“He Does Not Seem Alien, But He is Not Ours Either...” Ludwig Bauer: A Central European Homo Nostalgicus?

Review article

Abstract

The aim of this article is to identify the Central European roots of Ludwig Bauer’s literature based on analysis of the writer’s autobiography, Toranj kiselih jabuka, published in 2013. Due to transformations of literary canons and cultures of post-communist countries during the “twenty-five years of freedom”, the myth of Central Europe has also evolved. The nostalgia, postmodern in its origin, remains a measure that universalises Central European culture and, as a literary concept, crosses the already blurred boundaries of Yugonostalgia (or nostalgia for childhood), thus becoming an identity-oriented project that grows out of nothing but the Central European imaginarium of culture and culture of memory, typical of the Central European borderlands. Therefore, the aim of the text is to identify the supra-regional elements implemented at the regional level of the small homeland and, in consequence, to describe the vision of identity that forms in this relationship.