the Czechs and their occupiers: ‘Es gab Zweifler. Nicht alle wollten sterben […] die römische Sklaverei war nicht grausamer als das Zusammenleben und Sterben mit den Stammesgenossen’ (VN 76) Was the ideological stand, death rather than slavery, exile rather than shame, really the right choice? Interestingly, the doubters and consequent survivors are found among the women. For there is no evidence that the ‘people’ have changed. It is rather that Thomas’ friendliness reveals within the neighbours a warmth that Leonora had failed to find. Might this be a kind of concession that in the end the people, simply by being there and living their lives through history, enjoy a unassailable power that the ‘pedagogue’ cannot challenge? As Kafka says, in his final story too, das Volk, ruhig, ohne sichtbare Enttäuschung, herrisch, eine in sich ruhende Masse, die förmlich, auch wenn der Anschein dagegen spricht, Geschenke nur geben, niemals empfangen kann, […] dieses Volk zieht weiter seines Weges.52

The ambiguity of the relationship between Josephine and the ‘Volk der Mäuse’ not inaptly reflects that between Leonora and her people – and Moníková’s with hers. Perhaps it is appropriate to return to the biographical dimension – F. C. Delius has said that Verklärte Nacht is, with Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, ‘das persönlichste Buch’.53 This work, contrary to so much that Moníková said in speeches and essays, may perhaps be seen as a courageous act of self-scrutiny, as a confession of the cost in personal terms of the principled, at times embattled, way in which she had lived her life and as an admission of an otherwise unadmitted impulse for oneness.54 Such a reading in no way diminishes her status or one’s admiration for her

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courage; rather it impels one to feel that she deserves a good deal more of her ‘Nachlebenden’ than the ‘Nachsicht’ that Brecht asked of his ‘Nachgeborenen’.

Notes 1

‘Where [is] my homeland?’, the title of the Czechoslovak – and now the Czech Republic’s – national anthem, referred to by Moníková in Treibeis (T 101) and Verklärte Nacht (VN 84). Written by František Skroup (1801-1862) with lyrics written by Josef Kajetán Tyl (1808-1856), it was first performed publicly in Tyl’s farce Fidlovaþka and was officially recognised as the national anthem in 1919.

2

Margaret Littler discusses this theme in Margaret Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation: The City in the Novels of Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, in Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Müller, University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998, 36-56 (here 42). 3

Moníková’s brother recalls that she herself worked as a student on the Prague trams in the summer, even identifying the precise tram-route depicted in Eine Schädigung. See Josef Moník, ‘Meine Schwester, meine Mutter und einige Tiere’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], 143-51. 4

See Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation’, 41-43.

5

The notion of a population complicit in its own repression echoes Moníková’s reading of Kafka’s Das Schloss, in ‘Das Schloß als Diskurs’ (SAW 69-83): ‘Die ganze verwucherte Hierarchie des Schlosses basiert auf der mentalen Zustimmung des Dorfes’ (SAW 72). She sees the Castle as ‘eine kollektive Projektion des Dorfes, sein einheitlicher Diskurs, sein unerschütterlicher Überbau’ (SAW 72). 6

Helga Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 489-506. 7

Though not strictly admissible in support of an interpretation, the details of Moníková’s life seem to confirm this conclusion. She left Czechoslovakia for Germany in 1971 after the ‘rape’ of her homeland and her city by the Warsaw Pact forces in 1968. As with Jana, these political considerations were linked to dissatisfaction with the position and treatment of women. In 1990, Moníková wrote in ‘Semiaride Landschaft mit Küste. Neues Verhältnis Ost – West’ (PF 18-29): ‘Nachträglich wird mir klar, daß ich das Land verlassen habe nicht wegen der

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allgemeinen politischen Unterdrückung, der konnte man sich weitgehend entziehen, sondern wegen der allumfassenden Diskriminierung von Frauen’ (PF 21). The word ‘nachträglich’ may indicate, however, that a more immediate reason was despair at the lack of resistance on the part of her compatriots as the process of ‘normalisation’ set in after 1968. There was also a purely private reason – that her husband was a German citizen living in Germany, a state of affairs then not welcome to the new regime in Prague – see Sibylle Cramer, Jürg Laederach and Hajo Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 119 (1991), 184-206 (here 184). 8

Quoted in Joseph P. Zacek, ‘Nationalism in Czechoslovakia’, in Peter F. Sugar and Ivo John Lederer, eds., Nationalism in Eastern Europe, University of Washington Press: Seattle, 1969, 166-206 (here 179). 9

Zacek, ‘Nationalism in Czechoslovakia’, 169.

10

Zacek, ‘Nationalism in Czechoslovakia’, 172.

11

Yet an anti-German note was present in Masaryk’s thinking for all that. Roman Szporluk quotes him as saying: ‘The evil of a universal acquaintance with German is assuredly a threat to us’, and ‘our goal must be to rid ourselves of it all along the line’, Roman Szporluk, The Political Thought of Thomas G. Masaryk, Columbia University Press: Boulder, 1981, 91. Masaryk’s fear of German domination is reflected in the contradictory nature of the Czechoslovakian state as established in 1918: with borders defined by history but the character of the state defined in terms of nation, leaving the German-speaking part of the population in the position of a minority, with fateful results. 12

Ernest Gellner, ‘The Price of Velvet: Tomáš Masaryk and Vaclav Havel’, in Ernest Gellner, Encounters with Nationalism, Blackwell: Oxford, 1994, 114-29 (here 116).

13

Gellner, ‘The Price of Velvet’, 122-23. It is interesting also, in this context, to read in the same volume Gellner’s account of the critique of Masaryk by the Czech philosopher Jan Patoþka, a founder of Charta 77, who, perhaps not coincidentally, is referred to by Moníková in the opening pages of Verklärte Nacht, Ernest Gellner, ‘Reborn from Below: The Forgotten Beginnings of the Czech National Revival’, in Encounters with Nationalism, 130-44 (esp. 140-44).

14

Homi K. Bhabha, ‘DissemiNation: Time, Narrative, and the Margins of the Modern Nation’, in Homi K. Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration, Routledge: London, 1990, 291-322 (here 297).

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157

Bhabha, ‘DissemiNation’, 300, 298, 300.

16

Abdul J. JanMohamed, ‘The Specular Border Intellectual’, in Michael Sprinker, ed., Edward Said: A Critical Reader, Blackwell: Oxford 1992, 96-120 (here 101).

17

It might be argued that Moníková’s narration of periods of Czech history in Treibeis, published after the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989, could be seen as an attempt to counteract the crisis of ‘collective memory’ in Central Europe in the years after 1989 – see Richard Espenshade, ‘Remembering to Forget: Memory, History, National Identity in Postwar East-Central Europe’, Representations, 49 (Winter 1995), 72-96 – but it is hard to see how a text written in German and published in Germany might have contributed to the process of remembering and forgetting in Czechoslovakia.

18

Prantl contrasts sharply with true ‘immigrants’ in JanMohamed’s sense, of which the Czech settlers in the USA, with their nostalgic folklore, are good examples (T 100-01).

19

Edward Said, Reflections on Exile, Granta Books: London, 2001, 185.

20

But see Beth Linklater’s discussion in ‘“Philomela's Revenge”: Challenges to Rape in Recent Writing in German’, German Life & Letters, 54/3 (2001), 253-71.

21

Bhabha, ‘DissemiNation’, 300.

22

This motif also occurs in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin: ‘Kein Ausweg aus dieser Vereisung, aus der Erstarrung, keine Geste des Widerstands’ (P 78). For a discussion of it in that work, see Ulrike Vedder, ‘Die Intensität des Polarsommers: Zu Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 41 (1994), 15-17.

23

Said, Reflections on Exile, 182.

24

Francine dreams of her husband contemplating suicide by jumping from a bridge; though she will not say ‘den einzig wahren Satz […] daß ich ohne ihn tatsächlich nicht leben kann’ (P 138), she jumps too and takes hold of him: ‘umarme seine Schultern und falle mit, schwebe leicht und glücklich, schwerelos, es kann uns nichts passieren, wir werden ewig leben’ (P 138).

25

Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 202.

26

Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 201.

158

27

Graham Jackman

Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 202.

28

Edward Said, ‘Intellectual Exile: Expatriates and Marginals’, in Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubi, eds, The Edward Said Reader, Granta Books: London, 2001, 368381. Lukács’ phrase comes from Georg Lukács, Die Theorie des Romans, Luchterhand: Neuwied, 1965, 35. 29

Said, Reflections on Exile, 184, 186.

30

‘Für mich war Prag immer eine eminent europäische Stadt […]. Ich war nie anderswo, als ich in Prag war’, Moníková in Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 193.

31

Libuše Moníková in interview with Petr Kyncl, ‘Spisovatelství je vražedné povolání’, Týden, 5/7 (9 February 1998), 52-56, translated in this volume as ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, by Ilona Bílková, Graham Jackman and David Short, here 35. 32

Quoted by Said in Reflections on Exile, 183.

33

JanMohamed, ‘The Specular Border Intellectual’, both 97.

34

One is reminded of Edward Said’s comment on Adorno as paradigmatic exile: ‘Adorno’s reflections are informed by the belief that the only home truly available now, though fragile and vulnerable, is in writing’, Said, Reflections on Exile, 184.

35

Moníková, ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 32.

36

Moníková, ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 34.

37

Moníková, ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 36.

38

Moníková, ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 32.

39

Moníková, ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 36.

40

Bertolt Brecht, Ausgewählte Gedichte, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1964, 56-58 (here 58).

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41

Moníková is not happy with the use of this term when applied to her work by Sibylle Cramer: ‘Ich bin etwas allergisch gegen das Wort “postmodern”, ich verstehe es nicht genau. Da es mir nichts erklärt, meide ich den Ausdruck’, Cramer, Laederach and Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, 194.

42

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, revised edn, Verso: London, 1991.

43

Bhabha, ‘DissemiNation’, both 297.

44

This passage appears to echo remarks made by Moníková to her friend Erica Pedretti and quoted by the latter in her ‘“Das Leben ist seltsam, vielseitig und lustig”: Für Libuše Moníková’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 554-60 (here 57).

45

Though hardly in the ‘heroic’ sense of Rosi Braidotti’s ‘nomadic subject’. See Rosi Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory, Columbia University Press: New York, 1994 and Margaret Littler’s comments in Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation’.

46

This Latin phrase frequently adorns ancient sundials, clocks and the like.

47

The same notions recur in the Leni Riefenstahl passage and in Leonora’s dream of herself as Hatshepsut, the proud ruler who, like Francine’s image of Libuše, is a powerful woman, accomplishing much for her people, but who ends up in a kind of living death as a mummy, hollow within and disguised by a golden mask without – while already the monuments to her proud achievements are being erased by her successor (VN 117-20).

48

Šarka is the symbol of the ‘Mädchenkrieg’ which ends with the final assertion of male dominance by PĜemysl, Libuše’s husband (VN 117).

49

Szporluk, The Political Thought of Thomas G. Masaryk, 99.

50

As Moníková also does in ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 100-120 and in the essay ‘Zwetschgen’ in Prager Fenster (PF 7290).

51

JanMohamed, ‘The Specular Border Intellectual’, 97.

52

Franz Kafka, ‘Josephine die Sängerin, oder das Volk der Mäuse’, in Franz Kafka,

160

Graham Jackman

Sämtliche Erzählungen, ed. by Paul Raabe, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag: Frankfurt/Main, 1970, 172-185 (here 185). 53

Friedrich Christian Delius, ‘Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 48-53 (here 49). See also the version of Delius’s address in this volume, 24.

54

As far as I am aware, Verklärte Nacht was completed before the onset of the illness that brought Moníková’s all-too early death in 1998, so the temptation to view it as some kind of wish for reconciliation in the face of her end can be set aside.

Valentina Glajar ‘Die wunde Naht der Grenze’:1 Czechs and Germans in Libuše Moníková’s Treibeis and Verklärte Nacht and Erica Pedretti’s Engste Heimat This essay examines the representations of the Sudeten German-Czech conflict in texts by Libuše Moníková and Erica Pedretti as contrapuntal historiographies that address overlapping cultural territories based on the centuries-long coexistence of Czechs and Germans. As attempts at reconciliation between Czechs and Germans, Moníková’s and Pedretti’s narratives offer alternative perspectives to the stereotypical images of Czechs as passive victims and Sudeten Germans as perpetrators. Instead of giving all those who betrayed this state a proper trial, we drove them out of the country and punished them with the kind of retribution that went beyond the rule of law. That was not punishment. It was revenge. Moreover, we did not expel these people on the basis of demonstrable individual guilt, but simply because they belonged to a certain nation. And thus, on the assumption that we were clearing the way for historical justice, we hurt many innocent people, most of all women and children.2

In December 1996, more than half a century after Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939 and the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans in 1945, Czechs and Germans finally agreed a bilateral pact on wartime abuses. The Germans apologised for Hitler’s invasion and the subsequent crimes committed by the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, and in turn, the Czechs expressed regret for the expulsion and expropriation of many innocent Sudeten Germans. The declaration, however, provided the expelled with no claim to compensation, which Sudeten Germans living in Bavaria condemned loudly. On the other hand, Czechs view Hitler’s invasion as an enormous tragedy for their country and, as stated in the document, the Nazi violence toward Czechs as preparing the ground for the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. In view of the negotiations regarding the European Union’s expansion to the East, the Beneš decrees of 1945, which were at the core of the Sudeten Germans’ expulsion and expropriation, came under fire again and threatened to hold up Czech entry into the European Union. In spite of political negotiations and agreements, neither Czechs nor Sudeten Germans have come to terms with the symbiosis of political

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events that shattered their lives. In my essay, I discuss the longstanding conflict between Czechs and Germans that resonates in the contrasting historiographies reflected in novels by Libuše Moníková (1945-1998) and Erica Pedretti (b. 1930), which draw on aspects of their respective authors’ autobiographies. Moníková, the Czech-born author, addresses Czechoslovakia’s occupation by Nazi Germany, whereas the MoravianGerman Pedretti exposes the brutal post-World War II retaliation against the Sudeten Germans. In presenting their respective sides of the story, the authors shift the focus from the collective to the individual as they deliver personal fictions deeply coloured by politics and history. I argue that the representations of historical events in texts by Moníková and Pedretti are not contradictory; rather, they are contrapuntal in the Saidian sense, as they address overlapping cultural territories based on the centuries-long coexistence of two peoples under evolving political regimes. What Edward Said claims in Culture and Imperialism applies to both Moníková and Pedretti, and their approach to the Czech-Sudeten German conflict: [W]e must be able to think through and interpret together experiences that are discrepant, each with its particular agenda and pace of development, its own internal formation, its internal coherence and system of external relationships, all of them coexisting and interacting with each other.3

As attempts at reconciliation between Czechs and Germans, Moníková and Pedretti’s texts offer alternative perspectives to both German and Czech ‘official’ versions of history. Moníková challenges the Czech position regarding the expulsion in acknowledging the fact that in 1945, little attempt was made to differentiate between Germans and Nazis.4 At the same time, her characters in Treibeis inform the reader about the Sudeten German involvement with National Socialism and the eagerness of many Germans to betray the Czechoslovak state. On the other hand, Pedretti’s characters in Engste Heimat (1995) represent Sudeten Germans who resisted the Nazis in Czechoslovakia, but nevertheless shared the fate of Nazi collaborators: expulsion and expropriation. Persecuted by Nazis or Nazi supporters during the protectorate years and by the Czech post-war regime, these characters experience a double victimisation: initially for their political convictions, and subsequently for their German ethnicity. In her historicist approach, Moníková critically highlights the presence of the past in everyday life and in the consciousness of Czechs at home or abroad by revisiting tragic periods in the history of her country. As Hayden White claims, ‘[t]he greatest historians have always dealt with

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those events in the histories of their cultures which are “traumatic” in nature and the meaning of which is either problematical or overdetermined in the significance that they still have for the current life’.5 Moníková was no historian, but she was certainly determined to keep history alive, especially the sore points in the history of her country, many of which took place in a year ending in ‘8’: 1918, 1938, 1948 and 1968.6 Furthermore, Moníková had clear standards for representing factual events: ‘Die Daten und Fakten müssen stimmen’.7 In comparing fictional and historical narratives, White argues that ‘the aim of the writer of a novel must be the same as that of the writer of a history. Both wish to provide a verbal image of “reality”’.8 Moníková’s aim, as she explains in an interview with Helga Braunbeck, is best illustrated in her novel Treibeis (1992). Rather than providing a logical chronology, the characters relate individual and selective perspectives on historical events, often in an ironic and sometimes humorous tone: ‘Das Tragische und das Komische, das geht so Hand in Hand – das ist der Moment, der mich an Geschichte interessiert’.9 Pedretti, on the other hand, captures in her novel what historical narratives may never accomplish: the intensity of suffering and joy. Like Moníková, Pedretti believes that successive political regimes and their discourses of power have rearranged the history of their homeland according to new ideologies, thereby creating pseudo-historical narratives. Both authors give contrasting views of historical events by providing ‘a verbal image’ of individual stories caught up in metahistories. Historically, the so-called ‘Sudetenfrage’ generally denotes the complex relationship between Czechs and Sudeten Germans after 1918, when Czechoslovakia was declared an independent nation-state and Sudeten Germans became an ethnic minority within the territory. After the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, Sudeten Germans argued for their right to self-determination, which, despite it being handed to other ethnic groups, was denied them. On 28 October 1918, the Národní Vybor (National Assembly) declared Czechoslovakia an independent national state in accordance with the post-war peace settlement, disregarding the Sudeten Germans’ demand for a referendum. In turn, on 29 October 1918, the Sudeten Germans declared German-speaking Bohemia and Moravia part of German-Austria. The Czechs refused to negotiate with the Sudeten Germans and occupied the German regions in November and December 1918. The Germans in Bohemia and Moravia did not want to relinquish their status as a politically and socially dominant minority for that of being

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just one minority among many, including Magyars, Jews, Poles, Roma, Romanians, Serbs and Croats. The Czechs, previously the underprivileged majority, had turned the tables on those whom they viewed as their oppressors. As Radomír Luža argues, the Sudeten Germans’ world ‘had disintegrated, and they looked for a new scale of values that would help them against what they believed to be national humiliation and injustice’.10 The Sudeten Germans’ frustration at the disintegration of the Habsburg Empire and the outcome of the peace treaties resulted in violent demonstrations. On 4 March 1919, Czech soldiers shot forty Sudeten German demonstrators in the town of Most.11 While Luža claims that the demonstrators were shot in direct retaliation for the Sudeten Germans’ repeated attacks on the Czechoslovak Army barracks,12 Ferdinand Seibt explains that the newly founded Czech government considered any type of German resistance illegal, and that after this crisis many Sudeten Germans felt a reconciliation between Czechs and Germans would be impossible.13 In the 1930s, the new nationalist political orientation in Germany found fertile ground in the Sudetenland, deepening the division between Czechs and Sudeten Germans. In addition, the economic depression of the 1930s had a direct impact on the Germans because they were engaged in light industry, such as textiles and glass. Nationalist propaganda combined with the economic crisis persuaded the German working class to vote for the extreme German nationalists led by Konrad Henlein.14 As a result, in 1935 Henlein’s Sudeten German Party won the second largest vote in the Czechoslovak Republic. The Munich Agreement of 1938, in which Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain decided that Czechoslovakia should cede the Sudetenland to Germany, along with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, ended any hope of reconciliation between Czechs and Sudeten Germans.15 Henlein’s Sudeten German party took eighty-six percent of the German vote in local elections of 1938.16 Many Sudeten Germans had embraced Henlein’s party because they felt their ‘Germanness’ was being threatened in the Czech nation state and they were unwilling to accept being ruled by Czechs, who had long been the underprivileged majority. Hitler, of course, could conveniently apply his theory of Lebensraum in the Czech case, because he felt that in 1918 Sudeten Germans had been denied the right of self-determination.17 Hitler decided to solve the political and historical situation in Bohemia and Moravia by giving the Sudetenland to Sudeten Germans.18 The Nazi subjugation that followed ranged from plans for the evacuation and destruction of the Czech population, to the actual extermination of entire

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villages. Lidice, for example, was destroyed in retaliation for the Czech assassination of ‘Reichsprotektor’ Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.19 In view of these tragic events, Czechs had no trouble justifying the expulsion of more than three million Sudeten Germans in 1945. Finding a just explanation for the brutality entailed in this expulsion was another story. Victims and perpetrators alike were collectively considered traitors and punished accordingly. In the first chaotic and brutal months of the expulsion, prior to the Potsdam Agreement, some Czechs blindly accused every Sudeten German of having collaborated with the Nazis in an attempt to destroy the Czech nation. The plans for the expulsion were designed by the Czech president in exile, Edvard Beneš, and were executed by the Czechs and Russians with the consent of the Allies.20 Unfortunately for the Sudeten German anti-fascists, little effort was made on the Czech side to differentiate between Germans and Nazis. In view of this longstanding conflict that was officially ‘solved’ in 1996, Moníková’s position as a Czech-born writer living and writing in Germany constitutes a significant aspect of her career. As Moníková herself asserted, her entire literary output, essays and novels alike, has a political slant. Her decision to write in German represented a challenge to definitions of ‘German literature’. In an interview with Stephanie Schild for the Münchner Merkur, Moníková challenged Germanisten with the following statement: ‘Ich bin Tschechin und gleichzeitig deutsche Schriftstellerin. Das ist ein Widerspruch, mit dem ich leben muß, mit dem sich die Germanisten auseinandersetzen müssen’.21 German reviewers did not always rise to the challenge. Critics such as Anna Jonas pointed out Moníková’s foreignness and what they felt was her inadequate use of German: ‘Libuše Moníková ist Tschechin, Deutsch ist eine Fremdsprache für sie, die sie sehr gut, wenn auch nicht perfekt beherrscht’.22 Jonas did not appreciate the author’s innovative use of language, inspired by Arno Schmidt; she felt that Moníková’s peculiar German formulations indicated only that she was a foreigner. The contradiction, however, lies not so much between the author’s native and literary languages; rather, it is grounded in history and culture and is reflected in most of Moníková’s writings. Because the twentieth century was for many a time of exile, displacement, expatriation and emigration, many writers adopted non-native languages to convey their literary medium: Eugene Ionesco and Emil Cioran, for example, were Romanians, and neither of them considered writing in French a political or cultural contradiction. In Moníková’s case, however, the unresolved

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historical conflict between Czechs and Germans played a significant role in her life and writing. The experience of 1938 was passed on to her by her parents; in school she learned a pseudo-historical version of events that was, for the most part, tainted by communist ideology. Moníková, as was the case with her literary alter egos, grew up with the image of Germans as Nazis who destroyed her country and killed thousands of Czechs and Jews. In her essay ‘Feindbilder’, she explains: [I]ch bekam im Mutterleib keine Abwehrstoffe gegen die später erworbene Angst vor den Deutschen, durch Schule, Filme, Bilder, Bücher. Noch mit sechs, sieben Jahren wachte ich schweissgebadet aus Alpträumen auf, daß man mich in ein KZ verschleppen würde. (PF 125)

In the light of this indoctrination, Moníková’s choice of Germany as her country of self-imposed exile, German as her literary language, and Germans as her projected readers was a clear political statement on the part of a Czech national. Although written in German, Moníková’s novels are mostly set outside Germany and address the historical events that helped shape Czech national identity. Moníková’s preoccupation with history in her novels was not always positively received. Karin Reschke, for example, considers that the extensive historical discussions in Treibeis take the interest away from the characters: Leider verschwinden Prantl und Karla oft hinter den überwältigenden geschichtlichen Ereignissen. Die vielfach reflektiert und mit verteilten Rollen vorgetragenen Referate mit Geschichtsüberblick decken die Erzählfiguren.23

Although Reschke’s criticism may be in part justified, she ignores the fact that history is a human construct, and that no matter how monumental, events influence individual and collective identities, and in that respect alone they deserve the attention of literary texts. These intense dialogues, which at times resemble juxtaposed monologues, illustrate a desire to expose pseudo-history and to reflect on the impact that historical events have on individual lives. Iris Radisch, on the other hand, applauds Moníková’s attempt to render history from the perspective of the defeated and claims that literature can only engage with history from this perspective.24 Moníková not only enriches historical accounts by giving the underprivileged a voice; she critically and ironically rethinks the past by challenging existing versions of history. But her fictions are not historical novels in any conventional sense. How, then, does she approach history? How does she weave history into a fictional whole so believably and recognisably?

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Does Moníková create ‘historiographic metafictions’, as Linda Hutcheon defines the postmodern engagement with history? The personal, autobiographical and historical come to life in Moníková’s texts. At the same time she documents political oppression with the scholarly rigour of a scientist examining theories of Inuit life in Greenland or of the Siberian taiga. Synchronically or diachronically, she takes her characters to different places and times by creating a rhetoric of cultural geography and history. Her engagement with the past is indeed, as Hutcheon defines ‘historiographic metafictions’, ‘always a critical reworking, never a nostalgic “return”’.25 In reviewing the history of her country, Moníková addresses the historical relationship between small nations and empires or superpowers such as Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia/the Soviet Union.26 In her essay ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, for example, the author explains the gradual infiltration of Germans into the Bohemian lands over the centuries as an abuse of Czech hospitality by the Germans: Das Mißtrauen den Deutschen gegenüber hatte jahrhundertealte Wurzeln, zu oft kam der Nachbar ins Haus, ohne anzuklopfen, und blieb. Die Chance, es zusammen besser zu machen, wurde vertan. Auch 27 deshalb ist München ein solches Desaster.

Moníková’s view is reminiscent of Masaryk’s famous (or infamous) speech in which he referred to Germans living in Czechoslovakia in 1918 as ‘colonists’ and immigrants.28 Sudeten Germans constitute a sore point in Czech-German history, a fact reflected in Moníková’s essay. Like most Czechs, she feels the Sudeten Germans betrayed any hope of peaceful coexistence first with their actions in 1918, and later through their collaboration with Nazi Germany in destroying the First Czechoslovak Republic. Moreover, Moníková reminds her readers of the far-reaching consequences of the Munich Treaty: ‘Ohne die deutsche Okkupation der Tschekoslowakei wäre die russische von 1968 nicht denkbar’.29 Memories of the protectorate years come to life again in the novel Treibeis as the narrative voices engage in a dialogue regarding 1938 and the subsequent destruction of the First Czechoslovak Republic. Prantl and Karla, both Czech exiles, recount their personal and official versions of events, while at the same time informing each other and the reader. Both protagonists experience the urge to make their individual stories known, partly because they want to dismiss the stereotypical image of Czechs as little Švejks,30 and also to express their views on ‘real’ and ‘pseudo’ history. As they recall the events that shaped the national identity of their country, it becomes evident to what degree history has intruded into their

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lives and identities. Although Karla was born after 1945, she has inherited the historical trauma of the Nazi protectorate. As she prepares to leave Czechoslovakia for Germany after 1968, Karla decides to lose her virginity to a Czech, ‘Ich schätzte den Jungen nicht, aber ich wollte die Tschechoslowakei nicht als Jungfrau verlassen, das heißt, ich wollte, wenn schon, nicht in Deutschland [...], verstehst du?’ (T 140). Prantl understands Karla’s decision all too well, as he experienced the destruction of the First Czechoslovak Republic in 1938. Karla’s action becomes an individual act of resistance, almost a patriotic duty. Similarly, Prantl refuses a British passport after World War II because Great Britain betrayed his country in 1938. He explains: ‘München ist mir in den Knochen geblieben’ (T 183). In Treibeis, the author juxtaposes stories of heroism with images of traitors.31 On the one hand, she allows Prantl, a parachute jumper who fought for the liberation of Czechoslovakia from the Nazi occupation, to recount stories of incredible Czech (and Slovak) heroism that led to Heydrich’s assassination in 1942. On the other hand, she bluntly accuses Czechs of cowardice and lack of strength in allowing Hitler to take over their country without a fight. Heroes like Prantl were discouraged by the weakness of their fellow Czechs, Die Adressen waren meist taub, die Menschen ängstlich, weggezogen, verschleppt, getötet, zu Kollaborateuren geworden. […] Es gab Fälle, daß Parachutisten aufgegeben hatten, ihre Aufgaben nicht weiter verfolgten, weil sie für solche Landsleute nicht mehr ihr Leben einsetzen wollten. (T 160)

This passage portrays the political circumstances that forced Czechs into betraying their country and alludes to the horror of the Nazi regime in Czechoslovakia. Considering the fact that eighty-five percent of the Sudeten German population supported the Nazis’ takeover of Czechoslovakia, it is hardly surprising that many Czechs felt the Sudeten Germans shared the responsibility for Nazi crimes. Czechs could hardly forget the terror of daily life in the Nazi-controlled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia: daily arrests, deportations to concentration camps and executions.32 As Prantl informs Karla in Treibeis, the assassination of Heydrich was followed by more deportations and the massacres of Lidice and Lezáky, where the entire village populations were executed (in the case of the men) or (in the case of the women and children) deported to concentration camps: ‘Heydrichs Begräbnis wurde doppelt veranstaltet, in Prag und in Berlin. Ins Grab bekam er zwei Dörfer und dreizehnhundert Ermorderte mit. Und das Massaker ging weiter’ (T 165).33

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Interestingly enough, the tragedy suffered by the Czech people under the Nazi regime is barely addressed in German-language texts, which tend to dwell on the suffering of the German people. Germanlanguage novelists such as Erica Pedretti and her Moravian compatriot, Ilse Tielsch (both expelled as young teenagers), shift the focus from the collective to the individual, and from the broader picture of the Sudeten German involvement with Nazi Germany and their subsequent expulsion to the minute details of personal lives disrupted by historical events.34 The expulsion is not a popular topic in contemporary Czech literature either. As Alená Wagnerová explains, ‘[d]ie politische Konjunktur [nach 1989], die das sudetendeutsch-tschechische Thema erfuhr, erwies sich für seine literarische Darstellung eher abträglich’.35 It might have been the political and historical negotiations preceding the 1996 German-Czech agreement that inspired Moníková to tackle this sensitive topic in her last completed novel, Verklärte Nacht (1996). Compared to Treibeis, Verklärte Nacht entails fewer historical discussions; the conflict is rather illustrated through the relationship between the main characters, the Czech exile Leonora Marty and the (Sudeten) German Thomas Asperger. Their problematic love story, which Moníková called ‘eine peinliche Begegnung, aus der eine peinliche Liebesgeschichte wird’,36 develops in post-1989 Prague. The novel reflects the perspectives of the post-war generation of Czechs and Sudeten Germans who could create a critical and ironic distance from the actual events. Asperger, for example, does not avoid Leonora’s provocative statements regarding the involvement of his family during World War II: ‘Also lauter Heilige oder Kopfverletzte in Ihrer Familie. Keiner wusste von etwas.’ ‘Doch, meine deutsche Großmutter war eine stramme NSFrauenschaftlerin, sie war stolz darauf, vom Dienstmädchen hat sie es zum Hauswart gebracht, und die Nachbarn grüßten sie endlich’. (VN 138-39)

He does, however, also address the fate of social democrats (like his father) who were also expelled in 1945. No doubt politics plays a significant role in the novel’s positive, though unresolved, ending, especially considering the bilateral accord signed by Germany and the Czech Republic that same year. The union between Leonora and Thomas signals, however, a possible reconciliation between Czechs and Sudeten Germans on a personal level as well. There is little room for reconciliation in Erica Pedretti’s novel Engste Heimat (1995). The characters are all represented as victims of

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historical circumstances. The personal story of Anna, the female narrator and Pedretti’s alter ego, is relieved of any guilt or blame that could be ascribed to her or to any of the other characters. This indiscriminate generalisation of victimhood illustrates Pedretti’s attempt to provide Sudeten Germans with a more sympathetic and positive identity. As historian Ferdinand Seibt (himself an expelled Sudeten German) explains, Sudeten Germans have avoided dealing with the perpetrators among their countrymen: Sie vermögen das Wörtchen ‘Wir’ nur auf eine Leidensgemeinschaft anzuwenden. Die freilich weit schwierigere Tätergemeinschaft zu rekonstruieren erscheint ihnen unmöglich, unglaublich, vielleicht unerträglich.37

Pedretti’s meticulous descriptions of things, places and even her grandmother’s recipes effectively avoid shedding light on the larger political and historical picture, which otherwise would have allowed her text to address this ‘schwierige Tätergemeinschaft’, rather than focus exclusively on the ‘Leidensgemeinschaft’. In Engste Heimat, however, Pedretti exposes the practices of the post-war Czechoslovak regime that contradict the ‘official’ version of the expulsion. Pedretti creates characters who offer an alternative to the stereotypical picture of the Sudeten Germans as Nazi supporters and as traitors of the first Czechoslovak Republic. Gregor, Anna’s uncle, for example, is portrayed as representative of Sudeten German victims. Gregor’s character and his story become a vehicle for uncovering overlooked aspects of the history of the expulsion of the German minority from Czechoslovakia. He is an anti-fascist who fights in the French resistance and the Czech exile army, but cannot save his parents from expulsion because, as his former army comrades apologetically explain, he is German. Although Gregor might seem to be an extreme example of Sudeten German anti-Nazism, his life elucidates the Czechs’ undifferentiated treatment of Sudeten Germans at the end of World War Two. Historically, however, the situation of the anti-fascist Sudeten Germans was, in theory if not in practice, different from that of the Nazi collaborators: German anti-fascists were officially excluded from the ‘transfer’ and could decide between staying and emigrating.38 The presidential decrees of 19 May 1945, 21 June 1945 and 25 October 1945 clearly stated that those Germans who ‘had either participated actively in the struggle against Nazism or suffered under Nazi terror could apply for Czechoslovak citizenship’.39 Regaining Czechoslovak citizenship also

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implied exemption from expulsion and expropriation. Given the negative propaganda and the fact that public opinion was against them, however, the Sudeten German anti-fascists could hardly prove their loyalty to the Czechs. Anna’s father, for example, is not given a chance to prove his loyalty to Czechoslovakia in 1945. He is freed by the Allies from a German prisoner of war camp, but when he gets home, proudly showing ‘[d]ie Farben [des] Heimatlands, Rot-Weiß mit kleinem blauen Dreieck, am Revers’, he is taken prisoner by the Russians and transferred to a Czech camp for Nazi supporters.40 Alfred Bohmann points out, however, that anti-fascists who wanted to remain in Czechoslovakia were resettled in the predominantly Czech regions since exclusively German settlements were by then considered a thing of the past.41 In deciding to stay, Sudeten Germans would have implicitly renounced their German identity and become Czechs. Considering the fact that most members of their community and families had to leave Czechoslovakia, most anti-fascists chose, often unwillingly, to join the expelled Sudeten Germans. Engste Heimat also exposes the cruelty of what was supposed to be a ‘humane and orderly transfer’ of Sudeten Germans at the end of World War II.42 Traumatic scenes of rape and helplessness stand out in Anna’s memories of her childhood: Wir kennen das schon, jedes Kind kennt doch das entsetzliche Kreischen, nicht nur nachts und nicht nur aus den Häusern, Straßenecken, Gebüsch, allerorts, wenn die Soldaten ohne Liebe hungrig gierig gewaltsam über die verschleppten Frauen herfallen.43

The narrator gives powerful expression to the scenes of rape, viewed from the perspective of the children who are the most undeserving victims of the war and the expulsion. The contrast between the active subjects and the passive objects of rape is expressed through the choice of adjectives. The absence of commas in the description of the soldiers, ‘ohne Liebe hungrig gierig gewaltsam’, does not allow the reader to pause, thus heightening the effect of coerced action. The rhythm and alliteration in ‘hungrig gierig gewaltsam’ are broken by the description of the women. In sharp contrast with the soldiers, the women are characterised by the static past participle ‘verschleppt’, which implies not only helplessness, but also lack of freedom. The only resistance is the women’s ‘Kreischen’, which children can hear from everywhere like a horrifying chorus. The narrator’s journey through time and history provides a way to cope with loss and painful memories – it is indeed therapy and Vergangenheitsbewältigung. Anna’s return to Moravia becomes a quest

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for a culture that no longer exists. By revisiting sites of remembrance, what Pierre Nora has named lieux de mémoire,44 she forces herself to confront her past, her lost Heimat, traditions and culture, and to come to terms with who she is, where she belongs and why she had to experience such tragic events. According to Stuart Hall, cultural identity is a matter of ‘becoming’ as well as ‘being’: Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant trans-formation. Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialised past, they are subject to the continuous ‘play’ of history, culture and power […]. [I]dentities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past.45

By revisiting the homeland of her childhood, the narrator is trying to rediscover the coordinates of her identity: her home, her family, her ancestors and her lost childhood. In confronting the past of ethnic Germans – who lived outside Germany or the Third Reich, but were nevertheless deeply influenced by National Socialist politics – Pedretti’s novel also raises questions regarding German identity in the context of Eastern and Central Europe. The complex situation of ethnic Germans who constituted a national minority and were citizens of nation states in Eastern and Central Europe draws attention to aspects of the Nazi past specific to the different regions. The expulsion of three million Sudeten Germans and 3,325,000 Germans from the ‘Recovered Lands’ in Poland and the deportation of an estimated 408,000 Eastern and Central European Germans to Siberian forced labor camps46 were justified on the grounds of the minority Germans’ involvement with National Socialism. German-Romanians, for example, were deported to Siberia in 1944-1945; the last ones returned home in the 1950s when a thriving Germany was just entering NATO. The punishment for Central and Eastern European Germans who might or might not have been involved with Nazi Germany appears to have been far more inhumane, severe and longer lasting than that of Reich Germans in any of the occupied four-power zones. Pedretti’s novel reminds her readers that the common history of Czechs and Sudeten Germans cannot be portrayed in black-and-white terms; rather, it has to acknowledge that Sudeten Germans cannot be equated with Nazis since not all of them supported the Nazi regime.47 Moreover, Pedretti’s novel positions the expulsion in a wider historical and political context. According to Engste Heimat, the expulsion is not necessarily the consequence of the Sudeten Germans’ involvement with

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National Socialism, but rather the result of the troubled relationship between Czechs and Sudeten Germans over many years. The CzechSudeten German conflict is represented in the novel as a reversal of political power: Chauvinismus, Nationalismus, der jahrelang schwelende, dann explodierende Haß, Verachtung und mörderischer Haß auf allen Seiten, von einer Generation zur anderen, von einem Regime zum nächsten Regime weitergegeben.48

Transmitted from generation to generation and reactivated by different regimes, this hatred found its final concrete expression in the expulsion of the German minority population from the Czech territory. Language, culture and social barriers associated with the 1930s Nazi ideology of German (‘Aryan’) supremacy over the Slavic ‘Untermensch’ resulted in betrayal, hatred and victimisation. As drastic as this measure might appear today, the Czech post-World War II regime of Edvard Beneš saw the transfer of the Sudeten Germans to Germany, Austria and Switzerland as the sole answer to the Sudetenfrage and to what Czechs felt was a continuous German threat to Czech national survival. On a personal level, fear and mistrust still exist on both sides although the relationship between Czechs and Germans was officially reestablished in 1996. Like Moníková, Pedretti understands the troubled relationship between Czechs and Germans in the historical context of their centuries-long coexistence. Czechs and Germans alike perpetuate the images of hatred from one generation to the next. The enduring fear of one another explains the remark of a young Czech student visiting Germany in 1997: ‘Es gibt im Unterbewußtsein ein bißchen Angst vor den Deutschen’.49 Both Moníková’s and Pedretti’s texts show how individual stories and national histories intertwine. Pedretti focuses mostly on personal stories and on history inasmuch as it affects her novel’s characters. Moníková foregrounds history and designs characters that fit the historical narrative. Both authors analyse and present points of view that highlight contrapuntal aspects of the common history of Czechs and Germans: Moníková focuses on the Czech national tragedy whereas Pedretti documents the crimes committed by Czechs and Russians during the expulsion. In the end, Moníková is the optimist, as she claims in ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’: ‘Die Unterschiede aufzudröseln, wird noch viel Mühe kosten. Dabei sind sie nicht groß und nicht unüberwindlich’.50 Her optimism is also reflected in Verklärte Nacht, which features a love story between a Czech and a Sudeten German in Prague. Pedretti, on the other

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hand, does not allow for reconciliation; her main character, Gregor the anti-fascist, commits suicide after the war since he cannot cope with the post-1945 world and all the ramifications it has for him and his family. Still, Anna goes back to her homeland to revisit her past: ‘“Ich bin von hier, ich gehöre hierher, wenn ich irgendwohin gehöre. Obwohl ich nicht hier bleiben möchte.” “Vergiß nicht, daß du nicht hier bleiben kannst!”’.51 By focusing on the personal rather than the collective, Pedretti claims that the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia was only partly due to their involvement with Nazi Germany; perhaps the larger role was played by chronic hatred, chauvinism and nationalism on both sides. Moníková meets Pedretti halfway in her apt summarisation of the long-standing conflict between Czechs and Germans in her essay ‘Über eine schwierige Nachbarschaft’, which first appeared in Die Zeit: Deutsche und Tschechen, die wunde Naht der Grenze. Die Atavismen des Mißtrauens, der Angst voneinander reichen weit zurück; jeder historische Zusammenstoß hat sie bestärkt und weitergetragen, an die nächste Generation weitergereicht. Jede Chance, sich näherzukommen, voneinander zu profitieren, wurde durch eingefleischte Feindbilder vertan.52

Notes 1

Libuše Moníková, ‘Über eine schwierige Nachbarschaft’, Die Zeit, 14 March 1997: Feuilleton 13-14.

2

Václav Havel, The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice, trans. by Paul Wilson, Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1997, 23. 3

Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage Books: New York, 1994, 32.

4

‘Man hat etwa nur zögernd anerkannt, daß damals nicht nur Nazis, sondern auch Sozialdemokraten und Antifaschisten abgeschoben wurden’, Moníková in interview with Hans Peter Kunisch, ‘Die Fakten müssen stimmen: Libuše Moníková über das Verhältnis von Politik und Literatur’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9 December 1996.

5

Hayden White, ‘The Historical Text as Literary Artifact’, in Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1985, 81-100 (here 87). 6

See Jürgen Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht – 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968 … Zum Historischen bei Libuše Moníková’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999, 87-98.

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7

175

Kunisch, ‘Die Fakten müssen stimmen’.

8

Hayden White, ‘The Fictions of Factual Representation’, in White, Tropics of Discourse, 121-34 (here 122). 9

Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, Monatshefte 89/4 (1997), 452-67 (here 460-61).

10

Radomír Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, New York University Press: New York, 1964, 29.

11

See Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1998, 169. Luža claims that fifty-four Sudeten Germans were killed, 34.

12

Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 34.

13

See Ferdinand Seibt, Deutschland und die Tschechen, Piper: Munich, 1998, 255.

14

Konrad Henlein (1898-1945) was leader of the Sudeten German Party, ‘SSGruppenführer’, and the ‘Reichsstatthalter’ of the ‘Sudetengau’ during the Nazi era. In 1945, he was captured by the Americans and committed suicide. Ironically, one of Henlein’s grandmothers was of Czech nationality. See Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 66. For an extensive study of Henlein and his political role in the Sudetenland, see Ralf Gebel, ‘Heim ins Reich!’: Konrad Henlein und der Reichsgau Sudetenland (1938-1945), Oldenbourg: Munich, 2000.

15

For a detailed analysis of these events see Peter Glotz, ed., München 1938: Das Ende des alten Europa, Hobbing: Essen, 1990.

16

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 221.

17

As Luža argues, the strongest argument of the Sudeten Germans was that they felt deprived of the right to self-determination; they themselves, however, consistently denied this right to all Slav nationalities, Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 30.

18

According to Luža’s sources, Hitler viewed the Czechs as the very type of the Slav ‘Untermenschen’, Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 49.

19

Lidice provoked an immediate international reaction. See Nicholas G. Balint, Lidice Lives Forever, Europa Books: New York, 1942; P.E.N., Lidice: A Tribute by the Members of the International P.E.N., G. Allen & Unwin: London, 1944; Edna St.

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Vincent Millay, The Murder of Lidice, Harper: New York, 1942. See also Heinrich Mann’s Lidice, Editorial El Libro libre: Mexico city, 1943. 20

The plans for the expulsion of Sudeten Germans were discussed at the Potsdam conference in July-August 1945; Czechoslovak, British, American and Russian officials were present.

21

Stefanie Schild, ‘Zuhause in der Literatur: Libuše Moníková’, Münchner Merkur, 12 December 1996.

22

Anna Jonas, ‘Fliehen oder reden?’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28/29 November 1981.

23

Karin Reschke, ‘Weltbürger: Libuše Moníková’, Freitag, 2 October 1992.

24

Iris Radisch, ‘Die Einseitigkeit des Herzens’, Die Zeit, 25 February 1994, 60.

25

Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, Routledge: New York, 1988, 4. 26

Given the successive imperial conquest of the Czech lands by Austria, Germany and the Soviet Union, Moníková’s texts can be read as postcolonial writings, as Katie Trumpener rightly claims. See Katie Trumpener, ‘Is Female to Nation as Nature is to Culture?’, in Karen Jankowski and Carla Love, eds., Other Germanies, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1997, 99-118 (here 101). For a discussion of Central European culture in the context of postcolonial studies, see Nikola Petkovic, ‘The “Post” in Postcolonial and Postmodern: The Case of East Central Europe’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1996.

27

Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999, 100-20 (here 104).

28

In his message to Parliament on 22 December 1918, Masaryk noted that the Czechs created the Republic and that the Germans had come into the country as colonists. See Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 32. But as Sayer also suggests, Masaryk went to considerable lengths to guarantee minority rights to the Sudeten Germans, Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 56.

29

Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’ in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin (here 103).

30

See Peter Demetz, ‘Die Literaturgeschichte Svejks’, in Werner Wunderlich, ed., Literarische Symbolfiguren: von Prometheus bis Svejk, Haupt: Bern, 1989, 191-205.

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31

Moníková addressed the stories of the parachute jumpers in similar terms in her essay ‘Kirschfeste: Über die Annexion Europas an Böhmen anläßlich des 50. Jahrestages des Münchner Abkommens’, PF 9-17 (here 15-16).

32

Luža claims that the Sudeten Germans’ deep-rooted hatred was evident, for example, in their willingness to watch Czechs being executed: for just RM 3 Germans could purchase tickets to the executions. According to his sources, German women were particularly fond of watching these executions, Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 209. See also Sayer’s discussion of the Nazi persecution of professors and students of the Charles University, Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 224-25.

33

For a historical account of the event, see Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 231-32.

