Intermedial Strategies of Overcoming Trauma in W. G. Sebald’s Prose: An Analysis of the Novel “Austerlitz”

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31861/pytlit2025.111.316

Keywords:

intermediality, therapeutic function, collective memory, trauma, topoi of memory, W. G. Sebald, “Austerlitz”

Abstract

The article analyzes the therapeutic potential of interlude components in a literary text, considering W. G. Sebald’s novel “Austerlitz” as an example of a literary representation of the process of overcoming traumatic experience. On the basis of this text, the author traces the gradual reconstruction of the protagonist’s personal memory, the deliberately displaced trauma of the Holocaust, and fragments of his own identity through intermediate markers such as architecture, photographs, films, and documents. In the novel, these visual and material components perform a therapeutic function: they serve as triggers of recollection and trigger the process of reconstructing blocked memories. Attention is focused on the images of the father and mother, who had long been pushed out of Austerlitz’s memory. It is emphasized that through photographs, narratives of the mother’s Czech friend Vera, and architectural details of places associated with the family, the protagonist finds the forgotten figures of the family that disappeared due to deportation, gradually accepts the loss and integrates the events of the past into the gaps of his own consciousness. The main thing is that it is Vera who acts as a living carrier of collective and family memory and creates the conditions for Jacques’s cathartic experience. The transition between the verbal and visual structures of the text creates the effect of “dialogic memory,” in which intermediate objects serve as a kind of “psychoanalytic artifacts” and combine the individual experience of the hero with the collective historical trauma. It is shown how the topoi of memory (from private childhood loci – Prague, to historically marked places associated with the Holocaust – Terezin, Paris) function in the text as “therapeutic guides” between the present and the past and open up the possibility of affective rethinking of tragic events. The novel is analyzed as a peculiar form of retraumatization and existential search, in which the art of words becomes an effective tool for returning to the displaced experience, forming a holistic identity and post-traumatic recovery.

Author Biography

Kateryna Kalynych, Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University

Department of World Literature and Theory of Literature

Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University

2 Kotsiubynsky Street, 58002, Chernivtsi, Ukraine

References

Assmann, A. (2012). Prostory spohadu. Formy ta transformatsiï kul’turnoï pamiati [Spaces of remembrance. Forms and transformations of cultural memory]. Translated from German by K. Dmytrenko, L. Doronicheva, O. Yudin. Kyiv : Nika-Tsentr, 440 p. (in Ukrainian).

Austerlits. V. G. Zebald. [Austerlitz. W. G. Sebald]. Komubook. (in Ukrainian). URL: https://komubook.com.ua/projects/austerlits?utm_source=chatgpt.com (accessed: 3.06.2025).

Hornostai, P. (2021). Travma zhertvy i travma ahresora u mizhhrupovykh konfliktakh [Victim trauma and aggressor trauma in intergroup conflicts]. Problemy politychnoi psykholohii, no. 10 (24), pp. 114–133. (in Ukrainian). https://doi.org/10.33120/popp-Vol24-Year2021-68

Hornostai, P. (2023). Biblioterapiia [Bibliotherapy]. Velyka ukraïns’ka entsyklopediia (in Ukrainian). URL: https://vue.gov.ua/Бібліотерапія (accessed: 2.06.2025).

Denysenko, A. (2023). Poniattia “travmy” i “pamiati” v roboti V. G. Zebalda “Povitriana viina i literature” [The Concepts of “Trauma” and “Memory” in W. G. Sebald’s “Air War and Literature”]. Bohoslovski rozdumy, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 183–194. (in Ukrainian). https://doi.org/10.29357/2789-1577.2023.21.2.10

Zaichko, A. (2016). Pidhotovka maibutnikh uchyteliv pochatkovoï osvity do vykorystannia biblioterapevtychnykh tekhnik u profesiinii diial’nosti [Preparing future primary school teachers to use bibliotherapeutic techniques in their professional activities]. Vytoky pedahohichnoi maisternosti. Seriia: Pedahohichni nauky, no. 18, pp. 123–130. (in Ukrainian).

Sebald, W. G. (2020). Austerlits [Austerlitz]. Translated from German by R. Osadchuk. Kyiv : Komubuk, 336 p. (in Ukrainian).

