Vom historischen Erbe zur selbstbestimmten Sprach(en)politik? Literarische Mehrsprachigkeit in Litauen und Lettland

From Historical Legacy to Self-Determined Language(s) Policy? Literary Multilingualism in Lithuania and Latvia. The first part of this article looks at Soviet language(s) policy. Two further parts discuss language(s) policy and literary multilingualism in Lithuania and Latvia. The aim is not to provide a differentiated investigation, but to show similarities and differences as well as tendencies in the language(s) politics of the two states from the 19th century to the present in the mirror of literature and to explain them using case studies. In the fourth, concluding part, literary translation is highlighted as one of the formats for implementing multilingualism outside the text with particular focus on the consultative function of the Russian language.

Zweisprachigkeit in den Literaturen Estlands

Bilingualism in the Literatures of Estonia. In a multilingual cultural space such as the (former and contemporary) Baltic region, bilingualism, both oral and written, has been rather normality than exception. This also finds an expression in the literatures of this region. In the following I will examine the phenomenon of bilingualism and multilingualism in the literatures of Estonia in history and today. First, I will examine the historical forms of bilingualism before the foundation of the Republic of Estonia, against the background of the complicated oral and written language relations throughout history. Then I explore their topicality in the interwar and Soviet periods, and today. I also ask about the motivation of the authors to change or mix languages in their work, whether to reach a wider audience or a new poetic quality. Examples are from the work of Paul Fleming, Reiner Brockmann, Jacob Johann Malm, August Kitzberg, Ivar Ivask, Jaan Kaplinski, Igor Kotjuh, Øyvind Rangøy and Veronika Kivisilla.

Sprachwechsel in der neuesten litauischen Migrations- und Mobilitätsliteratur

Language Change in the Most Recent Lithuanian Literature of Migration and Mobility. When discussing literary multilingualism within the Lithuanian literary scene, researchers usually refer to different groups of authors. Some were born and socialised abroad immediately after the Second World War, some left Lithuania after 1990, but producing their texts in different linguistic contexts all of them write consistently in one language, English or Lithuanian. In the most recent Lithuanian migration and mobility literature, however, one can observe examples of intra-textual bilingualism or multilingualism, which illustrate the integration problems of Lithuanian (labour) migrants into foreign societies on the one hand and the development of multiple global identities on the other. The paper examines these spreading tendencies focusing on the exemplary novel Stasys Šaltoka (2017) by Gabija Grušaitė and discussing the structure and functions of the intra-textual code-switching. The creative use of language directed against conventional linguistic purism shows that the young generation of Lithuanian authors tends to break language and cultural borders. The authors Unė Kaunaitė, Gabija Grušaitė and others show that the playful use of multilingualism can be subversive, ironic, but at the same time can highlight the problems of language dominance and thus political, social and cultural exclusion, express group mentality, identity changes, etc. The way that Lithuanian literature deals with multilingualism, expressed explicitly or implicitly, reveals the extent to which certain literary texts can be described as transcultural, in line with the current tone of European and global migration and mobility literature.

Trauma, Narrative and History: Representation of Traumatic Experience in the Works of Algirdas Landsbergis

The twentieth century witnessed an abundant number of traumatic events related to dark history. Trauma caused by war, occupation, exile, repression, gave rise to migration or mass murder. To rely upon Cathy Caruth (1996: 3), the concept of trauma is understood as a physical wound; however, subsequently in medicine and the literature of psychiatry, especially in Freud’s works, the concept of trauma came to be understood as a psychological wound. In addition, trauma is not only a disturbing or stressful experience that affects an individual physically or psychologically, it may also be based on other factors created by society. Over time the field of trauma in various contexts expanded so that today it is widely used in sociology when analysing historical and cultural events. Cultural traumatic memory is mirrored in trauma fiction that conveys the experience of loss and suffering, there is a space for memories, introspection, recollections, flashbacks and awful remembrances that are colored by pain. Apart from individual, event-based trauma, there is another category of trauma variously called cultural or historical trauma, which affects groups of people. Numerous studies have been conducted on the latter topic, however, trauma and its expression in Lithuanian literature has not yet been sufficiently documented. The aim of this study is to discuss the concepts of cultural and historical trauma and the way trauma is reflected in Algirdas Jeronimas Landsbergis’ works. The authors of the study claim that Landsbergis – one of many Lithuanian writers-in-exile – wrote texts that fill a cultural vacuum and invite a re-discussion of what was most painful in the past.

