Austrian Literature in a Trans-cultural Context 1. Austrian Literature: A Never-Ending Debate There are many substantial insecurities and disagreements about the question whether there is such a thing as Austrian literature and what its characteristics in contrast with German literature are. This is striking, especially when one relin- quishes the traditional essentialist idea of identity that goes hand in hand with an affirmative and consensual nationalism. In contrast, contemporary theoretical positions in cultural analysis point out that collective identity underlies histori- cal and cultural change. Following this argument, one might claim that Austrian literature, a symbolic product of self-consciousness and obstinacy, was written, along with the systematic research and reflection about it, over a short period during the process of nation building between 1945 and 1989/1994, after which Austria joined the European Union. Left- and right-wing critics alike criticised Austria’s integration into the European Union, polemically calling it a second Anschluss. The ambitious project of Austrian literature could thus be said to have been a product of the post-war period, a project that lost its cultural energy after 1989 or 1994. Claims about the disappearance of Austria’s own literature in the ocean of a German literature belongs to the central rhetoric within this specific symbolic framework, a rhetoric that is inscribed in Austria with the gesture of grievance. (Cf. Scheichl and Stieg 1986, 25–40) And it is true that there are representative collections in Germany such as Deutschland erzählt that carry the subtitles “Von Arthur Schnitzler bis Uwe Johnson” and “Von Rainer Maria Rilke bis Peter Handke” (von Wiese 1991/1993). Likewise, the cultural neutralisation of Austrian literature in German university libraries is remarkable: Authors such as Franz Kafka, Robert Musil, Ödön von Horváth or Heimito von Doderer are fading behind categories of a very specific history of German literature such as Expressionism or Neue Sach lichkeit (New Objectivity). In contrast, our library for Romance Studies is politically and scientifically correct in its division into different sections.¹ Nobody would look for the Argentinian author Jorge Louis Borges, one of the most promi- nent heirs of Franz Kafka, under the subdivision “Spanish Literature”. What Goethe has called world literature, is, to use an image of Walther Benjamin’s, like 1 I am referring here to the Fachbibliothek of the Justus-Liebig-Universität, Gießen. Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 6/16/14 5:43 PM Austrian Literature in a Trans-cultural Context 249 a broken vessel that exists only in fragments.² The whole can be reconstructed through thought and reflection. The unity of world literature is always imaginary. When cultural particularity is destroyed in such a complete and all-encom- passing way, it is not altogether surprising that one searches in vain in Germany for a representative monograph on Austrian literature in the field of German Studies.³ From such a trans-national perspective the specificity of Austrian litera- ture becomes visible; it emerges as a literature that is not a regional variant of a pan-German literature, but is a “small literature” (Deleuze/ Guattari) of its own. Austrian literature can be understood as a very specific and curious national lit- erature that is at the same time a non-national one. It makes use of a very specific understanding of German and is at the same time familiar with other small non- German literatures. (Müller-Funk 2009, 8–17) Austrian literature as an object of scientific investigation does exist, espe- cially in Austria, where it is the area of expertise of a handful of specialists; yet even there the notion of a specific national literature seems to be a model that is being phased out. Pars pro toto one has to mention Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler, Karl Wagner, Friedbert Aspetsberger, Walther Weiss, Klaus Zeyringer, Christa Gürtler, Daniela Strigl, Konstanze Fliedl and a whole generation of Austrian academics after 1968 whose research addresses the question of an Austrian lit- erature.⁴ In my opinion, it is significant that many influential overviews of the history of Austrian literature and culture are written by scholars who are so-called Auslandsgermanisten, above all Jaques Le Rider, Claudio Magris, or the cultural historian Carl Schorske. Also, there are many English, American and Central- European academics who have had the courage to deal with specific topics within the framework of Austrian literature and culture. Apparently, it is a perspective from outside that generates a focus which makes the specific differences between German and Austrian literature visible. The lingering sense of insecurity regarding whether or not there is an Austrian literature is probably connected with the fact that even today language is seen as the central category of cultural difference. From that perspective, Austrian litera- ture can, of course, only be interpreted as a regional phenomenon. This is aston- ishing insofar as modern cultural analysis insists on the idea that there are many 2 Cf. Walter Benjamin, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers, 18; and Jacobs, The Monstrosity of Translation (1975, 763). 