GDR Women Authors and Feminist Consciousness During State Socialism

Abstract

From the 1960s on, women writers in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), including Christa Wolf, Irmtraud Morgner, Sarah Kirsch, Brigitte Reimann, Charlotte Worgitzky, Lia Pirskawetz, and Maya Wiens, produced a large body of writing on women’s issues. Martens wants to investigate how these women authors in the GDR have articulated their feminist consciousness under the conditions of state socialism. Martens’ use of the title The Promised Land is an allusion to a book by Irmtraud Morgner, an author whom, along with Christa Wolf, Martens considers one of the most important witnesses of feminist writing in the GDR. In Morgner’s book The Life and Adventures of Troubadour Beatriz the term “promised land” is being used to ironically refer to the GDR. One cannot capture this “miraculous place,” as Morgner calls it, by merely being a yes-sayer or no-sayer. This observation is further reinforced by the question mark which Martens places behind the term “promised land.” These allusions show how feminist writing can use language creatively to talk about this country, particularly about the ways in which its politics affect women.