Polzin

Ostalgie - a part of a new East Polzin

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject Ethnology / Cultural Anthropology, grade: 1,0, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), course: Seminar: MA, Soziale Bewegungen-Institutionen-Kulturelle Orientierungen, 13 entries in the bibliography, language: English, comment: I have written this essay for a seminar on "Problems with Nationalism in Central Europe - Identities, Conflicts, Ethnic Cleansings and Ethnic Democracy". It mainly deals with the question of how and why Ostalgie has become such a fashionable trend among East Germans since the end of the 1990s. What is the meaning and purpose of Ostalgie, why did people begin to emphasise their distinct eastern Identity (Ostidentität) and why did it emerge in the first place? , abstract: East Germans and their search for identity in a re-unified Germany has become a topic of intense debate among academics, the media and within the East German community itself. Only a few years after the initial euphoria of reunification had worn off, and the dream to become "ein Volk" had (at least constitutionally) been fulfilled, Easterners began searching for a distinct identity. Part of this contested identity has expressed itself in the phenomenon of Ostalgie - the revival of products and symbols of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This essay analyses ostalgic practices in the context of the specific east German situation after reunification, a period which was not only characterized by the forces of liberation and progress which are so often portrayed in the media and official discourse, but also by experiences of severe rupture and losses in many parts of everyday life. What is the meaning and purpose of Ostalgie? Why did East Germans start emphasising their distinct Ostidentität (eastern identity) and why did it emerge in the first place? Is it part of a natural, long-term development rooted in the communist social doctrine, i.e. a form of nostalgia and GDR transfiguration? Or is it an after-effect of the