Danziger / Gdańsker Literatur postkolonial? Ethnien in der großen Geschichte
Gdańsk Literature Postcolonially? Ethnic Groups in the Big History

Summary/Abstract: This article raises the question of the productivity of postcolonial readings for Polish- and German- language works of Gdańsk literature such as Hanemann and Krótka historia pewnego żartu [Short History of a Certain Joke] by Stefan Chwin, Weiser Dawidek [Who Was David Weiser?] Castorp, Opowiadania na czas przeprowadzki [Moving House and Other Stories] and Śpiewaj ogrody [Sing Gardens] by Paweł Huelle, as well as Die Blechtrommel [The Tin Drum] and Katz und Maus [Cat and Mouse] by Günter Grass. Less prominent texts such as Fara na Pomorzu [A Parsonage in Pomerania] by Marian Pankowski and older works such as Wiatr od morza [Wind from the Sea] by Stefan Żeromski, which deal not only with the city itself, but also with the wider region (Kashubia) and its history, are considered here as well. In this contribution Günter Grass encounters the Polish authors, Poles face Germans, the ethnical discourse is confronted with the postcolonial one, political history is challenged by the memory of individuals, and lived existence meets philosophical concepts. In terms of methodology it is argued that several, but not all, texts of Gdańsk literature in fact can be approached as examples of postcolonial narration. It is, however, essential to distinguish such texts for which the postcolonial gaze is an element of construction from those which, even if they allow postcolonialism ex post as an element of interpretation, have not been initially constructed with regard to postcolonialism.

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