Though the German Democratic Republic (GDR) collapsed in 1990, after 41 years of existence, the socialist state lives on – in schoolbooks, museums, novels, films and in the memories of those who witnessed the "workers' and peasants' state." With GDR memory being a highly embattled discourse in Germany more generally, we ask how the GDR is constructed in German film. This means more specifically, what stories are being told and what interpretations suggested within the broader GDR memory discourse? To answer these questions, we offer a comparative three-level-analysis of the feature films Balloon (2018) and Sealed Lips (2019). Looking at the film-immanent, the structural and the actor-centered level, we find that East German directors, producers or actors can bring different albeit divergent perspectives on the GDR in film whose construction is currently dominated by West German elites.
Analizzando le carte tematiche della Germania emerge che la Repubblica Democratica Tedesca è tuttora esistente: al variare della tematica analizzata la rappresentazione cartografica rimane pressoché invariata ed è tuttora chiaramente delineabile il vecchio confine. Gli ambiti in cui la differenziazione tra le due realtà territoriali appare maggiormente evidente sono numerosi: l'occupazione, l'orientamento politico, la confessione religiosa, l´evoluzione demografica, gli ambienti urbani e i servizi per l'infanzia. Le politiche e gli investimenti adottati sembrano non essere riusciti a incidere sufficientemente mostrando come a trent'anni dalla Riunificazione tali differenze non siano più riconducibili solo al periodo socialista. ; By analysing German thematic maps, it emerges that the old German Democratic Republic is still alive. No matter which theme is analysed the final cartographic representation remains nearly the same as the old boundaries are still clearly outlined. The fields which show the dif¬ferences between the two territories are many: employment, political orientation, religion, demographic trends, urban areas and childcare. Policies and investments have not been successful in defining a new development, and after thirty years these differences are no longer to be attributed only to the socialist era.
The reconstruction of the size and geographical distribution of properties that made up the dowers of the first three Ottonian queens makes possible to see the great importance of these assets, both for their large extension, both for the relevant strategic role dues to their location. Already Henry I, the first king of the dynasty, endowed his wife Matilda with numerous curtes that belonged to the area of oldest and strong presence of the Ottonian family, namely the eastern Saxony and Thuringia. Precisely, the control of these important goods was the cause of the fight between Matilda and her son Otto I when, in 938, the mother supported the claims to the throne of her younger son Henry during a revolt against Otto. The dower of Edgith, the first wife of Otto, was made from the large curtis of Magdeburg, which became a place of great symbolic and political importance thanks to the burial of the royal couple and for its elevation to Archdiocese which was entrusted with the supervision of slavic territories east of the Elbe. The set of the assets granted in Germany by Otto to Adelaide, his second wife, it's difficult to reconstruct in detail, but it was definitely of great extent in continuity with the dower of Matilda, although compared to this the curtes were spread across a wider area encompassing both the eastern Saxony and Thuringia, both Alsace and Franconia. ; Attraverso la ricostruzione della consistenza patrimoniale e della dislocazione territoriale dei beni che costituivano i dotari delle prime tre regine della dinastia ottoniana è possibile constatare la notevole importanza di tali beni sia per la loro cospicua estensione sia per la rilevante funzione strategica dovuta alla loro collocazione. Già Enrico I, il primo re della dinastia, dotò sua moglie Matilde con numerose curtes che appartenevano alla zona di più antico e forte radicamento della famiglia ottoniana, cioè la Sassonia orientale e la Turingia. Proprio il controllo di questi importanti beni fu la causa dello scontro fra Matilde e suo figlio Ottone I quando nel 938 la madre appoggiò le pretese al trono del figlio minore Enrico durante una rivolta contro Ottone. Il dotario di Edgith, la prima moglie di Ottone, era costituito dall'ampia curtis di Magdeburgo, che divenne luogo di grande rilevanza simbolica e politica grazie alla sepoltura della coppia regia e per la sua elevazione ad arcidiocesi cui fu affidato l'inquadramento dei territori slavi a est dell'Elba. L'insieme dei beni concessi in Germania da Ottone ad Adelaide, la sua seconda moglie, è di difficile ricostruzione nel dettaglio, ma era sicuramente di grande ampiezza in continuità con il dotario di Matilde, anche se rispetto a questo le curtes erano dislocate su un territorio più vasto comprendente sia la Sassonia orientale e la Turingia, sia l'Alsazia e la Franconia.
This article contributes to the debates around capitalism's adaptation and expansion in the context of multiple ecological crises. Specifically, the article defines these processes as capitalism's "green" turn or simply "green" capitalism and analyses them by focusing on renewable energy production, developing four theses. First, the leveraging of renewable energy production as an accumulation device is legitimised through a reframing of the discourse around the "environment" and its protection within an abstract universalist rationale, granting "green" credentials to it and the wider capitalist social relations. Second, renewable energy generation expands accumulation frontiers over not yet or "inefficiently" commodified ecosystem spaces, flows and stocks. This occurs through their privatisation and abstraction into fictitious capital –that is through their commodification and financialization. As a result and in contrast with marginalist approaches, this article reconciles the socially necessary labour time theory of value with political ecology. Third, the cost-effectiveness of investment in renewable energy production is structurally dependent on the socioeconomic marginality of production areas – through an interplaying of sustained accumulation and accumulation by dispossession. Fourth, "green" capitalism, in the sector of renewable energy generation, rests on a number of structural inequalities intimately related to its "green" legitimation. Methodologically, the article combines comprehensive theoretical elaborations and empirical observations. Theoretically, it adapts and expands to political ecology concepts from neighbouring disciplines, amongst others (i) abstract and concrete universalism, (ii) accumulation by dispossession, (iii) spatiotemporal fix and (iv) uneven development. Empirically, it builds upon case studies of two generation systems, one in southern Italy focused on wind energy and a second in eastern Germany focused on agricultural biogas, carried out between 2018 and 2019 through a ...
L'articolo esamina il ruolo di Gabriele Mucchi (1899-2002) nel contesto delle relazioni culturali tra Italia e Repubblica democratica tedesca nel corso degli anni Cinquanta, quindi prima del reciproco riconoscimento giuridico e della stipula di accordi bilaterali tra i due Stati. Pittore realista e militante comunista, Mucchi fu una figura chiave nel dibattito artistico della DDR, all'interno del quale il "Realismo" italiano costituì un contributo determinante al processo di autodeterminazione di un'arte tedesca e socialista. L'artista fu oggetto di una crescente attenzione da parte delle istituzioni culturali della DDR, che nel 1956 lo invitarono a ricoprire la cattedra di pittura presso la Scuola d'arte di Berlino Est, città dove avrebbe continuato a risiedere, alternandosi con l'Italia, anche in seguito alla caduta del Muro. Sulla base di documenti d'archivio inediti e di uno spoglio della stampa, l'articolo mette in luce le premesse e gli esordi della sua poliedrica attività nella DDR in ambito formativo, critico ed espositivo, analizzando al tempo stesso il suo particolare status come esempio di cooperazione tra Europa occidentale e orientale, e quindi come caso studio della Guerra fredda culturale. ; The essay deals with the role played by Gabriele Mucchi (1899-2002) in the context of the cultural relations between Italy and the German Democratic Republic in the 1950s, thus before the two States established diplomatic ties and bilateral agreements. A realist painter and communist activist, Mucchi was a key figure in the artistic debate of the GDR, where Italian "Realismo" played a key-role within the process of self-determination of a German and socialist art. Following a growing interest towards his work, the GDR authorities invited him as guest professor to the Art Academy in East Berlin, where he took up residence and lived throughout his life, albeit alternating with Italy. On the basis of unpublished archive sources and press reviews, the article highlights the premises and the early stages of Mucchi's art writing, teaching and exhibiting activity in East Germany, shedding light on his status as an example of cross-border partnership across divided Europe and as a significant case study for the Cultural Cold War.
