Reimagining space, history and memory in East Germany through sonic fragments of Chilean exile | Intellect Skip to content
1981
Volume 14, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 2040-4344
  • E-ISSN: 2040-4352

Abstract

This article addresses ongoing discussions regarding the material and cultural legacies of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It draws on texts produced by two individuals that were members of the Chilean artistic community that lived in exile in the GDR during the Chilean military dictatorship (1973–90). I argue that descriptions of musical activity and sonic memories within these texts offer a powerful counterpoint to some of the more prevailing assumptions that tend to position East German cultural history either as relic of material nostalgia or simply subsumed under capitalism after the period of German reunification. By positioning the ephemeral and unruly sonic traces of the Chilean exile community against mainstream narratives of GDR history, this article offers the possibility of examining and animating spaces subject to invisibility and disappearance in contemporary German memory.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/cjmc_00086_1
2024-01-23
2024-04-30
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Alamgir, A. K. and Schwenkel, C. (2020), ‘From socialist assistance to national self-interest: Vietnamese labor migration into CMEA countries’, in J. Mark, A. M. Kalinovsky and S. Marung (eds), Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 10024.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bourdaghs, M. K., Iovene, P. and Mason, K. (2021), ‘Introduction’, in M. K. Bourdaghs, P. Iovene and K. Mason (eds), Sound Alignments: Popular Music in Asia’s Cold Wars, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 142.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Boyer, D. (2006), ‘Ostalgie and the politics of the future in Eastern Germany’, Public Culture, 18:2, pp. 36181.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Certeau, M. de (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Dennis, M. and LaPorte, N. (2011), State and Minorities in Communist East Germany, New York: Berghahn Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Espinosa, P. (2012), ‘Un Héroe Visceral’, Las Últimas Noticias, Section: ‘Crítica Literaria’, 13 July, http://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/628/w3-article-575807.html. Accessed 2 August 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Forch, J. (2012), Las Dos Orillas Del Elba, Santiago de Chile: Alfaguara.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Freedman, J. (2022), ‘Political participation and engagement in East Germany through Chilean Nueva Canción’, Yearbook for Traditional Music, 54:1, https://doi.org/10.1017/ytm.2022.4.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Gallinat, A. (2022), ‘Actually existing post-socialism: Producing ideological others in Eastern Germany’, Critique of Anthropology, 42:2, pp. 15471.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Gook, B. (2015), Divided Subjects, Invisible Borders: Re-Unified Germany After 1989, London: Rowman and Littlefield International.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Hirsch, S. (2012), ‘Chileans in exile: Experiences of British interaction and return’, Oral History, 40:1, pp. 4756.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Huyssen, A. (2003), Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Kirchenwitz, L. (1993), Folk, Chanson Und Liedermacher in Der DDR: Chronisten, Kritiker, Kaisergeburtstagssänger, Berlin: Dietz Verlag.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Kristeva, J. (1991), Strangers to Ourselves (trans. L. S. Roudiez), New York: Columbia University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Marks, C. (2012), ‘Solidarität Mit Chile’, El Mercurio, Section: ‘Artes y Letras’, 15 July, http://www.bibliotecanacionaldigital.gob.cl/bnd/628/w3-article-576049.html. Accessed 2 August 2022.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Maurin, J. (2005), ‘Flüchtlinge Als Politisches Instrument: Chilenische Emigranten in Der DDR 1973–1989’, Totalitarismus Und Demokratie, 2, pp. 34574.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Morris, N. (2006),  ‘Las Peregrinaciones Del Gitano Exiliado: La Correspondencia de Osvaldo Rodríguez’, in J. del Pozo Arrigas (ed.), Exiliados, Emigrados y Retornados: Chilenos En América y Europa, 1973–2004, Santiago de Chile: RIL Editors, pp. 14966.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Norambuena, C. (2000), ‘Exilio y Retorno: Chile 1973–1994’, in M. Garcés, P. Milos, M. Olguín, J. Pinto, M. T. Rojas and M. Urrutia (eds), Memoria Para Un Nuevo Siglo: Chile, Miradas a La Segunda Mitad Del Siglo XX, Santiago: LOM Ediciones, pp. 17388.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Rebolledo González, L. (2012), ‘Exilios y Retornos Chilenos’, Revista Anales, Séptima Serie:3, pp. 17787.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Rodriguez, O. ([1984] 2016a), ‘El fantasma’, in Cantores que reflexionan: Notas para la historia personal de la nueva canción chilena, rev. ed., Santiago de Chile: Hueders.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Rodríguez, O. ([1984] 2016b), ‘Escrito en Sproeverder’, in Cantores que reflexionan: Notas para la historia personal de la nueva canción chilena, rev. ed., Santiago de Chile: Hueders.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Rodriguez, O. ([1984] 2016c), ‘Otro puerto’, in Cantores que reflexionan: Notas para la historia personal de la nueva canción chilena, rev. ed., Santiago de Chile: Hueders.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Rodríguez Aedo, J. (2016), ‘La Nueva Canción Chilena: Un Ejemplo de Circulación Musical Internacional (1968–1973)’, Resonancias: Revista de Investigación Musical, 20:39, pp. 6391.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Said, E. W. (2001), ‘Reflections on exile’, in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 17386.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Schwenkel, C. (2015), ‘Socialist mobilities: Crossing new terrains in Vietnamese migration histories’, Central and Eastern European Migration Review, 4:1, pp. 1325.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Schwenkel, C. (2022), ‘The things they carried (and kept): Revisiting Ostalgie in the Global South’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 64:2, pp. 478509.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Slobodian, Q. (ed.) (2015), Comrades of Color: East Germany in the Cold War World, New York: Berghahn Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Taylor, D. (2003), The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Taylor, D. (2006), ‘Performance and/as history’, TDR/The Drama Review, 50:1, pp. 6786.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Virilio, P. (1991), The Aesthetics of Disappearance (trans. P. Beitchman), Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e).
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Wright, T. C. and Oñate Zúñiga, R. (2007), ‘Chilean political exile’, Latin American Perspectives, 34:4, pp. 3149.
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/cjmc_00086_1
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error