2017
11241950
Jasmin Moeller
WITH
JOSEPH
BEUYS
IN
NO
MAN’S
LAND
On his performative rebirth as an artist and Shaman of the West and his adoption of the Tatars into his artistic persona.
Master Thesis
Arts and Culture: Theatre Studies
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Humanities
Theatre Studies
2017
Supervisor: Dr. Peter G.F. Eversmann
Second Reader: Dr. Cock Dieleman
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Preface
For me, like for any child growing up in 1980s Germany, Joseph Beuys was one of the most important influencers of German culture. He can be seen as the German Andy Warhol, a cult figure who evokes extreme reactions and heated discussions1—an artist who not only created artworks, but also established himself as public figure in a performative way.
When Beuys died in 1986, he had already attained the status of one of Germany’s most important postwar artists.2 Many years later, after I emigrated from Germany and developed
more of an external view on German culture and art, I finally began to understand both Beuys’ weight in shaping German culture3 and his innovative position in contemporary art.4 When I studied Beuys’ work more in detail, something struck me personally. As the legend goes, Beuys was rescued by Tatars after his JU87 was shot down in Crimea during WWII. Coincidentally, my father is of Tatar origin, studied at the Arts Academy Düsseldorf, and was for a short time even a student of Beuys’. My father repeatedly told me about his pure Tatar ancestry, of which he was very proud and through which he identified himself. I have often wondered about two aspects here. Firstly, my father’s statements about his identity never went beyond stereotypical description; he shared neither personal memories nor cultural insights. His Tatar identity remained an empty terminology to me and mainly reinforced his individual status as a proud, wild, and exotic man. Secondly, I wondered why Beuys never developed any personal interest in my father despite his Tatar descent. According to my father, the only thing Beuys ever said to him directly was, “That looks like a ham” (“Das sieht ja aus wie ein Schinken”), pointing to a nude study my father was working on using rötel chalk. For years, Beuys’ lack of interest as well as the mysteries surrounding my father’s Tatar identity remained urgent questions for me. I was finally able to bring them to rest after
1“Joseph Beuys was an outstanding artistic personality, whose work to this day is accompanied by
intense and often heated debates. His influence on the art world of the past fifty years can not be overstated” (“Joseph Beuys war eine herausragende Künstlerpersönlichkeit, dessen Werk bis heute von intensiven und oftmals hitzig geführten Debatten begleitet wird. Sein Einfluss auf die Kunstwelt der letzten fünfzig Jahre kann nicht hoch genug eingeschätzt werden.”). “Joseph Beuys Biografie,” Pinakotheek, accessed Nov. 19, 2017, http://pinakothek-beuys-multiples.de/de/joseph-beuys-biographie/.
2 Frits Boterman and Willem Melching, Het Wonder Bondsrepubliek in 20 Portretten, (Amsterdam:
Nieuw 1 Amsterdam, 2009), 165.
3 Boterman and Melching, Het Wonder Bondsrepubliek, 174.
4 Because he was a pioneer in his time, many people only understood Beuys and his message much
later. Students who supported Beuys in his active years explained in an interview that they only understood him years later. See the interviews with his students in the documentary Messiahs in Filz, YouTube, accessed November 3, 2017,
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studying Beuys’ biography in relation to the Tatars, the research that has resulted in the thesis presented here.
On my quest, I have considered different ways of approaching this topic. Finally, the most convincing approach was from the field of theater and performance studies. As Schechner states in his introduction to performance studies,5 the field is endless and open; this feature of performance studies immediately caught my interest. The possibility to integrate issues of contemporary society and culture with academic theory and the creative potential of humans to regard ethnicity and gender as socially constructed and thus performed identity are fascinating ideas to me. As such, a study on the performance of Western stereotypes of Tatar identity is best suited to understanding the mythical or imaginative potential that underlies Tatar identity. Nevertheless, although the performative quality of Tatar identity in the Western world was convincing to me, some effort was required to integrate this fascination into my study and make my research more concrete through the case of Joseph Beuys. I am deeply grateful to have found an honest, smart, and patient thesis supervisor in Peter Eversmann, who helped me stay focused and guided me through the cluttered forest of academic research. This undertaking sprung from a deep personal wish, and as such this research became important for my personal development. I had to understand Beuys’
connection to the Tatars, in addition to solving the mystery surrounding my father, one of the proudest Tatars I ever met. Rather than denouncing the myths surrounding Beuys and my father, this thesis is an attempt to fill in the outline of their mysterious Tatar identities. In this thesis, I attempt to understand which mythical promises go hand in hand with the adoption of Tatar identity and, consequently, how this appropriation might reflect the latent longings of the individual and the culture at large. In doing so, I attempt to deepen the understanding of Joseph Beuys’ use of Tatar identity, as well as seeking more general answers about Tatar stereotyping in Western culture that can shed more light on my father’s case.