34 Jörg Bernig’s latest novel Niemandszeit (2002) presents a more detached representation of the expulsion by acknowledging the Sudeten Germans’ involvement with Nazi Germany, as well as the cruelty of the Revolutionary Guard during the wild odsun (the Czech term for the ‘transfer’). The historian Tomáš Stanek addresses these chaotic months in his recently translated book Die Verfolgung 1945: Die Stellung der Deutschen in Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien, trans. by Otfrid Pustejovsky and Walter Reichel, Böhlau: Vienna, 2002. 35

Alená Wagnerová, ‘Schauplatz Tschechien: Das Schicksal der Sudetendeutschen: Ein vergessenes Thema der tschechischen Nachkriegsliteratur’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10 July 1998, 43. Wagnerová’s article provides an overview of Czech literature that addresses the Sudeten German expulsion from the 1950s to the 1980s.

36

Katja Moehrle, ‘Peinliche Liebesgeschichte an der Moldau: Libuše Moníková liest im Literaturhaus aus ihrem neuen Buch’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 20 October 1996, Kultur, 30.

37

Seibt, Deutschland und die Tschechen, 396.

38

Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 282.

39

As Luža explains, ‘all Czechoslovak citizens of German nationality had automatically become Reich German citizens at the time of German occupation’, Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 271.

40

Erica Pedretti, Engste Heimat, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1995, 44.

41

Alfred Bohmann, Die Ausweisung der Sudetendeutschen dargestellt am Beispiel der Stadt- und Landkreises Aussig, N. G. Elwert: Marburg, 1955. 42

See Luža, The Transfer of the Sudeten Germans, 281.

178

43

Pedretti, Engste Heimat, 143.

44

See Pierre Nora, Les Lieux de Mémoire, Gallimard: Paris, 1997.

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45

Stuart Hall, ‘Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation’, Framework, 36 (1989), 68-81. 46

See Paul Robert Magocsi, Historical Atlas of East Central Europe, University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 1993, 167.

47

Clearly, stories of resistance existed among the Sudeten German anti-fascists; about fifteen percent of the Sudeten German population opposed Henlein’s pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party and voted for Walter Jaksch’s social democrats who collaborated with Beneš’s Czech exile government. Unfortunately, the Czech post-war government made hardly any effort to differentiate between Jaksch’s social democrats and Henlein’s supporters, between Germans and Nazis. See Hugh and Christopher Seton-Watson, The Making of a New Europe: R. W. Seton-Watson and the Last Years of AustriaHungary, University of Washington Press: Seattle, 1981, 347. Tomáš StanƟk claims that even German-speaking Jews were deported together with the Sudeten-German population. See StanƟk, Verfolgung 1945: Die Stellung der Deutschen in Böhmen, Mähren und Schlesien, Böhlau: Vienna, 2002, 42.

48

Pedretti, Engste Heimat, 156.

49

‘Statt Gespräch nur Geschwafel’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28 August 1997.

50

Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 114.

51

Pedretti, Engste Nacht, 150.

52

Moníková, ‘Über eine schwierige Nachbarschaft’, 13-14.

Brigid Haines “Barren Territory for Grand Narratives”?1 Czech History in the Works of Libuše Moníková This article examines Moníková’s preoccupation with Czech history, presented through allegory and symbol as well as through her protagonists’ struggle to make sense of events. Insofar as Moníková presents Czech history as fractured and continuously subject to reinvention and ‘bricolage’, powerfully symbolised by the restoration work in Die Fassade, she supports Derek Sayer’s view that Czech history is ‘barren territory for grand narratives’. However, her underlying commitment to continuities in Czech history and identity which date from the National Revival in the nineteenth century, indicate that patriotism does have a place in postmodern conceptions of history and subjectivity. The Scandinavians, the Dutch, the English are privileged to have had no important dates since 1945, which has allowed them to live a delightfully null half century. (Milan Kundera)2

Despite Libuše Moníková’s protestation in 1991 that ‘ich war ja nie tschechische Autorin’,3 her novels repeatedly foreground recent and not so recent Czech history by means of both grand and small gestures. Each work makes bold use of a central allegory, metaphor or symbol which encapsulates something of the fate of the Czechs, while her protagonists also wrestle with the traumas induced by twentieth-century Czech history4 and, particularly in the later novels, often seek to make sense of a seemingly senseless past through the recitation of historical facts, the narration of personal histories and an identification with figures drawn frequently from myth. While the grand gesture is often a sweeping diagnosis of a state of affairs that has come to be, and sometimes indicates a way forward, the close entanglement of the protagonists in lived history and their attempts to make sense of the traces of the past in the present show no such simplifying tendencies. Moníková’s first novel, Eine Schädigung (1981), opens with the rape of a woman and invites the reader to understand this violent act as an allegory of the ‘rape’ of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The implicit and simple condemnation of the literal and metaphorical rape is countered by a nuanced detailing of the protagonist’s difficult and precarious attempt to rebuild her identity after the attack. The protagonist of Pavane für eine

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verstorbene Infantin (1983), Moníková’s next novel, takes to her wheelchair, though there is nothing physically wrong with her; the wheelchair symbolises her manifold marginalisation as a woman and as a Czech living in Germany, and, after she has put right some of the slights in Bohemian history, it is cast into a quarry towards the end of the novel in a gesture which repudiates the perceived fatalism of Kafka’s Der Proceß.5 Moníková’s third, longest and most highly acclaimed novel, the picaresque, Švejkian Die Fassade (1987), is organised around an equally striking metaphor, namely the endless, Sisyphean task of restoring the sgraffiti on a Bohemian castle, a task which represents the ongoing, subversive memory work of Czech history at a time (the period of ‘normalisation’ of the 1970s) when official discourses of history allowed no space for organised resistance or personal expression. The protagonists in Die Fassade frequently debate the meanings of events in Czech history, both as they go about recreating, indeed reinventing history in their work on the façade and, in the second part of the novel, when their travels through Siberia cause them to reflect on the relationship between the Soviet Union and their ‘little brothers’, the Czechs. Treibeis (1992) employs the metaphor of drift ice to explore the twentieth-century condition of wandering exile in its particular Czech manifestation, the coldness of ice also symbolising the suspension of feeling common to victims of trauma. Treibeis contributes further to peculiarly Czech debates about the contested meanings and continual reinvention of historical realities; its two protagonists, Prantl and Karla, who left Czechoslovakia after the communist takeover of 1948 and twenty years later after the Prague Spring respectively, seek to make sense of their differing memories of their shared homeland but fail to find common ground. This novel above all shows the intractability of historical facts and personal memories which refuse to remain fixed within shared explanatory narratives. Verklärte Nacht (1996), the last completed novel, set in Prague in the last days of Czechoslovakia (late 1992), is more upbeat. It seeks a resolution of historical tensions between Czechs and Germans and strives towards closure. A work of homecoming and reconciliation, it concludes with a symbolic love affair between a returning Czech exile, Leonora Marty, and a Sudeten German, Thomas Asperger, who continue Prantl and Karla’s discussions on Czech history. By giving a voice to a German whose family was expelled from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War, and indeed presenting him as a more sympathetic character than the

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misanthropic and weary Leonora Marty, Moníková suggests the possibility of healing old wounds. Her final word, however, was not to be ‘transfiguration’ but the more negative and disorientating ‘falling’: the unfinished, posthumously published novel Der Taumel (2000) uses the metaphor of epilepsy, the falling sickness, to explore life under the normalisation of Czechoslovakia in the 1970s. Here the historical discussions are taken up again by Brandl and Halina; the latter speaks for another significant group of the absent in post-war Czechoslovakia, the Jews, for Halina is a survivor, the members of whose family were exterminated in Treblinka. Moníková’s essays and speeches, written for the large part just after the Velvet Revolution, are also published under a title strong in both old and new symbolism: Prager Fenster (1994). This alludes to the act of defenestration which has occurred three times in the nation’s history at times of crisis,6 but with a new, personal gloss: Moníková interprets as a cause of optimism that on her last visit, the people of Prague had all polished their windows (PF 5). Like the fiction, these essays explore traces of Czech history in the continuously evolving present and are much concerned with the place of Prague within Europe. A rape, a wheelchair, the restoration of a castle façade, drift ice, Prague windows, transfiguration, falling: the peculiarity and inventiveness of the images show the complexity and resistance to representation of the history Moníková is trying to convey and also her persistance in returning to the problem from different angles. The chronological and emotional trajectory implied above – from profound shock at the crushing of the Prague Spring via the depression of normalisation and the memory-work of exile to the hopefulness and confusions of post-Velvet Revolution homecoming – betrays the author’s closeness to her material and its autobiographical base, so that her work can be viewed in part as an ongoing response to only partly digested political change. In a previous article, for example, I have argued that her pre-Velvet Revolution works have a firmer sense of purpose than Treibeis and Verklärte Nacht, which respond to the new and uncertain times by looking to the past.7 Inspired throughout her life by Jan Palach and the poignant recollection that she herself was in a cinema only yards away when he set light to himself in January 1969, Moníková accesses history via a trauma which is both deeply personal and also representative of the nation.8 The events of 1968, which reinforced her sense of Czechness,9 are, however, seen as secondary to the primary trauma of the Munich Agreement,

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‘München ist für einen Tschechen ein nationales Trauma, Synonym für Verrat und Schmach’ (PF 81), a dispacement on her part which will be commented on later. Moníková does not apparently write with the aim of overcoming trauma by placing it within an explanatory narrative, for, as someone who grew up under communism, she is suspicious of narratives which seek to present a singular view of history. Rather, she seeks to bear witness and give literary expression to the sense of rupture and bewilderment experienced by survivors of traumatic events. Trauma is played out in the bodies of her protagonists – Jana’s rape, Francine Pallas’s psychosomatic infirmity, Brandl’s epilepsy – and is also expressed through the postmodern, fragmentary aesthetic of the novels, with their use of parataxis, downplaying of plot and undermining of universalising discourses and frames of reference. She often does not seek to subsume the historical data her protagonists rehearse in conversation (especially in Treibeis) into any comprehensive account but to convey their sense of bewilderment. For example, when Karla and Prantl compare their memories of Prague they are forced to admit that the realities they remember do not correspond: ‘Sie gelangen an den Punkt, wo jeder ein anderes Land vor sich hat, das sie Tschechoslowakei nennen, mit schiefem Mund auch “Heimat”’ (T 215). A limited ability to represent the trauma was only enabled at all by the double dislocation conferred by physical and linguistic distance to her homeland: after leaving Czechoslovakia in 1971 at the age of twenty-six with her German husband, Moníková lived in the Federal Republic until her death in 1998; though she visited the Czech Republic annually, she did not return to live after the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989, though she did plan an apartment there. The decision to write in German was taken when the subject matter of Eine Schädigung was too painful to write about in her native Czech; the German language conferred the necessary distance. (A further factor was her entry into a literary tradition to which she felt she belonged as heir to Kafka, also a Czech-speaking Praguer, and soulmate of Arno Schmidt). That Moníková’s final work, Der Taumel, written in the knowledge of her terminal illness, returns to and gives a much more direct presentation than Die Fassade of the bleak period of normalisation after the Soviet crackdown in the 1970s, the period when she herself felt compelled to leave the country, may perhaps be interpreted as a sign that the writing cure was proving effective. While her works frequently convey bewilderment, however, Moníková’s intellectual curiosity and academic training – albeit as a

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Germanist and Anglist rather than a historian – mean that the impulse to comprehend and communicate that grasp on events is always also present. These opposing impulses can be seen in her use sometimes of allegory – with the rape in Eine Schädigung and the love affair in Verklärte Nacht, for example – and sometimes of the more open-ended metaphor and symbol, particularly in Treibeis, Die Fassade and Der Taumel. For while allegory implies the conveying of an understanding from author to reader, metaphor and symbol can be used to articulate something of the ‘Betroffenheit’, disbelief and incomprehension characteristic of victims of trauma by displacing these onto a literary image, while provoking contemplation on abstract ideas such as the nature of history. The tension between didacticism and powerlessness, between emotional engagement and detachment – indeed between allegory and symbol – lies at the heart of Moníková’s project, which is powered by a political desire to counter the official, closed histories of the communist era and also to enlighten her German readership. Writing in German gave her access to the audience whose blind spots about their small and apparently inconsequential neighbour she hoped to address, though abandoning her own language was a controversial, if not unusual, step for a modern Czech writer who remained patriotic: in the three hundred years following the Czech defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, during which Bohemia was ruled from Vienna, Czech as a literary language almost died out, and it was a central plank of policy of the Revivalists to restore and reinvigorate it. In championing the Czech language against the progressive Germanisation of the Czech population they had honourable forbears in the Hussites, who had previously sought to protect the language from the incursion of Latin under the pope.10 To this day it remains crucial to Czech national identity, its fate ‘a barometer of the fate of their nation’.11 Moníková’s entire oeuvre, now sadly complete due to the author’s untimely death in 1998, thus demonstrates a strong ‘Wille zur eigenen Geschichte’,12 a desire to assert, and, in a court perceived as hostile, act as mediator of and advocate for a Czech history which includes not only official and alternative historiographies but also brute facts and lived experience. At the heart of this is the question of what it means to be Czech. Helga Braunbeck has shown convincingly that Moníková’s concept of national identity, influenced in part by her status as an exile and by her gender, is composed of loyalty to the state founded by Tomáš Masaryk in 1918 and also to a much older cultural entity based on

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language which stretches back to the mythological beginnings of Bohemia.13 Moníková repeatedly invokes figures from this time, in particular the founder of Prague, Libuše, from whom, it has been argued, her female protagonists draw strength.14 Where history fails, myth and also literature itself may provide alternative models, and the boundary between these discourses is highly porous. In what follows I wish to show that Moníková is by no means unique in this dual loyalty to a state and a cultural tradition. It is my contention that the two broad impulses in her work – the clearly visible poststructuralist and political desire to counter official histories by allowing space within her literary text for memory, subjective experience and the most diverse material, however confusing and uncontrollable the effect thereby created (history and literature as ‘bricolage’), and also the underlying, modernist, patriotic desire to assert continuities in and state the case for Czech history15 – create a productive tension that reflects current debates in Czech historiography. Barren Territory for Grand Narratives Like Moníková, the Canadian historian and sociologist Derek Sayer highlights the instability and the continual reinvention of Czech history, as well as the constant ‘call to history’.16 My title is borrowed from his observation that, seen from the outside, Czech history is ‘barren territory for grand narratives’ because it appears to consist of little more than ‘an incoherent series of lurching discontinuities’ with no clear trajectory and no ‘unambiguous and unified subject’.17 This is illustrated nowhere more clearly than in the very question of designation: in modern times ‘Bohemia’ and the whole of ‘the Czech lands’ have been subsumed variously under Austria-Hungary, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Czechoslovakia (with or without a hyphen)18 and the Czech Republic.19 As Sayer puts it, ‘Bohemia slips into a narrative no-man’sland, where it becomes a passive victim of its unfortunate situation between opposed political and cultural worlds: Catholic and Protestant, German and Slav, capitalist and communist, democratic and totalitarian’.20 Though periodically at the centre of international action (the Thirty Years War began with a defenestration from Prague Castle in 1618, for example, and Munich and the Prague Spring were international turning points), the Czech lands recede from view in the meantime. Westerners’ ignorance of the Czech lands, which reached its shameful nadir in Neville

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Chamberlain’s declaration on 27 September 1938 that he had no interest in: ‘a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing’, is legendary, and was compounded by the ‘disappearance’ of Czechoslovakia behind the Iron Curtain despite its unchanging position at the heart of Europe. This of course says more about the blindness of the Western onlooker and of grand narrative history than it does about the reality of Bohemia, and Sayer suggests that a ‘Copernican turn’ is needed: What if, I thought, we were to shift perspective; to take the real Bohemia as a vantage point from which to interrogate those historical processes that had so reordered the modern world that the geographic center of Europe had somehow been shunted off to the periphery of European consciousness?21

Such a Copernican turn will reveal that Czech history does have coherence. It may be full of ‘inversions and erasures, miscegenations and ironies’ (and Sayer delights in pointing these out), but that is precisely what makes it interesting, even emblematic: ‘It constantly forces us to rethink what we understand by a history in the first place, and to confront the question of just how much forgetting is always entailed in the production of memory’.22 Sayer’s title, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, plays on the fluidity of real and imagined Bohemias.23 In the creation and cultivation of a collective Czech identity he stresses that, whatever the historical evidence may reveal about outstanding figures and events from the past – typically the PĜemysl dynasty, Charles IV, the Hussites and the Battle of the White Mountain – what is significant is the way these become ‘materials of memory’,24 to be continually reinvented and ascribed new meanings to suit, in turn, the National Revivalists of the nineteenth century who were retrospectively creating a sense of Czech nationhood, Tomáš Masaryk, who sought to justify the new independent creation, ‘Czechoslovakia’, in 1918, the Nazi regime, the communists who were in power from 1948 until the Velvet Revolution, and also Václav Havel and others since. The palimpsest, in other words, takes precedence over any originary meaning, an insight underlined by the fact that Sayer acknowledges the prominent role played by myth within the formation of a Czech historical consciousness. Sayer’s and Moníková’s work is thus mutually illuminating: while he represents a new breed of historian who give due weight to the power of the imagination and the cultural in the creation and recreation of history, she pushes the boundaries of fiction almost as far as they can go in terms of conveying historical data and exploring the meanings of

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history. The eponymous façade, with its ludic quality and in-built irreverence for all totalising systems, conceived as Moníková’s antiideological riposte to the prescriptive and closed historiography of the communist era, is also just such a palimpsest as Sayer describes. The castle which the façade adorns, referred to as Friedland-Litomyšl, is not solid: reinvention, and the porous boundary between history and fiction are invoked in its very location. It is based on two really-existing castles which have been deliberately combined to create a half-fictional, halffactual place. Friedland (in Czech, Frydlant), is a German castle in northern Bohemia, with historical links to Wallenstein, and visited occasionally by Kafka on business. It has been subject to speculation as the source of Kafka’s castle; Moníková was probably also playing on the meaning of ‘Frieden’: peace. Litomyšl is a Renaissance castle in eastern Bohemia with strong links to the National Revival.25 It is Litomyšl which has a sgrafitti façade; it was restored by four artists between 1974 and 1992.26 The eight thousand non-repeating panels were recreated, partly from original designs but also with the use of the artists’ imaginations.27 The metaphorical potential of this appealed to Moníková.28 Her four artists are working in a medium, plaster, which has a very limited life, especially because of its constant exposure to the weather. The task is thus potentially infinite in duration. The artists feel free to take enormous liberties, adjusting existing figures as they see fit (Orten gives the allegorical figure of Justice a third eye, for example), and creating new images from whatever takes their fancy; for example, after their trip to Siberia a yurt, an igloo, pelicans and wolves appear (F 439-40). History is thus continually effaced and reinvented from below, with injections of subjective meaning. The spectator on the ground has an invidious choice between focusing on one of the individual panels and losing the big picture, or standing back and obtaining only a serial impression of the relevant wall in which details are lost and an artificial three-dimensional effect resulting from the shading of the panels is accepted as true. This dichotomy mimics the incompatibility of narratives of history which perforce simplify and falsify, and individual experience which resists the big picture. The façade, which has been described as ‘eine markante Metapher für die Arbeit am Mythos “Geschichte”’,29 illustrates the paradox, inherent also in Sayer, that in writing about what is most intimately Czech, Moníková was also enabling her foreign readers to see history through new eyes, for it indicates also the wider applicability of the topos for

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history writing tout court. The reader is invited to revel in the fact that the raw material of history – facts, evidence, testimony, casts of characters, all traces of the past in the present – can be emplotted in different ways, officially and unofficially, or may escape emplotment altogether, an insight which renders all historical narratives partial.30 Moníková addresses the created nature of Czech identity directly when her four artists act out a spontaneous comic drama between four of the National Revivalists, Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová, BedĜich Smetana, the scientist Jan Evangelista PurkynČ and the writer Alois Jirásek, poking fun at their pretensions as they do it, for example Rettigová’s ‘Czech’ recipes are shown to be borrowed from Hungarian sources (F 122) and Smetana, the composer of the romantic, nationalist anthem ‘My Country’, has a shaky command of Czech (F 121-22) and used a police informer as his librettist (F 129). What is lampooned here is the reification of history which results in the exclusion from accepted narratives of complicating detail. A similar point is made in Treibeis: the ‘fossilierte Vorstellung von Böhmen’ found in the USA is mocked when the conference delegate Bentley shows photographs of his Czech relatives reenacting scenes from Czech history, pictures which Prantl views with distaste (T 100-02). Sayer comments that the recycling of history reached a high point when the communists presented Jan Hus, Jan Žižka and the Taborites, fifteenth-century religious reformers, as class warriors, and, in 1954, rebuilt Jan Hus’s Bethlehem chapel, which had been used by Jesuits before being partially demolished in 1786, and handed it over to the Czech people as a ‘national cultural memorial’, the plaque describing the church as a ‘cradle of the Czech people’s movement’. This is surreal, Sayer says, because it was done by ‘a murderously atheist government, which at the time was busy killing, imprisoning, and torturing priests on a grand scale’.31 It is just such reinventions of history that Moníková parodies in Die Fassade, for example when the members of a collective named after an historic date – 28 October – have forgotten which 28 October it is: the day in 1918 on which the Republic was founded, the day when farms were nationalised thirty years later (presumably the real one), or the day in 1968 when federalisation was adopted (F 33). The reinvention can be undertaken by individuals too and may backfire: the spelling of Qvietone’s name, though originally French, was Czechified during the National Revival, then restored incorrectly by error (F 188-89). Political

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renaming – of streets, squares and buildings for example – is also a recurrent motif in Sayer and Moníková. It is possible to read the reinvention of history in Die Fassade positively: liberated from constraints, this playfulness functions as a counter to the disempowering lack of comprehension which is a symptom of trauma. Jürgen Eder reads the novel thus, arguing that Moníková consistently works against national forgetting, both when it is stateenforced, as under the communists, and also when it is an inadvertent result of national sentiment, as when the wave of popular feeling following the Velvet Revolution heralded 1989 as the completion of the Prague Spring, thereby effacing again those victims of the regime in the 1950s who were dead or forgotten. By showing the relativism of ‘SiegerGeschichten’ and ‘Sieger-Geschichte’32 and insisting on alternative, sometimes only partially transmitted images, her work shows an optimism that history can be recreated with aesthetic means and indicates the way towards an open national history. Helga Braunbeck points out a potential problem with this, namely that the national narrative may lose all meaning, but then concludes, ‘a non-coherent national narrative might be the desired effect, as validation of subjective experience, as a (dissident) counter-production to official historiography, and as a representation of a fragmented national biography’.33 Yet Die Fassade, which ends as it began with the work on the façade, is anti-teleological, implying no future in which the work of the artists will serve as anything other than private resistance. As such it can be also read, despite its humour, as a pessimistic monument to the leaden time of normalisation when the grand narrative of the onward march of the proletariat seemed a hollow jest, but the iron grip of the Soviet empire made any other kind of historical progress impossible. When, towards the end of the novel, the most sympathetic of the four artists, Orten, slips out of the narrative time and into a magical community in the Siberian taiga for a brief if restorative interlude (the community consists of latter-day Amazons all in need of a mate) Moníková indicates, as she so often does, that myth offers a welcome escape from the stasis of history under dictatorship. Ultimately, the use of the more elusive and abstract symbolism rather than allegory in this novel and its concern, not to depict historical events, which happen offstage, but to grapple with their meanings and effects, warns the reader against unambiguous interpretation. A final example will illustrate this: Katie Trumpener points out that the novel’s

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subtitle, ‘M.N.O.P.Q.’, alludes not only to the five principal characters’ names but also to a slice of Bohemia’s Austrian past, In the fifteenth century, Austrian emperor Frederick III had famously claimed Central Europe for Austria by inscribing the crypic initials AEIOU on all of his possessions and on all official buildings. The inscription has been read, variously, as proclaiming that ‘Austriae est imperare orbi universo’ (command of the universe falls to Austria) or that ‘Austria erit in orbe ultima’ (Austria will be in the world to the end).34

Trumpener interprets Moníková’s subtitle positively as proclaiming its intention ‘to reslice, rethink and reclaim the Austrian Central European empire’. I agree with this interpretation and could elaborate on it by saying that the subtitle also suggests the restoration of the old tradition of Bohemia as the bridge uniting east and west (since the letters are from the middle of the alphabet). But I could also point out that this interpretation reduces the indeterminacy of the symbol, which could also be said to convey a carnivalesque irreverence towards all imperialising claims, the point about carnival being, however, that it is an officially sanctioned and ultimately impotent expression of alternative views. Grand Narratives and Small Histories Moníková’s writing thus reflects and expresses both the trauma arising from events which springs apart any explanatory frameworks, and the peculiarly fractured and malleable nature of Czech history in particular, which is not only a twentieth-century phenomenon. At the same time, however, the patriotic impulse, which shows continuities with attitudes to history and national identity inherited, albeit questioningly, from the National Revival, supports Sayer’s suggestion that the view from Bohemia will reveal more continuity than the view of it from without. In other words, the Copernican turn which Moníková’s works effect does not only reveal fragmentation, individual acts of resistance, recyling and discontinuity, it also, as Sayer implied, reveals different continuities which might be more visible to Czech readers. These spring from what one might call the Czechs’ own grand narratives, or rather, to borrow a term from the philosopher Jan Patoþka (1907-1977), from their ‘small history’. Patoþka saw the late Middle Ages as the time when the Czechs had had their own ‘great history’ within Europe, and argued that greatness had been retained for as long as Czechness was not an issue. The chance of greatness was lost with the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620 and the

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Czechs’ ‘small history’, with its concern with nationhood and survival, sealed with the National Revival in the nineteenth century.35 The most influential text here was František Palacký’s History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia (1836-1867), which acquired the status of a national epic: For Palacký, the very beginning of Czech recorded history is characterised by the ‘old-Slavonic democratic spirit’, standing in sharp contrast to German feudalism. What later came to be seen as his ‘philosophy of Czech history’ is his view of that history as the continuous realisation of the nation’s libertarian, egalitarian, and democratic spirit in the constant struggle against German autocracy. The Hussite movement of the fifteenth century in particular is viewed from this perspective as the culmination of ‘the unending task of the nation on behalf of humanity as a whole’.36

A key component of the National Revival in the nineteenth century was thus the new self-definition of the Czechs as an emerging nation in relation to their perceived oppressors, the Germans, and in friendship with other Slav nations. As we have seen, Moníková is well aware of the constructed nature of Czechs’ sense of identity and history and is sceptical of the petrification of values. Yet, like many Czechs, she inherits and reproduces, in her essays and interviews, and frequently through the mouthpiece of her characters, certain concerns which date from the National Revival, namely a patriotic attachment to the continuity of the Czech nation, and in particular to its expression in the First Czechoslovak Republic, a tendency to define Czech identity in relation to Germans rather than, for example, Slovaks, an underlying warmth towards the Russians and fellow Slavs, and an ambivalence towards her fellow Czechs. In mourning the lost democracy of the First Republic (PF 83), Moníková joins other Czech patriots who, the anthropologist Ladislav Holy tells us, tend to view its founding as one of only two glorious victories in the modern period (the other being 1989),37 despite the fact that it was an artificial creation which effaced differences between Czechs and Slovaks, creating a spurious ‘Czechoslovak’ language and nationality, and relegated the German and Hungarian populations to the status of minorities. Though undoubtedly democratic in comparison with its immediate neighbours, historians now point out that it had major flaws, for example ‘severe political censorship of the press’, and widespread police violence.38 In fieldwork conducted in 1992 Holy established, however, that democracy lived on in the social memory of Czechs, even

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though most of them had no personal experience of it.39 Moreover, Czechs still ‘conceptualise their nation as a natural entity that has existed for at least a millenium’.40 At various times there has been a political need to do this, for example Maria Dowling points out that the ‘call to history’ was needed in 1945 because Edvard Beneš and others feared that Czechoslovakia might not be revived at all as it was widely viewed in the West as an experiment which had failed,41 and Braunbeck reminds us that loyalty to the Republic held its citizens together during the communist era.42 Holy shows how a strong awareness of cultural continuity pervaded the events of the Velvet Revolution: the demonstrations preceding it, for example, were all planned to occur on historically significant days, and started in Wenceslas Square, proceeded to the Old Town Square and ended in Hradcany Castle, each location being chosen for its historical symbolism.43 This powerful sense of cultural continuity (and statues of Libuše are commonplace in Prague) can be traced back to Palacký, who, in his later years, rejected the hope of a future within a federalised Austria that he had entertained in 1848, declaring instead, ‘We were here before Austria, and we shall be here after it’.44 Sayer and Moníková use the same striking illustration of how this popular sense of national continuity was maintained under communist rule: in 1970 the communists banned the singer Marta Kubišová for a song in which she used the words ‘Now, that the government of your affairs / Returns to you, people’. These words originated with Jan Amos Komenský, the philosopher exiled after the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, were inscribed on Jan Hus’s memorial (unveiled 6 July 1915), and repeated by both Tomáš Masaryk and Václav Havel.45 Intellectually rigorous as ever, when Moníková mourns the lost democracy she is also quick to point out that it was not perfect. But the grievances she highlights are not those of the Slovaks, but those of the Germans (PF 83). This is typical of her mindset, which in turn is typical of post-National Revival Czechs who tend to define themselves primarily in relation to Germans, a tendency strongly reinforced by the experience of German occupation during the Second World War. Bohemia has at various times been subject to the imperialism of Austria-Hungary, the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, not to mention the post-Velvet Revolution imperialism of global capital. Germans had lived alongside Czechs in Bohemia since the arrival of German colonists in the Middle Ages, and it had always been a relationship characterised by asymmetry in terms of class and because of the smallness of Bohemia in relation to the

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size and power of the neighbouring German lands.46 Nevertheless, before the nineteenth century, Germans and Czechs alike considered themselves first and foremost Bohemians, and many Czechs, even those involved in the National Revival, spoke and wrote in German. But a key component of the National Revival was the new self-definition of the Czechs as an emerging nation in relation to their perceived oppressors, the Germans, and in friendship with other Slav nations. Palacký’s vision of history, derived, ironically, from Herder,47 later became the basis of Masaryk’s politics, only to be recycled in some of its aspects, as we have seen, by the communists. The expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War gave a huge boost to Czech nationalism because for the first time, nation, homeland and people corresponded to the boundaries of a state: ‘[h]enceforth, it was as if the Germans had never been anything but outsiders in the Czech lands’.48 It also introduced ‘politically and in particular morally unpleasant problems, even the problem of their own possible guilt towards those that had been “always the guilty ones”’.49 The trauma of the occupation was still felt by those of Moníková’s generation who did not experience it directly – she writes of her irrational childhood fear of being carted off to a concentration camp (PF 125) and of the shock of seeing a photo of her (German) husband’s father in the uniform of a German soldier, an image familiar to her since childhood from photos and films where German soldiers had appeared ‘als Feinde, Okkupanten, Nazis, Faschisten’.50 The essay from which this is taken, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, shows a detailed and nuanced awareness of the history of Czech-German relations, and Verklärte Nacht, a strong desire to overcome the national forgetting about the tricky question of the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans, a not uncontroversial position for a Czech. But the sentiment expressed in an unguarded moment in the interview in this volume, ‘[a]fter all, the whole mess started with the Germans – Munich, then the Occupation, and today the tourists’,51 and in a more measured way elsewhere, has an emotional force which might seem at odds with the biography of a writer who grew up under Soviet-controlled communism and experienced the deeply shocking Soviet invasion of 1968 and the start of the subsequent period of normalisation at first hand, and who valued German culture enough to devote her life to it as an academic and indeed to aspire to join it as a writer. It is evidence, I think, that the nineteenthcentury notion that it is primarily in relation to the Germans that Czech identity can be constructed lives on.

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This is backed up by the relative paucity of references in her work to the Czechs’ even closer neighbours during Moníková’s lifetime: the Slovaks. The anthropologist Ladislav Holy argues that since 1918, because the Czechs had the upper hand within Masaryk’s Republic, Czech nationalism has actually been that of a dominant nation and that it has therefore not needed to be openly asserted, but that, since the expulsion of the Germans in 1945, Czechs have been constructing their national identity mainly in opposition to the Slovaks,52 whom they see as, for example, closer to nature than the ‘cultured’ Czechs and lacking in a democratic tradition.53 Again, as with the place of the Germans in Moníková’s work, I do not wish to imply that Moníková was badly informed or, worse, motivated by inherited prejudice. Die Fassade, for example, quotes a Slovak complaining that Czechs had always pursued a policy of colonialism in Slovakia (F 42), and cites evidence of discrimination: until the federalisation following August 1968, Slovaks had been forced to speak Czech when in Prague (F 33); Verklärte Nacht, written on the eve of the split, also recounts Slovak grievances (VN 14344). Rather, in her preoccupation with exposing the traumas of Czech history and exploring Czech-German relations she has perhaps overlooked the ways in which Slovak aspirations to nationhood have been subsumed under Czech ones, thus unwittingly reproducing the inequalities enshrined in Masaryk’s state. It is significant in this regard that, in the interview in this volume, she talks of Slovak independence in 1993, not in positive terms, but as a painful loss.54 Another inherited attitude is an underlying benevolence towards Russia and Russians, the Soviet invasion and occupation notwithstanding. The invasion is almost dismissed as a mistake: ‘Sie hätten ’68 nie kommen dürfen. Wenn sie jemals erlöst werden, verdanken sie es ihrer Literatur’ (PF 12). The same sentiments are repeated in Die Fassade, where Podol remembers his disappointment at seeing the Russians, who had been the liberators in 1945, invading his country (F 248). It is the Germans, not the Russians, who carry the primary responsibility for the invasion: ‘Ohne die deutsche Okkupation der Tschechoslowakei wäre die russische von 1968 nicht denkbar’.55 In the case of the Russians, politics and literature are kept separate (the narrator of Die Fassade speaks of ‘die im Lande allgemein verbreitete Russophilie, die sich unter den Intellektuellen bis heute gehalten hat und niemals der Politik galt, sondern der Literatur’ F 83-84), as are the people (‘großzügig, gastfreundlich, herzlich’ F 386) and their hard government, a case which is never made

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for the Germans of the Nazi period (though Moníková admires post-war Germans’ propensity to address their lost history, PF 12) Moníková’s ambivalence about her fellow Czechs – celebrating martyrs and unsung heroes, such as Palach (PF 104-13), the writer Božena NČmcová (F 23-24), the assassins of Richard Heydrich (PF 16, T 161-66) and those citizens who boycotted German cinema newsreels during the Nazi occupation (VN 116), while regretting Czech cowardice and passivity (T 227) or their victim mentality (VN 140), for example – is also not a personal idiosyncrasy but has deep cultural roots. Holy demonstrates that such ambivalence is typical of Czechs, who are, as a nation, extremely self-critical but also take huge pride in the image of the Czech nation as democratic, well-educated and highly cultured.56 It is worth noting in this respect that all Moníková’s major protagonists are artists or intellectuals, in keeping with the high regard in which culture is held by the Czechs, seen in the cemetary at Vyšehrad in Prague, where artists and writers since the National Revival are buried and which Leonora Marty, the returning exile in Verklärte Nacht, visits as part of her reintegration into Czech culture (VN 39).57 Indeed Brandl, Moníková’s final literary creation, is an artist of inner emigration: he will not allow his work to be shown at home or exported to the West; all he can do is pass on his humanist values to his students. Even Die Fassade, that most ironic, playful and resigned of books, has significant moments where intellectual and artistic integrity is upheld, for example in the extract from Michaelangelo’s diary which Orten selects in lieu of a speech (F 166-67). The Chinese man that the artists in Die Fassade meet in Siberia, who is engaged in writing a history of the suppressed people, the Mongols, is presented without irony (F 40004), as is Nordanc, the Luxembourger who has made the tragedies of Czech history his own. A House of Mirrors Insofar as it is characterised by rupture, reinvention and, in the twentieth century in particular, by trauma, Moníková does demonstrate that Czech history is barren territory for grand narratives. Her fractured and nonteleological presentation of history is curiously appropriate for an age where the twin Enlightenment-derived paradigms of history as progress and the onward march of the proletariat have lost their currency, and reminds us that history now must accommodate the subjective and allow space for the forgotten, the not-yet and perhaps never-to-be-emplotted.

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When Peter Filkins in the New York Times described Die Fassade as a ‘house of mirrors’58 he unwittingly refashioned a central metaphor from Palacký for the latter half of the twentieth century. Palacký intended his work to be a mirror in which the Czech nation would recognise itself and feel an enhanced sense of oneness and pride. Moníková retains a little of his didacticism and a lot of the patriotism.59 But despite her desire to inform her German readership and to make them undergo just such a Copernican turn as Sayer advocates by questioning the grand narratives which have declared Bohemia marginal (not only Western imperialist narratives but also, particularly in Die Fassade, the Marxist-Leninist one which subjugated many peoples, including the Czechs), her mirrors are kaleidoscopic, reflecting and refracting a plural and dynamic reality. On the other hand, Moníková’s deep attachment to the continuity of the Czech nation and the possibility of endlessly redefining it in relation to a changing Europe, and her continual search for symbols appropriate to conveying this are a reminder that there is a place for patriotism in modern conceptions of subjectivity, even though her statement that ‘Bei mir schreiben die Verlierer die Geschichte’60 may tend to efface other perspectives from which Czechs would appear the winners. Moníková disliked the maps and historical narratives on and in which Bohemia was represented because Czechs had had little part in their making. This changed in 1918 when Czechoslovakia as a political entity was created. That she should be outraged by its forced interruption in 1939 and its repression in 1968, and mourn its passing in 1993 is hardly surprising. Neither is it surprising that she should endorse Bohemias of the mind and the imagination, claim a share in what is most essentially European – its coast – and have frequent recourse to the same store of myths, facts and stories used by generations of others to reinvent a sense of Czechness. Notes 1

Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1998, 15. 2

Milan Kundera, Ignorance, trans. (from the French) by Linda Asher, Faber and Faber: London, 2002, 10.

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3

Sibylle Cramer, Jürg Laederach and Hajo Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 119 (1991), 184-206 (here 202). 4

The main events in brief are: the founding of the state of Czechoslovakia in 1918, the Munich Agreement of 1938 and subsequent Nazi occupation, the communist takeover of 1948, the crushing of the reform movement of the Prague Spring by Soviet forces in August 1968 and subsequent period of ‘normalisation’ which lasted until the ‘Velvet Revolution’ of 1989, and the ‘Velvet Divorce’ of 1993. For a systematic reading of Moníková’s treatment of these events, see Jürgen Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht – 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968… Zum Historischen bei Libuše Moníková’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999, 87-98. 5

The wheelchair is the only symbol in the list I am enumerating not to be included in the title of the work, probably because this novel disperses meaning among several symbols, of which this is only one, albeit the most powerful. 6

On 30 July 1419 a crowd stormed the Town Hall of the New Town and threw its councillors from the windows, marking a new stage in the Hussite revolution. On 23 May 1618 a mob threw the Catholic imperial officials from the window of Prague Castle; they survived, but the Thirty Years War was unleashed. On 10 March 1948 Jan Masaryk, Foreign Minister and son of Tomáš Masaryk, died after jumping or being pushed out of a window of the foreign ministry building. 7

Brigid Haines, ‘Subjectivity (Un)bound: Libuše Moníková and Herta Müller’, in Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles and Walter Pape, eds, Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences [= Yearbook of European Studies, 13], Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1999, 327-44 8

For a fuller treatment of trauma in Moníková’s works, see Lyn Marven, Body and Narrative in Contemporary German Literatures: Herta Müller, Libuše Moníková, Kerstin Hensel, Oxford University Press: Oxford, forthcoming.

9

She was not alone in this: Kundera writes, ‘[i]n August 1968 the Russian army had invaded the country; for a week the streets in all the cities howled with rage. The country had never been so thoroughly a homeland, or the Czechs so Czech’, Kundera, Ignorance, 67. 10

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 41.

11

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 107.

12

Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht’, 87.

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13

Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 489-506 (here 490).

14

See Alfrun Kliems, Im Stummland: Zum Exilwerk von Libuše Moníková, JiĜí Gruša und Ota Filip, Peter Lang: Frankfurt am Main, 2002. 15

In a review of the Czech translation of Treibeis, KvČta Horáþková speaks of Moníková’s ‘modernist propagandising fervour for the presentation, or promotion, of Czechdom’, KvČta Horáþková, ‘ýeské osudy v tĜíšti dČjin’, Literární noviny, 13/14 (2002), 8, trans. by David Short.

16

Maria Dowling, Czechoslovakia, Arnold: Oxford, 2002, 68.

17

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 15. Though Sayer does not quote him, the concept of grand narratives, or metanarratives, is taken from Lyotard; see Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1984. 18

The country was called Czecho-Slovakia after the Munich agreement in 1938; from 1990-92 it had two legal names, Czechoslovakia (used by the Czechs) and CzechoSlovakia (used by the Slovaks), Dowling, Czechoslovakia, 166.

19

For an even longer list, see Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 6-8.

20

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 15.

21

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 13.

22 Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 16. Sayer’s approach to history is similar to that of Norman Davies: Davies seeks to deconstruct the exclusive and pernicious concept of ‘Western civilization’ and to recapture the diversity of Europe, Norman Davies, Europe: A History, Pimlico: London, 1997, 16. 23

For an examination of Moníková’s embracing of Shakespeare’s ‘mistake’ in ascribing Bohemia a coastline, see Brigid Haines, ‘“Böhmen liegt am Meer”, or, When Writers Redraw Maps’, in Ian Foster and Juliet Wigmore, eds., Neighbours and Strangers: Literary and Cultural Relations in Germany, Austria and Central Europe since 1989, Rodopi: Amsterdam, 2004 [= German Monitor, 59], 7-25.

24

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 29-52.

25

For an elaboration of these links, see Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 495-6.

26

Two sculptors, ZdeĖek Palcr (a personal friend of Moníková) and Olbram Zoubek, and two painters, Stanislav Podhrazský and Václav Boštík.

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27

For example, in the back courtyard there are depictions of a traffic sign and a ladder. It is said that the individual styles of the four artists can be discerned.

28

The ice hockey match which the four artists stage with their Russian ‘hosts’ in Part Two, which satirises the two famous matches in March 1969, shortly after the Prague Spring, in which the Czechs, playing at home, beat the Soviet Union, bears a similarly close relationship with a real event; see Dowling, Czechoslovakia, 122.

29

Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht’, 87.

30

For an elaboration of the relationship between history and narrative form, see Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1973, and Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore, 1978.

31

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 278.

32

Eder, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht’, 93.

33

Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 497.

34

Katie Trumpener, ‘Is Female to Nation as Nature is to Culture? Božena NČmcová, Libuše Moníková, and the Female Folkloric’, in Jankowsky and Love, eds, Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women’s Literature and Art, 99-118 (here 115).

35

Robert Pynsent, Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality, Central European University Press: Budapest, 1994, 184.

36

Ladislav Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation: National Identity and the Post-Communist Social Transformation, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1996, 81.

37

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 130.

38

Pynsent, Questions of Identity, 179.

39

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 79.

40

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 38.

41

Dowling, Czechoslovakia, 68.

Czech History in the Works of Libuše Moníková

42

Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 502.

43

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 34-42.

44

Quoted in Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 38.

199

45

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 270. Kubišová remained banned until the Velvet Revolution; see Dowling, Czechoslovakia, 123. Moníková refers to Havel’s speech in her essay, ‘Semiaride Landschaft mit Küste: Neues Verhältnis Ost – West?’, PF, 18-29 (here 18). Another example of the recycling of materials of memory is that Havel’s philosophy of ‘life in truth’ is a deliberate recycling of Hus’s ‘the truth prevails’, which is now part of the new republic’s coat of arms, Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 40. 46

See Uwe Koreik and JiĜí Stromšík, ‘The Contemporary Czech View of Germany and the Germans’, in Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles, and Walter Pape (eds), Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences [= Yearbook of European Studies, 13], Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1999, 304-19 (here 306).

47

Pynsent, Questions of Identity, 169.

48

Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia, 247.

49

Uwe Koreik and JiĜí Stromšík, ‘The Contemporary Czech View of German and the Germans’, 309.

50

Libuše Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 100-20 (here 117). 51

Libuše Moníková ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 32.

52

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 6.

53

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 107.

54

Libuše Moníková ‘Writing is a Murderous Occupation’, this volume, 30.

55

Moníková, ‘Über eine Nachbarschaft’, 103.

56

Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 74-77.

57

Holy points out that the Velvet Revolution was led by artists and intellectuals, Holy The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation, 140. This marks a significant difference

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from the ‘Wende’ in the GDR where intellectuals were quickly outmanoeuvred by popular feeling. 58

Peter Filkins, ‘Fractured By Reality’, The New York Times, 5 January 1992, 10.

59

Her editor, Michael Krüger, called her ‘diese überzeugte und alles andere als ironische Patriotin’, ‘Nachwort’, Ta 192.

60

Sibylle Cramer, ‘Die Dauer der Welt beruht auf dem Fleiße des Schriftstellers: Ein Gespräch mit der deutsch schreibenden tschechischen Autorin Libuše Moníková’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/20 September 1987, 164.

Robert Weninger and John J. White Cannibalising Texts: Libuše Moníková Digesting Arno Schmidt Libuše Moníková’s novel Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin and two of her plays in Unter Menschenfressern were influenced by the German experimental writer Arno Schmidt. In Pavane, the protagonist Francine Pallas tries to engage her students by focussing on the misogynist aspects of Schmidt’s work. Pavane also shares a pronounced intertextuality with Schmidt’s writings, the main common denominator being the role played by maps and typography. The relationship of Moníková’s play ‘Caliban über Sycorax’ to Schmidt’s ‘Caliban über Setebos’ is explored with particular emphasis on the themes of deviance and cannibalism, while ‘ArAl’ is shown to provide a remarkably accurate portrayal of Schmidt’s domestic circumstances and his chauvinism.