Defence date: 2 March 2007 ; Examining Board: Prof. Victoria de Grazia (IUE) (Supervisor) ; Prof. Heinz-Gerhard Haupt (IUE) ; Prof. Paolo Capuzzo (Università di Bologna) ; Prof. Hannes Siegrist (Universität Leipzig). ; First made available online 25 June 2015. ; II presente lavoro prende in esame il periodo storico compreso tra il 1958 fino ai primi anni '80, ed è costituito da due sezioni concettuali speculari. ' La prima mira a investigare le modalità di instaurazione, strutturazione ed estensione del dispositivo che anima il consumo reai soci ali sta del secondo dopoguerra facendo leva su fonti differenziate che hanno aperto piste e prospettive di ricerca inusuali, legate in particolar modo alla pratica discorsiva e impolitica del consumo. La seconda sezione approfondisce, invece, la costruzione del l'immaginario del consumo socialista ovvero gli elementi che appartengono alla produzione e commercializzazione deirintrattenimento e allo sviluppo di importanti settori dell'industria culturale della DDR. Entrambe le sezioni della ricerca mostrano linee di discontinuità e fratture interpretative che non impediscono, però, la determinazione di un processo storico autonomo del fenomeno del consumo, osservato in Germania Est, terreno di rappresentazione fertile nel porre al centro dell'indagine storico culturale le forme impolitiche di determinazione degli equilibri sociali e politici di una determinata società. I fenomeni sociali e le pratiche istituzionali prese in analisi nel caso della DDR, corrispondono a fratture in cui sono stati ricercati gli elementi della formazione degli strati subalterni cosi come di una particolare classe agiata del socialismo, luogo politico dove le distinzioni sociali avrebbero dovuto lentamente scomparire, a vantaggio di una omogeneità sociale costruita su paradigmi redistributivi, di equità e privi di differenziazione e stigma di classe.
Starting with the 1950s, the European context saw the emergence of various movements of cultural dissent, which involved both western and eastern countries and led to forms of literary and artistic protest against the cultural and political establishment. In particular, underground movement - connected with the American scenario - and Neo-vanguard groups developed in Italy, France, and Germany, while the Soviet area was pervaded by the culture clandestinely disseminated by the Samizdat circuit. This contribution offers a comprehensive view of the multifaceted forms of literary, cultural, and artistic dissent considered by the essays collected here, with special attention to the differences between Western and Eastern areas. These two contexts, in fact, are addressed separately in the following sections: Neo-vanguard and contestation: the two forms of dissent in the western area and The kaleidoscopic planet of Soviet non-conformism: into, beyond and around the Samizdat. ; Starting with the 1950s, the European context saw the emergence of various movements of cultural dissent, which involved both western and eastern countries and led to forms of literary and artistic protest against the cultural and political establishment. In particular, underground movement - connected with the American scenario - and Neo-vanguard groups developed in Italy, France, and Germany, while the Soviet area was pervaded by the culture clandestinely disseminated by the Samizdat circuit. This contribution offers a comprehensive view of the multifaceted forms of literary, cultural, and artistic dissent considered by the essays collected here, with special attention to the differences between Western and Eastern areas. These two contexts, in fact, are addressed separately in the following sections: Neo-vanguard and contestation: the two forms of dissent in the western area and The kaleidoscopic planet of Soviet non-conformism: into, beyond and around the Samizdat.