5 Richard Schechner, Performance Studies: An Introduction, (New York and London: Routledge,
3
Abstract
Tatars have long been present in the Western imagination. Since the Middle Ages, the term has generally been used to describe a group of foreign people who are experienced as a threat coming from the East. The term and the stereotypical image have undergone different stages and have been instrumentalized politically, socially, and culturally. Due to the fragmentary Western knowledge about their origins, narratives about the Tatars have attained a mythical dimension in Western culture. The rise of Genghis Khan enriched these narratives with an illustrative hero. As such, the Tatar warrior has come to occupy a place in Western cultural expressions as threatening, exotic, and/or erotic. Similar to many other East-West discourses, Tatars serve at times as an enemy to the West, and at others they are romanticized as “noble savages” living in harmony with nature. In this thesis, stereotypical Tatar identity is explored as it has been constructed in the West in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. This analysis is complemented with a concrete case study of the postwar German artist Joseph Beuys, who applied Tatar stereotypes in the creation of his artistic persona. Based on a comparative analysis of Tatar stereotypes in Western cultural expressions, Beuys’ work and autobiographical narrative are reconsidered. The leading questions in my research are how Joseph Beuys appropriated Tatar identity in his oeuvre and what function this appropriation played in the creation of his artistic persona. Based on this analysis, it can be concluded that stereotypical Tatar identity has been shaped throughout Western history mainly by the specific needs of the creators and consumers of cultural products. In nineteenth-century British theater, for example, Tatar identity was linked with physicality, exoticism, and
eroticism. In twentieth century literature, comics, and movies, Tatar identity mainly embodied horror, lust, and excess. In twenty-first century films, a spiritual connectedness with nature, monogamy, and quality of life are foregrounded in the representation of Tatars. The
beginnings of the latter shift can be already observed in Beuys’ employment of Tatar identity. His use of Tatar identity ultimately reflects his belief in and striving towards a holistic world in which everything carries the potential for creation. By including Tatar figures in his narrative supporting his artistic persona, he demonstrated this creative energy and sought to legitimize his position as “Shaman of the West.”
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Table of Contents
Preface 1 Abstract 3 1. Introduction 8 1.1. Problem statement 81.1.1. Introducing the Tatars 9
1.1.1.1. The Tatars in ethnic terms 10
1.1.1.2. Tatar or Tartar? 11
1.1.1.3. The vagueness of the term Tatar 11
1.1.1.4. Tatars = Genghis Khan= Mongols? 12
1.1.1.5. Early Western stereotypical images of the Tatars 14
1.1.1.5.1. Primary stereotypes 16
1.1.1.5.2. Secondary stereotypes 18
1.1.2. Joseph Beuys and the Tatars 19
1.2. Relevance 19
1.3. The aim of this research 20
1.4. Literature review 21
1.5. Methodology 23
1.6. Thesis design 23
2. Tatar stereotypes in Western cultural expressions 25
2.1. Tatars in poetry and theater 26
2.1.1. Mazeppa 26
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2.1.1.2. The legend of Mazeppa 27
2.1.1.3. The Tatars in Lord Byron’s Mazeppa 29
2.1.2. Henry Milner’s production 29
2.1.2.1. The equestrian element and Orientalism 29
2.1.2.2. Physicality and nudity 30
2.1.3. General key points on the depiction of Tatars in nineteenth-century British theater 31
2.1.3.1. Limited knowledge about the East 31
2.1.3.2. Climate, landscape, and Orientalism 32
2.1.3.3. Exoticism 32
2.1.4. Conclusion 33
2.2. Tatars in literature and music 35
2.2.1. Tatars in literature 35
2.2.1.1. The semantic density of the term Tatar 40
2.2.1.1. Eroticism 40
2.2.1.2. Tatar eating habits and steak tartare 42
2.2.1.3. Animality 43
2.2.1.4. Magical and mythical elements 45
2.2.1.2. Conclusion 45
2.2.2. Image of the “Tatars” in music 47
2.2.2.1. Dschinghis Khan will ride across the stages of the world once more 49
2.2.2.2. Presentation of the band 49
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2.2.2.4. Conclusion 52
2.3. Image of “Tatars” in films 53
2.3.1. “Tatars” in documentaries 53
2.3.1.1. The documentaries 53
2.3.1.2 The choice of documentaries 54
2.3.1.3. Message and rhetorical devices 55
2.3.1.4. Montage and Sound 57
2.3.1.5. Leitmotifs in the documentaries 57
2.3.1.6. Depiction of the “Tatars” 60
2.3.1.7. Genghis Khan in the documentaries 61
2.3.1.8. Word frequency 62
2.3.1.9. Conclusion 63
2.3.2. Image of “Tatars” in the feature films 64
2.3.2.1. Choice of films 64
2.3.2.2. Message and rhetorical devices 65
2.3.2.3. Language 66
2.3.2.4. Leitmotifs 67
2.3.2.5. Genghis Khan in the feature films 69
2.3.2.6. Conclusion 70
2.3.3. Conclusion 71
2.4 Conclusion 73
3. Joseph Beuys and the Tatars 77
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3.2. Biographical context 79
3.3. The airplane crash 80
3.4. Beuys’ account of the crash 81
3.5. Analysis of the narrative’s elements 84
3.5.1. Rebirth 84
3.5.2. Birth of his artistic persona 85
3.5.2.1. Shamanism and altered states of consciousness 87
3.5.2.2. Animals 87
3.5.2.3. Beuys’ appearance 91
3.5.2.4. Genghis Khan in Beuys’ oeuvre 93
3.5.2.5. The Tatars in Beuys’ oeuvre 95
