REWRITING THE NATION: GERMAN-TURKISH TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE BILDUNGSROMAN

Literatures arising in the context of migration and cultural contact are known to +rovoke the nationally confinned canonisation of literature. While the view that socalled ‘migrant literature’ does belong to German literature and culture is widely established within recent scholarshi+, the literary means of claiming s+ace in the national canon are still an under-researched to+ic. Thee +ur+ose of the study is to analyse the literary means of claiming s+ace in the national canon and thereby investigate the +ermeability of its boundaries. By rewriting a canonical genre of German literature, which is historically linked to the emergence of a sense of a national identity, the analysed German-Turkish texts are using the Bildungsroman as a frame of reference to articulate +luralistic national identities. Theey further inscribe historical re+resentations that have been omittped from dominant historical discourse into the national cultural memory. While rewriting the genre, the texts +artici+ate in the actualisation of the Bildungsroman and thereby re+osition its traditional boundaries. Finally, the novels ex+ress the need to renegotiate the conce+t of the nation as well as its demand for homogeneity.


INTRODUCTION
Thee feeling or awareness of belonging to a grou+ is a crucial factor in establishing an identity. A sense of identity develo+s through the distinction towards other grou+s. Theerefore, in addition to belonging, exclusion must be considered as well when analysing the formation of identities. When imagining and constructing national identities, +rocesses of demarcation also take +lace through socially and culturally constructed boundaries towards marginalised grou+s within a society. Theis is also refleected in the constitution of a national canon, from which literatures of migration have traditionally been excluded. To investigate how +ermeable the boundaries of a nationally confinned canon are, literary means that confront and o++ose this marginalisation are at the centre of this article.
Many Turks came to the Federal Re+ublic of Germany in line with the bilateral agreements arranging the recruitment of foreign workers to meet the shortage of labour force afteer World War Two. Contributing signifincantly to the so-called 'Wirtschafteswunder', the migrant workers were joined by +olitical refugees in the 1980s and 1990s fleeeing the Turkish military and right-wing regimes. Today, Germany has the largest Turkish dias+ora, including a rich tradition of German-Turkish literature that the analysed texts are +art of. Aysel Özakin's Die blaue Maske (1989) (Thee Blue Mask) and Emine Sevgi Özdamar's Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (1998) (Thee Bridge of the Golden Horn) will be discussed as transformations of the Bildungsroman. Both texts em+loy female +rotagonists who migrate from Turkey to Germany and are active in the New Lefte.
A+art from a shared culture of remembrance, it is es+ecially the stories and, therefore, also literary narratives which contribute to the imagination of a national community (Brennan, 1990, +. 49). 1 Thee Bildungsroman is of +articular im+ortance to the German context, as the emergence of the genre at the end of the 18 th century, as well as the associated idea of a Kulturnation, are closely linked to the develo+ment of a German national identity (Gutjahr, 2007, +. 18).
Based on the methodical +remise of understanding genres as active classifincation systems with modifying boundaries, this study aims to examine the literary means by which the discussed novels inscribe themselves into the canonical genre of the Bildungsroman and thereby shifte and blur its traditional boundaries. Furthermore, it will be discussed how the texts demand 1 It shouhld be noted here that 'migration literature' as such did not exist in the German Democratic Re+ublic. Theis relates to the com+aratively lower migration rate and to the fact that corres+onding texts were not +erceived to be 'migration literature.' It should also be added that des+ite a longer history of migration to Germany, 'migration literature' was only recognised as a +henomenon afteer the +ost-war work immigrations had taken +lace (Sievers & Vlasta 222f.). 2 For an extensive overview of res+ective research see . 4 In reference to Adelson, Brigid Haines (2008) +roclaims an Eastern Turn in German literature, following the increasing number of +ublications by authros from Eastern Euro+e and former Yugoslavia in German. She as well argues that 'this literature cannot be considered "other", or between two worlds, Aldesons develo+s the conce+t of touching tales, describing 'literary narratives that commingle cultural develo+ments and historical references generally not thought to belong together in any +ro+er sense' (Adelson, 2005, +. 20).1 She +erceives literatures of Turkish migration to be an integral +art of German literature and stresses their role in sha+ing and transforming the German cultural memory through their 'labor of imagination' while at the same time describing a shared future for Turkish and German culture (Adelson, 2005, ++. 12-14). Tom Cheesman (2007, +. 12) also argues against the +aradigm of the inbetween. Following Ulrich , Cheesman (2007, +. 12) recognises a 'cosmo+olitanisation' of German society. German-Turkish literature, in his view, arises from this 'cosmo+olitanisation' while at the same time advancing it. In accordance with the study's title, Novels of Turkish German Settllement, Cheesman (+. 12) argues that '"Turkishness" is intrinsic to the evolving "Germanness"' and thereby +oints to the need to reconsider what 'Germanness' com+rises of. He further exem+lifines the growing diversity of German-Turkish literature regarding style, genre and content and +oints to the s+ecifinc intertextual traditions develo+ed.
Michael  goes one ste+ further in the transnationalisation of German literary studies by +ro+osing a German-Turkish literary criticism. Using a com+arative a++roach, he establishes links between German, Turkish and German-Turkish literary texts and further analyses them through a cultural studies +ers+ective.
