La evolución del exilio literario alemánel modelo del intelectual comprometido en la Exilroman (1936-1940)

Abstract

Between 1933 and 1945, as a great part of the German writers exiled from Germany, a literary phenomenon appeared outside the German borders which is remarkable from all points of view. It reflects one of the biggest exile phenomena within the literary intelligence, with more than 2,000 exiled writers and journalists. Moreover, this specific literature is a symptom of the impact of the obsolete socio-political status-quo on the literary intelligence and of the appearance of totalitarian movements, like national socialism and communism. The novelistic genre after 1933 offers a field for research of the creation of a new cultural identity, intellectual models and a literary program, which reflect the new communicative context in exile. The objectives of our study are the analysis of the functional relationship between the exile novel and the political fight against the Third Reich in the period 1933-1945, and the identification of intellectual models and the political-literary program promoted by this literature. We have studied, in first place, the evolution of the professional group of the literary intelligence, which develops in exile a model for the politically engaged writer. Secondly, we have analyzed the upcoming and operation of the literary system in the different exile countries during the period of establishment of the Volksfront (1936-1940). Third, we analyzed the exiled writers poetical proposal within the Exilroman genre in this period, selecting three novels: Exil by Lion Feuchtwanger, Vulkan by Klaus Mann and Transit by Anna Seghers. The results of our study show that the fact of exile profoundly affects the generated literature in this specific period. The generation of intellectual models for a political engagement allows only partially the construction of an antifascist artistic identity for the personae in the analyzed novels. The authors reflection on the literary communication does not promote the formulation of a political-literary program. However, it reflects a special consideration of the process of literary reception as the authors give up their vanguardistic positions of the period prior to 1933.