Libuše Moníková’s creative engagement with the work and, to a lesser extent, the person of Arno Schmidt spans virtually half of her writing career, from her second novel, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983), to the quartet of plays published under the collective title Unter Menschenfressern (1990). Given Schmidt’s relatively peripheral role in the first of these two densely intertextual works, as well as the largely dismissive way in which he is treated there, most readers would at the time have thought it unlikely that Moníková would ever revisit contemporary West Germany’s enfant terrible, notorious as much for the provocative nature of his public declarations and obiter dicta as for the experimentalism of his fiction. And hardly anyone could have predicted the Akribie, ingenuity and sheer empathy with which she was to return to this particular subject. In Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, both the narratorial intertextuality and the female protagonist’s own ‘längere Gedankenspiele’, as the Schmidt of ‘Berechnungen 2’ would have called them, are on the whole plausibly accounted for. Sometimes the motivation for the novel’s complex net of literary associations stems from the central figure’s Czech origins. Elsewhere it is a by-product of her academic interests. In the end, however, these two sources of images and quotations tend to merge due to the specific present circumstances of the novel’s protagonist. For Francine Pallas has, since her arrival in West Germany from Prague, held a post as

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literary ‘Lehrbeauftragte mit sechs Wochenstunden’ (P 17) at a North German university. Although Moníková’s protagonist at one stage refers in the same breath to such improbable bed-fellows as Kafka and Schmidt as ‘meine Widersacher, meine Stützen’ (P 147), when it comes to intertextuality, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin is, above all, a novel of intense Kafka-reception – albeit reception in a critical as well as adulatory sense (Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence, with its notion of the creative ‘swerve’, adds a helpful perspective here).1 And, in the case of both Kafka and Schmidt, the reception results in a form of intertextuality embracing a response to the writer’s work as well as his biographical and public persona.2 Despite Kafka’s dominant place at the literary table, Schmidt’s works nevertheless play a by no means inconsiderable role in Francine’s private and academic life. He is certainly allocated a greater role than that allotted to another twentieth-century Czech author, Jaroslav Hašek, whose most famous literary creation has but a small (literally) walk-on part in an encounter which may or may not have taken place on Prague’s Charles Bridge: a meeting between Prague’s two greatest literary Josefs, Josef Švejk and Josef K., a possibility just as likely to have resulted from Francine’s recent reading of Angelo Maria Ripellino’s Magic Prague as from any independent private fantasy.3 As far as can be gleaned from this at times elusive novel, Francine’s formal teaching does not cover Hašek’s work – after all, she is not a professional Slavist (even Moníková’s duties at the German universities where she was employed in the early 1970s were confined to Germanistik, Women’s Writing and Comparative Literature). In any case, it is the classic Prague setting, not the archetypal figure of Švejk or his equally legendary creator, that appears to capture her imagination. Quite rightly, one commentator has termed her nostalgic relationship to the Czech city ‘a fantasy of origins’.4 This may explain why Francine experiences no comparable emotional bond with the North German Heidelandschaft evoked in Schmidt’s novels, a setting just as much associated with his image as a writer as Prague is with Kafka’s. Witness the title of one classic early study of Schmidt’s work which Francine might well have put on her reading-list: Der Solipsist in der Heide5 or the evocative title of the legendary periodical devoted to his work: Bargfelder Bote. The nearest Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin comes to a picture of Schmidt in his chosen habitat occurs right near the end, when Francine recalls that the

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date is 3 June and reminds herself what momentous deaths once took place on that very day: Es ist der dritte Juni, der Winter ist längst vorbei, ich habe den Tod ausgetragen. An diesem Tag starben Franz Kafka und Arno Schmidt […]. Als Arno Schmidt starb, ging das schwerste Hagelgewitter über Südniedersachsen nieder, Pflanzen wurden erschlagen und Kleintiere. (P 147)

This concluding part of the novel, which went on to supply such a moving ending to Iris Radisch’s obituary for Moníková,6 links the portentous death of two of the protagonist’s literary idols with a turning-point in her own tortured life. Francine, now without her wheelchair, is in effect celebrating the exorcism of her former invalid-persona. The fact that she performs this act on the same day as Kafka and Schmidt died allows her to go forward with feelings of renewed strength and resolution, a position that can only be increased by (possibly unintentional) recollections of the passing of two literary giants. The circumstances surrounding Kafka’s death belong very much, even too much, to public knowledge for Francine to feel the need to rehearse them once again. On the other hand, the cataclysmic thunderstorm cutting a swathe of destruction across the entire south Lower Saxony at the time of Arno Schmidt’s departure from this world strikes an imaginative chord, for it is the stuff of Greek mythology or Shakespearian tragedy rather than literary biography. The awesome details recorded mark the death of a literary giant, as seen through the eyes of the world he left behind, it is far from being just a sympathetic account of a lonely man’s final hours. The Great Schmidt may be dead, but Francine not only lives on; having destroyed her former protective self, she has in a sense been re-born. But restored to life after visiting what kind of underworld? Francine’s on the whole unfulfilling professional life looms large in this rather short novel. The academic contact hours hours assigned to her, as one can deduce from the scattered textual evidence, add up to the usual statutory two weekly two-hour seminars, one on Kafka and the other on Schmidt. There is also mention of a further class on Prague Structuralism (conceivably pre-dating the main window of narrative time) and a lecturecycle which, given the reference to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and ‘Die Bedingungen der literarischen Produktion’ (P 23), could well be a deliberately subversive course on Women’s Writing (‘die Veranstaltung “Frauenliteratur”’ P 22), packaged according to the

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fashions of the moment. With the exception of Virginia Woolf, all the writers Francine teaches are male, although in her comments on Schmidt an appropriate exasperation with his male chauvinism does, as we shall see, make itself felt. In the light of this programme, two of Francine’s academic specialisations (Kafka and Prague Structuralism) would seem to hark back to her Czech origins, whereas the other two (The Conditions of Literary Production and The Work of Arno Schmidt) come across more like gestures towards the culture she has now entered, though without being absorbed into it. Beyond the veneer of surface detail, this can be read as emblematic of the two directions in which she mentally points and the two periods in her life to which the entire narrative repeatedly relates. It is made all too clear that her classes lack local prestige (‘Meine Seminare sind eine Ergänzung zu dem gängigen Projektstudium’ P 18). Hence, even if her Fachbereich had not allowed her to choose her own topics, but had arbitrarily imposed them on her, hardly an uncommon experience for West German teaching assistants even in the ‘liberated’ 1970s, this would have made little difference. Two of her teaching commitments would still look like patronising reflections of what the system might deem most appropriate to ask of someone from her background, and the other two would, perhaps, have been literary topics designed to help her get accustomed to current trends in West European Germanistik and Komparatistik. In the event, her various duties receive uneven coverage during the course of the novel. Only once do we hear about ‘Die Bedingungen der literarischen Produktion’ (P 23), and we learn even less about the Prague Structuralist classes (P 44-45). There are even occasions when it is difficult to decide whether a writer figures in Francine’s thoughts because of experiences that derive from her teaching activities (as is the case with her attempt to re-write the story of the Barnabas family in Das Schloß) or when associations and allusions are more the product of private reading, which would seem to be the case with the material from Nabokov’s Pale Fire (P 95) and the reference to the ‘“rectification of literary fates” […] wie es sich Stoppard und anders auch Borges gedacht haben’ (P 10), that is, such works as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Don Quixote. If ever Francine considered adopting such an approach to the works of Arno Schmidt – that is to say, one of literary ‘Berichtigungen’ (P 110) – it would hardly be possible to envisage the result. For there is almost no evidence in the text (either via quotation or in the details of the disenchanted accounts of her direct seminar-room experience) of just what works might have figured on the

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syllabus and which of them she is familiar with from her personal reading.7 Even the title of one of Moníková’s later Unter Menschenfressern plays, ‘Caliban über Sycorax’, establishes at least the possibility of a direct relationship to one of the work’s intertexts – Schmidt’s ‘Caliban über Setebos’ – but there is no such direct alluding to specific Schmidt-sources in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin. We do, of course, learn quite early on (P 18) that Francine Pallas gives a weekly Thursday seminar on Arno Schmidt constructed around the theme of ‘Kritik durch Witz’ (a topic which may also have a bearing on her attraction to fellow Prague writer, Jaroslav Hašek). However, even such a promising course-title gives no indication of just which works form part of the syllabus or just how she handles the prescribed material. Nevertheless, it would probably not be off-target, given the Fischer Verlag’s paperback publishing programme at that time and the limited number of works by Schmidt that would fit into a ‘Kritik durch Witz’ programme, to speculate that, next to his numerous irreverent literary essays and radio dialogues, such works as Tina oder über die Unsterblichkeit, Goethe und Einer seiner Bewunderer, Sitara, Die Gelehrtenrepublik, KAFF auch Mare Crisium and, in an ideal world, perhaps even Zettel’s Traum could well have been course-requirements. We hear far more about the difficulties Francine has with getting her students actually to read the primary literature on the course and their evident feelings of dissatisfaction with her attempts to engage their interest; two female students are referred to as ‘die zwei fortgeschrittenen Arno-Schmidt-Opponenten’ (P 27) and another (this time male) as the ‘Arno-Schmidt-Hasser’ (P 127). In fact, one might well wonder just why the group has signed up for such a seminar, although their largely antagonistic attitudes would suggest that the noun ‘Kritik’ must have been more instrumental in influencing their choice than any promise of enjoyment in the word ‘Witz’. Schmidt, famous writer of humorous satirical prose, soon becomes Schmidt, the bone of contention: on Francine’s part, because the seminar-participants refuse to engage with him in any serious way, and on their part, because they wish to radicalise the teacher-student relationship and he simply becomes an issue. Not surprisingly, Francine makes less headway in the Thursday Schmidt seminars than in the Monday ones on Kafka about which she has much more to say (for example P 18-19) and where specific works seem to be covered in much more detail and on the basis of the requisite shared reading experiences.

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The students, many of whom seem intent on converting any academic activity into a glorified ‘Selbsterfahrungsgruppe’ (though Francine herself is not above doing this), are driven by resentment and antagonism: ‘Eine selbständige Veranstaltung wäre mangels Kritikangelegenheit für sie uninteressant’ (P 25). Doubtless this is why one of their main associations of the name ‘Arno Schmidt’ is with his provocative ‘Dankadresse zum Goethe-Preis’, which one of their number would seem to know about, at best (as the phrase ‘das allgemeine Mißfallen’ in the following quotation suggests), indirectly through the press and secondary literature, but hardly through its published form in the Frankfurter Rundschau of 29 August 1973.8 But even that apparently gives sufficient ammunition for bigoted polemical posturing: Im Donnerstag-Seminar […] gibt es einen Studenten, der wahrscheinlich keinen Schein mehr benötigt. Er ist im 16. Semester und alle vierzehn Tage beteiligt er sich, indem er Arno Schmidt aus der Sekundärliteratur kritisiert, das allgemeine Mißfallen an Schmidts Goethepreis-Rede hat ihn ermutigt. (P 18)

In general in the case of the Schmidt seminar, the aggravated campuspolitical situation comes especially to the fore: ‘Ich bin die Autorität, gegen die sie sich gerade erfolgreich gewehrt haben, ich liefere ihnen, da kein Mann anwesend ist, das Feind-Bild, sie möchten darauf nicht verzichten’ (P 18). The students never see that one particular token male, Arno Schmidt, is present in their midst at the seminars. And, unfortunately, because they never get around to reading Schmidt’s works, they deprive themselves of the opportunity to use the seminar as an opportunity to treat gender issues academically. One might speculate from the protagonist’s remark ‘Ich werde in die unsinnige Situation gedrängt, über einen Autor zu verhandeln, wo es darauf ankommt, ihn zu lesen’ (P 57). Sadly, the students are too inert to respond to her evident agenda: ‘Sie kennen Schmidt so wenig, daß sie nicht einmal seine hanebüchene Frauentypisierung bemerkt haben’ (P 57). Francine, with her course on Women’s Writing, as well as her passionate concern for the fate of the female members of the Barnabas family, appears to be taking on Schmidt’s fiction, not least because of the opportunity it affords to attack his chauvinism. She would not be the first or the last to do so.9 With characters like Walter Eggers in Das steinerne Herz, Charles Winer in Die Gelehrtenrepublik and the Karl of KAFF auch Mare Crisium as candidates, not to mention Schmidt himself, she has clearly selected a battlefield that ought to guarantee her the tactical advantage. And this is

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not the only time Francine gives the impression of manœuvring her reluctant seminar attenders into situations where she wants them to react according to her agenda rather than remain either sullenly passive or unproductively truculent. What is referred to as Schmidt’s ‘Rechthaberei, wenn er Joyce gegen Kafka ausspielt – die schulmeisterliche Aufdeckung, daß Odysseus sich eben nicht die Ohren mit Wachs verstopft habe, wie es im “Schweigen der Sirenen” steht’ (P 57)10 is clearly a further source of exasperation at the students’ inability to see things the way Francine wants them to. Littler discusses a comparable situation in the case of the Virginia Woolf seminar.11 These moments of despair give another, less obvious meaning to her claim that Schmidt is both her ‘Stütze’ and her ‘Widersacher’: her support, in the sense that she can depend on him to argue pedantically about the details of Kafka’s fiction and thus come across as dogmatic as well as chauvinist; her adversary, in the sense that she is teaching the works of a man she knows to be her ideological enemy and, in terms of sexual politics, her gender enemy. Unfortunately, the students see none of this. They have too little direct experience of Schmidt’s works to see him as either their ‘Widersacher’ (except when it comes to the case of the ‘Dankadresse zum Goethe-Preis’, and even then, only one of their number has the ability to make anything of the material) or as a ‘Stütze’ in their own attempts to radicalise classes. Poor Francine Pallas has chosen her battleground, but few of her potential adversaries have bothered to turn up in mind, even though they may be there in body. What is more, those that do turn up have not come armed with the appropriate weapons. So much for the spirit of 1968 by the early 1970s. As Francine admits: ‘Mich ärgert die Biederkeit der revolutionären Übungen in meinen Seminaren’ (P 57). The role played by Schmidt in these anecdotal accounts of seminarroom skirmishes might seem quite distant from intertextuality, as the concept is usually understood. Instead, we have Schmidt as icon, Schmidt as pretext (on both sides), Schmidt as Aunt Sally even: ‘Arno Schmidt’, that is, without the actual writings of Arno Schmidt. An intertextual figure deprived of intertexts. It would even seem as if Schmidt, Francine’s intended ‘Stütze’, had ended up being little more than her ‘Widersacher’ because she was not given the opportunity to use his writings in support of her own agenda. Yet there may be other respects in which she does receive sanction and support from Schmidt, even if it is only unacknowledged support. Indeed, there is one aspect of Francine’s approach to her pedagogic activities that surely suggests indebtedness to Schmidt (and

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perhaps to a lesser extent also to the Nabokov of the Cornell Lectures on Literature). In an attempt to galvanise the interests of her lethargic students and involve them in a more pragmatic approach to literature, she decides to present them with a map of Prague and to relate both Kafka’s biography and the topography of some of his fictions in specific locations: Ich bereite mich für das Seminar am nächsten Tag vor. Ich werde eine Karte der Stadt an die Wand projizieren und die wichtigsten Orte zeigen, die mit Kafkas Biographie und mit seinen Texten zusammenhängen: die wechselnden Wohnsitze der Familie, Kafkas Anstellungsstätten, seine gescheiterten Versuche, allein zu wohnen, die Wege, die er unternahm, um sich in der weiteren, tschechischen Umgebung auszukennen. Er blieb in dem kleinen Stadtquadranten gefangen. Über seine Grenzen, im eigentlichen Sinne aus der Stadt, ist er nicht hinausgekommen […]. Ich werde diesen Bereich auf dem Stadtplan markieren; ich werde über Kafkas Zugehörigkeiten mutmaßen. (P 9)

But when it comes to the literary works, one might well wonder whether ‘mutmaßen’ is the right verb. Francine seems to know beyond dispute that ‘Beschreibung eines Kampfes’ takes place in the streets near the Charles Bridge and up on the PetĜín (Kafka’s Laurenziberg). And that below is the quarry where Josef K. will be executed (P 76). As Littler points out, she is equally certain that Kafka’s ‘Das Stadtwappen’ is ‘about Prague’,12 just as she knows that immediately across from the PetĜín is the ‘Nationalbibliothek auf Strahov’ (P 140) (‘wo sich Kafkas Manuskripte nicht befinden […] wo auch der Codex argenteus fehlt’ P 37). And so on. The feeling that this is the way, not just to make literary studies more palatable, but to approach fictive texts is something she to some extent shares, as we shall see, with Arno Schmidt. Of course, when she tries to put her plan into operation at the next day’s seminar, things do not go as she had hoped: Beim Prager Stadtplan belebt sich das Seminar, da ich bei der Projektion Schwierigkeiten habe, zu begreifen, daß der Fluß nordwärts fließt, und die Himmelsrichtungen verwechsle. Beim zweiten Mal orientieren sich die Studenten bereits und korrigieren mich, wodurch ihr Interesse an den Texten steigt. Sie hoffen auf weitere Verwirrungen dieser Art, mit Literatur wird es mir aber nicht passieren. (P 19)

If this trivial confusion were all the map of Prague had been introduced to re-enact, then it would be just one further way of criticising the students’ vindictive Schadenfreude and lack of literary appreciation. The glee with which they rush to correct her mistake has them being blamed for much the same tone of Rechthaberei that Schmidt had been accused of when he

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criticised Kafka’s ‘Das Schweigen der Sirenen’. But there is more to her teaching strategy than this suggests. Francine Pallas’s Prague is a cartographer’s Prague, just as Schmidt’s world is essentially a mapmaker’s world. But there is also an important contrast: Schmidt’s maps are usually empty; Francine’s by contrast are full of imagined people. Schmidt is obsessed with maps per se; for Francine they are merely a way to give a more pragmatic sense of the context for the people and happenings she evokes. Of course, in Francine’s case, this could simply be the result of her having grown up in the Golden City and feeling that she shares that common background with Kafka and his characters. Though one could remind oneself that Hartmut Binder’s distinctly positivistic approach to Kafka studies was at the time beginning to make its mark on the discipline.13 But Binder is not mentioned in the novel and Schmidt is, so it may not be inappropriate to see in Francine’s cartographical method a tribute to Schmidt the literary commentator as well as Schmidt the writer. Certainly no other contemporary German writer has displayed such a fascination with maps.14 There are a number of emblematic maps in Schmidt’s literary works: including Brand’s Haide (where the dust-cover of the first edition has a map of Anwesen, where the story is located), Die Gelehrtenrepublik, Rosen & Porree (which uses a relief map to illustrate its narratological principle of ‘conformity’ derived from cartography, and also has a map on its dust-cover), as well as Abend mit Goldrand (containing various maps of where Schmidt lived in Hamburg-Hamm as a child) and the sketches and maps in Zettel’s Traum. But of far more relevance to Francine’s approach to her seminars is the role played by the map in J. G. Schnabel’s Die Insel Felsenburg (1731) to which Schmidt pays tribute with his map of IRAS in Die Gelehrtenrepublik. The First Speaker (that is, the Schmidt-figure) in a radio-discussion entitled ‘Herrn Schnabels Spur’ claims that it is above all factual information that excites the imagination: ‘das heißeste Feuer kommt aus Trockenstem; Karten, Zahlenkolonnen, Namenslisten von Staatshandbüchern!’, hence his praise for a particular edition of Schnabel’s novel (‘da erschien im Text die Kupferstichkarte Groß= und klein’). Like Francine in her Kafka seminar, Schmidt likes to envisage works of fiction taking place in real locations and is excited by the thought that Schnabel’s ‘Urbild’ for Felsenburg is the real Tristan da Cunha. There then ensues a lengthy attempt at demonstrating ‘daß die “Insel Felsenburg” identisch ist mit der Inselgruppe von Tristan da Cunha; zur Zeit in britischem Besitz’.15

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It would add little at this juncture to set about tracing the copious details of Schmidt’s case. The real point here is not the presence of the map itself (after all, even Stevenson’s Treasure Island is prefaced by one), but the elation the First Speaker experiences at knowing it is the map of a real location and that place is the model for Schnabel’s Felsenburg. It is at this point that one needs to remind oneself that Francine’s emotions and those of Schmidt/the First Speaker are very different. For outcast Francine, the street-plan is a comforting token of the fact that Kafka’s fictive world can, and, she thinks, should, be read as a document conveniently corroborating her memories of the city left behind. Schmidt, by contrast, has no hereditary links with Tristan da Cunha. His response is coolly impersonal, while Francine’s is more the result of an emotional re-investment. (The map gives her much needed support, especially for her as a stranger in hostile territory, while at the same time trying to suggest to the students how literary fictions can be read as growing out of real experiences in real places.) Yet this teaching context is the only time when Francine might be thought of as employing a literary method indebted to Schmidt. She includes less cartographical or closely observed detail about the contemporary West German world through which she is moving than he would have done. In fact, there is hardly a work by Schmidt where the reader does not know precisely where and when events are taking place. The claim, in ‘Herrn Schnabels Spur’, that ‘gerade an so überzeugend– Exaktem kann sich die kombinierende Fantasie entzünden’,16 is hardly applicable to Francine’s disembodied West German topography. Even on the rare occasions when we do know where she is, it would still not be possible to trace her movements along given streets or through specific districts, as we can in the case of Leonora Marty, the heroine of Moníková’s later Prague novel Verklärte Nacht. Schmidt’s is a pedantically observed world; Francine’s, it has been argued, is a postmodern one.17 One further feature of Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin has been seen as possibly indebted to the work of Arno Schmidt, and that is the novel’s intertextuality.18 But this might seem too general a feature of both modernism and postmodernism to try to pin down to one particular influence. Given that the novel contains allusions to the work of Borges, Joyce, Kafka, Nabokov, Sartre, Stoppard and Woolf, as well as Schmidt himself, it would seem too facile and procrustean to attribute the responsibility for the novel’s intertexuality to just one of these putative influences. In reality, the text builds on them all, absorbing and

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assimilating and fusing them into one. There is a digestive temperament at work in Pavane, a desire to consume, in the many senses of the word: to use up, to be obsessed, to waste and squander, and, last but not least, to eat and to drink. It therefore seems quite appropriate, if rather piquant, that Libuše Moníková should have chosen to subtitle her volume Unter Menschenfressern ‘Ein dramatisches Menü in vier Gängen’. From the outset the author encourages her reader to sit back, relax and relish a four course literary menu, cooked up from a sumptuous range of artistic produce: Nestroy, Shakespeare, Mozart and of course Arno Schmidt. Indeed, Arno Schmidt is identified as the main ingredient of two courses, the second and the last. While we will briefly discuss ‘ArAl: Gespräche in der Küche’ towards the end of this essay, the volume’s most tempting dish in terms of intertextual richness is surely ‘Caliban über Sycorax’. Moníková makes no attempt to disguise the text’s main ingredients; the subtitle-recipe specifies: ‘Nach Shakespeare und Arno Schmidt’. With the names of the characters and the plot outline coinciding in all the essentials, any reader will immediately recognise Shakespeare’s The Tempest, first staged in 1611, as the primary source for Moníková’s drama: the King of Naples, returning home by ship from Africa, is shipwrecked on a mysterious island, alongside his counsellor Gonzalo and his son Ferdinand. Prospero, the former Duke of Milan and the island’s master, has enslaved the monster Caliban and the sprite Ariel and uses them to effect his return to power. In the end the King’s son Ferdinand is to be betrothed to Prospero’s daughter Miranda; the reinstated Duke of Milan, the King of Naples and all the King’s men set sail for Naples; Ariel is set free; while Caliban regains possession of his island. Despite a number of important differences between Shakespeare’s and Moníková’s versions of The Tempest (to which we will return shortly) there can be no doubt that ‘Caliban über Sycorax’ constitutes a deliberate, if creative, rewriting of Shakespeare’s play. In culinary terms we might call it a Tempest réchauffé, albeit freshly spiced. However, the relationship between Moníková’s ‘Caliban über Sycorax’ and Arno Schmidt’s ‘Caliban über Setebos’ is much less clearcut, the titles’ similarity notwithstanding. There is no obvious overlap in terms of either cast or plot. Nor do Caliban, Prospero or Ariel play a role in Schmidt’s tale. Rather, ‘Caliban über Setebos’,19 a sixty-page short story completed in May 1963 and published in the volume Kühe in Halbtrauer in 1964, tells of a middle-aged writer’s excursion to the

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countryside in order to revive old memories, but with the ultimate aim of reaping poetic inspiration from his trip back to nature. Hoping to resuscitate a romantic attraction he once felt some thirty years ago for a girl called Rieke, the story’s protagonist and first-person narrator, Georg Düsterhenn, arrives in Schadewalde by bus and proceeds to reconnoitre the hamlet. He visits the local pub, strolls around the village, enters a crematorium-like ‘verlassene Ziegeley’,20 observes a farm hand making love to his lass on a dung heap, and returns to the pub for dinner. Later the publican O. Tulp calls out to his maid Rieke to accompany the new guest to his room. Hearing her name Düsterhenn realises that she is the maiden he used to adore. But what has become of her? It turns out that she is the crude wench he just observed fornicating outside, and a terrible sight she is: ‘– und sah mittn in 1 breites gußeisernes Gesicht [...]’.21 Dumbfounded, he immediately gives up his plan to introduce himself to her and to renew their relationship: Als ich noch immer keine Worte fand, drehte sie sich um und begann davon zu m’arschieren. / Mir wurde fast schlecht vor lauter EntScheidung ! Ich rannte in die Tür; ich wollte ihr nach rufen, im Sinne von <Erinnyen Sie sich=nich – ?> – Sie hatte mich gehört. Sie drehte sich, schon mitten auf der Treppe, noch einmal um : ? ! – – (mein, was’n Blauer Engel ! – Nee. –) / Außerdem würde sie ja todmüde sein.22

Contrary to his original intention, Düsterhenn can no longer imagine making sexual advances to her, and with that the reincarnation of the mythic singer Orpheus has just missed his last opportunity to rescue his Eurydice from hell. Leaving a note for Rieke later that night, he flees through the window with his ‘Wonn Gällon’ jug freshly filled with Allan Cardec: Noch ein bißchen zögern; und die Abschiedsstimmung genießen. (Einmal konnte ich mir’s, ohnehin zur Nacht entschlossen, jetzt leisten; und außerdem wurde Alles, selbst für ein tiefliegendes Auge, ja nur immer noch deutlicher: es war doch schon verdammt wüst & winterlich !). Hm. – Wäre, ehe ich des Teufels Tenne endgültig verließe, um allein die Herbstnacht zu erproben (richtiger wohl zu übertreiben), nicht vielleicht doch noch I kleinster Schluck prophylaktisch angezeigt ? Ich trat zu diesem Behuf, verschämt wie ich immer war, nochmals etwas in den Hofraum zurück. Hob den Krug, den erdwärts gekehrt=mit Umsicht getragnen, mühsam zum Sängermund – (auch wieder eine Attitüde, des alten Herrn SHANDY würdig: unterm linken den SYNTAX geklemmt; 3 Finger der Rechten mühten sich, mit I Fuß Wurst das gleiche zu leisten; in der Mitte ein Gallonen=Sklave, dem sich gemästetster Mief plattfootig nahte : ) Beim Befestigen des Korkens

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ergab sich (nicht etwa aus List; vielmehr ganz en passant) unweit von mir ein Licht=Ritz; schmal aber sehr scharf : !23

Peering through this ‘Licht=Ritz’ into the barn, Düsterhenn observes the four lesbian ‘Jägerinnen’24 he had first encountered on the bus now engaged in the wildest of sex games – a voyeur’s dream come true. But alas, the ill-starred Orpheus slips, arousing the attention of the four ‘Bekantinnen’25 and, like his mythical predecessor, is soon chased from his hideout, nearly losing his head – if only symbolically. The conclusion is a veritable tour de force of breathtaking action, linguistic as much as physical: – ich verlor gleich den Kopf! Die Fichtenstämme auf denen ich fußte, gerieten ins Rollen […] ….. ….. Rennenmensch ! Nischt wie renn’n : ….. ! / ….. : ! ! : fing’s nicht im scheunen All zu rascheln, dann zu toben an ? ….. : !!! […] : ochsengroßes Hundegebell ? ! […] : » HETZ ! HETZ ! ! ! « – Keile aus Kreischen, und : »Faß, Kirby, faß ! ! !« […] : 1 erster Querhieb von links, schädelstreifig, daß mir wurd’ als flöge mit der Monteromütze der Skalp mit : […] Schaß oh Poet ! : ich muß den linken Arm frei haben ! ! Ich ließ blutenden Herzens den köstlichen SYNTAX mitsamt Täschchen fallen : es klattschDe, als träfe ihn mitten in der Luft der Hieb, der im Grunde mir gallt […] <MIT DEN ZÄHNEN ENTMANNT !> ich sah die Schlagzeile förmlich […] nur gut daß an mir so viel nich mehr zu entmann’n war dennoch hätt’ich ungern grade die Haare gelassen […] – : ? : ! ! ! und erkannte das Lieferauto den Straßenkreuzer ! Von vorhin ….. Neue Kraft ! ….. ich hechtete einfach röchelnd an dem Grauen vorbei ….. mittn zwischn die Überzieherkartongs hinein ….. röch : <WECK !> – ….. […] bei einem anständigen Menschen lebt am Ende nur noch der Kopf !26

He has narrowly escaped decapitation by jumping into the mouth/door of the ‘Lieferauto’ alias ‘Blechhay’27 that belongs to the travelling condom salesman H. Levy whom Düsterhenn had met earlier that afternoon. As already indicated, despite its deceptive title, ‘Caliban über Setebos’ is less about Shakespeare’s Caliban than it is a retelling of the Orpheus myth. The story is sprinkled with literally hundreds of allusions to the classical myth of the singer Orpheus attempting to rescue his beloved Eurydice from the underworld and its countless adaptations in literary history, art and music. H. Levy, for example, alludes to Ludovic Halévy, famous for his musical parody ‘Orphée aux enfers’, written in collaboration with Hector Crémieux in 1856. Here, in Schmidt’s story, Eurydice is Rieke, the publican O. Tulp is Pluto, the God of the underworld (‘der Tulp, Der nimmt’as von’n Lebänndijen’),28 and

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accordingly his dog is called ‘Kirby’, alluding to Cerberus guarding the entrance to the underworld (‘sofort kam ein Hund um die Ecke getobt, von mürrischster Färbung & einer Größe, daß einem weniger geübten Reisenden höllenangst geworden wäre’).29 Nor is it accidental that Schmidt has Düsterhenn call his poetic handbook, the rhyme dictionary ‘Peregrinus Syntax’ that he carries with him wherever he goes, ‘die älteste Leyer’,30 in reference to Orpheus’s lyre. ‘Caliban über Setebos’ is arguably Schmidt’s most complex story. In a letter to the critic Jörg Drews, Schmidt once admitted: ‘haben Sie gemerkt, daß der “Setebos” ein “Orfeus” ist? Ich habe mir erlaubt, zweistimmig zu singen; mit 3.000 Fiorituren & Pralltrillern, die eine erhebliche Kunst & Mühe erforderten’.31 Critics have justifiably called ‘Caliban über Setebos’ a homage to Joyce. Not only does Schmidt structure his story around the Orpheus myth as Joyce did in Ulysses with the Odyssey, he also uses the names of the nine muses as headings for his nine chapters, as well as adopting a style reminiscent of Joyce’s symphonic use of language in Finnegans Wake, a style replete with verbivoco-visual puns and literary allusions. Actually Schmidt had at first planned to call his story ‘Orfeus’, but then realised this might be making it too easy for his readers. Like Joyce, who omitted the chapter headings in Ulysses before publication of the book so as to obscure its relationship with the Odyssey, so too Schmidt notes in his manuscript before publication: ‘Titel noch ändern; damit nicht so deutlich!’.32 Thus ‘Orfeus’ becomes ‘Caliban über Setebos’. In the same vein he writes to his publisher Ernst Krawehl on 29 January 1964: Wunderbar, daß Sie in L I [that is, Layer 1, the surface story of Georg Düsterhenn visiting Schadewalde] verfangen sind – ich hab’ mir’s inzwischen auch überlegt: lassen wir die närrischen Randzahlen beim SETEBOS weg. Und auch Prospekt-Hinweise auf etwaige ‘mythische Unterströmungen’ würde ich sagen, verkneifen wir uns nach Kräften : Scheißmythos! Die Leute soll’n sich amüsiern.33

Having detailed all this, we must ask why Schmidt chose to call his story ‘Caliban über Setebos’? After all, the link to Shakespeare’s Tempest seems very tenuous at best. Was Schmidt just playing games? However, on closer inspection one does detect a number of direct and indirect allusions to Shakespeare’s play. The most obvious of these is the passage where the narrator Düsterhenn reflects on the imperfections of the world: Immerhin wurde es fühlbar kühler hierbei [sic] mir. Und auch langweilig. (Nicht daß ich das Leben en bloc zu verleumden gedächte : ich weiß sehr wohl noch zu unterscheiden, ob der ganze Kosmos

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abnimmt, oder man bloß ich=selber; aber das Meiste war schon ziemlich doof. Natürlich gab’s auch ab & an ne gelungene Stelle im Universum; aber die Mehrzahl der Produkte jenes sete Boss war Fusch=Werk, schnell & schludrich, wie vo’m alten=frechen Handwerksburschen : wenn’s n Buch wär’, würde der Autor schon das seinige zu hören bekomm’m. Aber so kuschschtn se Alle.)34

Somewhat deviously perhaps, but tellingly, the basic idea of having Düsterhenn, Schmidt’s Caliban-figure, reflect on God’s creation is derived not from Shakespeare in direct lineage, but rather, as only a specialist in Victorian literature would recognise, from Robert Browning’s poem ‘Caliban upon Setebos, Or, Natural Theology in the Island’, which in turn of course forms just one of many stages within the Stoffgeschichte of Shakespeare’s play. Like Browning’s pensive Caliban, Schmidt’s equally meditative Düsterhenn creates an image of God based on direct observation of the natural world around him, the imperfections of this world suggesting an imperfect, ineffectual, if not even blundering God. The value added in Schmidt’s version is the explicit linking of the narrator’s profane musings to the critique of (profanely bad) literature. Schmidt’s reasoning is obvious: literature involves the creation of worlds from words, good ones as well as bad ones, faultless ones as well as flawed ones. Schmidt’s narrator muses at one point: ‘und wozu ist schließlich der Sänger da, wenn nicht um das Uni= sive Perversum mitzustenographieren?’.35 Our singular universe is singularly perverse, as is – maybe not so accidentally – Schmidt’s own ‘Caliban über Setebos’, not just in terms of Düsterhenn’s motive for his trip or the story’s sexually explicit content or the perverted use of language. Let us recall for a moment the span of meanings of the word ‘perverse’ as relayed in Funk and Wagnalls’s Standard College Dictionary: ‘1. Willfully deviating from acceptable or conventional behavior, opinion etc.; waywardly or unreasonably nonconforming; contrary. 2. Refractory; capricious. 3. Petulant; cranky. 4. Morally wrong or erring; wicked; perverted’. Universum = Perversum: if this is Schmidt’s ‘Moral der Geschicht’’, ‘Geschichte’ here in the double sense of story and history, with ‘perverse’ being applied in the spectrum of meanings catalogued above, then this ‘Moral’ has certainly been taken on board by Moníková in her rewriting of Shakespeare’s Tempest. One can indeed characterise her take on her ‘pre-text’ as willfully deviating and capricious, if not wicked. To confirm this we only need to look at some of the changes Moníková introduced into her ‘post-text’. First, she has weeded out some of the

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major characters; for instance, King Alonso’s brother Sebastian and Prospero’s brother Antonio have both been eliminated – in Moníková’s version they were drowned during the storm. Secondly, she has considerably amplified the role of sexuality, and of deviant sexuality in particular, depicting Shakespeare’s virtuous Miranda as a lecherous nymphomaniac and both her voyeuristic father Prospero (as regards Ariel) as well as Stephano and Trinculo as homosexuals. Finally, at the conclusion of Moníková’s play Caliban, somewhat Tarzan-like (‘Die Ketten fallen ab, Caliban richtet sich auf: Ich, Caliban, sieht an sich herab ich stark, ich frei!’ UM 60), manages to turn the tables on his former oppressors; wrenching one of Prospero’s magical books out of a fire he succeeds in destroying with thunder and lightning the ship returning the reinstated Duke of Milan and his company to Italy. His mother Sycorax (who in Shakespeare’s Tempest is already deceased) is freed from her bondage and both dance to celebrate their newfound liberty. But there is yet another significant modification to Shakespeare’s plot that needs mention, namely the role Moníková attributes to cannibalism. As Shakespeare scholars have long pointed out, The Tempest, whose island is ostensibly located somewhere between Naples and the coast of North Africa, represents in all actuality a meditation on New World exploration and the resulting clash of cultures. The monster Caliban, half man, half fish, and his mother Sycorax are clearly modelled on European perceptions of primitive savages and their heathen gods. Does not Prospero’s shipwreck on Caliban’s island resemble those countless stories of European seafarers (not least among them and most famously, one century after Shakespeare, Robinson Crusoe) marooned on some distant island and cut off from all civilisation? If the power relationship that obtains between the ‘civilised’ European Prospero and the ‘primitive’ savage-made-servant Caliban is indeed intended to conjure up before the eyes of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan audience an image of a New World territory and its superior European colonizers, Moníková turns this relationship on its head. Not only does Caliban, in all his primitivity, ultimately emerge triumphant, in Moníková’s play, it is the civilised Europeans who turn out to be the true savages. There is for example Trinculo, who first drinks his friend’s urine and then attempts sexually to arouse him, unsuccessfully as we are told: Dein Wasser, Bruder, will mir gar nicht munden, bitter und salzig, laulich warm und trüb. Du warst ein andrer Bursche, früher! Er kniet nieder in unmißverständlicher Absicht.

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Stephano winkt müde ab: Den kriegst du nicht mehr hoch, nicht heute. Doch vielleicht morgen, du mein Schmutzfink! Er tätschelt lustlos Trinculos Gesäß. (UM 40)

Or the bisexual Prospero who prefers males on the one hand: ‘Auch gut, daß meinem Pfiff die Flöte Ariels gehorcht und niemals tönt auf meiner Tochter Weg. / In seinem Eifer hat der anschmiegsame Knabe auch mich schon heimgesucht – das ist die Jugend’ (UM 41), while harbouring an incestuous desire for his daughter on the other: ‘Wenn sich nichts aus dem schönen Sturm ergibt, / heirat ich eben meine Tochter selber’ (UM 41). But they are also arrogant, bigoted and despotic. Take the following admission by Alonso: ‘Da müht man sich sein Leben lang, beutet das Volk aus, bis es blutet, kommt knapp an Aufständen vorbei mit heiler Haut, hat Minister mit Köpfchen – weist vorwurfsvoll auf Gonzalo –, die wissen, wann Spiele angebracht, wann Büttel für den Mob’ (UM 37). But worst of all, it is the Europeans (who themselves loved to depict ‘savages’ as cannibals, hence the anagrammatic wordplay on Caliban’s name in Shakespeare’s play) who, in Moníková’s farce, are cast as the real cannibals. At first, even if only in jest, Alonso craves to satisfy his hunger by cooking his counsellor Gonzalo (UM 51), next he and Gonzalo plan to feast on Caliban: Alonso: Ich kann nicht länger warten. Gib mir einen Schenkel von dem Wilden. Er sieht recht lecker aus, als Vieh. Als Mensch ist er nicht anzuschaun – da hab ich keine Skrupel, und besser schmecken als mein abgestandener Diener, das wird er sicher. (UM 52)

Then Prospero joins in the hoax: Prospero lacht: Da du ein Wilder bist, ohn Anstand, ohne Dank und unverbesserlich, geb ich dich diesem feinen Gast, dess’ werten Bauch zu füllen. Die Augen kommen auf die Platte, Caliban hält sich die Augen dann deine Ohren, deine Haxen und dein Schmer. Die Hoden für den armen Spieler drinnen [. . .] (UM 53)

And finally, all the assembled, including the newly arrived Trinculo and Stephano, encircle Caliban and threaten to devour him. Cornered and at his wit’s end, Caliban knows nothing better than to exclaim: ‘Genug der Scherze, ich beschwöre Euch! Ihr wißt doch, daß im Haus von allem Überfluß! Seid doch Menschen!’ (UM 56), upon which our civilised Europeans break out in ‘Allgemeines Gelächter’. The two main themes to emerge from Moníková’s recasting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest would seem, then, to be ‘deviance’ and ‘cannibalism’. Not surprisingly these two terms encapsulate precisely the

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literary methods adopted by Moníková in transforming her various ‘pretexts’ in Unter Menschenfressern. ‘Es gibt nichts Originelleres, nichts Eigenständigeres’, Paul Valéry once wrote, ‘als sich von anderen befruchten zu lassen. Aber man muß sie verarbeiten. Le lion’, and we might add, the literary lion, ‘est fait de mouton assimilé’.36 Or, as Arno Schmidt puts it more savagely: ‘GEORG DÜSTERHENN entertäind se Mjußes – tschieper Bey se Lump) – ietsch Wonn of semm re=worded him for hiss hoßpitällittitie wis Sam Bladdi mäd=Teariels’.37 Is Schmidt hence not suggesting that cannibalism in one form or another underlies all poetic creation? (Schmidt himself being one of the most cannibalistic authors in German literary history.)38 And surely this is not the least of the reasons why Moníková so admired Schmidt’s writings, despite his rather unbridled chauvinism. As was pointed out earlier, she herself is no less adept than Schmidt at devouring her sources and digesting them, in order to commute them into her own discourse. Being influenced by a precursor – long and mistakenly seen as passive behaviour – means nothing less than to cannibalise his or her texts: the influenced writer is the active agent, capturing, consuming, absorbing and discharging; both Schmidt’s and Moníková’s works are testament to this. The transfer of ideas, forms and images, tones, timbres and voices is, consequently, an act first of assimilation and ‘contamination’,39 then of excretion in a transformed literary shape. By way of this digestive metaphor, Moníková’s ‘Caliban über Sycorax’, just like Schmidt’s ‘Caliban über Setebos’, appears not just as a meditation on cannibalism but also, by extension, as a meditation on the intertextual circulation of cultural materials, ideas, themes, motifs and inflections. Hence, rather paradoxically, Moníková’s homage to Shakespeare and Schmidt formulates a critique of human cannibalism in a medium that itself appears as profoundly cannibalistic. However, as was suggested above, the theme of cannibalism does not stand alone in ‘Caliban über Sycorax’; throughout the play it interfaces with ‘deviance’, acted out mainly in the form of sexual deviance, but clearly intended as an ancillary metaphor for literary appropriation. For example, the title both of Moníková’s piece and Arno Schmidt’s story alludes to Shakespeare’s Caliban figure in The Tempest. But, as we have seen, Schmidt’s story has less in common with The Tempest than with the myth of Orpheus. Instead, Schmidt’s title refers us to Browning’s poem of the same title, which – in theological and philosophical terms – develops an argument quite different from that of Shakespeare’s play. Likewise, while Moníková’s title relates directly to

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Schmidt’s story, in terms of cast and plot both exhibit very little common ground. So what is the connection? Where is the link? Or is deviance from her German pre-text only employed for deviance’s sake, just to lead the reader astray and to puzzle the interpreter? The answer is clearly no, but Moníková has chosen a devious route and has set traps along the way, some of which even the Schmidt expert has difficulties in identifying. In leafing through the content pages of Schmidt’s œuvre a less initiated reader might be lured into assuming that the primary, maybe even the sole link is the one that obtains between her ‘Caliban über Sycorax’ and his ‘Caliban über Setebos’, with Schmidt’s title signaling his story’s focus to be mankind’s conflict with a Leviathan-like Setebos, and Moníková’s men’s domination over women. But upon closer inspection other (inter)textual relationships emerge. For example, the sexually ‘deviant’ redimensioning of the Tempest’s plot and characters is clearly inspired by Schmidt’s sexually explicit and at times scatological narratives, his sexual-linguistic refashioning of discourse in what he calls his ‘etymistic’ rewriting of the German language, and his Freud-inspired psychosexual rereading of the works of Karl May and Edgar Allan Poe, among others, most penetratingly, if rather obsessively, undertaken in his critical study of Karl May’s œuvre, Sitara und der Weg dorthin (1963), and his magnum opus, Zettel’s Traum of 1970. Schmidt would have relished a sentence like this by Prospero in Moníková’s play: ‘Auch gut, daß meinem Pfiff die Flöte Ariels gehorcht, und niemals tönt auf meiner Tochter Weg’ (UM 41). And he would have savoured the allusion to his friend, the painter Eberhard Schlotter, in Caliban’s interjection in Scene VI: ‘Nehmt ihm seine Bücher! Mit ihnen ist er mächtig, sonst eine Null, die schlottert’ (UM 48). But there is a further link, and a very tangible one at that, between Moníková’s play and Schmidt’s work, namely a direct reference in Scene IV to Schmidt’s early story ‘Pharos’, which was first published as part of his late typescript novel Abend mit Goldrand in 1975. ‘Pharos’ presents the tale of a young academic marooned on an island inhabited only by an elderly man, an anti-social keeper of a lighthouse (note the implied phallic symbolism) who seems able to wield magic and commune with the deceased. The man is also a bibliomaniac who has a penchant for eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, ‘Fouqué, Hoffmann, Wieland, Holberg, Stifter’, ‘alles Leute’, the young man admits, ‘die ich fast nicht kenne – sind ja alle hölzern und verschollen!’.40 Kept in a peculiar state of physical and intellectual bondage by his more powerful

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and more resourceful counterpart, the young man – much like Caliban – unsuccessfully tries to rebel against his captor; in the end he is able to free himself, but only by mortally wounding the symbolic tyrant with the tail of a stranded, yet still lethally potent stingray. To forge the link, Moníková has her Prospero, another magician and lord of the books, conjure up the following story: Im Leuchtturm Pharos, zwei Tage Segeln gegen Mitternacht von hier sind Schätze angesammelt – unzählige Bücher, die ein Alter dort aus Schiffbrüchigen zu erpressen wußte, bevor sie starben unter seinen wißbegierigen Händen. – Keine weiteren Leser mehr wollte der Solipsist und Heide dulden. Einen Knaben hielt er sich zum Dienst, und als Chronisten. Eine Welle rettete des Jungen Leben, sein Verstand blieb im Pharos, bei dem Alten, und seinen schaumgebor(g)enen Büchern. Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht. (UM 42-43)

‘Der Alte’, characterised here as a ‘Solipsist’ and ‘Heide’, is naturally a reincarnation of the wordsmith Arno Schmidt himself, who already during his lifetime had been dubbed the ‘Solipsist in der Heide’. The themes that emerge from this passage – a young man rising up in protest against an older master and captor; a seemingly deranged bibliophile surrounded by books; being shipwrecked on an island; or the topos of the book as world – are all very familiar to readers of Arno Schmidt. Even the final sentence of this section, ‘Ich lasse sie leben, die Menschheit, es sind doch meine Leser!’ (UM 43), seems to echo the last line of Schmidt’s ‘Pharos’ (in the 1975 Abend mit Goldrand version), where we read: ‘Ich will wie eine Fackel durch die Städte rennen: lest doch! Lest doch […]’.41 The main theme here is of course the power of books which is, ultimately, the common denominator linking Shakespeare’s drama with Arno Schmidt’s stories and Moníková’s play. Moníková has her Caliban formulate the quintessential bookish maxim: ‘Nehmt ihm seine Bücher! Mit ihnen ist er mächtig, sonst eine Null […]. Er weiß nichts, was er nicht gelesen hat’ (UM 48-49). There can be no epitaph more befitting of Arno Schmidt’s life and work than this. By comparison with ‘Caliban über Sycorax’, her fourth and final course, ‘ArAl: Gespräche in der Küche’, comes across as much lighter fare. We find ourselves transported into the ‘Wohnküche der Familie

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Alice und Arno (1 Katze) in … Str. Nr. …’ (UM 85) in Bargfeld (although the precise geographical location is suppressed in true nineteenth-century manner), where Alice Schmidt (who in real life was not at all fond of cooking) is preparing a meal for her husband. Moníková tunes us in to their domestic conversations, providing an – admittedly fictionalised – picture of the conjugal tensions governing their day-to-day intercourse. Already in Pavane Moníková had noted: ‘Ich stelle mir Schriftsteller immer im Gespräch über Literatur vor, und dabei sind das Hypochonder, oder Vegetarier, chronisch Entlobte’ (P 93). Schmidt is of course the archetypical Entlobter, or rather, is more verlobt with literature than with his marital partner. ‘ArAl: Gespräche in der Küche’ very much bears this out. There is of course a certain piquancy about this piece, less so because we are allowed to eavesdrop on this most reclusive of writers (since purchasing it in 1958, Schmidt rarely ever left his home in the secluded Bargfeld in the Lüneburg Heath, literally becoming the celebrated ‘Solipsist in der Heide’), than because we experience a feminist writer commenting through her play on a prominent misogynist male colleague. But Moníková presents us with neither a lampoon, nor a farce, nor even a burlesque – that is, she opts not to gratuitously vilify or ridicule her chosen subject, although the play has its moments of caricature. By and large ‘ArAl’ – modelled on Schmidt’s own radio-features on such authors as Joyce, Dickens, Tieck and Wieland – seems intended as a partly lighthearted, partly serious reflection on the domestic background of Arno Schmidt and his wife Alice. After all, Moníková, who had herself visited the Arno-Schmidt-Stiftung in Bargfeld to investigate the real-life setting,42 would have known that one of the great mysteries surrounding Schmidt’s life was the true nature of the relationship between him and his wife. During the first two decades of Schmidt’s career, spanning the period roughly between 1945 and 1965, Alice Schmidt served her husband as a kind of secretary, typing his manuscripts, helping him prepare his translations of English and American literature, handling much of his correspondence, and even giving the Frankfurt Goethe Prize speech in 1973 because, supposedly, Schmidt himself was too sick – Moníková glosses this in ‘ArAl’ (UM 89). Later, from about the time when he started writing his colossal typescript novels in 1965, the couple became more distanced, Schmidt moving downstairs, Alice upstairs. Still today we know little about their relationship, their diaries not yet having been published. However, Schmidt’s only biography to date, written by Wolfgang Martynkewicz for the Rowohlt Monographien series, furnishes

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some illuminating particulars; for example, Martynkewicz sums up their working relationship in the late forties and fifties as follows: Den äußeren Umständen entspricht eine resolute Arbeitsweise: Schmidt diktiert seiner Frau die Übersetzung direkt in die Maschine; am Ende geht er den Text noch einmal durch, Alice Schmidt fertigt anschließend die Reinschrift an und liest später die Korrekturfahnen. Die dann folgenden Übersetzungen bereitet Alice Schmidt durch VokabelNachschlagen schon so weit vor, daß ihr Mann sich auf Feinarbeit konzentrieren kann. Man muß diese häusliche Arbeitsteilung in Anschlag bringen, nicht um die herkulische Leistung zu relativieren, sondern um den Blick für die Tatsachen zu behalten: ‘Sie waren zwei: Arno und Alice’, schreibt Wolfgang Koeppen in seiner Dankesrede zur Verleihung des Arno Schmidt Preises 1984.43

But over the years this close relationship deteriorated and Arno Schmidt became more introverted and self-absorbed. As regards the situation from the mid-1960s on, when Schmidt started to work on Zettel’s Traum, Martynkewicz notes: Alice Schmidt, die Augenzeugin und Mitleidende dieses Unternehmens war, aber inhaltlich nun mehr und mehr den Bezug zu den Werken ihres Mannes verliert und die Typoskriptbücher erst nach seinem Tod lesen wird, schreibt am 28. März an Krawehl [Schmidt’s publisher]: ‘ich habe es nicht gern gesehen, daß mein Mann Zettels Traum schrieb […]. Keine Spaziergänge mehr – kein Sitzen im Garten – kein Sonntag – kaum die Möglichkeit eines Gesprächs: auf Fragen nur abwesend nervöse Antworten: bestenfalls. – Im ständigen Gemurmel, wortprobierend, bewegten sich seine Lippen. Völlige Vernachlässigung der eignen Gesundheit. Völlige Gleichgültigkeit gegen alles, was nicht ZT [Zettel’s Traum] betraf. Er nahm von keinem Brief Kenntnis. Schrieb keinen: jahrelang.’44

Schmidt’s unsociability and isolationism, combined with his natural gruffness and irritability, is duly reflected in Moníková’s piece. What readers versed in Schmidt’s œuvre knew about his relationship with his wife was typically deduced from his narratives and the sparse biographical information that could be gleaned from such volumes as Porträt einer Klasse: Arno Schmidt zum Gedenken (1982), ‘Wu Hi?’ Arno Schmidt in Görlitz Lauban Greiffenberg (1986), and Schmidt’s correspondence with such colleagues and friends as Alfred Andersch (1985) and Wilhelm Michels (1987). Viewed in this light, it is quite remarkable how well Moníková has managed to encapsulate Arno and Alice Schmidt’s domestic circumstances within two short tableaux. And it is superb entertainment to observe Moníková successfully imitating Schmidt’s personal idiosyncrasies and stylistic mannerisms while

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simultaneously putting the biographical record straight. Just one example, that could be drawn nearly verbatim from one of Schmidt’s late typescript novels, is: Arno nimmt die Witterung wieder auf, eifriger, greisenhaft: ‘Es gab, zu Meiner Zeit, mehr als genügnd Weiber: die “verfielen” jeglich’m stinkijn Türkn oder Bull’garen der nach Knoblauch möffte, & das Deutsche so entzükknd=radebrechte!, daß man nur das “fick=fick!” verstand. : Mir ist nie 1 Frau begegnet, die zu unterScheidn gewußt hätte, zwischen einem wiener Frisör, und einem GroßGenius; bzw : wenn Sie’s gewußt hätte, hätt’ Sie den Frisör vorgezogn!’ (UM 85-86).