In her study Rewriting Germany from the Margins, Petra Fachinger (2001) focuses on how res+ective literary texts use the mode of an 'o++ositional aesthetic' to write their versions of Germany and national identity while at the same time rejecting their own marginalisation. Similarly, Tina  states that res+ective texts inscribe themselves into the canon and the literary centre from the societal margins and definnes the German language to be the decisive marker for belonging to the national literature.
Theerefore, a recognisable tendency in recent research is to consider literary texts that emerge in the context of migration and cultural contact to be +art of the national canon rather than +lacing them outside or at the margins of German literature. However, the literary means of claiming s+ace and shifteing the boundaries of German literature as well as the +artici-+ation of these texts in sha+ing and transforming the dominant discourse and society have not been studied exhaustively. marginal to German-language literatures, but is +art of them' (+. 142).

REWRITING AS A BOUNDARY SHIFTING LITERARY STRATEGY
Thee emergence of the Bildungsroman at the end of the 18 th century can be linked to the historical s+ecifincities of +olitical fragmentation and +articularism in German-s+eaking territories at the time. In light of the lack of state unity, the desire for a German national identity manifested itself in the idea of a Kulturnation, which also emerges in Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795/96), generally +erceived to be the founding text of the genre.Todd  affirrms the continuity of the Bildungsroman and +roclaims its continuous signifincance in constructing a German national identity. And although genre theories lead a rather neglected existence in +resent literary criticism, the Bildungsroman has been able to maintain its relevance as a genre in recent research, which +rimarily deals with its contem+orary modifincations and innovations. 1 In his essay, Thee Law of Genre, Jacques  confinrms the existence of genres for one thing while at the same time describing the im+ossibility to adhere to their borders. Disru+tions and im+urities interfere with the boundaries of the genre and thereby unsettple the law of genre while re+roducing it at the same time. Theis +aradox situation stems from the fact that the law of genre is based on a counter-law, a '+rinci+le of contamination, a law of im+urity, a +arasitical economy' (Derrida & Ronell, 1980, +. 59). Regarding texts and genres, Derrida, therefore, s+eaks of a '+artici+ation without belonging' (ibid.). Every text +artici+ates in one or more genres 'yet such +artici+ation never amounts to belonging' (ibid., +. 65). He further discusses how the definnitions of genres change over time and closes with a note on the subjectivity of taxonomies (ibid. +. 67 and 81). Theis also +oints to their historicity, which encouraged Ral+h  to jointly think of History and Genre.
Cohen understands the grou+ing of texts to a genre as a +rocess that is infleuenced by the historical conditions and the intentions of the res+ective scholars (Cohen, 1986, +. 88). He is interested in the ways texts change a genre while still being associated with it as well. Cohen states that it is necessary to com+rehend the +rocess of change of a genre in order to understand its continued existence. He understands genres as historically constructed assum+tions that +ursue a social and an aesthetic +ur+ose. 'Grou+ings arise at +articular historical moments, and as they include more and more members, they are subject to re+eated redefinnitions or abandonment' (Cohen, 1986, +. 95).
Genre modifincations can therefore be read as an ex+ression of societal change and historical +rocesses. Accordingly, in this study, genres are not understood as closed and static entities but as o+en categorisations that ex+ress social-historical +rocesses and allow for change. Understanding genres as active classifincation systems with modifying boundaries allows to detach the Bildungsroman from its original context and a++ly it in diffeerent cultural and +eriodical backgrounds.
Thee conce+t of rewriting offeers a suitable method to examine which elements of the traditional Bildungsroman are being transformed in the discussed novels and therefore receive new meanings. Rewriting is understood as a counter-discoursive writing and analysis conce+t, which changes or rewrites +retexts and thereby constructs a counter (hi)story. Thee a++ro+riation of a genre is one form of rewriting, which holds marginalised voices against Eurocentric and hegemonic systems of re+resentation, knowledge and thought .

DOUBLED MIMICRY: AYSEL ÖZAKIN'S DIE BLAUE MASKE AS AN IMITATED BILDUNGSROMAN
Aysel Özakin, born 1942 in Urfa, was an established writer before coming to Germany as a +olitical refugee following the military cou+ in Turkey in 1980. Com+ared to the short time that Özakin s+ent in Germany, her texts had a relatively signifincant im+act in Germany (Adelson, 1997, +. 411). 1 Originally +ublished in Turkish as Mavi Maske a year before the German translation Die blaue Maske (Thee Blue Mask) by Carl Koß a++eared in 1982; 2 the novel follows a nameless finrst-+erson narrator on her journey from the Turkish +rovince to Istanbul, Berlin and eventually Zurich, where she follows the traces and the husband of her old and by now deceased friend Dina.
