Magdalena Baran-Szołtys
Studia Litteraria Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis, Volume 10, Issue 1, 2015, pp. 1-14
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843933ST.15.001.4092After the transition of 1989 numerous texts were published dealing with travels in the (post-) After the transition of 1989 numerous texts were published dealing with travels in the (post-)Galician space. Being part of a long tradition of travels to Austrian Galicia from late eighteenth century, present-day travel leads to a historical space that does not exist anymore but is present in literature, different national narratives and family lore. The article concentrates on one group of these texts in Polish and German literature – transgenerational travels. Using the example of Sabrina Janesch’s novel Katzenberge (2010), the paper traces travels along the tracks of her own family history. The travelers are mainly descendants of “Galicians” who emigrated or were resettled. The paper claims that the aim of the texts is to reconstruct the stories of the travellers’ ancestors and their own through the journey and make them accessible to future generations. Furthermore, the texts revise the inherited images of Galicia: they do not reject but rather update them.