Das Wort was a literary journal published by German Communist writers and fellow-travelers exiled in Moscow from 1936 to 1939. It was to be a mouthpiece for German literature in exile and to promote the Popular Front policy, which sought to unite disparate elements in non-Fascist Europe in opposition to the Nazis. Das Wort, under the editorship of German Communist writers whose close association with the Soviet Union had been well established in the previous decade, tried to provide a forum for exiled writers of various political persuasions, but was unwavering in its positive portrayal of Stalin's Soviet Union and the policies of that country. As the level of hysteria grew with the successive purges and public show trials in the Soviet Union, the journal adopted an even more eulogistic and militant attitude: any criticism or expression of doubt about Soviet policy was equated with support for Fascism. Thus the ability of the journal to contribute to the formation of a true common front in Europe to oppose Fascism was compromised from the outset by its total support for the Soviet Union. The Popular Front policy foundered on this issue, and that portion of German literature in exile which was to form the first generation of East German literature was inextricably bound to the Soviet Union well before the German Democratic Republic came in to existence.

La présente thèse analyse les textes de fiction de l’écrivain berlinois Klaus Schlesinger sous l’angle de l’écriture de l’histoire. Né en 1937 à Berlin-Est, cet auteur important mais encore sous-estimé connaît cinq régimes différents au cours de son existence – l’Allemagne national-socialiste, l’Allemagne occupée, la RDA (de 1949 à1980), la RFA (de 1980 à 1989), l’Allemagne unifiée – et autant de ruptures majeures dont son œuvre rend compte : révélation de l’ampleur des crimes nazis, réorientations dans l’après-guerre et le socialisme en construction, instauration du Mur de Berlin, « dissidence » et passage à l’Ouest dans le sillage de l’affaire Biermann, puis chute du Mur, disparition de la RDA, réunification. Si un découpage en quatre grandes périodes d’écriture permet d’éclairer un itinéraire intellectuel et politique, l’analyse porte d’abord sur la façon dont Schlesinger représente ce demi-siècle d’histoire allemande, son impact sur les individus et les questions qu’il a soulevées (héritage du passé, place de l’individu dans le socialisme « réellement existant », les sociétés capitalistes ou la guerre froide, utopie, identité). Elle s’intéresse aux choix narratifs et formels opérés dans chaque texte et souligne les enjeux indissociablement historiographiques, moraux, politiques et identitaires dont ils ont été à chaque fois porteurs. Puisant à plusieurs sources théoriques (Ricœur, Foucault, de Certeau, Turner, Geertz), elle met en lumière la nature singulière des espaces souvent hétérotopiques ou liminaux où Schlesinger fait évoluer ses personnages et observe l’écriture de fiction comme un lieu privilégié d’appréhension et de construction de soi dans l’histoire. Centrée sur les textes de fiction, l’analyse exploite également les essais et les textes autobiographiques, ainsi que les archives du fonds Schlesinger de l’Akademie der Künste à Berlin (correspondance, ébauches et fragments, dossiers de surveillance de la Stasi, recensions et coupures de presse, entretiens). / This thesis analyses the fictional texts of Berlin author Klaus Schlesinger under the aspect of history-writing. Born in 1937 in East-Berlin, this important yet still under-estimated writer lived under five different regimes – national-socialist Germany, occupied Germany, the GDR (from 1949 to 1980), the FRG (from 1980 to 1989), unified Germany – and as many major changes that find reflection in his work: the revelation of the scope of Nazi crimes, the reorientations in the post-war era and under the socialist regime, the building of the Berlin Wall, political “dissidence” and exile in the West in the wake of the Biermann affair, then the fall of the Wall, the disappearance of the GDR and German unification. While the analysis falls into four chronological periods, thus allowing for an overview of his intellectual and political itinerary, the thesis primarily focuses on the way Schlesinger represented this half-century of German history, its impact on individuals and the questions that arose from it (the heritage of the past, the individual’s position in “real”-socialism, in capitalist societies or the Cold war, utopia, identity). It looks at the narrative and formal choices made in each text and underlines the historiographical, moral, political and personal-identity questions inextricably linked to them. Drawing from several theoretical sources (Ricœur, Foucault, de Certeau, Turner, Geertz), it underlines the specific nature of the often heterotopical or liminal spaces in which Schlesinger places his characters and interprets fictional writing as a privileged space of self-apprehension and self-construction in history. While focused on the fictional writings, the analyses also uses the author’s essays and autobiographical texts as well as the Klaus Schlesinger archives of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin (correspondence, first drafts, text fragments, Stasi surveillance files, reviews, interviews).

<p><i>Children of Globalization: Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels in Germany, England, and the United States </i>is an exploration of contemporary Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels written in the context of globalized and de facto multicultural societies. Framed in the long tradition of <i>Bildungsroman </i>studies, this study illuminates the structural transformations that the coming-of-age genre has undergone in contemporary diasporic communities. <i>Children of Globalization</i> analyzes the complex identity formation of first- and subsequent-generation migrant protagonists in globalized rural and urban environments and dissects the implications that these diasporic formative processes have for the tercentennial genre. While the most traditional iteration of the <i>Bildungsroman </i>genre follows male middle-class heroes who forge their identities in a process of complex introspection to become citizens and workers, contemporary Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels represent formative processes that fit into, resist, or even disregard, narratives of nationhood. Recent changes in the global genre are the direct consequence of the intricacies of the formative processes of culturally-hybrid protagonists who must negotiate their access into adulthood and citizenship, and puzzle over sexuality and gender identity, in host societies that at times regard them with contempt and distrust. The study spans three centuries as it traces both perennial and volatile elements of the genre through its contemporary state. In doing so, it identifies thematic and structural seeds which, planted through the centuries in varied locations, have bloomed into nuanced explorations of the self in an interconnected world where regional and national definitions of identity are increasingly contested and in flux.</p><p>In order to contextualize the genre and provide evidence of its enduring malleability, the study begins in Germany, tracing what I term Proto-<i>Bildungsromane, </i>long medieval narrative poems that follow the formative processes of knights and heroes in grandiose style. Wolfram von Eschenbach’s thirteenth-century poem <i>Parzival </i>and the coeval Gottfried von Straßburg’s <i>Die Geschichte der Liebe von Tristan und Isolde </i>ponder the development of the self but too heavily rely on destiny to be considered <i>Bildungsromane. </i>Still in Germany, I illustrate the fundamental characteristics of the genre in Wolfgang von Goethe’s <i>Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. </i>In order to showcase the flexibility of the genre, I analyze its early transformations in England in prominent works by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, and E. M. Forster. The last four chapters focus on the exciting development of Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels in England, the United States, and Germany. Despite the stark differences between these societies and the particular cultural wealth of diasporic groups that have migrated there, the Diasporic Coming-of-age Novel has enabled sophisticated explorations of identity and belonging in all three countries. As the chapter summaries show, contemporary writers have used the Diasporic Coming-of-age Novel to untangle complicated formative processes, understand the expectations of their social environments, and achieve different levels of belonging and maturity.</p><p>With <i>Children of Globalization, </i>I seek to deepen our understanding of the exciting influence that contemporary diasporic movements have on the coming-of-age genre in particular and literary studies in general. Additionally, it is my hope that the exploration of Diasporic Coming-of-age Novels contributes to a capacious understanding of the important role of literature in the study of migration.</p>