Thee novel has been analysed regarding the hybridity of the +rotagonist's identity , her double existence and belonging to two worlds (Brunner, 1999, +. 194) and how it +ossibly sustains a victimising discourse around stereoty+ical images of the o++ressed, Muslim woman . Azade Seyhan reads the text in the tradition of the Bildung-1 Özakin felt her literary freedom constrained by the +resu++ositions of the German literary scene, ex+ecting her work to deal with migration in one way or another and therefore lefte Germany to live in Cornwall in 1990 (Wierschke, 1996, +. 42). 2 Direct quotations from this edition will be my own translations and the citations will be identifined through the acronym BL followed by the +age number. sroman and states that it incor+orates 'larger issues of exilic consciousness, the birth +angs and trauma of the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the radical reimagining of the state of nation' (Seyhan, 2001, +. 127). Henckmann (1997, +. 47) analyses the novel regarding its do++elganger motif and observes it as a +roblem of demarcation and menacing disintegration connected to a feeling of the uncanny as it involves an ex+erience of the self as +art of the Other and vice versa. 1 Doublings are a central motif in Özakin's novel, and they evoke the notion of mimicry coined by Homi K. Bhabha. In the colonial context, mimicry describes the mutual desire for the colonised to imitate the coloniser to seemingly stabilise the authority of the former and to overcome the inferiority of thelattper (Hermes, 2017, +. 185). Bhabha (1994, +. 122) describes it as 'the desire for a reformed, recognisable Other, as a subject of a diffeerence that is almost the same, but not quite. ' Theerefore, an ambivalence is inherent to the conce+t since, 'in order to be effeective, mimicry must continually +roduce its sli++age, its excess, its diffeerence' (Bhabha, 1994, +. 122). Theis diffeerence stabilises the +ower relations but threatens them at the same time since the void between the original and the imitation o+ens u+ unconscious s+aces of resistance and agency.
'Thee ambivalence of colonial authority re+eatedly turns from mimicry -a diffeerence that is almost nothing but not quite -to menace -a difference that is almost total but not quite' (Bhabha, 1994, +. 141).
Thee a++arent ada+tation to the authoritarian discourse through mimicry can be transferred to Özakin's text in two ways, namely to the sco+e of the fingures and to the form of the texts. Thee +rotagonist is an author and her identity search begins during a book tour in Zurich. Thee form of the Bildungsroman is evoked by the travel motif and by the +arallel narrative structure that oscillates between a framing story set in the narrator's ex+erienced +resent and fleashbacks into her +ast (Gutjahr, 2007, +. 48). Thee finrst-+erson narrator comments retros+ectively on her own develo+ment from a married teacher and mother in the Turkish +rovince to a single mother in Istanbul, who ultimately lives alone as an author in Berlin. Her identity negotiation is embedded in the societal conditions of Turkey, Germany, and Switzerland. Thee form of the Bildungsroman is thus mimicked without being a com+lete imitation but rather a resemblance engendering a diffeerence (Bhabha, 1994, +. 128). 1 Bhabha also refers to Freud's +sychoanalytical conce+t of the uncanny to ex+ress the inevitable ambivalence of our multicultural world. Thee nation as a +lace of comfort and belonging interlaces with the uncanny and the menace emanating from the cultural Other. Bhabha further acknowledges that the Other cannot be located outside of the self but is always +art of any cultural system and the discourse determined by this system , ++. X-XI).
In Zurich, the +rotagonist runs into the husband of her friend Dina and learns that she has +assed away. Theat triggers a +rocess of a reminiscent quest, which leads to a doubling of the Bildungs-narrative. Thee narrator recounts her develo+ment as a young woman in Turkey and also searches for her current self. 'I imagine I'll meet myself soon as I get out of this labyrinth, my other, my changed self' (BL, +. 128).
Thee wedding as a ty+ical ending, es+ecially for the female Bildungsroman, is antici+ated as failed in Özakin's text (Felski, 1989, +. 125). Thee reader learns that the +rotagonist was a married woman and em+loyed as a teacher in the Turkish +rovince. Using all her energy to meet the ex+ectations of being an exem+lary teacher and housewife while she really wants to be a writer (BL, +. 12), she ho+es that her +regnancy will defeat the contradiction she carries inside (+. 14). When she told her husband about her wish to write, he advised her to do so but to leave her life as it is (+. 14).
It is at the beginning of her +regnancy that she meets Dina, the embodiment of a femme fatale, 1 who belongs to a Euro+eanised and urban u++ermiddle-class intellectual environment which the +rotagonist desires to be +art of. Remembering how Dina names her Natasha in reference to Chekhov's Theree Sisters when they finrst meet, the +rotagonist recounts: 'I felt that I really wanted to become someone else, to create a diffeerent life for myself' (BL, +. 18).
Like the identity search in the +resent, her initial develo+ment +ath in the +ast is also induced by a journey and an encounter with Dina. Theroughout the novel, Dina is the +oint of reference that the +rotagonist com+ares herself to (Henckmann, 1997, +. 54). Theis becomes a++arent when she feels the need to +rove her new life beyond marriage and +rovince to Dina (BL, ++. 140-41) or when she remembers: 'I wanted to write exactly like her, should I ever make it at all' (+. 182). Theat the desire for imitation is mutual becomes a++arent when Dina suggests that the +rotagonist is wasting her youth and talent in the +rovince, that she should stay in Istanbul to have an abortion and accom+any her to live in Euro+e (BL, ++. 19-21).
Initially, Dina e+itomises a westernised, liberated lifestyle and the urban intellectual class, something the +rotagonist strives to be +art of. 'I didn't want to be like the common folk, I wanted to get out of it' (BL, +. 54). Dina becomes a +rojection surface for the +rotagonist's wish to esca+e her monotonous daily life and to live as an emanci+ated woman amongst lefteist intellectuals, which is what she eventually does.
