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This thesis introduces chosen works of contemporary German literature, which connects the historical milestone "Wende". The analysed authors and works are Claudia Rusch - Aufbau Ost, Ingo Schulze - Simple Storys, Yadé Kara - Selam Berlin and Wladimir Kaminer - Russendisko. It is an interdisciplinary literary-historical thesis, which compares the literary fiction (use of single literary tools) with the historical reality and its adaptation in technical publications. The historical insight and the inclusion of chosen works to the contemporary developmental trends of literature represent the theoretical introduction of thesis. The actual analysis of two pairs of writers and their works (Rusch - Schulze and Kara - Kaminer) takes the authors origin into consideration, mentions shortly their biography and relation to the work. The structural analysis of works follows, with the focus on literary interpretation of social and political events of the year 1989. The goal of the thesis was to point out the historical context, which determines understanding of analysed literary works. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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 Institut 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.

Günter Kochan (1930-2009) war einer der erfolgreichsten und bekanntesten Komponisten der DDR. Er hinterließ über 200 Werke, darunter zahlreiche bedeutende sinfonische Arbeiten, die jedoch nach der Wende größtenteils in Vergessenheit gerieten. Kochan galt als staatsnaher Komponist und wurde dementsprechend nach 1990 an den Rand gedrängt, seine Musik wurde nun vor allem nach ihrem politischen Inhalt hinterfragt und geriet aufgrund ausbleibender Aufführungen und Neuveröffentlichungen alsbald in Vergessenheit. Die Arbeit behandelt das Spannungsfeld zwischen auferlegten kulturpolitischen Regeln und individuellem künstlerischen Entfaltungsstreben vor dem Hintergrund der offiziellen Leitlinie des "sozialistischen Realismus" in der DDR. Sie beleuchtet dieses exemplarisch anhand der Biographie und des Schaffens von Günter Kochan. Nach einer allgemeinen Darstellung der DDR-Kulturpolitik von 1949-1990, einer Kurzbiographie und einem Überblick über Kochans Gesamtschaffen konzentriert sich die Arbeit auf die Analyse und den Vergleich der 2. und 6. Sinfonie (entstanden 1969 und 2006), die als Beispiele für Kochans musikalische Hauptdomäne herangezogen werden und an denen typische Merkmale seiner Musik im mittleren und im greiften Stil vergleichend herausgearbeitet werden. Die Arbeit baut auf mehreren Interviews mit Vertrauten Kochans auf und nutzt zudem bisher wenig bis gar nicht beachtete Quellen sowie bisher unveröffentlichte Werke Kochans. Sie ist die erste Gesamtdarstellung zu Leben und Werk des Komponisten und enthält zudem das erste vollständige, systematisch und chronologisch geordnete Werkverzeichnis der Kompositionen Günter Kochans sowie eine Übersicht der derzeit verfügbaren Tondokumente.