نبذة مختصرة : The fall of the Berlin Wall, reunification of Germany and the restoration of independence of Lithuania marked a major turning point (Germ. Wende) at the end of the twentieth century and brought significant changes in all social spheres of the two countries. Reflections on these events and their consequences found their place in contemporary German and Lithuanian fiction. The present research focuses on the phenomenon of Wende in contemporary German and Lithuanian novels by K. Drawert, W. Hilbig, S. Parulskis, V. Papievis, R. Šerelytė, and A. H. Hünnigger, all of which are considered to be part of Wende-literature. The turning point brings not only a confrontation between the familiar and the alien orders, but also involves issues existing beyond any order. Therefore, as a borderline phenomenon, it highlights the unique experience of alienation whose reflection is a characteristic feature of the poetic concept of Wende-literature. The dissertation defines the concept of Wende-literature, investigates the poetic nature of German and Lithuanian Wende-novels and highlights their specific features to function as productive responses to Wende-experience. The analysis draws on B. Waldenfels’ phenomenology of the alienation, the concept of literary hermeneutics by A. Leskovec, a study of metaphoricity of radical alienation by T. Jentsch and other relevant research in Lithuania and abroad. The dissertation is a first attempt to carry out an extensive comparison of German and Lithuanian Wende-novels, identify their individual and universal features and capture their inherent poetics of alienation created by the compositional arrangement of characters and abundance of metaphorical descriptions.
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