Letters into exile: narratological strategies and identity-forming storytelling in the post-war correspondence of the Ernst Levin Collection (1946-1962)

Abstract

This thesis aims to contribute to the field of epistolary research, research on ego-documents as well as cultural and literary studies of the fin de siècle, the interbellum period and the post-World War Two era in Germany.

In my thesis I conduct a textual analysis of a lengthy correspondence and thus aim to further fill this gap in working with letters. I examine the correspondence of painter Max Unold (1885-1964) and writer Reinhard Koester (1885-1956) with the Jewish neurologist Ernst Levin (1887-1975) and his wife Anicuta Belau (1886-1965) who emigrated to Edinburgh in 1933 and 1938.

The approach of undertaking a close reading analysis of letters has been undervalued in research. Letters have often been conceptualised as historical documents. While there is considerable merit to such work, it neglects the carefully crafted linguistic properties of such texts. Whilst a small number of previous works have taken on the approach of analysing the language of letters in order to gain insights into the writers’ communicative goals, their sentiments and cultural frames, this thesis aims to further map out the use of linguistic tools.

I develop a new way of working with letters that provides insights into the writing patterns, literary devices, and linguistic strategies that letter writers use and what they seek to achieve by this. As I work with letters sent to those in exile by those who were not persecuted in the Third Reich and remained in Germany, I further make an original contribution to research by offering a different perspective on ‘migrant letters’.

A close reading of the letter corpus identifies the strategies used by the letter writers and additionally discloses where these are borrowed from stylistically. My analysis illustrates how the letters function as platform for identity performances. With the thematic orientation of the individual chapters on spaces, the body, and the process of ageing, I also contribute to the linguistic discourse on these themes. Moreover, the focus on these topoi is valuable in further refining the dynamic and linguistic construction of the postwar friendship between Jewish émigrés and their friends who participated in the perpetuation of the Third Reich.