Volumes

Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies Special thematic issue, Volume 2, 2025

Special thematic issue dedicated to the 100th anniversary of German Philology at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, Vol. 2

To download an article, click on its title.

Volume editors: Maria Endreva, Svetlana Arnaudova, Reneta Kileva, Mikaela Petkova-Kessanlis, Radka Ivanova

Publication date: April 11, 2025

ISSN: 2815-2867

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2

Contents (in German)

Author list

Foreword to the issue (in German)

Part 1: LITERARY STUDIES

Introduction to Part 1 (in German)

Svetlana Arnaudova Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria)

Introduction to Part I “Literary Studies”

THE PRESENCE OF (HI)STORIES: ON THE LITERARY REFLEXION OF EUROPE IN NOVELS BY ROBERT MENASSE AND GEORGI GOSPODINOV (in German)

Doerte Bischoff University of Hamburg (Germany)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.21-49

Since the end of the Cold War, the narratives of remembrance which often distinguished Europe’s West and East from each other have lost their power to persuade. In contemporary German literature, several reconstructions of family histories instead describe border crossings and entanglements between East and West. Many of these texts also ask how far it is possible to narrate European stories of this kind, given the heterogeneity, ruptures, and voids which are often at their core. Against the background of works which shape Europe as ‘Memoryland’, this article reads Robert Menasse’s The Capital and Georgi Gospodinov’s Time Shelter in order to identify the processes of individual and collective remembering on which they reflect. In so doing, the article reveals remarkable similarities between the two novels’ concern with the renationalization of memory, their recognition that dementia destroys memory but also preserves it, and their ambivalence towards the symbolic representation or performance of the past.

Keywords: culture of remembrance, narrative, Europe, history of violence, post-Wende literature, nation, nationalism

RESTLESS GUESTS: TOURISTS IN LITERARY WORKS. A CHANGING LIFE STRATEGY AND PRACTICE (in German)

Maja Razbojnikova-Frateva Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.50-86

In his sketch “The Blind Man”, Elias Canetti depicts a person with a camera in his hand who travels the world with his eyes closed and only wants to look at it in photos. The tourist is easily recognized in this figure’s basic attitude. In view of the constant characteristics of tourist travel, as it has emerged as a life strategy and practice from the 19th century to the present day, the article examines the question of whether tourism and tourists (as a characteristic social figure) have really remained untouched by the accelerating social and technological development, as several literary texts since the 19th century suggest. The subject-world relationship is identified as a suitable area in which changes can be observed. In Canetti’s sketch, too, the special relationship to the world, hidden behind well-known tourist practices, is surprising. Hartmut Rosa’s sociology of world relations with its central concept of resonance provides the theoretical framework against which two novels – Christoph Ransmayr’s “The Terrors of Ice and Darkness” and Ilija Trojanow’s “Ice Jam” are analyzed. The protagonists’ search for resonance may lead to catastrophe and death, but it points to the need for a resonant relationship with the world as the basis for a good and successful life. Heidegger’s text of the same name is used as a positive counter-proposal in which “stays” appear possible as a resonance experience in and with the world.

Keywords: tourist, tourism, social figure, world relationship, resonance

FICTIONS OF WAR: WOLFGANG BORCHERT AND SERHIJ ZHADAN (in German)

Hans-Gerd Winter University of Hamburg (Germany)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.87-104

Wars do not only consist of fighting with weapons, but they are massively reinforced by a discourse on signs and media. This also influences the function of literature insofar as it deals with wars. The novel “Internat” (German 2018) by the Ukrainian author Serhij Zhadan, which is set in the Donbass war in 2014/15, is compared with the work of the German post-war author Wolfgang Borchert. Both, Zhadan and Borchert, focus on an image of the respective war, constructed as the essential and existential. This is not about the specific historical process. Images and narratives illustrate the war´s misanthropy. They show how the violence of war develops from the interplay of truth and lies, with the consequence of a destruction that reaches into the total. At the same time it is experienced by the civilians in Zhadan’s novel as a fate that is barely comprehensible. With moments of humanity on both sides and the resistance against the fear that the initially passive teacher Pascha develops while walking through the “hell” of the city to save his nephew, “Internat” proves to be an anti-war novel. However, the course of the war cannot really be influenced by this behavior, and the fight against the invasion of an independent country remains legitimate.

