Long live the freedom of reading! Even after the GDR was gone: Prenzlauer Berg, 1991
Photo: Imago Images/Rolf Zöllner
For your book “Art in the Biotop” you have examined the poetry scene of the late GDR in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. How was a group of literary avant -gardeists in this original workers ‘district in this original workers’ district?
Due to the housing -political neglect of the area, a lively home -occupied scene and backyard culture emerged there as early as the 1970s: a milieu that was also attractive for young creative people. Due to the proximity to West Berlin, it was also easier to get materials from the West. Especially in the 1980s, many young artists also used East Berlin as a transit station, while they were waiting for the approval of their application to leave.
How was published?
A legislative gap was used: artistic works under a circulation of 100 copies were not subject to approval in the GDR. In many cities of East German cities, creative scenes emerged that made graphic poetry folders or magazines in small runs with punch paper and hand presses. The booklets then circulated in the circle of friends, were handed over to hand from hand.
Was it a coherent community or a group of chaotic lone fighters?
The anarchist, often provocative gesture and the joy of experimentation by many young authors led to very different spellings and views existed side by side. However, the lively culture of magazines, joint exhibitions and moist-happy gatherings also created an exchange. They were awarded and given away books and sound carriers, referred to each other in works of art and texts – sometimes also teased coarse against each other. In this respect, its own community has already emerged, although it did not pursue a common goal and a clear political program.
How did the state react to these activities?
Interview
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Lukas Nils RegerBorn in 1993, is a Berlin literary scholar. In July, his study “Art in the Biotop” appeared on the “Prenzlauer-Berg-Connection”, the underground literature scene in East Berlin in the 1980s.
Since many authors experimented with new and old spellings and dealt with literary theories such as post -structuralism, the state largely gave the texts almost incomprehensible and not suitable for mass. Nevertheless, the poetry scene as part of the underground culture on Prenzlauer Berg was also under strict surveillance by the Stasi.
The Bert Papenfuß, who died almost exactly two years ago, was considered a voice alcohol and word butcher. Was he the uncrowned King from Prenzlauer Berg?
No, he was too anarchist for that. But in the 1980s the West German literary business literally plunged on Papenfuß. It was raised to the nobility by Ernst Jandl, Helmut Heißenbüttel and others. A fact that he himself encountered with defiance and snodderness. Papenfuß was one of the most busy, read and most innovative poets and is therefore associated with the Prenzlauer Berg like no other author today. However, the “Prenzlauer-Berg-Connection” was too diverse than that there had been a single figure.
At the beginning of the 90s, the former scene pope Sascha Anderson was exposed as a Stasi-in. Did that initiate the decline of the scene? Or was it due to the bulkyness and unsalable of the late GDR-Avantgarde?
The Anderson affair made it easy for many critics of the scene to discredit the entire Prenzlauer Berg as supposedly and therefore as non-opposition. This had little to do with reality: Anderson’s role in the social and literary structure of East Berlin is often overestimated. The poetry of the Prenzlauer Berg was actually not in sales; In this respect, no argument for a supposed decline can be seen.
Is the Prenzlauer-Berg-Connection more than a footnote in literary history?
Many authors have been increasingly perceived again in recent years: Elke Erb (Büchner Prize 2020), Johannes Jansen (Berlin speech on Poetry 2021) and Annett Gröschner (Fontane Prize 2021) are impressive examples. The experimental and ambitious character of the poetry was also a pioneer for many literary developments in Berlin of the 90s, which radiate up to the present: think of the Kookbooks publisher or the poetry Steffen Popps and Monika Rincks. It shows how young, hardly established authors were able to get freedom in a same cultural and media apparatus and found their own language.
Lukas Nils Reger: Art in the biotope. Writing and reading communities in Prenzlauer Berg of the 1980s. Harrassowitz Verlag, 384 pages, born, 78 €.
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