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The following essay is based on the narrative Die schiefe Fassade der Kindheit. Erfundene Familienkunde written by Eginald Schlattner. The action takes place in Transylvania, a region where several nations live together. The key concepts are identity and alterity, because only by analysing the other one can find and understand one’s own identify. The traits of the communities living together are portraited by Aunt Maly, a strong supporter of the German traditions and by Grisi, the grandmother, who presents the mentality of her people as opposed to the Romanian people. The story also reveals the conflicts between these two ethnical groups. Nevertheless life in Transylvania can be seen as an example of how people belonging to different cultures can peacefully live together.
This article focuses on the phenomenon of interculturality within the framework of “Poveştile Peleşului”/”Tales of the Pelesh” by Carmen Sylva, the Poet-Queen. Being of German origin and having studied in Germany, but transposed as queen of the Romanian people to a totally different cultural space, Carmen Sylva wants to present the culture of her adoptive country to her home country. She succeeds in doing this through her own works or by translating some Romanian literary works into German, which she propagates in the German language space. Starting from a theoretical basis referring to interculturality, this article refers to the hybrid character of “Poveştile Peleşului”/”Tales of the Pelesh”, to some aspects of presenting alterity, concluding that the author is extremely interested in the culture of the Romanian people, whose language she learned, her ultimate scope being that of bringing the two cultures – the German and the Romanian culture – closer to one another.
This article aims to trace different hypostases of alterity as they occur in the novel Vaterlandstage (Days at Home) by contemporary Romanian-born German author Dieter Schlesak. The paper draws on the distinction suggested by Volker Barth between the concepts “das Fremde” (i.e. “the stranger” that remains unknowable and impossible to control) and “das Andere” (i.e. “the other” which is excluded as a result of othering). The analysis of the way in which these two forms of alterity are represented in the novel shows that they go beyond the ethnic and cultural meaning of the terms and are closely linked to Schlesak’s antimimetic poetics, his identity concept based on estrangement and not-belonging as well as to his rejection of a materialist view of the world.