Nostalgia
Nostalgia describes a longing turn to past objects or practices. The word derives from the Greek words νόστος, Nostos (return, return ) and άλγος, algos (pain ) and the nostalgia ( nostalgia ) in New Latin.
Origins and Meaning
For the first time the term appears in the medical context. With a sickening nostalgia homesickness was called that befell particularly Swiss mercenaries in foreign lands. Word builder was a graduate student Johannes Hofer ( 1662-1752 ). In his " Dissertatio medica de Nostalgia or Heimwehe " (Basel 1688), this phenomenon was first described in detail. Only later nostalgia has received today's non-medical importance. Today is meant by nostalgia in German a wistful turn to past times that are reflected often highly idealized and transfigured in memory. This can be both historical periods as well as biographical temporal circumstances. Nostalgia for example, manifests itself in a Afterwards mourning the good old days, in the supposedly everything was much nicer and better than in the present. Examples include the Transfiguration of the golden age of antiquity, the Middle Ages or the Imperial period. Lovers of nostalgia called nostalgic. They are there in many areas: in art, in music, in art or in politics. Nostalgia is accused often present escape.
Possible Causes
No person shall carry out any unfiltered sensations that act on him. Each filter is seen and heard involuntarily in important and unimportant things ( memory ). Since man his memories during his life constantly restructures and reinterprets, some memories gain a higher importance than others. Particularly beautiful and pleasant events seem to memorize it permanent, as sad or boring. This could be explained by the fact that people in changing their memories are continually striving to generate a possible successful and happy Biography. Hardly anyone would pretend in old age, to have led a meaningless life full of failures and embarrassments. However, due to the intensity of sad events can also permanently, perhaps even permanent, be as events that are perceived as beautiful or pleasant, because it is of great importance, whether such coined and live walking or whether it was drastic.
Nostalgia can be viewed as a kind of corrective. It can occur in people who are in a mental or physical imbalance. The nostalgia is perhaps a kind of restore balance, can be drawn from the power or she offers in difficult moments to process an emotional way out of the situation. Nostalgia can thus be understood as a therapeutic agent capable lighten a depressive mood.
The advertising industry is trying through targeted measures such as the retro look to take advantage of the propensity for nostalgia.
Special
A special form of nostalgia, the nostalgia, the move to certain aspects of life in the GDR. The word game from East and nostalgia was reportedly coined in 1995 by the Dresden cabaret artist Uwe Steimle. Many people who deal retrospectively with life in the GDR, but resist it, to be Ostalgiker and want to glorify the life in the GDR.
Similar social phenomena is also available in other former socialist countries, like the former Yugoslavia, where they speak of the so-called Jugonostalgija ( Yugo- nostalgia ), or in former communist countries like the Soviet Union.