Published: 2018-09-291

Between Germanness and Polishness - Phases of Separation and Exclusion in the Autobiographical Prose by Piotr (Peter) Lachmann

Przemysław Chojnowski

Abstract

The article discusses various aspects of autobiographical prose (essays) of the bilingual Polish-German author Piotr (Peter) Lachmann. The focus of this paper is on the process of transition of the textual subject from his "Germanness" to "Polishness". The thesis is based on Victor Turner's paradigm of ritual process which extended van Gennep's ideas to describe the process of transition between different states. According to both researchers, there are three stages of the transition. The first one is separation and exclusion. In Lachmann's essays (especially in his collection of essays Wywołane z pamięci, Olsztyn 1999) the separation applies on three different levels: The first one is the interrupted childhood, the second refers to his abandoned house, and the last one results from the isolation from the first language.

Keywords:

autobiography, process of transition, textual hybridity, strangeness / Alien, memory of the first language, symbolic meaning of the language, Gleiwitz / Gliwice, liminality, Upper Silesia

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Chojnowski, P. (2018). Between Germanness and Polishness - Phases of Separation and Exclusion in the Autobiographical Prose by Piotr (Peter) Lachmann. Prace Literaturoznawcze, (4). Retrieved from https://czasopisma.uwm.edu.pl/index.php/pl/article/view/1119

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