Patriarchy Within a Patriarchy: Women and the Stasi

1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Belinda Cooper

Public debate in Germany, particularly in the western Germanmedia, grew heated in 1991 and 1992 over the role of intellectuals inEast German society and their collaboration with or resistance to theStasi. Sparks flew with particular intensity when Wolf Biermann,former East German dissident musician and poet, accused SaschaAnderson, erstwhile East German dissident poet, of being a Stasiinformant and an “asshole” (while there was some disagreementover the latter charge, the former, at least, turned out to be accurate).As the debate raged, some observers commented that it seemedmore a clash of male egos than a serious attempt to analyze the past.In a 1993 book on the dissident literary community, a West Germancommentator suggested the Stasi debate was a conflict among “threeegomaniacs … [Wolf] Biermann, [writer Lutz] Rathenow, [Sascha]Anderson.” East German author Gabriele Stötzer-Kachold hadmade a similar suggestion in 1992.

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 150-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Leonhard

On 3 October 1990, the National People's Army (NVA) of the German Democratic Republic, in which about 2.5 million East German citizens served their country, was dissolved. Its personnel either was removed from military service, placed into early retirement, or integrated into the Bundeswehr after a two-year selection and examination process. Since then, the NVA has turned into an object of history with no immediate significance for contemporary German society—despite efforts of former NVA officers to change the official interpretation of 1989-1990. This article examines the processes of remembering and forgetting with regard to East Germany's military heritage since 1990, contrasting the Bundeswehr's politics of memory and “army of unity” ethos not only with the former NVA soldiers' vision of the past, but also with the East German population's general attitude towards their former armed forces.


2021 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-174
Author(s):  
Christoph Seifener

The following article discusses Regina Scheer’s novel Machandel (2014) and the approach to personal memory and historical perception that Scheer develops by drawing on Walter Benjamin’s famous essay On the Concepts of History, published in 1940. The article examines formal and narrative aspects of the novel, which tells the story of a family and an East German village from the 1930s until the present day, in order to demonstrate how Scheer rejects the possibility of direct access to history and the reconstruction of the past. Special attention is devoted to the specific meanings of different forms of silence and the role of literature in the process of cultural memory.


K@iros ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisa GOUDIN-STEINMANN ◽  

The archives of the Berliner Haus für kulturelle Arbeit, an institution of the GDR charged in the 1980s to prepare the 750 years commemoration of the birth of the city Berlin, show that a lapse of memory played a significant role in the production of the past which characterized this commemoration, that we analyze, within the meaning of Paul Connerton, as a set of “commemorative practices” which form the social support of the common memory. The typical case of the GDR where the memory is shared with West-Germany is interessant, because these ceremonies are significant by their assertions but also by their silences. We show how a lapse of memory was built in the GDR, and how this lapse of memory prescribed by the Berliner House of cultural work aimed at developping a feeling of common membership, an identification with the east-german State and with the socialist ideology, while overlooking of broad sides of history. Some categories of analysis of the family memory are transposed: whereas in the case of the family memory, the rewriting of history obeys a tacit law which is that of the family unit to preserve, memory construction in the case of the Berliner House of cultural work also rests on a unit to consolidate: a national unit. The corollary of this instrumentalisation of the past is that it was necessary to describe a linear historical evolution, with a direction and a sense of history. The objective was to promote a teleological approach of history, guided by the principles of the historical materialism. However, we also show that marginal critical voices could sometimes appear, in order to denounce the aporias of this speech on the past.