In this article reference is made to a speech delivered by the Managing Director of CEMAT (the Italian national company for combined transport) illustrating the current outlook in the field of land intermodality in Eastern and Central Europe, as well as other issues connected to intermodal traffic relations between these countries and Western Europe. Particular attention is paid to the market for Combined Road rail Transport, both as accompanied and as non accompanied transport. These two sector are examined in an effort to detect the obstacles that are still preventing the expansion in Eastern and Central Europe of non accompanied transport techniques, now a minor phenomenon elsewhere. The analysis of the present outlook and the identification of current problems are followed by the initial steps that national governments and railway companies in these countries should make in order to upgrade transport to and from these areas. Lastly, reference is aimed to the action undertaken by national governments and transport companies of the three Western European countries having the largest share of intermodal connections with Eastern and Central Europe (Austria, Germany and Italy), particularly with reference to the Italian company CEMAT.
"Hilde Domin the committed writer" Political and literary issues in her correspondence with Günter Eich, Heinrich Böll and Erich Fried Lorenzo Bonosi1 Jewish-born Hilde Domin (1909-2006) returned to Germany in 1961 after more than twenty-three years of exile, spent in Italy, the UK, and the Dominican Republic. Ever since her first activities as a translator, poet and novelist, Domin criticized post-war Germany severely. Nevertheless, contrary to other exiled jewish-origin writers, Domin – who was defined as the 'Poetess of the return' by H.G. Gadamer – always proved to be ready to overcome and forgive, provided a systematic come-to-terms would take place in the newly-born Federal Republic of Germany. Despite Domin and Günter Eich were discussing the most urgent political issues of their time (eg. the role of the new left, the Middle East Issue, the German "Süsterhenn law" (for putting artistic liberty under the control of a moral law), they had a thoroughly different idea of poetry and engagement. Whereas Domin would openly take sides, Eich's lyric (including the Maulwürfe (1968)) never openly addressed a given, definite subject. It is no surprise thus that Eich always refused to interpret his own poems for the Domin-edited anthology Doppelinterpretationen (1965). The analysis of the discussion and the lyric work by Domin an Eich gives insight into the possible and actual role of poetry in contemporary society. Also with Heinrich Böll Domin debated relevant political issues of the time, but without any focus on the literary work as such. Domin was very critical towards the establishment of post-war (Western) Germany, mostly as Böll was, but, again, she expected him to explicitly take the field. The different idea of the writer vis-à-vis of society and politics becomes well evident with an open letter Domin wrote to Böll in 1971, to which he replied severely, stating that he wanted not to have any public image, nor to be one, and that Germany needed no preceptors. Thus, the major difference between Domin and Böll was their view of the intellectual's role in society. Contrary to Domin, Austrian exiled and London-based poet Erich Fried was programmatically writing – according to Domin – political poems. Their different view, both of technical literary issues, and of the political content becomes evident in the discussion about Fried's poems to be included in Domin's lyric anthology Nachkrieg und Unfrieden (1970), in which they discuss many literature topics, including poems by Paul Celan meant for the anthology. The correspondence deals with the so-called Roma-Affäre, an episode of racism against the Roma-community, the Middle-East Issue and the related German and Western positions, the Vietnam war, clarifying for instance the difference between poetry as such and the political poem. The study highlights Hilde Domin's relevant contribution to the discourse of memory in post-war Western Germany.