Keywords: Anti-war novel, War images and narratives, Fabrication of war in literature, Zhadan’s novel “Internat”, explored by Borchert’s works, Invasion of Donbass 2014/15 in the Ukrainian novel

AVANT-GARDE APPROACHES TO HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHICAL RUPTURES. ON HORST BIENEK’S AND OSKAR PASTIOR’S MEMORY WORK ON THE GULAG (in German)

Hiroshi Yamamoto Waseda University (Japan)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.105-125

In my paper, I will attempt to explore the contributions that can be attributed to Horst Bienek and Oskar Pastior in the context of German and international Gulag literature. Their biographies have a number of similarities: Both were socially stigmatized as homosexuals in the GDR and Romania, they were both deported to Stalinist labour camps at around the age of 20, and in this way cheated of their youth. However, they did not initially want to explicitly mention these biographical breaks in their literary works. A close analysis of Pastior’s volume of poetry (Speckturm, 2009) and Bienek’s novel (Die Zelle, 1968) reveals how the two authors approached the profound ruptures in their personal and collective experience of history in an avant-garde style rather than a conventional way of storytelling.

Keywords: Gulag, camp literature, avant-garde, autobiography, homosexuality

NO CHANGE IN SIGHT? MIRNA FUNK’S WRITING BETWEEN GERMANY AND ISRAEL, MEMORY, EXPERIENCE OF VIOLENCE, AND EMERGING ANTISEMITISM (in German)

Alexandra Preitschopf University of Klagenfurt (Austria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.126-148

The article examines the novels Winternähe (2015) and Zwischen Du und Ich (2021) by the German-Jewish author Mirna Funk, exploring how the author portrays society and engages with various forms of structural violence, internal wounds, and traumas in a literary manner. While Winternähe primarily focuses on external events, openly addressing contemporary antisemitism and aiming to provide insight into the complex reality of Israeli life, Zwischen Du und Ich delves more deeply into internal processes, particularly focusing on the abuse of women. Both novels share the theme that the prospect of societal change is greatly diminished in the face of the numerous manifestations of violence depicted.

Keywords: Third Generation, antisemitism, transgenerational traumas, structural violence

THE PROVINCE OF THE MEMORY. THE “HISTORIANS DEBATE 2.0” IN GERMANY AND THE DEBATE ABOUT THE “SAVING” OF THE BULGARIAN JEWS (in German)

Daniela Decheva Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.149-162

The paper analyzes the “historians’ debate 2.0” in Germany and the debate about the rescue or deportation of the Bulgarian Jews using the term “province” 150 Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies Year V (2025), Thematic issue, Vol. 2 and its derivatives in order to show distortions in both consolidated models of collective memory. Despite all the context-specific differences, both the German and the Bulgarian Holocaust controversy are extremely politically explosive. Both debates reflect historical factuality and complexity and at the same time take into account universalizing efforts in the politics of remembrance. They are therefore exemplary of the tension between globalization and the particularity of collective memory.

Keywords: Holocaust debate, Historians’ Debate 2.0, Bulgarian Jews, provinciality, memory culture

LEGACY, GHOSTS, CHRONOFERENCE: THE RE-PRESENTATION OF THE PAST IN KATJA PETROWSKAJA’S “DAS FOTO SCHAUTE MICH AN” (2022) (in German)

Ulrike Vedder Humboldt-University Berlin (Germany)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.163-174

Katja Petrowskaja’s collection of short texts on selected photographs was published as a book in 2022; previously, these texts appeared as columns in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung every three weeks for several years. Photographs already played a certain role in her first novel Vielleicht Esther (2014). Das Foto schaute mich an is also about the searching reflection of a connection between the present and the past on the basis of photographs, about the concentrated questioning of visual details in an attempt to make them speak – all against the horizon of the possibilities and aporias of historical memory in the context of the violent history of the 20th century. Based on some of the columns, the essay analyses the intricate temporal relationships that relate to the question of making the past present and that come about in the interplay between literature and photography. The three perspectives ‘legacy and heritage’, ‘ghosts and afterlife’ and ‘chronoference’ play a decisive role here.

Keywords: photography, memory, intermediality, representation of time, contemporary literature

THE INEXTRICABLE SCENE. GLOBAL TEMPORALITIES IN DOROTHEE ELMIGER’S AUS DER ZUCKERFABRIK (in German)

Kira Jürjens Humboldt-University Berlin (Germany)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.175-189

Drawing on the example of Dorothee Elmiger’s Aus der Zuckerfabrik (2020), the article examines how the abundance of space and time of global world contexts can be converted into literary form. While the experimental novel does not present the complexity of the world in the order of linear narratives and rather aims to exhibit its complex network character, the book follows literary-aesthetic principles of meaning production that can be related to the globalisation narratives of poetic realism. The article focusses on four different temporal configurations and literary formal principles that are important for the text: 1) The staging of simultaneity as a narrative problem and potential, 2) sugar as a hyperlink, 3) the significant moment and 4) repetition.

