Osteuropa 54. Jahrgang, 1/2004

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Editorial: Kontinentaldrift, S. 3

Maksim Sokolov: Die allzu gelenkte Demokratie, S. 5

Corinna Jentzsch, Manja Nickel: Die Qual der Dumawahl. Wahlbeobachtung in Tatarstan 2003, S. 8

Margarete Wiest: Ausgehöhlte Gewaltenteilung. Der Föderationsrat in Putins gelenkter Demokratie, S 17

Brigitte Mihok: Ausgrenzung und Bildungssegregation. Roma in Ostmitteleuropa, S. 28

Steffen Hänschen: Mitteleuropa redivivus? Stasiuk, Andruchovyč und der Geist der Zeit, S. 43

Anja Tippner: „Existenzbeweise“. Erinnerung und Trauma bei H. Grynberg, W. Dichter und H. Krall, S. 57

Wolfgang Schlott: Nostalgische Rückblenden ohne Aufarbeitung der Geschichte. Polnische Prosa nach 1990, S. 75

Karlheinz Kasper: Rußlands „Neue Seiten“. Russische Literatur in deutschen Übersetzungen 2003, S. 90

Abstracts:

Corinna Jentzsch, Manja Nickel: Observing the 2003 Duma elections in Tatarstan. The sending of election observers is considered to be a way of supporting democratization. During the 1990s, observers were sent to observe numerous elections in East and East-Central Europe and international organizations like the OSCE evaluated these elections. There is disagreement about the effectiveness of these measures in the Russian Federation. Serious violations of the principles of free and fair elections were observed during the Duma elections in Tatarstan on 7 December 2003. At the same time, however, weaknesses in the OSCE’s procedures for observing elections became apparent.

Margarete Wiest: A hollowed out division of power: The Federal Council in Putin’s planned democracy. After becoming president, Vladimir Putin re-formed the Federal Council as a way of taming both the rebellious rulers of the regions and the second chamber itself. Under Putin’s predecessor Boris Yeltsin, the Council had become a self-confident third force in the country. Putin’s innovations are already showing results. The Federal Council has declined from autonomous body with the power of veto to instrument for carrying out presidential policy, and it no longer functions effectively as a chamber representing the regions. This weakening of the upper chamber is having a negative effect on Russia’s democratic development by strengthening the authoritarian tendencies in Putin’s planned democracy.

Brigitte Mihok: Exclusion and educational segregation: The Roma in East-Central Europe.
Although the post-communist states have passed exemplary legislation on minority rights, the Roma minority living there remains in a very difficult position. The granting of legal equality has not changed the disadvantaged socio-economic situation of this ethnic group. This article focuses on the worsening educational situation and the increasing social marginalization the Roma are experiencing within East European societies.

Steffen Hänschen: Central Europe redivivus. Stasiuk, Andrukhovych and the spirit of the times.
13 years after the collapse of the communist system, many Central and East European intellectuals are preoccupied with the question of finding their own intellectual place. Writers like Andrzej Stasiuk and Yurij Andrukhovych, unlike many intellectuals in the region who are guided by western ideals and political structures, take Central Europe as their point of orientation and are in search of the unique features of this region. By doing this, they are carrying on a discussion conducted in the 1970s and 80s. The starting point of contemporary Central European reflections on identity is the shared experience of communist dictatorship, and their point of reference lies in the past.

Anja Tippner: “Proofs of existence”: Memory and trauma in the work of Henrik Grynberg, Wilhelm Dichter, and Hanna Krall.
The Holocaust is one of the central themes of postwar Polish literature. The idea that it is barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz has been replaced by a debate about the limits of representation. Polish-Jewish survivors of the Holocaust like Henryk Grynberg write autobiographical prose situated on the boundary between reality and fiction, as a way of rendering the inconceivable conceivable. Henryk Grynberg, Hanna Krall, and Wilhelm Dichter, who survived the Shoah as children, address the questions of the traumatic consequences of what they directly experienced, their frequently physical memories, and the repression of these memories in the postwar period. These reports, which are written in the tradition of Jewish testament literature, also give other victims a voice and so are able to make it more difficult to repress or forget the memory of even a single individual.

Wolfgang Schlott: Nostalgic flashbacks without any reappraisal of the past: Polish narrative fiction after 1990.
Since 1990, Polish literature has been addressing the themes of loss of values and loss of history, and searching for a new identity. Narrative fiction rejected the ethical positions of “antisocialist realism”, which had tackled the communist past, and entered an experimental phase. It is only since the mid-1990s that a multilayered return to Polish and European history has emerged. The generation of writers born after 1960 is dealing with previously taboo issues in recent Polish history, and is addressing neglected topics such as cultural confrontation and fusion and feminist models of life. Since the end of the 1990s, postmodern approaches have been replaced by texts with biographical underpinnings and a documentary basis. Even so, there is still a shortage of works portraying postwar Polish society across the generations.

Karlheinz Kasper:„New Pages“: German translations of Russian literature in 2003. Russia was the featured country at the 2003 Frankfurt Book Fair. For this reason, German publishers’ catalogues included significantly more translations of fiction and poetry from the Russian than in previous years. The range of works published included new translations, new editions of the classics and of modernist works, anthologies from particular periods and relating to particular topics, and new publications from the field of contemporary literature. Some of the new novels on social themes, dystopian works, and texts by young authors provide readers with insights into the country’s intellectual condition. However, it is less clear whether German readers relying on translated works will get an accurate picture of the currents, authors, and works that are setting the tone of literary life in contemporary Russia.