This is the character ‘Schmidt’ as the writer Schmidt would have presented him. But regardless of the richness of her portrait – there are far too many allusions to Schmidt’s biography and works to discuss them exhaustively here – and regardless of the precision of her mimicry, we must assume that it was not Moníková’s primary goal to provide a mere portrait of the artist as a chauvinist. If her play was ever intended as an exercise in literary biography, it was surely not just to put the spotlight on Arno Schmidt and his obnoxious ‘Rechthaberei’ and ‘hanebüchene Frauentypisierung’, as Francine Pallas puts it in Pavane (P 57), but also to highlight, and ultimately to make us reflect on and rethink, his wife Alice’s role in this uneasy relationship, and thus to provide, again in Francine’s words, a further ‘Berichtigung eines literarischen Schicksals’ (P 110); after all, we have begun to discover and reassess the role and importance many women had for the lives and careers of the ‘great male authors’ they were married to or otherwise associated with. So while there are some marvelous passages that serve to depict, and in the process gently, and sometimes not so gently, mock Schmidt’s personal and literary mannerisms, the main theme that emerges from their domestic verbal skirmishes is ‘SCHRIFTSTELLERFRAUEN’ (UM 85). Moníková puts Schmidt’s attitude in a nutshell when she writes: ‘Arno zieht eine Grimasse: Und “schreibende Frauen”? Brr! Damit hast du mich immerhin verschont, und das danke ich dir’ (UM 86). Schmidt’s misogynist disposition is well-documented and surfaces frequently throughout his work (assuming for the moment that it is legitimate to equate author and narrator, as most Schmidt critics seem to take for granted). But with her piece, Moníková places Schmidt’s misogyny in a new perspective. On the one hand she shows Schmidt literally terrorising his domestic companions, adopting a Prospero-like mien of ‘Gottähnlichkeit’ in his treatment of both wife (for example UM 85 and 88) and cat (UM 87). On the other, and in

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parallel with Caliban in ‘Caliban über Sycorax’, Alice in ‘ArAl’ is given a distinct voice of her own; doing the dirty work for her husband, serving her tyrannical master, all the while being treated like a slave, Alice is presented by Moníková as being on the verge of revolt. In one passage, where husband and wife are discussing women writers, we read: Ali: Und in Deutschland? Ar: Da wüßte ich wirklich nicht ... A ja, doch! Das ‘Tagebuch eines halbwüchsigen Mädchens’ – ein Taschenbuch davon wäre überfällig! Alice unsicher: Das ist aber sehr fraglich, dieses weiblich/-kindliche Elaborat. Arno hebt überrascht den Kopf: … ? Ali kommt in Fahrt: So angestrengt und altklug und plapperig/kindlich, daß es wiederum schon nur von einer abgebrühten Alt-Elevin des Großmeisters stammen kann, den du selbst so ... vor sich hin: daher auch so viele deiner. (UM 91)

Shortly thereafter the subject shifts to Sigmund Freud whom Arno Schmidt, both in real life as well as in Moníková’s fictionalised account, of course reveres; and here Alice is openly allowed to oppose her husband’s view: Ali schnieft, mit hochgewölbter Brust: Was weiß der schon, mit seinem ewigen Penisneid. In Rage. Wenn mich mein bißchen ‘Frauenverstand’ nicht täuscht, – es ist so altklug und scheiß/scheinheilig, mit allen den gefundenen ‘unbewußten’ Symbolen – ob Zahlen, ob Wörter – so brav nebeneinander gereiht, wie in einem Lehrbuch – die Klischees nur abhaken! Es stimmt einfach nicht! (UM 91)

But like Prospero, the magician of books, Arno takes little note of his wife’s protestations, and he certainly does not permit his authority to be undermined. It is as if the two of them existed on different wavelengths. If ‘Schriftstellerfrauen’, used by Moníková here to designate both ‘Schreibnde Weiber’ (UM 90) as well as ‘Schriftsteller-“Gattinen”’ (UM 92), appear as the principal theme of ‘ArAl’, the second most important theme is, as is to be expected, books and reading, linking this play both with Pavane and ‘Caliban über Sycorax’ (not to mention Moníková’s other works) as well as Shakespeare’s Tempest. Just as the real-life Schmidt does with many of his first-person narrators, Moníková depicts her fictionalised protagonists Francine Pallas and Arno Schmidt as frustrated by the reduced role that books play in and for our contemporary society. We recall Francine’s disappointment and disillusionment both with her male students in the Schmidt-seminar and her female students in the ‘Frauenveranstaltung’, discussed earlier, while in the second scene of ‘ArAl’ Moníková has Arno complain to his wife:

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Und da wir sonst nichts haben, außer Büchern, die ja kein vernünftiger Mensch braucht, nehmen sie uns das Fahrrad! […] Müde. Ich bin so ziemlich 40 Jahre alt, und habe nichts! (Nur meinen unerschütterlichen (?!) Glauben an die LITERATUR!) (UM 95)

Moníková is right: it is literature that kept Schmidt going, it was his writing that was his life’s elixir, but it was also excessive writing that brought about Schmidt’s early death. ‘Nur meinen unerschütterlichen Glauben an die LITERATUR!’ she has her character Schmidt profess – literature in capital letters as an unshakable faith, faith in the power of words and the value of the literary imaginary: this is no doubt what drew Libuše Moníková to Arno Schmidt and surely only this accounts for her lasting fascination with this misogynist yet marvelously idiosyncratic writer. It was as much her as his credo and calling. Notes 1

Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1973. 2

Some of the contributions to Michael Worton and Judith Still, eds, Intertextuality: Theories and Practices, Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1990, suggest that the connotations of intertextuality have now been expanded to include the persona of the author of an intertext, not just associations derived from published writings. In the case of this particular work, this would appear to be a sensible move.

3

In Chapter 97, Ripellino has Moníková’s two figures almost meeting on the Charles Bridge, as K. is escorted away to the quarry where he will be executed and Švejk goes off under guard in the other direction to military detention, but at different times on the same day (Magic Prague, 235), Angelo Maria Ripellino, Magic Prague, trans. by David Newton Marinelli, Picador: London, 1995. Initially Francine toys with the fiction of having them meet (P 9), only to then retract the idea. 4

Margaret Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation: The City in the Novels of Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, in Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Müller, University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998, 36-56 (here 45). 5

Jörg Drews and Hans-Michael Bock, eds, Der Solipsist in der Heide: Materialien zum Werk Arno Schmidts, edition text + kritik: Munich, 1974.

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6

Iris Radisch, ‘Ein freier Mensch: Zum Tod der Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Die Zeit, 22 January 1998, 46. 7

The reference to a ‘Bastard Marwenne’ (P 129) shows that Francine is thinking of one of the protagonists of Schmidt’s Abend mit Goldrand, although from what she says about her difficulties with the students taking her Arno Schmidt seminars, it seems highly unlikely that this complex, long (and expensive) work would form part of their syllabus.

8

The contemporary responses to the Goethe Prize speech are reprinted in HansMichael Bock and Thomas Schreiber, eds, Über Arno Schmidt II: Gesamtdarstellungen, Haffmans: Zurich, 1987, 193-240. Compare also Bernd Rauschenbach: ‘“I wouldn’t have it as a gift”: Einige unvollständige Beobachtungen und herumschweifende Überlegungen zu Arno Schmidts Goethepreisrede’, in ‘Vielleicht sind noch andere Wege – ’: Vier Vorträge [= Hefte zur Forschung, 1], Arno Schmidt Stiftung: Bargfeld, 1992, 1-18. 9

Unfortunately for the seminar participants, there appear to have been no feminist attacks on Schmidt in the secondary literature in print at this time. 10

The references are to Der Triton mit dem Sonnenschirm: Großbritannische Gemütsergetzungen, Stahlberg: Karlsruhe, 1969, 255-57.

11

Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation’, 44.

12

Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation’, 45.

13

See Hartmut Binder, Motiv und Gestaltung bei Franz Kafka, Bouvier: Bonn, 1966; Kafka-Kommentar, 2 vols, Winkler: Munich, 1975 and 1976; and Hartmut Binder, ed., Kafka-Handbuch, vol. 1: Der Mensch und seine Zeit, Kröner: Stuttgart, 1979. As a corrective to the excesses of the ‘werkimmanent’ and psychoanalytical readings of the 1950s and 1960s, Binder’s Kafka commentaries and interpretations invariably seek to anchor the material topographically as well as with reference to putative source-images and biographical and intertextual influences. 14

See Josef Huerkamp, ‘Der “offene Raum” als poetischer Ort’, in Josef Huerkamp, ‘Gekettet an Daten und Namen’: Drei Studien zum ‘authentischen’ Erzählen in der Prosa Arno Schmidts, edition text + kritik: Munich, 1981, 33-136; and on related conceptions of realism, Horst Thomé, Natur und Geschichte im Frühwerk Arno Schmidts, edition text + kritik: Munich, 1981.

15

Arno Schmidt, ‘Herrn Schnabels Spur: Vom Gesetz der Tristaniten’, in Dya Na Sore: Gespräche in einer Bibliothek, Stahlberg: Karlsruhe, 1958; here quoted from

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Arno Schmidt, Nachrichten von Büchern und Menschen 1: Zur Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Fischer: Frankfurt am Main, 1971, 49-50. 16

Schmidt, ‘Herrn Schnabels Spur’, 49.

17

Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation’, 43-45.

18

See for example Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in Matthias Konzett, ed., Encyclopedia of German Literature, Fitzroy Dearborn: Chicago, 1997, 712-2.

19

Arno Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, in Bargfelder Ausgabe, vol. I/3, Haffmans: Zurich, 1987, 475-538.

20

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 492.

21

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 522.

22

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 523-24.

23

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 528.

24

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 477, 528.

25

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 477.

26

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 535-38.

27

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 514.

28

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 480.

29

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 481.

30

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 480.

31

Arno Schmidt, Fiorituren & Pralltriller: Arno Schmidts Randbemerkungen zur ersten Niederschrift von ‘Caliban über Setebos’, Haffmans Verlag [Edition der Arno Schmidt Stiftung]: Zurich, 1988, unpaginated ‘editorische Vorbemerkung’. 32

Schmidt, Fiorituren & Pralltriller, unpaginated ‘editorische Vorbemerkung’.

33

Fiorituren & Pralltriller, unpaginated ‘editorische Vorbemerkung’.

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34

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 533-34.

35

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 528.

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36

Quoted after Jean-Marie Carré, ‘Vorwort zur vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft’, in Hans Norbert Fügen, ed., Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Econ: Düsseldorf, 1973, 82.

37

Schmidt, ‘Caliban über Setebos’, 477. Note how ‘Bladdi mäd=Teariels’ (‘bloody materials’) contains a reference to Shakespeare’s Ariel.

38

See Robert Weninger, ‘Allegorien der Naturwissenschaft oder: Intentionalität versus Intertextualität als Problem der Arno Schmidt-Forschung’, in Timm Menke, ed., Arno Schmidt am Pazifik: Deutsch-amerikanische Blicke auf sein Werk, edition text + kritik: Munich, 1992, 25-48, in particular 26, and Robert Weninger, Framing a Novelist: Arno Schmidt Criticism, 1970-1994, Camden House: Columbia SC, 1995, 79-94. 39

Based on Jan Orten’s dissertation project on ‘Kontamination antiker Motive durch christliche Elemente an der Renaissance-Fassade zu Friedland’ in the novel Die Fassade, Ulrike Vedder cites ‘contamination’ as a central poetological axiom of Moníková’s literary method; see her entry in Heinz Ludwig Arnold, ed., Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, edition text + kritik: Munich, n.d. [66th Nachlieferung], 7.

40

Arno Schmidt, Abend mit Goldrand, in Arno Schmidt, Bargfelder Ausgabe, vol. I/4, Haffmans: Zurich, 1987, 618.

41

Arno Schmidt, Abend mit Goldrand, in Arno Schmidt, Bargfelder Ausgabe, vol. IV/3, Haffmans: Zurich, 1993, 263.

42

Written ‘Pfingsten 89’ (UM 96) either during or shortly after this visit, ‘ArAl’ was first read at the ‘Arno-Schmidt-Tagung an der Eider’ in late June/early July 1989. Shortly before her death she also received a study grant from the Arno-SchmidtStiftung.

43

Wolfgang Martynkewicz, Arno Schmidt, Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1992, 62.

44

Martynkewicz, Arno Schmidt, 111.

Dana Pfeiferová Zwischen Alltag und Ausnahmezustand: Zu Positionierungen des Mythos im Werk von Libuše Moníková Myths are of great importance in Libuše Moníková’s work. This article examines myth first in relation to its role within her texts, then in the context of the author’s poetics, which oppose totalitarian power structures and thought. The article begins by analysing the most prominent myth, that of the founding of Bohemia; additionally, it also considers in detail the mythicisation evident in the protagonists’ sojourn in Siberia in Die Fassade.

Das Werk von Libuše Moníková ist polar aufgebaut oder zumindest kontrovers angelegt. Oft spielt sie Männer und Frauen,1 Tschechen und Deutsche gegeneinander aus, polemisiert mit Schreib- und Lebensweisen verschiedener Schriftsteller/innen,2 ihre aus Tschechien stammenden Protagonist/innen schwanken zwischen Nationalstolz und Nationalscham, die Kunst wird als Erlösung und zugleich Verdammung3 dargestellt. Der Mythos, der in seinen verschiedenen Gestalten im Werk der Autorin eine bedeutende Rolle spielt, sollte von seinem Charakter aus die oben besprochenen Gegensätze aufheben, eine ursprüngliche Einheit darstellen oder zumindest spiegeln.4 Ob dem so ist, wird in dieser Studie untersucht, wobei der Mythos in Bezug auf seine Rolle im Text analysiert und auf seine Relevanz für die Poetik der Autorin hin überprüft wird.5 Besonders geeignet für eine auf die Poetologie ausgerichtete Untersuchung ist der böhmische Gründungsmythos, im Folgenden auch als tschechischer Abstammungsmythos bezeichnet. Dieser Mythos von der Fürstin Libuše und PĜemysl dem Ackermann ist der häufigste Mythenkomplex im Werk Moníkovás. Als Ganzes kommt er allerdings nur einmal vor, am Anfang von Die Fassade (F 33). Öfter wird mit dem Libuše-Teil gearbeitet. Während er in Verklärte Nacht nur noch als Legende (VN 39-40) im Duktus eines literarischen Reiseführers durch Prag erwähnt wird, wobei der Mädchenkrieg (VN 117) extra betont wird, ist er in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin einer der Grundtexte. Das erzählerische Ich-Subjekt identifiziert sich da mit der Fürstin Libuše und schwankt zwischen dem Pathos der imaginierten Aufopferung der eigenen Subjektivität für das Volk, die dem empfundenen Schmerz der Hauptfigur eine religiöse

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Bedeutung und somit einen Sinn gibt, und dem Gefühl der Verzweiflung wegen der Verstümmelung der Individualität und somit der eigenen Stimme des Erzählsubjekts.6 In Die Fassade ist die Darstellung des tschechischen Urmythos einer der Schlüssel zum ästhetischen Konzept der Autorin und zugleich eine Vorwegnahme der Intention des Romans. Um die Komplexität des literarischen Zugangs Moníkovás zum Mythos und zu dessen Rolle in der Geschichte Böhmens zeigen zu können, wird im Folgenden abschnittsweise eine umfangreiche Passage zitiert, unterbrochen durch kurze Kommentare. Es handelt sich um die groteske Mörtelschlacht am Romananfang und ihren friedlichen Ausklang im ‘Widder’. Vier Prager Künstler – Orten, Patera, Podol und Maltzahn – renovieren auf ihre originelle Art die Fassade des Staatsschlosses Friedland/Litomyšl, als eine bedeutungsträchtige Delegation auftaucht: Unter ihm schleust Hanna eine Gruppe von Besuchern ins Schloß. Es sind Mitglieder des Kollektivs ‘Achtundzwanzigster Oktober’ des Staatsgutes Stadice, die im letzten Halbjahr den Rüben- und Kartoffelertrag insgesamt um siebzehn Prozent gesteigert und die Eierund Hühnerproduktion gegenüber dem Plansoll verdoppelt haben; das Manko in Rindfleisch und Schweinemast ist so gut wie behoben. (F 33)

Die Gruppe von Landwirten wird zunächst durch ihre Arbeitsleistungen nähergebracht. Die (Un)-Möglichkeiten der propagandistischen Sprache genießend weist die Autorin auf die Paradoxie der sozialistischen (Land)Wirtschaft hin: durch Anhäufung von Phrasen und Aufzählung der kleinen Teilerfolge hat die kommunistische Berichterstattung in der Tschechoslowakei versucht zu vertuschen, daß das System als Ganzes nicht funktioniert. Der sozialistische Alltag im vorgeführten volkseigenen Staatsgut zeichnet sich durch totale Verplanung aus, die sich als sinnlos zeigt – geht man den einen Verpflichtungen nach, kann man die anderen nicht erfüllen. Die Absurdität des herrschenden Regimes wird anhand der weiteren Beschreibung der unter der Schloßfassade promenierenden Genossenschaft noch genauer ausgeführt: Der Name ‘Achtundzwanzigster Oktober’ verpflichtet in mehrfacher Hinsicht, wobei die Mitglieder des Kollektivs nicht immer genau wissen, welcher von den mannigfachen Verpflichtungen sie gerade obliegen. Sollen sie noch das Andenken der Republikgründung 1918 wachhalten? Oder erst der Verstaatlichung dreißig Jahre später? Zur Zeit ist es wohl die letzte Aufpropfung (sic), die Föderalisation nach dem August 1968, deren appellativer Charakter immerhin den Slowaken unter ihnen einleuchtet: man muß in Prag nicht mehr tschechisch sprechen. (F 33)

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Nach der Charakteristik der sozialistischen Gegenwart der Modellgruppe, oder genauer gesagt, nach der Charakteristik der Modellgruppe durch die sozialistische Gegenwart wird nun die historische Optik gewählt. Durch die Benennung des Kollektivs spielt die Schriftstellerin auf einige bedeutende Ereignisse der tschechischen und tschechoslowakischen Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts an, vor allem aber auf ihre Interpretation durch die jeweiligen Staatssysteme. Die Kommunisten haben versucht, den 28. Oktober, den wichtigsten Staatsfeiertag der Ersten Republik, an dem ihre Gründung von 1918 gefeiert und ein neuer tschechischer Gründungsmythos7 gepflegt wurde, durch ihre eigenen ‘Gründungsmythen’ neu zu definieren: Verstaatlichung als Anfang des Kollektivismus in der (Land)-Wirtschaft von 1948 und Gründung der föderativen Republik der Tschechen und Slowaken von 1968. Nicht einmal von der geschichtspolitischen Perspektive aus ist die vorgeführte Gemeinschaft eindeutig zu charakterisieren. Ähnlich wie die anfangs aufgezählten Arbeitsaufträge löschen sich die diversen Geschichtsverpflichtungen vom 28. Oktober gegenseitig aus. Mit der Ortsbestimmung des Kollektivs, für die die Autorin ganz weit in die Geschichte Böhmens zurück geht, scheint es zunächst anders zu sein: Der Ortsname Stadice dagegen ist eindeutig und ohne innere Widersprüche verpflichtend. Aus dieser Gegend ließ die Fürstin Libuše als künftigen Gemahl den Pflüger PĜemysl holen, um dem maskulinen Gerede über die unnatürliche Weiberherrschaft ein Ende zu machen. Mit den historisch verbürgten PĜemysliden setzte die Christianisierung und eine Epoche nationaler Bedeutungslosigkeit ein; der mythische Mädchenkrieg als Folge der Verehelichung war ein vorletztes Aufblitzen revolutionären Potentials, bis sich dann die Hussiten und Hussitinnen noch einmal in der Geschichte rührten. (F 334)

Auch der Rückgriff auf den ersten tschechischen Heldenmythos ergibt kein stolzes Bild der auftretenden Bauerngemeinschaft. Die Autorin bietet ihre eigene Interpretation des Mythos an, die von der herkömmlichen pathetischen Ideologisierung seitens der tschechischen Gesellschaft8 abweicht, wie es schon die Fragmentarität des Zitates andeutet. Vom Urvater ýech, der sein Volk ins gelobte Land voll Milch und Honig gebracht hat, von seinem Nachkommen Krok und dessen drei göttlichen Töchtern Kazi, Teta und der jüngsten Libuše, der Seherin, die zur Landesfürstin wurde und in Liebe, Milde und Gerechtigkeit ihr Volk regiert9 hat, ist hier nicht die Rede. Die Schriftstellerin setzt ihre mythische Passage beim Ende des goldenen Zeitalters, das mit dem Matriarchat gleichgesetzt wird, ein: mit Libušes Verzicht auf den Thron

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zugunsten PĜemysls fängt in Böhmen die Regierung der eisernen Faust an. Der legendäre PĜemysl, der Stammvater der ersten Landesherrscher in Böhmen, wird als Anfang des Niedergangs gesehen. Davon, daß Moníková seine Rolle in der (Kultur)-Geschichte Böhmens für verhängnisvoll hält, zeugt auch ihre spöttische Bezeichnung des späteren Landesfürsten. Anstatt ihn ‘Ackermann’ zu nennen, was erhabene Assoziationen hervorrufen könnte,10 bezeichnet sie ihn als ‘Pflüger’, was stark mit der gehobenen Verbindung ‘Fürstin Libuše’ kontrastiert und semantisch die Dimension des Sturzes Böhmens auswertet: von der hohen Ebene der gerechten Verwaltung der edlen Fürstin mit göttlicher Gabe der Hellseherei zum Boden der Realität des eisernen Zeitalters.11 Michael Schwidtal hat darauf hingewiesen, daß der Name PĜemysl in seiner semantischen Morphologie dem griechischen Prometheus entspricht.12 Für Moníková steht allerdings der slawische ‘Held’ nicht für Anfang der Zivilisation, sondern für ihr Ende: mit ihm setzt die Barbarei ein. Nach ihrer expliziten Polemik mit der offiziellen Leseart des tschechischen Abstammungsmythos läßt die Autorin auch ihre Modellgruppe eine eindeutige Einstellung zu ihren mythischen Verpflichtungen einnehmen: Die Staatslandwirte wissen, was ihnen der Heimatort zu bedeuten hat; die Smetana-Gedenkstätte in der Brauerei gegenüber haben sie schon hinter sich, seine Oper ‘Libuše’ kennen sie dem Namen nach alle. Einer von ihnen hat noch vor nicht langer Zeit auf höchster Ebene den feierlichen Anlässen, bei denen sie zeremoniell gegeben wird, bejubelt beigewohnt. Es ist zehn Jahre her. (F 34)

Der pragmatische Zugang der vorgeführten Einheit zur Ideologisierung der Geschichte ist jedoch nicht das Ende vom Moníkovás Spiel mit den Mythologisierungen. Nachdem sie den Abstammungsmythos in seiner Gültigkeit als Heldenmythos in Frage gestellt hat, läßt sie ihn weiter gelten. Der mythische Ort bleibt aufrechterhalten, in Stadice taucht ein neuer Held auf. Der letzte zitierte Satz, der übrigens die Handlung des Romans um 1978/9 datiert, evoziert den höchsten Politiker des Prager Frühlings, Alexander Dubþek. Die dreifache Einheit von mythischem Ort, seinem Helden und seiner Bestimmung wird ein paar Seiten weiter noch mehr ausgeführt. Die Stadicer seien berühmte Persönlichkeiten gewohnt, wie der ‘Kaderleiter’ des Kollektivs Bullak den Künstlern in der Wirtschaft versichert: ‘Bei uns kann man schon mit so etwas umgehen’, Bullak senkt die Stimme. ‘In den fünfziger Jahren war hier ein General in der Nachbarschaft, auch im Büro eines Staatsguts. Der war tüchtig, sogar Held der Sowjetunion, bis er dann Präsident wurde. Dann gab’s noch

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den Tomášek als Schreibkraft, zwei Dörfer weiter. Der ging aber bald, nach Mähren, als Pfarrer. Jetzt ist er Kardinal.’ [...] ‘Wer also in Stadice anfängt’, sagt Patera, ‘hat eine Karriere vor sich.’ ‘Oder hinter sich.’ (F 43-4)

Indem die Autorin das mythische Dorf mit der Laufbahn der führenden (politischen) Persönlichkeiten der 60er und 70er Alexander Dubþek, Ludvík Svoboda und František Kardinal Tomášek verbindet, ändert sie die Relevanz des Mythos: Stadice ist nicht nur Alpha, sondern auch Omega der Politik in Böhmen. Interessant ist, daß sich Libuše Moníková in ihrer Polemik mit dem Mythos als Rechtfertigung der (totalitären) Wirklichkeit an die Strukturen des mythischen Erzählens hält – wie die schon besprochene dreifache Einheit von Ort, Bestimmung und Held oder die Aufhebung der linearen Zeit – und sogar zu magischen Ritualen greift. Der wilde Kampf um die Fassade wurde nämlich angefangen, weil sich der Landwirt Thurn, Neffe des letzten Schloßherrn, der nach den Enteignungen des Adels 1945 und 1948 in Stadice bei der Schweinezucht landete, gegen den freien Umgang der Künstler mit der historischen Vorlage gewehrt hat. Die Schlacht um das Schloß wird eindeutig symbolisch abgeschlossen: Die letzte Kelle kriegt ein Mann ab, der bisher nicht aufgefallen war. [...] Podols Ladung ist der in Ermangelung anderer Munition wieder ausgekratzte Bastardisierungsbalken der Trautmansdorfs. Die Kämpfenden scheint dieser letzte Treffer zu beruhigen, sie ziehen sich überraschenderweise zurück, knapp vor dem Sieg. Der Mann wischt sich die Augen, klopft sich den vergoldeten Mörtel vom Haar und von der Mütze ab, sieht zu Podol hoch und grinst. Es ist der zweite Buchhalter des Staatsguts, dem früheren Ersten Sekretär des ZK frappant ähnlich. ‘Ich habe Sie schon irgendwo gesehen’, Podol beugt sich vor. ‘Ohne Mütze’, er wischt seine Kelle ab. ‘Sie können sich da am Brunnen das Gesicht waschen.’ (F 39-40)

Das Gefecht wurde unter dem Stigma der verlorenen Macht eröffnet und auch beendet. Der letzte Treffer gilt dem zuletzt entmachten Herrscher, die Munition kam vom Wappen der von ihm besiegten Klasse. Symbolisch wird das Mandat des besiegten Machtmenschen als Schwarzer Peter weitergegeben, seine Ankunft im Ursprungsort der böhmischen Geschichte wird besiegelt. Der mythische Gebärort der Herrscher Böhmens ist jedoch bereit, einen neuen Helden nach Prag zu schicken: Podol betrachtet das bekalkte Grinsen gegenüber und schätzt Bullak ab: ‘Du siehst jetzt schon aus wie eine Gipsbüste für die Parteizentrale, man könnte dich aufstellen als verdienten Landwirt des Volkes’. (F 44)

Der geschmeichelte Parteifunktionär geht auf den Vorschlag ein und bietet den Künstlern einen Schutz: die Landwirtschaft übernimmt über die

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Prager ihr Patronat. Also doch eine Bestätigung der Vorherrschaft des barbarisch Ländlichen über das städtisch Kulturelle – wie die Autorin schon den Weg vom PĜemysl, dem Ackermann, auf Vyšehrad und damit die Postulierung des Patriarchats als Schritt zurück verstanden hat? Moníková läßt den Mythos doch gelten – aber nicht als stolzen Heldenepos, sondern als karnevalisiertes Paradigma des erstarrten Machtwechsels. Auf einer ähnlichen interpretatorischen Inversion des Mythos ist die Eishockey-Schlacht im zweiten Romanteil aufgebaut. Sie ist eine Zurücknahme des Eishockeyhelden-Mythos, in den sich der Widerstand der Tschechen gegen die Russen nach 1968 verlagert hat. Moníková läßt ihre literarischen Helden im Spiel gegen den sowjetischen wissenschaftlichen Nachwuchs in Akademgorodok eine Niederlage von 1:9 einstecken, woraufhin sie sich als Verlierer der ‘brüderlichen Umarmung’ entziehen können. Dies ist einerseits eine Polemik mit einem modernen Heldenmythos, der als Flucht aus der Realität aufgenommen wird, andererseits eine Vorwegnahme der ethischen Botschaft des Romans, daß die Geschichte nicht unbedingt die Sieger schreiben müssen, wie es die letzten Fassadebilder, allen anderen die ‘Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen’ (F 440) voran, zum Ausdruck bringen. Aber zurück zum tschechischen Gründungsmythos, der in Die Fassade als Bestandteil der Machtstrukturen dargestellt wird. Die besprochene Versöhnung beider Parteien im Stammlokal, wo die Landwirte ein Patronat über die Künstler übernehmen, ist eine ironische Bestätigung des ganzen Abstammungsmythos. Somit gehören auch die Künstler zum Paradigma ‘Stadice’ – obgleich sie sich an den Machtspielen nicht beteiligen, sind sie unter der Obhut des Bauernstandes und somit ein Teil des (Arbeiter- und) Bauernstaates. Für die sozialutopische Intention des Romans, der eine künstlerische Revision der Geschichte darlegt, ist jedoch wichtig, daß die Protagonisten ihren Widerstand leisten und sich von keiner Art der Ideologisierung vereinnahmen lassen. Sie zeigen der Macht gegenüber ihr Mißtrauen, und als Waffe gegen das erstarrte Denken setzten sie ihren Humor ein, wie es unter anderem Podols adressierte Bezeichnung des Parteifunktionärs als ‘Gipsbüste für die Parteizentrale’ beweist. Der Humor als passender Umgang mit den totalitären Strukturen ist in der Poetik der Autorin ganz wichtig, er darf jedoch nicht zum Selbstzweck werden, wie es aus folgender Passage ersichtlich ist. Zum Ausklang des siegreichen Tages erzählt Podol im ‘Widder’ drei BärenHäschen-Witze:

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‘Das Häschen geht am Bärenbau vorbei, wo die Jungen draußen spielen. Jungs, ist die Mutter zu Hause? Nein? Dann paßt bloß auf! – und ballt die Faust.’ Gelächter. Zwei: ‘Das Häschen sitzt vor seinem Loch und schreit: Ich wetze meine Krällchen gegen den Bären! Sei lieber still, raten ihm die Tiere. Es soll jeder wissen, schreit das Häschen, ich wetze meine Krällchen gegen den Bären! Der Bär kommt. Häschen, was machst du da? Ach, ich wetze meine Krällchen, und schwatze und schwatze so blöd vor mich hin.’ Podol, Patera und Maltzahn krümmen sich. ‘Die sind alt’, sagt Orten. ‘Und der? Kommen Häschen nach Hause, verdreckt und stinkig, und die Mutter fragt: Kinder, was habt ihr bloß gemacht? Ach, wir haben wie immer brav gespielt, und dann kam der Bär und hat sich mit uns den Arsch ausgewischt!’ Die drei kriegen vor Lachen keine Luft, während sich Orten fragt, was er hier eigentlich soll. Dieser nationale Defätismus geht ihm allmählich auf die Nerven. (F 44-5)

Die Bären-Häschen-Witze, die sich durch den ganzen Roman ziehen, sind ein gutes Beispiel für die Schmerzgrenze, an der der Spaß aufhören sollte. Sie waren in der Tschechoslowakei nach der sowjetischen Okkupation nach 1968 sehr verbreitet und zeigten die Fähigkeit der Tschechen, durch Humor über eine historische Niederlage hinwegzukommen. Das Machtverhältnis der Russen und Tschechen im Bild des Bären und Häschen verdeutlichend13 waren sie zugleich eine Flucht aus der bedrückenden Realität in die ‘komische’ Irrationalität, ein Verzicht auf Verantwortung für die schwierige Gegenwart und somit ein Ausdruck der Entpolitisierung der Geschichte, wie Roland Barthes den Mythos definiert hat.14 Daß Libuše Moníková diese Auffassung von Barthes teilt und gegen eine solche verklärende Mythologisierung der Geschichte anschreibt, beweist auch ihre Romanpoetik, die Sibylle Cramer treffend als ‘humoristisch gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands’15 charakterisiert hat. Auch der ablehnende Kommentar Ortens, der eigentlichen Hauptfigur des Romans, zu diesen Witzen zeigt deutlich, wo es wohl auch für die Autorin die Grenzen des Humors gibt – er ist als Waffe gegen die stumpfe Gewalt anzuwenden, nicht als ihre Unterstützung durch Resignation, Verantwortungslosigkeit, eben durch einen ‘nationalen Defätismus’. Die Bären-Häschen-Polarität wird später umgedreht, als die Romanhelden mit den Ewenken ihren gemeinsamen Sieg gegen die russischen Pioniere/Geologen rituell durch einen Bärenschmaus feiern; der gefallene Bär ist als Sinnbild der Niederlage der Russen einfach zu entziffern.

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In einer vorläufigen Zusammenfassung soll nun gezeigt werden, wie der tschechische Gründungsmythos in Die Fassade in der offensiven Humor-Poetik der Autorin verwandelt wird. Die ganze Mörtel-SchlachtSzene ist eine Karnevalisierung dieses Urmythos. Bei der Charakteristik des Kollektivs vom Lande werden in einem Atemzug historische Ereignisse und ihre Ideologisierung durch das kommunistische Regime genannt und als exemplarische Mythologisierung der Geschichte mit dem Abstammungsmythos des tschechischen Volkes auf dieselbe Bedeutungsebene gebracht. An der parataktischen Zusammenfügung des mythischen Ortsnamens ‘Stadice’ und des historisch überladenen Datums vom 28. Oktober wird veranschaulicht, wie sich das kommunistische Regime die Geschichte zunutze gemacht hat. Der Ursprungsort der böhmischen Geschichte, der heilige Ort des tschechischen Patriotismus, wird nach der neuen Ideologie umkodiert – durch ein Datum, das selbst mindestens einmal umgedeutet wurde. Die Autorin zeigt in einer Verdichtung der teilweise ambivalenten Bedeutungen den Prozeß der Ideologisierung der Geschichte durch ihre Mythisierung. Das es für die betroffene (Modell)-Gemeinschaft um formale, sinnentleerte Rituale geht, beweist auch das Konsumverhalten der Landwirte in Bezug auf ihre von oben bestimmten historischen ‘Identitäten’. Der Abstammungsmythos selbst wird auch als ideologisiert aufgefaßt. Indem die Autorin den ehemaligen Herrscher in Prag und politischen Führer des Landes nach Stadice schickt und ihn zum Landwirt werden läßt, macht sie PĜemysls Weg und somit den Mythos auch rückgängig, beziehungsweise in beiden Richtungen geltend. Die Geschichte wird als Zyklus gesehen, die Zeit als mythisch, das heißt sich wiederholend, aufgefaßt. Diese Wiederholungen ermöglichen allerdings keinen Fortschritt, der ideologisierte Mythos verdeutlicht die Geschichtsskepsis der Autorin. Den erstarrten Mechanismus der Stadicer Macht(irr)wege bringt Podols Vorschlag, den ideologischen Betreuer der Landwirte als Gipsbüste auszustellen, auf einen Nenner. Die Einbettung des Mythos in die neueste Geschichte weist darauf hin, daß der Abstammungsmythos zur Ideologisierung der Geschichte und somit zur Legitimierung der (patriarchalischen) Macht dient. Wie stehen jedoch die Romanprotagonisten zum Machtschema ‘Stadice’? Aus dem zitierten Kommentar Podols ergibt sich ironische Distanz, die Künstler zeigen auch kein Mitgefühl mit den Verlierern der Geschichte. Die Schlacht wurde beendet, da der letzte nach Stadice versetzte Gestürzte noch immer unberührbar ist:

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Maltzahn, der ihm mit Podol nachsieht, kommentiert. ‘Immerhin lebt er. Von Palach habe ich nur noch die Totenmaske machen können.’ ‘Hast du jemals gesehen, daß sich ein Politiker angezündet hätte?’, Podol hat zu lange gearbeitet, um sich vom Schicksal eines abgesetzten Funktionärs beeindrucken zu lassen. (F 40)

Auf Moníkovás Figuren hat das bittere Schicksaal des früheren Nationalhelden keinen besonderen Eindruck gemacht. Auch ein gestürzter Herrscher bleibt für sie ein Machtmensch. (Dies gilt auch für den Adel: am Ende des Romans verteidigen die Künstler ‘ihre’ Fassade gegen die Verunstaltungsversuche des verlobten Paares Thurn/Bartholdy.) Durch ihren Kampf gegen die Landwirte machen die Prager Akademiker ihr Bestehen auf künstlerischer Freiheit deutlich, sie verteidigen ihre Arbeit.16 Ihre Skepsis der Macht gegenüber, ihr Widerstand, der sich von der grotesken Mörtelschlacht am Anfang des Romans über das Nomadendasein in seiner Mitte als einzige Möglichkeit der Freiheit bis zum verantwortungsbewußten Zugang der Künstler zu ihrer Arbeit am Romanende, wo sie (künstlerische) Signale als Polemik mit den Machtverhältnissen im Ostblock in die Welt senden, entwickelt, machen aus Die Fassade eine künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit dem tschechischen 68-Mythos vom Sozialismus mit menschlichem Antlitz und seine utopische Befürwortung. Bis jetzt wurde Moníkovás gesellschaftskritischer und geschichtsskeptischer Umgang mit dem Mythos am Beispiel des tschechischen Abstammungsmythos ausgeführt. Die Bloßstellung des Mythos als ideologische Waffe kommt in ihren Werken immer wieder vor; am deutlichsten wird die Mythologisierung der Geschichte in Verklärte Nacht gezeigt. Die Protagonistin besucht in Prag das Polizeimuseum und berichtet Folgendes: Schon das frühere Museum der Nationalen Staatssicherheit wurde selten besucht. [...] Dabei war das SNB-Museum spannend: Bei Agenten, Spionen und Diversanten beschlagnahmten Waffen starrten von der Wand, mit bedrohlich auf den Betrachter gerichteten Läufen. 444 Stück allein aus dem Jahre 1952; im ersten Raum, die Periode 1918-1945, die Karabiner der Gendarmerie und drei schwere Maschinengewehre: Masaryk ließ auf die Arbeiter schießen, war ein geflügeltes Wort der Kommunisten, die selbst jeden Streik unterdrückt hatten. Im Saal des ‘Kampfesruhms’ Standarten des Grenzschutzes, im weiteren Raum die Legende zum ‘Sieg der werktätigen Bevölkerung im Februar 1948’; in dessen Folge sprunghaft angestiegene Truppenzahlen des Innenministeriums und des Korps der Nationalen Sicherheit. Die Volksmilizen, die den Putsch durchgeführt haben, die ‘Kampffaust der Arbeiterklasse’, wurden bis in die achtziger Jahre weiter ausgerüstet;

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auch mit Raketen. [...] Der Höhepunkt: der erfolgreiche Schäferhund, Helfer des Grenzschutzes, der eine Rekordzahl von Diversanten und Spionen gestellt hat, ausgestopft auf einem Podest. (VN 43-4)

Aus dieser Passage ist ersichtlich, wie das kommunistische Regime die Geschichte gefälscht hat. Gegen den ‘Mythos Masaryk’, den Persönlichkeitskult der Ersten Republik, wurde ein Antimythos erfunden. Die Mythisierung des Grenzschutzes, die von der eindeutig wirkenden Präsenz des Stacheldrahts ablenken sollte, führte sogar zum Kult eines (toten) Schäferhundes. Dies ist keine fiktionale Karnevalisierung des Mythos, sondern ein reales Beispiel der Absurdität des totalitären Regimes. Aus dem bis jetzt Gesagten könnte man den Eindruck gewinnen, die Schriftstellerin faßt den Mythos ausschließlich als Beispiel der totalitären Denkstrukturen und Paradigma zur Legitimierung der Machtansprüche auf. Als Gegenbeispiel einer solchen Schlußfolgerung, die einen anderen Zugang zum Mythos verdeutlicht, wird nun eine Szene aus dem zweiten Romanteil von Die Fassade, aus ‘Potemkinsche Dörfer’, besprochen. Die tschechisch-luxemburgische Gruppe, die symptomatisch für die politischen Verhältnisse der 70er Jahre auf ihrem Weg nach Japan in Sibirien gelandet ist, versucht sich der Obhut der sowjetischen Kontrolorgane zu entziehen. Während einer solchen Verfolgungsjagd in Tunguska wird Orten aus dem Schlitten geschleudert. Gerettet wird er von einem Stamm der Amazonen, die sich der patriarchalischen – gleichgesetzt der russischen – Versklavung zu erwehren wissen, indem ihre Schamanin Elueneh die potentiellen Okkupanten in Rentiere17 verzaubert. Orten jedoch, dem alle Machtansprüche fremd sind, wird bei diesem Stamm als Mann und Künstler geheilt und ist wieder imstande zu schaffen – eine weibliche Statue ‘erster Ordnung’ (F 382) als vollkommenes Kunstwerk aus Schnee. In Ortens Heilungsgeschichte haben wir es gleich mit zwei Mythen zu tun: mit dem Mythos von Utopia und dem Amazonenmythos. Die Autorin kreiert ein Bild der heilen Welt und zeigt auch den Weg dazu: aktiven (weiblichen) Widerstand gegen die Machtansprüche und Gewaltversuche der Männer und Aparatschikis. Elueneh, die große weiße Mutter aus der Taiga, hat eine gerechte Gemeinschaftsordnung erreicht, die ständig in Bewegung ist: ‘Unsere Stadt heißt Ulbus, sie heißt immer gleich, sie ist aber immer anderswo’ (F 382). Nachdem der gerettete Orten zu seinen Freunden gebracht wird, fragen sie, wo er sechs Wochen lang gewesen war. Für ihn waren es sechs Tage. Die Autorin hält sich an gegebene Regeln: im Mythos haben die Zeiträume keine Gültigkeit. Auch

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ihr Utopia ist nirgends und überall, die Zeit bleibt im Paradies stehen. Die Voraussetzungen dieser heilen Welt sind Wandlung und Verwandlung. Die Paradiesinsel in der Taiga ist eine zeitlich und örtlich nicht festlegbare Variation des Goldenen Zeitalters in Böhmen – nur im Unterschied zur Fürstin Libuše verzichtet die Schamanin Elueneh nicht auf die führende Rolle bei ihrem Stamm zugunsten der zur Gewalt bereiten Männer, sondern nutzt ihre übernatürlichen Fähigkeiten zur Verteidigung ihrer heilen Welt. Gerade dem Vergleich der Auffassung des böhmischen Gründungsmythos und der Darstellung von Utopia im weiten Land der Sowjets könnte man entnehmen, Moníková stellt Matriarchat als Goldenes Zeitalter dar, das Patriarchat dagegen als Versklavung der Menschen, vor allem der Frauen. Dieser Dualismus stimmt aber nicht immer. Schließlich hat Orten seinen Aufenthalt bei den sibirischen Amazonen als paradiesischen Zustand erfahren und zu sich selber gefunden. Er mußte sie wieder verlassen, aber verwandelt: seine Schaffenskrise hat er überwunden, die Erinnerungen an erreichte Vollkommenheit bleiben – er trägt seinen locus amoenus in sich, unter anderem als Inspiration für neue Fassade-Bilder, die seine künstlerische und gesellschaftskritische Sicht der Wirklichkeit der Außenwelt vermitteln. Ortens Odyssee ist eine frauenbewußte Variation der antiken Vorlage,18 der korrigierte Mythos wird da als Mittel gegen totalitäteres Denken und gewalttätiges Handeln dargestellt.19 Fassen wir zusammen: Der wichtigste Aspekt der Variationen und Infragestellungen der Mythen bei Moníková hängt mit ihrer Kritik der geschlossenen Denkweisen und der damit verbundenen Machtsysteme zusammen. Falls der jeweilige Mythos als Verklärung der (sozialistischen) Realität oder des ‘realen Sozialismus’ zur Rechtfertigung der eigenen Passivität und zum Verzicht auf die Verantwortung für die (Zeit)Geschichte führt, wird er durch distanzierten Humor unter die Luppe genommen (siehe Mythisierungen der tschechischen Geschichte nach 1968). Oft wird er dann – als ideologisiertes Mittel zur Legitimierung der Macht(-Ansprüche) bloßgestellt –, karnevalisiert, wie es anhand der Darstellung des tschechischen Abstammungsmythos in Die Fassade ausgeführt wurde. Der Mythos kann jedoch auch als Gegenbild zu verschiedenen Formen des Totalitarismus herangezogen werden – der ad absurdum gebrachten Rationalität einer Diktatur werden dann Zauberkünste und magische Rituale entgegengesetzt (siehe den Umgang der Ewenken und des Elueneh-Stammes mit dem russischen Bären).20

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Moníkovás Hauptfiguren, meistens Künstler, sind imstande, konservierte Denkstrukturen durch ihren Witz auf den Kopf zu stellen und sich durch ihr ideologiefreies Denken und Schaffen allen starren Systemen zu entziehen, wenn auch in Richtung der (Sozial)-Utopie, etwa der von sibirischen Amazonen oder jener vom Sozialismus mit menschlichem Antlitz. Die Mythen werden bei Libuše Moníková also kritisch überprüft, jedoch nie gänzlich zurückgenommen. Sie gestalten ja die tschechische Nationalidentität und Kultur mit, die die Schriftstellerin ihrem internationalen Publikum als Bestandteil des europäischen Kulturerbes vermitteln wollte: Seit ich schreibe und mich aufgrund dieser Tätigkeit öffentlich äußere, versuche ich, Kenntnisse über das Land, aus dem ich komme, zu verbreiten und es möglichst würdig zu vertreten. (PF 18-19)

Somit schließt sich die Autorin, die in ihrem Werk mit den Mythen so oft abrechnet, dem Mythos vom Schriftsteller als Gewissen des Volkes an, einem Mythos, der paradoxerweise gerade auf das sonst kritisch betrachtete 19. Jahrhundert zurückgeht.21

Anmerkungen 1

Von der Täter-Opfer-Polarität des Prosaerstlings kommt die Schriftstellerin zu Streitdialogen, die eine Beziehung (un)-möglich machen. Das eine trifft für MarieMercedes und Qvietone in Die Fassade oder Karla und Prantl in Treibeis, das andere für Leonora Marty und Thomas Asperger in Verklärte Nacht zu. 2

Die Bezeichnung Franz Kafkas und Arno Schmidts als ‘meine Widersacher, meine Stützen’ (P 147) von Francine Pallas, dieser stark autobiographisch gefärbten Hauptfigur aus Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, kann als intertextuelles Charakteristikum des Gesamtwerkes Moníkovás herangezogen werden. 3

Siehe Ortens Ringen um Kunst in Die Fassade oder Leonoras Martys künstlerische Selbstreflexionen in Verklärte Nacht.

