Journal for German and Scandinavian Studies, Volume 3, 2023

To download an article, click on its title.

Volume Editors: Maria Endreva, Ivan Tenev

Date of publication: October 1, 2023

ISSN: 2815-2867

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.

Contents (in English)

Author list (in Bulgarian and English)

Foreword (in English)

The paper presents the contribution of Prof. Maja Razbojnikova-Frateva to the study of German-language literature.

Prof. Maja Razbojnikova-Frateva as a translator and mediator in the dialogue between cultures (in Bulgarian)

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

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.18-23

The paper presents the contribution of Prof. Maja-Razbojnikova Frateva as a translator.

List of publications of Prof. Maja Razbojnikova-Frateva

LINGUISTICS

The article presents a synchronic, contrastive, generative X-bar model of Danish, Swedish, and Bulgarian causative and resultative structures of the object control and object predicative types in the context of language interference among Bulgarian students with L2s such as English, German and other widely-spoken European languages studied in Bulgarian high schools. Via a semantic role-based way to model corpus examples in parallel in the three languages, an argument is made that providing a parallel with Bulgarian would be a more effective way to teach the difference between these constructions.

Keywords: Bulgarian, Danish, Swedish, object predicative, object control

The aim of this paper is to describe the realization of the complex communicative action pattern of appreciating in exemplars of the text type ‘academic festschrift’. First, speech and non-speech acts are identified that act as means of performing the communicative act of appreciation. Then, discourse and non-discourse acts of emphasis are recorded, which serve to construct or signal the reputation of the jubilarian. Since the text type ‘academic festschrift’ is controversial in the German-speaking scientific community, the paper also addresses the criticism of festschriften and its implications for the linguistic design of these publications. The study is a contribution to the field of text type research.

Keywords: festschrift, appreciation, emphasis, reputation, scientific community

The place of German Grammar by Prof. Konstantin Galabov in university literature (in Bulgarian)

Lilia Burova Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.79-92

The article examines the first academic German grammar (1950) in Bulgaria, written by the founder of the Department of German Studies at Sofia University Prof. Konstantin Galabov. Information is given both about the conditions under which the grammar was created and about some basic German grammars published in Bulgaria in the period between 1868 and 1944.

Keywords: German language, German grammar, Konstantin Galabov, German studies, Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski

LITERARY STUDIES

German-language literature in Bulgaria since 2000. Statistics and some aspects of the reception (in Bulgarian)

Violeta Vicheva Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Literature (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.94-106

This article provides information on the trends in translating and publishing of German-language literature in Bulgaria between 2000 and 2022, based on several sources as well as on my own research. Then, using the reviews of three authors as an example, it points out some characteristics of the reception of German-language literature in Bulgaria, highlighting the contribution of Maya Razbojnikova-Frateva to its adequate placement in the Bulgarian cultural context after 2000.

Keywords: German-language literature, reception, Razbojnikova-Frateva, reviews, contemporary literature

The article presents various theories by means of which contemporary literary studies attempt to define the role of psychology in the reception of literature. Although identifying the psychological states of fictional characters obviously plays a key role, a professional reading of a literary work cannot be based on it alone. The second part of the text examines the role that emotions play in the literature of German sentimentalism, as well as the narrative strategies employed by the author Sophie von La Roche in her novel „Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim” in order to achieve the realization of its specific goals.

Keywords: psychology, emotions, literary Darwinism, sentimental literature

Patriotism and cosmopolitanism in the work of Hans Christian Andersen (in Bulgarian)

Svetlana Arnaudova Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.121-133

The paper deals with the cultural relations between Denmark and Germany in the first half of the 19th century, which formed the binational and bicultural identity of Hans Christian Andersen and his conviction that the muse of the new age is „cosmopolitan“. European Romanticism is seen as a transnational project despite the nationalist constructions of concepts such as nation and identity. The transnational movement of goods related to industrialization in the 19th century and the new relations of exchange and consumption, which led to a more intensive and fruitful meeting between the Scandinavian languages ​​and literatures, is also in the focus. Attention is drawn to the links between Romanticism and the Enlightenment, emphasizing that the contradictions between the two epochs are not as insurmountable as is usually assumed.

Keywords: patriotism, cosmopolitanism, romanticism, cultural identity

Centers and peripheries in the public memory and the research of the Holocaust (in Bulgarian)

Daniela Decheva Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.134-151

The paper examines the current transnational discourse on the Holocaust (policies, public memory, research) through the concept of center and periphery in two aspects: a) in regard to national societies; b) in regard to historical content. National contexts representative of the center and of various degrees of the periphery are considered. Thе analysis leads to the conclusion that targeted political measures in recent decades have established Holocaust memory and research as a filter for self-analysis of European national societies, as an indicator of the level of their democracy and even of their foreign policy positioning.

Keywords: center, periphery, Holocaust, memory politics, memory culture

Based on the documents of the Hamburg Denkmalschutzamt (Monument Protection Office), the article retraces the political process between 1956 and 1982, which led to the erection of a Heinrich-Heine-Statue on the Rathausmarkt (Town Hall Market).

