Ostalgie
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Ostalgie is a German term referring to nostalgia for life in the former East Germany. It is a portmanteau of the German words Ost (east) and Nostalgie (nostalgia).
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and German reunification in the following year, most reminders of the old socialist regime were swept away as former citizens of the German Democratic Republic rushed to embrace their newfound political and economic freedoms. Initially, all GDR brands of products disappeared from the stores and were replaced by Western products, regardless of their quality. However, with the passing of time some East Germans began to feel nostalgia for certain aspects of their lives in East Germany. Ostalgie particularly refers to the nostalgia for the quotidian aspects of life and culture in the former GDR, which disappeared after reunification.
There are however, many former East and West German citizens who deny the existence of these cultural divisions as well as the existence of separate East and West German perspectives.
Many businesses in Germany cater to those who feel Ostalgie and have begun providing them with artefacts that remind them of life in the old regime; artefacts that imitate the old ones. Now available are formerly defunct brands of East German foodstuffs, old state television programmes on video and DVD, and the previously widespread Wartburg and Trabant cars. In addition, life in the GDR has been the subject of several recent films, including Leander Haußmann's Sonnenallee (1999), Wolfgang Becker's internationally successful Good Bye Lenin! (2003), and Carsten Fiebeler's Kleinruppin forever (2004).
The term Ostalgie is occasionally used to refer to nostalgia for life under the socialist system in other former communist countries of Central Europe and Eastern Europe, most notably Poland and the Soviet Union.
[edit] See also
- Culture of the German Democratic Republic
- Vita-Cola: an example of a product revived by Ostalgie
- Ampelmännchen: a distinctive "mascot" for the Ostalgie movement
- Good Bye Lenin!: a movie portraying how the collapse of the wall affected a small family
- Trabant: East German automobile produced until 1991; for some, an icon of East Germany.
- Yugo-nostalgia: a similar phenomenon in the former Yugoslavia
- The Legend of Rita: Film precursor of Ostalgie
[edit] Books
- Banchelli, Eva: Taste the East: Linguaggi e forme dell'Ostalgie, Sestante Edizioni, Bergamo 2006, ISBN 88-87445-92-3.