Keywords: time, realism, globalization, contemporary literature

INTERCULTURAL SOCIAL CHANGE AS GENEALOGICAL BORDER CROSSINGS IN DINÇER GÜÇYETER’S PROSE (in German)

Aglaja Blioumi Nationale und Kapodistrias-Universität Athen (Griechenland)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.190-200

Family constellations are fundamentally changed because of the phenomenon of migration. Literature often stages such family networks. As a result, migration literature configures social change within generations via the paradigm of the family. The following article uses the example of Dinçer Güçyeter’s novel Unser Deutschlandmärchen to ask how the process of acculturation of the second generation in Germany leads to the intercultural change of family constellations.

Keywords: Güçyeter, migration literature, family, interculturality

THE LANGUAGE OF MANIPULATION AND THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY. THE PLACE OF THE VOICE OF POETRY IN THE CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL AND MORAL DISCOURSE (in German)

Ivan Popov Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.201-214

The article analyzes the poetry volume „Before they wash off the blood” by the contemporary Bulgarian poet Yordan Efftimov. The offered reading could be of interest not only for literary criticism, but also for the research in the domain of literary theory: the question is to what extent and how literary works of art can evoke an emotional response in the reader, resp. whether and how the latter is able to learn something about the world and about herself by reading literature. An answer to the question of how the role of literary communication could be understood (and perhaps even defended) in the context of the war in Ukraine is offered.

Keywords: Ukraine war, literary communication, literary cognitivism, emotions



DIMENSIONS OF THE POLITICAL IN MARLENE STREERUWITZ’ WORKS (in German)

Maria Endreva Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.215-232

Streeruwitz’s aesthetic concept sees literature as a political gesture that reveals the traditional power mechanisms for the oppression of certain social groups and leads to knowledge. The political nature of literature raises the question of the contours of politics in Streeruwitz’s works. In the article, various aspects of this term are listed based on her essayistic work, so that the concept of the political nature of literature is illustrated. This happens in three stages. After Streeruwitz’s contextualization of politics, the second step is to list her most important aesthetic views, because it is precisely aesthetics that build a bridge to the political. In the third part of the paper, three topoi of the political – literature, war and the body – are highlighted.

Keywords: Marlene Streeruwitz, politics, resistance, literary aesthetics, feminism

SHOULD THE MUSES BE SILENT IN TIMES OF WAR? THE PATHS OF BROCH AND BUBER TO HUMANITY (in German)

Krasimira Hristova University of National and World Economy (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.233-241

The article examines parallels between the Hermann Broch s novel “The Sleepwalkers” and the Martin Buber‘s work “I and Thou”, which present symptoms and reasons for the degraded unity of an individual, a person and a society. The collapse of values, war, death in Broch’s novel “The Sleepwalkers” are manifestations of a profound transformative encounter that must restore man’s logical communion with God.
The vigilant author has to seek ways to overcome death that would make possible the existence of a respectful dialogue with one whole human essence.

Keywords: collapse of values, war, creator, God, unity

TO BE LONELY AND TO BE ALONE. A LIBERATING CHANGE OF ATTITUDE (in German)

Violeta Vicheva Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.242-250

This paper deals with the literary representation of loneliness in the novel “Traurige Freiheit” by Friederike Gössweiner. The analysis is carried out in contrast to the illness and crisis discourse in which loneliness and being alone are repeatedly embedded today. The interpretation of the novel offered opens up a new perspective on the topic, which the critical reception of the work has so far left unreflected and which aims at destigmatizing being alone through the social transformation potential of literature.

Keywords: loneliness, solitude, Friederike Gössweiner, social disposition

SIGNS OF TIME. NARRATIVES OF SOCIAL EXPERIMENTS (in German)

Nikolina Burneva St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.251-266

Time is a fundamental category of prose texts that combine the real historical status of the subject with the fictional world. How can time presents itself in the text is often decisive for the aesthetic quality and for the ideological message of narration. Philosophical statements and stylistic moments combine to create a specific potential for fiction, which in contemporary postmodern narratives – mostly indirectly and conveyed in strikingly original metonymies – is an opaque structural challenge for the interpreters. In the following, German-writing authors of Bulgarian origin will be observed to see how these indirect ways of conveying signs of the time as narratives are carried out inconspicuously and yet essentially.

Keywords: Ewtimova, Dinev, Trojanow, time, metonymy

Part 2: TRANSLATION

Introduction to Part 2 (in German)

Reneta Kileva-Stamenova Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

Introduction to Part II “Translatology”

TRANSLATION STUDIES MOVING FROM PERIPHERY TO OUTREACH (in German)

Georgios Floros University of Cyprus (Cyprus)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.272-288

Translation is largely practiced by non-professionals as well and should thus be considered a ubiquitous practice. This fact is gradually being systematically considered by Translation Studies (TS) and presents the discipline with new challenges. Using Polysystem Theory, it will be shown that TS currently occupies a peripheral position in the system of scientific disciplines, partly because it relies on other disciplines (interdisciplinarity). However, if one views translation as a ubiquitous social practice, there is hidden potential for TS; namely, to consider ways in which it can inform other disciplines, rather than merely be shaped by them. This article assumes that translation didactics can also aim at a) imparting the comparative competence required for translation to other professions, and b) examining said competence in general as a special form of literacy, to secure a more central position for TS as a whole in the future.

