What Remains (novella)
What remains is a story of Christa Wolf.
Prehistory and origin
The by Christa Wolf in 1976 co-organized collection of signatures against the expatriation of Wolf Biermann from the GDR ended for the writer in the conversion of an existing since 1969 covert surveillance by the Stasi in an open one. From this time is the narrative. It was written, according to the author at the end of 1979 and revised ten years later, after the Wall fell. Appeared but "What remains " until the summer of 1990, what was the occasion of a media-savvy debate about the political credibility and the literary rank Christa Wolf.
Content
It tells a day in the life of an East German writer, whose apartment and training activities are under surveillance by the Stasi openly. The story focuses on the consequences of the observation, in particular it provoked feelings, self- surveys and changes in the everyday life of the woman. As narrator she is in a constant internal monologue in a permanent self-examination in which they partially splits into You, me and a third one, a behavior that is caused by the gloomy external pressure. One of the ego represents the originally loyal attitude to the GDR state, another struggling desperately for a new language that could authentically and vividly express the experience. A life that is told is no longer one's own apartment was entered in the absence of strangers and clearly visible traces of it were left as a reference. Discussions can only be done inside the home when the phone is unplugged. Calls a farce that takes place only in codes and trivia. Symptoms of anxiety and nervousness, such as restlessness, insomnia, weight loss, hair loss, pervade the narrative.
The narrative follows the pattern of a short story. The now familiar daily routine of the writer is interrupted by an unprecedented event: An Acquired by the Stasi half reading still brings provocative, bold questions out for a livable future. The writer encountered surprised, but also anxious and beating time the next generation of writers whose will and courage to make a change to silent immaturity and solidification, is unbroken.
Consequences and Literaturstreit 1990
Introduction of the dispute
Already on November 12, 1987 appeared in the newspaper an article by Marcel Reich -Ranicki, entitled "Power persecution creative? " The occasion was a speech that Christa Wolf had held for Thomas Brasch. For the award of the Kleist Prize to the writer, who had emigrated from East Germany in 1976, Christa Wolf is the assertion that the GDR with its contradictions have Brasch only made creative. M. Reich -Ranicki disagreed and attacked the author with rarely seen before violence. He called their artistic and intellectual possibilities "modest", said from her courage and strength of character coined for Christa Wolf and the title GDR state poet.
First phase of the literature dispute
Even before Christa Wolf's short story " What remains " in the book trade was available, published reviews in the period from 1 June 1990 by Ulrich Greiner and in the newspaper on June 2, 1990 by Frank Schirrmacher. Both critics subjected in their articles, the political attitude of the author to a fundamental critique.
Ulrich Greiner doubt in his article on the credibility of Christa Wolf's narrative. Frank Schirrmacher stressed that Christa Wolf is not interested in the current context as an artistic case. He was the author rather the charge of having published the story late, at a stage in which they have lost their explosiveness. Schirrmacher even suspected, the text would have ten years ago - due to the prominence and invulnerability Wolf - damaged the monitoring system of the GDR and laid so close, Christa Wolf did not speak out for fear of losing their privileges.
The attacks Greiner and Schirrmacher followed the feuilleton literary criticism in a predominant number. But it sparked a wave of solidarity with the author. Writers like Walter Jens, Günter Grass and Lew Kopelew also rallied to the author as politicians, emerged as the most prominent Rita Süßmuth. Prepared this dispute had again Marcel Reich-Ranicki on his show The Literary Quartet. On November 30, 1989, he led the evening conversation with the words:
"In Germany, a revolution has taken place. And whenever on this earth will take place a revolution that writers like to tell, you, the writer would have contributed significantly. How is it, actually have in the GDR won or failed the writer? "
Reich - Ranicki's question concerned so that all writers who had written in the GDR and remained. In the course of the program, the thesis was formulated that the "bonus of writing under difficult conditions " would be invalid, and now new rating standards would be set for the GDR literature.
Second phase of the literature dispute
In the second phase of the literature dispute, there was a heated discussion about a certain type of politically committed writer. Numerous intellectuals began to attack each other. Greiner described the conversion of the dispute in an article in TIME on 27 July 1990 with the words: "The growing bitterness in the dispute about Christa Wolf stirred very reason that no one like to admit mistakes, [ ... ] " Later he worked the core of the dispute precisely out: " who determines what has been, which also determines what will be. The dispute about the past is a dispute about the future. "
In the debate about the cultural power of interpretation in the newly forming German state, the writers carried the fight examples on their level.
At the end of this phase of the dispute there were repeated purely personal swan songs of the fiercest critics of Christa Wolf, such as Chaim Noll: "I confess that I am reading their books always bored where it has not amused involuntary. "
Phase 3 - Inspection of files
Christa Wolf was an article in the Berliner Zeitung on 21 January 1993 information (also the title of the article above) that they had been conducted from 1959 to 1962 as " IN Margaret " at the Ministry of State Security of the GDR. In addition to 42 file folders on their monitoring, there was also a 130 -page facsimile of their own Stasi activity that documented seven meeting with Stasi employees. She had three reports written, however, painted a positive picture of the only people affected. Accordingly, the Stasi complained in internal records of 1962 Wolf "restraint" in cooperation and now began to monitor the author herself extensive - a condition that persisted until the end of the GDR.
Frank Schirrmacher reached into the following debates now as a defender of a writer who had lived and worked under extraordinary political and cultural conditions. He demanded: " The hasty condemnation of writers in any case, they would be the most fatal thing that can happen now. " Mass media picked the topic still on in the now characteristic way. A quite significant literature dispute took the form of a race of large leaves and magazines on after unveiling the next story. A particularly spectacular response to the Christa Wolf IN process was the requirement of the Munich CSU, the City Council may the author but know the 1987 awarded for her book incident Scholl Prize again. This was - not least through the dedicated efforts Inge Aicher - Scholl, the older sister of Hans and Sophie Scholl - shot blocked.
Wolf felt the criticism due to their Stasi commitment that was made to her, regardless of the context of the accusation, witch-hunt and as an unjustified settlement with the desire for a democratic socialism and its GDR biography. She compared their situation with their repression in the GDR. In the years 1992/93 Christa Wolf went for a long time in the U.S. and withdrew from the political public sphere. In order to refute the allegations of the media, they published their 1993 full IM Act entitled access to the file Christa Wolf.