3.5.2.6. Conclusion 96
3.6. Conclusion 97
4. Discussion and conclusion 100
Bibliography 106
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1. Introduction
1.1. Problem statement
In the German election of 2017, the right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) campaigned throughout Hamburg with posters6 written with Cyrillic characters stating “An unwanted guest is worse than a Tatar. Defend borders, expel Islamists from the country.”7,8 Martin Rohweder of AfD Hamburgexplained in an interview with SNA Radio News that the aim of this campaign was to promote the party among Russian-Germans. He explained that the slogan refers to an old Russian saying in which the term Tatar is used as an expression for all people coming from the East. According to Rohweder, it does not reflect contemporary Tatar people:
Of course, we do not want to insult any of today’s Tatars or the Tatar ethnic group. That is not intended at all. It refers to a Russian historical saying that was coined several hundred years ago and can be traced back to the Golden Horde era, when Asian tribes threatened the Russian Empire and Tatar was simply an expression of everything that comes from the East, somehow. So that does not reflect on the current ethnic group of Tatars at all.9
The campaign provoked heated debate, and Rafet Karanlik of the German association of Crimean Tatars in Western Europe10 demanded a public apology.
This slogan not only reflects the populist discourse surrounding the German general election of 2017, it also shows how varyingly Tatar identity is employed in Western culture. Although the term Tatar does define an existing people, I argue that the term has a parallel— if not even more prominent—existence in the Western consciousness as a stereotypical idea rooted in historical fears or projected longings. Rohweder explains likewise that the term Tatar does not reflect on contemporary Tatar people, but plays with ideas and fears rooted in
6 See attachment, page 2.
7 “Ein ungebetener Gast ist schlimmer als ein Tatare. Grenzen verteidigen, Islamisten aus dem Land
weisen.“
8 All translations are my own unless otherwise specified.
9 “Selbstverständlich wollen wir nicht den heutigen Tataren oder der Volksgruppe der Tataren in
irgendeiner Form zu Nahe treten. Das ist damit überhaupt nicht beabsichtigt. Es bezieht sich dadrauf, auf ein Russisch-historisches Sprichwort, das also schon vor mehreren hundert Jahren geprägt wurde und dass sich auf die Zeit der Goldenen Horde zurückführen lässt, wo also asiatische Stämme das russische Reich bedroht haben und wo Tatare einfach ein Ausdruck war für alles was irgendwie aus dem Osten kommt. Das hat also überhaupt keine Reflektion auf die heutige Volksgruppe der Tataren.” Martin Rohweder, “Interview mit Martin Rohweder von der Hamburger AfD,” SNA Radio, Sept. 2017, audio, 4:12, https://soundcloud.com/sna-radio/interview-mit-martin-rohwedervon-der-hamburger-afd.
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our history. These are deeply ingrained in the Western imagination and become actualized every time they are applied. Due to Westerners’ incomplete knowledge about them, the Tatars have inspired many fantastic narratives in Western culture since their emergence in the Western consciousness in the thirteenth century. In these narratives, the Tatarsmainly function to either illustrate the enemy or to offer an alternative to Western rationalism. In this process, a stereotype (with some variations) of Tatars has been established, which occurs in Western culture through primary and secondary stereotypes. These stereotypes are simplified characterizations and function as references to ideas of the Tatars. As Rohweder espresses, they are not intended to represent “true” Tatar identity. However, the repetitive use of these stereotypes up to the present day confirms their prevalence and stands in harsh contrast to the (contemporary) Tatar ethnic group. Therefore, the stereotypes of Tatars have continued relevance in contemporary Western discourse, as the introductory example demonstrates. In the framework of this thesis, my aim is not to trace Tatar identity ethnologically, but rather to explore the stereotypical portrayal of Tatar identity in Western cultural expressions to reveal more insights about this stereotypical image and its usage by Westerners. I will focus on the portrayal of Tatars across different time periods and media. From the perspective of theater studies, my main case will be the appropriation of Tatar identity by the famous postwar artist Joseph Beuys, who integrated the Tatars into his oeuvre and linked them to his rebirth as an artist-shaman.13 With this research, I aim to answer the question of how Joseph Beuys integrated Tatar identity into his oeuvre and what function this integration played in the creation of his artistic persona. I will also analyze to what extent Beuys integrated pre-existing Western stereotypes of the Tatars into his artistic persona, and to what degree he adapted or departed from them. By including twenty-first century media in my analysis, I will also trace possible shifts in the development of stereotypical Tatar identity in the West. Based on the analysis of Beuys’ employment of Tatar identity, it will be possible to place Beuys in the context of the Western tradition and perhaps indicate to what extent he can be seen as a frontrunner in the developments of stereotypical Tatar identity in the West.
