Boryana Y. Dobreva

This project uncovers the role of recent German-Balkan works in articulating transnational identity in and through literature. Drawing on Postcolonial and Western theories of subjectivity and hybridity, this dissertation argues that the historical and cultural context from which Eastern Europe has developed as Europe’s “Other within” requires a reconfiguration of present theoretical models. Consequently, this research introduces Balkan critics’ discursive approaches to identities in order to generate productive readings of literature by Bulgarian and Russian émigrés. Analyzing their fictional narratives through an East-West lens, this study shows how thinking about identity and migration in literary and historical perspectives proves useful for understanding the shifting identities and borders in Germanic Europe and beyond.