4

Der Mythos wird hier nicht im dualistischen Sinne als das Gegenteil von Logos verwendet, sondern als Auffassung und zugleich Darstellung der Welt als Ganzes, Suche nach dem (eigenen) Ursprung, (rituelle) Wiederholung eines Urereignisses. Vgl. dazu Mircea Eliade, Der Mythos der ewigen Wiederkehr, Diederichs: Düsseldorf, 1953.

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5

Der oben festgelegte Zugang zum Mythos ist meistens der Ausgangspunkt der ‘Arbeit am Mythos’ der Schriftstellerin; auf Abweichungen von diesem MythosBegriff, Querverbindungen zu ihm oder gar seine Inversion wird explizit hingewiesen. 6

Mit dem Begriff der Autorschaft hat sich grundlegend Antje Mansbrügge beschäftigt. Die Identifikation der Ich-Erzählerin mit der Fürstin Libuše betrachtet sie als Teil der Erzählstrategie: ‘Das erzählende Ich nimmt verschiedene Rollen und Identitäten an, durchspielt Positionen einer Erzähltradition so genannten weiblichen Schreibens und stellt etliche Bezüge zu literarischen Figuren bzw. Autorinnen und Autoren her. Die Selbstidentifikationen der Erzählerin variieren: Mal ist sie Francine, mal die Fürstin Libuše [...] und mal die Schwester von Amalia Barnabas (nämlich Olga) aus Kafkas Roman Das Schloß [...]. Diese namentlichen Versatzstücke unterlegen die Identität der Ich-Erzählerin mit Geschichten und Mythen, unterwandern die als verlässlich angenommenen identifizierenden biografischen Daten Francine Pallas und pointieren die Vielstimmigkeit ihres Ausgangsortes’, Antje Mansbrügge, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis: Lektüren zu Libuše Moníková, Königshausen & Neumann: Würzburg, 2002, 30. 7

Gemeint ist der Mythos von Befreiung des tschechischen Volkes nach fast 400 Jahren der (nationalen) Unterdrückung unter dem ‘Habsburger Joch’. Vgl. dazu JiĜí Rak, Bývali ýechové statní junáci: ýeské historické mýty a stereotypy [‘Die Tschechen waren einst tapfere Recken: Tschechische historische Mythen und Stereotypen’], H&H: Prag, 1994. 8

Diese offizielle Auffassung wurzelt im 19. Jahrhundert, dessen Mythologisierungen Moníková in Die Fassade in Frage stellt, unter anderem durch die Theaterinszenierungen ihrer Protagonisten. Bis heute geht das Nationalbewußtsein der Tschechen auf das 19. Jahrhundert zurück, wo der tschechische Abstammungsmythos für eine historische Quelle ausgegeben und als kulturpolitisches Argument im Kampf um die nationale Identität verwendet wurde. Nachdem die böhmischen Stände 1620 die Schlacht am Weißen Berg verloren haben, sind viele gebildete tschechische Protestanten ins Exil gegangen und Tschechisch hat in Böhmen allmählich an Bedeutung verloren. Dieser Prozeß hat in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts durch die zentralistischen Reformen (allgemeine Schulpflicht, Einführung des Deutschen als Einheitssprache im Staatsapparat) von Maria Theresia und Joseph II seinen Höhepunkt erreicht; Tschechisch wurde nur noch auf dem Lande gesprochen. Nach der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft (1781) begann sich jedoch um die Jahrhundertwende vom 18. zum 19. Jh. in Böhmen genauso wie in anderen Ländern Europas die nationale Identität zu formieren. Zunächst haben ein paar Gelehrte versucht, die tschechische Sprache zu retten, einige Jahre später haben sich (pre)romantische Dichter bemüht, Tschechisch als Literatursprache konkurrenzfähig zu machen. Um das entstehende tschechische Nationalbewußtsein zu stützen und sich vor allem den Deutschen gegenüber als altes Kulturvolk zu präsentieren, hat man zur literarischen Fälschung gegriffen. Diese Falsa sind nach Orten ihrer ‘Entdeckung’ als

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Rukopis Královedvorský/Die Königinhofer Handschrift (1817) und Rukopis Zelenohorský/Die Grünberger Handschrift (1818) in die (Literatur)-Geschichte eingegangen; ihre Autoren waren wohl der Kustos des Böhmischen Museums Václav Hanka und sein Freund, der Dichter Josef Linda. Mehr als ein halbes Jahrhundert als echte Heldenepen aus der Zeit vor und während der Anfänge des tschechischen PĜemysliden-Staates geltend, wurden sie als historische und kulturpolitische Argumente zur Legitimierung der Konstituierung der tschechischen Nation und ihrer Rolle in der Weltgeschichte herbeigeholt und dienten bis zur Ersten Tschechoslowakischen Republik (1918-1939) als Quelle für zahlreiche Kunstwerke. Die Inspiration durch die erfundenen Heldentaten der ruhmreichen Ahnen reicht von Friedrich Smetanas ‘Libuše’ (1872; 1881) und ‘Má vlast’/‘Mein Vaterland’ (18741879) bis zu ‘Slovanská epopej’/‘Slawisches Epos’ (1911-28) von Alfons Mucha. Sowohl der Komponist in seinen Werken als auch der eher durch seine dekorativen Plakate bekannte Maler auf seinen zwanzig riesigen Leinwänden ließen sich nicht nur von Themen und Motiven der falschen Epen beeinflussen, sondern auch von ihrem heroisierend-kämpferischen nationalen Gestus zur Nachahmung hinreißen. Auch Alois Jiráseks ‘Staré povČsti þeské’/‘Böhmens alte Sagen’ (1894, deutsche Übersetzung. 1957), auf die sich das ‘historische’ Wissen der meisten Tschechen stützt und die noch immer zur Pflichtlektüre vieler tschechischer Kinder gehören, gehen auf die falsifizierten Handschriften der sogenannten ‘nationalen Wiedergeburt’ zurück. 9

Mit den Überlieferungen der tschechischen Mythen und Legenden hat sich ausführlich Vladimír Karbusický beschäftigt. Aus seiner komparatistischen Analyse der böhmischen Chroniken von Cosmas (nach 1110), dem Dalimilgenannten (1314) und Václav Hájek von Liboþany (1543) geht hervor, daß schon Cosmas, dessen Text zur Quelle der späteren Überlieferungen wurde, seine Chronik als Legitimierung der Herrschaft der PĜemysliden konzipiert hat. Laut Karbusický spielt in dieser dynastiebewußten Strategie der Ackermann PĜemysl die Schlüsselrolle, Libuše/Lubossa sei keine Repräsentantin des Matriarchats, sondern eine Jungfrau auf dem Thron, deren Virginität in der Kulturtradition des Abendlandes magische Kräfte zugesprochen werden. Diese sollen PĜemysls Aufstieg besiegeln. Vgl. Vladimír Karbusický, Anfänge der historischen Überlieferung in Böhmen, Böhlau: Köln, 1980, 17-20; 41-70. 10

Sei es literarischer Art, etwa Johannes von Tepls großartige Polemik Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, sei es religiöser Art – als Sakralisierung der Heimaterde.

11

Moníkovás Auffassung des tschechischen Abstammungsmythos ähnelt jener skeptischen Sicht der Menschheitsgeschichte von Ovid: dem ‘goldnen Zeitalter’ entspricht die Regierung Libušes, die Herrschaft vom PĜemysl vereint in sich das eiserne Zeitalter als Epoche der Kriege mit der Steinzeit als Stufe der Zivilisation: deswegen wohl die Bezeichnung ‘der Pflüger’.

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12

Vgl. Michael Schwidtal, ‘Libuše, PĜemysl und Prometheus: Zum mythischen Erzählen,’ in Delf Schmidt und Michael Schwidtal, Hrsg., Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková, [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], 64-69 (hier 67).

13

Nicht nur ihrer Symbolik nach gehören die Bären-Häschen-Witze zum mythischen Erzählen. Sie sind ein Beispiel des Erzählens gegen die Angst, und zugleich ein Beispiel der ‘entpolitisierten Aussage’ nach der strukturalistisch-semiotischen Mythologie von Roland Barthes.

14

Roland Barthes definiert den Mythos als ‘entpolitisierte Aussage’, die Reales in Natur verwandelt und somit als nicht zu ändernde Gegebenheit präsentiert: ‘Der Mythos leugnet nicht die Dinge, seine Funktion besteht im Gegenteil darin, von ihnen zu sprechen. Er reinigt sie nur einfach, er macht sie unschuldig, er gründet sie als Natur und Ewigkeit, er gibt ihnen eine Klarheit, die nicht die der Erklärung ist, sondern die der Feststellung’. Roland Barthes, Mythen des Alltags, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1964, 131.

15

Sibylle Cramer weist in der Poetik der Autorin auf ‘die intelligente Kraft des Komischen’ hin, das Komische sei ‘der angriffslustige, umstürzlerische Geist der Erzählung’. Sibylle Cramer, ‘Eine humoristisch gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands: Prospekt zur Verbesserung Mitteleuropas: Das Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt und Schwidtal, Hrsg., Prag – Berlin, 70-77 (hier 75).

16

Podol hat zunächst versucht, dem gekränkten Thurn zu erklären, daß ihr restauratorischer Umgang nicht willkürlich ist, sondern dem Geiste der Renaissance mehr entspricht als frühere Eingriffe von Thurns Vorfahren, F 36-7.

17

An dieser Stelle ist die Frage angebracht, wie sich die Komik mit dem mythischen Erzählen verträgt. Sollte der Mythos, gerade in seinem Charakter als Beschwörung des heiligen Ursprungs und der ewigen Wiederkehr nicht ernst sein? Das komische Erzählen kann dann zum mythischen Erzählen werden, wenn erhöhte Distanz verlangt wird. Daß Humor Abstand schafft und somit die gefährliche Betroffenheit verhindert, ist eines seiner Hauptmerkmale. Laut Hans Blumenberg wurde gerade das Distanzbedürfnis zum Auslöser für die Entstehung der Mythen: um die Angst vor dem Übermächtigen zu bannen, haben die Menschen angefangen, die Angstbilder zu benennen, über sie zu erzählen, Hans Blumenberg, Die Arbeit am Mythos, Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1984, 11-13. In den Situationen, wo Moníkovás Romanhelden auf die übermächtige Großmacht stoßen, werden sie also gleich doppelt geschützt: durch Komik und magische Rituale. (Gemeint ist damit die Verbindung von Komik und Magie bei den Ewenken – der Bärenschmaus, F 362-5 – bzw. bei Elueneh – die Rentierzucht, F 378-82). Die ‘humoristisch gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands’ vereint sich hier mit dem mythischen Erzählen, um den Sieg gegen den Totalitarismus der (politischen) Übermächte zu sichern.

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18

Orten hat nicht vor, die sibirische Kirke mit List und Gewaltandrohung zu besiegen. Er ist auf ihre Hilfe angewiesen.

19

Sibylle Cramer sieht das mythische Erzählen Moníkovás als narrative Waffe gegen verstarrte Geschichts- und Literaturkonzepte: ‘Im Ernstfall, in der erzählerischen Auseinandersetzung mit der Geschichte dieses Jahrhunderts, dem Totalitarismus, mobilisiert sie das utopische Potential der Mythen und Märchen, einer gern als weiblich apostrophierten mündlichen Überlieferung’, Sibylle Cramer, ‘Eine humoristisch gewendete Äshetik des Widerstands: Prospekt zur Verbesserung Mitteleuropas: Das Werk Libuše Moníkovás,’ in Schmidt und Schwidtal, Hrsg., PragBerlin, 70-77 (hier 75).

20

Die Affinität dieser mythischen Geschichten zur Ethno-Mythologie von Claude Lévi-Strauss ist einer selbstständigen Studie wert.

21

Siehe die Auseinandersetzung der Prager Künstler mit dem Mythos der nationalen Wiedergeburt. Der Mythos vom Schriftsteller als Gewissen des Volkes ist einer der dominantesten Mythen der ‘tschechischen Nationalwiedergeburt’. Er erhebt die tschechischen Schriftsteller zur moralischen Instanz für das Wohl der Nation und verpflichtet sie zum Kampf für die sozialen und nationalen Rechte der Tschechen, für den sie mit ihrem Werk sowie mit ihrem Leben bürgen sollen. Als Beispiele können die nationalen Märtyrer Karel Havlíþek (1821-1856) und Božena NČmcová (18201862) genannt werden. Vor allem anhand des Schicksals von Božena NČmcová (siehe unter anderem F 23-4) hat Libuše Moníková wiederholt aufgezeigt, wie das Volk seine Dichterin, die diesem Mythos gerecht wurde, im Stich gelassen hat.

Helga G. Braunbeck ‘Der Roman muß sich die Bilder holen’:1 Film Discourse in the Texts of Libuše Moníková Libuše Moníková’s writing is inspired and shaped by images, particularly from film. On the story level, she includes numerous references to directors, film-making and films, which are then used to establish characters, setting or plot. Her writing style and narrative composition attempt to create the illusion of moving images and often simulate the camera and montage techniques of film. Through its abundant references to books, her own film, Grönland-Tagebuch (1994), establishes a similar intermediality from the other direction. Moníková’s metadiscourse about film production and reception, together with the texts’ and the film’s attempted hybridity and intermediality, anchors her works aesthetically in postmodernism. ‘Von Bildern bin ich fasziniert, ursprünglich Filmregie machen.’2

ich

wollte

Had Libuše Moníková not been forced into exile from her native Czechoslovakia after 1968, she would have chosen, as she stated repeatedly, a different outlet for her creativity: ‘Ich hätte in Prag auch nie Bücher geschrieben, ich hätte Filme gemacht. Ich wäre gar nicht auf die Idee gekommen, zu schreiben. Meine Bücher sind auch so etwas wie Filmdrehbücher’.3 She once tried the role of director and the medium of film in her television production Grönland-Tagebuch (1994). But the film starts with statements about the significance of books, with images of libraries, and with references to literary passages about libraries. This filmic attention to text and writing mirrors the beginning of Moníková’s second book, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin (1983), which starts with a description of television programmes and film festival contributions. This novel is not the only text in which Moníková draws on the other, visual medium of film as she produces her own art in the verbal medium of literature. In her literary work, Moníková explicitly mentions over sixty different film titles and at least fifteen individual directors;4 she describes numerous scenes from films and often retells, or has her characters ‘tell’, a whole film to a conversation partner. In addition there are countless other explicit or implicit references to actors and the roles they play, to film genres, to the shooting of a scene or to other aspects of film as a medium,

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and to the film industry. All her characters are film buffs and love to talk about film. Moníková often describes their experiences in the cinema or in front of the television set and has them engage in discussions about films, directors or actors. She gives some of them jobs in the film industry, as a stuntwoman (Karla), as a projectionist (Prantl), as artists producing film posters (Orten, Brandl). Her characters or the narrator discuss the nexus of ethics and film aesthetics, establishing a metadiscourse about film as a medium.5 Moníková herself loved the cinema – she uses the word ‘süchtig’ – and draws from a rich experience of watching countless films: Ich schwänzte später Schule und während des Studiums Vorlesungen, um ins Kino zu gehen, auch mehrmals am Tag. […] ich sah selten einen Film nur einmal oder zweimal. […] Ich habe nie so wenig Geld gehabt wie in Prag, als ich täglich ins Kino mußte.6

Her brother confirms: ‘Filme erlebte sie sehr intensiv’.7 An expert, she has clear preferences, which she often transfers to her characters. When asked about the directors and films most important to her, she says: Vor allem die drei, die auch in der Fassade genannt werden: Kurosawa, Buñuel, Bergman, und dazu kommen einzelne Filme von anderen, die amerikanischen Schwarzweißfilme. Hitchcocks Filme sind perfekt gemacht, das Handwerk allein finde ich schon spannend.8

In this list of directors, Kurosawa definitely holds the top spot, judging from the number of times he and his films are mentioned and also from the depth and detail in the discussion of his films. Moníková also mentions other well-known directors such as Godard, Cocteau and Wilder. But for the most part, when it comes to less well-known directors, she focuses on the films themselves, mentioning their titles, discussing their stories or some details. Her references range from the most famous directors and films to fairly obscure productions. Some of them supply the cultural background of the time in which a particular novel is set, or, in the many flashbacks, the cultural and political climate in which the characters grew up. The close connection between film, history and Moníková’s writing also has an autobiographical component. What appears to have been the most significant historical event to intrude on her personal life, the self-immolation of Jan Palach in protest against the Soviet occupation of Prague of 1968, is intimately connected in her memory with her simultaneous visit to a cinema in close proximity: Als er sich verbrannte, war ich im Kino. In ‘Onibaba’, auf dem Wenzelsplatz, nur ein paar Meter entfernt. Hätte er geschrien, hätte ich ihn wahrscheinlich hören können. Fünfundzwanzig Jahre. Ich habe ihm mein erstes Buch gewidmet, namentlich; mein zweites, mein drittes ... (PF 113)9

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While these references to film and its contexts of production and reception are part of the ‘story’ or histoire of the texts, one can also detect a transposition of filmic techniques into Moníková’s narrative style and composition, such as intensely visual descriptions, a textual simulation of camera techniques such as the zoom, or film editing techniques such as montage. Since literary texts and films are different media – literature working with words, film working primarily with images, but also with other media such as words and sound – I will briefly establish a theoretical framework for analyzing the kind of intermediality that is possible between the two media. As Irina O. Rajewsky outlines, the concept of intermediality has developed out of the concept of intertextuality and earlier studies in literary criticism on ekphrasis or the wider context of interart studies.10 While film in a sense already is intermedial in that it uses images, words and sound,11 literature normally works only with words12 and therefore does not incorporate other media the way film does but can only refer and allude to them on the level of the histoire, or on the textual level simulate them through literary means and rhetorical devices.13 Beyond the important initial distinction between references to film and its contexts on the level of the story, and attempts to reproduce cinematic techniques on the level of language and narrative, Rajewsky develops an exact and elaborate system for categorising the many forms of intermedial references. With numerous subcategories (which need explaining and examples to be understood), her system is too complex to be discussed here but provides a useful tool for showing the wide range of filmic references and simulated techniques present in Moníková’s writing. Here I will list a few of Rajewsky’s general findings that may serve to guide the discussion: intermedial references can be explicit or implicit; when they are implicit, it is important to look for ‘markers’ in the text that establish a connection to the medium of film;14 the references to film or simulations of filmic techniques guide the reader’s reception of the literary text; single references to films, directors and so on always include a reference to the ‘system’, as do, of course, metamedial reflections; the present tense is the essential mode of representation of film, and its use in literary narrative is one way to imitate the medium of film. Moníková’s texts contain an abundance of ‘markers,’ that is, explicit references to film. Her fairly consistent use of the present tense as her main narrative mode also stands out. Her autobiographical statements about the importance of film for her writing process are another pointer,

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but will have to be verified by examining in what way her writing actually attempts to replicate the medium of film. I will begin with a brief overview of her ‘use’ of the medium of film in her writing, first of her references on the level of the histoire, then of some of her simulations of film techniques through her narrative style and composition, and finally of her metadiscourse about the medium. In her first novel, Eine Schädigung (1981), Moníková explores how the medium’s mode of delivery in the cinema and the familiar narrative conventions of film affect their spectator. The protagonist Jana uses the cinema as a place of refuge in order to escape the memory of her rape and to regain a sense of identity. She lets herself be transported to another world while enjoying her ability to analyse the film from a critical distance, which allows her to establish a measure of control over its meaning. In Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin the integration of the other medium already goes much further: the protagonist Franza sees her life as ‘eine Abfolge von Literatur- und Filmszenen’ (P 19). Die Fassade (1987) again uses the cinema setting and spectator reactions, then parodies Hollywood film and develops the love between two of its main characters out of their shared love of Japanese film. But this text also discusses various visual media, such as the serial sgraffiti and comic strips, which can emulate the effect of successive images, as in film. Treibeis (1992) features a stuntwoman as the female lead and kidnaps her from the film in mid-action for a part in the textual narrative. In Verklärte Nacht (1996), Moníková describes the effect of the documentary films about the Spartakiáda,15 still seductive to television audiences in the Czech Republic even after the end of communist oppression; and she has her feverish protagonist hallucinate that she is Leni Riefenstahl. Her unfinished last novel Der Taumel (2000) explains the impact that Soviet oppression had on the kinds of films that were produced and shown in cinemas, and shows how television became an instrument of political manipulation. Moníková’s essays, too – mostly her second collection, Prager Fenster (1994) – show how television shapes its audience’s perception of historical reality, as was particularly apparent during the reporting on the first Gulf War, ‘Desert Storm,’ in 1991. But as mentioned above, Moníková’s writing does not just incorporate references to film and television and discuss their societal implications. Her narrative style seeks to incorporate techniques familiar from the visual culture of film, an effect that may be partially Moníková’s writing method. She explains: ‘Ich stelle mir eigentlich einen Film vor,

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wenn ich schreibe. Nicht bewußt, wenn ich darüber nachdenke, die Filmtechnik ist da’.16 Either as a result, or because they are consciously constructed thus by the author, the dialogue and action scenes in her novels often read like a film script; descriptive passages are as vivid in their detail as if a camera, not the pen, had captured them; camera techniques like the zoom are reproduced through literary means; and the conventions of film editing, such as cutting techniques and montage, structure the narrative composition of her texts. Occasionally Moníková employs the technical terms of film making, but more often she uses the terminology of the informed spectator or film critic. That role provides a better opportunity for the kind of cultural and political criticism Moníková has in mind: ‘In Zeiten, wo Literatur im allgemeinen Rumor leiser wird und kaum vernehmbar, haben die Schriftsteller noch eine Stimme als Bürger’ (PF 44). While Moníková’s textual production is clearly inspired by a love and extensive knowledge of film (mostly feature films and, more specifically, art films), she is keenly aware of the medium’s seductive power and opportunities for ideological control, censorship and manipulation. In postmodern fashion, she therefore uses her own medium – language and textual narrative – to both simulate and deconstruct the other medium and expose its collective projection system.17 Her references to film and the deployment of cinematic techniques in her writing aim at breaking down the boundaries between the two media and attaining a hybridity of medial discourses, even though this has to remain an imitation in her literary texts and, in her film, Grönland-Tagebuch, occurs mostly on the level of metadiscourse. Intermediality, attempted hybridity, simulation and a concurrent metadiscourse about forms of representation, as well as discussion of the ideological implications of the new medium of the twentieth century – all point to the postmodern qualities of Moníková’s texts and film.18 One might argue that her texts contain an abundance of both factual and fictional references to a large number of areas of human knowledge and art forms, not just to film. Within those, however, references to film occupy a special place, not just because of Moníková’s autobiographical statements about the medium’s impact on her writing process, but because literature has more in common with the art form of film than with other art forms. Therefore it allows not just references on the level of the story (as is the case with references to most other fields of knowledge),19 but also textual and sometimes parodic representation of its techniques. I will start my analysis by investigating film references at the

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level of story, such as cinema visits and viewing experiences, audience reception and characters’ reflections on the medium of cinema film and television, but include the author’s reflections on television in some of her fairly autobiographical essays. A discussion of the ideological and ethical implications of filming and the use of film will be followed by a more indepth analysis of explicit references to film at the level of the story and their integration into character and plot development in several novels. The attempted hybridisation of the two media will then be discussed as it appears in Moníková’s texts and in her film, with most of the attention focused on the way the author invokes techniques and styles from the ‘other’ medium. And I will close by situating Moníková’s use of references to and simulation of the techniques of the ‘other’ medium in the aesthetics of postmodern modes of representation. At the Movies: Limited Escape In der Innenstadt gab es noch Verstecke, Jana kannte sie aus der Schulzeit; eine Reihe Kinos, die vormittags spielten, die erste Vorstellung fing halb elf an. Ihre alte Sucht; eine starke Dosis auf einmal hatte genügt, und sie war wieder da […] (S 71)

Possibly more than reading, visiting a cinema provides its audience a temporary escape from their own reality and transports them into an alternative world. Engaging the senses more immediately than the act of mentally processing printed pages, the seductive power of film, usually aided by the womb-like surroundings in the cinema, pulls the spectator into a place where he or she can hide for a while, physically as well as metaphorically. Both of these qualities are important to Jana, the protagonist of Eine Schädigung, as she is seeking refuge from the painful memories of her rape by a police officer and her subsequent killing of him and also, in a more literal sense, refuge from the unsafe streets and even her own apartment where she constantly feels the threat of being discovered. She experiences the darkness of the cinema as ‘heilsam’ (S 68) and likes the impression it gives of a private club: it takes her out of the public eye and away from the threatening gaze of the totalitarian authority which must be looking for the perpetrator. She also appreciates the special status of this art movie house outside mainstream cinema and enjoys its individualised décor, without ‘Serienausstattung’, and with comfortable seats (S 68). An old film with long, static shots provides her

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with stillness and induces sleepiness, but is followed by a series of ‘stumme Grotesken von verwirrender Lebendigkeit, durchzogen von Schrammen, in deren Schauern sich die Personen wie an Marionettenstrippen bewegten’ (S 69). Rather than being disturbed by the defective film stock, Jana establishes a connection with a popular Czech art form and integrates the physical medium’s characteristics into the story of the film. Through this comparison with the marionette theatre, Moníková also alludes to one of the main issues in the novel: centralised control of people’s lives by a force that, except for the connections leading to it, is not seen. This may be a metaphor for life in Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, with the invisible Soviet puppetmaster establishing marionette governments and pulling all the strings. While subject to the control of powerful forces, however, the characters in Moníková’s novels often use their interaction with the medium of film as a means to establish a power of their own. It is the power of the expert spectator, of the cinema buff, of the film critic, who constructs and deconstructs the film rather than being taken in and controlled by it. Jana’s main pleasure when seeing films is figuring out the plot development and the dialogue before they appear on the screen. Because of her constant lateness for shows, she has developed this ability to perfection. In essence, she doubles as the screenwriter and creates the script herself. She is able to do this, not only as a survival skill when thrown into the middle of a film, but because of her extensive familiarity with film and its codes, particularly the highly formulaic codes of Hollywood cinema. Jana knows the generic pattern of the narrative and the fixed social groups in the genre of the Western, as well as the stereotypical roles of the women who only perform as ‘Trophäen, wie Papierrosen am Schießstand, in der Handlung beliebig austauschbar für einen Sattel, ein Pferd, einen Wagen oder eine gehobene Position’ (S 72). Her ability to predict the film gives her satisfaction, but if the film turns out to be too ‘easy’, also leaves her with some disappointment (S 73). Her own versions sometimes turn out to be more complicated and thus more intellectually fulfilling for her than the film she actually sees. Looking at Jana looking at movies clearly shows how her main pleasure results from her control over this experience and her own parallel creation. The world of movies is an escape for her, not in the usual sense of an identificatory experience but through the creative process. Reconnecting with her creative powers helps her rebuild her damaged self, within the safe boundaries of a parallel universe. This universe is familiar

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and predictable and has not been damaged. Her participation in it is intellectual, not requiring an emotional connection. In addition, the physical surroundings in which this parallel universe unfolds are soothing, like a drug which provides comfort and stimulation, and transports her to a different world: ‘Das Berauschende an den Filmen war ihre Bewegung. In kleinen Kinos gehörte dazu das vertrauliche Surren des Projektors und der silbrige Staub, aufgewirbelt durch das filmtragende Licht aus der Kabine’ (S 73).20 Jana does not just watch the film, but experiences the visual and auditory characteristics of the process of projection in a sensual way.21 This is another part of her film experience, one that is familiar, does not change, and has its own aesthetic qualities. Captivating: The Power of Television Stell dir vor, es ist Krieg, und du hast keinen Fernseher. (PF 42)

Moníková’s second and most personal book, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, opens with graphic images of brutality in various forms taken from television. We read descriptions of three seemingly unrelated and unconnected films, one also an entry at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival: a report on foundlings after WWII, a film about the atrocious and inhumane conditions in an automated chicken hatchery, and a film about hostages. All three deal with survival and identity: the foundlings have been passed around and have acquired many names, but have difficulty relating to their estranged parents upon their reunification. The just hatched black chick gets pushed onto the wrong conveyor belt, ends up in the crushing machine for chicken ‘waste’, but manages to fight its way out. Traced by the camera, it becomes a metaphor for survival against all odds, and for difference. And the film about the hostages outlines how, after their release, some of the hostages identify with their captors and how some can never shake off their new identity as a hostage.22 The foundlings lose their identity, the chick has to fight its way through the corpses of other chicks, and the hostages have forever lost their previous identity: Moníková thus uses these three television films to introduce the main topics of her text, namely survival in a hostile environment, passing through death, and rebirth with a new identity.23 The book’s first person narrator, Francine Pallas, a lecturer in literature at a German university, derives her identity from film scenes, describing her life as ‘eine Abfolge von Literatur- und Filmszenen, willkürliche Zitate,

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die ich nicht immer gleich einordnen kann’ (P 19).24 The text is composed accordingly, from the opening that invokes the haphazard and arbitrary combination of programmes in television schedules, or a viewing practice integral to the medium of television: zapping between different channels and programmes.25 Thus Moníková uses television for intertextual connections on the intradiegetic levels of theme and characterisation, but also employs its principles of reception in her narrative composition. The close connection between identity and images seen on television is explored from another angle in Moníková’s novel Verklärte Nacht. The first person narrator’s description of the Spartakiáda near the beginning of the text reads like a simulated superimposition of images from her memory and images rebroadcast on Czech television thirty years later. Leonora remembers and relates her participation as a child in the stadium, but at the same time weaves in the critical comments of the adult looking back from a different vantage point, sitting in front of the television set. The programme, a re-run of a recording from the fifties, triggers the memories of her childhood and youth under Soviet oppression, its erasure of individuality, coercion into prescribed patterns, and projection of political dominance and the cult of personality.26 Her sarcastic, at times satirical assessment of the event and the images on television is in stark contrast to the effect the programme has on the rest of the population and provides the critical frame of reference which the authorities have failed to provide with their re-run: Die Filmaufzeichnungen aus den fünfziger Jahren, unlängst im Fernsehen gezeigt, haben eine Welle von Rührung und Begeisterung hervorgerufen, so daß man überlegte, sie ein weiteres Mal mit einem erklärenden, abschreckenden Kommentar zu zeigen. (VN 14)

The event has become a part of people’s personal history and identity to such an extent that they are unable to see the ideological abuse of the medium, and cannot read these images as the political propaganda of the regime that had held their country hostage for so many decades. The power of the projected image and television-induced nostalgia override the memory of oppression, or, to use the language of film, make it fade out. It was not always like this. In Der Taumel, which is set in the seventies when the wounds of Soviet occupation were still fresh, the people of Czechoslovakia were more astute spectators and critics of the images served up to them by government-controlled productions. Brandl, the protagonist, comments critically on the subliminal messages contained in the television films of ‘social realism ‘ with their focus on heroism in the working world. But he, as an artist, isn’t the only one who is critical;

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so are many ordinary people in the cinema, where they are forced to watch a ‘Wochenschau’ before the feature film. Similar to newsreel programmes in cinemas in Nazi Germany, this programme is pure propaganda. But its projection in a cinema, rather than its broadcasting on television, provides, possibly, an opportunity for sabotage and thus for clandestine subversion of the intended message. They had already whistled and booed at the sight of kissing politicians ‘aus Bruderländern’; now, they rejoice when the image and the sound do not fit together: ‘Wenn die synchrone Einstellung entfällt, wird das Verlogene, die ganze Posse sichtbar’ (Tm 107). A cinema employee trying to restore order has no chance against their laughter. In any case, whether it is intentional sabotage or just a problem with the equipment, the audience welcomes the dismantling of the show and its projection of false images. But even after the fall of the Iron Curtain, as Moníková watches more recent representations of current events on television, she is again concerned about the manipulation of the images for political purposes and the mise-en-scène for the media: 1991, Mitte Januar. Den Kriegsausbruch begleitet eine hoch effektive Berichterstattung der Medien, das Fernsehen katapultiert sich an die Spitze und wird unentbehrlich. Der Film ‘War Games’ wird abgesetzt, man kann es schon spannender haben. Bei den Angriffen der Amerikaner und der Alliierten spricht man auch konsequent von einem ‘Szenario’. (PF 41-42)

While she does not explicitly compare this to Riefenstahl’s mise-en-scène of a historical event in order to produce film with a strong visual impact and ideological message – her Triumph des Willens – the parallel is striking, even though today the material is produced by huge anonymous teams rather than a single director. A second concern for Moníková is a particularly postmodern one: speed, both the speed of production, which may lead to many mistakes, and the speed of the images, intended to attract more viewers hungry for ever more images. And a third concern is censorship and control of images, in this case in the capitalist – and now, through control of the media, imperialist – society of the Western World: Die vereinten Medien des Erdballs wetteifern in ihrer Berichterstattung über den Golfkrieg um die gewagteren, schnelleren Bilder. Die Amerikaner können dabei neben der militärischen auch ihre medienstrategische Überlegenheit demonstrieren. Das irakische Staatsoberhaupt, skrupellos wie telegen, gewährt allein dem amerikanischen Starreporter des CNN Zutritt und Auskunft; vom letzteren bekommen erst die ‘Kollegen’ und andere Sender

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portionsweise Ausschnitte; jede Sequenz hat ihren Preis. Amerika behält Kontrolle darüber, was die Welt über den Krieg erfährt. Die Zensur findet schon vorher statt. Die Bildsequenzen sind falsch betitelt, aus einem anderen Zusammenhang herausgerissen, falsch gedeutet, aber der Alltag stockt, die Fernsehnachrichten bestimmen das Leben; gestellte Gefahr in Spielfilmen wird durchschaut und belächelt, man hat schnell gelernt, Authentizität zu verlangen. (PF 91)

It does not even matter that this ‘authenticity ‘ is artificial or enacted and has been bought at the cost of supporting the criminals shown on television, as in the case of the Stasi collaborators in the GDR and Neonazis: Für exquisite Gagen packen sie in exquisiten Interviews aus. Öffentliche Fernsehanstalten heuern für ein paar Biere Neonazis zu Überfällen auf Asylantenheime, ‘nur gestellt’; ein deutscher Gruß vor der Kamera mit ‘Heil Hitler!’ kostet extra. Die blöden Kahlköpfe mit durchbohrten Wangen sind neben einem Topspitzel ein billiger Fang, aber man sieht sie sich trotzdem an. Ob Entführungen, Raubüberfälle, Geiselnahmen oder Krawalle vor Flüchtlingssiedlungen – die Medien sind in der Regel schon vor der Polizei da, werden zu Komplizen. (PF 92)

Filming is anything but ‘recording’, even when it is supposed to do just that for television news. The medium becomes an actor, reality turns into a spectacle, and the world into a place that only exists under the gaze of the camera. The Camera Eye Der Mann ist ganz Auge. Er kann die Kamera gar nicht abstellen. Am Ende reißt er sich aus Scham das Auge heraus, wird blind. Riefenstahl hätte die Kamera laufen lassen. (VN 122)

After her fall into the frigid waters of the Vltava in Prague, Leonora Marty, the protagonist of Verklärte Nacht, develops a high fever and hallucinates embodiments of three mythical-historical female figures. The last one is German film director Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s controversial collaborator, but arguably also the most famous female film director of the twentieth century. Despite Leonora’s hallucinatory identification – ‘ich bin Leni Riefenstahl’ (VN 121) – the text presents a lucid and distanced assessment of this contradictory figure. Moníková’s description of Riefenstahl and her work seems to be entirely based on the 1993 film Die Macht der Bilder, directed by Ray Müller.27 Her account follows this

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documentary’s presentation of Riefenstahl’s career and films chronologically, quotes some of her statements from interviews, and ends with a look at Riefenstahl’s present life and the description of a scene from the documentary. However, into her trade-mark factual and detailrich description, Moníková splices her own, or Leonora’s, critical comments, taking Riefenstahl to task about her collaboration with Hitler. Describing Riefenstahl’s filming of Triumph des Willens, Moníková states: ‘Sie hatte es in der Hand, das Marionettenhafte, Gestellte des Spektakels zu zeigen. Statt dessen inszenierte sie mit, perfektionierte die Wirkung’ (VN 121). In the sections in which Ray Müller himself interviews his subject he often also reproaches Riefenstahl for her contribution to the Nazi regime’s mass appeal and their subsequent rise to power. Riefenstahl always retreats into her neat claim of a complete separation of film aesthetics and politics. Moníková, without comment, summarises: ‘Sie ist kein Parteimitglied. Politik interessiert sie nicht. Aber als die Deutschen in Paris einmarschieren, schickt sie ein begeistertes Glückwunschtelegramm an Hitler: Mein Führer!’ (VN 122). In his documentary, Ray Müller intends – as he states at the beginning – to present the facts without judgement. He then crosscuts the material in such a way that Riefenstahl’s statements, her present-day (re-)interpretation of the events and her actions, are contrasted with the image and reading of the congratulatory letter to Hitler. Moníková simulates this technique for her description of this passage from the film and then uses it for an insert of her own: she interrupts her account of the documentary about Riefenstahl with the description of another film, about ‘das Wesen des Filmemachers’ (VN 122), the voyeuristic nature of film making, and even more about its political abuse and ethical implications: a reporter has a camera implanted in his eye and, without her knowledge, films every moment of a woman on her deathbed; in a future country of the young and healthy his recording is then broadcast nationwide on prime time television.28 While shame at not being able to turn off the camera drives the reporter to tear out his camera-eye, Riefenstahl, in Leonora’s opinion, would have continued to film: ‘Sie ist professionell. Sie würde die Kamera in jedem Fall laufen lassen. Es friert mich’ (VN 123). While Leonora is critical of Riefenstahl’s unabashed admiration for Hitler, of the contribution of her extraordinary talent to the cause of the Nazis, and of her apparent lack of ethics in pursuit of perfectionist filmmaking at all costs, she cannot help but admire her and relate to her as an exceptional woman:

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Sie war zäh. In den ersten Filmen, […] war sie Bergsteigerin, Pilotin, Tänzerin. […] Mit siebzig legte sie eine Taucherprüfung ab, dafür mußte sie sich auf dem Papier zwanzig Jahre jünger machen. Mit neunzig taucht sie und dreht Unterwasserfilme, mit einem jüngeren Mann, den sie für die Kamera ausgebildet hat. In einer Dokumentation sitzt sie auf dem Bett ihres Sommerhauses, im kurzen Nachthemd, zeigt ihre neunzigjährigen Beine, schlank, glatt, gebräunt, und sieht sich kritisch die letzten Filmaufnahmen an. Neben ihr ihr alternder, vierzig Jahre jüngerer Mann. Noch ein Jahrzehnt, und er wird ihr zu alt sein. Sie ist die erstaunlichste Frau in Deutschland in diesem Jahrhundert. (VN 122-23)

But the admiration seems to dissolve quickly in horror when its object turns into a monster that seems to defy human qualities such as aging and dying. Moníková’s description of the documentary’s scene on the bed is keenly observant; even the sarcastic comment about the aging husband seems appropriate if one looks at the pair. As a filmmaker, Riefenstahl vacillates between perfectionist artist and Faustian voyeurist willing to sell her soul to any regime; on the other side of the camera, as a dancer and actress, and also as the object of a documentary about her, she is both a model of physical prowess, and also a monstrous figure refusing to die, despite her repeated claims to have suffered tremendously as a result of the accusations levelled against her. Her claim on immortality may even be reflected in her willingness to be captured on film once more before the end of her life. While Moníková’s descriptions of Leonora’s identificatory hallucinations of the other two female figures from history and mythology are written in the first person, her account of the third one, Riefenstahl, is a much more distant third-person narrative. The identification is stated at the beginning, but not maintained in any way. While Leonora and Moníková both have the highest respect for such an accomplished artist as Riefenstahl, ideological concerns clearly dictate that distance be maintained. Moníková’s use of montage, when she splices in the description of a film about the abuse of the camera, and her repetition of the statement that Riefenstahl would have continued to film despite ethical concerns, cast a different light on an otherwise more factual and neutral rendition of Riefenstahl’s life, which reproduces textually the documentary character of Müller’s film.29

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Talking Film, Talking Love ‘Ich möchte mit dir alle Filme von Kurosawa sehen, jeden mindestens dreimal.’ ‘Und welche noch?’, fragt sie. ‘Godard und Buñuel.’ ‘Von Godard nicht alle. Buñuel ja.’ (F 220)

While a love of films is present in all of Moníková’s books, in two of them she does more: she makes them a constitutive element of the characters’ romance, of the lovers’ discourse. The relationship of Orten and Marie in Die Fassade starts in the cinema and develops through their shared love of films, especially Kurosawa’s. Prantl and Karla in Treibeis (1992) meet on a film set and also connect through talking about films. Before Orten and Marie meet, both of them are introduced as film aficionados. Orten is introduced as a film-goer early on in the novel, when the narrative about the group of artists restoring the façade of a famous Bohemian castle is interrupted with the description of a whole film in great detail. Orten was the one who saw this unnamed Japanese film in the cinema and he reads it as an illustration of the Sisyphus myth, which helps him see his work on the façade as less of a senseless task (F 24-25).30 When Marie goes on an outing with Qvietone, whom she is dating at the time, she mentions several films to him, but he does not know them and is unable to respond or continue the conversation about them. This foreshadows what will happen to their relationship: since he lacks the ability to talk films, it is going nowhere. While Marie contemplates leaving him, she reflects on her role in men’s lives in terms of the patterns she knows from American movies: ‘Sie lebte den Kitsch aus dem Kino nach, mit einem Schuß Selbstironie’ (F 90). She does just that when she meets Orten and right away projects a movie star relationship on him and herself as a couple which is imitated in the narrative by the following description of them: Als sie Orten traf, sich von ihm im Widder Feuer geben ließ, erkannte sie die poröse Haut, die müden hellen Augen von Richard Burton. Sie wußte, welches Paar sie abgeben würden – ihre Ähnlichkeit mit Liz Taylor war ihr schon immer peinlich. (F 90)31

When they meet again, it is in the cinema. Orten has just watched some films starring Max Linder, a comic star of early French film from the twenties, when he runs into Marie who is there for the next show, Kurosawa’s Yojimbo; they watch it together. Moníková’s description of the beginning of the film is as slow and focused as the camera’s

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movements and the film’s contemplative atmosphere at this point. It continues in the same fashion for a while, then the story is interrupted with comments on the poor quality of the print and the subtitles in two languages. During the break – necessary to change reels – Orten and Marie discover a shared appreciation of the beauty of the film. When the projectionist plays the wrong reel, from the sequel, Sanjuro, this gives the characters an opportunity to discuss both films. But more importantly, since Sanjuro is dubbed, her characters can agree on how they both dislike dubbing and then discuss the various ways in which foreign films were presented in Czechoslovakia. In extreme cases the result could be as follows: Die ‘Königin Christine’ hatte serbische und ungarische Untertitel, deutschen Ton, gedrosselt, und wurde nach dem englischen Skript übersetzt, das die Dolmetscherin in der Kabine vor sich liegen hatte, man hörte das Rascheln des Papiers. Stellenweise verlor sie den Faden und die Zuschauer riefen ihr die Übersetzung aus dem Deutschen zu. (F 103)

We find a similar heteroglossia, the presence of many languages, in Moníková’s texts.32 As for the film described in this passage, both Orten and Marie have seen this particular print and both also know the cinema ‘Ponrepo’ in Prague, which Moníková used to frequent herself.33 When, over a glass of wine, Orten describes a film to Marie whose title he cannot remember, she guesses it right away. They finish the evening with plans to meet again in order to prepare an official letter of complaint about the practice of dubbing, since they both consider it ‘das Ende der Filmkultur’ (F 115). Of course they see many more films together, but also talk about their past film experiences, one of which is inscribed in Orten’s memory together with a traumatic political event in Czechoslovkia: the selfimmolation of Jan Palach on Wenceslaus Square in January 1969. The film forever connected with this death is Kaneto Shindo’s Onibaba, according to Orten ‘ein schrecklicher Film’ (F 183). This memory is Moníková’s projection of her own, autobiographical experience, which she has described in her essay ‘Die lebenden Fackeln’ (PF 104-13, here 113), onto her protagonist. Her description of the event ends with an imagined cry, which establishes a connection with the next film which Orten and Marie see: Il grido (The Outcry/The Cry) by Michelangelo Antonioni. This ends with a woman’s cry as she watches her former lover fall to his death.34 As Orten and Marie discuss, the film leaves it open whether he falls down or throws himself down. In any case, the death, like

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Palach’s, acts out and expresses a desperate situation to those who may be responsible. The high point of Orten’s and Marie’s relationship comes when Orten asks her ‘Was ist die Liebe?’ and then declares his own love by telling her he wants to see all of Kurosawa’s films with her, as well as Godard’s and Buñuel’s (F 220). After that their relationship fades out, as Moníková sends her quartet of men into the depths of Siberia. There are more references to film, as Orten gets to know the Soviet cinemas and the kinds of films they show, war epics and films about catastrophes: in this, he finds the two superpowers resemble each other. Orten quotes Lenin, ‘Der Film ist für uns die wichtigste Kunst’, and adds: ‘Für die Amerikaner auch’ (F 263). He makes fun of Western films’ inability accurately to depict life in the east: Die Bedürftigkeit des sozialistischen Alltags in den westlichen Filmen, ob Hitchcock, ob Gavras – die Uniformen haben immer ein falsches Grün, und die Diktatoren-Bilder in den Verhörräumen sind stümperhaft, nicht einmal retouchieren können sie; veraltete, obskure Autos, Frauen mit Kopftüchern, die Bevölkerung eingeschüchtert, lauter verhinderte Kollaborateure, die auf Westler warten. Die Realität ist viel nüchterner; aber das Ketchup-Blut ist eine Untertreibung. (F 264)

In Treibeis, probably the book with the most film references, Moníková presents more comparisons between the films of the two superpowers, as Karla talks about her childhood experiences and the children’s films she saw (T 175), and how she got hooked on cinema at age five, with her first film, a documentary about beavers (T 138).35 Even more than the conversation between Orten and Marie, Prantl’s and Karla’s conversation keeps coming back to the topic of film and cinema. It is tied in with their other big topic, the history of their country, Czechoslovakia, when they compare which cinemas they know, in order to find things they share (T 136-37). However they find that this comparison deepens the growing rift between them: ‘Du kennst andere Kinos, du kennst ein anderes Prag! Wir können uns nicht einmal über die Stadt verständigen! Was haben wir überhaupt gemeinsam?’ (T 190). As for Orten and Marie, talking about movies provides a way to connect. But in contrast to the pair from Die Fassade, things are much more complicated, since Prantl and Karla are not mere spectators when it comes to film. They are both involved more directly and on a deeper, more emotional level.

