Border literatures and their subversive effects - The case of the German-Polish border regions in works by Worbitzky, Skowronnek, Bienek, and Iwasiow

The paper presents a new reading of border literatures, which arise within political order provinces. Because these literatures are characterised by the tension between political goals and a search for cultural identity, they can be read as part of border culture and also as elements of performative practices which have both a normative and exclusive character. At the same time, whatever has been shut out or excluded continues to have an effect by subverting and turning against normatised space. This mechanism is studies in the writings of Wirbitzky, Skowronnek, Bienek and Iwasiow, which represent two distinct German-Polish border regions, and in the language, idiomatic expressions, metaphors, symbols and values employed in the texts. It becomes evident that border literatures stake out a cultural space of their won which only partly corresponds with political boundaries. They constitute a spacial form of political boundaries by representing and at the same time producing mixed cultures.