Images of the female adolescent in exile in select works of Russian and German women writers

The image of the adolescent girl in exile has rarely been discussed in Russian and German literary scholarship, but is worthy of investigation as another way of understanding the exile experience, which has been a wide- ranging phenomenon of the twentieth century. The works and their authors–Izol'da by Irina Odoevtseva, Mys bur' by Nina Berberova, Kind aller Länder by Irmgard Keun, and Heimatsuchen by Ilse Tielsch-were selected, in part, because scant research has been devoted to them. Both works and authors are first placed within their historical context and then into the context of literary scholarship within the individual fields of Russian émigré studies and German exile studies. Each work is then examined separately for themes and images related to exile and the adolescent female protagonist. The concluding chapter employs the comparative approach to discuss what the figure of the exiled adolescent girl represents in the émigré/exile novel and how she portrays the exile experience. Images and themes common to the four works are examined and compared and contrasted to existing scholarly literature dealing with literary topoi of exile, and the interplay between the states of exile and of adolescence is discussed.