Tra "Corporeal Turn" e modelli biocognitivi la poesia e la psicoanalisi non cessano di testimoniare quanto la conoscenza umana sia sovradeterminata dalla dimensione fantasmatica che informa ritmo, stile e strategie retoriche dell'animale umano. La poesia e la psicoanalisi trasgrediscono i limiti della comunicazione autoconsapevole per cercare la complessità in modi e forme di espressione alternativi. Poesia e psicoanalisi mostrano una profonda sfiducia nel nominare, concettualizzare e definire e promuovono una conoscenza che elude dominio, padronanza e controllo mediante la ricerca di "un altro dire". Questa indagine sulla resistenza della psicoanalisi e della poesia al discorso attuale si sviluppa alla luce della produzione lirica e saggistica di Durs Grünbein, uno dei massimi poeti tedeschi contemporanei. L'opera di Grünbein, che ha trascorso più di 20 anni nella Germania orientale, dove è nato, esplora i processi creativi che presiedono al poetico ed emergono nella vita quotidiana, ogniqualvolta l'individuo si liberi dall'imposizione di categorie predeterminate. Concentrandosi sulle potenzialità in gioco nei processi inconsci, Durs Grünbein indaga la frammentarietà del mondo, la fragilità e la precarietà della vita creando oggetti poetici, le cui caratteristiche prosodiche, stilistiche, retoriche rinviano agli oggetti internalizzati della psicoanalisi. Anche il concetto freudiano di Bahnung viene chiamato in causa nella ricerca sui processi creativi qui indagati. ; Between Corporeal Turn and biocognitive models poetry and psychoanalysis do not cease to draw attention to the crucial importance of language in order to show that human knowledge is overdetermined with phantasmatic dimensions, which do express themselves in words, rythm and rhetorical strategies. Poetry and psychoanalysis transgress the limits of selfconscious communication and grow in complexity and alternative modes of expression by showing deep distrust in naming, conceptualising and defining, thus enhancing a knowledge which obviates mastery. This account of the inextricability of psychoanalysis and poetry is worked out in a reading of the lyrical and essaystic production of Durs Grünbein, one of the most eminent contemporary German poets. The works of the poet, who spent more then 20 years in East-Germany, where he was born, explore the creative processes that preside over poetic production and emerge in everyday life, whenever the individual breaks free from the imposition of preconceived categories thwarting human emotions and feelings. Focusing upon the creative potentialities at stake in unconscious processes, Grünbein investigates the fragmentariness of our world, the fragility and precariousness of life in order to represent the impingement of "Being" on prosodic and stylistic features inspired by poetic objects, whose shapes and motion of words on the page can be compared with the internalised objects of psychoanalysis. Freud's concept of Bahnung will also act as a beacon for navigating the creative strategies developed by Grünbein's production in coping with internal objects and projective identifications.
Anna Chiarloni, Professor Emeritus of German Literature at the University of Turin, talks about the collection of personal papers she recently donated to the university's Archivio Storico. She describes the corpus – mainly her correspondence with East and West German writers – and uses it as the basis to reflect on Germany's complex evolution from the Seventies until its reunification after the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Deeply involved in the literary debate in the DDR throughout her academic career, Chiarloni, thanks to her direct relationship with key figures on the country's cultural scene – Volker Braun, Heinz Czechowski, Heiner Müller and Christa Wolf – had the opportunity to document Die Wende (the period of political change after the fall of the wall) from the viewpoint of the intellectuals, anxious witnesses of the DDR's social and economic ruin, who faced an uncertain future in reunified Germany.
Anna Chiarloni, Professor Emeritus of German Literature at the University of Turin, talks about the collection of personal papers she recently donated to the university's Archivio Storico. She describes the corpus – mainly her correspondence with East and West German writers – and uses it as the basis to reflect on Germany's complex evolution from the Seventies until its reunification after the Fall of the Berlin Wall.Deeply involved in the literary debate in the DDR throughout her academic career, Chiarloni, thanks to her direct relationship with key figures on the country's cultural scene – Volker Braun, Heinz Czechowski, Heiner Müller and Christa Wolf – had the opportunity to document Die Wende (the period of political change after the fall of the wall) from the viewpoint of the intellectuals, anxious witnesses of the DDR's social and economic ruin, who faced an uncertain future in reunified Germany.