1.1.1. Introducing the Tatars
When one thinks of the Tatars, the first image that springs to mind is likely based on the stereotypes from one’s own culture. In Western culture, the rational, “enlightened”
perspective created an image of the faraway Other somewhere in the East, implicitly positing a dichotomy between “us” and “them.” In this dichotomy, the designation Tatar in everyday
13 Victoria Walters, “The Artist as Shaman: The work of Joseph Beuys and Marcus Coates,” in
Between Art and Anthropology, edited by Schneider, A. et al. (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 41. and “Joseph
Beuys: Trance in the House of the Shaman,” Tate Museum, accessed Nov. 23, 2017, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/beuys-trance-in-the-house-of-the-shaman-ar00650.
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Western discourse is often used as catch-all term for a variety of ethnic groups assumed to originate from the East, or Central and Northern Asia in general. Furthermore, the term itself carries a broad range of associations and connotations, preventing a single, clear
interpretation. Therefore, it is important at this point to clearly define the term’s various relevant uses, which I will outline in the following sections. First, I will briefly introduce the Tatar people in ethnic terms, then I will explain the implications of the terminology of Tatar versus Tartar. I will then proceed with a section on the vaguesness that accompanies the term Tatar and the differentiation between Tatars and Mongols. Next, I will briefly discuss the history of the use of the term Tatar, providing an insight into the stereotypes that have been used in Western culture. Finally, I will introduce the idea of primary and secondary
stereotypes in general and in the specific case of the Tatars. 1.1.1.1. The Tatars in ethnic terms
From a historical perspective, the Tatars are the native inhabitants of Central Asia, mainly located East of the Caspian Sea in a region formerly known as Chinese Tartary.16 With their Turkic language, they distinguished themselves from the Mongols and rather may have been related to the Cuman or Kipchak people.17 To the West and especially in Europe, they first became known after being subsumed into Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan’s armies in the thirteenth century. Through this merging, the Mongol and Turkic elements combined. With the Mongol invasion of Hungary and Russia, the Europeans came to know them as Tatars or Tartars.18 After the fall of the Mongol empire, the Tatars came to be identified with the western part of Mongolia19 and were called the Golden Horde. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, they disintegrated into the independent khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, Sibir, and Crimea. While the first three khanates were conquered by Russia in the sixteenth century, Crimea was only annexed by Russia in the eighteenth century after being a vassal state of the Ottoman Turks.
In the modern day, the Tatars are a Turkic people living scattered across Eurasia. There are different subgroups, including the Lipka, Crimean, and Volga Tatars. They live in countries as varied as Turkey, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Uzbekistan, and China, with the greatest concentration in the Russian Federation. They descend from the “Tâtar or Turkic branch of the Ural-Altaic or Turanian family, embracing the Turks, Cossacks, and Kirghiz
16 “Tartar/Tatar, n.2 and adj.,” Oxford English Dictionary Online, accessed December 25, 2017,
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/197938?redirectedFrom=tatar.
17
“Tatar People,” Encyclopædia Britannica, https://global.britannica.com/topic/Tatar.
18 Ibidem. 19 Ibidem.
Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1: Movieposter Die Tataren with Orson Welles, 1960
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Tartars [sic].”20 Their language “belongs to Türkic [sic] languages, but [...] it represents an original language, distinct from the Türkic languages of other regions.”21
1.1.1.2. Tatar or Tartar?
The term Tatar has long been used generically in the West. At least since the tenth century CE, it was used to indicate the threat of a foreign people whose exact origins were unknown and who perceived to be especially brutal.22 The spelling Tartar23 with the added r is reminiscent of the Greek Tartaros (a location in the underworld) and links Tatars directly with the underworld, as illustrated by a quote from 1842: “In the present danger of the Tartars either we shall push them back into the Tartarus whence they are come, or they will bring us all into heaven.”24 The link with the underworld also associates them with a basic fear of domination, experiences of cruelty, and confrontation with the unknown. According to the German Turkologist Hotopp-Riecke, if an author uses the spelling Tartar, he or she thus does so either to link the Tatars symbolically with the underworld, as result of incomplete
knowledge, or by mistake.26 However, the Encyclopædia Britannica introduces the Tatar people as “Tatar, also spelled Tartar”27 and thus does not make the associative link with Tatar riders coming ex Tartaros.
