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Article Excerpt
Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed were two of the few American science fiction novels published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Le Guin shares this distinction with Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Aldous Huxley, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (2) Like all literature that appeared in East Germany, Le Guin's titles passed through an elaborate approval process before they appeared in the science fiction publishing house: Verlag Das Neue Berlin (DNB). The Left Hand of Darkness came out in 1978 under the title Winterplanet. The Dispossessed was published in 1987, just two years before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 as Planet der Habenichtse (literally, planet of those with nothing).
At first, it may come as a surprise that these particular authors made it past a censor that enforced the prevailing ideology of East Germany's Socialist Unity Party (SED). Many outside of the former GDR assume publishing policy was determined from the top down. This belief certainly has its basis in truth. Within the country's Ministry of Culture, publishing decisions were made in accordance with the official literary policy of Socialist Realism. Originally adapted in the fifties from Stalinist Russia, this politically driven construct envisioned all literature to be an educational tool with which to model the future envisioned by the SED. All East German authors were required to demonstrate their Parteilichkeit, or dedication to the party, through their portrayal of this totalizing, dogmatic "reality."
At the same time, GDR cultural policy was constantly evolving to meet the needs of the current economic and political situation. By the seventies, seen in the growth and variety of East German science fiction publications at the time, officials within the Ministry of Culture did allow limited literary experimentation. Carol Anne Costabile-Heming writes, "concepts such as 'socialist realism' and 'critical' changed over time, often in response to the kinds of texts that writers were submitting for publication." Consequently, "[n]egotiation constantly occurred as the borders of censorship were regularly redefined" (57). Erik Simon, former editor for science fiction from socialist countries at DNB, concurs with this statement. "Certain things were entirely impossible, some were clearly OK, but most could be made possible if some-one really wanted it, and the time was right, and that someone knew how to do it" (E-mail 2). Editor Michael Szameit confirmed this practice in an interview in 1999.
To an extent, the primary agents of science fiction policy were the genre's editors and authors who constantly navigated the boundaries of a programmatic literary policy. This phenomenon is apparent particularly in the appearance of works by Ursula K. Le Guin, an author from the "capitalist West." Today, it is possible to document the narrative strategies used by editors at DNB to gain censor approval. The following pages first outline the prevailing science fiction policy in the GDR in the sixties and seventies. This contextual information highlights the manner in which cultural officials believed West German television and the availability of illegal Western science fiction literature challenged East German interests. The GDR also had an elaborate publication approval process. An in-depth look at these archival documents, which became available after the fall of the Berlin Wall, makes it possible to access the editorial voices responsible for the Ursula Le Guin novels. My analysis focuses on the editor, not as an obedient instrument of the state, but as the active participant in the publication process, who understood and exploited the gaps and fissures of a repressive literary system.
A quote from the editor's abstract of The Dispossessed presented to the East German censorship board provides a good introduction to the country's governing political paradigm. The abstract describes the book as the following:
The juxtaposition of a capitalist societal system with that of a socialist anarchic utopia disguised as an alien civilization. The socialist anarchic utopia is an alternative model to the exploitative society and is also examined critically as its utopian development is revealed. (3)
This sentence employs the dichotomy that dominated Cold War politics: Capitalism versus Communism, the United States versus the Soviet Union, and West Germany versus the East Germany. Orthodox interpretations of Cold War ideology drove publishing policy in the GDR in the fifties and sixties. The pairing of socialism and anarchy employed in the above quote from the late eighties was out of the question in the sixties. Editors could not support a novel that strayed from the Party's vision of communism or socialism. For example, Stanislaw Lem's satirical Star Diaries, came out only in highly abbreviated form in 1961, and had little immediate stylistic influence on GDR science fiction.
SED science fiction policy wished to curtail reader exposure to alternative ideas that might contradict its interpretation of Marxism-Leninism. The restriction of access to foreign literature remained difficult to enforce in a dictatorship on the border with its other historical half--West Germany. Relatives and friends devised ways of sneaking in the latest Phillip K. Dick or Isaac Asimov. Fans then hand-typed these copies for secret distribution among friends and fan club members.
The seventies brought with them a cluster of changes that forced open the door to greater literary innovation. One primary factor in the case of science fiction was the spread of access to West German television. Television provided an ultimately insurmountable challenge to the East German censor. Beginning in the late sixties, East German stores sold television sets so that households could watch the country's state-run channels. In reality, those not ideologically opposed to the practice, equipped their new sets with illegal antennae in order to receive West German programming. Viewers saw Star Trek (Gene Roddenberry, 1966-1969), Great Britain's The Avengers (Jonathan Alwyn and Robert Asher, 1961-1969), and the German production Raumpatrouille. Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes ORION [Space Patrol. The Fantastic Adventures of the Spaceship ORION. Michael Braun and Theo Mezger, Spaceship Orion, 1966]. (4) As the seventies progressed, West German television quickly became the information source for the most recent developments in science fiction literature, television and film from the West. In many programs, East Germans regularly saw the portrayal of a western reality against which their own paled in comparison (Schroder 40).
In 1971, a regime change responded to calls for higher quality material goods and a greater diversity of choice designed to compete with the society East Germans saw on television. Part of his new economic plan of "socialist Rationalization," Erich Honecker spoke of a "real existing" socialism of higher wages, cheaper prices, and more quality products that were designed to reach everyone despite budgetary concerns (Staritz 276-279).
In the field of literature, cultural officials allowed for limited experimentation with satirical and fantasy forms. A new generation of talented authors turned to science fiction as a way to displace their critique of the system in another time or onto another planet. (5) Often newly successful authors composed for a "knowing" reader and hid veiled allusions to East Germany's Socialist Unity Party and a stagnating communist system within their alien fictions. Thus, part of the enjoyment of reading science...
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