“Zwischen Mein und Dein und Allgemein”. Identitätsangebote in einem Gedicht von Günther Kunert

Abstract

The former dissident GDR-poet Günther Kunert has experienced both the GDR and the united Germany after 1990, in both cases being coined as one of those “misfits” of old Socialist Germany as well of post-1989 Germany. Kunert is known for his (sometimes frightening) “warning poetry”, which has often tackled difficult issues such as the present vs. the past, ecology, mass media, individuality, loneliness and otherness. This article aims at presenting Kunert's highly critical interpretation of the motif of “Ostalgie” in the poem titled “An einen ostalgischen Dichter”/“To an ostalgic poet” from 1999. “Ostalgie” represents a postunification nostalgia among (disappointed) East Germans mourning the disappearance of Socialism. Kunert's purpose is to point at the “Wall in the people's minds” and to dismantle the myth of the old egalitarian (but totalitarian) system. His poetic tool resides in the double-edged usage of certain terms referring to the concepts of HAVE/PROPERTY/INDIVIDUALITY/COLLECTIVITY. In this way, he creates an ironic “dialectics of utopia and paradox”, taking full advantage of various allusive effects.