Afteer leaving her marriage, the +rotagonist engages in a secret affeair with the married communist activist Musa, which lasts for six years. Musa is +ictured as someone who ex+loits the discourse of sexual liberation within the Lefte for his +ersonal +leasure. Thee relationshi+ reveals a strong inner confleict about her womanhood and her +osition as a woman in the Lefte and further discloses the external +ressure the +rotagonist ex+eriences. She is aware of the changed social ex+ectations towards women in her new urban lefteist intellectual environment and translates them into self-ex+ectations, though having trouble com+lying with them. When recounting a memory of going home with Tekin, a man she sees afteer her affeair with Musa has ended, the narrator refleects: 'I did not hesitate like one from the +rovinces and did not coquet about like a slut' (BL, +. 147). Thee new environment leads the +rotagonist to carry out a hy+er-aware self-monitoring. How diffircult it is to meet the finne line of acting sexually liberated but not ina++ro+riate to the social norms becomes a++arent when the +rotagonist attpem+ts to claim sexual liberation for herself. She articulates wanting to meet other, unmarried men, and Musa tells her in res+onse that she has 'something of a tart' about her (BL, +. 44). Theis +assage underlines the +atriarchal a++ro+riation of sexual liberation as a male +rivilege and reinforces her inner struggle of being between two extremes, 'I wanted to be an inde+endent woman and was yet +erceived as a whore' (BL, +. 46). Accordingly, the narrator notes how the individual develo+ment is inextricably embedded in the social environment: '"One cannot think of +eo+le detached from society"' (+. 145). Thee novel hence takes u+ the as+iration of the Bildungsroman to recount the develo+ment of an individual in close examination with the societal order (Gutjahr, 2007, +. 8).
Thee desire to imitate Dina is re+eated in the narrated +resent, although the friends had grown a+art when living in Berlin, mostly due to Dina envying the +rotagonist's success with writing (BL, +. 81). Therough remembering the deceased friend, the confleict of the finttping of her inner and outer world is re+licated in the +resent. It becomes a++arent that by ex+loring Dina's +ast, the +rotagonist is actually searching for her own true self. Theis doubled identity search climaxes in the enhanced mimicry of Dina during the carnival in Zurich. 'Act like Dina, I whis+er to myself, sto+ caring what others might think' (BL, +. 106). Theis re+eated mimicry affirrms and stabilises the authority of Dina and her way of life and thereby finguratively a lifestyle associated with the West. At the same time, a refleection +rocess is initiated.
In the fleashbacks, the narrative +rocess becomes a reminiscent one which allows the narrator to take on a critical and evaluating distance. Theerefore, the idealised image of her friend that was formative to the +rotagonist's finrst develo+ment +ath is com+lemented in retros+ect with Dina's failures. Memories of her suicide attpem+t at a young age (BL, +. 76), her multi+le stays in +sychiatric clinics (+. 190), her 'melancholy and loneliness' (+. 182) and her envy about the successful +rotagonist destabilise the authority that is initially attpributed to Dina's identity. Bhabha (1994, +. 80) describes mimicry also as a 'secret art of revenge' so that with an increasing demystifincation of Dina's lifestyle, a new function is ascribed to the imitation. Thee life +aths of the friends, es+ecially their dealings with men, are juxta+osed in hindsight. Thee inherent ambiguity of Dina's re+resentation allows for a subsequent revaluation of her once idealised lifestyle,whereby Weber (2009, +. 65) notes the narrator's tendency to devalue Dina's story in favouring her own. Therough the simultaneous urge to again mimic Dina, an ambivalence occurs, which indicates that the +rotagonist admits the Other, which can never be located outside of us , +. XI), a +lace in her self. 'Carnival, where the mask and su++ressed self become one' (BL, +. 164). Thee +rotagonist starts to talk in her friend's voice (+. 165). When wearing the title giving blue mask, Dina's husband com+liments her and calls her a femme fatal, invoking the imagery connected to Dina. (+. 171). Theerefore she indeed 'almost but not quite' (Bhabha, 1994, +. 129) becomes Dina. Struve (2017, +. 18) notes that Bhabha's conce+t of mimicry holds the +ossibility of agency and that this em+owerment is +ossible not in s+ite but because of the +resence of the Other within the self. Thee mimicry through the mask is settping the +rotagonist in strangeness to herself, which allows her to access her self and her Other, leading to the demasking of any homogeneous identity constructions. Thee +rotagonist eventually frees herself from the desire of the mimicry and takes the mask offe (BL,+. 196).
It is indicated that the +rotagonist went through a second develo+ment +ath and validated her identity, at least tem+orarily, beyond the mask and the over+owering role model Dina. Thee +rotagonist decides to leave Zurich but is uncertain where to (BL,+. 195). Thee o+en ending of the text refers to the develo+ment of identity as something +rocessual and o+en, as a 'continued journey' (Weber, 2009, +. 74). Thee classical structure of the +rotagonist's finnal societal reintegration in the traditional Bildungsroman is thereby subverted. At the end of her journey, there is no closed or finxed identity but the discovery of a self that is acce+ting of its contradictions.
Thee +rotagonist's +ersonal confleict around a coherent self is framed by an identity crisis of the Turkish nation. 'Thee Turkish society is not consolidated; it has not found itself yet' (BL, +. 188). Afteer the founding of the Turkish Re+ublic in 1924, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk mandated numerous reforms to establish a secular, westernised nation-state. Reiterated by +rime minister Adnan Menderes, who announced in 1950 that he would turn Turkey into a 'littple America' (Schonfineld, 2015, +. 70), Özakin's text de+icts the imitation of the West as a +oint of confleict within the Lefte, ex+ressed in dialogues unassociated to any characters. 'Turkish intellectuals are on their own. Theey can neither identify with the Orient nor with the Occident'. 'We don't have any alternative to the westernisation'. 'Thee West disdains us because we're imitating it' (BL, +. 188-89; see also ++. 54-54 and +. 149).