Kavun, O. (1999). Semantyko-strukturna typolohiia anhliis’kykh ta ukraïns’kykh prizvyshch [Semantic and structural typology of English and Ukrainian surnames]. Visnyk Zhytomyrs’koho derzhavnoho universytetu imeni Ivana Franka, no. 3, pp. 130–139. (in Ukrainian).

Kalynych, K. (2025) Mnemonichni stratehiï romanu V. G. Zebal’da “Austerlits”: vzaiemodiia kul’turnoï ta indyvidual’noï pamiati [Mnemonic strategies of the novel by W. G. Sebald’s novel “Austerlitz”: the interaction of cultural and individual memory]. “Platon meni druh, ale istyna dorozhcha”: mizh virnistiu pamiati ta poshukom istyny. Chernivtsi : Chernivets. nats. un-t. im. Y. Fed’kovycha, pp. 87–89. (in Ukrainian).

Kyrydon, A. (2018). “Istorychna pamiat’” u prostori polityky pamiati. Istorychni i politolohichni doslidzhennia, pp. 45–53. (in Ukrainian).

Kobiv, Y. (1967). “Poetyka” Aristotelia – nevianucha pamiatka estetychnoï dumky [Aristotle’s “Poetics” – an unfading monument of aesthetic thought]. In: Aristotle. Poetyka. Kyiv : Mystetstvo, pp. 7–36. (in Ukrainian).

Mehela, I. (2021). Arkhitektonika romanu V. Zebal’da “Austerlits” [The architectonics of W. Sebald’s novel “Austerlitz”]. Problemy semantyky, prahmatyky ta kohnityvnoi linhvistyky, no. 40, pp. 21–32. (in Ukrainian). http://doi.org/10.17721/2663-6530.2021.40.03

Nora, P. (2014). Teperishnie, natsiia, pamiat’ [The present, the nation, the memory]. Translated from French by A. Riepa. Kyiv : Klio, 272 p. (in Ukrainian).

Osadchuk, R. (2020). U poshukakh vtrachenoho dytynstva. Refleksiï nad romanom V. G. Zebal’da “Austerlits” [In search of a lost childhood. Reflections on the novel “Austerlitz” by W. G. Sebald]. In: Sebald, W. G. Austerlits. Kyiv : Komubuk, pp. 321–335. (in Ukrainian).

Polkovenko, T. Kazkoterapiia [Fairy tale therapy]. Velyka ukraïns’ka entsyklopediia (in Ukrainian). URL: https://vue.gov.ua/Казкотерапія (accessed: 2.06.2025).

Rutar, K. (2018). Fotohrafiia v istorychnomu romani: pamiat’ ta dokaz (na materiali “Muzeiu pokynutykh sekretiv” Oksany Zabuzhko i “Tango smerti” Yuriia Vynnychuka) [Photography in a historical novel: memory and evidence (based on the material of Oksana Zabuzhko’s “Museum of Abandoned Secrets” and Yuriy Vynnychuk’s “Tango of Death”)]. Naukovi zapysky Berdians’koho derzhavnoho pedahohichnoho universytetu. Seriia: Filolohichni nauky, no. XV, pp. 163–171. (in Ukrainian). https://doi.org/10.31494/2412-933X-2018-1-5-163-171

Sivchuk, P. (2022). Psykholohichna travma viiny ta ïï sotsial’no-kul’turni naslidky [Psychological trauma of war and its socio-cultural consequences]. ICBuTS, November 23–24, 2022, pp. 175–177. (in Ukrainian)

Sokolov, V. (2019). Bibliopsykholohiia [Bibliopsychology]. Velyka ukraïns’ka entsyklopediia (in Ukrainian). URL: https://vue.gov.ua/Бібліопсихологія (accessed: 2.06.2025).

Published

2025-06-30

How to Cite

Kalynych, K. “Intermedial Strategies of Overcoming Trauma in W. G. Sebald’s Prose: An Analysis of the Novel ‘Austerlitz’”. Pitannâ lìteraturoznavstva, no. 111, June 2025, pp. 316-37, doi:10.31861/pytlit2025.111.316.