LFU:online

You will have become familiar with the most important postcolonial theories and critically examined the application of these theories to examples from Slavic literatures and cultures.

There was only one empire in Eastern Europe: the Russian Tsarist Empire. Although it had hardly any 'traditional' colonies - Russian Somaliland was a short-lived exception in 1889 - numerous colonial constellations can be found here: in the 19th century, the romantic-orientalizing view of the subjugation of the Caucasus as well as the oppression of the Polish 'brother nation' in the course of the three partitions of Poland and the Russian 'internal' colonization of Siberia. From the outside, the Austro-Hungarian imperial view of the Balkans and Galicia should be mentioned in this context. In the 20th century, the Soviet Union's schizophrenic relationship to imperialism is striking: in 1916, Lenin criticized imperialism as the "latest stage of capitalism", but later the Soviet Union itself was to develop an imperial appetite, which some authors countered in the 1980s with the literary concept of 'Central Europe'.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the states of the Warsaw Pact had to reorient themselves between East and West and try to shed their role as subalterns; however, Russian imperialism is far from over, as Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law, shows. We must also not forget our Western exoticizing view of Eastern Europe, which is difficult to escape.

In the seminar we will discuss the most important postcolonial theories (Spivak, Bhabha, Said, Anderson, etc.) and we will use Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, German, Czech and BKMS texts to consider how these theoretical concepts can help to reveal (post-)colonial dynamics in Slavic literatures and cultures.

Flipped classroom - you prepare texts in self-study and work on assignments; the time spent in class can be used for plenary discussions and to clarify open questions. Primary and secondary texts as well as short video lectures are used as preparatory material.

Short weekly texts, oral presentation, term paper.

Will be announced

BA (for students of the Bachelor and Master’s Programme), no prerequisites for students of the Teacher’s Programme