The article deals with the critical reception of Italian artist Renato Guttuso in Socialist Europe from the late Forties up to the early Sixties. A Communist activist and an outstanding personality of cultural diplomacy in post-war Europe, Guttuso enjoyed a wide exposure in Central and Eastern Europe, where his artwork circulated both within itinerant exhibitions and as reproductions in the press. A further reason for his popularity was provided by his activity as an art critic and author of pamphlets against the hegemony of abstract art in the West. In the Fifties, Guttuso's paintings were presented as the work of a "Western realist", thus playing a crucial role in the art debates of each host nations, but also ending up adapted to the State promoted cultural policies. In Central-eastern Europe, and more specifically in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the artist was greeted as an alternative to Soviet socialist realism, while in the German Democratic Republic as a master of anti-fascism, thus providing common ground for a shared critical discourse on interwar regimes, both in Italy and in Germany. Only starting from the late Fifties, Guttuso gained popularity in the Soviet Union as a neo-realist painter, thus echoing Italian popular cinema, which provided the critical framework for the reception and the popularization of his art. His first solo exhibition in the Soviet Union was planned and promoted in 1961 as a key event in the new cultural agenda between Italy and the USSR, paving the way for his popularity in the homeland of real existing socialism
The memory of the Great War in the official speeches at the Redipuglia Shrine. From the postwar reconstruction period to the Italian economic miracle. The Redipuglia shrine is the most important WWI Italian mausoleum, containing more than 100.000 corpses. It is located on the former eastern Italian front, in the multiethnic Julian march region. It was built under fascism in 1938, but the alliance with Nazi Germany and the coming war, led the regime to not perform any commemoration after the opening ceremony. The golden age of the Redipuglia Shrine in Italian national public discourse was after WWII, and continued to grasp public attention until the 1960s. Tensions between Italy and Yugoslavia for the sovereignty of the Julian march and the massive participation of living Great War veterans made Redipuglia a perfect stage for Italian government politicians, such as De Gasperi and Moro. In this impressive memorial, authorities could deliver speeches in which they were able to integrate WWI into Republican national identity, choosing the memories of the Great War that fitted best with their political agenda. Based on historical newspaper and scientific literature, the article describes the relationship among the Italian state, the public memory of WWI and the Redipuglia shrine from the 1940s to the 1960s.
Ausgehend von der Liste ausländischer Jüdinnen und Juden, die 1938 von der römischen Polizeidirektion erstellt wurde, zielt der Beitrag darauf, die Geschichte der mehrere Hundert Personen umfassenden Gruppe von Ausländern jüdischer Abstammung, die sich zwischen 1933 und 1945 zeitweilig in der italienischen Hauptstadt aufhielten bzw. hier lebten, zu rekonstruieren. Nach Hitlers Machtergreifung verließen viele Jüdinnen und Juden Deutschland, um der Gewalt und Verfolgung durch das Regime zu entgehen. Mit der Ausdehnung des nationalsozialistischen Machtbereichs auf weite Teile Europas floss auch eine wachsende Zahl aus Österreich, Polen und den osteuropäischen Regionen nach Italien und Rom. Mit Kriegseintritt begann schließlich eine neue Phase, schritt man doch zur Verhaftung und Internierung der als Feinde eingestuften ausländischen Juden, die sich auf italienischem Territorium befanden. Nach einem Überblick über die Entwicklung der Ausländerpolitik des faschistischen Regimes und über die antijüdischen Gesetze von 1938 wird diese Gruppe typologisch beschrieben (Wohnlage und -situation, Arbeitstätigkeit, soziale Zugehörigkeit), wobei auch einige persönliche Lebenswege näher beleuchtet werden. Letztendlich geht es darum, über den von Klaus Voigt geprägten Begriff der "Zuflucht auf Widerruf" erneut nachzudenken und zu überlegen, warum viele jüdische Flüchtlinge gerade Rom wählten, um der Verfolgung durch die Nationalsozialisten zu entgehen. ; This essay aims to reconstruct the history of the hundreds of non-Italian Jews who passed through Rome or lived there between 1933 and 1944. The analysis centres on the records of foreign Jews drafted by the Police headquarters. When the Nazis gained power in Germany, many German Jews left their country to escape the violence of Hitler's regime. With Nazi influence expanding throughout Europe, an increasing number of Jews from Austria, Poland and the regions of eastern Europe migrated towards Italy, particularly to Rome. The start of the war opened a new political phase, marked ...
