Deutschsprachige Kinder- und Jugendliteratur während der Zwischenkriegszeit und im Exil: Schwerpunkt Österreich ed. by Susanne Blumesberger, Jörg Thunecke

Abstract

Reviewed by: Deutschsprachige Kinder- und Jugendliteratur während der Zwischenkriegszeit und im Exil: Schwerpunkt Österreich ed. by Susanne Blumesberger, Jörg Thunecke Kirsten A. Krick-Aigner Susanne Blumesberger and Jörg Thunecke, eds., Deutschsprachige Kinder- und Jugendliteratur während der Zwischenkriegszeit und im Exil: Schwerpunkt Österreich. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2017. 344 pp. English-speaking readers today may not be aware that Walt Disney’s celebrated 1942 animated film Bambi was based on Bambis Kinder, written 1938 by the forcibly exiled Austrian Felix Salten, or that popular 1930s U.S. proletarian children’s books were translations of works by the Austrian Hermynia von [End Page 143] Mühlen. This volume on German-speaking children’s and young adult (YA) literature written between the world wars and in the postwar period, focuses on these aforementioned and other underrepresented works and fills a much-needed void in scholarship. The articles are the result of a 2014 conference in Vienna led by the editors Susanne Blumesberger and Jörg Thunecke. This edition follows Blumesberger’s 2014 two-volume reference book on children’s and YA literature by Austrian women authors. The volume at hand is comprised of fourteen articles in German that are grouped thematically, ranging from socialist and worker’s literature, both in Austria and the United States, to propaganda and exile literature. At times the organizational structure is problematic as the grouping of the articles sometimes disrupts the flow of the overarching themes, but this does not take away from the fact that each article is in itself timely and engaging. Very helpful to international readers and those seeking specific information in the volume is each article’s introductory abstract in English. The framework of the volume provides readers and scholars with contextual information regarding children’s and YA literature, revealing not only the relevance of this body of literature today but also the need for further research on its authors and themes, especially on underrepresented and still unidentified texts written and published in exile, either in German or in a language of exile. The contributions highlight biographies, text analyses, the personal and professional situations of the authors, and, finally, the challenges of the publication, distribution, and reception of the works. The editors observe discussion points raised in the articles, highlighting especially how the political situation of this period affected the literary production in German-speaking regions, especially in Austria. While each article offers up new readings of texts and reintroduces lesserknown authors, articles also illustrate the texts’ import for readers today. In the opening article, Wiebke von Bernstorff states that reading children’s and YA literature through the lens of Bertolt Brecht’s “alienation effect,” an idea developed through Brecht’s own experiences under National Socialism and in exile, allows for a more didactic approach to the texts that reaches beyond the readers’ initial reaction of empathy. Von Bernstorff positions her analysis between the historicity of the texts and their timeliness, citing that the texts were written as a reaction to World War II and fascism and can therefore provide insight into contemporary social and political issues. The topic of exile is highly relevant to readers today, as a means of gaining intercultural knowledge [End Page 144] and providing insight into the refugee crisis in Europe and elsewhere. Von Bernstorff examines the aesthetics of the literary texts rather than their political intent, as identified in earlier research on children’s and YA literature in exile. Articles on the Socialist Party’s political texts for children, written in the “Red Vienna” between 1920 and 1934, highlight works such as the 1927 Kasperl sucht den Weihnachtsmann (Kasperl searches for Santa Claus) by Anton Afritsch, which warns of the perils of capitalism while revealing that Santa is a myth, and the 1930 Die verwünschte Fabrik (The cursed factory) by Alois Jalkotzy. Jörg Thunecke follows suit with an analysis of von Mühlen’s texts for children that were translated into English and published in the United Statesas Fairy Tales for Workers’ Children (1922), which aimed to combat social inequities and injustice while countering war through coexistence. While Murray G. Hall discusses the militarization of boys through propaganda literature of the early 1930s...