Donaupassagen. Interkulturalität und Transiterfahrung bei Péter Esterházy

Abstract

Abstract In his novel Donau abwärts (1992) the Hungarian writer Péter Esterházy discussed the problems of intercultural experiences at a time, when these questions started to become important for the states of the former Yugoslavia: They had just broken up, communist rule in Eastern Europe had come to its end, and no one knew how to define Central and Eastern European identities. Esterházy’s novel takes the river Danube which crosses the Balkan states as the background for encounters of travelers from different countries at this historical moment in the early 1990s. According to the structure of the historical genre of the roman fleuve which was particularly popular in 17th and 18th century England, France, and the Netherlands, characters meet each other mostly on ships, talking, playing, searching for new ideas, and new identities in a mental as well as in a sexual manner. Questions of nationality are intertwined with questions of corporeality and social norms. Existing spaces of orientation, perception, knowledge and feeling are set in motion, and a new concept of living in transit spaces emerges.