Sacher-Masoch's Utopian Peripheries (Leopold von Sacher-Masoch)
The German Quarterly 2007, Spring, 80, 2
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- 29,00 kr
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- 29,00 kr
Utgivarens beskrivning
Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the controversial Austrian author of the erotic novella "Venus in Furs" (1877), is little known for his distinctive political utopianism. Yet, he espouses a paradoxical German-language Pan-Slavism in many of his novellas and political essays. His "opus magnum" Vermachtnis Kains (1870-77) depicts as natural determinism fierce ethnic conflicts within the para-colonial space of Eastern Europe. In fact, conflict is the prerequisite of his utopian pan-Slavic community in Eastern Europe. In his novellas "Kapitulant" and "Paradies am Dniester," discussed in this essay, Sacher-Masoch creates a discourse on utopian space that delivers its message through its suspension in fantasy denying the spatial realities and political limitations of Europe. **********