Volker Brauns Gedichtband Tumulus: utopische Totentieder eines "ortlosen" Dichters

Abstract

Tumulus, a slim volume of only twelve poems, appeared in 1999. Severalof these poems were published before that year, however. The Latin title– meaning "sepulchral mound" – suggests an ongoing theme in theMarxist Braun's ouevre: the loss or "burial" of political illusions inthe German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic as well. Thelack of political alternatives in the poet's being – a state ofexistential "Ortlosigkeit" or negative utopia – manifests itself as aspectrum of contradictory reflections which seem to go nowhere. Theyportray the rigid shabbiness of the former "real" socialism and the"barbaric beauty" of "real" capitalism in the Federal Republic asequally absurd and stifling. Braun, the critical provocateur, loatheswhat he observes but is not entirely free of fascination with it:"Salute, Barbaren." The poems, structured as a triptychon, reveal theemotions and deliberations of a political activist who is bent onresisting his new reality, yet is unable to deal with it. This leaveshim in the role of the dissecting observer who – contrary to theprevailing mood of bitterness in his previous literary works after the"Wende" – learned to blend frustration with irony, and equanimity withcontinuing social outrage.