Global Significance of Local Mnemotops in the Georgian and German Fiction of Post – Communist Era

Abstract

In Fictions of Memory spaces function as repositories of time so that landscapes and other locations might be seen as media of the Cultural Memory, places of recollection  – mnemotops. Mnemotops are often focal points of national self – images and help to (re)construct national identity after the social, political and cultural ruptures. Mnemotops might also convey traumatic memories that are mostly hidden and need to be deciphered with regard to the corresponding trans/cultural context. The Georgian and German fiction of Post – Communist Era contain a broad range of such mnemotops. Squares, statues, buildings, certain towns and other places gain additional significance if seen in the scope of global societal and cultural changes. By exploring and comparing the mnemotops represented in the Georgian and German literary texts of the Post – Soviet time it can observed how the post – totalitarian identity is constructed both on a local and a global level. Analyzing the spatial dimension of those texts will allow to trace back the historical figures, events and power relations that made crucial impact on the formation of post – communist auto – and hetero – images. With this purpose a number of texts will be selected from the Georgian and German literature after 1990 and examined by means of theoretical categories established in the Memory Studies and Imagology.