The representation of the personal traumatic experience of the past in the work "Austerlitz" by Winfried Georg Sebald
Abstrakt
In the European culture of the late 20th - early 21st centuries, the category of the historical past is being rethought and redefined. The development of new ways to explain the past and the changes experienced opens up a different perspective in which the rethinking of history itself is possible.
New forms of dealing with the past are reflected in European intellectual culture, including in literature. German writer W.G.
Sebald holds a special position in it. Sebald's prose is seen as a reaction to the experience of surviving the traumatic events of the 20th century.
The past becomes the source of reflection on the present, where the private life of a person is interpreted within the framework of the historical events' global meaning. The restoration of the whole picture of the past is carried out thanks to the historical experience of the witness.
The narrative strategies that Sebald uses are largely determined by the specifics of the travelogue genre. The functions of the protagonist in the works are transferred from people to material objects that are carriers of the memory of a civilizational and personal catastrophe.
In this work, I plan to consider the representation of the traumatic experience of the past in the work ((Austerlitz}} by Sebald. The research will focus on ways to reflect on the past.
How the narrative strategies allow the reader to change the perspective of the vision and open access to the past.