1.1.1.3. The vagueness of the term Tatar
First introduced in the West in thirteenth century travel journals, the designation Tatar has a long history in Western literature and culture. Throughout the centuries, the label Tatar has been charged with different associations and connotations, mainly in the tradition of the Western Orientalist perspective to illustrate threat and barbarism. The Tatars’ living habits fulfilled the criteria of a nomadic, “primitive” culture and evoked the association with barbarians in the eighteenth century. As historian Osterhammel describes, their nomadic customs and the conflation with all Eastern foreigners additionally associated them with
20 Oxford English Dictionary, “Tatar/Tartar, n.2 and adj.” 21
“Tatars: Problems of the History and Language,” Mirfatykh z. Zakiev, accessed July 19, 2017, http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/27_Scythians/EthnicRootsEn.htm#historians.
22 Hotopp-Riecke and Pohl, “Tataren: Feindbilder und Fremdenangst,” 8.
23 Schmieder, Klopprogge, and others have researched the origin and usage of the “Tartaros R” (as
Hotopp-Riecke labels it) in historical context. However, none of the studies draw a connection to the contemporary people of the Tatars. Mieste Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel: Barbaren, Alliierte, Migranten” (Phd diss., Freie Universität Berlin, 2011). 56.
24
Oxford English Dictionary, “Tartar/Tatar, n.2 and adj.”
26 Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel.” 57. 27 Encyclopædia Brittanica, “Tatar People.”
12 “gypsy” (“Zigeuner”31
) and later “pagans” (“Heiden.”32 Herein also hides the Western wish to categorize the Tatars, which resulted in different groupings and definitions of Tatar identity. Based on their shared geographical origin, the Tatars were, for example, often conflated with the Huns, the Scythians,33 and other Asian tribes. Furthermore, the different Tatar groupings and their merging under Genghis Khan, with the resulting mix of Turkic and Mongol elements, might have contributed to the vagueness of the term Tatar historically and in contemporary Western usage.
Some of these historically rooted stereotypes are still applied today, as the example of AfD reveals. Also, a simple search in the Oxford English Dictionary defines the adjectival use of Tatar as “A person supposed to resemble a Tartar in disposition; a rough and violent or irritable and intractable person.”38 Thus, although the stereotypes are historically rooted, they remain present in contemporary Western discourse. It is clear that the use of the term may acquire different layers of meaning and must be understood depending on the origin of the author, the time, and the context it is used in.41,42
1.1.1.4. Tatars = Genghis Khan= Mongols?
It is not only due to limited knowledge about Tatars in the Western world that Genghis Khan44 is by far the best-known figure of the Mongol nomads. He was also the most
31 Throughout the centuries, in the German-speaking areas, the label Tater/Tatter indicated “Zigeuner”
as well as Mongols and Tataren (e.g. by Luther). Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 54/55.
32 As a nineteenth-century quote from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe shows, for example, “The
whole country between the river Oby and the river Janezay is as entirely pagan, and the people as barbarous, as the remotest of the Tartars; nay, as any nation, for aught I know, in Asia or America.” Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 121.
33 The conflation with Scythians and Huns derives from their shared geographical origin, which Sir
William Jones described in 1788 as “the great hive of the northern swarms, the nursery of irresistible legions.” Similarly, Osterhammel formulated it as a “large breeding ground of peoples, from which in different periods myriads of barbarians poured into the more cultivated areas of the earth (grosse Brutstätte der Völker, aus der sich in unterschiedlichen perioden Myriaden von Barbaren in die kultivierteren Gegenden der Erde ergossen haben).” Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 246.
38 Oxford English Dictionary, “Tartar/Tatar, n.2 and adj.”
41 Hotopp-Riecke and Pohl, “Tataren: Feindbilder und Fremdenangst,” 12.
42 Common characteristics of all the groups were that they spoke a foreign language, travelled around
without static settlement, and were associated with “eerie, evil, bad. (Unheimliches, Böses oder Schlechtes.” Hotopp- Riecke and Pohl, “Tataren: Feindbilder und Fremdenangst,” 13.
