Etica memoriei și literatura. Două studii de caz: Aleksander Wat și Bertolt Brecht
Rezumat
The Ethics of Memory and Literature. Two Case Studies: Alexander Wat and Bertolt Brecht
Abstract: The current article applies memory ethics to literature, aiming to observe what happens to poets when their political ideology comes into radical conflict with the very instinct of freedom in which their ideology originates. It happened unfortunately too often that the ideology of the human park led in the 20th century towards genocide – or, with a post-Lemkian terminology, towards classicide, politicide, democide. What happens in these cases with the poet’s writing, what anamorphoses does this malformation of the instinct of freedom produce in his literature (but also in his non-fictional writing)? It is a general question – but its answer is always particular, illustrated by the fate of each of the poets who crossed this conflict of self-contradictory loyalties (loyalty to ideology conflicts with loyalty to “the park human”).The present article will focus on two particular cases illustrating this conflict of loyalties: the Polish poet Aleksander Wat, respectively the German poet Bertolt Brecht. The article docments how each of them reacted when they understood that the totalitarian ideology they had supported (in their case, communism) led to classicide (Michael Mann), class genocide (Stéphane Courtois), politicide (Barbara Harff and Rudolph J. Rummel).
Keywords: 20th century world literature, memory ethics and literature, Aleksander Wat, Bertolt Brecht
Bibliografie
Bibliography
Andreescu, Gabriel. Globalizarea ipocriziei. Pentru o abordare umanistă a eticii memoriei. [The Globalization of Hypocrisy. For a Humanistic Approach of Memory Ethics]. Iași: Polirom, 2023.
Brecht, Bertolt. Gedichte [Poems]. Leipzig: Reclam, 1976.
Judt, Tony, and Timothy Snyder. Gânduri despre secolul XX [Thinking the Twentieth Century]. București: Litera, 2021.
Margalit, Avishai. The Ethics of Memory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
Streller, Siegfried. “Nachwort” [Afterword]. In Bertolt Brecht. Gedichte [Poems]. Leipzig: Reclam, 1976.
Sharon, Yuval. “A Brecht for Our Time: On The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht.” Los Angeles Review of Books, March 26, 2019.
Shore, Marci. Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw’s Generation Life and Death in Marxism, 1918-1968. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.
Shore, Marci. The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe. New York: Crown Publishing, 2013.
Sloterdijk, Peter. Mânie și timp. Eseu politico-psihologic [Rage and Time. A Psychopolitical Investigation]. Bucharest: Art, 2014.
Sloterdijk, Peter. Reguli pentru parcul uman [Rules for the Human Zoo]. Bucharest: Humanitas, 2003.
Sloterdijk, Peter. “Rules for the Human Zoo: A Response to the ‘Letter on Humanism’.” Sage Journals, no. 1 (2009): 12-28.
Vancu, Radu. “Aleksander Wat. Un portret” [Aleksander Watt. A Portrait]. Poesis internațional, no. 1 (2023): 9-14.
Vancu, Radu. “Brecht, poetul. Cele mai simple cuvinte ar trebui să fie de ajuns” [Brecht, the Poet. The Simplest Words Should Suffice]. Poesis internațional, no. 2 (2023): 17-21.
Wat, Aleksander. Secolul meu. Confesiunile unui intelectual european [My Century]. Bucharest: Humanitas, 2014.
Watson, Peter. A Terrible Beauty: The People and Ideas That Shaped the Modern Mind. A History. London: Phoenix Press, 2001.
