Ewiger Odysseus: Irrwege und Leiden odysseischer Migranten und ihre Rekurrenz in unserer Zeit
The Eternal Ulysses: The Wanderings and Suffering of Migrants in Odyssey and Nowadays

Summary/Abstract: South-Eastern-Europe and the Mediterranean area have always been marked by migrations both at the individual and collective level, due to poverty and famine, war, deportation and all manner of oppression. In the last century migration was huge because of the Second World War. Nowadays, migrants from the third world desperately try to penetrate into the European “fortress” in order to get the status of asylum seeker. Generally migrants take risks that can be fatal or could cause endless itinerancy. Once accepted in another country, they must face another hardship, namely professional and social integration. Besides, longing for one’s country is a serious hindrance even for those who succeed to achieve at both levels because nostalgia begets phantasmas. Either way, the return of the migrant is dubitable. The current mass migration in the Mediterraneean regions could be seen as a recurrence of actions that took place in Homer’s time. In an exemplary manner, this poetic narrative capitalizes for posterity on circumstances, itineraries and destinies specific of the primordial migration in that territory. In my article I have suggested a reinterpretation of Homer’s epic text starting from faithfulness to the literal text in order to bring forward broad associations and similarities between such documents we have of past and current European migration.

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