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In the context of globalisation and internationalisation, multilingualism and intercultural interaction are indispensable prerequisites that are desired in all areas. The focus of this paper is to highlight the importance and necessity of multilingualism and intercultural dialogue on the example of Timișoara. The beginnings and traces of multilingualism and the intercultural dimension of Timișoara can be traced based on the geography and history of the city alone. Considering these historical, political, social, cultural and economic prerequisites, this paper presents how the intercultural character and multilingualism of the Banat capital has led it to become a unique phenomenon in Europe, and how it has influenced the history and existence of this region of Romania. The good interethnic relations between the minorities shape the spirit of this city and have helped Timișoara become the European Capital of Culture 2021.The multicultural character of the city has also enabled the emergence of numerous cultural institutions, educational institutions, associations and organisations, which in turn promote this diversity of languages and intercultural interaction.
In the phenomenon of globalization, the foreign language skills are part of both scientific field and everyday life. Though the number of learners of German decreased in the last twenty years, German seems to be again in greater demand as a foreign language all over the world. In the Romanian universities, the study of the German language continues to arouse great interest in the recent years. The following article deals with the role that German language plays in our country, and it tries to find answers regarding the Banat region/area, by using the example of the Polytechnic University of Timișoara. Another topic that the author emphasizes is the contribution of German as a foreign language - lessons in promoting the German language and culture in the Banat region.
Herta Müller’s leaning towards word for word transfer of Romanian set phrases in her texts can be explained by the environment in which she lived until her emigration to West Germany and this admittedly intensifies with the gradually increasing general interest in multi-lingualism. The fact that the authoress speaks of the German-Romanian transfer in her acceptance speech on the occasion of the Nobel Prize award proves the important role, which Hertha Müller ascribes to this procedure. Also at the centre of the latest books by Balthasar Waitz stands the multicultural region of the Banat. The author seems to be gripped by the plurilingualism of the immediate surroundings of his homeland. Different forms of Romanian, from slang to everyday speech, but occasionally also Hungarian, Slovak and Serbian phrases find their way into the texts of the Banat author. In this manner just as with Hertha Müller, language images come into being, new light. Thus literary multilingualism in both writers enables one to have a novel access to the relation between literature and reality.
Here the German language acts as a bridge between Eastern and Western Europe playing an important role. It is exactly on the Banat with its multicultural tradition that many hopes are pinned. The introduction of the subject German Cultural Studies within the framework of the Communication Sciences at the “Polytechnic” University Timișoara is only a stepping stone, but in the given context this is however a sign that betokens our will to participate in the task of building the linguistic and cultural bridge. The present paper elaborates on starting points towards a cultural history of the Banat.
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.
In the novel "The Land of Green Plums" (1994) the author renders an apocalyptic image of Romania during the communist dictatorship, Timişoara representing the tragic background of the narrated events. From this perspective, language becomes for Herta Müller a way of distancing from the dictatorial system, the author managing to express, through specific processes of language, the circumstances hat generated those events. The aphorisms and the idioms used in the text express the wrong behavior and communication mechanisms of the protagonists, demonstrating the presence of the security forces and of the dictatorship. The author often appeals to repetitions to highlight the continuous threat and the repression force of the authorities. Thus, the language is for Herta Müller a form of resistance against the totalitarian regime and the only place of expressing freedom, even under the dictatorship.
In comparison to the Transsylvanian-Saxon or to the German-speaking Bukowina literature the modernists exerted a more reduced influence on the literature of the Banat Swabians. Franz Xaver Kappus (1883-1966) influenced the literary modernists in the Western part of Romania especially through his expressionistic texts. He became famous thanks to his correspondence with Rainer Maria Rilke. The masterpiece Die lebenden Vierzehn (The Fourteeen Survivors) (1918) is swayed by a collective catastrophe and represents a certain kind of utopia, which anticipates the end of the world. A dread causing image with a peculiar unreality shapes the event. Kappus’ fantasy does not shrink back from images of dread and horror. As in the expressionistic literature any destruction of the harmonious beautiful principle comes about in dread. The grotesque features belong to the expressionistic character of the book. It is interesting that the dreadful and the grotesque show their demonic side and with it they destroy the familiar reality. Such a development demonstrates that Kappus follows a tradition to which also E. T. A. Hoffmann, Frank Wedekind, Franz Kafka or Georg Heym belong. There are also streaks of naturalism in the novel.
German-language literature of the Banat develops under specific historical circumstances amidst a multiethnic Region, in which the multiple social-political, religious and linguistic relations to Romanians, Hungarians, Serbs and Jews find their immediate expression. The beginning of the German-language writings of the Banat Swabians are under the aegis of the Austrian model, especially of the Viennese model. Here one mainly includes the extremely stimulating press and theater tradition of the Banat, which can still be remarked in the interwar period, and which created the conditions for the unfolding of a lively spiritual life. Johann Friedel born in Timișoara, an outstanding representative of Josephine epistolary satire, was considered on account of his novels and letters to be the founder of the local German-language writings by several scholars.