Engel des Vergessens: Writing About the Carinthian Slovenians in German

Abstract

The German-written novel Engel des Vergessens problematizes the dilemma whether writing in “Other” language is a sign of progressing assimilation or it can symbolize breaking with the understanding of Slovenian minority in Austria as regional, and represents literary discourse of Carinthian Slovenians as a part of writing in “Other” language in a global context. From the aspect of a broader literary sphere, Maja Haderlap’s writing about socially and politically marginal narrative represents one of the many new forms of literary interaction going beyond the regional frame by telling the story about minority community. Literary discourse of Slovenians in Austria illustrates numerous intercultural and transnational interactions typical for a multilingual literary sphere that prove nonsense of the idea about mononational, monolingual literary discourse. Using German language in the Carinthian Slovenians’ novel means accepting both languages as a part of linguistic and national identity, and represents a way of understanding contemporary social dilemmas – “Who am I, to whom I belong?” – as part of a broader literary sphere where stories about minorities in Europe are written in the majority’s language. A context of the authors who like Maja Haderlap identify with the minority and write in the majority’s language, is being outlined by inclusion of two characteristic literary works: Kevin Vennemann’s Mara Kogoj and Vojnović’s Yugoslavia, My Country