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Projectionist Abducts Stuntwoman Prantl zieht sich hoch auf das Plateau, wo die Gefangene sich aufbäumt, er versucht die Brust zu übersehen, löst ihr die Hände, entknebelt den sabbernden Mund, ihre Augen rollen. Idiot! sagt sie als erstes. Prantl sieht auf, eine Gruppe wild gestikulierender Leute läuft auf ihn zu, ein Kran mit einer Kamera wird eilig zurückgeleiert. (T 73)

The most spectacular scene in Treibeis is the one in which Prantl, a school teacher from Greenland trying to escape the farcical conference on pedagogy he is forced to attend, stumbles onto a film set and mistakes it for reality. Granted, his perception may not be the sharpest at that point, since he has just woken up from a dream that featured a film he has seen, and he has also just been bitten by a snake (T 70-71).36 So he is easily fooled by the mechanical bird, a griffin, that launches repeated attacks on the woman tethered to the rock, and decides to rescue her.37 After he has succeeded in bringing down the huge bird and destroying the film’s most valuable prop, he is the one in need of rescue, from the wrath of the film crew. Karla, the object of Prantl’s rescue efforts, reverses the operation, spreads the wings of her costume, jumps on him and, half falling, half flying, they make their getaway. Then the narrative mimics a camera zooming in, and their fall down the mountain is described in a manner that simulates extreme close-up shots: we ‘see’ grass, flowers, antheaps and snake eggs being crushed; the narrative also goes into the slow motion often used for such scenes. Then it speeds up again, as it attempts to reproduce how Prantl experiences the dizzying speed of the fall: a blur of colours (T 74). Once they stop falling, the narrative, following Prantl’s gaze, strips Karla, step by step, of her costume, of her role in the film, and of her status as a stranger, when it emerges that both Karla and Prantl are Czech. After a swim, the narrative simulates the technique of the reverse angle shot, common in Hollywood movies, and follows Karla’s gaze on Prantl: she sees him as a comical figure and compares him to the actor Peter Sellers, who, in The Party,38 plays an actor who always messes up and ruins the production. While Prantl effectively abducts Karla from the film – and may even have killed the film, since it can’t continue without the mechanical bird – Karla locates him in the movies, integrates him into her chosen universe. Answering questions about her job, she then explains

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that she herself prefers to do stuntwork rather than acting, though directing would attract her. While Karla, in a sense, is selling her body to the movies, but keeping her emotions out of them and keeping her distance by refusing to act, Prantl has already got too close and lost what was dearest to him to the movies. As the two get to know each other on their odyssey through the Austrian mountains, we find out that Prantl, too, is more than just a film buff and lost his beloved wife in a cinema fire. The sequence where this is described is reminiscent of scenes and details from Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso,39 which, with a release date of 1988, must have played in cinemas as Moníková was writing Treibeis. Prantl was so affected by the tragedy that he sought refuge far away from cinemas and from fire: in the ice of East Greenland. While discussing films or retelling them to each other supports and enlivens their love for each other, the rift between Karla and Prantl is exacerbated by the generation gap, something symbolised by the fact that they do not know the same cinemas in Prague. But this may only be Karla’s way of distancing herself again from Prantl and masking this process. She feels that he does not really want or see her when they are together and, instead, is projecting images and feelings from the past onto her. It makes her concerned that in her real life she now has the same part as in film: that of the stunt double. She sees herself as standing in for Prantl’s lost wife Nora: ‘Du willst mich doch gar nicht!’ […] ‘Du hast mich nie wirklich gewollt! Ich störe dich. Du denkst immer noch an Nora.’ Er schweigt. ‘Manchmal. Wenn ich rotes Haar sehe – eine große, aufgerichtete Frau, mit langem Haar.’ ‘Also genau der Gegensatz zu mir’, sagt sie bitter. ‘Nein, du wirfst die Schultern ähnlich, und groß bist du auch.’ ‘Auch? Ich bin groß ohne auch! Ich mag keine Vergleiche. Ich könnte dir sagen, beim letzten Film.’ (T 187)

Karla places Prantl in a Catch 22 situation in which he cannot win. However, quite apart from her reproach that he sees Nora in her and keeps his distance, she may be seeking refuge in the stuntwoman role and keeping herself from the emotional involvement required for the part in their love story. When they, the one and only time, see a film together, Prantl clearly crosses a personal boundary: ‘Seit sieben Jahren hat er kein Kino betreten’ (T 204). At first, there is the old familiarity with the cosiness of this type of space and it seems to bring them closer together:

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‘Er legt den Arm um ihre Schulter, eine in allen Kinos vertraute Geste. Sie faßt seine verkürzte Hand und legt sie an ihre Brust’ (T 205). But the movie is not one that would support a relationship, it seems diametrically opposed to intimacy: Kubrick’s 2001 – A Space Odyssey.40 HAL’s eye is watching everything, and after his demise, man is watching his own death: this is a world of gazes, devoid of feeling, life, or even meaning. After the movie, as Prantl and Karla play their memory game in a brightly and coldly lit restaurant, Prantl accuses Karla of being a robot. She comments: ‘Das habe ich davon, daß ich mir Filme ansehe, statt welche zu drehen’ (T 207). In the short closing chapter, which changes perspective to a first person narration from Karla’s point of view, she imagines herself in a museum in a fight with Prantl, wearing a suit of armor, but she is also an android and Prantl is a samurai. When Prantl succeeds in prying open her suit of armour, instead of a heart, wires, metal and other mechanical parts are revealed and a red syrup drips out. The simulation breaks down and Karla is jolted out of the dream, out of their love story, out of the narrative: Ich wache in einen trüben Morgen hinein, sehe P. schlafen, er dreht mir den Rücken zu. Ich sehe dieses Hotelzimmer um mich, Spuren toter Mücken und Fliegen an der Tapete, sehe das Kruzifix über dem Bett, die Blechschüssel unter dem tropfenden Wasserbecken. Es ist Zeit, abzubrechen. (T 234)

More than Moníková’s other novels, Treibeis uses and plays with references to films and cinemas and employs filmic techniques in its composition and narration. But in addition, it simulates and parodies, on various levels, the conventions of the romantic love story – then uncovers the economy of mutual projections that constitute or ruin it; Moníková exposes the simulation and destroys the illusion. With this structure, the novel reproduces the temporality and immateriality of the projected images that only live as long as the projection lasts. Moníková has successfully kidnapped Karla from the film and employed her for the narrative, but as a double her part is limited. The Film as Book Wer nicht liest kennt die Welt nicht, aber manchmal ist es gut, sich die Welt direkt anzusehen. (GT)

The award of ‘Mainzer Stadtschreiber’ comes with an interesting perk: the recipient is provided, by Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), with the means and the camera team to produce a film. Libuše Moníková received

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the tenth such prize. In the award ceremony, which included some previous recipients and a screening of excerpts from their films, Moníková was asked what kind of project she had in mind. She outlined three topics she had considered: Kafka and Arno Schmidt; Prague, ‘was Tschechisches’ (though she feared that that would be too close to her); and Mozart, especially his funeral – puzzling to her, in that such a famous man was simply thrown into a hole.41 In the end, however, she made a different film, a film that can be seen as a retrospective visualisation of scenes from the first chapter of her latest book at the time, Treibeis. In addition, she prefaced it with a long sequence on the significance of books in the history of culture. The form of the film may have been suggested by the moderator of the award ceremony, Dr Wolfgang Lorcher, when he called the previous films ‘elektronische Tagebücher’.42 Moníková chose to include the word in her film title, naming it Grönland-Tagebuch – as if it were a piece of writing. The film mostly chronicles her and the film crew’s trip to Greenland, the locale of the first chapter of Treibeis. It shows beautiful images of the landscape, especially the icebergs, but sets them in a context more complex and multilayered than a travel documentary. After introductory shots of deep blue ocean and dazzlingly white icebergs from a bird’s eye view, the dome of one of these icebergs dissolves into the interior of the old British Library’s dome in the British Museum in London, while Moníková comments that icebergs make her dream, but books make her write. The following sequence of photo stills of famous librarians such as Lessing and Borges, a spliced-in scene from the film adaptation of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, and another sequence about Gutenberg and printing, leads her to an exposition on the origins of her writing. While the ‘Bibliotheksmetapher’, the mentioning of Eco’s use of countless quotations and her favorite Arno Schmidt quotation – ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht’ – place the origin and process of her writing practice in her particular version of intertextuality,43 she proceeds to qualify the concept in a way that extends it into intermediality: Bücher – aus Büchern werden weitere Bücher, aber nicht nur; Bücher entstehen aus Erfahrungen, Träumen, Erlebnissen, Fantasie. Bei mir kommen im extremen Maße Bilder und Filme dazu. Allein das Kino als Lokalität spielt in meinen Büchern eine wichtige Rolle. (GT)

She mentions a few examples of this from her books, again supplemented by a visual quotation from another film, Akiro Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, then explains how images – ‘die Sgraffiti, die fortlaufenden Bilder, die in den

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nassen Mörtel geritzt wurden’ (GT) – started her writing of Die Fassade and how photographs inspired passages in the second part of the book. The medium of film seems to give Moníková even more opportunity to weave, in postmodern fashion, a dense network of references, quotations and allusions, of images, sounds and texts. Since film has two simultaneous tracks, sound and image, it provides a ready made tool for establishing connections between different things or juxtaposing them. The editing process, with its soft or hard cuts, its superimpositions or fades, provides additional ways of connecting or contrasting the objects under the gaze of the camera. In this first part of her film, Moníková uses many hard cuts between the disparate sequences, essentially lining them up in episodic fashion, but connecting them effectively with the sound track. This technique of fragmenting, then reassembling the parts in a new context is common in film as well as postmodern works of art. The second half of the film is structurally and thematically different. It chronicles her trip to Greenland with her crew and has many elements of a travel documentary. We see her ‘act’ more, as she sits in the plane, the helicopter, walks around, talks to others. As could almost be expected from a would-be film director, she becomes intrigued with the process of producing the film and includes the filming of the film in her film. She establishes a metadiscourse and metalevel of images of the filming itself through images of the shooting, lighting, equipment and process of sound collection. She also includes portraits of the team members, including their roles and tasks in the production; discussions on camera of their teamwork with her, the solitary writer; and comments on how certain shots were taken. Truffaut’s La Nuit américaine44 – his film about filming – comes to mind here, although Moníková does not take things quite so far in the merging of fiction and ‘reality’.45 After this excursion to the metalevel, her film turns into an anthropological study that investigates the lives of the Inuit, with a focus on the destruction of their traditional way of life and the environment through modern civilization. She shows the bloody slaughtering of seals, their corpses which are left to rot, and, repeatedly, the misery of the dogs. When she wanted to film a local artisan carving a Tupilak figure, she had to wait a day: ‘Es gibt die finnische, die russische Betrunkenheit. Die grönländische ist die hilfloseste. Das haben wir nicht gedreht’ (GT). Unlike Riefenstahl, Moníková knows when to turn off the camera. Despite her frank report about the misery of the place, she respects the privacy and

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dignity of its people.46 At the other end of the spectrum, as she talks about the trash and filth everywhere in the village and its terrible stench, she realises the limitations of the camera: ‘Die Kamera schmeichelt und lügt notgedrungen. Noch das schlimmste Elend wird zum Stilleben. Den unerträglichen Gestank kann sie nicht wiedergeben’ (GT). The question of whether literature could reproduce the smell is not posed. But the impressions Moníková has received from this trip and this filming are strong enough to make her modify her favorite quotation and present it as the last words in the film: ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht, aber manchmal ist es gut, sich die Welt direkt anzusehen’ (GT).. Knowing Riefenstahl’s work and other ideological abuses of the medium of film, Moníková is keenly aware of the effects of representation. The aesthetics that come with the medium may limit, change, distort or even create reality. Film, with the immediacy of the visual, does this to a greater extent than writing, which mediates reality. In the second half of her film, Moníková continues some of the practices of the first half, but they gradually change until there is almost a reversal. She continues to search for and find and create images that illustrate her book: ‘vieles kommt mir wie in meinem Buch vor’ (GT).47 But increasingly she also gets drawn into the subject matter of the film, and her words, rather than leading the way and holding the images together as in the first part, take on the task of serving and supporting the images, until we reach the two points where either the camera has to be turned off for ethical reasons or where it reaches the limitations of what it can transmit without complete distortion and lying. Moníková has taken the visual medium to its limits which, for her, are also established by the self-imposed censorship of an ethics of the medium. The narrative composition of Grönland-Tagebuch in some ways mirrors the structure of Treibeis and Die Fassade. Both novels have a first part that focuses more on the presentation of ideas and concepts and then in the second part, in road movie fashion, go on tour with their characters. Formally, too, the film mirrors the writing: quotations from the novels are spliced into the soundtrack much as the novels ‘insert’ images from films into the text (even though this can only happen through simulation). But that is next.

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The Book as Film Ein Auge, auf dem Augapfel ein Schmetterling, ein palpitierender großer Admiral. Das Augenlid zuckt zusammen, flattert, aber der Schmetterling haftet mit allen sechs Beinen auf der feuchten Oberfläche und fliegt nicht fort. (P 28)

Moníková’s surreal description of the butterfly attached to the eyeball seems to simulate film: it is highly visual, but even more, it incorporates the kinetic aspect specific to the motion picture. It is also multi-coded: not only does it refer to the organ of seeing, the eye, and thus to the issue of perception, but in addition it may indirectly quote from a film and a director that Moníková mentions elsewhere. Possibly film history’s most well-known shot of an eye, it occurs in Buñuel’s surrealist first film Un chien andalou.48 The scene shows the slicing of an eye ball with a razor blade. The eye blinks in anticipation of the razor’s cut, then, after the cut, the eye ball opens up like the spread wings of a butterfly. A later shot in the film then shows a butterfly (or moth). Moníková merges Buñuel’s images into one and ameliorates the cruelty of the cut by transforming it into something more aesthetic, the butterfly. A symbol of metamorphosis, it prefigures Francine’s eventual transformation.49 As Moníková’s passage continues, the owner of the eye complains about the butterfly clinging to her eye and shouts: ‘Er zerfrißt mir das Auge!’ (P 28). This reintroduces Buñuel’s surrealistic cruelty. The text then continues with the phrase ‘In einer Halbtotalen’, one of the few examples in Moníková’s fiction where she employs the language of the scriptwriter and prescribes how her reader should picture the film/text.50 In addition, this dream passage is a nightmarish projection of the protagonist’s childhood trauma of a cruel sister who would lock her into a dark basement, thus robbing her of her freedom as well as the ability to see (P 30). The connection between having a foreign object in one’s eye and the sister is reinforced through turns of phrase like ‘ins Auge fallen’ (the sister does that) and the final assessment of the sister’s narcissism and movie star behaviour which relegates others to the position of mere spectators: ‘sie ist wichtig, wir sind nur da, um es wahrzunehmen’ (P 29 and 30). The image of the injured eye then returns, again displaced, when a cat scratches the eye of the protagonist’s friend so badly that, like the one in Buñuel’s film, it fills with blood (P 67). But this time, despite the serious injury, Moníková turns the scene into a humorous occasion, again possibly a foreshadowing of the narrative’s ending that demonstrates how restrictions and injuries can be left behind.

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The vivid, kinetic image borrowed from film and expanded into the language and the psychological substratum of the text is a major element of Moníková’s narrative style. As seen in the example above, Moníková freely adapts the visual sign as she transposes it into text. In another passage in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, she uses the same strategy, except that this time she seems to reproduce, transform and integrate into her narrative not a single shot, but the visual qualities as well as the psychological atmosphere of a whole film: Von den Bäumen dahinter bricht mit lauten Rufen eine Krähenschar auf, kreist über meinem Kopf und stößt dann über einer freien Wiese mit einem Möwenpulk zusammen, vermischt sich mit ihm und trennt sich wieder, in dichter Formation, während die Möwen in weiter Verstreuung zurückbleiben. Die Krähen sammeln weitere Scharen, ihre unstete, bedrohliche Zusammenballung vertieft sich in neuen Schichten, in einer Staffelung. An einem Wendepunkt blitzen die schwarzen Krähensilhouetten metallisch hell auf – silbrige Punkte, die an dem bleigrau-violetten Himmel hängen. Wenn sie wieder schwarze Vogelgestalt werden, Fläche, Kante, Fläche, flimmert die Luft zwischen ihren Schwingen. Ich sehe, wie sie immer wieder in die Baumwipfel einfallen, in der Dunkelheit verharren und dann auffliegen, mit einer Heftigkeit, als wäre ein Entschluß in Vorbereitung, eine Veränderung, ein Wetterumschwung, ein Luftdruckabsturz. (P 80-81)51

There may be no scene exactly like this in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds,52 but Moníková’s text is overdetermined in terms of references to the film: the mixing of crows and seagulls; their threatening clustering; the word ‘Staffelung’, which evokes the image of the crows sitting on the play equipment in the schoolyard; the black silhouettes of the birds against the sky, used as an opener in the film; and at the end, the charged atmosphere of something about to happen, which creates the constant suspense in the film. Highly visual text passages obviously existed before film as a medium was created. But the new medium fundamentally changed our perception and thus the textual representation of what we see. In Die Fassade, the artists’ restoration of a Renaissance castle is the novel’s central allegory for the rewriting of Bohemian and Czechoslovak history. It becomes a giant screen for Moníková’s projection of an unofficial, subversive and alternative historiography. The serial character of the thousands of sgraffiti running in bands around the castle walls creates an impression to the modern eye much like that created by comic strips, and in fact, Podol decides to use the format for creating some of the images ‘in

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Comic-Manier’: scenes from Kafka’s novels, without the text, but with a grin on one of the faces that resembles Batman’s (F 203). The bands of sgraffiti frames even resemble a film strip.53 Podol certainly experiences this effect: ‘Von den unüberblickbaren scharf kontrastierenden Vierecken flimmert es ihm vor Augen’ (F 194). Another parallel with the film strip is the creation of the sgraffitis ex negativo.54 Moníková’s numerous ekphrastic descriptions of the sgraffiti ground the novel in the visual; her rendition of the artists’ restoration work however – showing how they change existing ones and create new ones – makes some of them dynamic: Inzwischen arbeiten alle im oberen Drittel. Patera variiert pflanzliche Ornamente, dazu figural Bewährtes: Pausbacken – Luna, Sonne; heraldische Panzerfäuste – das Stadtwappen von Prag. Maltzahn, Motorradfahrer, greift zu Verkehrszeichen, verwellt den Horizontalbalken der Einbahnstraße und nennt es ‘Yin und Yang’, verbindet das flache und das hohe Andreaskreuz vor Bahnübergängen, kreist sie in einem Rad ein und schraffiert vier Flügel: eine Windmühle. (F 31)

In addition to the highly visual character of many text passages, there is yet another element in the narrative structure of Moníková’s later novels that contributes to their filmic quality: long passages of dialogue. In Die Fassade, she inserts a private drama performance, a ‘Posse,’ written like a play. But a good portion of the rest of the narrative is written like a film script. The second part of Treibeis consists almost entirely of dialogue, and Verklärte Nacht and Der Taumel have substantial portions constructed as conversations with abbreviated descriptions of the characters’ actions as they would appear in scene directions. Since the literary techniques described in this section contain – in Rajewsky’s terminology – only ‘implicit evocations’ of the other medium or represent a ‘contamination’ of the literary text by the other medium, they are less easily pinned down for identification as intermedial references. However, if one considers the abundance of explicit ‘markers’ of intermediality Moníková has strewn over her texts, it should be easy to justify a reading of these techniques as a form of ‘filmic’ writing that is in fact a major constitutive factor of the author’s narrative technique and style.55

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Images and Writing in a Postmodern World Der Roman muß sich die Bilder holen. Und ich finde, der Roman muß die Welt erzählen. […] Ich möchte eine Welt kreieren, die vielleicht noch eine Chance hat.56

In the award ceremony for the ‘Stadtschreiber von Mainz’ prize, Moníková comments extensively on the slow speed of her predecessors’ films, taking the word ‘langweilig’ literally and seeing it in a positive light.57 In one of her interviews, she elaborates on the relationship between the contemporary novel and the prevalence of images in our world. She comments on the contradictions of American culture where one finds rigid speed limits on all the roads, yet every American movie, starting from silent film up to the present and including top rate pictures, seems to feature a car chase. She then describes how Pynchon incorporates the specifically American media, film and the comic strip, into his novels, and how the exaggerated acceleration in American movies has become globalised since the widespread ‘kulturelle Amerikanisierung’. While she has a lot of respect for Pynchon’s skill, she herself pursues a different goal when she transposes images into her novels: ‘Gleichzeitig möchte ich beim Schreiben, daß die Bilder sich nicht so überschlagen, daß man nicht mehr mitkommt, und ich möchte vielleicht weniger zerstörerisch sein als er in Gravity’s Rainbow’.58 However, when asked why she wrote in the present tense and whether that could be traced back to the influence of film, she explains: ‘Das Präsens ist viel schneller; es beschleunigt das Geschehen, und die Schnittechnik aus dem Film ist in meinem Schreiben nicht weit zu suchen’.59 In the written text, the present tense, which according to Rajewsky is the natural narrative mode of film, is not normally used for narration.60 Moníková’s consistent use of the present tense as the basic narrative mode in her novels therefore points to a strong anchoring of her writing in the representational conventions of its postmodern other, the medium of film.61 The use of ‘Schnittechnik’ in her writing differs from similar conventions in the narrative tradition, such as the episodic structure of the picaresque novel or Kafka’s writing style.62 While episodic structure organises the narrative on a larger scale, ‘Schnittechnik’ operates primarily on the microlevel of narrative, and disrupts the flow of the narrative even in the middle of an episode, without transition, sometimes functioning as a commentary. It is only logical that, when given the opportunity to work directly with the other medium,

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Moníková would employ techniques aiming at intermediality from the other side, and, since the already intermedial nature of film makes it more of a challenge to make this stand out, choose to represent writing in its most comprehensive form: the ‘Bibliotheks-Metapher’, as discussed by Antje Mansbrügge.63 While the incorporation of encyclopedic knowledge enriches the intellectual and symbolic dimensions of her texts, the filmic adds an imaginary component and also shapes Moníková’s style and narrative construction. The imaginary is integrated in several ways: she evokes films, directors, actors and scenes that add another dimension for her reader; she describes and discusses them; she uses them for comparison with the characters and scenes she creates herself, or even as integral parts. Frequently she establishes a close connection between dreams and film, or hallucinations and film, or the characters’ imagination and film. Her writing is a combination of highly visual, but dynamic description, and much dialogue, as in a scenario – this can be seen as attempting to replicate the camera capturing the scene and the characters acting in a feature film. Her style for transposing scenes into language often evokes the movements of the camera: a zoom, a close-up, a panning. It also simulates the montage of film editing, with its quick cuts, jump cuts or flash-backs. Her writing, while constantly referring to film, incorporating visual signifiers, and simulating film in its techniques, does not go so far as to subvert or undermine or destroy the written word. It still privileges language and transposes other forms of perception, experience or cultural expression into it, adding more levels of the imaginary and creating varying degrees of hybridity. One can detect an interesting development in how Moníková’s characters relate to the visual and, in particular, film. They start out under the eye of the camera: Jana, in Eine Schädigung, feels threatened by the constant gaze of the oppressive regime, almost as in Bentham’s ‘Panopticon’ as analysed by Foucault;64 she regains some of her identity when she is given a painting of herself – which represents an alternative gaze at herself. Francine in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin starts out as a hostage to images and hostile projections by others, but manages to replace them with her own literary creations and projections. In Die Fassade, Moníková projects her images of personal and national tragedy outward onto a surface that can be manipulated and controlled by artists, although they are not completely independent. In Treibeis, she takes even more control by destroying the main prop and kidnapping the stunt double

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for a role in her narrative, effectively killing but then also parodying the picture, the cheap B-movie, and changing the genre to a simulation of a road movie. In Verklärte Nacht, she has her protagonist fully in charge, flying through the air as the star of her show, the ballet, and also as the one who choreographs the dance of identification with another female artist, film-maker Leni Riefenstahl, but then separates and distances herself again out of ethical and ideological concerns. Moníková’s characters have moved from being the victim of the gaze, to acting their small part, to being the star, and finally to being in charge of creating and overseeing the whole production. Der Taumel takes a step back again: both chronologically, since it is set in the seventies,65 and in terms of the control that Jakub Brandl has over his art and life – the novel obviously contains autobiographical references with regard to the new loss of control and images of falling. The cinema as a source for metaphors, images, settings, plots, characters, scenarios and fellow artists is just one of the many art forms and fields of knowledge that Moníková exploits and incorporates into her novels. She also transposes visual art and emulates music (though often visualising it as she describes it). What makes film different is the fact that, compared to the other arts, it is a much closer relative of the novel. As a result there are many more ways of connecting to it and reproducing its techniques. Like no other art form, film has shaped Moníková’s writing style and the narrative structure of her texts. In a way, she takes on the role of auteur director who writes the script, chooses the locale, creates the set, casts the roles, runs the camera and then edits the product. When she actually turned into a director making her own film, she reversed the process by talking about writing and invoking her particular writing process, as she replicated it with the camera in place of the pen. She used the techniques of the medium directly in her film and in a transposed form in her writing. In both her film and her books she makes creative use of the other medium and establishes a postmodern intermediality and attempted hybridity, a sort of double coding or hypertext.66 She does this within the boundaries of a narrative mode that at the same time preserves its own conventions rather than exploding or destroying them in avantgarde experimentation. She explores film’s aesthetic qualities, but her metadiscourse about its mode of production and contexts of reception deconstructs the establishment and ideological abuse of its projection systems. Thus Moníková’s ‘filmic writing’ assumes and integrates the constitutive features of the other medium while her creative dialogue with

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and expert metadiscourse about this postmodern counterpart ultimately also reaffirms the power of the literary medium.

Notes 1

Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 452-67 (here 466). 2

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, 461.

3

Klaus Nüchtern, ‘“Ich mag Eisbären”: Gespräch’, Falter, 50 (1992), 20-21 (here 21).

4

Wolfgang Coy provides a partial list of some of these at the end of his web article, ‘Libuše Moníková geht ins Kino: Zur Intermedialität von Literatur und Film’, in Frank Furtwängler, Kay Kirchmann, Andreas Schreitmüller and Jan Siebert, eds, ZwischenBilanz: Eine Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Joachim Paech [accessed 20 September 2004]. 5

When I use the term ‘film’, I refer to the visual medium in the broader sense, which includes any films or videos shown in public contexts such as cinemas but also on television, since they share conventions of production and representation. 6

Both quotations from Libuše Moníková, ‘Die Ankunft des Zuges’, Die Zeit, 30 December 1994.

7

Josef Moník, ‘Meine Schwester, meine Mutter und einige Tiere’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44 (1999)], 143-51 (here 147). 8

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková’, 463.

9

For more information on the nexus between this event, the concept of ‘nation’ and Moníková’s writing, see Helga G. Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte 89/4 (1997), 489-506. 10

Irina O. Rajewsky, Intermedialität, Francke: Tübingen, 2002.

11

The exception here would be early silent film, but even there one often finds words projected on screen and viewing contexts that included an underlying ‘soundtrack’ of live music accompaniment.

12

Again, there are exceptions, when literary works incorporate pictures or photos, or in the case of drama.

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13

Rajewsky appropriately calls this the ‘Als-ob Charakter filmbezogenen Schreibens’, and quotes Heller: ‘Der literarische Autor schreibt so, als ob er über die “Instrumente des Films” verfügen würde, es realiter jedoch nicht tut’. She explains how the literary author can always only create the illusion of the filmic and can never bridge the ‘intermedial gap’, Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 39 and 70.

14

This is important, since many forms of simulation of the visual on the textual level have existed in literature before the advent of film. See Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 83, 107 and 111.

15

The Spartakiáda was the international sports games of the Eastern Bloc countries, modeled on the Olympics. In Czechoslovakia they replaced the Czech national games organised by the patriotic gymnastic society, Sokol. After the dissolution of Sokol, the regularly held Spartakiády ‘became living embodiments of socialist values’, since their form was ‘tailor-made for the glorification of collectivism’, Derek Sayer, The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History, Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 1998, 280-81.

16

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková’, 461.

17

My use of the term ‘projection system’ plays on the reliance of film on actual projection in the cinema, but mostly alludes to the kinds of psychological ‘projection systems’ Moníková discusses in detail in several of her Kafka essays, especially in ‘Das Schloß als Diskurs: Die Entstehung der Macht aus Projektionen’ (SAW 69-83).

18

As Linda Hutcheon states: ‘Postmodernism raises the uncomfortable (and usually ignored) question of ideological power behind aesthetic issues such as that of representation: whose reality is being represented’, Linda Hutcheon, A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction, Routledge: New York, 1988. For a discussion of other postmodern aspects of Moníková’s texts and her writing as ‘historiographic metafiction’ as conceptualised by Linda Hutcheon, see Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 497. Since scores of theorists have attempted to define the postmodern it may be useful to state what I mean with this term. I use the term here not in its broader political or socio-cultural sense, but to refer to a postmodern aesthetics characterised by hybridity, the idea of double coding, the use of intertextual parody and of pastiche, a plurality of styles, a metadiscourse and the recycling of images from other cultural productions. While Moníková’s works display these elements, they also exhibit many features (such as her strong preference for ‘high culture’) that would allow their placement within the modern tradition. Ultimately her works would best be positioned in a space between modernism and postmodernism, but more in-depth discussion is clearly needed on this subject.

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19

History and historiographic writing as well as any textual art forms are the exception, since they can easily be ‘reproduced’ in a novel; but they are not different media.

20

‘Silver’, from the English expression ‘silver screen’, may be being used metonymically for the visual representation of the projector’s beam.

21

As Margaret Littler explains, Jana undergoes a fundamental sensory reorientation as she tries to overcome her traumatised state, ‘gradually reinstating her numbed senses of smell, touch, hearing, and taste’. While Littler stresses how ‘the visual impressions of the city streets’ are ‘threatening’, one could argue, expanding Littler’s observations about the other senses, that Jana’s cinema visits also serve to provide her with a sheltered environment where she can readjust and control her sense of sight, therefore also ‘projecting’ her own images in order to counteract the one projected onto her by the authoritarian and rapacious regime, Margaret Littler, ‘Beyond Alienation: The City in the Novels of Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, in Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Müller, University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998, 36-56 (here 43).

22

Clearly a reference to the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ which produces a bond between hostages and their captors.

23

As a Czech, the text’s first person narrator Francine Pallas experiences the hostility of the native Germans often aimed at ‘Ausländer’ living there; as a woman, the hostility of male academics; as an intellectual, the hostility of her female students who subscribe to a knee-jerk feminism. In her imagination, she passes through death while listening to Ravel’s Pavane pour une Infante Défunte and identifying with the Bohemian queen Libuše. And at the end of the text she symbolically discards old identities and, as her new alter ego, Olga from Kafka’s Das Schloß, sets out on a different path, literally reinventing herself. 24

For a more in-depth analysis of the relationship between the narrator in Pavane and the construction of the text, see Antje Mansbrügge, ‘Der Text ist der Autor eines Buches? Einige Überlegungen zu Libuše Moníkovás Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, LiLi: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 112 (1998), 12033.

25

See Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 131.

26

For more detail on the Spartakiáda in the context of Moníková’s (re-)writing of the nation, see Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’, 501.

27

Die Macht der Bilder: Leni Riefenstahl / The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, dir. Ray Müller, UK, France, Germany, Belgium, 1993.

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28

Thanks go to Josef Moník for supplying me with the information that this film is Bertrand Tavernier’s La Mort en direct, UK, France, West Germany, 1980, with actress Romy Schneider.

29

In an interview, asked about her protagonist’s thoughts on Riefenstahl, Moníková expresses her opinion more directly: ‘Diese Frau ist beispielhaft. Es ist erstaunlich, wie man bei so großen künstlerischen Fähigkeiten politisch derart blind sein kann. Sie hat Hitler nach der Einnahme von Paris per Telegramm als “meinem Führer” gratuliert. Aber das war eigentlich fast schon ihre einzige politische Aussage. Deswegen glaubt sie auf eine unglaublich naïve Weise heute noch, sie sei “bloß” Künstlerin gewesen. Dabei wurde sie schon durch ihren Parteitagsfilm zur exponierten Propagandistin des Systems. Aber sie ist ja kein Einzelfall. Viele waren anfangs nicht korrupt, wollten “nur arbeiten”, sich “aus der Politik raushalten” und haben gar nicht gemerkt, wie tief sie schon drinstecken’, Hans-Peter Kunisch, ‘Die Fakten müssen stimmen: Libuše Moníková über das Verhältnis von Politik und Literatur’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9 December 1996.

30

The film is Hadaka no shima (The Island, also known as The Naked Island), dir. Kaneto Shindo, Japan, 1961.

31

In Rajewsky’s categorisation this is a ‘teilaktualisierende Systemkontamination’ in which the narrative is contaminated with the conventions of a filmic subsystem, in this case actors representing a certain type of Hollywood movie, Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 135-45.

32

Heteroglossia in the Bakhtinian sense, as Moníková uses many ‘Fachsprachen’, but also frequent untranslated quotations in a number of foreign languages.

33

See Moník, ‘Meine Schwester, meine Mutter und einige Tiere’, 147.

34

In Moníková’s version the man is the one emitting the cry (F 213). This may be one of the very rare mistakes she makes, or she may have heard it differently (due to dubbing?), or it may be an intentional change.

35

Again, Moník confirms that his sister saw the Russian fairy tales in the cinema, Moník, ‘Meine Schwester, meine Mutter und einige Tiere’, 147.

36

37

The film scene in the dream is from Sanjuro, dir. Akiro Kurosawa, Japan, 1963.

The scene contains obvious mythological references to Andromeda and Prometheus, as Sybille Cramer and Ulrike Vedder have shown. Cramer also elaborates on the ‘wappenartige Symbolik’ of the bird and the scene as a whole, Ulrike Vedder, ‘Die Intensität des Polarsommers: Zu Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 41 (1994), 15-17 (here 16); Sybille Cramer,

Film Discourse in the Texts of Libuše Moníková

277

‘Triumphbogen für ein Opfer der europäischen Geschichte: Libuše Moníkovás Versuch, ein tschechisches Nationalepos zu formen: Treibeis’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30 September 1992, 8. 38

The Party, dir. Blake Edwards, USA, 1968.

39

Cinema Paradiso, dir. Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy, France, 1988.

40

2001—A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick, UK, USA, 1968.

41

Zehn Jahre Mainzer Stadtschreiber, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, 1994.

42

Zehn Jahre Mainzer Stadtschreiber.

43

Antje Mansbrügge explains the ‘Bibliotheksmetapher’ in more detail and also investigates Moníková’s understanding of intertextuality in the context of Bakhtin’s theory of the dialogic and Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality, Antje Mansbrügge, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis: Lektüren zu Libuše Moníková, Königshausen und Neumann: Würzburg, 2002, 211-19.

44

La Nuit américaine, dir. François Truffaut, France, Italy, 1973.

45

Moníková mentions Truffaut’s film in ‘Die Ankunft des Zuges’, Die Zeit, 30 December 1994, 35-36.

46

I do not see a ‘paternalistische Haltung’ towards them as Antje Mansbrügge does. With such an attitude, Moníková would probably have continued to film, Mansbrügge, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis, 224.

47

Antje Mansbrügge analyses the phenomenon of finding that which was present already in ‘vorgefassten Bildern’ in the context of travel and ethnological writing, but does not mention Moníková’s fascination with the theory of the ‘Nominalisten’ that she describes in Treibeis: ‘Nomina ante res. – “Die Namen gehen den Dingen voran”, das wußten schon die Nominalisten’ (T 177). It is a parallel idea and part of Moníková’s larger fascination with reversals that go against expectations, Mansbrügge, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis, 222.

48

49

Un chien andalou, Luis Buñuel, dir., France, 1928.

The fact that the eye in the dream does not belong to Francine, but to a neighbour, can easily be explained by the displacement that often occurs in dreams. As Freud has shown in his Sandmann piece, ‘Das Unheimliche’, there is a strong connection between eye symbolism, childhood trauma and language. Moníková establishes the same connections. Freud’s interpretation of the fear of losing one’s eye, ‘Augenangst’,

278

Helga G. Braunbeck

as the castration complex could be related symbolically to the threatening (castrating) sister, Sigmund Freud, ‘Das Unheimliche’ in Studienausgabe Band IV: Psychologische Schriften, Fischer: Frankfurt, 1970, 241-74. 50

Explicit use of the technical terms of film production is part of what Rajewsky classifies as ‘evozierende Systemerwähnung’, while the textual evocation of a particular scene from a film would be an ‘intermediale Einzelreferenz’ and, since it is not explicitly mentioned, a form of ‘associative quotation’, Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 91-94 and 149-55.

51

This is another example of ‘associative quotation’ in the form of an implicit ‘intermediale Einzelreferenz’, Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 149-55.

52

There isn’t in the video version that was available to me: The Birds, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1963, MCA Home Video Disc (1986).

53

On the topic of historiography and also for some photographs of the sgraffiti on Litomyšl castle, the restoration of which inspired Die Fassade, see Braunbeck, ‘The Body of the Nation’.

54

In Rajewsky’s categorisation, these techniques would fall into the category of ‘Systemkontamination qua Translation’ in which the literary text is contaminated by conventions or qualities of the other medium, via displacement or a relationship of similarity, Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 124-35.

55

In her review of Die Fassade, Sibylle Cramer already mentions some additional transpositions such as the pantomimic elements of the novel and their possible origin in the ‘anarchisch-surrealen Filmburlesken der Stummfilm- und frühen Tonfilmzeit’ as well as the similarity between Adrian Brunel’s film Crossing the Great Sagrada (UK, 1924) and the group’s trip to Siberia, Sibylle Cramer, ‘Vaucansons Ente, das Rentier Foma Fomitsch, der Fahrradausweis des Josef K.: Die Fassade von Libuše Moníková – ein europäischer Roman’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/20 September 1987, 164. 56

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková’, 466-67.

57

Zehn Jahre Mainzer Stadtschreiber, ZDF, 1994.

58

Braunbeck, ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková’, 467.

59

Jürgen Engler, ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht’, Neue deutsche Literatur 45/5 (1997), 9-23 (here 19). 60

Rajewsky, Intermedialität, 127-28.

Film Discourse in the Texts of Libuše Moníková

279

61

Obviously there are many sections in the past tense, but the story is practically always told in the present tense; the exception may be Moníková’s first novel Eine Schädigung, which switches back and forth between present tense and past tense.

62

Both of these strongly influenced her writing. The influence of Kafka’s writing on her work is discussed in Renate Cornejo, ‘“Schloß, Kafka, Fassade”: Auf den Spuren Kafkas im Werk von Libuše Moníková’, Brücken: Germanistisches Jahrbuch Tschechien-Slowakei, n.F. 9-10 (2003), 303-14.

63

See Mansbrügge, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis, 213.

64

Michel Foucault, ‘The Eye of Power: A Conversation with Jean-Pierre Barou and Michelle Perrot’, in Michel Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Writings, 1972-1977, Pantheon: New York, 1980, 146-65.

65

The narrated time frame of her other novels was getting ever closer to the present time.

66

See Wolfgang Coy’s comments on her ‘Vernetzung der Texte zu hypertextartigen Strukturen’ in his article ‘“Ich bin der einzige, der mich nicht zu lesen braucht”: Die Schreibwerkzeuge Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 123-29 (here 124).

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Lyn Marven Libuše Moníková: Bibliography The compiler would like to thank the library of the Institute for Czech Literature, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, as well as Dana Pfeiferová and Renata Cornejo for data supplied, and is grateful to Chris Hill for translations from Czech. Translations and compiler’s comments are in square brackets. CONTENTS 1. 1.1 1.2 1.3 2. 3. 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

Primary literature books and film books in translation articles in books, journals, newspapers Interviews Secondary literature general studies on individual texts obituaries miscellaneous

All primary literature is listed in chronological order; interviews and all secondary literature are listed in alphabetical order.

