Exhibition: Literature in Silesia

From December 18, 2002 to January 24, 2003
in the atrium of Dresden City Hall.

In the age of the dissolution of borders and globalization, regions and provinces are gaining a new significance; the specific region, its cultural peculiarities in the broadest sense, are brought to mind precisely when these peculiarities appear to be threatened with loss. This is where a search for identity and history begins - even in Silesia today. And literary history is also faced with the task of understanding and describing the historical development towards the problems of the present anew. In this respect, our exhibition aims to shed light on texts and contexts of literary works in 'snapshots' (Aby Warburg), as it were, which are also meaningful for the ideas that have been formed in history about the 'Silesian region'.

The exhibition "Literature in Silesia" uses examples to show the dependencies of literary imaginations and the cultural fields in which their forms and content are realized as literature. In the mirror of literature, Silesia appears in its eventful history; we encounter a European region, a landscape of fierce battles, wars and ideological conflicts between cultures and nations, but also of tolerance, cultural openness and togetherness.

With the kind support of the Saxon State Ministry of the Interior.