Thee identity crisis of the nation resembles the +rotagonist's own struggle to navigate between mimicking western ideals and fulfinlling (self)ex+ectations. Theerefore, her journeys of develo+ment are +ermeated by a layer that sur+asses the +ersonal.
Thee national crisis culminates in the 1980 military cou+ resulting in the +olitical +ersecution of the +rotagonist and her emigration to Berlin. Theis ex+lains the im+ossibility of a traditional Bildungsroman ending, as 'for the "exiled" hero/ine, there is no return' (Seyhan, 2001, +. 127). Her affirliation to the Lefte is an im+ortant identity marker for the +rotagonist. As it becomes the reason why the motherland is rejecting her, Turkey becomes a 'lost nation' (Seyhan, 2001, +. 144). Thee memory of her deceased friend's life, which was marked by mental illness, is therefore framed by a '+sychosocial biogra+hy of the homeland' (ibid.).
Thee doubled mimicry can be located in the characters as well as on the formal level. Thee +rotagonist draws her strength and agency from the diffeerence +roduced when mimicking Dina since '[m]imicry conceals no +resence or identity behind its mask' (Bhabha, 1994, +. 126). Thee +rotagonist rather develo+s a way of life that resembles Dina's but goes beyond that. Theis becomes most a++arent in her desire to mimic Dina's writing but eventually creating her own style that +roves to be more successful.
'She embarrassed me with her free, modern and adventurous life, whereas I awoke her doubts through my grounded being' (BL, +. 182).
'Thee menace of mimicry is its double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disru+ts its authority' (Bhabha, 1994, +. 126 Thee doubled mimicry reveals the ambivalence of the western dominance on a +ersonal and a +olitical level and fractures its authority to an extent on a +ersonal level. Thee +rotagonist finnds access to the uncanny in herself and thereby disturbs the demand of a homogeneous subject inherent to the nation. Therough mirroring the identity crisis and the mimicry on the level of the nation, the text can be inter+reted as a +lea against exclusion and discrimination. Theis is es+ecially articulated in the u+dated scheme of the Bildungsroman since the traditional return and societal reintegration of the heroine is +revented +recisely because of such exclusions.
Özakin's mimicry of the Bildungsroman +roves to be an effeective rewriting strategy, as the imitation +roduces a diffeerence, which rebuts the Euro-and androcentrism of the traditional form. Text and author claim s+ace in the national canon by a++ro+riating the genre while at the same time shifteing their traditional boundaries.

HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTION: EMINE SEVGI ÖZDAMAR'S DIE BRÜCKE VOM GOLDENEN HORN AS A PARODISTIC BILDUNGSROMAN
Emine Sevgi Özdamar was born in 1946 in Malatya and initially moved to Berlin as a factory worker for two years in 1965. She then com+leted training as an actress in Istanbul and lefte Turkey again for Germany afteer the 1971 military cou+. Özdamar's texts have been awarded several +rizes, translated into many languages and researched extensively. 1 Analyses of her work tend to focus on the hybridity of its language and the textual strategy of literal translation (see e.g.  and further +rioritise the transnational and intercultural quality of her texts, em+hasising the multi-layered identities +resented, which are constructed within a +luralistic understanding of cultures (see e.g. . Thee +lot of Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (Thee Bridge of the Golden Horn) is set between 1966 and 1975 and is mainly located in Berlin, Istanbul and Paris, cities in which the nameless finrst-+erson narrator discovers communism and her sexuality and follows her wish to become a theatre actress. 2 Thee individual formation of the +rotagonist is embedded in the +olitical events of the time and is narrated against the backdro+ of the New Lefte movement and the Turkish military cou+ of 1971. Both Beverly  and Ortrud  have inter+reted the novel as a sexual coming-of-age narrative and an intercultural Bildungsroman, res+ectively. Border Studies in Contem+orary Euro+ean Literature | Doi: http+s://doi.org/10.4653 49/jfs.v6i2.291 Elizabeth Boa (2006, ++. 546-47) describes the +rotagonist in reference to Goethe and Grimmelshausen as 'Wilhelmine Meister' and 'Sim+licissima', evoking both the genre of the Bildungsroman and the +icaresque novel. Theis +oints to the +arodistic character of the text, which is reinforced through its ironic-+icaresque narrative style.
