Geschichte aus alten Zeiten versus Gefühlte Opfer. Zum Unbehagen an deutscher Erinnerungskultur in Iris Hanikas Das Eigentliche (2010)
Tale of Immemorial Time Versus Compassion for Victim: Memory Apprehension in Das Eigentliche by Iris Hanika (2010)

Summary/Abstract: In her novel Das Eigentliche Iris Hanika applies ideological criticism strategies to cover the mechanism of transmitting the meaning which are inherent to the current memory acts of Shoah. Hanikas novel focuses on two different sorts of memorial semantics. On the one hand the author covers by the figure of the melancholic archivist the mythologisation of the Shoah discourse which manifests in the process of losing of genuine sense of the contemporary communication about Shoah. On the other hand the protagonist who seems to be grown tired of the ‘Shoah business’ makes an attempt in breaking out of the institutional remembering frames. In his longing for an authentic remembering he tries to evoke the empathy for annihilation of the European Jews.

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