Mitteleuropäisch-jüdische Lebensgeschichte als transnationale Verflechtungsgeschichte

Abstract

: An entanglement of several central aspects of twentieth-century European intellectual and cultural history marks the life story of the Czech literary critic Eduard Goldstücker (1913–2000). Goldstücker’s life was shaped by such pivotal experiences as the Holocaust, communist rule in Eastern Europe, exile, and reform communism in Czechoslovakia. Due to these experiences and his Jewish, socialist, and transnational positions, Goldstücker’s life story may be considered representative of Central European intellectual biographies. There are three different versions of Goldstücker’s memoirs. The respective Czech and German texts are the product of numerous extended conversations with his former son-in-law, the Czech writer Jiří Gruša, and the German journalist, Eduard Schreiber, who served as editors for Goldstücker’s memoir. The study outlines the ways in which life writing is shaped by the informant (Goldstücker), the collab-orator (Gruša, Schreiber), and by the different intended audiences in the Czech Republic and Germany. It concludes that Goldstücker’s life writing is the product of his Jewish as well as his socialist beliefs.