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Due to the fact he describes the south-eastern European area, Oscar Walter Cisek is a unique case in the German expression literature in Romania. It is praiseworthy the way he experiments on the oriental space in the short story Die Tatarin, the way he outlines the Balkan atmosphere in the story Spiel in der Sonne, or how successfully he renders the archaic atmosphere in the novels Strom ohne Ende and Vor den Toren. Thus, a reader has the opportunity to discover the motley world of Balcic, of the periphery of Bucharest, of the Danube Delta or Maramures area.
This study analyses the role of the Romanian language in Christian Hallers novel Die verschluckte Musik (2008). The Romanian words are linked to the content and symbolical context, and also to intimacy or strangeness. Single words and expressions are connected to memories and rituals. For the family residing in Bucharest they are everyday elements. By migration they become cultural artefacts, are included in family stories. In the new home country Switzerland, the Romanian language is an element of intimacy. The language is also a method of exclusion and dissociation. Ruth, the first-person narratorʼs mother, is excluded in Bucharest until she learns the national language. In the Swiss environment the already familiar Romanian language is for Ruth a method of dissociation. For the first-person narrator, the few Romanian words are details connected to gastronomic culture which distinguish him from the Swiss environment. While travelling through Bucharest, the Romanian language becomes a method of exclusion, it is connected to an area that was not attainable for a long period. His journey updates the language for him.