Биографичното писане като диалог.Събиране и използване на автобиографични текстове по примера на „Архива за житейски разкази“ към Виенския университет
Writing Life-Stories in Dialogue (The example of collecting and interpreting life stories in the „Dokumentation lebensgeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen“

Summary/Abstract: The „Dokumentation lebensgeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen“, founded in 1983 and since then based on an interdisciplinary research group at the Department of Economic and Social History, University of Vienna, is an archival institution, specialized in collecting autobiographical writings as sources for historical, cultural and sociological research. The collection actually contains manuscripts of about 2300 writers, born between 1740 and 1960 mainly in the area of Austria resp. the former Austro-Hungarian-Monarchy. The collection includes different kinds of personal testimonies, especially autobiographies and reminiscence texts on events and experiences of one’s own life, written down in retrospect, often by inexperienced writers with low educational background. Autobiographical writing cannot be regarded as a solitary act as well as autobiographies cannot simply be analysed in a traditional way as given historical sources. Writing life history, on principle, has to be conceived as a process of communication, emerging from a certain social and historical context and following some individual and social requests. Elementary pragmatic dimensions of human communication can be located in every autobiographical document as well and even correspond with some of the main motivations of “popular” (i. e. common) autobiographical writing: to reflect and articulate oneself (expression), to document and preserve one’s own experiences as a witness of history (presentation) and to make them known and pass them on to others, especially to offspring or younger people in general (appeal). This approach to autobiographical writing as a substantially interactive process of communication has been embodied in the practice that beyond collecting complete autobiographical manuscripts the writing of life history is also actively encouraged by staff of the archive: for example by placing calls for the production of autobiographical texts in magazines and radio programmes, by organizing narrative circles for elderly people, by active correspondence with contributors and individuals interested in writing down their reminiscences or by publishing selected autobiographical materials in a book series of memoirs. By doing all this the archive and its team takes a certain position in a field of biographical communication. Some important aspects of the interaction between archive and autobiographers are described in the second half of the article. First of all, the „Dokumentation lebensgeschichtlicher Aufzeichnungen“, as an institution settled between academic research and society, must constantly reflect its role within the social and academic discourse about biographical issues. An awareness of the possible impact on the autobiographical culture of a society can help to differentiate historical and contemporary dimensions of certain features and contents of autobiographical texts, which could for example be influenced by the institution’s publishing policy...

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