44 Despite the choice to view Tatars under the umbrella of Genghis Khan, for the sake of my analysis I
will briefly introduce the Tatars as they are defined in the Secret History of the Mongols (ca. 1240 A.D.), the first (anonymously) written Mongolian record revealing insights into Mongolian history. According this source, the Tatars specifically are the hostile nomadic tribe that killed Esugei, the father of Temujin, who would later become Genghis Khan. In the movies analyzed in this thesis, the Tatars themselves play minor roles, mainly as the enemy of Genghis Khan’s tribe. In: Erich Haenisch, Die
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prominent individual in the creation of the Mongol Empire in 1206. He unified many small Turkic and Asian tribes, and by expanding the empire westward created a threat that could not be ignored by Western nations. Genghis Khan defeated the Tatars and incorporated their warriors into his army. He became the spearhead of the Tatars and other tribes that were subjugated under the general rule of the Mongols. The thirteenth century can thus be understood as a transitional period in which the labels of Mongol and Tatar are used
synonymously.45 In some sources (such as the documentaries analyzed in Chapter 2) Genghis Khan is generally presented as the ancestor of all nomadic Central Asian tribes, which are all presented as his descendants.
In the frame of this thesis, I have decided to acknowledge and accept these inaccuracies as part of the array of connotations and associations that resonate within the image of Tatar identity in Western cultural media.46 Therefore, I make use of the divergent interpretations in my analysis and also neglect the specific differences between Tatars and Mongols. Thus, I also accept Genghis Khan as being representative of the Tatars in order to obtain a richer image of the dominant stereotypes.
In the following section, I will briefly introduce the Western stereotypical images of Tatar identity, which will be center of the analysis in Chapter 2.
Geheime Geschichte Der Mongolen: Aus Einer Mongolischen Niederschrift Des Jahres 1240 Von Der Insel Kodeʹe Im Keluren-Fluss. 2. (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1948).
45 Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel.” 23 46
The Crimean Tatars by Alan Fisher shows that also on the side of the Tatars, controversies were held up to reinforce their claim to political and geographical territories. Alan Fisher and Stanford University, The Crimean Tatars, (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1978), 3.
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1.1.1.5. Early Western stereotypical images of the Tatars
Figure 1
Figure 3 (left): Merchandise for The Golden Compass showing the Tatars with their dæmons (wolves), 2007. Figure 4 (right): Leader of Tatar warriors in The Day of the Siege: September Eleven, 1683, 2012.
Stereotypical portrayals of Tatars in Europe’s cultural history have undergone different stages48 and been influenced by various historical and political developments. Despite these changes in the stereotypical image of the Tatars, there is a certain persistence that has spanned different times and continues today, as Hotopp-Riecke concludes.49 The fact that this
48
Early portrayals of Tatar/Mongol identity have been researched by Klopprogge (on portrayals between 1221-1245), Connell (between 1240-1340), and Schmieder (from the 13th-15th century), among others.
49
Based on Hotopp-Riecke’s findings on the stereotypical Tatar image in German literature, he categorizes the stereotypical image of the Tatars as one of longue durée. He uses Fernand Braudel’s concept of longue durée to mark the persistence of the stereotypical Tatar image. Hotopp-Riecke explains, “Fernand Braudel’s structuralist concept of ‘Long Duration’ - Longue durée assumes that beyond the event’s history with brief climaxes and social upheavalslong-term societal, political, economic or geographic structures or conditions change very slowly or not at all- the same as for the negative image of the Tatars over the centuries” (“Fernand Braudel’s strukturalistisches Konzept der ‘Langen Dauer’ - Longue durée geht davon aus, daß sich jenseits der Ereignisgeschichte mit
kurzzeitigen Höhepunkten und gesellschaftlichen Umbrüchen langfristige gesellschaftliche, politische, wirtschaftliche oder geographische Strukturen bzw. Gegebenheiten nur sehr langsam oder gar nicht ändern – wie das Negativ-Image der Tataren über die Jahrhunderte hinweg.”). Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel.” Hotopp-Riecke, 50 (footnote 187).
Figure 1 (left): Józef Brandt, Cossacks fighting Tatars from the
Crimean Khanate, 1890.
Figure 2 (right): Film poster for Die Tataren (I Tartari/
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development is so slow explains why even in modern times the historical image of the Tatar as a brutal warrior and barbarian is widespread.