2021 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Jim Zucchero

This essay offers an analysis of the past 30 years of activity in the Italian-Canadian literary community and examines the role of the AICW (Association of Italian-Canadian Writers) in supporting, disseminating and analyzing that literary production. It profiles the work of three important figures (Pivato, D’Alfonso, Di Cicco) and notes their contributions in establishing this literary ground. It also asserts that women have played an essential role, both in their literary contributions, and in organizational capacities (editing anthologies and proceedings, organizing and promoting literary events and conferences). The essay considers practical issues (developments in technology), challenges, and the vital relationship between creative works and literary criticism in this body of writing.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 342
Author(s):  
Dilyara A. Salimzanova ◽  
Gulnara T. Gilfanova

<p>The article tells about works of the famous German writer Johannes Bobrowski (1917-1965) born 100 years ago; the world literary community celebrates his 100 anniversary as in 2017. The poetic speech of Bobrowski, difficult for perception, reflected the main perspective of his poetry: history of the people and communication of the person with the nature. Art development of history, author’s cycle of stories and two novels of the original narrative technique in the conditions of totalitarian regime and continuous censorship, in many respects predetermined development of a genre of the historical novel in literature of the East German space of the "middle" of the last century. The creativity J. Bobrowski opens the new truth about the German life and history, thereby expanding a framework of art judgment of the past country. </p>


2009 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-43
Author(s):  
Paweł Ciołkiewicz

The fact that controversies about the past become the subject of public debate testifies to the growing significance of the role of collective memory. In Poland two such controversies emerged recently. The first was triggered off by Jan Tomasz Gross’s book Neighbours that describes the murder committed during the war on Jews by the Polish inhabitants of Jedwabne; the other is a consequence of the actions taken up by the head of the Union of the Expelled, Erika Steinbach, and her many years’ endeavours to create the so-called Centre Against Expulsions in Germany. The matter of post-war “expulsions” divided Polish disputants into adherents of two opposed points of view. One thread of the debate that started in 2000 embraces controversies around the exhibition: “Enforced Roads. Escapes and Expulsions in 20th Century Europe” opened in August 2006 that commemorates the victims of expulsions. The article analyses the press debate around this exhibition in the context of the earlier stages of this controversy. It also describes the changes of relations between the main standpoints and their influence on the ideas of the past.


Author(s):  
Benjamin F. Trump ◽  
Irene K. Berezesky ◽  
Raymond T. Jones

The role of electron microscopy and associated techniques is assured in diagnostic pathology. At the present time, most of the progress has been made on tissues examined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlated with light microscopy (LM) and by cytochemistry using both plastic and paraffin-embedded materials. As mentioned elsewhere in this symposium, this has revolutionized many fields of pathology including diagnostic, anatomic and clinical pathology. It began with the kidney; however, it has now been extended to most other organ systems and to tumor diagnosis in general. The results of the past few years tend to indicate the future directions and needs of this expanding field. Now, in addition to routine EM, pathologists have access to the many newly developed methods and instruments mentioned below which should aid considerably not only in diagnostic pathology but in investigative pathology as well.


2019 ◽  
pp. 121-143
Author(s):  
Riccardo Resciniti ◽  
Federica De Vanna

The rise of e-commerce has brought considerable changes to the relationship between firms and consumers, especially within international business. Hence, understanding the use of such means for entering foreign markets has become critical for companies. However, the research on this issue is new and so it is important to evaluate what has been studied in the past. In this study, we conduct a systematic review of e-commerce and internationalisation studies to explicate how firms use e-commerce to enter new markets and to export. The studies are classified by theories and methods used in the literature. Moreover, we draw upon the internationalisation decision process (antecedents-modalities-consequences) to propose an integrative framework for understanding the role of e-commerce in internationalisation


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-121
Author(s):  
Kato Gogo Kingston

Financial crime in Nigeria – including money laundering – is ravaging Nigeria's economic growth. In the past few years, the Nigerian government has made efforts to tackle money laundering by enacting laws and setting up several agencies to enforce the laws. However, there are substantial loopholes in the regulatory and enforcement regimes. This article seeks to unravel the involvement of the churches as key drivers in money laundering crimes in Nigeria. It concludes that the permissive secrecy which enables churches to conceal the names of their financiers and donors breeds criminality on an unimaginable scale.


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