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Tracing History Through Berlin's Topography: Historical Memories and Post‐1989 Berlin Narratives
Author(s) -
CostabileHeming Carol Anne
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
german life and letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 12
eISSN - 1468-0483
pISSN - 0016-8777
DOI - 10.1111/j.0016-8777.2005.00324.x
Subject(s) - multitude , narrative , reading (process) , history , capital city , art history , capital (architecture) , focus (optics) , sociology , anthropology , visual arts , art , literature , archaeology , geography , philosophy , economic geography , law , political science , epistemology , physics , optics
As the capital of united Germany, Berlin has sought to navigate a multitude of pasts, as it defines its image in the twenty‐first century. The city's topography provides ample examples of the multiple remnants of the past, which are visible not only in the city's architectural heritage, but also hidden beneath the city's barren spaces. Whereas others have investigated the architectural and archaeological dimensions of the rebuilt Berlin, I focus on the ways that Berlin novels in the late 1990s have embedded discussions about these barren spaces into their stories. This essay presents a close reading of F. C. Delius's Die Flatterzunge , Peter Schneider's Eduards Heimkehr , and Michael Kleeberg's Ein Garten im Norden . Each text reveals that Berlin's history and topography are intertwined intricately, a condition that has a profound impact on the city's residents. Insofar as the creators of the New Berlin's image cannot ignore the multiple pasts that suffuse the city, these novelists and their protagonists equally are incapable of escaping their own national history. This essay thus analyses the three protagonists’ engagement with the city's geographic spaces as they confront the impact that Berlin's past legacies continue to have on their lives.