Profile einer Neuen Sachlichkeit in der österreichischen Kinder- und Jugendliteratur der 1920er-Jahre

Abstract

There is already an extensive body of lexico-biographical data and bibliographic research on the innovative years after 1918, which, among other areas, brought forth a completely new beginning for children’s and young adult literature. Due to the sheer amount of material, it seems appropriate to showcase a longer period of the genre’s development by means of an overview. For now, this endeavor has been limited to one decade and, through text-based and diachronic analyses, seeks to reveal that the individual works reference one another and thus document the process-based nature of this genre. What is important here is not so much the embedding of these texts within often far-fetched ideologemes, which had become very dubious after the catastrophe of war. Rather, it seems important to depict these very diverse reflections on childhood – including humorous stories for children –, which all create a whole, in an entirely new social context and in all their novelty. To this end 14 Austrian authors have been selected because of their innovative aspirations. One or several of their works from this decade will be addressed in chronological order. (transl. by Ariane Manutscheri)