The GDR as a Country of Readers

15.3. – 18.6.023

Studio exhibition

Leipzig Museum of City History, Böttchergäßchen Building, Böttchergäßchen 3, 04109 Leipzig

The exhibition by the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany (with additions by the Museum of City History) invites visitors to take a graphic journey into the GDR as a reading country. A country whose authorities believed in the power of the written word – and were afraid of it at the same time. A country which went to a lot of effort to promote reading and writing, while politically undesirable literature in libraries was only accessible by special permission -  letters and travellers from the west were checked out with a fine-tooth comb regarding printed material.

The exhibition talks about people’s persistence: They did not want to be told what to read, they stood in line to buy rare books and secretly pocketed one or more coveted copies of books published by West German publishing houses at the Leipzig book fair. Moreover, this exhibition takes us into the world of crime and science fiction and fairy tales; it talks about literature from the Soviet Union, the blue-collar authors of socialist realism and even gives us a glimpse into old cookbooks. The exhibition also highlights the border-crossing power of contacts between authors from both sides of the border, of radio and television, as well as of books which permitted trips around the world - beyond the walls of the country. This journey through time concludes with the authors of the Peaceful Revolution and the GDR as a topic in contemporary literature.

»The GDR as a country of readers« is a contribution to the cultural history of the communist dictatorship in Eastern Germany. At the same time, the exhibition also invites both old and young to delve back into those old books and (re-)discover the history of the GDR through the mirror of its literature.

Photograph by: Kurt Schwarz
© The Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany
Summer 1963. Somewhere on the Baltic coast. A woman reading the Soviet novel »Schlacht unterwegs« by Galina Nikolajewa, a translation of which was published in the GDR in 1962.