• Wer ist hier der Feind? Verbündete und Gegner in Alexander Solschenizyns Darstellung von Deutschland

    Author(s):
    Elisa Kriza (see profile)
    Date:
    2020
    Group(s):
    LLC 20th- and 21st-Century German, LLC Russian and Eurasian, Soviet and Russian history and culture
    Subject(s):
    Solzhenit︠s︡yn, Aleksandr Isaevich, 1918-2008, World War (1939-1945), Antisemitism, Nationalism, Germany, Cold War (1945-1989), Comparative literature--Russian and German, Politics and literature
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Russian, German
    Permanent URL:
    https://doi.org/10.17613/186y-kc63
    Abstract:
    The prominent Russian writer and Nobel Prize Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) was known mainly for his work on the Soviet prison camps. In many of his fictional and non-fiction works, however, Solzhenitsyn dealt with the subject of Germany. This article analyses Solzhenitsyn's depiction of Germany in the works August 1914, The Gulag Archipelago, and shorter non-fiction texts. The aim is to assess Solzhenitsyn's interpretation of Germany in the context of the two World Wars and the Cold War. Complex opposites and friend-foe paradigms characterise the portrayal of Germany and its relation to Russia in Solzhenitsyn's work. Solzhenitsyn suggests a bond of fate between Russia and Germany. Yet it was his trivialising discussion of Nazi crimes that became particularly relevant to his German reception, as well as his benevolent interpretation of the denazification process. Solzhenitsyn's admiration for German troops in the First World War and his views on Nazism are examined here in the context of the author's anti-communism, nationalism, and anti-Semitism. A discussion of paradigmatic texts from his (West) German reception during the Cold War illustrates the complexity of Solzhenitsyn's historical interpretations and the different responses to them.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Journal article     Show details
    Pub. DOI:
    https://doi.org/10.1111/glal.12265
    Publisher:
    Wiley
    Pub. Date:
    2020-4-8
    Journal:
    German Life and Letters
    Volume:
    73
    Issue:
    2
    Page Range:
    312 - 338
    ISSN:
    0016-8777,1468-0483
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    11 months ago
    License:
    Attribution-NoDerivatives
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