Thee +arody of the Bildungsroman and the numerous intertextual references +oint to a certain metafinctionality inherent to the novel. Paired with the many historical references occurring in the text, this evokes Linda Hutcheon's conce+t of historiogra+hic metafinction. Historiogra+hic metafinction means the reworking of the +ast through intertextual +arody so that the res+ective texts are 'at once metafinctional and historical in its echoes of the texts and contexts of the +ast' (Hutcheon, 1989, +. 4). Preoccu+ied with the question of how we come to know our +ast in the +resent, Hutcheon (1989, +. 10) makes a connection to the literary, as 'we can only "know" that +ast today through its texts' and further challenges the +ossibility of objective historical knowledge and true meaning. 1 To finnance her visit to drama school, Özdamar's +rotagonist decides to finnd work in Germany. Theerefore the novel starts offe with a journey, a to+os ty+ical to the genre of the Bildungsroman. Thee +rotagonist has three ambitions, according to Boa (2006, +. 545): 'to read, write and +erform linguistically; to lose her virginity; to become +olitically active. ' Even though negated by Özdamar herself , the secondary literature has re+eatedly suggested that her work has an autobiogra+hical foundation . In an interview, Özdamar said that when writing 'one is always using masks and one fingure always has three fingures inside, you take one from life, one from the theatre, one from the finlm and out of it becomes one fingure' (Wierschke, 1996, +. 252, my translation). Theis technique of layering reality and finction is recognisable in some of the novel's characters who are ins+ired by real +ersons, such as the communist hostel warden who introduces her to Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble (Horrocks & Kolinsky, 1996, +. 45) or a lover who studied finlm with Pasolini and with whom she lived in a finlm-commune (Dayıoğlu-Yücel & Özdamar, 2016, +. 81). To the question of whether her novel is very authentic, Özdamar answered: 'Yes, of course, one says that even the most disguised fingures in theatre are autobiogra+hical. Of course, autobiogra+hical things are always incor+orated, but everything becomes an adventure' (Wierschke, 1996, +. 264, my translation Considering these remarks and the +arallels between narrator and author, such as their affeection for theatre, the migration to Germany and their +olitical +rosecution, allows the assum+tion that a doubling of the real and the finctional is also +ractised in writing the +rotagonist. Thee amalgamation of finction with autobiogra+hical and historical elements is assessed as a deliberately em+loyed literary means. Thee text thereby situates itself in a historical discourse without giving u+ its autonomy as finction (Hutcheon, 1989, +. 4). Thee mode of the historiogra+hic metafinction allows for a subjective but authenticated female +ers+ective on the work migrations to Germany and the New Lefte.
Thee +rotagonist takes on a factory job in Berlin and lives in a hostel so that in addition to her +ersonal ex+erience, the stories of other female workers from Turkey are narrated as well. Theis +urveys a broader im+ression of Turkish migrant women in Germany, for exam+le, when the +rotagonist recounts her housemates' reasons for relocating. Theere are two lesbian cousins who want to go to university afteer working in the factory (GH, +. 11); there is Rezzan who, like the +rotagonist, wants to become an actress (+. 14); a woman who is earning money for a +lane ticket to the U.S. to get married to an American soldier, and another who needs money for a breast reduction (+. 18). Theese are de+ictions of inde+endently acting women who are in control of their lives. Thee text thereby offeers a re+resentative counterweight to the +revailing view that hardly any female workers came to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s and if they did only as +art of a family reunion (Weber, 2010, +. 49).
A+art from recounting her own ex+eriences with men, the narrator recounts those of other Turkish women as well. It is for exam+le, when she remembers how Angel loses her virginity (GH, +. 42). She further describes the contradictions among the women in the hostel. While 'Rezzan and Gül went into the night with Mobil Oil and Salim, drank Coffeee in the Old Vienna early in the morning and came straight to the factory from there' (+. 64), another grou+ of women warns them '"You'll end u+ whores!"' (+. 25) when they go out.
In the +ublic and academic discourse in Germany at the time, a stereo-ty+ical re+resentation of Turkish and German-Turkish women as o++ressed by +atriarchal family structures and male dominance executed in the name of Islam was +revalent. Such de+ictions construct Muslim women as the Other of the emanci+ated western woman, +ointing to the 'irreducible ideological nature of every re+resentation -of +ast or +resent' (Hutcheon, 2002, +. 51). 1 1 Exam+les of the +revalent stereoty+ical images of Turkish migrants in academic discourses mentioned by  are studies by  and . Both have the basic intention to im+rove the conditions for Turkish women in Germany but examine their lives with a western gaze, im+osing West German feminist solutions and notions of By centring female fingures and constructing them as active and self-determined subjects, Özdamar's text conveys an alternative and broadened image of the heterogeneous Turkish migrant community in Germany in the late 1960s. Thee +rotagonist's +olitical formation +rovides an ex+anded female and transnational historical +ers+ective on the New Lefte. Thee infusion of the text with external facts regarding Turkey's daily +olitics and Euro+e in the 1960s affirrms the existence of offircial histories. Simultaneously, the authority of historical knowledge is challenged by adding a layer of subjectivity and +ersonal ex+erience, +roviding alternative re+resentations of offircial histories. For instance, it is when the +rotagonist recounts the Berliner 1968 student movement's +rotest and adds that among them were also Turkish +rotesters. 'And soon I also got to know Turkish chickens, who walked with the German chickens on the streets and s+oke the same chicken language' (GH, +. 119).
Here, national affirliations are secondary; sharing the same 'chicken language' +oints to the common goals of anti-im+erialism, anti-ca+italism and antifascism of the +olitical lefte. 1 Thee +revalent historical narratives situate the German New Lefte +rimarily in West German academic elites, and Ernest Schonfineld (2015, +. 68) confinrms: 'German historians have, until recently, neglected the theme of migrant +olitical activism. ' Özdamar's text +rovides a re+resentation diverging from the mainstream by situating fingures of the work migrations next to the usual +rominent +rotagonists of the 1968 movement. References to fascist S+ain under Franco, Greek communists fleeeing the military junta, Che Guevara's death or the execution of Turkish student leader Deniz Gezmiş suggest the transnational character of the lefteist movement, finghting a similar finght in diffeerent localities. Schonfineld (2015, +. 67) reads Özdamar's novel in this context as 'bear[ing] witness to historical events which were shared across national boundaries. ' Thee text incor+orates intertextual references to Turkish and Ottpoman literary traditions while at the same time referring extensively to a Euro+ean cultural and literary canon. Theese 'intertextual echoes' (Hutcheon, 1989, +. 22) have a mediating and connecting function within the transnational lefteist movement.
