Posttraumatisches Erzählen

Alexander Kratochvil

Post-traumatic narrative. In order to remember, stories are told. But how are traumatic experiences from war and mass murder, long-term totalitarian repression or an atomic catastrophe like Chernobyl narated in stories, at all? Post-traumatic storytelling is a means of dealing creatively and emotionally with the unspeakability of trauma. Post-traumatic narrative as a thought experiment in the form of fictional texts lays traces to the unspeakable of trauma. The interpretations of Czech, Ukrainian and German texts follow these traces, making it clear how post-traumatic storytelling is linked to literary and cultural contexts. Through kontextualization and intertextuality the trauma becomes narrable. It can be inscribed in the collective and cultural memory. It can be remembered and thus forgotten.