Stefan Heym: A 20th Century German Life

拟议的研究将呈现东德犹太作家斯特凡·海姆（1913-2001）的第一本全面的知识分子传记，他是东德最著名的持不同政见者。海姆的一生跨越了二十世纪德国的五种政治制度——从德意志帝国到1989年之后的统一共和国——是铁幕两边最多产、最受欢迎的战后德国作家之一。在分裂的德国，他将一部重要的文学作品与政治结合在一起，因此被视为杰出的道德和政治正直的象征。继我的ahrc资助的专著世界主义和犹太人（2017），在那里我开始通过世界主义的框架探索海姆的作品，这个项目旨在阐明政治异议的微妙和复杂的轨迹在其特定的犹太人化身在德意志民主共和国。在这样做的过程中，它将干预东德文化，特别是东德犹太人，作为“犯罪者和受害者，恶棍和有用的白痴，旁观者和附属品”（迈克尔·沃尔夫森）的简化冷战接受，这继续困扰着关于东德文化和东方集团的讨论。同时，考虑到海姆对民主德国的反应，考虑到海姆对民主德国的反应，我们需要把他理想化的“永远的持不同政见者”形象复杂化（彼得·哈钦森）。鉴于之前的研究主要依赖于对海姆文学作品的讨论和语境化，这本计划中的知识分子传记和相关出版物将是第一部将来自德国、英国、美国、以色列和前捷克斯洛伐克的最大可用资源组合在一起的作品。这将覆盖海姆的广泛出版物与以前未考虑或不可用的生活著作和传记来源的庞大档案。其中包括海姆生活过的各种政治制度的私人信件和秘密警察档案，包括国家社会主义德国、美国和德意志民主共和国。它还将利用大量的个人照片、信件、手稿和描绘海姆的8毫米个人镜头，以及在那一代人最后去世之前对幸存的朋友和同事的一系列独家采访。这些资料将揭露这位东德反对派领袖的个人动机、战术操作、个人网络和内部矛盾。通过将海姆的生活和作品与后柏林墙一代联系起来，这个项目将超越仍然盛行的冷战时期对东德文化、反文化和反对派的两分法描绘，揭示共产主义统治下的创造力和个人代理的场所。自从20世纪90年代后，一些主要的持不同政见的东德作家曾为史塔西工作的消息被披露以来，对东德文化的研究在很大程度上已经失去了可信度。与此同时，最近一些关于德意志民主共和国生活的流行文化作品，包括《他人的生活》（德国，2006年）、《德国83年和86年》（德国，2015年和2018年）和《冈德曼》（德国，2018年），引发了民众对德意志民主共和国的兴趣和怀旧之情，其风险是使其公民与史塔西的广泛参与正常化。通过对海姆一生的权威学术研究和国际会议的结合，以及包括电影系列和国际电视纪录片在内的影响事件，我想探索政治与人格在政治不服从的形成过程中令人着迷的相互作用。面对右翼极端主义和民粹主义运动的兴起，这些运动威胁到欧洲项目的人道主义愿景，我试图为新一代阐释海姆反对左派和世界主义的立场。

The proposed study will present the first comprehensive intellectual biography of the East German Jewish writer Stefan Heym (1913-2001), who became East Germany's most prominent dissident. Heym, whose life spanned all five political systems that ruled twentieth-century Germany - from the German Empire the unified Republic after 1989 - was among the most prolific and widely read postwar German authors on both sides of the Iron Curtain. He combined - like none other in divided Germany - an important literary oeuvre with political engagement, and thus came to be seen as a symbol of outstanding moral and political integrity.Following on from my AHRC-funded monograph Cosmopolitanisms and the Jews (2017), where I began to explore Heym's oeuvre through a cosmopolitanist framework, this project seeks to shed light on the nuanced and complex trajectories of political dissent in its particular Jewish incarnations in the GDR. In doing so, it will intervene in the reductive Cold War reception of East German culture, and East German Jews in particular, as 'perpetrators and victims, villains and useful idiots, bystanders and accessories' (Michael Wolffsohn), which continues to vex the discussion of East German culture and the Eastern Bloc in general. At the same time, a consideration of life writings related to Heym reveals the need to complicate his idealising image as a 'perpetual dissident' (Peter Hutchinson), given that this only partially accounts for Heym's responses to the GDR.Whereas previous studies have largely rested on a discussion and contextualisation of Heym's literary works, this planned intellectual biography and associated publications will be the first work to weave together the largest available range of sources from Germany, the UK, the USA, Israel and the former Czechoslovakia. This will overlay Heym's extensive publications with the vast archive of previously unconsidered or unavailable life writings and biographical sources. These include personal correspondence and the secret police files of various political regimes under which Heym lived, including National Socialist Germany, the United States and the GDR. It will also draw on a wealth of personal photos, letters, manuscripts and 8-mm personal footage depicting Heym, as well as a series of exclusive interviews with surviving friends and associates before the final passing of that generation. These sources will expose the personal motivations, tactical manoeuvrings, personal networks and internal contradictions that made up this towering figure of the East German opposition. By making Heym's life and oeuvre relevant to the post-Wall generation, this project will transcend the still prevailing, dichotomous Cold War portrayals of the East German culture, counter culture and opposition to uncover sites of creativity and personal agency under Communist rule. The study of GDR culture has become largely discredited since the post-1990s revelations that a number of leading dissident GDR writers had themselves worked for the Stasi. At the same time, number of more recent popular culture renditions of life in the GDR, including The Lives of Others (Germany, 2006), Deutschland '83 and '86 (Germany, 2015 and 2018) and Gundermann (Germany, 2018) have sparked renewed popular interest in and nostalgia about the GDR, at the risk of normalising the broad involvement of its citizens with the Stasi. Through the combination of the definitive academic study of Heym's life and an international conference, with impact events including a film series and an international TV documentary, I want to explore the fascinating interplay between politics and personality in the making of political disobedience. I seek to illuminate Heym's dissenting leftist and cosmopolitanist position for a new generation facing the rise of right-wing extremism and populist movements which threaten the humanitarian vision of the European project.