The Poetry of Paul Celan and the Bukovinian Exceptionalism

Our work intends to reread Paul Celan's poetic work in the light of the special historical-cultural constellation in Bukovina, the former crown land in the east of the Habsburg monarchy. It was a "exceptionalism" phenomenon unique in Central Europe: in this enclave the Jews played an essential social role because of their German-language acculturation, in which most liked to express an illusionary "German-Jewish" symbiosis. The nationalisms of the 19th and 20th centuries made every effort to destroy the Bukovinian "special route" of heterogeneity and to homogenize the country and the people. After the war, the young Paul Antschel still had in the name of this "special way" thought of his German language and the traditions of German poetry-his poetry is "extraordinary" also because it arose from this reflex until he understood that the illusion had failed. It was only this disillusionment that shaped his lyrical discourse in the fundamental renewal of the "German" poetic language.