From Habsburg Myth to Kakanien Revisited

Abstract

With regard to the theoretical framework of this volume, the relation between the discourse on world literature (that dates back to the German-speaking lands, to Christoph Martin Wieland and Wolfgang von Goethe) and postimperial/ postcolonial issues can be described in a double direction: On the one hand, Postimperial and Postcolonial Studies would be perceived as Area Studies and therefore, as a part of World Literature that intents to analyse the relationship between different literary cultures; on the other hand, they significantly contribute to the project of world literature insofar as they modify the global literary landscape by referring to cultural and political asymmetries that are evident in (post-) imperial and (post-) colonial situations and contexts. The new interest in world literature (cf. Lamping 2010, Grosens 2011, Sturm-Trigonakis 2007, 2013) is quite clearly a reflection on globalisation and a questioning of the nation-state in which the idea of a national literary canon was a powerful instrument for creating collective identity. Although the contemporary globalisation supposedly takes place under postimperial and postcolonial circumstances, the marginalisation of the non-Western literatures and cultures, along with a dominance of English, continues. This chapter shows, in a theoretical and a paradigmatic perspective (Elias Canetti and Joseph Roth), that similar phenomena of asymmetry are also are to be detected during and after the Habsburg Monarchy in Central and Eastern Europe.