Keywords: translation didactics, polysystem theory, social practice, literacy

INTRALINGUAL TRANSLATION AND TRANSLANGUAGING: FOSTERING METACOGNITION IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR TRAINEE TRANSLATORS AND INTERPRETERS (in German)

Olaf Immanuel Seel Ionian University Korfu (Greece)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.289-306

The translation-related learning and teaching of foreign languages in translation/interpreting studies attaches particular importance to learner-centredness. Two important components of lerner-centredness are the learner autonomy and the metacognition that is essential for its fostering. The aim of this article is to show the extent to which intralingual translation and translanguaging are helpful tools for promoting the metacognition of prospective translators, to point out the possible areas of application and the foreign language and translational skills they promote, and to demonstrate the importance of promoting metacognition in translation-related foreign language teaching.

Keywords: translation-related foreign language teaching, metacognition, intralingual translation, translanguaging, foreign language competence

LEGAL TRANSLATION IN STUDIES AND IN PRACTICE – STOCKTAKING AND PERSPECTIVES (in German)

Olga Wrede Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra (Slovakia)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.307-325

Legal translation is one of the most demanding types of specialized translation, and thus it occupies a special position in the university education of prospective translators and interpreters in view of the linguistic procurement of legal texts, their anchoring in a specific legal system and the interpretation of legal terms. This article discusses the content of the compulsory optional subject of legal translation in the Master´s Degree program in the German Language and Culture at the Constantine the Philosopher University of Nitra. Based on the competency model by Scarpa and Orlando (2017), which was developed specifically for translation competencies in the legal field, it is explained which competencies are indispensable for the production of legal translations and in which framework and how these skills are to be taught during the course. Both the content of courses geared towards legal translation and the skills taught should always be adapted to the real expectations and current requirements of professional practice. In addition, this article uses a survey to outline briefly the requirements that clients (courts, public prosecutors´offices, police, etc.) place on the training of legal translators and the consequences of this for practice-oriented university teaching.

Keywords: legal translation, translator training, competences, university curricula, professional practice, EMT

THE LANGUAGE OF THE THIRTH REICH BY VICTOR KLEMPERER WITH REGARD TO TRANSLATIONS. AN EXPERIENCE REPORT (in German)

Ana Dimova Constantin Preslavsky University of Shumen (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.326-338

The paper analyzes the language of the Third Reich, as portrayed by Victor Klemperer in his LTI, Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook, by focusing on three terms that were foundational for the National Socialist ideology and its social practices: Reich, Gefolgschaft, and Gleichschaltung. For translation, they pose a problem as they were strongly ideologically conditioned and firmly bound to the German language, hence lacking equivalents in most languages. In translation, these culturally specific terms are typically rendered through loan words or are calqued. In cases where functional analogies were used in translation, intriguing historical or ideological similarities can be observed in different languages and cultures. The translatological analysis is based on translations into Bulgarian, Russian, and English.

Keywords: Victor Klemperer, the language of the Third Reich, translation, cultural

specifics

ABOUT THE POWER OF BODY LANGUAGE BY FRANZ KAFKA AND ITS TRANSLATION INTO BULGARIAN (in German)

Gergana Fyrkova Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.339-354

In Kafka‘s work, the non-verbal, especially body language, is a subtle means of expression for the emotional state of the characters as well as for conveying motives such as power, shame, affection or resentment and different relationships between the protagonists, so that a sensitivity is required to catch all these aspects. The present work focuses on the role of gestures and facial expressions by Franz Kafka and the difficulties of translating them into Bulgarian. The great challenge for translators arises from the fact that Kafka does not use conventional gestures. The outward behavior of the characters is as enigmatic, coded and Kafkaesque as his texts in general.

Keywords: Franz Kafka, body language, gestures, expressions, Bulgarian translator

BULGARIAN LITERATURE IN GERMAN TRANSLATION AFTER 2010 – MEDIATORS AND RECEPTION (in German)

Reneta Kileva-Stamenova Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2025.izv.2.355-372

This article examines the presence of Bulgarian literature in the German-language literary field in the period 2010-2023 from the perspective of the sociology of literature and translation. After a brief historical overview of the translation of Bulgarian literature into German and using data from relevant sources on the volume of Bulgarian works translated into German during the period under study, the main actors in the mediation of Bulgarian literature on the German-language book market (publishers and translators) are analysed with regard to their role in the mediation process. The article also examines the extent to which literary and translation criticism and other forms of translation reception contribute to the visibility of Bulgarian literature in the German-speaking world.

Keywords: Bulgarian literature in German translation (2010-2023), translational actors, translation reception

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