A.J . LIEHM
415
afterward too. (The anthology I mentioned before was just a brief and' 'semi–
legal" episode.)
The point is that the Kafka battle was part ofa whole struggle for a revival
of society and culture. The East Germans, who were fighting to preserve old
Stalinist and neo-Stalinist cultural policies, simply couldn't ignore Kafka, as
the Russians did, and pretend that nothing had ever happened. He was a
German writer of too great a stature to be silenced, particularly by second-rate
literature. And this led to a paradoxical situation. They finally published
Kafka and rejected him at the same time . They acknowledged him artistically
but condemned him ideologically-as though an author can be split asunder
from what he has written.
The East Germans had an easier job with Thomas Mann because almost
all of his work is turned toward the past.
Buddenbrooks
is set in the nine–
teenth century,
Lotte in Weimar
goes back even farther, not to mention his
Joseph
trilogy. Even his most contemporary work,
Dr. Faustus,
ends with
World War II. Besides , Mann limits his subject matter to the spiritual world of
the bourgeoisie and intellectuals.
In comparison, Kafka's work has a universal frame.
It
cannot be limited
in time, since it reaches into the past, through the present , and far ahead into
the future. Its range is unlimited, touching on every facet of human existence.
In a social sense, Kafka's work cannot be reduced to any clearly defined
milieu. So each phenomenon Kafka describes somehow has to do with the
present and the existing social situation.
It
is impossible to say about him,
"What he has written has nothing to do with us , with our times and our prob–
lems ." Unlike Thomas Mann , Kafka cannot be mummified and made into a
"classic. " In my opinion, these are the basic reasons for the bitter polemics
which built up into such a sharp conflict between the East Germans and the
liberal forces in other East European countries.
Liehm :
In Prague today Kafka is not only accused of being decadent and
destructive, but his Jewishness has also become an issue.
Karst:
I'm not surprised . The vision of a Jewish vampire drinking the
blood of burgeoning Czechoslovak socialism is quite consistent with the
process which began with the invasion of Russian tanks. Since the Communist
Party took on a fascist character in Poland during the 1960s and in Czecho–
slovakia after 1969 , both countries are condemned to cultural barrenness and
to
misery . The most recent developments around the figure ofFranz Kafka are
just one example. But I still believe that both our nations, which have survived
so much already, will survive this present tragedy too.
