Libuse Monikova: Perspectives on Heimat Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Krivanova, Brana Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 25/09/2021 09:50:14 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/289826 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overiaps. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Ariaor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 LIBUSE MONIKOVA: PERSPECTIVES ON HEIMAT By Brana Krivanova Copyright © Brana Krivanova 2002 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE CULTURAL AND LITERARY STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2002 UMI Number: 3060985 Copyright 2002 by Krivanova, Brana Ail rights reserved. ® UMI UMI Microform 3060985 Copyright 2002 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Infonnation and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. 00x1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA ® GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Brana Krivanova entitled LIBUSE MONIKOVA: PERSPECTIVES ON HEIMAT and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PFILOSOPHY Zee I^^^uC ^li II ^C2 Date 11/?.! 2007. Date Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. fa6a-cft-/V/7A— gill jico-L )issertation Director Date 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. Signed 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have helped me, inspired me, and guided me in the process of writing this dissertation. 1 first gratefully acknowledge the contribution of my committee. Dr. Barbara Kosta, Dr. Kamakshi Murti, and Dr. Adele Barker. Many thanks to my adviser Barbara Kosta for her guidance, invaluable advice and challenging comments on my writing that have greatly improved my dissertation. I have benefited enormously from our discussions on feminist and minority discourses throughout my studies at the University of Arizona. My debt of gratitude also goes to Kamakshi Murti whose support, goodhearted encouragement, and professional expertise helped me tremendously proceed through the doctoral program and complete my dissertation. Kamakshi's careful reviews of my chapters and her helpful suggestions were crucial to my work. I highly appreciate Adele Barker's advice regarding Soviet foreign policy. Her constructive feedback shaped several of my chapters. 1 would like to thank Dr. Wolfgang Coy, Joachim Dvof^, Dr. Peter Ecke, Susan Enholm, Claudia Kunschak, Nicholas Perrotta, Dr. Dana Pfeiferova, and Colleen Thumlert for their help in my research and writing process. My biggest thanks go to my family in Slovakia and to my husband and best fnend, Joaquin de Otaola Zamora. His love, support, understanding, patience and hilarious humor greatly enlightened and enlivened my dissertation writing, for which 1 dedicate this work to him. 5 A Joaquin. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Abstract 7 II. Introduction 9 III. Chapter I: "Kde domov muj?" The Writing of Heimat in Prager Fenster 31 IV. Chapter 2: A Savage Feast: A Feminist Deconstruction of Western Epistemologies in "Tetom und Tuba" 105 V. Chapter 3: Francine's Liberation in Pavane fur eine verstorbene Infantin 139 VI. Chapter 4: Perspectives on Art, Politics and Science in Per Taumel 176 VII. Conclusion 214 VIII. References 221 7 ABSTRACT As one of the most significant postmodern writers in contemporary Germany, Libuse Monikova critically explores the political divisions of Europe from different perspectives, using an interdisciplinary approach to educate her reader. All her works relate either directly or indirectly to her native Czecho-Slovakia. This dissertation focuses on four of Monikova's works, Prager Fenster. "Tetom und Tuba." Pavane fur eine verstorbene Infantin, and Per Taumel. and examines her understanding of the densely layered concept of Heimat. Monikova depicts her Heimat construct through the metaphor of disability and disease as a landscape of German and Soviet occupations and as a territory of historically and politically rooted power struggles. Her analysis of the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the former Czecho-Slovakia as well as her portrayal of Czech complicity in the totalitarian regime redefines concepts of victimization and resistance, and reveals the unstable discursive nature of subordination and domination. Monikova's concept of Heimat cannot be fully understood without the inclusion of minority and gender discourses as well as art as cultural space. This study underscores Monikova's analysis of the situation of women and minorities in her country of origin. Monikova makes transparent the kind of masculine superiority that is comfortably ensconced not only in Czecho-Slovak society, but also in western epistemologies. Her dynamic, witty, and politically alert female figures are 8 independent intellectuals with vitriolic humor who offer a fresh alternative to ideological and dogmatic idealism that prevails in many feminist texts of the 1970s. Furthermore. I attempt to show how Monikova, an author who emphasizes a decentralized perspective of writing through otherness and displacement, portrays minorities living in her Heimat. Methodologically, 1 include theories of Czech, Slovak, German, and US cultural critics in my study. Consequently, 1 seek to not only [rejdiscover Monikova as a writer and political activist in the Czech Republic where her texts began to be published only recently, but also to engage her critics in a constructive inter-cultural dialogue. INTRODUCTION It was not in her native Czecho-Slovakia that Libuse Monikova established herself as a prestigious, patriotic writer who fiercely fought for freedom in her country of origin, but rather in neighboring Germany. Despite the distance or maybe because of it. she always had Czecho-Slovakia on her mind. In an interview with the Czech journalist Petr Kyncl, Monikova especially emphasized two events of Czech history—the Soviet occupation of Czecho-Slovakia and the suicide of Jan Palach. She declared: "Since then 1 know I am a Czech"' ("Spisovatelstvi"). Further, she confirms that Czech motifs are extremely important to her literary production (Stroblova "Cas poklepavani"). Yet, the Czech's lack of interest in Monikova's works and the absence of her books in Czech bookstores is a poignant reality. When the writer passed away on January 12, 1998, almost unknown in her country of origin, Tomas Kafka wrote an obituary with the title "Libuse Monikova Or the Loss of Somebody We Have Not Met Yet" (MF Dnes). Jiri Grusa, a renowned writer and Czech ambassador to Vienna, added to Kafka's comment: "It is high time that we welcomed Libuse Monikova at home. Or better said, it is high time that we felt at home in her work" ("Es ist die hochste Zeit, Libuse Monikova in der Heimat willkommen zu heifien. Oder besser gesagt, es ist die hochste Zeit, sich bei ihr heimisch zu fiihlem") ("Grufiwort" 47). ' All translations are mine, unless otherwise indicated. 10 In this dissertation I intend to engage Monikova's critics from different countries and continents in a fiiiitful inter-cultural discussion.' More importantly, I use my text to assist in breaking the ice, crossing the borders and [rejdiscovering the transplanted Prague author, by critically exploring the complexity of Heimat discourse inscribed in her works. Simultaneously, 1 seek to explore Monikova's career both as writer and as political activist. Libuse Monikova was bom in Prague on August 30, 1945. She had two elder sisters Manena and Marie and a younger brother Josef. The third daughter of the family, Monikova went to the gymndzium, a type of Czech high school, in Bila Street in Prague where her German teacher Hmcifova soon recognized her talent for languages and her exceptional interest in literature. As a teenager, Monikova read Dostoevsky, Kafka, Proust, Joyce, KJima, and other writers who shaped her literary taste. Literature influenced Monikova to such an extent that she divided her life later on into the epochs marked by the authors she used to read.