According to Hotopp-Riecke, the German collective idea of the Tatar goes back further than the “Türkenfurcht,”51 the Ottoman conquest of Constantiople, and finds its origins in the “conquests of Batu Khan in general and the battle of Liegnitz/Wahlstatt in 1241 and
Grunwald/Tannenberg in 1410 in particular” (“Eroberungszügen Batu Khans im Allgemeinen und der Schlacht von Liegnitz/Wahlstatt 124152 und Grunwald/Tannenberg von 1410 im Besonderen”).53 With this in mind, the Tatars’ presence in Germany’s national heroic epic, the Nibelungenlied, seems natural. The first written record of the Nibelungenlied dates from the thirteenth century.54 In this document, the Tatars are personified by Attila, leader of the Huns, who is, according to Dr. Christian Lübke,55 “certainly, clearly before Genghis Khan the embodiment of a nomadic ruler of the steppes in the historical tradition of the European Middle Ages” (“sicher noch deutlich vor Dschinghis Khan der Inbegriff eines
steppennomadischen Herrschers in der geschichtstradierenden Überlieferung des
europäischen Mittelalters”).56 Furthermore, multiple locations in Germany are named after the Tatars or refer to past encounters with them.57
51 29 May 1453, the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, had a deep impact on the consciousness of
the time and can be seen as the beginning of the discourse of the “Türkengefahr.” According to Hotopp-Riecke, the Tatarenfurcht merged with and was superseded by the later Türkenfurcht. In: Almut Höfert, Den Feind Beschreiben: “Türkengefahr“ Und Europäisches Wissen über Das
Osmanische Reich 1450-1600. Historische Studien Bd. 35. Frankfurt, etc.: Campus-Verlag, 2003, and
Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 50.
52 In the German historiography, this battle symbolizes the turning point in the Mongol military
conquest of the West. Despite their victory against the German soldiers, the Tatars withdrew from the West due to their Khan’s death. Their withdrawal was then interpreted as sign from God. Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 51.
53 The role of the Tatarenfurcht in German literature has not yet been researched. Schmieder (1991,
2000) and Klopprogge (1993) only researched the image of the Tatars originating from the “Tataren- bzw. Mongolenstürmen” until 1241/42. The wars with or against Tatars in the following years are not considered in the present research on stereotypes. Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 50.
54 Befor the written version, the legend was delivered orally in divergent variations. 55
Director of Leibniz-Institut für Geschichte und Kultur im östlichen Europa (GWZO) and professor of History of East Central Europe at the faculty of History, Art, and Orient Studies at the University of Leipzig.
56 Christian Lübke, “Ostmitteleuropa und die Steppe. Annotationen Zu Einer Ungewöhnlichen
Beziehungsgeschichte,” Behemoth: A Journal on Civilisation 2, no. 2, 2009, 26.
57
For example, the Tartarenkanal (Berlin), Tatenberg (Hamburg), or Taterberg in Drömling. The names of the locations with their direct reference to the Tatars do not necessarily mean that the locations are historically connected to them. However, their names do create associations with the real people of the Tatars or their historical ancestors. It strengthens the presence, associations, and stereotypes of the Tatars in contemporary culture, especially when illustrative myths accompany the name of the locations such as Drömling, which is introduced as “The Drömling is a notorious wetland in the southern Altmark, the "cradle of Prussia" in today's Saxony-Anhalt. The Low German saying
16
Another critical document in this history is the fairytale “The Legend of the Huns” (“Sage von den Hunnen,” 1818)by the Brothers Grimm, in which the origin of the Huns/Turks is rooted in the product of a magician and a wolf, as illustrated by the following quote: “In the Middle Ages, it was believed that the Huns and Turks, who were considered to be one people, were monsters produced by a sorcerer with a she-wolf” (“Im Mittelalter glaubte man hernach, die Hunnen und Türken, die für ein Volk galten, wären Ungetüme, von einem Zauberer mit einer Wölfin zusammen erzeugt [sic]”).58
Stereotypes thus do have the function of illustrating the Other and are additionally used strategically in defining and strengthening the own identity. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between the primary and secondary varieties of stereotypes, which I will introduce in the following two sections.
1.1.1.5.1. Primary stereotypes
The German Turkologist Hotopp-Riecke defines stereotypes as “Defensive patterns against foreigners” (“Abwehrmuster gegenüber Fremden”).70
It is their function to recognize and devalue characteristics of that which is foreign and understood as abnormal by those who consider themselves normal.71 Stereotypes work as static images describing another
individual or group of people in order to first identify this group, and second to differentiate oneself against the Other or the foreign. Stereotypes thus essentially function as an external demarcation process; at the same time, this process leads to a complex self-differentiation from within. As such, stereotypes can be of importance for the creation of a multi-ethnic nation state (such as those of Western Europe) or the development of a moral identity (such as Christianity), as Felicitas Schmieder explores in the essay “Productive Cultural Conflicts” (“Produktive Kulturkonflikte”).72 Schmieder calls this process “exclusion strategies for the "Do wörn tatern mang" (There were Tartars between) was heard more frequently in relation to the villagers of Taterberg and its surroundings and gave up puzzles: What kind of Taterm? Where did they come from? Who are they?" (“Der Drömling ist ein berühmt- berüchtigtes Sumpfgebiet in der südlichen Altmark, der „Wiege Preußens” im heutigen Sachsen- Anhalt. Der plattdeutsche Spruch „Do wörn Tatern mang” (Da waren Tataren zwischen) war in Bezug auf die Dorfbewohner von Taterberg und seiner Umgebung öfter zu hören und gab Rätsel auf: Was für Tatern? Woher sollen die gekommen sein? Wer sind die?”) Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel: Barbaren, Alliierte, Migranten,” 305.
