‘Wechselschritt zwischen Anpassung und aufrechtem Gang’: Negotiating the Tensions between Literary Ambition and Political Constraints at the Institut für Literatur ‘Johannes R. Becher’ Leipzig (1950-1990) A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2015 Marina Micke School of Arts, Languages and Cultures CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 1. ‘Dichterschule oder Kaderschmiede’? The Literature on the Institut für Literatur ‘Johannes R. Becher’ Leipzig .............................. 14 CHAPTER 2 2. Developing an Analytical Framework for the Practices at the Becher Institute ........... 43 2.1 Fields and Capital: Investigating Sites of Struggle and Domination in Society 44 Capital in Its Different Forms and States ............................................................. 54 2.2 Habitus: Accounting for Individual Behaviour ..................................................... 60 CHAPTER 3 3. Institutionalised Capital: Creating a Literary Institute in the Unstable East German Literary Field of the Early 1950s .................................... 69 Three Stages of the Institute’s Founding Process ............................................... 71 3.1. Difficulties of Accumulating Initial Capital: First Proposals for the Founding of a Literary Academy (1950-1952) ............ 76 Johannes R. Becher versus Franz Hammer .......................................................... 83 3.2. The Power of Political Capital: Encountering and Overcoming Obstacles in the Planning of the Institute (1953-1954) ...................................... 88 A Question of Political Capital: The Founding of the Institute Changes Hands ................................................... 97 3.3 A Struggle for Symbolic and Material Resources: Alfred Kurella and the Opening of the Institute (1954-1957) ........................ 104 Securing Material Resources – Finding a Home for the Institute .................. 109 Securing Symbolic Resources – The Search for Staff and Students............... 112 3.4. Founding the Institut für Literatur – A Question of Political Power? ........... 118 2 CHAPTER 4 4. Embodied Cultural Capital: Examining the Role of the Lecturer ................................. 121 The Ideological Situation at the Institute ............................................................ 127 4.1 Der Arbeiter-Schriftsteller: Werner Bräunig ........................................................ 134 4.2 Der ‘Meister’: Georg Maurer .................................................................................. 147 4.3 Implications of the Cultural-Political and Generational Changes for the Role of the Lecturer .................................................................................. 159 Rethinking the Function of the Institute ............................................................ 167 4.4 Conclusion: The Temptation of Symbolic Capital.............................................. 171 CHAPTER 5 5. Objectified Cultural Capital – Capital Exchanges through the Written Word ........... 174 The Vorbild-Leitbild Discussion ............................................................................. 178 5.1 ‘15 Jahre Literaturinstitut “Johannes R. Becher”’: Celebrating the Institute through a Literary Journal ......................................... 183 5.2 ‘Für die Erziehung einer neuen Schriftstellergeneration’: Literary Collaboration between Leipzig and Moscow ...................................... 201 5.3 Zwischenbericht - The Institute Looks back on its own History .......................... 215 5.4 Conclusion: The Power of Objectified Cultural Capital .................................... 233 CONCLUSION Negotiating the Tensions between Literary Ambition and Political Constraints: The Institut für Literatur ‘Johannes R. Becher’ ............................................................... 236 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................... 242 word count: 77,270 3 ABSTRACT This thesis explores how the Institut für Literatur ‘Johannes R. Becher’, an East German institution for the training of writers, negotiated tensions that arose from the conflicting demands between literary and political values. The Institute had the objective to foster emerging literary talents according to the socialist ideal of a working writer, but often found students and staff drawn towards more autonomous literary values that were incompatible with the views of the East German Socialist Unity Party. As a result, the Institute’s practices fluctuated between toeing the party line and pursuing literary ambitions. An overview of the existing scholarship shows that the Institute and its function have been highly politicised and hardly subjected to analyses that allow for a more nuanced appraisal of its practices. As a result, the study of the Institute has not been able to transcend the binary differentiation between assent and dissent and the Institute is either presented as a liberal haven or an orthodox academy with little artistic value. This thesis addresses this issue by applying Bourdieu’s’ theory of cultural production, more specifically his notion of field, capital and habitus, to the study of the Becher Institute. Three case studies that form the core of this dissertation investigate how cultural capital in its institutionalised, embodied, and objectified form was accumulated, converted and exchanged by the Institute, how it tried to reconcile the tensions between cultural policy and creative aspirations and how these tensions affected the Institute’s common habitus. The first case study will show how the Institute’s founding shaped the institutionalised capital it represented and question the importance that has been attributed to prominent political figures during the founding process. The second case study examines the role of the lecturer and the influence their embodied capital had on the Institute. Two lecturers, working writer Werner Bräunig and poet Georg Maurer, and their representation of the Institute’s multiple habitus will be the focus of the analysis. The third and final case study is dedicated to objectified cultural capital in the form of the Institute’s publications during the 1970s. The Institute’s orthodox publications have so far been overlooked by scholars in favour of its more controversial literary output, which gives a misleading impression of the Institute’s literary output that I aim to amend. By developing a sociological framework for the study of the Institute, this thesis is able to investigate the Institute and its practices as a social and literary space under the watchful eye of the Socialist Unity Party, without denying its pedagogical and cultural dimensions. The findings will reveal a deeply conflicted institution that struggled throughout its existence to resolve the tensions between literary ambitions and political restraints as well as the contradictions within the literary field itself. 4 DECLARATION No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of this or any other university or other institute of learning. COPYRIGHT STATEMENT i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and she has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or on extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (”Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproduction. iv. Further information in the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=487), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://manchester.ac.uk/library/aboutus/regulations) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses. 5 CKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Matthew Philpotts whose support, encouragement, and own work has been invaluable. My thanks also go to Professor Stephen Parker and Dr Francesca Billiani for their advice throughout my research. I am also deeply grateful to the staff at the Sächsisches Staatsarchiv Leipzig, the Bundesarchiv in Berlin-Lichterfelde, the Archiv der Akademie der Künste, and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach for