Von Europas Mittelpunkt(en). Zur ‚literarischen Landkarte‘ von Karl-Markus Gauß’ Essayistik
The Centre(s) of Europe. Literary Mapping in Karl-Markus Gauß’s Essays

Summary/Abstract: Karl-Markus Gauß’s writing on Europe is well-known nowadays. His essays explore Central and South-East Europe and focus on minorities, peripheries, borderlands. Not only historical knowledge is necessary in order to map and depict Europe this way, but also a cartographical orientation and sense of spatial order. External and internal borders are vague and blurred in the literary cartography of Gauß, also because they are permanently in motion – just like the Europeans. Thus, a definite and self-evident centre of Europe is not identified in Gauß’s reports and narration about Europe. My article uses the former Iron curtain and the Donau region to draft two coordinates – one from north to south, the other from west to east –, whose crossing could be regarded as a centre of sorts, but both these coordinates and their crossing result from Gauß’s reading and writing, and his cultural interests, rather than from geopolitical factors. Thus, a centre of Europe in the sense of a centre of power is not established. Instead, this procedure points to Gauß’s essay writing, which tends to place spaces of crossing, mixing and overlapping in the centre. Thus, Europe has several centres and the essay as a format that allows movement between genres and writing modes corresponds well to Europe in motion.

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