1. Primary literature ‘Srovnání Shakespearova a Brechtova Koriolana’, dissertation, submitted 1968, Univerzita Karlova, Prague

1.1 books and film Eine Schädigung, Rotbuch: Berlin, 1981; dtv: Munich, 1990 Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, Rotbuch: Berlin, 1983; dtv: Munich, 1988 Die Fassade: M.N.O.P.Q., Hanser: Munich, 1987; dtv: Munich, 1990

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Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte: Essays, Hanser [Edition Akzente]: Munich, 1990 Unter Menschenfressern: Ein dramatisches Menu in vier Gängen, Verlag der Autoren: Frankfurt/Main, 1990 Treibeis, Hanser: Munich, 1992; dtv: Munich, 1997 Prager Fenster: Essays, Hanser [Edition Akzente]: Munich, 1994 Grönland-Tagebuch: Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, 13 December 1994 [TV film] Verklärte Nacht, Hanser: Munich, 1996 Der Taumel, Hanser: Munich, 2000

1.2 books in translation translations of Eine Schädigung Le Préjudice, trans. by Nicole Casanova, Belfond: Paris, 1992 [French] Újma, trans. by Jana Cviková, Aspekt: Bratislava, 1999 [Slovak] translations of Pavane Pavane pour une infante défunte, trans. by Dominique Kugler, Belfond: Paris, 1991 [French] Pavana para una infanta difunta, trans. by Helga Pawlowsky, Anaya & Mario Muchnik: Madrid, 1993 [Spanish] translations of Die Fassade De façade, trans. by Tinke Davids, Uitgeverij Van Gennep: Amsterdam, 1989 [Dutch] Fasaden: M.N.O.P.Q., trans. by Ulrika Wallenström, Bonniers Förlag, Stockholm, 1989 [Swedish] Julkisivu: M.N.O.P.Q., trans. by Anneli Jukohas, Otava: Helsinki, 1989 [Finnish] La façade: M.N.O.P.Q.: roman, trans. by Nicole Casanova, Belfond: Paris, 1989 [French] La facciata: M.N.O.P.Q., trans. by Giovanna Agabio, Arnoldo Mondadori: Milan, 1989 [Italian] La Fachada: M.N.O.P.Q., trans. by Helga Pawlowsky, Muchnik:

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

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Madrid, 1990 [Spanish] [Croatian trans. by Jasenka Planinc, August Cesare: Zagreb, 1990] Fasáda, trans. by Zbynek Petrácek, Sixty-Eight Publishers: Toronto, 1991 [Czech] The Façade: M.N.O.P.Q., trans. by John E.Woods, Knopf: New York, 1991; Chatto & Windus: London, 1992 [English] Fasada, trans. by Štefan Vevar, intro. by Neva Šlibar, Mihelaþ: Ljubljana, 1994 [Slovenian] A homlokzat: M.N.O.P.Q. Regény, trans. by Edit Király, Európa Könyvkiadó: Budapest, 1997 [Hungarian] translations of Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte ‘Jak z projekcí vzniká moc: KafkĤv Zámek jako diskurs’, trans. by ZdenČk KĜapa, Literární noviny, 7/17 (1996), 9-10; also in PromČny, 27/1 (1990), 89-98 [Czech trans. of ‘Das Schloß als Diskurs’] Eseje o Kafkovi, trans. by Petr DvoĜáþek, Nakladatelství Franze Kafky: Prague, 2000 [Czech] translations of Treibeis ‘Angmagssalik’, trans. by Uwe Moeller, Dimension, 19 (1991-93), 432-41 [excerpt from Treibeis in German/English] Drijfijs, trans. by Tinke Davids, Uitgeverij Van Gennep: Amsterdam, 1993 [Dutch] Drivis, trans. by Ulrika Wallenström, Bonniers Förlag: Stockholm, 1994 [Swedish] Hielos a la deriva, trans. by Helga Pawlowsky, Anaya & Mario Muchnik: Madrid, 1994 [Spanish] Les Glaces dérivantes, trans. by Nicole Casanova, Belfond: Paris, 1994 [French] Ledová tĜíšĢ, trans. by Renáta Tomanová, Hynek: Prague, 2001 [Czech] translations of Verklärte Nacht La nuit de Prague, trans. by Nicole Casanova, Hachette: Paris, 1997 [French]

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Noche transfigurada, trans. by Helga Pawlowsky, Anaya & Mario Muchnik: Madrid, 1997 [Spanish] translations of Der Taumel ZávraĢ, trans. by Dana Pfeiferová, Tvar, 13 (2001), 12f. [Czech trans. of second chapter of Der Taumel]

1.3 articles in books, journals, newspapers, radio ‘Das soziale Modell des Autors: Franz Kafka: Schuld und Integration’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 67 (1978), 221-29; also in Türen zur Transcendenz [= Protokoll zum Internationalen Kafka-Symposium, 139], Evangelische Akademie Hofgeismar: Hofgeismar, 1978 ‘I: Jorge Luis Borges: phantastische Systematik’ and ‘II: Borges: Portrait aus mythischen Konnexionen’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 74 (1980), 90-98 and 99-106 ‘Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin: Aus einem Roman’, in Humbert Fink and Marcel Reich-Ranicki, eds, Klagenfurter Texte zum IngeborgBachmann-Preis 1983, Piper: Munich, 1983, 124-36 ‘Das Schloß als Diskurs’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 85 (1983), 98106 ‘Vier Versuche, die Familie Barnabas zu rehabilitieren’, Literatur im technischen Zeitalter (1983), 3-7 ‘Bestens!’, Tintenfisch, 23 (1984), 97-99 [excerpt from Pavane] ‘Die Wunschtorte: Über literarische Wunscherfüllung’, Die schwarze Botin, 22 (1984); also in Jahresring, 31 (1984/85), 94-99; in Harald Hartung, ed., Am Sandwerder 5, Literarisches Colloquium [LCB Editionen]: Berlin, 1985 [LM one of contributing authors]; in Falter, 16 (1985); and in Frankfurter Rundschau, 298 (1985) ‘Das totalitäre Glück: Franz Wedekind’, Neue Rundschau, 96/1 (1985), 118-25; also extended version in Die schwarze Botin, 27 (1985); and in Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 99 (1986), 233-39 ‘Die Fassade’, Neue Rundschau, 96/3-4 (1985), 189-203 ‘Politische Artikel soll man schreiben wie Liebesbriefe’ [version of ‘Zu Milena Jesenská’ in Prager Fenster], die tageszeitung, 12 January 1985; also in Falter, 3 (1985) ‘Sie war ein lebendiges Feuer’ [version of ‘Zu Milena Jesenská’ in Prager

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

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Fenster, about daughter’s biography], Frankfurter Rundschau, 25 March 1986; also in Falter, 7 (1986) ‘Patriotische Posse’, Akzente, 33 (1986), 533-46 ‘Die Bittere Rose’, Litfass, 10/39 (1986), 67-79 ‘Auf den Wogen der Allunions-Unterhaltung’, Literaturmagazin, 19 (1987), 154-60 ‘Die Fassade: Aus einem Roman’, Jahresring, 34 (1987/88), 146-56 Anthropophagen im Abendwind, ed. by Herbert Wiesner, Literaturhaus: Berlin, 1988 [LM one of 4 authors contributing plays] ‘Kirschfeste feiern, wie sie fallen’, [given at Schriftstellerkongreß, Berlin (‘Ein Traum von Europa’), 25-29 May 1988], abridged in die tageszeitung, 30 May 1988; also in Frankfurter Rundschau, 4 June 1988; unabridged as ‘Und die Kirschfeste feiern, wie sie fallen: Über die Annexion Europas an Böhmen anläßlich des 50. Jahrestages des Münchener Abkommens’, Literaturmagazin, 22 (1988), 56-62; in Die Neue Gesellschaft/Frankfurter Hefte, 8 August 1988; LETTRE internationale, 18 (1988); and in odjek, 17 (1988) ‘Caliban über Sycorax: Pornographisches Oratorium nach Shakespeare’, Litfass, 12/45 (1988), 52-57 ‘Meine Gedichte’, NDR, 11 February 1988 [radio broadcast] ‘Wir haben gern gelebt’, Profil, 22 August 1988 ‘ArAl: Gespräche in der Küche’, Literaturmagazin, 24 (1989), 109-17 ‘Fasáda (PĜeklad románu)’, Revolver Revue, 12 (1989), 29 pages ‘Klosterneuburg, 6.6.1989’, Falter, 24 (1989) ‘Kafka je mrtev, a to nas ne razbremenjuje’, Naši razgledi, 38/17 (1989), 514-15 ‘Shakespeare auf Grönland’, Manuskripte, 30/110 (1990), 202-06 ‘Semiaride Landschaft mit Küste’ [given at Symposium ‘Literatur und politische Erneuerung: Von der Volksdemokratie zur Demokratie’, Vienna, 28-30 May 1990], abridged in Der Standard, 31 May 1990; also in Czech in Tvar, 21 (1990); unabridged in Lettre international, 9 (1990) ‘Am Semmering’, Akzente, 38 (1991), 219-28 ‘Zwetschgen’ [speech given in Münchner Kammerspielen, 24 November 1991], Reden über Deutschland, Munich, 1991; also in Lettre international, 22 (1993); also as ‘Zwetschgen: Von Grenzfragen und von der Landschaft der Kindheit’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 41 (1994), 13-15 [excerpt from essay in Prager Fenster] ‘Der Dichter als Brauch: Eine quasi-ethnographische Überlegung’

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[Lecture given for the ‘Steierische Akademie 1990’ (‘Kultur Macht Freiheit’), Graz, 8-13 October 1990], Lettre international, 11 (1990); also in Lichtungen, 12/45 (1991), 49-55; and in Lettre internationale [Prague], 1 (1992) ‘Dies habe ich in den Felsen geritzt und jenes in die Mauer’, Der Literatur-Bote, 6/23 (1991), 10-14 ‘Bucklige Welt’, Literaturmagazin, 27 (1991), 147-57 ‘Ortsbestimmung’ [acceptance speech for Chamisso Prize, held in Bayrische Akademie der Künste, 22 February 1991], Gemeinsam, 21 June 1991 ‘Kabbala der Welt’ [‘Blick in das Jahr 1991’], SWF, 31 December 1991 ‘Der Kongreß’, Litfass, 15/53 (1991/92), 4-11 ‘Feindbilder – Einige Überlegungen’ [given at Akademietagung, Darmstadt, 15 October 1993], Jahrbuch Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung Darmstadt (1993), 109-10 and 179-82; also in Frankfurter Rundschau, 23 October 1993 ‘Prag der neunziger Jahre’, Falter, 29 (1993) ‘Kurzer Frühling der Mündigkeit’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 21 August 1993 ‘Welt als Spiel & Ich als Gott’ [version of ‘Der gute Geschmack und Ladislav Klíma’ in Prager Fenster], Die Zeit, 3 December 1993 ‘Der Meister – Die Lehre des Meisters – Die Statue des Meisters’, Akzente, 41 (1994), 80-81 [translation of poems by Miroslav Holub] ‘Die lebenden Fackeln’, Die Zeit, 27 January 1994 ‘Die Ankunft des Zuges’, Die Zeit, 30 December 1994 ‘Jetzt, da wir haben, was wir wollten’, Die Horen, 40/180 (1995), 140-41 ‘Lebende Bilder’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 44/3 (1996), 82-87 ‘Lebendiges Feuer: Zum 100. Geburtstag der Prager Journalistin und Widerstandskämpfer Milena Jesenská (10. August 1896 bis 17. Mai 1944), die manche noch immer nur als Freundin Kafkas wahrnehmen’, Die Zeit, 9 August 1996, 35 ‘Über eine schwierige Nachbarschaft’, Die Zeit, 7 March 1997, 49-50; also in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 100-20 ‘Über die Kunst, greifbar zu verdächtigen’, Literaturmagazin, 39 (1997), 22-30 ‘Einige Thesen zu women’s writing’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 50 (1997), 30-31; also in English, ‘Some Theses Regarding Women’s Writing’, trans. by Lynn E. Ries, Women in German Yearbook, 13 (1997), 7-9

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‘Jakub Brandl’, Akzente, 44/6 (1997), 512-36 ‘Má setkání s NČmci jsou dávného data’ [my meetings with Germans were long ago], trans. by Petr Kyncl, Labyrint revue, 3/4 (1998), 20-26; also in Literární noviny, 11/27-28 (2000), 9 [speech given in Münchner Kammerspielen, 24 November 1991, in series ‘Reading about Germans’] ‘Mich vollends hungerte nach etwas Festem von Diskurs: Zum 22. Geburtstag von Jean Paul’, in Delf Schmidt and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999, 37-40 ‘Brief an den Herausgeber des Literaturmagazins’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 152-53 [facsimile] ‘Der Leguan’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 157-65

2. Interviews Braunbeck, Helga G., ‘Gespräche mit Libuše Moníková 1992-1997’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 452-67 Cejpek, Lucas, ‘Lucas Cejpek spricht mit Libuše Moníková’, in Heinz Hartwig, ed., Mitschnitt 4: Literatur aus dem ORF-Studio Steiermark 1988, Droschl: Graz, 1989, 13-18 ýervenková, Jana, ‘Zajíc nebo koþka v pytli’ [a hare or a cat in a bag], Literární noviny, 2/3 (1991), 13 Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Die Dauer der Welt beruht auf dem Fleiße des Schriftstellers: Ein Gespräch mit der deutsch schreibenden tschechischen Autorin Libuše Moníková’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/20 September 1987, 164 Cramer, Sibylle, Jürg Laederach and Hajo Steinert, ‘Libuše Moníková im Gespräch’, Sprache im technischen Zeitalter, 119 (1991), 184-206 Dietschreit, Frank, ‘Sehnsuchtsort: Libuše Moníková über tschechische Alpträume, Heimatliebe, Leben und Schreiben im Exil’, Wochenpost, 26 September 1996, 36-37 Engler, Jürgen, ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 45/5 (1997), 9-23; also in Czech, ‘“Kdo neþte, nezná svČt”: Rozhovor s Libuší Moníkovou’, trans. by OndĜej Müller, Labyrint revue, 3/4 (1998), 16-20; and under the same title, trans. by Magdalena Hennerová, Literární noviny, 10/2 (1999), 9-10 Hartmann, Rainer, ‘Das Leben wird in die Mauer geritzt’, Kölner Stadt-

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Anzeiger, 8 December 1987 Kanyar, Helena, ‘Leidenschaftliche Grenzgängerin’, Basler Zeitung, 8 May 1993 Kanyar-Beckerová, Helena, ‘ýeši jsou národ spolužákĤ: Rozhovor s Libuší Moníkovou’ [Czechs are a nation of classmates: interview with LM], Literární noviny, 4/36 (1993), 12 [on Treibeis and the translations of her German books] Kunisch, Hans-Peter, ‘Die Fakten müssen stimmen: Libuše Moníková über das Verhältnis von Politik und Literatur’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 9 December 1996 Kyncl, Petr, ‘Kapka vody na horký kámen’ [a drop of water on a hot stone], Tvar, 2/7 (1991), 6 [interview, among other things, on the translations of her German books, relevant Czech publications and the level of Czech Germanistik] —, ‘Spisovatelství je vražedné povolání’, Týden, 5/7 (9 February 1998), 52-56; also in English as ‘Writing is a murderous occupation’, trans. by Ilona Bílková, Graham Jackman and David Short, in this volume, 3140 jm, ‘Libuše Moníková – nČmecká spisovatelka z Prahy’ [LM – a German writer from Prague], Mladá fronta, 46/174 (28 July 1990), supplement, 4 n.n., ‘Ein Gespräch mit Libuše Moníková: “Ich bin immer in Prag”’, Falter, 3 (1988), 7 Nüchtern, Klaus, ‘“Ich mag Eisbären”: Gespräch’, Falter, 50 (1992), 2021 RĤžiþková, Jitka, trans, ‘Vzpoura proti malomyslnosti’ [rebellion against despondency], Tvorba, 25 (1990), 15 [based on an interview in the magazine Vrij Nederland] Schild, Stefanie, ‘Zuhause in der Literatur: Libuše Moníková’, Münchner Merkur, 12 December 1996 Šlibar, Neva, and Heinz Klunker, ‘Recepti iz kuharske knjige in seciranje možganov’, Razgledi, 17 (1993), 36-37 Strigl, Daniela, ‘Die Tschechen waren niemals gemütlich’, Niederösterreich-Journal, 120 (1993), 32-33 Štroblová, SoĖa, ‘Libuše Moníková: ‘ýas poklepávání po rameni skonþil...’ [the time of tapping people on the shoulder has come to an end], Mona, 8 (1992), 14-15

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3. Secondary literature 3.1 general studies Alms, Barbara, ‘Fremdheit als ästhetisches Prinzip: Zu den deutschsprachigen Romanen der Tschechin Libuše Moníková’, Stint, 3/6 (1989), 138-51 Arens, Hiltrud, ‘Libuse Monikova (1945- )’, in Elke P. Frederiksen (Intro) and Elizabeth G. Ametsbichler, eds, Women Writers in GermanSpeaking Countries: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook; Greenwood Press: Westport, Conn., 1998, 341-48 Braunbeck, Helga G., ‘The Body of the Nation: The Texts of Libuše Moníková’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 489-506 —, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in Matthias Konzett, ed., Encyclopedia of German Literature, Fitzroy Dearborn: Chicago, 1997, 712-24 —, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in Friederike Eigler and Susanne Kord, The Feminist Encyclopedia of German Literature, Greenwood Press: Westport, Conn., 1997, 324-26 —, ‘“The Annexation of Europe to Bohemia”: Negotiating National Belonging and Transnational Affinities in the Search for Identity (Libuše Moníková)’, in Daniel Apollon, Odd-Bjørn Fure and Lars Svåsand, eds, Approaching a New Millenium: Lessons from the Past – Prospects for the Future, HIT Centre at the University of Bergen for ISSEI: Bergen, 2000 [CD-ROM] Brežná, Irina, ‘Sprachschmugglerin: Eine Begegnung mit Moníková’, Emma, 1 (1993); also in Brežná, Falsche Mythen: Reportagen aus Mittel- und Osteuropa nach der Wende, eFeF: Bern, 1996 Chvatík, KvČtoslav, Melancholie a vzdor: Eseje o moderní þeské literatuĜe [melancholy and defiance: essays on modern Czech literature], ýs. Spisovatel: Prague, 1992 [on LM among many others] Cornejo, Renata, ‘Okraj nebo stĜed? Na cestČ k zámku Libuše Moníkové a Franze Kafky‘, Okraj a stĜed v jazyce a literatuĜe: Sborník z mezinárodní konference, Univerzita J.E. PurkynČ: Ústí nad Labem, 2003, 446-50 —, ‘“Schloß, Kafka, Fassade”: auf den Spuren Kafkas im Werk von Libuše Moníková’, Brücken: Germanistisches Jahrbuch TschechienSlowakei, n.F. 9-10 (2003), 303-14 Coy, Wolfgang, ‘“Ich bin der einzige, der mich nicht zu lesen braucht”: Die Schreibwerkzeuge Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal,

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eds, Prag – Berlin, 123-29 —, ‘Libuše Moníková geht ins Kino: Zur Intermedialität von Literatur und Film’, in Frank Furtwängler, Kay Kirchmann, Andreas Schreitmüller and Jan Siebert, eds, Zwischen-Bilanz: eine Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Joachim Paech [accessed 10 July 2003] [includes text by LM, ‘Ernst Lubitsch – to be or not to be’, first published in Frankfurter Rundschau, 1995] Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Lobrede auf Libuše Moníková’, Akzente, 38 (1991), 229-35 [Laudatio for the Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Preis] —, ‘Eine humoristiche gewendete Ästhetik des Widerstands: Prospekt zur Verbesserung Mitteleuropas: das Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 70-77 Delius, Friedrich Christian, ‘Literatur als höchste Form der Heimatkunde’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 14 October 1995 [Laudatio for the Roswithavon-Gandersheim-Preis]; also in Czech as ‘Literatura jako nejvyšší forma vlastivČdy’, trans. by Petr Kyncl, Literární noviny, 9/6 (1998), 9 —, ‘Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 48-53 Döbler, Katharina, ‘Die höchste Form von Heimatkunde: Ein Literaturmagazin zum Gedenken an die Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 13 January 2000, Feuilleton [on Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin] Eder, Jürgen, ‘Die Jahre mit Acht – 1918, 1938, 1948, 1968… Zum Historischen bei Libuše Moníková’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 87-98 Falcke, Eberhard, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in Hermann Kunisch, Herbert Wiesner and Sibylle Cramer, Lexikon der deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, 2nd ed., Nymphenburger: Munich, 1987, 427-28 Falteisek, Lubor, ‘Knihy Libuše Moníkové míĜí k þeskému þtenáĜi’ [LM’s books are aimed at Czech readers], Slovo, 91/63 (16 March 1999), 7 [report on a conference dedicated to LM, Goethe Institut, Jihoþeská univerzita ýeské BudČjovice, Kravsko, 11-13 March 1999] Ferchl, Irene, ‘“Mein Leben ist eine Folge von Zitaten”: Ein Portrait der Autorin Libuše Moníková’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 21 November 1992, 50 Glad, John, Literature in exile, Duke University Press: Durham, NC, 1990 Goodchild, Sarah, ‘Beyond Origins: Heimat and National Identity in Selected Works by Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, unpublished doctoral thesis, University College London, 2001

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Gross, Sabine, ‘Einleitung: Sprache, Ort, Heimat’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 441-51 Gruša, JiĜí, ‘Grußwort zum Libuše-Moníková-Symposion’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 46-47 —, ‘Libuše Moníková’, trans. by Jan Ronc, Labyrint revue, 5/6 (1999), 212 Guryþa, Richard, ‘Výstava v muzeu objevuje nČmecky píšící spisovatelku’, Mladá Fronta Dnes, 4 September 2001, Praha supplement, D3 [newspaper article about museum exhibition about LM] Hádková, Jana, ‘Scény ze života, literatury a filmu: Poznámky k filmovému portrétu Libuše Moníkové’ [scenes from life, literature and film: notes on the film portrait of LM], Labyrint revue, 3/4 (1998), 2023 Haines, Brigid, ‘“New places from which to write histories of people”: Power and the Personal in the Novels of Libuše Moníková’, German Life and Letters, 49/4 (1996), 501-12 —, ‘Subjectivity (Un)bound: Libuše Moníková and Herta Müller’, in Keith Bullivant, Geoffrey Giles and Walter Pape, eds, Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences [= Yearbook of European Studies, 13], Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1999, 327-44 —, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in John Sandford, ed., Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture, Routledge: London, 1999, 420 Henckmann, Gisela, ‘Všechny cesty vedou do Prahy: K podobČ ztraceného prostoru u Libuše Moníkové’ [all roads lead to Prague: on the semblance of lost space in the work of LM], trans. by Jan Schneider, in Jan Schneider, ed., Slovo – struktura(lismus) – pĜíbČh: Pocta KvČtoslavu Chvatíkovi, Aluze: Olomouc, 2000, 175-94 Horáþková, KvČta, ‘Dílo Libuše Moníkové na cestČ z exilu domĤ’ [LM’s work on the road home from exile], Host, 15/8 (1999), 14-16 —, ‘Tóny skryté mezi slovy: Hudební motivy v díle þesko-nČmecké spisovatelky Libuše Moníkové’ [sounds hidden between the words: musical motives in the work of the Czech-German writer LM], Opus musicum, 33/2 (2001), 73-78 Horáþková, KvČtoslava, ‘Libuše Moníková: nemecka spisovatelka s ceskym srdcem’ [Libuše Moníková: a German writer with a Czech heart], unpublished doctoral dissertation, Masaryk University, Brno, 2001 Jankowsky, Karen, ‘Remembering Eastern Europe: Libuše Moníková’,

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Women in German Yearbook, 12 (1996), 203-15 —, ‘Between “Inner Bohemia” and “Outer Siberia”: Libuše Moníková Destabilizes Notions of Nation and Gender’, in Karen Jankowsky and Carla Love, eds, Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women’s Literature and Art, State University of New York Press: Albany, NY, 1997, 119-46 Kafka, František, ‘Neznámá Libuše Moníková’ [the unknown LM], Hlas revoluce, 44/35 (28 August 1990), 8 [on LM’s œuvre to date] Kanyar-Beckerová, Helena, ‘Dvanáctý jazyk : Románový návrat Libuše Moníkové domĤ’, Týden, 18 February 2002, 66-67 [overview of LM’s work] Karlach, Hanuš, ‘ýeské literární pomČry z kosmu’, Tvar, 2/10 (1991), 2 [polemic about an interview with LM by Kyncl in Tvar] Kautman, František, ‘Franz Kafka in den Werken der modernen tschechischen Prosa’, Germanoslavica, 1 (6)/1-2 (1994), 145-54 Kliems, Alfrun, ‘Von der “Abschiebung des Widerstands ins Mythische”: Die Libuše-Saga und der Mythos der Nationalen Wiedergeburt bei Libuše Moníková’, in Eva Behring, Ludwig Richter and Wolfgang F. Schwarz, eds, Geschichtliche Mythen in den Literaturen und Kulturen Ostmittel- und Südosteuropas [= Forschungen zur Geschichte und Kultur des östlichen Mitteleuropa, 6], Steiner: Stuttgart, 1999, 261-74 —, Im Stummland: Zum Exilwerk von Libuše Moníková, JiĜí Gruša und Ota Filip, Peter Lang: Frankfurt/Main, 2002 Kolár, Jaroslav, ‘O mýtu a literatuĜe velkoryse i rozpaþitČ’ [on myth and literature in the broad-minded and puzzled sense], ýeská literatura, 48/2 (2000), 214-15 [overview of LM’s work] Kraus, Wolfgang, ‘Laudatio für Libuše Moníková zum Franz Kafka-Preis 6.6.1989’, in Österreichische Franz Kafka-Gesellschaft, ed., Prager deutschsprachige Literatur zur Zeit Kafkas [= Schriftenreihe der Franz Kafka-Gesellschaft, 4], Braumüller: Vienna, 1991, 64-65 Krumme, Detlef, ‘Ausschluß aus den Zirkeln: Über die ersten beiden Prosatexte von Libuše Moníková’, in Norbert Miller, Volker Klotz and Michael Krüger, eds, Bausteine zu einer Poetik der Moderne: Festschrift für Walter Höllerer, Hanser: Munich, 1987, 223-32 Kublitz-Kramer, Maria, ‘“Mein Leben ist eine Abfolge von Literatur- und Filmszenen, willkürlicher Zitate, die ich nicht immer gleich einordnen kann” (Libuše Moníková, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin)’, in Kublitz-Kramer, Frauen auf Straßen: Topographie des Begehrens in Erzähltexten von Gegenwartsautorinnen, Fink: Munich, 1995, 187-91

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Lemke, Gerd, ‘Schriftsteller als moderne Nomaden mit janusköpfigem Blick: Internationale Germanistentagung in Prag versucht Begriffsbestimmung der Migrationsliteratur’, Prager Zeitung, 17 October 2002, 7 Littler, Margaret, ‘Beyond Alienation: The City in the Novels of Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková’, in Brigid Haines, ed., Herta Müller, University of Wales Press: Cardiff, 1998, 36-56 [on Eine Schädigung and Pavane] Mansbrügge, Antje, ‘Zwischen “Aleph” und “Zahir”: Libuše Moníkovás Gedächtniskonzeption’, LiLi: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 31/122 (2001), 164-74 —, Autorkategorie und Gedächtnis: Lektüren zu Libuše Moníková, Königshausen & Neumann: Würzburg, 2002 Marková, Hana, ‘Delf Schmidt und Michael Schwidtal (Hg.), Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková’, Germanoslavica, 6 (11)/2 (1999), 281-84 [review of Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin] Marková, Hana, and Milada Vondráþková, ‘In memoriam Libuše Moníková: Internationale Konferenz der Universität Budweis und des Goethe-Instituts Prag’, Germanoslavica, 6 (11)/1 (1999), 124-28 [conference report] Marková, Hana, and Milada Vondráþková, ‘O evropské autorce Libuši Moníkové v Kravsku’ [on the European author LM in Kravsko], Literární noviny, 10/13 (1999), 9 [conference report] Marven, Lyn, Body and Narrative in Contemporary German Literatures: Herta Müller, Libuše Moníková, Kerstin Hensel, OUP: Oxford, forthcoming Moník, Josef, ‘Meine Schwester, meine Mutter und einige Tiere’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 143-51 Moník, Josef, and Eda Kriseová, ‘Vzpomínky na Libuši Moníkovou: Moje sestra, matka a zvíĜata: Libuše, její ýeši a její NČmci’ [memories of LM: my sister, mother and animals: Libuše, her Czechs and her Germans], Právo, 9/71 (25 March 1999), Salon supplement 109, 3 Neubaur, Caroline, ‘Laudatio zum Berliner Literaturpreis’, in Thomas Hürlimann, ed., Der Berliner Literaturpreis 1992, Gatza: Berlin, 1992, 123-26 Pedretti, Erica, ‘Das Leben ist seltsam, vielseitig and lustig’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 54-60 Pfeiferová, Dana, and Milada Vondráþková, ‘Kafka mČl v nČmþinČ stejný akcent jako já: Portrét Libuše Moníkové’ [Kafka had the same accent

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in German as me], Literární noviny, 10/2 (1999), 5 [overview of LM’s prose and conference report] Pfeiferová, Dana, ‘“Das Reich der Kunst erschaffen”: Ingeborg Bachmann im Werk Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 78-84 —, ‘PĜemysl, Sisyphos und die Eishockey-Helden: Zum Umgang mit Mythen im Werk von Libuše Moníková’, in Lenka VaĖková and Pavla Zajícová, eds, Aspekte der Textgestaltung, Repronis: Ostrava, 2001, 381-86 —, ‘Unterwegs zu Kunst und Wirklichkeit/Na cestČ za umČním a skuteþností: Texte zum Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Gafa Studio: ýeský Krumlov, 2001 [5 pages, unnumbered, in catalogue for Peter Fischerbauer Treibeis] —, ‘Romány o umČní: K dílu Libuše Moníkové’ [novels about art: on the work of LM], Tvar, 12/13 (2001), 1, 4 [with extract from Der Taumel] —, ‘Die Grenzgängerin Libuše Moníková – vier Annäherungsversuche’, in Elke Mehnert, ed., Gute Nachbarn – schlechte Nachbarn, Technische Universität: Chemnitz, 2002, 188-94 —, ‘Obraz nomáda v díle Libuše Moníkové’ [portrait of a nomad in the work of LM], Labyrint revue, 11-12 (2002), 82-84 —, ‘Das Bild der Heimat im Werk von Libuše Moníková’, in Andrea Hohmeyer, Jasmin S. Rühl and Ingo Wintermeyer, eds, Spurensuche in Sprach- und Geschichtslandschaften: Festschrift für Ernst Erich Metzner, Lit Verlag: Münster, 2003, 455-62 PilaĜ, Martin, ‘The Role of Exiles in Breaking Czech Literary Clichés’, Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty Ostravské univerzity: Literární vČda, 3/169 (1997), 43-49; also [accessed 10 July 2003] Pizer, John, ‘The Disintegration of Libussa’, The Germanic Review, 73/2 (1998), 145-60 Pzarek, Marcela, ‘Kulturspiegel’, Radio Praha, 4 April 1999 [radio broadcast] Radisch, Iris, ‘Die Einseitigkeit des Herzens: Lobrede auf die in Prag geborene, in Berlin lebende Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Die Zeit, 25 February 1994, 60 [on the awards Literaturpreis des ZDF and Literaturpreis der Stadt Mainz] Schmidt, Delf and Michael Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin: Libuše Moníková [= Literaturmagazin, 44], Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1999 Scholl, Sabine, Die Welt als Ausland: Zur Literatur zwischen den

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Kulturen, Sonderzahl: Vienna, 1999 [on Fassade, Treibeis, Prager Fenster] Schwidtal, Michael, ‘Libuše, PĜemysl und Prometheus: Zum mythischen Erzählen’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 64-69 Seyhan, Azade, Writing outside the Nation, Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, 2001 Sladek, Ulrike, ‘Grenzgängerin in Wort und Tat’, Anschläge: Feministisches Magazin für Politik, Arbeit und Kultur, 5 (1990), 33 Trumpener, Katie, ‘Is Female to Nation as Nature is to Culture? Božena NČmcová, Libuše Moníková, and the Female Folkloric’, in Jankowsky and Love, eds, Other Germanies: Questioning Identity in Women’s Literature and Art, 99-118 Vedder, Ulrike, ‘“Mit schiefem Mund auch ‘Heimat’”: Heimat und Nation in Libuše Moníkovás Texten’, Monatshefte, 89/4 (1997), 477-88 —, ‘“Ist es überhaupt noch mein Prag?”: Sprache der Erinnerung in der Literatur Libuše Moníkovás’, in Helga Abret and Ilse Nagelschmidt, eds, Zwischen Distanz und Nähe: Eine Autorinnengeneration in den 80er Jahren, Lang: Bern, 1998, 7-27 —, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in Ute Hechtfischer and others, Metzler Autorinnen Lexikon, Metzler: Stuttgart, 1998, 358-59 —, ‘Libuše Moníková’, in Heinz Ludwig Arnold, ed., Kritisches Lexikon zur deutschsprachigen Gegenwartsliteratur, text + kritik: Munich Venske, Regula, Das Verschwinden des Mannes in der weiblichen Schreibmaschine: Männerbilder in der Literatur von Frauen, Luchterhand: Hamburg, 1991 [89-91 on Schädigung, Pavane, Fassade] Wagnerová, Alena, ‘Die Teilung Europas als Schicksal und Thema Libuše Moníkovás’, in Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin, 130-42 Weigel, Sigrid, Die Stimme der Medusa, 2nd edn, tende: DülmenHiddingsel, 1995 [120-23 on Schädigung and Pavane] Windt, Karin, ‘Libuše Moníková – Facetten einer Schriftstellerin’, Querelles-Net: Rezensionszeitschrift für Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung [Osteuropa und Rußland], 3 (Feb 2001) [accessed 10 July 2003] [review of Schmidt and Schwidtal, eds, Prag – Berlin] Zand, Gertraude, ‘Libuše Moníková: Prager Deutsche, Mitteleuropäerin’, in Ivo Pospíšil, ed., Crossroads of Cultures: Central Europe [=Litteraria humanitas, 11], Masarykova univerzita v Brne: Brno, 2002, 279-91

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3.2 on individual texts on Eine Schädigung Chuchma, Josef, ‘Újma Libuše Moníkové: silná reakce na sprostotu normalizaþního nástupu’ [LM’s Újma: a strong reaction against the vulgarity of the normalising approach], Mladá Fronta Dnes, 8 July 1999, 19 [review of Újma] Jonas, Anna, ‘Fliehen oder reden?’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28/29 November 1981 Krechel, Ursula, ‘Blicke ins Zentrum der Macht: Libuše Moníkovás Erzählung Eine Schädigung’, Lesezeichen, 3 (1981), 25 Linklater, Beth, ‘“Philomela’s Revenge”: Challenges to Rape in Recent Writing in German’, German Life & Letters, 54/3 (2001), 253-71 M. R.-S., ‘Libuše Moníkovás: Eine Schädigung’, Die Welt, 14 May 1990 Rothschild, Thomas, ‘Über die alltägliche Gewalt’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 20 February 198 on Pavane Fingerhut, Karlheinz, ‘“Ich taste nach Verhärtungen”: Libuše Moníková, Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, Diskussion Deutsch, 26 (1995), 236-38 Fuld, Werner, ‘Ein Pfauentanz um Kafka’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 18 November 1983 E. H., ‘Exorzismen’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 31 December 1983 Heissenbüttel, Helmut, ‘Inwendige Traurigkeit: Libuše Moníkovás Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 10 March 1984, ZB4 Kafka, František, ‘Z Pavany za mrtvou infantku’, Kmen, 2/37 (14 September 1989), 9 [introductory note to the translation of excerpts] Krechel, Ursula, ‘Die Flucht der Fürstin in die Literatur: Libuše Moníkovás zweite Erzählung: Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, Lesezeichen, 7 (1983), 19 Kublitz-Kramer, Maria, ‘“Was man nicht erfliegen kann, muß man erhinken”: Auf den “Straßen des weiblichen Begehrens”: Libuše Moníkovás Erzählung Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, in Kublitz-Kramer and Margret Brügmann, eds, Textdifferenzen und Engagement: Feminismus – Ideologiekritik – Poststrukturalismus,

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Centaurus: Pfaffenweiler, 1993, 101-13 —, ‘Die Freiheiten der Straße: Stadtläuferinnen in neueren Texten von Frauen’, in Kublitz-Kramer, Friedmar Apel and Thomas Steinfeld, eds, Kultur in der Stadt [= Paderborner Universitätsreden, 36], Paderborner Universitätsreden: Paderborn, 1993, 15-36 Mansbrügge, Antje, ‘Der Text ist der Autor eines Buches? Einige Überlegungen zu Libuše Moníkovás Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, LiLi: Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik, 112 (1998) 120-33 Marven, Lyn, ‘Women in Wheelchairs: Space, Performance and Hysteria in Libuše Moníková’s Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin and Ines Eck’s Steppenwolfidyllen’, German Life & Letters, 53/4 (2000), 511-28 Modzelewski, Jozef A., ‘Libuse’s Success and Francine’s Bitterness: Libuše Moníková and Her Protagonist in Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin’, in Carol Aisha Blackshine-Belay, ed., The German Mosaic: Cultural and Linguistic Diversity in Society, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994, 21-31 Neidhart, Christoph, ‘Atemlos, körperlich, sinnlich’, Basler Zeitung, 25 February 1984, section IV, 39 Všetiþka, František, ‘RavelĤv koncert v knize exilové autorky’ [a Ravel concert in the book of the exiled author], Lidové noviny, 1 August 2000, 21 [note on the Ravel music in the text] on Die Fassade Boþek, Josef, ‘Radostné koulení osudového kamene: Pokus o interpretaci vybraných aspektĤ románu Libuše Moníkové Die Fassade’ [the joyful rolling of the stone of fate: an attempt at interpreting selected aspects of LM’s novel Die Fassade], Tvar, 9/6 (1998), 10-11 Buchholz, Hartmut, ‘Sisyphus-Arbeit gegen den Gedächtnisverlust: Schelmenroman, satirisches Märchen, Geschichtsreflexion: Die Fassade von Libuše Moníková – ein erzählendes Ereignis’, Badische Zeitung, 11 November 1987, 11 Chvatik, Kvetoslav, ‘Fasada Libuše Moníkové’, Listy, 18/3 (1988), 10406 —, ‘Fasáda Libuše Moníkové a možnosti evropského románu’ [LM’s Fassade and the possibilities of the European novel], Tvar, 2/17 (1991), 12-13 [review from 1988] Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Vaucansons Ente, das Rentier Foma Fomitsch, der

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Fahrradausweis des Josef K.: Die Fassade von Libuše Moníková – ein europäischer Roman’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 19/20 September 1987, 164 DČdinová, Sidonie, ‘ýesko-nČmecký bestseller: Román-koláž’, Národní politika, 19/12 (220) (1987), 5 Denneler, Iris, ‘Verzettelt und vertan: Zu Libuše Moníkovás Roman Die Fassade’, Der Tagesspiegel, 7 October 1987, Literaturblatt, 10 Dobrick, Barbara, ‘Die Vier auf dem Gerüst: Libuše Moníková: Die Fassade: Roman aus Kafkas Friedland’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 25 October 1987, 27 Eder, Richard, ‘A Rambling Czech Parody Lacks Satiric Bite’, The LA Times, 21 November 1991, E14 [review of The Façade] Ferchl, Irene, ‘Verwickelte Geschichten: L. Moníkovás Die Fassade’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 17 October 1987 Filkins, Peter, ‘Fractured By Reality’, The NY Times, 5 January 1992, section 7, 10 [review of The Façade] Hartmann, Rainer, ‘Die Phantasie bricht aus’, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 8 December 1987 Hulse, Michael, ‘Palace of Europe’, The Times Literary Supplement, 1521 July 1988, 788 Hyršlová, KvČta, ‘OpČt ve stĜední EvropČ: Evropský román pražské autorky nČmeckým perem’ [in Central Europe again: a European novel by a Czech author with a German pen], Nové knihy, 18 (2 May 1990), 2-3 Iggers, Vilma, ‘Libuše Moníková, Die Fassade’, PromČny, 25/3 (1988), 155-56 Lodron, Herbert, ‘Sgraffiti und Sibirien: Moníkovás Burlesken’, Die Presse, 14/15 November 1987 Lüdke, Martin, ‘Odyssee mit Zauberern und Amazonen’, Der Spiegel, 5 October 1987; also in Martin Lüdke, Für den SPIEGEL geschrieben, Rowohlt: Reinbek, 1991, 89-93 Mansbrügge, Antje, ‘Böhmisches Fassadenwerk und Potemkinsche Dörfer: Libuše Moníková’s Ort der Erinnerung’, in Anil Kaputanoglu and Nicole Meyer, eds, ‘Nur das Auge weckt mich wieder…’: Erinnerung Text Gedächtnis, Lit Verlag: Münster, 2002 Miehe, Renate, ‘Unterhaltung für gebildete Stände’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 November 1987 Neidhart, Christoph, ‘Hinter Schweinskopf, hinter nacktem Hintern die verlorene halbe Welt’, Die Weltwoche, 8 October 1987, 82

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Rezek, Petr, ‘At’ žije fasáda!’, Kritický sborník, 8/4 (1988) Rosenstrauch, Hazel, ‘Libuše Moníková Die Fassade’, L80, 44 (1987), 158-60 —, ‘Exakte Phantasie’, die tageszeitung, 30 November 1987, 14 Rohde, Hedwig, ‘Eine Fassade aus Böhmen: Alfred-Döblin-Preis für Libuše Moníková’, Der Tagesspiegel, 24 April 1987 Salivar, Lumír, ‘Ahoj, Svobodné slovo’, Svobodné slovo, 11 June 1991, 5 [letter about Sixty-Eight Publishers, Toronto, inc. LM’s Fasáda] Schoeller, Wilfried F., ‘Bröckelnder Putz: Früh gefeiert, zu früh publiziert’, Die Zeit, 9 October 1987 Schütte, Wolfram, ‘Verschmitzte Nachrichten aus der Höhle des Bären’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 10 October 1987 Steinová, Rebeka, ‘Libuše Moníková, Fasáda’, in Blahoslav Dokoupil and Miroslav Zelinsky, eds, Slovník þeské prózy 1945-1994, Sfinga: Ostrava, 1994, 250-52 [entry in literary dictionary] Stiller, Pavel, ‘Kometa Libuše’, Reportér, 1 (1988), 28-29 Trinkewitz, Karel, ‘Fasáda: JeštČ jednou L. Moníková’, Národní politika, 20/1 (221) (1988), 3 Wetzky, Karl von, ‘Libuše Moníková, Die Fassade’, SvČdectví, 21/83-84 (1988), 775-76 Wolffheim, Elsbeth, ‘Fatalismus – ohn’ Unterlaß’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 9 September 1987 Zand, Nicole, ‘Prisonniers de façades’, Le Monde, 29 September 1989 on Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte and Unter Menschenfressern Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Gefesseltes Denken’, Die Zeit, 10 May 1991 Haman, Aleš, ‘Kafkovy romány a problémy spoleþnosti’ [Kafka’s novels and the problems of society], Nové knihy, 41/19 (9 May 2001), 24 [review of Eseje o Kafkovi] Hausmann, Ulrich, ‘Fluchtwege aus der totalitären Gesellschaft: Theoretisches von Libuše Moníková’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 23/24 June 1990 Jiþínská, Veronika, ‘Fascinosum Kafka’, Tvar, 12/14 (2001), 11 [review of Eseje o Kafkovi amongst texts by other authors] Mandys, Pavel, ‘KapsáĜ literární’ [literary pickpocket], Týden, 30 April 2001, 81 [on Eseje o Kafkovi] Rathjen, Friedhelm, ‘Von Kafka zu Arno Schmidt’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 28 July 1990, ZB4

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Ryþl, František, ‘ObhájkynČ Kafkových postav’, Host, 17/10 (2001), supplement, 6-7 [review of Eseje o Kafkovi] Staudach, Cornelia, ‘Über das Weiterdenken der Welt: Libuše Moníkovás Essays zur Literatur und Imagination’, Der Tagesspiegel, 19 August 1990, XI Steiger, ŠtČpán, ‘Libuše Moníková’, Ahoj na sobotu, 23/25 (19 June 1991), 5 [on Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte] Vogl, Walter, ‘Entlarvung totalitärer Machtsysteme, Appelle an das Engagement des Lesers’, Die Presse, 25/26 August 1990, 12 on Treibeis Bley, Minne, ‘Böhmen ist überall’, Prager Zeitung, 9-15 May 1997, Literaturbeilage der PZ zur Prager Buchmesse, 2 [review] Bruns, Stefan, ‘Nach Europa, zum Beispiel: Libuše Moníkovás politischhistorische Romangroteske’, die tageszeitung, 23 November 1992 Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Triumphbogen für ein Opfer der europäischen Geschichte: Libuše Moníkovás Versuch, ein tschechisches Nationalepos zu formen: Treibeis’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30 September 1992, 8 Engelmann, Christine, ‘Ein tschechischer Hamlet und die promovierte Stuntfrau: Libuše Moníkovás Geschichte eines Englischlehrers: zwischen Grönland und Österreich ein europäischer Exilroman’, Der Tagesspiegel, 15 November 1992 Halter, Martin, ‘Ein Tscheche in Grönland: Handbuch des nutzloses Wissens: Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Badische Zeitung, 235, 10 October 1992, BZ-Magazin, 4 Halter, Martin and Andrea Köhler, ‘Von Prag über Ostgrönland und zurück in lauter böhmische Dörfer’, Basler Zeitung, 30 September 1992, 10 [Briefwechsel] Haman, Aleš, ‘TĜíšĢ vykoĜenČných osudĤ v románu Libuše Moníkové’ [the scattering of uprooted fates in LM’s novel], Lidové noviny, 18 February 2002, 30 [review of Ledová tĜíšĢ] Hartmann, Rainer, ‘Die Kälte reicht bis ins Herz Europas: Reise ohne Ziel: Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, 21/22 November 1992, 36 Horáþková, KvČta, ‘ýeské osudy v tĜíšti dČjin’ [Czech fates in the pack-ice of history], Literární noviny, 13/14 (2002), 8 [review of Ledová tĜíšĢ] —, ‘Ledová tĜíšĢ vzpomínek’ [pack-ice of memories], Host, 18/4 (2002),

