Thesis title: Die Vielstimmigkeit als Häresie: Systemkritik, Resistenz und Subversion in der DDR-Literatur
In my dissertation I argue that the concept of heresy can be considered a productive category model for the analysis of specific literary phenomena that shaped the GDR-Literature. The historical and political context to be examined is the second half of the “Jahrhunderts der Nacht” ,in which the socialist ideology is now institutionalized and develops its effect in the cultural sphere. Since the 1980s, numerous disciplines – sociology being among them – have studied the concept of heretic and introduced many possibilities for nonreligious rethinking of heresy and its enormous potential for the advancement of society. Yet, the same topic has not received the same attention in the literary field, where the most important and complete studies are still those of Walter Koschmal (1996) on the Russian contemporary literature. Having Pierre Bourdieu’s definition of “field” and following his concept of “doxa” in the dynamic heresy-orthodoxy, the research proposes a unite theory of heresy which unites aesthetic, sociology and theological-political studies on the analysis of cornerstone novel’s of the GDR literature: Die neuen Leiden des jungen W. (1972) by Ulrich Plenzdorf, Die wunderbaren Jahren (1976) by Reiner Kunze and Hinze-Kunze-Roman (1985) by Volker Braun. Each of these works represented a fundamental step in the GDR literary history. Fundamental characteristic of the thesis is the comparative approach: the fluidity of the argument and the connection between the rest of the socialist world, oblige a broader prospective. For these reasons the thesis realized a chiasmatic analysis highlighting analogies and differences with novels of the contemporary Russian literature: Zvezvdnij bilet (1961) by Vasilij Aksenov and Den’ opričnika (2006) by Vladimir Sorokin.