In his polemic Dojče Buch (2002), Russian poet Vsevolod Nekrasov (1934–2009) criticizes what he perceived as a lack of recognition for his work in post-reunification Germany. For this state of ›non... Show moreIn his polemic Dojče Buch (2002), Russian poet Vsevolod Nekrasov (1934–2009) criticizes what he perceived as a lack of recognition for his work in post-reunification Germany. For this state of ›non-being‹, he primarily blames German and Russian academics, translators and publishers, whom he accuses of impeding the transnational reception and canonization of his work in their capacity as gatekeepers. Nekrasov’s book takes the form of a chronicle, in which he minutely records and evaluates his encounters with Russian and German writers, artists, scholars and publishers between 1964 and 1996. This chapter reconstructs the transnational network in which Nekrasov’s texts were circulating during the second half of the 20th century. I use Dojče Buch as a case study to demonstrate that approaches from network analysis and Actor-Network-Theory provide literary scholars with new insights into mechanisms that either promote or impede the circulation and reception of literary texts. Show less