A+art from demonstrating the New Lefte's transnational interde+endence, Özdamar also inscribes the +ers+ective of a woman into the Turkish lefteist movement. Thee novel is set within a +eriod where the Turkish Lefte, emanci+ation on them and thereby conveying an im+ression of German women saving their Turkish 'sisters.' Rita  discusses the relation of Turkish women with West German feminists regarding the economic interests of the lattper's scholarly activity and the concurrent confinrmation of their own manner of living as the more desirable and a++ro+riate one. 1 Özdamar +icks u+ the imagery of the s+eaker of the Berlin Senator Hanns-Peter Herz, who referred to student +rotesters as chickens in A+ril 1967A+ril ('Nein, nein, nein', 1967. though fragmented, gained strength and infleuence until the 1980s cou+ +rohibited all +olitical activity and es+ecially dis+ersed lefteist organisations . Women's rights, however, were omittped from the lefte agenda in Turkey. Before feminism was established as inde+endent from any other +olitical movement afteer the 1980s cou+, the lefte-wing movement was sha+ed by a male framework, allowing women to +artici+ate in the greater socialist revolution but not granting any room to negotiate 'the women question' (Tekeli, 1995, +. 14). Thee male dominance of the Turkish Lefte is refleected, for instance, when the +rotagonist gets a somewhat +atronising answer when asking the hostel warden if she can become a communist too -'"Yes, Sugar, […] Marx is too diffircult for you, but +erha+s you can read Engels"' (GH, +. 67) -or when she remarks that no one asks her o+inion when discussing +olitical subjects (+. 178). Thee +rotagonist is also confronted with the movement's claim of sexual liberation, a crucial +oint on the Lefte's agenda at that time. Declarations like '[f]rom now on we share everything. We want to slee+ with her too' (GH, +. 247), +oint to the +atriarchal reframing of increased sexual freedom as sexual availability for men. Afteer her own sexual coming-of-age in Berlin and Paris, the +rotagonist tries to convince +easant women in eastern Turkey to use contrace+tion and advocates for their right to orgasm (+. 210). She uses the s+ace of the lefteist grou+s to actually +erform a s+ecifinc gender identity by means of +arody. Since the bars where lefteists meet are male-dominated areas, her own +resence reminds her of the sex workers called 'consumatrists', who are the only women around. By consciously acting out the role of a sexworker, '"I have come as a consumatrist"' (+. 165), the +rotagonist humorously creates awareness towards the socially constructed restrictions functioning in a binary framework that regulates access to s+ecifinc s+aces.
By situating the +rotagonist within the Turkish Lefte, the novel contributes signifincantly to widening the discourse on women's roles in the movement. Pointing to the omission of women issues on their agenda, Fatma Berktay (1995, +. 250) states that '[i]t is therefore diffircult even to finnd adequate writtpen documentation on the attpitude of the Lefte to women before 1980. ' Özdamar thus finlls a ga+ by narrating a self-determined woman's individual develo+ment +ath within the Turkish Lefte. A characteristic of historio-gra+hic metafinction is to tell the stories of those whose voices were not heard during the de+icted events (Hutcheon, 2002, +. 49) and to challenge the idea of objective knowledge by calling attpention to the silenced histories by further asking which events of the +ast are given meaning by constructing them as facts (ibid., +. 54).
Thee +rotagonist's enthusiasm for theatre evokes the ideal to educate oneself through theatre, formulated in Goethe's founding text of the genre.
While the theatre is more of a transitional stage towards a new social role for Wilhelm Meister, Özdamar's +rotagonist is certain: '"Theeatre is my life […]"' (GH, +. 4). Lefteist grou+s and cultural institutions ex+erience brutal crackdowns in the course of the right-wing military cou+ in 1971 in Turkey so that the +rotagonist's way of life is +rofoundly disturbed. Her detention and the im+ossibility of +erforming on stage let her fall silent, and she eventually decides to go back to Berlin. Thee violence carried out in the name of the Turkish nation-state de+rives the +rotagonist of living her identity. Theerefore, the reintegration of the individual into society as the ty+ical ending of the traditional Bildungsroman can not be realised. Emigration becomes a necessity in order to reclaim her language and thereby her artistic and +olitical identity.
Overall, the text can be read as a +arody of the traditional Bildungsroman. While the genre serves as a frame for the ex+ansion of the national cultural memory, its +arodistic a++ro+riation serves as a literary strategy to claim s+ace in the German national canon.
Intertextual +arody of canonical classics is one mode of rea++ro+riating and reformulating -with signifincant changes -the dominant white, male, middleclass, Euro+ean culture. It does not reject it, for it cannot. It signals its de+endence by its use of the canon, but asserts its rebellion through the ironic abuse of it. (Hutcheon, 1989, +. 12) Thee text insists on its finctionality while intertwining with lived realities of the +ast. It therefore finlls in a ga+ in the national cultural memory in res+ect to the work migrations and the lefteist student movement from a female German-Turkish +ers+ective. At the same time, women are inscribed in the biogra+hy of the Turkish Lefte. A +arodistic rewriting can be understood as an ironic commentary, finlling in the blind s+ots of the +retext (Osthues, 2017, +. 219). In this sense, the modus of the historiogra+hic metafinction +ervading the text +rovides a counter-(hi)story to the cultural hegemony of the German and Euro+ean literary canon and thereby shiftes and ex+ands its boundaries.

CONCLUSION
Theis study aimed to identify literary means em+loyed to o++ose the exclusion or marginalisation of literatures of migration from the national canon. It was therefore analysed how the two discussed German-Turkish novels use the strategy of rewriting to inscribe themselves into the canonical genre of the Bildungsroman, demanding discursive +artici+ation on an artistic and aesthetic level, and thereby claiming s+ace in the German canon while shifteing its boundaries at the same time. Under the methodical +remise of understanding genres as active classifincation systems with modifying boundaries, two forms of rewriting could be identifined, which both stand in a confleicting relation with the conce+t of the nation. While Özakin mimics the genre, Özdamar a++lies a +arodistic rewriting to the Bildungsroman.
In Özakin's novel, the +rotagonist's mimicry of her friend Dina, who e+itomises the western way of life, is mirrored on the level of the Turkish nation. Denoting how the dominance of the West +ermeates the +ersonal and the +olitical s+here, mimicry +roved to be an effeective strategy to undermine the authority of both Dina and the West. Thee +rotagonist is able to validate her identity tem+orarily by discovering the Other in her self and allowing for its +resence. Thee conveyed +rocessual construction of identity is disru+ting the nation's desire of consistent and homogeneous subjects. A++lied to the formal level of the text, mimicry turned out to be a fruitful form of rewriting, as the imitation +roduces a diffeerence, which subverts the Euro-and androcentrism of the Bildungsroman, while still +artic-i+ating in the genre and hence contributing to its actualisation.
Özdamar's +arodostic rewriting of the genre can be read as a com+lementary comment to the national cultural memory. Thee historiogra+hic metafinctional quality of the texts allows for it to maintain its authority as finction while re+resenting historical events at the same time. Thee recounts of the work migrations to Germany and the transnational lefteist student movement are authenticated by the autofinctional mode which is used as a deliberate literary strategy. Özdamar's text acknowledges the existence of offircial histories but simultaneously challenges the authority of historical knowledge by adding a layer of subjectivity and +ersonal ex+erience, +roviding historical re+resentations that have been omittped of dominant historical discourses. As stated by Hutcheon (1989, +. 6), '[t]o +arody is not to destroy the +ast; in fact, to +arody is both to enshrine the +ast and to question it. ' While the authors a++ly diffeerent forms of rewriting the Bildungsroman, the study shows that they both deny the +rotagonists the ty+ical societal reintegration at the end of the novels. Fachinger (2001, +. 21) observes that the modifincation or omission of a classic genre com+onent directs attpention towards it and charges it with new meaning. In the classical Bildungsroman, society and its norms are a++roved by the successful reintegration of the hero (Morettpi, 1987, +. 24). Thee subversion of the original +lot structure therefore +oints to the re+ressive and exclusionary conditions of the homeland that makes the reintegration im+ossible. Thee nation is therefore not affirrmed but critically questioned regarding its societal structures.
Although Özdamar's and Özakin's texts voice criticism towards the German society, it is +rimarily the Turkish nation that is condemned. Thee military cou+s de+icted in both texts +oint to a violent crisis of the nation, +artially initiated by its lack of acce+ting the Other within the self. Both +rotagonists ex+erience violence and o++ression in the name of the nation, which leads to their emigration since they cannot live their identities. Thee novels question the original idea of the nation by criticising its claim for homogeneity. Instead of the homeland, they finnd alternative +ossibilities of belonging in +olitical and artistic grou+s, which are characterised by o+enness and heterogeneity. Thee criticism and rejection of the idea of the nation is finrst and foremost to be understood as a +lea for a diverse togetherness and +arallel existence that s+eaks out against exclusion and discrimination.
Drawing on Victor Turner's re-discovery of the notion of liminality, initially develo+ed in relation to rites of +assage in tribal communities but extended in its a++lication to entire societies, the conce+t has +roven +rolifinc for border studies . It 'ca+tures in between situations and conditions characterized by the dislocation of established structures, the reversal of hierarchies, and uncertainty about the continuity of tradition and future' (Horvart, Theomassen, & Wydra, 2018, +. 2). Theerefore, it can be argued that the German literary canon of the 1990s and early 2000s +artially found itself in such a liminal state, as the belonging of texts arising in the context of migration and cultural contact was negotiated and discussed in the res+ective secondary literature.
By em+loying the literary means of rewriting, the studied texts inscribe themselves into the canonical genre of the Bildungsroman and hence claim s+ace in German national literature. Thee discussed German-Turkish novels +oint to the continuous relevance of the Bildungsroman in constructing German national identities. At the same time, this leads to an ambivalence since the novels question national categories and refer to their +otentially re+ressive characters. Theis again +oints to the notion of liminality and its inherent ambivalence. As a condition of the transitional, liminality threatens established hierarchies and structures but at the same time suggests 'a vital moment of creativity, a +otential +latform for renewing the societal makeu+' (Mälksoo, 2018, +. 226). By reformulating and ada+ting the boundaries of the genre in a subversive way, the analysed texts ex+ress the need to renegotiate the nation as a conce+t as well as its demand for homogeneity. By voicing German-Turkish as well as other +luralistic identities and inscribing them into the national cultural memory and literary canon, the authors antici+ate the societal shiftes that led to the offircial recognition of Germany as a nation of immigration in 2001.