3 The linguistically brilliant essays of the writer and literary theorist W.G. Sebald are not a counter-argument to my thesis, as the author of Austerlitz lived, worked and wrote for a long time in a non-German context in the UK. 4 It may be interesting to note that Schmidt – Dengler had a Croatian and Old Austrian family background, while Zeyringer has been teaching in France for many years. Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 6/16/14 5:43 PM 250 Part 3: The Heritage of Classical Modernism: Broch, Canetti, Musil, Kafka more factors that contribute to cultural differences, such as mentality, history, and the whole way of life. These and other elements are relevant for the small dif- ference between German and Austrian literature. In a stimulating and self-critical essay from 1987 (two years before German unification), the Austrian philosopher and essayist Franz Schuh brought this issue into sharp focus when he wrote: “Die Sprache, die wir führen, ist leider wenig geeignet, die wirklichen Dimensionen unseres Landes auszusprechen. Im Vergleich zur Realität wird ihr, der Sprache, alles leicht zum Mythos, zum Fetisch. Eine Infinitesimalrhetorik höchster Lang- samkeit im Rahmen unendlicher Beschränkungen wäre vonnöten“.⁵ It is helpful to read these essays and commentaries from the late 1980s to understand the very specific and hidden cultural references and nuances of Austrian literature. The questions remain whether or not there is such a thing as an Austrian lit- erature at all, and whether it must be considered a short-lived phenomenon that was effected by the “invention” of modern post-war Austria. After the aggressive attempts in Austrian German Studies (especially in the 1970s and early 1980s) to institute a genuine national literature by such varied means as Austro-centric research projects, series dedicated to Austrian literature in the academic press, and the establishment of an Austrian literary canon, these efforts have increas- ingly abated since the 1990s. But there are exceptions, such as the foundation of “Austrian libraries” in the Central European neighbouring states and the subven- tions that accompanied them. It has been quiet in Austrian literature since the turn of the millennium. There are many reasons for this, above all a sea-change in the overall media and in cultural reception. Austrian film, represented by such well-known figures as Michael Haneke, Ulrich Seidl, or Barbara Albert, has received much greater atten- tion than its literature. Besides, the critical generation of 1968 and post-1968 that dominated relevant sections of politics, education, culture and science, has aged. When one keeps in mind the integration of the former communist neighbouring countries into the European Union and the effects of internationalisation (“glo- balisation”), an insistence on the idea of a uniquely Austrian literature tends to look old-fashioned, narrow-minded and somewhat provincial.⁶ 5 “The language we are using is not suitable to express the real dimensions of our country. Compared with reality, language transforms all too easily into myth and fetish. An infinitesimal rhetoric of utmost slowness in the framework of infinite restrictions would be necessary” (Schuh 1987, 20); see also Müller-Funk, Ein Koffer namens Österreich (2011). All translations from the German are mine unless indicated otherwise. 6 This point is especially significant if we keep in mind that Josef Nadler, the founder of an essentialist ethnic and racial concept of the literary history of German tribes (which was quickly Authenticated | [email protected] Download Date | 6/16/14 5:43 PM Austrian Literature in a Trans-cultural Context 251 Such a national concept may be regarded as what Milan Kundera has called the “terror of the narrow context”, “Terror des engen Kontexts” (Kundera 1991, 12). Herbert Zeman’s Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich circumvents this problem in quite an elegant manner by defining Austria as a symbolic container. (Zeman 1999) This seems to me a compromise between the concept of a uniquely Austrian literature and that neo-Pan-German version as proposed by, among others, Horst Albert Glaser and Wilfried Barner, one that Klaus Zeyringer has sarcastically described as a “pat on the back”, “das Schulterklopfen der Definitionsmacht” (Zeyringer 2008, 24). In contrast, Zeman understands Austrian literature on the one hand as a regionally specific literature with changing real and symbolical borders and on the other as a discursive phenomenon. It is characteristic of such a position that it is nearly impossible to differentiate between German and Aus- trian literature. Wendelin Schmidt-Dengler too (who has been more diplomatic than his colleague Zeyringer) has always missed fairness and evenhanded sensi- bility in German literary historians, stating that the debate about Austrian litera- ture has to be conducted in the field of literary history.