Sprachabenteuer: Yoko Tawadas exophone Erkundungen des Deutschen

Adventures in Language: Yoko Tawada’s Exophonic Explorations of German. Yoko Tawada (1960) is for good reason one of the prime examples for contemporary German exophonic literature. She is a very successful writer in Japanese and in German and provides in her Germanophone writings an ethnography of the German worldview, as Wilhelm von Humboldt famously called languages, or of the German language-mindset. This article focuses on her 2010 poetry volume Abenteuer der deutschen Grammatik (‘Adventures of German Grammar’) to demonstrate how exophonia can allow us to develop an acute awareness of the ways in which language structures shape our patterns of thinking. Coming from a very differently organised language, Japanese, Tawada comments in playful ways on the implications of German, and compares it translinguistically with Japanese. Looking at German from an outside position enables her to be very creative and to make Germans discover their language with new eyes. Translingual writing, even though also present in a real mixing of languages in Tawada, appears here as a way to understand how much our ideas are shaped by our linguistic structures, and that there are alternative worldviews. It thus contributes greatly to a relativisation of one’s own perspective and helps to open up to difference and creativity.

Literatur – grundsätzlich mehrsprachig!? Das politische Potenzial literarischer Mehrsprachigkeit heute, am Beispiel von Barbi Marković’ Superheldinnen

Literature – Multilingual on Principle?! The Political Potential of Literary Multilingualism Today, using the Example of Barbi Marković’s Superheldinnen. Research on literary multilingualism is increasingly based on the assumption that literature per se is multilingual. This is true for concepts such as Mikhail Bakhtin’s ‘polyphony’, in which multilingualism occurs in the form of social, regional and historical variants within one major language. Similarly, it applies to Rainier Grutman’s concept of hétérolinguisme, which expands Bakhtin’s notion and includes actual language changes. Recently, Till Dembeck has even called for a philology of multilingualism that would accommodate literary multilingualism in literary criticism. Using Barbi Marković’s novel Superheldinnen (2016) as an example, I discuss this recent development in multilingual literary studies and analyse concepts, forms and function of literary multilingualism. In so doing, I underline the transcending character of literary multilingualism that expresses itself on various levels: linguistically, formally, medially and with respect to culture. Thus, I aim to illustrate the enormous political potential of literary multilingualism. In fact, multilingualism in literature, as opposed to literature in times of a “monolingual paradigm” (Yasemin Yildiz), poses a political challenge on various levels. Concepts, such as national literature, literary field, but also literary studies and their institutions (i.e. language departments) reach their limits if literature is understood as being multilingual. In the second part of this article, I discuss the difficulties that come with literary prizes, literary studies and the access to the literary field. These often express themselves as concrete problems for individuals who, for instance, have difficulties accessing the literary field.

Das internationale Autorenliedfestival „Lehesaju Muusika“ in Tartu als spezifische Form der Kulturvermittlung und Analyseobjekt für Mehrsprachigkeitsforschung

The Lehesaju Muusika International Music and Poetry Festival in Tartu as a Specific Form of Cultural Mediation and Object of Analysis for Research on Multilingualism. The paper focuses on the multilingual discourse of the Lehesaju Muusika international music and poetry festival, which takes place annually in Tartu, Estonia. Being an international cultural event organised by ethnic minorities, Lehesaju Muusika represents a unique source of empirical data for research on multilingualism. The festival attracts songwriters and performers of the so-called ‘author song’ or ‘bard song’ not only from Estonia, but also from all over the world. The key feature of this genre is the dominance of the text over the music. The spatial organisation of a concert hall represents a specific power constellation within a microsocial structure. Performing artists have the power to decide in which language they perform and address the multilingual audience, while the audience itself has an indirect effect on this decision. The artist’s dialogue with the audience represents a peculiar discursive entity within the discourse of the festival. Code-switching appears to be one of the inherent characteristics of this discursive entity. The present paper summarises some key features of international music and poetry festivals as multilingual cultural events, focusing on the discourse of the Lehesaju Muusika festival. It offers a brief analysis of the audience’s language profile based on the results of a microsociological case study carried out during the latest festival, in 2019. To illustrate the complexity of the multilingual communication during the festival, three situations of code-switching during the performance of an Estonian native speaker in front of the multilingual audience are described and analysed.

Editor’s Preface

Editor’s Preface

Train of Language, Train of Thought: Notes on an Exophonic Anomaly

The creation of poetry with literary value in a non-native language often invites questions about how this is possible to achieve. This question, however, can be turned around: is there something in being an exophonic poet that, rather than being an obstacle, could make the development and maturing of a poetic language possible? Adam Zagajewski writes that ardor, not irony, can be primary building blocks, and about the ideal of being ‘in between’. Ben Lerner writes about the sources of Hatred of Poetry and sees poetry as a potential that can never be completely realised. Being between languages causes the reality of language as one of many possibilities to be always present. The result can be construed as a poetic of time and light, but also of a reconciliation at depth warranted by the poetic ethos. Language becomes aware of itself, its autonomy and inherent lack of objectivity, and this becomes less naive and prone to cliches, but this awareness need not spiral into self-dissolving irony. Rather, it may seek to reconcile the possible ways of seeing the world into a new sense of sincerity. It inspires creative and playful use of language, gives heightened awareness of possible metaphors even where the sense of the transferred image is absent within the framework of one language. This has the potential to change perception of language and reality in a way that makes poetry almost possible.

About the Authors

About the Authors