How postcolonial are the literatures of postcommunist countries such as Poland, Russia, and Ukraine? Are they postcolonial on the level of sociopolitical conditions, postcolonial modes of representation, or of a (post-)colonial mind? The contributors consider and respond to the heuristic questions and to the claim for accuracy which purports that Slavic literatures after communism are indeed postcolonial - in a no more metaphorical way than the "classic" cases of postcolonial literatures, whose postcoloniality can be traced to the colonialism of overseas empires. The contributions to this volume deal with the exploration of literary representation and hence of postcolonial textuality.

Vladimir Sorokin is the most prominent and the most controversial contemporary Russian writer. Having emerged as a prose writer in Moscow's artistic underground in the late 1970s and early 80s, he became visible to a broader Russian audience only in the mid-1990s, with texts shocking the moralistic expectations of traditionally minded readers by violating not only Soviet ideological taboos, but also injecting vulgar language, sex, and violence into plots that the postmodernist Sorokin borrowed from nineteenth-century literature and Socialist Realism. Sorokin became famous when the Putin youth organization burned his books in 2002 and he picked up neo-nationalist and neo-imperialist discourses in his dystopian novels of the 2000s and 2010s, making him one of the fiercest critics of Russia's "new middle ages," while remaining steadfast in his dismantling of foreign discourses.

Vladimir Sorokin is the most prominent and the most controversial contemporary Russian writer. Having emerged as a prose writer in Moscow's artistic underground in the late 1970s and early 80s, he became visible to a broader Russian audience only in the mid-1990s, with texts shocking the moralistic expectations of traditionally minded readers by violating not only Soviet ideological taboos, but also injecting vulgar language, sex, and violence into plots that the postmodernist Sorokin borrowed from nineteenth-century literature and Socialist Realism. Sorokin became famous when the Putin youth organization burned his books in 2002 and he picked up neo-nationalist and neo-imperialist discourses in his dystopian novels of the 2000s and 2010s, making him one of the fiercest critics of Russia's "new middle ages," while remaining steadfast in his dismantling of foreign discourses.

Postkoloniale Konstellationen lassen sich nicht (mehr) in das Eigene und das Andere, in das Originare und das Nachgeahmte, in ein Hier und Dort auseinanderdividierenden. Sie sind gepragt von Verflechtungen, Hybri-disierungen und wechselseitigen Aneignungsprozessen. In diesem Band analysiert die Autorin Texte von Jurij Brezan, Irena Brezna, Mascha Dabic, Roza Domascyna, Olga Grjasnowa, Barbi Markovic, Olga Martynova und Aleksandar Tisma. Sie zeigt auf, dass alle Werke sich mit multiplen Zuge-hoerigkeiten, Mehrsprachigkeit und UEbersetzung auseinandersetzen. Die Texte dekonstruieren Grenzen sprachlicher und kultureller Zugehoerigkeit, thematisieren aber auch Diskriminierung, Rassismus und Antisemitismus. Damit beschreiben sie mehrsprachige Welten jenseits von hegemonialer Einsprachigkeit.

Die Beitrage dieses Bandes belegen, dass der Begriff des Orientalismus zu einem wichtigen Arbeits- und Erkenntnisinstrument der kulturwissenschaftlich erneuerten Slavistik geworden ist. Der Plural "Orientalismen" oeffnet das Feld fur sehr verschiedenartige Konstellationen, die vom Kaukasus in der russischen Romantik uber die AEgypten-Bilder der russischen Moderne bis zu den Filmschulen Mittelasiens und zum Tschetschenien-Konflikt, vom polnischen Barockzeitalter bis zum Avantgarde-Roman der Zwischenkriegszeit und zu neueren polnischen Russland-Bildern, von der kroatischen Literatur der Romantik bis zu bosnischen Identitatsdiskursen der neunziger Jahre des vergangenen Jahrhunderts reichen. Dabei werden Verfahren, Symbole, Metaphern und Diskurse vorgestellt, die zur Konstruktion von Orient in slavischen Kulturen und Literaturen beigetragen haben - zum 'Osten des Ostens'.