Performing ‘Ostalgie’
Leander Haussmann's Sonnenallee
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9854072 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paul Cooke (0000-0002-8377-3118, University of Leeds, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2003 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 156-167 |
| Publication date | 2003-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | German Life and Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0016-8777 • E-ISSN: 1468-0483 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1468-0483.00250 |
| OpenAlex | W2109544063 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
The following article examines Leander Haußmann's hit youth comedy Sonnenallee (1999). In particular it attempts to challenge many reviewers who saw the film as nothing more than a self‐indulgent piece of ‘Ostalgie’ which trivialises the oppressive reality of life in the GDR. Instead, it argues that the film deliberately highlights the competing tensions at work within contemporary nostalgia for the East German state. On the one hand, Sonnenallee constructs ‘Ostalgie’ as a response to fears among many East Germans that the true nature of their everyday experience is being elided from the historical record. Through the use of an intricate network of Eastern and Western cultural references, the film attempts to counter this impulse by highlighting the importance of both these cultural traditions to youth in the GDR. In so doing the film translates the experience of East Germans into a cultural language that West Germans will understand, thereby ‘normalising’ this experience. On the other hand, and seeming to contradict this project, the film also challenges simplistically rose‐tinted views of the East. Consequently, the film forces the East German spectator to reflect upon, and ultimately reject, any manifestations of Ostalgie which would ostensibly call for a return to the GDR
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Comedy · Epistemology · German · Literature · Nothing · Sociology · State (computer science · European history and politics · Gender Studies · German History and Society · German legal, social, and political studies · History · Philosophy
The Wall in Our Minds?” Colonization, Integration, and Nostalgia
When We Was Red
Seit der Wende hat der Mann nur Pech gehabt. Jetzt soll er auch noch Jude sein”
Heimat, “Ostalgie” and the Stasi
Westalgie? Nostalgia for the "Old" Federal Republic in Recent German Prose
Surfing for Eastern Difference
Disorienting Fictions
East German Goth and the Spectres of Marx
Creating a Consumable Past
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,41 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2018 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |