Convergent Realisms: Aras Ören, Nazım Hikmet, and Bertolt Brecht ELA GEZEN Univ ersity of M a s s achusetts , A m herst Aras Ören (b. 1939) is one of the earliest and most significant contributors to the emergence of Turkish-German literature. In his literary work, Ören writes not only about Turkish workers and their experience, but also about solidarity among the working class more generally, reflecting on the conditions of production in West Berlin and the exploitation of labor. When asked why he wrote, he replied: «Alles was ich je geschrieben habe, ist ein Zeugnis der Zeiten, die ich mitgestaltete und der Zeitlichkeiten, deren Zeuge ich war» («Die Metropole» 186). Identifying himself as a «Zeitzeuge,» a kind of literary archivist, Ören pointed to his work’s evocation of multiple and changing temporalities and highlighted his role in shaping them. Specifically, Ören perceives literature written in Turkish in Germany «als einen integrierten und eigenständigen Bestandteil der deutschen Literatur in der Bundesrepublik und in West-Berlin […]. [Sie] setzt sich sowohl mit der eigenen türkischen, als auch mit der deutschen Tradition auseinander» («Eine Metropole» 52). In this way, multiple literary-historical temporalities - the sweep of both Turkish and German cultural history and the countries’ intertwined economic and political histories after the Second World War - come into view as constituting the chronological backdrop of his literary interventions. In this essay, I am interested in exploring Ören’s understanding of the social responsibility of the artist and the politics of aesthetics, particularly as they manifest themselves in the first part of his Berlin trilogy. I will argue that Ören’s approach converges with Bertolt Brecht’s and Nazım Hikmet’s respective conceptualization of realist aesthetics and of art as a political tool, which suggests that the theoretical provenance of Ören’s project is as transnational as its thematic material. Realism, I will demonstrate, manifests itself in Ören’s writing in a manner similar to Brecht’s and Hikmet’s. It is a political aesthetic, rather than a single determinate literary style or genre; as such it seeks to unmask social conditions from the standpoint of the working class, considered the agent of societal change. I will finally show how Ören employs a kind of «didactic realism,» drawing on and representing Turkish as well German Zeitlichkeiten, both with regard to literary debates as em- 370 Ela Gezen bodied by the writings of Brecht and Hikmet, as well as the sociopolitical contexts in which they emerged. As transnational practices are not unidirectional, it is important to reconstruct the significance of Hikmet and Brecht in Turkey during the 1960s, the last decade Ören spent in the country prior to emigrating to Germany. Following the military coup in 1960, parliamentary democracy was established in Turkey and a new progressive constitution guaranteed freedom of thought and expression, political activity, organization, and demonstration. Immediately thereafter, one of the questions intensely debated in the mainstream press, in many academic journals, and in the lecture halls of universities concerned the function of literature. Hikmet, a world-renowned Turkish communist poet and writer, emerged as key figure in these debates, which generally pitted social realism against aesthetic autonomy. According to the Turkish cultural historian Talat Sait Halman, «[t]he most remarkable development in Turkish culture in the 1960s was the explosion of theatrical activity» («Turkish Literature» 90). For his part, Ören describes the 1960s as a time in which «ich sowohl in politischen Theorien wie auf den Theaterbühnen nach einer Heimat gesucht habe» («Vorstellungskraft und Zeit» 20). Albert Nekimken observes that in addition to Hikmet, who (as Halman notes) «dominated much of the decade’s literary excitement» («Turkish Literature» 85), Brecht also had a «profound and pervasive influence on Turkish society» (Nekimken 7). Theater was therefore an important influence on Ören’s own intellectual development, as also becomes clear in his own biography and productivity. Prior to permanently settling in West Berlin, Ören worked as actor and dramaturg with different Istanbul theaters influenced by Brecht’s consciousness-raising theatrical practices; he was also involved with theaters in Frankfurt am Main and West Berlin. Moreover, during the 1960s, Ören adapted Brecht plays such as Der gute Mensch von Sezuan for the Turkish stage, and himself wrote several plays in Turkish, as for example Kör Oidipus (Blind Oedipus, 1980). 1 During this time, he also regularly collaborated with his friend and colleague Vasıf Öngören, one of the main dramatists to introduce Brechtian theater to the Turkish context. In 1962, Ören accompanied Öngören to Berlin to meet with Erwin Piscator in order to research political theater. Piscator referred them to Helene Weigel at the Berliner Ensemble, where Öngören studied Brechtian theater from 1962 to 1963 and 1965 to 1967 with the goal of forming a theater group for workers in West Berlin (Göktaş 16). Hence, Ören’s engagement with Brechtian theater in a variety of contexts spanned a decade, and it therefore comes as no surprise that this theater aesthetic manifests itself in Ören’s literary poetics. Indeed, as I will show Convergent Realisms 371 below, his «didactic realism» draws on dramatic elements such as montage techniques, monologues, and reports. Ören, originally from Istanbul, moved permanently to Berlin in the tumultuous year 1969. Looking back, he recalls his impressions as follows: «Der junge Schriftsteller, der seine Wohnung 1969 nach West-Berlin verlegte, fühlte sich eigentlich von der Euphorie der Studentenmasse sehr angezogen» («Selbstbild mit Stadt» 29). His literary breakthrough came in 1973 with the publication of the first part of his Berlin trilogy, which is comprised of Was will Niyazi in der Naunynstraße (1973), Der kurze Traum aus Kağıthane (1974), and Die Fremde ist auch ein Haus (1980). As is the case with all of his works, the three texts were originally written in Turkish and subsequently published sequentially in German translation by the left-wing Rotbuch Verlag. In 1980, all three parts were published in Turkish as a trilogy, entitled Berlin Üçlemesi (Berlin Trilogy). From the moment of the trilogy’s first publication, reviewers, writers, and scholars pointed to the influence of both Nazım Hikmet and Bertolt Brecht. 2 Introducing the Turkish edition, for example, Fakir Baykurt refers to the trilogy as «destan,» an epic poem, influenced by Brecht and Hikmet (8). Like Baykurt, Gino Chiellino classifies it as an «episches Gedicht,» and situates the trilogy in close proximity to the Brechtian «Lehrgedicht» (314). In a review of the first section, Ingeborg Drewitz compares Ören’s writing to the style introduced and made popular in Turkey by Hikmet: the «reimlose[s] Poem» (43). Similarly, a reviewer for Die Weltwoche characterized Hikmet as Ören’s precursor in the use of the narrative poem (Heise 38). Before taking a closer look at the first part of Ören’s trilogy, I will briefly discuss points of convergence between Hikmet’s and Brecht’s poetics of realism and their understanding of the social responsibility of art and the artist. According to Brecht, realist artists represent reality «vom Standpunkt der werktätigen Bevölkerung und der mit ihr verbündeten Intellektuellen» («Über sozialistischen Realismus» 166). Realist art is thus aimed at uncovering «den gesellschaftlichen Kausalkomplex» («Volkstümlichkeit und Realismus» 70). Brecht’s understanding of realism points to the dynamic relationship between the work of art, the artist, and reality by foregrounding that a work of art is influenced by and, at the same time, consciously influences reality («Notizen über realistische Schreibweise» 112). Furthermore, reality, as Brecht conceives of it, must be presented as constructed by people, and is thus changeable by them. Art is therefore «menschliche Praxis» («Notizen» 127) emphasizing that people are both subjects of change, «verändernd,» and subject to change, «veränderlich» («Vergnügungstheater oder Lehrtheater? » 192). For Brecht, literary realism is an aesthetic tool in the class struggle. 372 Ela Gezen Realist writing is therefore «kämpferisch,» fighting against the «Verschleierungen der Wahrheit» in the representation of capitalist exploitation and production conditions («Thesen über die Organisation der Parole» 129). Like Brecht, Hikmet also considers art to be in service of the class struggle and therefore emphasizes socioeconomic realities and sociohistoric tendencies in his work. Hikmet referred to himself as «an ordinary proletarian poet with a Marxist-Leninist conscience» (qtd. in Halman, Review 173) and a «realistic-dialectical-materialist optimist» for whom realism was applied dialectical materialism (41, 60). 3 According to Hikmet, art «should serve people and call them for a better future. That it should be a voice for people’s suffering, their anger, hope, joy and longing» (88-89). Hikmet, like Brecht, emphasizes the ability of literature not merely to represent but also to change and to incite change (19, 57). From the standpoint of dialectical materialism, Hikmet sees the relationship between writer and his object as a dynamic one, giving rise to an understanding of realism, which, like Brecht’s, is characterized by didacticism, as well as the capacity to effect change. As Hikmet points out, through realism in representation we «learn about yesterday, understand today, and anticipate tomorrow» (60). Similarly, for Brecht the future depends on the «Erledigung der Vergangenheit» («Kulturpolitik und Akademie der Künste» 162). In both cases, the past is considered a mutable model, based on which, and to which, future changes will be made. For Ören, writing several decades later but in keeping with Brecht’s and Hikmet’s approaches, the writer always intervenes in reality, thereby taking «Rache an der Geschichte» («Vorstellungskraft» 6). What Ören refers to as revenge here amounts to the literary intervention into official German historical narratives, especially those concerning the Turkish presence in Germany. As Ören states: «Damit das Bild vollständig wird, müssen wir an dieser Stelle eine neue soziale Schicht im demographischen Panorama der halben Stadt einordnen, eine Schicht, die trotz ihres Daseins nicht als existent betrachtet wurde. Eine, die produzierte ohne zu konsumieren («Selbstbild» 30). Ören’s literary precursors Hikmet and Brecht had emphasized that the relation between poet and surroundings is never passive, foregrounding the effect of the poet’s oeuvre on society and conceiving of poetry as a catalyst for change. Ören understands the relationship between the poet and the surroundings he presents in similarly dynamic terms. On his own relationship to Berlin, for example, he writes: Berlin: eine Stadt deren Vergangenheit in der Gegenwart gelebt wird, während ihre Zukunft mit einem Fragezeichen behaftet ist. Ein Übergang zwischen zwei Grenzen. Eine Wartestelle. Die Ankunft der Türken. Eine Völkerwanderung, die Convergent Realisms 373 in Europas Geschichte unvergessliche Folgen haben wird; meine Teilnahme an dieser Wanderung und zugleich mein Auftreten als ihr Zeuge. («Bindung an Berlin» 81) Here we see that for Ören, the recording of events is central to the process of writing. Writing documents the process of migration and the Turkish immigrants’ participation in Berlin’s past, present, and future. With Hikmet and Brecht, Ören underlines the interaction of the poet (himself), with his surroundings (Berlin), while inscribing himself into the city’s traditions, particularly into the organized traditions by which the oppressed classes conduct their fight against hegemonic forces. Thus he presents himself as collective autobiographer, archivist of Berlin’s broader history, and intellectual activist, constantly reflecting on how the course of that history might be changed. The «Berlin-Poetik» («Eine Metropole» 48), as Ören refers to the trilogy, was, in addition to completing Berlin’s «demographisches Panorama» («Selbstbild» 30), aimed at bringing Berlin residents together with immigrants. By focusing on the Turkish workers, solidarity among the working class, and production conditions in Berlin that exploit labor, Ören’s writings are in line with the literature of leftist artists’ associations prominent at the time, such as the Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt and Die Rote Nelke, which he joined in the early 1970s. Die Rote Nelke was founded in 1968 and set as its goal active participation in the class struggle. The aim of its members was to continue the legacy of the Assoziation revolutionärer Künstler (ASSO), a group founded in 1928 by artists who were members of the Communist Party, to support and promote the class struggle through art (Budde, «Manifest»). The Werkkreis Literatur der Arbeitswelt, which was founded in 1970, similarly connects back to the revolutionary tradition of the Weimar Republic embodied in the Bund proletarisch-revolutionärer Schriftsteller. The Werkkreis in particular emphasized the need to return to and revivify past cultural traditions of the workers’ movement while adapting them to present circumstances. Special emphasis was put on the realism debate: «Als wichtige Anknüpfungspunkte dienen hierbei die Ergebnisse der Realismus- Diskussionen aus den 20er und 30er Jahren, besonders die von Bertolt Brecht formulierten» (Partei ergreifen 1). The various workshops organized by the Werkkreis, and the publications that emerged from them, attest to the significance of realist aesthetics for the Werkkreis. Brecht’s writing was of particular importance for the Werkkreis on the question of the relationship between content, form, and functionality in art. 4 More generally, in early 1970s West Germany, realism continued to anchor discussions about «literarische Verantwortung und gesellschaftliche Wirkung» (Reinhold, Tendenzen 13) 374 Ela Gezen insofar as the patent relationship of the writer to reality made theorizing the role and function of realist writing in the context of socio-political conflicts a logical next step (Reinhold, Klassenkampf 201). Aras Ören was a central figure in these debates. Not only are his early works characterized by «didactic realism,» he also promoted this aesthetic in cultural-political activities within Die Rote Nelke itself, particularly in collaboration with the Gruppe schreibender Arbeiter. Indeed, when Ören assumed chairship of this group in 1972, didacticism was linked explicitly to agitation and writing was seen as a tool for understanding «unsere kapitalistische Umwelt […] und die Widersprüche, die sie hervorbringt; zugleich aber auch, um das Entstehende, das bereits Zukünftige im Gegenwärtigen, aufzuzeigen und um einen aktiven Beitrag zu leisten im Kampf für die Veränderung der bestehenden gesellschaftlichen Verhältnisse» (Budde, «Notwendigkeit» 1-2). This also manifested itself in the various events that were organized by this working group: readings, exhibits, and meetings in which members discussed questions surrounding workers’ literature, the writing process, and finding relevant topics. Events were practice-oriented, interactive, and focused on aesthetic questions echoing and actively engaging in larger cultural-political debates, reflected in the event titles and meeting themes: «Neuer Realismus,» «Probleme des Realismus,» «Der kämpfende Mensch in der Literatur der Arbeiterklasse,» «Arbeiter schreiben für Arbeiter,» and «Realistische Kunst und Literatur in Westberlin.» For Hikmet, Brecht and Ören, literature (and art more broadly) provided social analysis and criticism, as well as the means to reflect on social reality through realist didacticism with the intention to agitate. The artist’s approach to history is dialectical materialism, which does not reflect reality as fixed and permanent, but as a changing process produced by people and therefore transformable by them. This approach sees the literary text as a tool that turns authors and readers into collaborators, «Mitwirkende,» as put forth by Walter Benjamin in his discussion of Brecht’s epic theatre (110). But the promotion of realist representation was not confined to the pages of obscure journals or local gatherings and discussions within Die Rote Nelke. Ören puts the insights of these discussions to work in his literary writing as well, modeling a praxis of realism and of artistic social responsibility which - if read closely - displays the marked influence of both Brecht’s and Hikmet’s shared theoretical approaches and aesthetic practices. Ören’s trilogy, specifically the first part, thus pays special attention to the representation of workers’ solidarity and Turkish participation in the German workers’ movement, presenting Turkish workers as subjects, not objects, of German labor history. In Ören’s writing, as the following analysis shows, Turkish Convergent Realisms 375 guestworkers integrated themselves into Germany’s labor movement by consulting its legacies and actively adapting them to the socioeconomic and political circumstances of West Germany in the 1970s. Emphasizing the workers’ standpoint and the proletarian experience, Ören inscribes into the text Turkish and German debates concerning the social role of art and modes of representation, debates that he himself helped to shape. Foregrounding the perspective of Turkish workers as well as their ability to improve upon and overcome inequalities, Ören encourages them to become agents of change. Although each part of Ören’s Berlin trilogy is formally self-contained, the three sections are interlinked by the reappearance of various characters, identical settings, and formal characteristics. In the following, I will focus exclusively on the first part - though the themes discussed resonate throughout the cycle - in which Ören describes the lives of the (mainly Turkish) inhabitants of Naunynstraße: Niyazi Gümüskılıç, 5 Atifet, Sabri San, Halime, Frau Elisabeth Kutzer, Klaus Feck and Nermin, among others. 6 Even though the title character of the first part is Niyazi, there is neither a clear protagonist nor omniscient narrator, but rather a variety of characters (and perspectives) with changing focus throughout the narrative. Through nonlinear and non-chronological structuring, inclusion of subheadings, interior monologues, and analepses, Ören abstains from providing any sense of totality, completeness, or coherence with regard to the Zeitlichkeiten he represents. This refusal of seamless description, which works to disrupt uncritical reception, is supported by his use of montage, a structuring principle also prevalent in Brecht’s and Hikmet’s work. The use of montage is most noticeable in the character portraits: each character is briefly introduced by a short paragraph by a third-person narrator, which is then followed by an introduction in the first person told by the characters themselves. The passages narrated in the third person are often brief factual reports covering biographical aspects of the character, such as place of origin, marital status, and occupation. These sequences stand in contrast to the passages narrated in the first person, which are a mix of retrospection and introspection, alternating between monologues, dream sequences, memory snippets, and flashbacks. They provide the reader with insights into the past of the characters, for example, their reasons for emigrating to Berlin, but also into such matters as consumer status, for example, by citing income figures (Chiellino 317). In this way, as Carmine Chiellino notes, Turkish workers «sind stets als Teil der entfremdeten Verhältnisse zwischen Arbeit und Lohn definiert» (317). Their personal perspectives and official, external details about their lives mediate one another. 376 Ela Gezen It is in the second part of the trilogy that Ören, through the character of Niyazi, reveals the poem’s overall aim: «I tried to draw attention to the importance of rewriting history from a class standpoint. This is a beginning, it has to continue; we will certainly write our own class history» (Berlin Üçlemesi 167). Divided into seven cantos, the first part of the Berlin trilogy traces a genealogy of workers in Kreuzberg. Although the cantos do not follow a chronological order, the characters are interlinked through their location, profession, and their relationship to Niyazi, coalescing to «landscapes» («manzaralar,» 214) of Naunynstraße inhabitants in Berlin. In referring to his text as «landscapes,» Ören establishes a transtextual connection to Hikmet’s multivolume epic Memleketimden İnsan Manzaraları (Human Landscapes from my Home Country), written between 1941 and 1951 and published in 1966/ 67, which Hikmet conceived of as a «poetic history of the present» (qtd. in Blasing 131). Ören’s focus on the social panorama of Kreuzberg’s inhabitants, specifically its workers, present and past, his use of montage techniques and his willingness to experiment with form - all these bespeak associations with Brecht’s and Hikmet’s poetics. Furthermore, by employing montage as a structuring principle for the trilogy, Ören, like Brecht and Hikmet, draws attention to the evolving nature of social, historical, and political processes. The first character introduced to the reader is Frau Kutzer with her family history. Hailing from East Prussia, Frau Kutzer’s family, at that point the Brummel family, moved to Berlin when Franz Christian Naunyn (1799- 1860) became its mayor in 1848, during a time when «capital was exploiting labor unscrupulously» (23). Having moved to Naunynstraße in the midnineteenth century, which was «just any street back then» (24), the Brummel family - later Kutzer family - occupies the place of a constant in the history of the street, surviving different regimes with differing ideologies. In the aftermath of World War I, the Brummels’ income decreases because the father’s locksmith shop goes out of business. In 1924, with economic conditions worsening, Elisabeth Brummel, then nineteen years old, marries Gustav Kutzer. Gustav, an assembly worker at Borsig, is politically active and a member of the Communist Party (KPD). While his wife struggles to accept her status as a member of the working class, for her husband, being a proletarian is «nothing to be ashamed of» (29). He believes that «tomorrow proletarians will take over power» (29), and while his wife longs for material wealth and comfort, daydreaming of things they cannot afford, Gustav’s political beliefs lend him support and a sense of fulfillment. Narrating the Kutzers’ past, Ören alludes to Hitler’s rise to power and the dictatorship of the Third Reich. As can be expected, a key year is 1933, when husband Gustav arrives home in shock, stating, «we are being followed» (29). Convergent Realisms 377 Thereafter he burns his communist flyers printed with the KPD campaign slogan for the elections in 1932 and 1933: «Suicide is no solution, fight with the KPD» (30). In fear of persecution by Hitler’s regime, he turns his back on politics, a circumstance that Rita Chin describes as a «silence that […] amounts to nothing less than psychological suicide» (67). Gustav’s forced silence is emblematic of the «backlash against growing political power of the working class in Germany» by the Nazi regime (Markovits and Gorski 3). In addition to Gustav’s political and ideological immobilization, his family’s financial situation continues to deteriorate until, finally, they are forced to sell all of their valuable belongings in the aftermath of World War II. In a sequence exemplifying Ören’s realist didacticism, Frau Kutzer is shown comprehending neither her husband’s ideology and political beliefs nor the consequences of his losing them, until long after his death. Aging, alone and impoverished, she reveals: «Now I understand him, left like a hollow tree needing something to lean on - in order not to fall over» (21-22). Frau Kutzer’s story is marked by the experiences of both World Wars: confrontations with death and the victims of war, especially the loss of her loved ones. In 1924, she loses her father; in 1946, she loses her twelve-year old son Fridolin to scarlet fever; and in 1959, her husband dies of a heart attack. The year 1959 is also crucial in another way and not randomly chosen by Ören: it symbolizes the end of workers’ representation by a political party in the Federal Republic of Germany. After the Federal Constitutional Court sanctioned the dissolution of the Communist Party (KPD) in 1956, in 1959 the Social Democratic Party (SPD) ratified the Bad Godesberg program, «in which the SPD shed its traditional status of a class or workers’ party for that of a mass or people’s party» (Markovits and Gorski 34). Through the biography of the figure Gustav Kutzer, Ören subtly weaves in historic events which remind the reader of major setbacks experienced by the working class in Germany: Hitler’s rise to power, the persecution by the Nazi regime, the dissolution of the Communist Party after World War II, and the repositioning of the Social Democratic Party in 1959. Analogies to the Nazis appear in the poem’s discussion of racism and xenophobia during the early stages of labor migration, which is addressed in connection with Ali and Nermin, a Turkish couple living in Naunynstraße. Ali, now a refrigerator repair technician, left their village Acıbayram in 1970. Once he moves from the workers’ dormitory to his own apartment on Naunynstraße, his wife Nermin follows him to Berlin. Ali experiences discrimination twice. He is insulted first by his coworkers while leaving work, and then by the factory worker Klaus Feck later that same day on his way home. They call him «dirty foreigner» (for them, Ali epitomizes all guestworkers) 378 Ela Gezen and blame him for low wages, the increase of work hours, and their general dissatisfaction (51). Both instances elicit the following comment: «In their hands no machine guns, no automatics. On their heads no steel helmets, on their feet no boots, they did not wear brown uniforms and swastikas» (67). The analogy drawn between the verbal attackers and the Nazis, as well as the repetition of these sentences in unaltered form, emphasizes the persistence of racist ideology beyond the Third Reich. As Rita Chin notes, Ören takes the «conventional German New Left linkage between capitalism and fascism in new directions» showing that, «in spite of similar work experiences, mutual economic complaints,» workers are «unable to recognize their common plight» (76-77). Furthermore, this passage serves as a reminder of the principal impediment to the solidarization of a single, cohesive workers’ movement: racism and fascism. Throughout Europe, workers’ movements and their parties have been shattered by fascist regimes, therefore, the fight of the workers must take aim at both material exploitation as well as ideological oppression. All references to the Holocaust and the Third Reich take the form of brief and seemingly neutral statements, like the passages narrated in the third person, which introduce the political contexts in which the characters live: the terror of the Nazi regime for the Kutzers, and the tumult of the student revolts in Turkey for Atifet. Ören does not assign them any specific significance, nor does he emphasize one over the other. Historical and political events appear in factual enumerations that read like reports. We see this in the metafictional comments provided by the third-person narrator, who, while summarizing Frau Kutzer’s family history, notes that there is «nothing else worthy to report» (25). 7 Similarly to Brecht and Hikmet, Ören’s allusions to and use of reportage emphasize the factual over the empathic. In addition to his use of montage techniques and non-chronological structuring, Ören inserts bracketed sentences. These provide supplementary information on Niyazi’s apartment, on Halime’s earnings and expenses, and on Ali’s whereabouts, thus slowing down the narrative flow and creating a sense of extemporaneity, reinforcing the distance between reader and text (34, 44, 69). By means of such montage techniques, Ören, like Brecht and Hikmet, places equal emphasis on the alterability of the present and an understanding of history as work in progress. As the title already indicates, Naunynstraße is central to the Berlin trilogy. As a physical space, it links the protagonists through their experiences as members of the working class beyond ethnic or national differentiation. The fictional (and factual) Naunynstraße is a street located in the center of the district of Kreuzberg - a district that, at the time Ören was Convergent Realisms 379 writing, was located in West Berlin bordering the East. After World War-II, Kreuzberg was in ruins, with half of its living space and two thirds of its businesses destroyed (cf. Kaak). During the early stages of labor migration to Germany, one of the few alternatives to living in austere barracks was to move into condemned tenements slated for renovation or demolition. These were often located in traditionally working-class districts such as Kreuzberg, Schöneberg, and Wedding and were temporarily rented to migrant laborers, who could not afford to live in prosperous neighborhoods like Zehlendorf, Wilmersdorf, Steglitz, and Charlottenburg (cf. Häussermann and Kapphahn). With the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Kreuzberg was transformed from a central Berlin district to an isolated area at the margins of West Berlin, bordered by the GDR on three sides. Because of standing plans to refurbish vast areas of Kreuzberg in the future, many houses and buildings were neither renovated nor adequately maintained (Lang 230). Kreuzberg’s architecture, its backyards framed by the Hinterhäuser, constitutes a building design that goes back to the turn of the century when Kreuzberg was the prime location for small industrial shops and factories. The buildings housed small businesses in the front parts and accommodated their workers in the rear, the Hinterhäuser. Buildings were structured in this way in order to meet working as well as living needs. In contrast to the buildings facing the street, the rear buildings were plain, constructed without stucco or other decorative elements. They did not have direct access to the street, lacked direct sunlight, and provided less comfort, as they were equipped only with shared bathrooms (Mandel 149). Kreuzberg’s backyards recur in Ören’s works, as both a motif and a setting. For example in his collection Anlatılar 1970-1982 (Stories, 1991), he dedicated an entire short story to these spaces, giving it the title «Arka Avlu» («Backyard»). Here, the narrator describes Kreuzberg from the bird’s eye view: its countless roofs and chimneys, which appear stacked upon one another; its gray-black coloring; its accumulation of TV satellite antennas - all features that distinguish Kreuzberg from other parts of the city («Arka Avlu» 14). By emphasizing these visual, superficial features, Ören evokes the overcrowdedness and poverty of the industrial inner city. But in the first part of the trilogy he offers a closer look at its inhabitants: «Only if you step into the backyards, you will feel, taste, and smell what is in the air. Then you will notice […] that here the class is living that will breach and change societal norms and reconstitute them» (Berlin Üçlemesi 83). Counterposing what is seen from a distance to that which is apprehended viscerally, by a combination of the senses, Ören locates the potential for change and its agents in the Hinterhäuser of Kreuzberg, the home of the workers. 380 Ela Gezen The first part of the trilogy documents the specific transformation of Naunynstraße through Turkish labor migration. It is a positive transformation, such that «without Turks, Naunynstraße, while not losing anything of its characteristics as a street,- would today, in its old days, still be in its nascent beginnings» (34). The interaction of Turkish labor migrants with Naunynstraße remains central throughout the trilogy. Here the physiognomy of Naunynstraße and its buildings is likened to that of the exploited workers: «The houses that look at you in Naunynstraße turn their facade away and their backside to you, like dull transport workers who do not pay attention to the weight they carry» (82-83). The fatigue and exhaustion of its working-class inhabitants is transferred to the street, which is «dozy, sluggish» having «sleepy windows that stare at the water pumps on the curbside» (20, 82). Anthropomorphizing Naunynstraße strengthens the linkage between the street and its inhabitants, lending body imagery to a city sector’s longstanding class association (Frederking 66). The connection between the street and its inhabitants is further extended when the narrator personifies Naunynstraße as a mother putting «the lost people from the foreign countries to sleep at its damp bosom» (34). Not only is Naunynstraße a welcoming place for its new inhabitants, it also comforts them. The language of the German translation is somewhat different: «Und die Naunynstraße dämmrigfeucht nahm sie auf aus den Orten der Wildnis» (21). Here, Naunynstraße merely accommodates its new inhabitants. There is a fundamental difference between allegorizing a street as mother on the one hand and as host on the other. By conceiving of the street as mother, as in the Turkish text, Ören establishes a familial relationship between the street and its inhabitants. The German translation, in contrast, suggests a more distanced, host/ guest relation. Kreuzberg, and especially Naunynstraße, remain significant throughout Ören’s oeuvre, reappearing in other poems and novels. In his poetry collection Mitten in der Odyssee (1980), the poem «Die Straßen von Kreuzberg» acknowledges: «In diesen Straßen leben die Leute mit einem Kapital gleich null» (15). In Deutschland, ein türkisches Märchen (1978), he included a poem entitled «Was ist los in der Naunynstraße? ». In this fragment, as the poet himself labels it, the plural lyrical subject - the workers - proclaims: «Diese Straße ist unsere Straße, wenn auch keine Pappeln hier wachsen in langer Reihe. Diese Wohnungen sind unsere Wohnungen, wir sind die Architekten, wir sind die Bauleute, wir sind die Besitzer, wir sind die Mieter […]» (97). Here, Ören represents the workers as a united collective, emphasized through the use of «wir,» claiming Naunynstraße as its own - not exclusive to Germans, nor to Turks, but rather a possession of all workers. Convergent Realisms 381 Throughout the first part of the trilogy, Ören adds the experiences of Turkish guestworkers to the proletarian history of this street and emphasizes the interaction of Turkish workers with fellow German workers. He also narrates their participation in (and continuation of) traditions in the places they immigrated to. Although the arrival of the first Turkish guestworkers, which is mentioned in the first part of the trilogy, passes without further detail or commentary, Ören provides specific information on the Turkish labor migrants who subsequently join them - Niyazi, Atifet, Halime, Kazım, and Sabri, among others. All of these characters come to embody different forms of immigration, which cover a wide variety of economic motivations (Frederking 76). Atifet, Niyazi’s close friend, came to Berlin in 1967 to work at Siemens. She is politically active and participates in demonstrations organized by the workers’ union. Halime also came to Germany for work and, because her husband is in prison in Turkey, she has to support her two children herself through occasional work at Telefunken and by working as a prostitute. Kazım lost his transportation business in Turkey, and came to Berlin in 1971, where he works as a carpenter. Sabri, an unskilled laborer employed as a transport worker, came to Germany after an earthquake hit his village in Turkey. The interaction between workers and their new environment is central to Ören’s writing, because, as he puts it: «Die Menschen aus der Türkei, egal woher und aus welcher Schicht sie kamen, waren hier Teil eines historischen Prozesses, sie waren jetzt neue Mitglieder der Arbeiterklasse in Deutschland […]. Ich hatte die Erwartung, dass sie das Erbe der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung antraten. Dass sie sich dieses Erbe aneigneten und es in die Zukunft trugen» («Die Metropole» 182). In Ören’s view, Turkish guestworkers immigrated and - despite their differing backgrounds - integrated themselves into Germany’s labor movement by continuing its existing legacies as participants, not outsiders, in the shaping of German history. Pivotal to this process is the character of Niyazi, who connects characters through his various relationships to them as friend, neighbor, and colleague (Frederking 62). Originally from Bebek, a prosperous district in Istanbul, Niyazi lives above Frau Kutzer and works as pressman at Preussag. Since he lived in poor conditions in Bebek, he came to Berlin for better prospects: «When this thing with Germany came up, I told myself, like anyone else, me too: Germany is a little America. Go there, Niyazi, and live like the rich in Bebek» (37-38). Just as Frau Kutzer dreams of being the rich woman in the Neukölln villa she cleans, Niyazi seeks a better life in Germany. The connection between these two characters is made early in the story, when both of them are briefly mentioned in juxtaposition, Niyazi going to his night 382 Ela Gezen shift, while Frau Kutzer is unable to fall asleep. Not only are they located next to each other in narrative sequence, they live above/ below each other, in a spatial relation which is also mirrored by their appearances in textual sequence. Moreover, the Kutzers and Niyazi are interlinked through their immigrant status. While the Brummel family, later the Kutzers, moved to Berlin in the nineteenth century, the Turkish guestworkers (Niyazi, Sabri, and Halime) arrive a century later, continuing the line of labor migration. To quote Harald Weinrich, Ören thus creates «eine poetische Ahnengalerie, der sich nun ohne Bruch eine türkische Proletariergeneration anschließt» (233). After his move, Niyazi begins to shed his illusions about Germany as a land of better opportunity; he admits to having realized where his place is in society - not with the wealthy whom he had aspired to join, but with the working class of which he is already a member (39). Seven years in Berlin have changed Niyazi and made him aware of the necessity of fighting for his rights instead of quietly accepting his fate, because all «those giving their labor have the same share in the world» (40). He further notes, «I have learned that my right is a right too. Never again will I abdicate my right, even if it costs my life» (40). He is ambitious in enlightening other workers regarding their rights, and works with his comrade Horst Schmidt, a chimney repairman 8 and regular at the Marxist night school, to recruit neighbors and friends into showing solidarity in their fight against exploitation and capitalism. Towards the end of the trilogy, Naunynstraße becomes a symbol for political change, as its inhabitants realize that they should cooperate and help each other to improve labor conditions (Frederking 65). In conversation Horst and Niyazi realize: «We live here, and here, in this street, in this neighborhood we are many, many, who every day are being pushed against the wall anew. We have to join forces» (85-86). The «system,» which denies workers the products of their work, deserves the blame for their situation. Those who benefit from Niyazi’s labors as he melts scrap metal in the oven are those living in villas in Southwest Berlin; those «who receive the cream are not those milking the cow» (15, 56). It is through this focus on the perspective of Kreuzberg’s workers as well as their ability to improve upon and overcome inequalities by becoming actors of change, and the employment of formal techniques which include critical stances in the reader and disrupt passive, unquestioning absorption of the narrative material, that the convergences between Brecht’s, Hikmet’s, and Ören’s realist aesthetics reaches its highest point. The only way to overcome oppression, as suggested by Horst in the first part of the trilogy, is to join forces: «[Y]es, only when people show solidarity can they make themselves aware of the fact that they can be together in an organiza- Convergent Realisms 383 tion and change something» (87). In the end, Naunynstraße again becomes a street «in which something is stirring […] workers, Naunynstraße inhabitants, together drinking beer, having political disputes, shoulder to shoulder under the same flag» (87). Like Hikmet and Brecht before him, Ören equally establishes the need for workers to show solidarity in their fight against capitalist exploitation and become actors for change, independent from ethnicity, race, class, and gender. Moreover, Turkish immigrants, as represented by Ören, function as actors - rather than passive bystanders - in the continuation, revival, and transformation of German traditions of labor protest in the postwar period. The aesthetic tool with which Ören represents this historical process is realism, which he, while drawing on and synthesizing Brecht’s and Hikmet’s conceptualizations of realist didacticism, transforms, adapting it to the historical context of Turkish migration to Germany. Notes I would like to thank Seth Howes for being an invaluable interlocutor, a critical reader, a supportive colleague, and a true friend. I am also indebted to the guest co-editors, Alexander Sager and Martin Kagel, for their helpful feedback and insightful comments. 1 Among the various manuscripts at the Akademie der Künste archive are several unpublished dramatic sketches (taşlak) which further attest to the significance of drama for Ören’s work. Examples include Bozkır (1966-67), Alı ştırma (1965), and Halim oğlu Yusuf (1965). 2 My reading consults and further develops the work of-Monika Frederking and Carmine Chiellino on these questions. Though both scholars point to Brechtian and Hikmetian traces in the trilogy, and Chiellino briefly mentions the significance of Ören’s «symbiotische[m] Kontakt […] zu der neuesten deutschsprachigen Literatur der sechziger und siebziger Jahre» (313), the particular institutional details of that contact, along with the aesthetic relationships, are not explored in further detail. See Frederking as well as Chiellino for details. 3 Translations are all mine, unless noted otherwise. 4 For example «Realistisch schreiben» (1973) and «Partei ergreifen» (1974). 5 Typographical error in the German translation: Gümüscilic. 6 My analysis will be based on the Turkish original. I will incorporate the German translation whenever it deviates from the Turkish original. 7 In the Turkish original, the writer uses the verb «kayıt etmek» (25), which translates into «to record,» extenuated in the German translation as «erwähnen» (14). 8 In the German version, «baca tamircisi» (83) (chimney repairman) is mistakenly translated as «Töpfer» (64). 384 Ela Gezen Works Cited Baykurt, Fakir. «Hoşgeldin Aras Ören.» Introduction. Berlin Üçlemesi: Poem. By Aras Ören. Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1980. 5-10. Benjamin, Walter. «Der Autor als Produzent.» Versuche über Brecht. Ed. Rolf Tiedemann. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1966. 95-116. Blasing, Mutlu Konuk. Nazım Hikmet: The Life and Times of Turkey’s World Poet. New York: Persea Books, 2013. Brecht, Bertolt. «Kulturpolitik und Akademie der Künste.» Bertolt Brecht. Über Realismus. Ed. Werner Hecht. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1971. 160-63. -. «Notizen über realistische Schreibweise.» Bertolt Brecht. Über Realismus. Ed. Werner Hecht. 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