Talk:Austrian literature/Archive 1

Note moved from article
The following text was placed for several months on the article itself:
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As it's more appropriate for the talk page, I moved it here. -- User:Docu

Kafka example
The article says:

''Franz Kafka may be a good example: while in some of his writings he was declaring himself to be "German" this was meant more in relation to the ethnic minority living in Prague than as a declaration for another part of the empire. The official language in the school Franz went to was German, in private he spoke Czech, most of his works were written in German while private letters, like the ones to his lover Milena Jesenská were written in Czech.''

As far as I know all Letters to Milena and mostly all other published letters are originally written in German. Am I wrong?

in private he spoke Czech: really? Is there a reliable source? Most of his friends (e.g. Max Brod) and of course his family members spoke German as their first language. --Candelilla 00:46, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course this is Garbage. Scholars like Heinz Politzer state that his knowledge of Czech was like "A Level" knowledge of a foreign language. Kafka needed the Czech language at his job at the Generali assurance where he had to do with many workers. It seems that in daily life he used almost exclusively German. And yes, Milena translated his works into Czech. So she was of course perfectly able to communicate in German with him (and the letters were written in German). --D. Bogdan V. (talk) 22:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

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Removed wrong paragraph
Hi. I removed the following paragraph and will explain why:

"The Austrian literature can be divided into two main divisions, namely the period up until the mid-20th century, and the period subsequent, in which both the Austro-Hungarian and German empires were gone. Austria went from being a major European power, to being a small country. In addition, there is a body of literature which some would deem Austrian, but is not written in German, coming from former territories of the Austrian Empire. In this definition, the Rainer Maria Rilke and Franz Kafka would also be Austrian, but could also be considered Czech or German."

This paragraph is absolute garbage: See the large Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich, or Schmidt-Dengler's Bruchlinien or the History of German Literature by Viktor Zmegac - no one ever did a division before and after the mid-20th century or even before and after the change from monarchy to republic. In addition, "mid 20th century" would not make sense. The monarchy fell in 1918, thus at the end of World War II.

Ther IS a body of non-German Austrian literature, but it does not stem from the former territories of the monarchy. Literature from those territories, which has been written in other langues, has always been considered as ONLY belonging to their respective literatures or countries. One example would be The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hasek, written in Czech; this book describes a very Austrian scenery and would not be imaginable without the Austrian monarchy, but no historian or germanist would add it to Austrian literature - it is Czech literature only. Only those authors from the former territories have always been claimed Austrians who have written in German: the German speaking groups of Prague and Czernovits are the best examples.

The body of non-German Austrian literature e.g. includes the Slovenian works of Lipus, Haderlap and several others. These authors belong to Austrian literature (because they are Austrians and live in Carinthia or were raised there) and at the same time to the Slovenian literature (because of the language). Other examples are some literature in Latin and Hebrew (cf. especially Fritz Peter Knapp in the large Geschichte der Literatur in Österreich.)

Rilke and Kafka spoke German as (only) native language and wrote all of their literature in German (Rilke also some texts in French). As members of the group of Prague it is usual (and correct) to mention them in histories of the Czech literature, but they primarily belong to Austrian literature. In addition, no serious work calls them "Germans" - this looks more like a propaganda of very right-wing (and Nazi) parties. You know that Austria was annexed 7 years by Nazi Germany (1938-1945) and of course the Nazi functionaries and propagandists incorporated all of Austrian literature written in German into the "German literature". I think the time after WW II corrected this image on both sides.

--D. Bogdan V. (talk) 22:45, 21 February 2011 (UTC)