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

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supplement, 6-7 [review of Ledová tĜíšĢ] Löffler, Sigrid, ‘Der Zug ins Eis’, Profil, 28 September 1992, Beilage, 2 Malý, Radek, ‘TĜíšĢ vzpomínek a vztahĤ Libuše Moníková: Ledová tĜíšĢ’ [a scattering of memories and relationships], Aluze, 6/2 (2002), 151-53, also [accessed 10 July 2003] [review of Ledová tĜíšĢ] Matt, Beatrice von, ‘Bittere Dialoge’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 13 July 1993, Feuilleton Pfeiferová, Dana, ‘PĜíbČhy ledových hrdinĤ (bez bruslí)’ [stories of ice heroes (without skates)], Tvar, 6 (2002), 4-5 [review of Ledová tĜíšĢ] Platzeck, Wolfgang, ‘Das Eis bricht auf’, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 6 February 1993 Radisch, Iris, ‘Die Verschlechterung von Mitteleuropa’, Die Zeit, 2 October 1992, Literaturbeilage, 1-2 Reschke, Karin, ‘Weltbürger’, Freitag, 2 October 1992 Röhrs, Jan-Lüder, ‘Aus dem Blickwinkel des Exils’, Prager Zeitung, 19 November 1992, 6 Seuss-Weihmann, Siggi, ‘Verdammt bucklige Welt, Treibeis – der sprachgewaltige Roman von Libuše Moníková: Jan und Karla, zwei Tschechen im Exil sehnen sich nach einer Liebe, die Grönlands Gletscher schmelzen läßt’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 6 November 1992, 26 Šlajchrt, Viktor, ‘Ve znamení vČþného ledu: Román Libuše Moníkové poprvé vychází v její rodné zemi’ [in the symbol of eternal ice: LM’s novel appears for the first time in her native country], Respekt, 13/9 (2002), 21 [review of Ledová tĜíšĢ] Šlibar, Neva, ‘Fremde und Fremdsein als Strafe, Schuld und Chance: Zu Kerschbaumers Die Fremde und Moníkovás Treibeis’, Script: FrauLiteratur-Wissenschaft im alpen-adriatischen Raum, 2 (1992), 14-17 Steiger, ŠtČpán, ‘Jan a Karla v ledové tĜíšti’ [Jan and Karla in the driftice], Lidové noviny, 30 December 1992, 11 [note on the contents of the book] Urbach, Tilman, ‘Eisberge, Weinberge: Libuše Moníková erzählt die mißglückende Liebesgeschichte eines tschechischen Emigrantenpaares’, Rheinischer Merkur, 2 December 1992, Merkur extra, 1 Vedder, Ulrike, ‘Die Intensität des Polarsommers: Zu Libuše Moníkovás Roman Treibeis’, Frauen in der Literaturwissenschaft Rundbrief, 41 (1994), 15-17

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—, ‘Stranger than Paradise: Der “locus amoenus” in der Liebesliteratur der Gegenwart’, Weimarer Beiträge, 46/4 (2000), 547-63 Wagner, Thomas, ‘Shakespeare und die klugen Lehrer’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 29 September 1992, L15 Wiegenstein, Roland H., ‘Im Treibeis der Geschichte(n): Libuše Moníkovás politische Roman-Groteske zwischen Grönland, Prag und Klagenfurt’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 5 September 1992 Zand, Nicole, ‘Tchèque au Groenland’, Le Monde, 13 May 1994, Monde des Livres on Prager Fenster Höhne, Steffen, ‘PĜíbČhy o ýeších: “NČmecký” pohled do þeských domovĤ’ [stories about Czechs: the ‘German’ view into Czech households], Ianua, 2 (1996) [published 1997], 95-97 Jacobi, Hansres, ‘Zwischen zwei Ländern’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 18 January 1995, Bücher, 49 Jähner, Harald, ‘Dreizehn Fenster: Libuše Moníkovás Ausblicke’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 November 1994, L5. Kanyar, Helena, ‘Böhmische Vagantin’, Basler Zeitung, 10 February 1995 Setzwein, Bernard, ‘Prager Fenster’, Passauer Pegasus, 13/26 (1995), 114-19 Strebel, Volker, ‘Kritische Blicke aus Prager Fenstern’, Prager Zeitung, 20 October 1994, 6 Wiegenstein, Roland H., ‘Fortgesetzte Einmischung oder Folgen einer Schädigung’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 5 October 1994, Literatur on Grönland-Tagebuch Kunisch, Hans-Peter, ‘Mehr Dosen als am Strand: Böhmen am Meer: Libuše Moníkovás Grönland-Tagebuch (ZDF)’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 15 December 1994, Feuilleton, 34 on Verklärte Nacht Baureithel, Ulrike, ‘Pas de trois’, Wochen Zeitung, 27 September 1996 Braunbeck, Helga, ‘Rückkehr und Umkehr: Verklärte Nacht’, Freitag, 16 August 1996 Breitenstein, Andreas, ‘In den Schlingen der Politik’, Neue Zürcher

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

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Zeitung, 27 August 1996, Feuilleton, 47 Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Dornröschen in Prag: Libuše Moníková als schwungvolle Choreographin Arnold Schoenbergs’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7/8 December 1996 Höhne, Steffen, ‘Verklärte Nacht’, Deutsche Bücher, 2 (1999), 82-85 —, ‘Libuše Moníková, Verklärte Nacht’, Germanoslavica, 6 (11)/1 (1999), 118-20 Knapp, Aleš, ‘ýeská (nČmecky píšící) autorka o Praze’ [a Czech author (writing in German) about Prague], Labyrint, 5 (1996), 24-25 Moehrle, Katja, ‘Peinliche Liebesgeschichte an der Moldau: Libuse Monikova liest im Literaturhaus aus ihrem neuen Buch’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 20 October 1996, Kultur, 30 Nüchtern, Klaus, ‘Wachsmotten in Prag: Verklärte Nacht, Libuše Moníkovás Roman über das Prag der samtenen Revolution mutet dem Leser einiges zu – sehr zu dessen Glück’, Falter, 40 (1996) Pagels, Henny ‘Die Sache Makropulos: Libuše Moníkovás neuer Roman Verklärte Nacht’, Prager Zeitung, 5/40 (3 October 1996), Literaturbeilage zur Frankfurter Buchmesse, 2 Plath, Jörg, ‘Aus Worten gebaute Stadt’, Die Neue Gesellschaft/ Frankfurter Hefte, 12 (1996), 1145-47 Radisch, Iris, ‘Femme mortale auf Reisen’, Die Zeit, 30 August 1996 Reinacher, Pia, ‘Biedere Konfektion’, Tages-Anzeiger, 25 January 1997, Kultur, 69 Scherer, Burkhard, ‘Es wirft ihn aus Liebe in die Moldau’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 5 November 1996, L8 Wiegenstein, Roland H., ‘Rückkehr in die Fremde, die Heimat war’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 2 October 1996 on Der Taumel Bartmann, Christoph, ‘Vorladung zur Behauptung’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 21 March 2000 Baureithel, Ulrike, ‘Rittern um Libuše’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 March 2000, BS4 [about Taumel as read by Michael Krüger in the Literaturhaus, Berlin] —, ‘Libuse Moníková: Elixier wider das Verschüttgehen’, Wochen Zeitung, 25 May 2000, Kultur, 25, also [accessed 10 July 2003]

304

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Bumann, Frank, ‘Ein Porträt der Heimat aus der Ferne: Libuše Moníkovás unvollendeter Roman über das Prag der siebziger Jahre’, Prager Zeitung, 11 May 2000, Literaturbeilage, 2 Hartmann, Rainer, ‘Libuše Moníková: Die Krankheit, die den Menschen niederringt: Das letzte Buch der Schriftstellerin als Fragment: der Roman Der Taumel’, Kölner-Stadt-Anzeiger, 7 July 2000, 25 Inauen, Yasmin, ‘Lenin wach auf, Bresnev ist wahnsinnig geworden’, Tages-Anzeiger, 18 May 2000, Kultur, 70 Jahn, Oliver, ‘Böhmen liegt am Meer’, Rheinischer Merkur, 21 April 2000, 21 Krauß, Cornelia, ‘Die Welt anhalten: Libuše Moníkovás Taumel’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 21 July 2000, 32 Peters, Sabine, ‘Suche nach Integrität’, Basler Zeitung, 31 March 2000 Plath, Jörg, ‘Mütterchen ziegt Krallen: Eine schwere Liebe zu Prag: Libuše Moníkovás Romanfragment Der Taumel’, Der Tagesspiegel, 17 September 2000, W5 Roether, Dietmut, ‘Der Bohemien: Ein nachgelassenes Fragment von Libuše Moníková führt zurück ins Prag nach 1986 [sic]’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 28 April 2000, 34 —, ‘Verteidigerin Mitteleuropas’, die tageszeitung, 4 July 2000 [accessed 10 July 2003] —, ‘Die Welt, ein Straucheln: Libuse Moníkovás postum veröffentlichtes Romanfragmnet [sic] Der Taumel’, literaturkritik.de, 7/8 (July 2000) [accessed 10 July 2003] Röggla, Kathrin, ‘Zeit gewinnen, Welt anhalten’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 22 March 2000 Schwidtal, Michael, ‘Kunst im Zeichen der Diktatur: Libuše Moníkovás Roman Der Taumel’, Neue deutsche Literatur, 48/4 (2000), 107-16 Verdofsky, Jürgen, ‘Die bleierne Zeit: Der Taumel, Libuše Moníkovás letzter unvollendeter Roman’, Badische Zeitung, 11 April 2000 Wagnerová, Alena, ‘Böhmen liegt am Meer: Die unvollendete Rückkehr der Libuše Moníková’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 6 February 2001, Feuilleton [accessed 22 July 2003] Wiegenstein, Roland H., ‘Letzter Bericht aus dem Jahrhundert der Verschütteten’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22 March 2000 Windt, Karin, ‘“Das Jahrhundert der Verschütteten”: Verborgene und

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

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verworfene Geschichte bei Libuše Moníková’, in Gisela Ecker, Martina Stange and Ulrike Vedder, eds, Sammeln – Ausstellen – Wegwerfen, Helmer: Königstein/Taunus, 2001, 195-207

3.3 obituaries Arndt, Mareile, ‘Seine Wurzeln reißt man nie aus: Zum Tod der tschechischen Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Saarbrücker Zeitung, 15 January 1998, 7 Beran, L. J., ‘Myslela þesky, psala nČmecky: K úmrtí spisovatelky Libuše Moníkové’, Polygon, 9 February 1998, 63 [report on her life and death] besc, ‘Böhmen an der Spree. Libuše Moníková, deutsch schreibende Tschechin, ist am Montag im Alter von 52 Jahren gestorben’, Die Presse, 14 January 1998, 24 Cornejo, Renata, ‘Wer nicht liest, kennt die Welt nicht: In memoriam Libuše Moníková’, Prager Zeitung, 25-31 March 1999, 11 Cramer, Sibylle, ‘Die Böhmin am Meer’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 14 January 1998 Delius, Friedrich Christian, ‘Rede auf die Fürstin Libuše: Zum Tode von Libuše Moníková’, Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, Jahrbuch 1998, 183-188 [obituary read at memorial service for LM on 10 June 1998 at the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin and reprinted in this volume, 23-29] dpa, ‘Libuše Moníková gestorben: Heimatlos und leidend’, Badische Zeitung, 14 January 1998, 8 dpa, ‘Libuše Moníková tot’, Ruher Nachrichten, 14 January 1998 Geissler, Cornelia, ‘Vom Leben geprägt: Zum Tode der Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Berliner Zeitung, 15 January 1998, 12 —, ‘Selbstbewußt, selbstironisch: Erinnerung an die Dichterin Libuše Moníková im LCB’, Berliner Zeitung, 12 June 1998 Gleiss, Marita, and Tatja Giele, eds, Nachrufe 1997/1998 : Joseph Ahrens, Giorgio Strehler, Michael Tippett, Libuše Moníková, Bruno Goller, Carlfriedrich Claus, Sohrab Shahid Saless, Alfred Schnittke, Bernhard Minetti, Franz Tumler, Akademie der Künste: Berlin, 1999 Hartmann, Rainer, ‘Zerbrochene Sehnsucht: Tschechin in Deutschland: Zum Tode der Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Kölner-StadtAnzeiger, 14 January 1998, 8 jpk, ‘Odešla autorka Fasády’, Právo, 16 January 1998, 9

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Kafka, Tomáš, ‘Libuše Moníková þili ztráta dosud nenalezeného’, Mladá fronta Dnes, 19 January 1998, 11 Karlach, Hanuš, ‘ZemĜela autorka Fasády’, Týden, 19 January 1998, 64-65 L.J., ‘Wir haben gern gelebt’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 14 January 1998, Feuilleton, 34 Lüdke, Martin, ‘(K)ein kollektiver Schelmenroman’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 15 January 1998 Magenau, Jörg, ‘Immer als weiblicher Ahasver gefühlt’, die tageszeitung, 14 January 1998, 16 Martin, Marko, ‘Schmerz, Groteske, Ironie waren ihr poetischer Grund: Die deutsch-tschechische Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková ist im Alter von 52 Jahren in Berlin gestorben’, Der Tagesspiegel, 14 January 1998, 25 —, ‘Die Verletzliche: Hommage an Libuše Moníková im Berliner LCB’, Der Tagesspiegel, 12 June 1998, 26 Meudal, Gerard, ‘Libuse Monikova: Une digne heritière de Franz Kafka’, Le Monde, 16 January 1998, Carnet Mlejnek, Josef, ‘ZemĜela Libuše Moníková’, Lidové noviny, 14 January 1998, 12 [n.n.], ‘Wenn die Verlierer die Geschichte schreiben: Die Autorin Libuše Moníková ist tot’, Stuttgarter Zeitung, 14 January 1998, 25 [n.n.], ‘Gestorben’, Börsenblatt des deutschen Buchhandels, 16 January 1998 [n.n.], ‘V BerlínČ zemĜela Libuše Moníková’, Mladá fronta Dnes, 14 January 1998, 19 [newspaper report on her death] Radisch, Iris, ‘Ein freier Mensch: Zum Tod der Schriftstellerin Libuše Moníková’, Die Zeit, 22 January 1998, 46 Reinacher, Pia, ‘Libuše Moníková gestorben’, Tages-Anzeiger, 14 January 1998, Kultur, 73 Steiger, ŠtČpán, ‘ýeská autorka píšící nČmecky...’, Právo, 5 February 1998, supplement Salon, 51, 4 Steinert, Hajo, ‘Vom Rand her geschrieben’, Basler Zeitung, 14 January 1998 Štiller, Pavel, ‘PĜedþasné odchody: Moníková a Laub’, Polygon, 23 March 1998, 68-71 Stránský, Jan, ‘Za spisovatelkou Libuší Moníkovou’, Slovo, 17 January 1998, 11 Strehlau, Elisabeth, ‘Heimatlos zwischen Trauer und Revolte: Zum Tode der Dichterin Libuše Moníková’, Die Welt, 14 January 1998, 10

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

307

Wagnerová, Alena, ‘Böhmen ist überall’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 15 January 1998 3.4 miscellaneous Beneš, Jan, ‘KonČ, literatura, paleontologové, folklór a soudružky kurvy’, Telegraf, 25 September 1993, supplement, 9 [report on Vilenica literary festival] Benhart, František, ‘Laureátka Libuše Moníková a ti druzí’, Tvar, 4/39-40 (1993), 3 [on Vilenica literary prize and its last laureate and other Slovenian prizes] best, ‘Verstockte Forscher, verzettelte Träume in dem Theater m.b.H.’, Die Presse, 4 February 1993, 20 Broos, Susanne, ‘Die Frage des Erzählers: Libuše Moníková bei der Kleinen Hochschule für Schriftsteller’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 9 November 1992, 22 —, ‘Die Realität hat Vorrang: Libuše Moníková im Literaturbüro’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 19 January 1991, 20 Buchholz, Hartmut, ‘Taumel des Schreibens: Libuše Moníková, die Autorin der Fassade, in Freiburg’, Badische Zeitung, 30 April/1 May 1988, 14 Delius, F.C., ‘Literatura jako nejvyšší forma vlastivČdy’, trans. by Petr Kyncl, Literární noviny, 6/49 (1995), 10 [on LM’s novels, on the occasion of her being given the Roswitha-von-Gandersheim-Preis] dpa, ‘Chamisso-Preis an Moníková’, Westfälische Rundschau, 23 January 1991 dpa, ‘Libuše Moníková: Adalbert-von-Chamisso-Preis’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 25 January 1991, 27 dpa, ‘Stadtschreiberin Moníková’, Rheinische Post, 16 November 1993 dpa, ‘Schreiberin von Mainz’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 26 November 1993 dpa, ‘Roswitha für Moníková’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 1 June 1995, 7 dpa, ‘Roswitha-Preis an L. Moníková’, Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 16 October 1995 dpa, ‘Preis Bad Gandersheim für Libuše Moníková’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 16 October 1995, 21 dpa, ‘Arno-Schmidt-Stipendium für Libuše Moníková’, Frankfurter Rundschau, 24 October 1997 Escherig, Ursula, ‘Das klare Gehirn der Kritiker: Berliner Literaturpreis:

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Moníková und Schädlich ausgezeichnet’, Der Tagesspiegel, 15 June 1992 Färber, Vratislav, ‘Cena pro Libuši Moníkovou na Frankfurtském knižním veletrhu 1995’, Literární noviny, 6/46 (1995), 2 [report on the Roswitha-von-Gandersheim memorial medal] Filip, Ota, ‘Hrabal, Gruša, Moníková’, Literární noviny, 5/23 (1994), 2 [on the criticism of the works of Bohumil Hrabal, JiĜí Gruša and Libuše Moníková in Die Zeit] F.A.Z., ‘Libuše Moníková erhält den Alfred-Döblin-Preis’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31 March 1987, 25 Halpert, Martha S., ‘Mitteleuropas Autoren im slowenischen Vilenica’, Die Presse, 14 September 1993, 24 hkb, ‘Mainzer Stadtschreiberpreis für Libuse Monikova’, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 10 February 1994, Feuilleton Höly, Claudia, ‘Schreiber, schreib und -filme’, Der Literat (April 1991), 9 Horáþková, KvČta, ‘NČmecká spisovatelka s þeským srdcem – Libuše Moníková’ [a German writer with a Czech heart – LM], Host, 15/4 (1999), 4-5 [report on international conference on LM at Jihoþeské university, March 1999] Klunker, Heinz, ‘In der Fremde zu Hause Vilenica Literaturpreis 1993: die Preisträger Libuše Moníková, Francesco Micieli und die deutsche Sprache beim Dichtertreffen im slowenischen Herbst’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 13 September 1993, 23 —, ‘In der Fremde zu Hause: Vilenica Literaturpreis 1993’, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 1 October 1993 Kostelecký, JiĜí, ‘Odborné publikace a elektronická media: Od našeho zvláštního zpravodaje z Frankfurtu nad Mohanem’, Denní Telegraf, 4/241 (14 October 1995), 11 [about LM, winner of RoswithaGedenkmedaille] Kyncl, Petr, ‘Cena z jeskynČ: StĜedoevropskou literární cenu Vilenice’93 získala Libuše Moníková’, Mladá fronta Dnes, 2 October 1993, supplement, 5 [report on the Vilenica prize] lrs, ‘Libuše Moníková: Mainzer Stadtschreiberin’, Saarbrücker Zeitung, 13/14 November 1993, 8 Menasse, Eva, ‘Böhmen liegt am Eismeer: Langsame Heimkehr: Eine Tagung über die Dichterin Libuše Moníková und ihr fremdes Land’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 31 March 1999, Feuilleton, 55 [n.n.], ‘Graz vertreibt Stadtschreiberin’, Der Spiegel, 31 October 1988, 195

Libuše Moníková: Bibliography

309

[n.n.], ‘ýeška vítČzkou’, Telegraf, 2/212 (13 September 1993), 1 [report on the Vilenica prize] Paul, Werner, ‘Kein Wettbewerb des Schreckens: Deutschen und Tschechen: Libuše Moníková in den Münchner Kammerspielen’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 25 November 1991, 31 Schirnding, Albert von, ‘Dichter sind außer sich: Libuše Moníková und SAID erhielten den Chamisso-Preis’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 25 February 1991 Schuelke, Claudia, ‘Was tun, wenn einer in die eisige Moldau fällt: Libuse Monikova im Hessischen Literaturbüro’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 9 February 1997, Kultur, 27 Stiller, Pavel, ‘KĜehká poselství z Prahy: Festival þs. kultury v Bavorsku’, Národní politika, 23/5 (1991), 2 [report on Czech German cultural contact, about LM receiving prizes] Süss, Sigrid, ‘Straßenbahnfahrt mit Rollstuhl: Libuše Moníková und Uwe Herkt aus Bremen lasen im “Sassafras”’, Rheinische Post, 23 October 1984 SZ, ‘Die Fassade ist vorn: Libuše Moníková führt die SeptemberBestenliste an’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12/13 September 1987, 16 Wiesner, Herbert, ‘Ein Frühjahr der Frauen: Die Berliner Döblin-PreisTagung und die Auszeichnung für Libuše Moníková’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 28 April 1987, 15 Zelinger, David, ‘Cena Franze Kafky Libuši Moníkové’, Tvar, 1/4 (1990), 12 [report on LM receiving the Franz Kafka prize]

Bibliography compiled 2003

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Notes on Contributors Helga G. Braunbeck, Ph.D., is Associate Professor at North Carolina State University, USA. She has published on the fictional double biography as a mode of women’s writing, the sister relationship in current German short stories, authorship and the constitution of the subject (Autorschaft und Subjektgenese: Christa Wolfs ‘Kein Ort. Nirgends’, Vienna: Passagen, 1992) and the representation of ‘nation’ in the texts of Libuše Moníková. Friedrich Christian Delius, Schriftsteller, geb. 1943, lebt in Berlin und Rom. 1970-1978 Lektor in den Verlagen Wagenbach und Rotbuch. In den achtziger und neunziger Jahren Mitglied der Jury des Alfred-DöblinPreises, hielt die Laudatio auf Libuše Moníkovás Die Fassade. Veröffentlichte zuletzt die Romane Mein Jahr als Mörder (2004) und Der Königsmacher (2001), die Erzählung Die Flatterzunge (1999) sowie Warum ich immer schon Recht hatte – und andere Irrtümer: Ein Leitfaden für deutsches Denken (2003). Valentina Glajar is Assistant Professor of German at Texas State University, San Marcos. She is the author of The German Legacy in East Central Europe (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004) and co-translator of Herta Müller’s novel Traveling on One Leg (Evanston: Northwestern UP, 1998). Recently she has co-edited Vampirettes, Wretches, and Amazons: Western Representations of East European Women (New York: Columbia UP, 2004). Sarah Goodchild completed her PhD, on Heimat and national identity in Herta Müller and Libuše Moníková, at University College London in 2001, and has written on a variety of topics in contemporary women’s writing. She now works as a translator for a large professional services firm in Frankfurt. Brigid Haines is Senior Lecturer in German at Swansea University. The author of a monograph on Adalbert Stifter, she has also published widely on contemporary German women's writing. She has edited a volume of essays on Herta Müller in the Contemporary German Writers series, and her jointly written book Contemporary German Women’s Writing:

312

Notes on Contributors

Changing the Subject (with Margaret Littler) appeared in 2004. She is a founder member of Women in German Studies. Graham Jackman was until recently a member of the Department of German Studies at the University of Reading. He has published numerous essays on contemporary literature, with particular emphasis on writers of the former GDR, and has edited the volume Christoph Hein in Perspective in the German Monitor series. He has recently edited a special number of German Life and Letters on the current debates about Germans as victims during and after the Second World War. Beth Linklater is Director of Student Support at Queen Mary’s College Basingstoke. She is the author of ‘Und immer zügelloser wird die Lust’: Constructions of Sexuality in East German Literatures (1998) and coeditor (with Mererid Puw Davies and Gisela Shaw) of Autobiography by Women in German (2000). She has also published on GDR history and historiography and women’s writing. Lyn Marven is currently conducting DAAD-funded research in Berlin before taking up a Leverhulme Early Careers Fellowship at Manchester University. She is the author of Body and Narrative in Contemporary Literatures in German: Herta Müller, Libuše Moníková, Kerstin Hensel (OUP, forthcoming), and articles on contemporary literature and women’s writing. Dana Pfeiferová, Ph.D., Literaturdozentin am Institut für Germanistik (neuere deutsche Literatur), Universität ýeské BudČjovice/Budweis, Tschechien. Forschungsschwerpunkte: neuere österreichische Literatur, Libuše Moníková. Dissertation: Der Tod als Thema und Metapher in der neueren österreichischen Prosa: Bachmann, Bernhard, Winkler, Handke, Jelinek, Ransmayr (2000). Herausgeberin (mit Patricia Broser) der Tagungsbände Der Dichter als Kosmopolit: Zum Kosmopolitismus in der neuesten österreichischen Literatur, Edition Praesens, Wien 2003; Hinter der Fassade: Libuše Moníková, Edition Praesens, Wien 2004. Robert Weninger, Professor of German at King’s College London, has published widely on German and comparative literature, literary theory and James Joyce. His books include Arno Schmidts Joyce-Rezeption 19571970 (1982), The Mookse and The Gripes: Ein Kommentar zu James

313

Joyces ‘Finnegans Wake’ (1984), Literarische Konventionen. Theoretische Modelle / Historische Anwendung (1994), ‘Framing a Novelist’: Arno Schmidt Criticism 1970-1994 (1995) and Wendezeiten / Zeitenwenden: Positionsbestimmungen zur deutschsprachigen Literatur 1945-1995 (co-edited, 1997). A monograph on post-war German literary debates from Thomas Mann to Martin Walser, entitled Streitbare Literaten, appeared in 2004. John J. White is Professor of German and Comparative Literature at King’s College London. He is the author of Mythology in the Modern Novel (1971), Literary Futurism (1990), Brecht’s ‘Leben des Galilei’ (1996) and Bertolt Brecht’s Dramatic Theory (2004), as well as (co)editing works on or by Broch, Grass, Kafka, Thomas Mann, Musil, Stramm, literary depictions of Berlin and the Gruppe 47. Karin Windt schließt im Winter 2004 ihre Dissertation zum Romanwerk von Libuše Moníková zu Überlieferungsformen von Kultur und Geschichte ab. Studium Deutsch, Kunst und Textilgestaltung in Paderborn und Wien. Forschungsschwerpunkte im Bereich deutscher Gegenwartsliteratur in interkultureller Perspektive (Osteuropa), Kulturund Literaturtheorie, Gender Studies, Queer Theorie. Aufsätze zu Libuše Moníková, Christa Winsloes Romanen und Handtaschen in der Literatur. Dozentin im Bereich Frauenweiterbildung.

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Index Adorno, Theodor W., 130, 143, 158 Ahmad, Aijaz, 61 Andersch, Alfred, 223 Anderson, Benedict, 63, 146, 148, 159 Antonioni, Michaelangelo, 261 Appleton, Richard, 109 Bachmann, Ingeborg, 16, 25, 103-04, 110, 144-45 Baker, Gus, 109 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 66, 68, 78, 83, 86, 279 Balint, Nicholas G., 176 Barthes, Roland, 237, 245 Beneš, Edvard, 153, 161, 165, 173, 178, 191 Benjamin, Walter, 125, 130 Bentham, Jeremy, 273 Bergman, Ingmar, 248 Bernig, Jörg, 177 Bernstein, Michael André, 86 Bhabha, Homi, 40-41, 50-51, 55, 61, 62, 63, 64, 131, 138, 141, 146, 147, 148, 156, 157, 159 Binder, Hartmut, 209, 227 Bladin, Peter F., 109 Bloom, Harold, 202, 225 Blumenberg, Hans, 245 Boþek, Josef, 15, 21 Bohrmann, Alfred, 171, 177 Booth, Wayne C., 78, 86, 90 Borges, Jorge Louis, 35, 109, 127, 204, 211, 266 Boštík, Václav, 197 Braidotti, Rosi, 102, 110, 159 Braunbeck, Helga, 11, 12, 17, 19, 41, 43, 47, 57, 62, 63, 67, 72, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 136, 155,

163, 175, 183, 188, 191, 197, 198, 199, 227, 275, 276, 277, 280 Brecht, Bertolt, 9, 146, 155, 158 Bronfen, Elisabeth, 64, 110 Browning, Robert, 215 Brunel, Adrian, 280 Buñuel, Luis, 248, 260, 262, 269, 279 Carré, Jean-Marie, 228 Caruth, Cathy, 93, 106, 108, 111 Catherine the Great, 63 Chadwick, David, 109 Chalupka, Samo, 35 Chamberlain, Neville, 62, 184-85 Chaplin, Charles, 74 Charcot, Jean-Martin, 104 Charles IV of Bohemia, 185 Chuchma, Josef, 16, 17, 21, 22 Chvatík, KvČtoslav, 14, 21 Cioran, Emil, 165 Cocteau, Jean, 248 Conrad, Joseph, 11 Cornejo, Renata, 20, 281 Coy, Wolfgang, 28, 275, 281 Cramer, Sybille, 11, 12, 19, 20, 21, 62, 69, 72, 78, 81, 82, 84, 87, 88, 89, 91, 156, 157, 158, 159, 196, 200, 237, 245, 246, 278, 280 Crémieux, Hector, 214 ýulík, Jan, 13, 20 Davies, Norman, 197 Delius, Friedrich Christian, 11, 19, 88, 154, 160 Demetz, Peter, 177 Denneler, Iris, 11, 19, 89 Derrida, Jacques, 50-51 Dewey, John, 115, 127 Dickens, Charles, 221 Dietschreit, Frank, 108 Dietze, Gabriele, 24 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 99

316

Dowling, Maria, 191, 197, 198, 199 Drews, Jörg, 214 Dubþek, Alexander, 234-35 Eadie, Mervyn J., 109 Eck, Ines, 110 Eco, Umberto, 266 Eddy, Beverley Driver, 111 Eder, Jürgen, 22, 43, 62, 90, 17475, 188, 196, 198 Edwards, Blake, 279 Eisner, Pavel, 14 Eliade, Mircea, 242 Emonds, Friederike, 50, 63 Engler, Jürgen, 68, 86, 87, 89, 280 Erben, Karel Jaromír, 35 Espenshade, Richard, 157 Eykman, Christoph, 115, 127 Filip, Ota, 12 Filkins, Peter, 11, 19, 195, 200 Finney, Gail, 65, 85, 86 Flaubert, Gustave, 32 Flusser, Vilém, 128 Forman, Miloš, 35 Foucault, Michel, 46-47, 62, 128, 129, 273, 281 Freud, Sigmund, 75, 80, 82, 89, 90, 91, 128, 141, 224, 279-80 Fuþík, Julius, 35, 37 Gavras, Konstantinos, 262 Gebel, Ralf, 175 Gellner, Ernest, 138, 156 Glotz, Peter, 175 Godard, Jean-Luc, 248, 260, 262 Gogol, Nikolai, 55, 77 Goodchild, Sarah, 12, 20 Grass, Günter, 25, 110 Gross, Sabine, 12, 19 Grusa, JiĜi, 12, 13

Index

Haines, Brigid, 18, 20, 60, 196, 197 Halévy, Ludovic, 214 Hall, Stuart, 172, 178 Hanka, Václav, 244 Hart, Onno von der, 110 Hašek, Jaroslav, 13, 14, 46, 72, 89, 202, 205 Havel, Václav, 25, 33, 121, 129, 185, 191, 199 Havlíþek, Karel, 246 Heine, Heinrich, 68 Henlein, Konrad, 164, 175, 178 Hensel, Kerstin, 12 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 192 Herzog, Michael, 9, 28 Heydrich, Richard, 31, 140, 165, 168, 194 Hieronymus, 140 Hitchcock, Alfred, 248, 262, 270, 280 Hitler, Adolf, 161, 164, 168, 175, 258, 278 Holy, Ladislav, 190-91, 193, 198, 199 Horáþková, KvČta, 16, 21, 197 Horkheimer, Max, 129 Hrabal, Bohumil, 32 Huerkamp, Josef, 227 Hulse, Michael, 11, 19 Hus, Jan, 33, 55, 140, 187, 199 Hutcheon, Linda, 167, 176, 276 Ionesco, Eugene, 165 Jacobus, Mary, 108 Jaksch, Walter, 178 Janácek, Leos, 25, 31, 35, 150 Jankowsky, Karen, 12, 19, 41, 61, 62, 89, 90 JanMohamed, Abdul J., 131, 139, 142, 144, 153, 157, 158, 159

Index

Jauss, Hans Robert, 115, 127 Jean Paul, 87 Jirásek, Alois, 31, 35, 51-54, 75, 187, 244 Johnson, Uwe, 27 Jonas, Anna, 165, 176 Josef II, Holy Roman Emperor, 243 Joyce, James, 15, 207, 211, 214, 221 Kafka, Franz, 13, 14, 20, 25, 30, 32, 68, 80, 129, 136, 140, 154, 155, 159, 180, 186, 202, 203, 204, 207-11, 242, 266, 271, 272, 277, 281 Kafka, Tomáš, 17, 22, 95 Kanyar-Beckerová, Helena, 15, 21 Karbusický, Vladimír, 244 Kaufman, Eleanor, 106, 111 Kaufmann, Eva, 86 Kliems, Alfrun, 12, 20, 197 Klíma, Ladislav, 87 Knížák, Milan, 129 Koeppen, Wolfgang, 222 Kolk, Bessel A. van der, 110 Kollár, Jan, 55 Komenský, Jan Amos, 191 Koreik, Uwe, 199 Krauss, Karl, 68 Krawehl, Ernst, 214 Kriseová, Eda, 9, 10, 17, 18 Kristeva, Julia, 61 Krüger, Michael, 93, 107, 200 Kubišová, Marta, 191, 199 Kublitz-Kramer, Maria, 11, 18 Kubrick, Stanley, 265, 279 Kundera, Milan, 13, 29, 32, 35, 179, 195, 196 Kunisch, Hans Peter, 174, 175, 278

317

Kurosawa, Akiro, 248, 260, 262, 266, 278 Laederach, Jürg, 82, 87, 156, 157, 158, 159, 196 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich, 262 Lessing, Gotthold Epraim, 266 Levy, H. 214 Lévy-Strauss, Claude, 127, 246 Linda, Josef, 244 Linder, Max, 260 Linklater, Beth, 10, 18, 87, 157 Littler, Margaret, 11, 18, 110, 155, 159, 226, 227, 277 Lüdke, Martin, 88 Lukács, Georg, 119, 125, 129, 130, 143 Lutz, Annabelle, 130 Luža, Radomír, 164, 175, 176, 177, 178 Mácha, Karel Hynek, 35, 37 Machno, Nestor, 46 Magocsi, Paul Robert, 178 Man, Paul de, 106 Mann, Heinrich, 176 Mansbrügge, Antje, 12, 20, 12728, 243, 273, 277, 279, 281 Maria Theresia of Austria, 243 Marius, Benjamin, 64 Marková, Hana, 21 Martynkewicz, Wolfgang, 222, 229 Marven, Lyn, 12, 19, 20, 110, 196 Masaccio, 123 Masaryk, Jan, 196 Masaryk, Tomáš, 33, 137-38, 139, 152, 156, 167, 176, 183, 185, 191, 192, 193, 196, 240 May, Karl, 219 Melville, Herman, 80 Michaelangelo, 194

318

Michels, Wilhelm, 223 Miehe, Renate, 11, 19, 90 Millay, Vincent, 176 Moehrle, Katja, 177 Moi, Toril, 91 Moník, Josef, 16, 17, 155, 275, 278 Moníková, Libuše, Der Taumel, 12, 18, 23, 71, 93111, 113-30, 146, 181, 182, 183, 250, 255-56, 271, 274 Die Fassade, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 25-26, 31, 32, 39-64, 65-91, 93, 94, 95, 101-03, 105, 131, 179, 180, 182, 183, 187-89, 193, 194, 195, 228, 231-46, 248, 250, 26062, 267, 268, 270, 271, 273 Eine Schädigung, 10, 13, 14, 15, 24, 34, 39, 58, 59, 68-69, 84, 94, 95, 105, 106, 110, 131-42, 154, 179, 182, 183, 250, 252-54, 273, 281 Grönland-Tagebuch, 11, 247, 251, 266-68 Pavane für eine verstorbene Infantin, 10, 14, 18, 24, 39, 48, 59, 60, 62, 69, 70, 84, 87, 94, 95, 97, 100, 104, 110, 131, 136, 139, 142, 146, 154, 157, 179, 201-11, 223, 225, 226, 231, 247, 250, 254-55, 269-70, 273 Prager Fenster, 12, 143, 144, 145, 155, 159, 166, 177, 181, 242, 250, 256-57 Schloß, Aleph, Wunschtorte, 9, 16, 155, 276 Treibeis, 16, 17, 18, 25, 26, 31, 41, 59, 60, 69, 70, 72, 93, 94, 95, 104, 105, 106, 131, 139, 142, 146, 157, 161-78, 180, 181, 182, 183,

Index

187, 242, 250, 260, 262, 263-65, 266, 268, 271, 273-74 Unter Menschefressern, 11, 21125 Verklärte Nacht, 12, 24, 25, 2627, 32, 41, 48, 60, 62, 63, 71, 100-04, 107, 131-32, 145-55, 161-78, 180-81, 183, 192, 193, 194, 210, 231, 239-40, 242, 250, 255, 271, 274 Moníková, Marie, 10 Morgner, Irmtraud, 67, 68, 71, 72, 85, 86 Morris, Pam, 66, 86 Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 211, 266 Mucha, Alfons, 244 Müller, Herta, 12 Müller, Ray, 257-59, 277 Nabokov, Vladimir, 204, 208, 211 Neidhardt, Christoph, 88 NČmcová, Božena, 32, 34-35, 145, 194, 246 Neruda, Jan, 35 Nestroy, Johann, 211 Neubaur, Caroline, 88 Nezval, VítČzslav, 35 Nora, Pierre, 172, 178 Nüchtern, Klaus, 275 Olbracht, Ivan, 35 Palach, Jan, 9, 34, 136, 181, 194, 248, 261 Palacký, František, 137-38, 140, 190, 191, 192, 195 Palcr, ZdenƟk, 18, 109, 126, 197 Patoþka, Jan, 157, 189-90 Pavlov, Ivan, 71 Pease, Donald, 61 Pedretti, Erica, 62, 159, 161-78 Petkovic, Nikola, 176

Index

Pfeiferová, Dana, 16, 22, 110 Picasso, Pablo, 56 Pizer, John, 20 Podhrazský, Stanislav, 197 Poe, Edgar Allan, 219 Pontzen, Alexandra, 123, 130 Potemkin, Grigori Aleksandrovich, 63 PurkynČ, Jan Evangelista, 31, 5154, 75, 187 Pynchon, Thomas, 87, 272 Pynsent, Robert, 198, 199 Radisch, Iris, 12, 25, 166, 176, 203, 226 Raffael, 123 Rajewsky, Irina O., 249, 271, 272, 275, 276, 277, 278, 280 Rak, JiĜí, 243 Rauschenbach, Bernd, 226 Ravel, Maurice, 277 Reschke, Karin, 166, 176 Rettigová, Magdalena Dobromila, 31, 51-54, 75, 187 Riefenstahl, Leni, 150, 159, 250, 256, 257-59, 267-68, 274, 278 Ripellino, Angelo Maria, 202, 226 Röhrlich, Lutz, 82, 90, 91 Roth, Susanna, 32 Rousseau, Henri, 113-14, 119, 122 Said, Edward, 131, 141, 143, 157, 158, 162, 174 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 211 Saudek, Erik Adolf, 36 Sayer, Derek, 54, 63, 175, 176, 177, 179, 184-89, 191, 195-99, 276 Schauer, Hubert Gordon, 14 Schild, Stefanie, 68, 87, 165, 176 Schlotter, Eberhard, 219

319

Schmidt, Alice, 221-24 Schmidt, Arno, 13, 20, 24, 25, 32, 68, 87, 165, 182, 242, 266 Schnabel, J. G., 209 Schneble, Hansjörg, 109 Schneider, Romy, 278 Schoeller, Wilfried, 89 Schoenberg, Arnold, 152 Schuller, Marianne, 65, 66, 67, 84, 85, 86, 91 Schwidtal, Michael, 19, 21, 109, 118, 126, 127, 128, 234, 245 Seibt, Ferdinand, 164, 170, 175, 177 Sellers, Peter, 70, 263 Seton-Watson, Christopher, 178 Seton-Watson, Hugh, 178 Shakespeare, William, 9, 18, 25, 36, 211, 213, 215, 216-19, 225 Shindo, Kaneto, 261, 278 Skácel, Jan, 29 Skroup, František, 155 Šlajchrt, Viktor, 14, 17, 21, 22 Smetana, BedĜich, 31, 51-54, 75, 187, 244 Smith, David, 109 Soldan, Angelika, 90, 91 Stalin, Joseph, 71 Stanek, Tomáš, 177 Steinert, Hajo, 82, 87, 143, 156, 157, 158, 159, 196 Stevenson, Robert Louis, 210 Stöhr, Jürgen, 127 Stoppard, Tom, 204, 211 Stromšík, JiĜí, 199 Sutterman, Marie-Thérèse, 109, 110 Svoboda, Ludvík, 235 Švoreký, Josef, 13, 35, 38 Švoreký, Zdena, 13, 38 Szporluk, Roman, 156, 159

320

Tavernier, Bertrand, 278 Temkin, Oswei, 97, 109 Thomé, Horst, 227 Thubron, Colin, 90 Tieck, Ludwig, 68, 221 Tielsch, Ilse, 169 Tomanová, Renata, 16 Tomášek, František, 235 Tornatore, Giuseppe, 264, 279 Truffaut, François, 267, 279 Trumpener, Katie, 12, 19, 61, 176, 188, 198 Tucholsky, Kurt, 68 Tyl, Josef Kajetán, 155 Valéry, Paul, 218 Vedder, Ulrike, 12, 19, 20, 60, 106, 107, 111, 157, 228, 278 Venske, Regula, 18, 84, 91 Vondráþková, Milada, 21, 22 Vranitsky, Franz, 30

Index

Wagnerová, Alena, 22, 169, 177 Wallenstein, Albrecht von, 186 Weigel, Sigrid, 10, 18, 65-66, 67, 84, 85, 109 Weil, Simone, 144 Weninger, Robert, 20, 228 Werbner, Pnina, 61 White, Hayden, 44, 52, 62, 163, 174, 175, 198 White, John J., 20 Wiegenstein, Roland, 26 Wieland, Christoph Martin, 221 Wilder, Billy, 248 Windt, Karin, 19, 96, 109, 127 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 70, 71 Wolffheim, Elsbeth, 88, 89 Woolf, Virginia, 203, 207, 211 Zacek, Joseph P., 156 Žižka, Jan, 55, 139, 187 Zoubek, Olbram, 197

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Konversionen

Fremderfahrungen in ethnologischer und interkultureller Perspektive

Herausgegeben von Iris Därmann, Steffi Hobuß, Ulrich Lölke Amsterdam/New York, NY 2004. 259 pp. (Studien zur Interkulturellen Philosophie 13) ISBN: 90-420-1953-0

€ 50.-/US $ 67.-

Unter dem Begriff der Konversionen erkundet dieser kulturwissenschaftliche Band Formen einer Umkehrung, die einsetzt, wenn die Erfahrung des Beobachtetwerdens als zentraler Bestandteil von Fremderfahrungen anerkannt wird. In den versammelten Texten wird ausgeführt, wie diese aus der ethnologischen Feldforschung gewonnene Erinnerung als Vorbild für andere disziplinäre Perspektiven dienen kann. Die Ethnologie liefert dabei den viel zu lange vernachlässigten Hinweis auf die Wichtigkeit des Blicks des anderen in der Fremderfahrung; die philosophische Perspektive auf interkulturelle Dialoge liefert den Hinweis auf die Wichtigkeit des Sprechens des anderen. Aus diesen Hinweisen ergeben sich Ansprüche an ethnographische und literarische Texte und an andere wissenschaftliche Disziplinen sowie an eine angemessene Lektürepraxis. Die Texte des vorliegenden Bandes versuchen, diese Ansprüche exemplarisch einzulösen. Sie zeigen in einer neuartigen interdisziplinären Zusammenstellung sowohl einzelne Fälle der Umkehrung von Blickrichtungen als auch das Prinzip der Kritik und Erweiterung einer eurozentristischen Philosophie durch die Einführung einer ethnologischen und interkulturellen Perspektive.

USA/Canada: 906 Madison Avenue, UNION, NJ 07083, USA Call toll-free (USA only)1-800-225-3998, Tel. 908 206 1166, Fax 908-206-0820 All other countries: Tijnmuiden 7, 1046 AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. ++ 31 (0)20 611 48 21, Fax ++ 31 (0)20 447 29 79 [email protected] www.rodopi.nl Please note that the exchange rate is subject to fluctuations

Die Entstehung modernistischer Ästhetik und ihre Umsetzung in die Prosa in Mexiko Die Verarbeitung der französischen Literatur des fin de siècle Andreas Kurz Amsterdam/New York, NY 2005. 254 pp. (Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 83) ISBN: 90-420-1724-4

€ 50,-/US $ 65.-

Das vorliegende Buch zeichnet die Herausbildung einer Dekadenzästhetik der Jahrhundertwende im Mexiko des Porfiriats nach. Aus historischen Gründen konnte es in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts in Mexiko nicht zur Entstehung einer der europäischen Bewegung vergleichbaren Romantik kommen. Erst mit einer Verspätung von etwa 50 Jahren wurden bis dahin vernachlässigte Tendenzen der französischen und deutschen Romantik rezipiert. Diese Aufnahme fiel zeitlich mit dem Erfolg der französischen Literatur nach Baudelaire zusammen. Eine Mischung diverser Ismen, die in Mexiko als homogener dekadenter oder im weitesten Sinne moderner Block verstanden wurden, führte zur Durchsetzung des Modernismo im Lande, der sich nicht zuletzt in den beiden großen Zeitschriften der Bewegung – Revista Azul und Revista Moderna- manifestierte. Die Besprechung dieser beiden Organe, sowie die Analyse der wichtigsten erzählerischen Werke des Modernismo in Mexiko bilden den Kern des Buches, das auch ein Beispiel für Saids „Reise der Ideen“ bereitstellen möchte. Der Modernismo als erste unabhängige literarische Bewegung Lateinamerikas wird als eigentliche Romantik des Kontinents interpretiert, die erst durch die Internationalisierung der Kultur und –in Mexiko- die komplexe soziale und politische Konstellation der belle époque unter Porfirio Díaz möglich wurde.

USA/Canada: 906 Madison Avenue, UNION, NJ 07083, USA Call toll-free (USA only)1-800-225-3998, Tel. 908 206 1166, Fax 908-206-0820 All other countries: Tijnmuiden 7, 1046 AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Tel. ++ 31 (0)20 611 48 21, Fax ++ 31 (0)20 447 29 79 [email protected] www.rodopi.nl Please note that the exchange rate is subject to fluctuations