Literature In The German Democratic Republic (Gdr). : Germany

Like 1945, the years 1989 and 1990 - the end of “real existing socialism”, the GDR and the Soviet Union (in 1991) - marked a profound turning point not only in political history but in the cultural sphere as well. This especially affected the authors who lived in the GDR and who openly professed their conviction that this state - despite all its shortcomings - was the better of the two on German soil.

From the very beginning, literature had taken a different direction in the GDR than in the West. There was neither freedom of information nor freedom of expression, and the opportunities for a free exchange of ideas, texts and persons were extremely limited. An entire country was indoctrinated in the Soviet literary aesthetic of “Socialist Realism”. Those who were unwilling to toe this line had no choice but to flee, an option available only until 1961 (construction of the Berlin Wall). Among them was Uwe Johnson (”Speculations About Jacob”, 1959; “The Third Book About Achim”, 1961; “Two Views”, 1965; “Anniversaries”, 1970-1983).