Keywords: Heinrich Heine, memorial, Hamburg, history of literature, Heine reception

“The border” as a topos in recent Bulgarian literature (in German)

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

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.166-176

The locus is usually charged with historical semantics, which gives rise to semiotic chains and collective attitudes. The expansion of the term’s semantic valence to include conceptual elements as characteristics of contemporary sociological and psychological markers justifies empathetically memorable interpretations of key complexes of the migrating ego, which e.g. “Border” (2017) by Kapka Kassabova, “East of the West” (2011) by Miroslav Penkov and “Life in the Rocks” (2018) by Maria Laleva revealed. The synergy of narrative and stylistic character is examined from a system-theoretical point of view in order to justify conclusions about current aesthetic and cultural-sociological epistemes: skepticism about civilization, interpretations of the past, individual and collective identity designs.

Bulgarian origin and the observer perspective of emigrants – the specifics of this world view(s) are the focus of the study, as life experience of migrating personalities in the currently globalized civilization.

Keywords: border, narrative, Kassabova, Penev, Laleva

Photography as a treasury of literary metaphors in Nino Haratischwili’s novel Lack of Light (in German)

Ralitsa Ivanova St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.177-192

The everyday presence of visual media has long influenced human perception and led to shifts in the hierarchy of representation and communication forms. In the context of this visual turn, the present article focuses on the literary metaphorization of photography in Nino Haratischvili’s novel Lack of Light. Various metaphorical concepts of photography and their overlap with the techniques of restoration and drawing are discussed.

Keywords: photography as a metaphor in literature, concepts of realism, Nino Haratischwili, Lack of Light

On the cover of Der Heiduck by Hans Wachenhusen (in Bulgarian)

Nikolay Chernokozhev Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.193-198

This paper seeks to highlight the ways in which the visual image of the cover prepares the imminent reader for their encounter with the work.

Keywords: strategy, stereotype, Balkan, Kanitz

Аspects of the mythical on the example of Рobert Мusil’s Kakanien (in German)

Vladimira Valkova St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo (Bulgaria)

doi: https://doi.org/10.60055/GerSk.2023.3.199-209

After general theoretical reflections on the aesthetic and artistic dimensions of the mythical in modernism and in Musil, the article explores the myth of the multilingual and multicultural Kakanien in the novel The Man without Qualities. At the same time, it brings into focus such manifestations of the myth as illustrate its deconstruction in Musil: the mythologizing of the Habsburg state ideology, of the Kaiser, of the supranational cultural community and of the language policy of Austria-Hungary. The question of how myth and utopia relate to each other in Musil will be also discussed.

Keywords: Musil, Kakanien, myth, deconstruction, utopia

TRANSLATION STUDIES

Based on relevant theoretical approaches to legal translation, the article deals with the problems of translating indictments from German into Bulgarian. The focus is on the conventionalised framework structure of this type of text in both legal systems, which is subjected to an interlingual comparison. The insights gained from this are taken into account, along with other criteria, in the production of two sample translations into Bulgarian – of the frame structure of the North German and the frame structure of the South German variant of the indictment. The article concludes with a commentary on the sample translations and their applicability in translator training and for translation practice.

Keywords: legal translation, indictment, parallel text analysis, German-Bulgarian translation

METHODOLOGY AND DIDACTICS

Exchange project: Images of history in Bulgaria and Austria (winter semester 2022/23)

Jacqueline Dyballa and others Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (Bulgaria)

The article presents the follow-up project of the intercultural and interdisciplinary exchange project for German language and literature students at Sofia University and history students at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt on the topic of historical images and memory culture. After a short presentation of how history is presented in German as a foreign language textbooks at Bulgarian schools, the project Images of History in Bulgaria and Austria will be described. The project is then evaluated from the point of view of some of the students, based on reports of their experiences and their results. The article aims to encourage similar international projects in German studies abroad and to promote historical awareness in the classroom.

Keywords: online language project, history images, intercultural exchange, history awareness

TEXTS AWARDED IN COMPETITIONS FOR STUDENTS AND PUPILS

Translated texts awarded in the second edition of the Prof. Boris Parashkevov Student Competition for Translation from German (2023)

The annual competition for essay writing in Danish language has been organized since 2015 by the Hans Christian Andersen Centre for Research and Information at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, the Embassy of Denmark in Sofia and the Danish Agency for Culture and Palaces (Slots- og Kulturstyrelsen).

Essays awarded in the essay competition (2023) on Erich Kästner’s quote “All the mischief that happens is not only the fault of those who do it, but also of those who do not prevent it”

TRANSLATIONS OF PROSE AND POETRY

Heiner Müller: “Herakles 2 oder Die Hydra”

From German to Bulgarian: Eva Patsovska-Ivanova

Paul Celan: “Die Niemandsrose” (poems)

From German to Bulgarian: Ana Dimova

Translation of poetry from Danish and Norwegian

From Danish and Norwegian to Bulgarian: Mihail Baykov

Fridtjof Nansen: Paa ski over Grønland (excerpt), Eskimoliv (excerpt)

From Norwegian to Bulgarian: Svetla Stoyanova