58 Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst,” 194.
70 Mieste Hotopp-Riecke, “Thema: Tatarische Images in deutscher Literatur und Schulmedien im
Kontext von Islamphobie und Xenophobie. Ein turkologischer Blick,” paper presented at Yelabuga Pedagogical State University, November 20-21, 2008, 1.
71 Mieste Hotopp-Riecke, “Der Stigmatisierte Andere in Sekundärstereotypen: Tatarennachricht und
Hackfleisch ‘Tartar’ als deutsche Erinnerungsorte,” Historische Konzeptionen von Körperlichkeit:
Interdisziplinäre Zugänge zu Transformationsprozessen in der Geschichte, (Berlin: Frank & Timme,
2010), 107-108.
17
purpose of self-discovery” (“Exklusionsstrategien zum Zwecke der Selbstfindung”).74 European identity, according to Schmieder, developed out of curiosity and fear. Conflicts arose and were willingly provoked in order to allow people to experience the self in friction with the Other.75 According to Schmieder, Europe as a more or less defined unity came into existence especially during the adversarial expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle Ages. This binary definition of the self against the (stereotypical image of) the Other is still at work today, as contemporary debates surrounding European identity and Turkey’s accession to the European Union show.76
From a socio-psychological perspective, stereotypes can be described as schemata that simplify processes of thinking and recognition. In her article “National Characters and Nationality Schemes: Stereotypes and Automatisms” (“Volkscharaktere und
Nationalitätenschemata: Stereotype und Automatismen”)77 Mirna Zeman defines national stereotypes as solidified automatized links to a set of characteristics. This mainly unconscious process of linkage takes place in the mind of an individual or within a group of individuals.78 Research into the unifying factors of the group can yield insight into its social and
psychological culture. Understanding the position of the culture that produces the stereotypes is essential to understanding the stereotypes themselves.
Manfred Markefka describes primary stereotypes as negative ethnonyms that are attributed to a certain (mostly foreign) group of people in order to recognize and characterize them. According to Markefka, external characteristics or observations such as physical appearance, nationality, customs, religion, culinary habits, and language inspire the characterization of the primary stereotype. By recognizing physical appearance, individual abilities, and social behavior, an individual accepts membership as or differentiates him- or herself from the seemingly Other. Based on this recognition or differentiation, the individual decides to act. Acts in society therefore do not solely depend on objective facts, but also on “Everyday assumptions [...]. Everyday situational perceptions are in some way the result of biographical knowledge structure” (“Alltagsannahmen [...]. Alltägliche Situationswahrnehmungen sind in
74 Ibidem, 2. 75 Ibidem, 1. 76
“[...] schaut man nur auf jüngste Debatten um eine ‘europäische’ Türkei bis heute für die Selbstdefinition Europas maßgeblich geblieben ist.” Ibidem, 2.
77 Mirna Zeman, “Volkscharaktere und Nationalitätenschemata: Stereotype und Automatismen,” In
Schemata und Praktiken, ed. Tobias Conradi et al. (München: Fink, 2012).
78
“Verfestigten, automatisierten Verknüpfungen zwischen Kategorien (‘Deutsche’) und Sets von Merkmalen (‘Dichter und Denker’, ‘trinkfreudig’, ‘bodenständig’) in den Köpfen von Individuen zu tun.” Zeman, “Volkscharaktere und Nationalitätenschemata: Stereotype und Automatismen,” 103.
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gewisser Weise Folge biografischer Wissensstrukturen”).79
Stereotypes as indicators of orientation belong to cultural structures of basic knowledge inherited from generation to generation. Thus, there are multiple levels to be considered in order to understand stereotypes, their function, and their validity: the level of the individual (including biographical
experiences), the level of the family culture in which an individual grows up, and the level of general cultural tendencies in the society.
1.1.1.5.2. Secondary stereotypes
According to Markefka’s research, secondary stereotypes can be understood as negative “Erinnerungsorte”80
(“memory spaces”) resulting from the historical oppositions between groups in which conflicts are inscribed in the collective memory. The secondary stereotype has lost its direct link to history and has developed into a general metaphorical location: “[…] they are available to everyone as unspecific orientation and language patterns in everyday life, to name different addressees according to registered personal characteristics, actions, or expressions, such as vandals, witches, Pharisees, or Gypsies” (“[...] sie stehen jedem als unspezifische Orientierungs- und Sprachmuster im Alltag zur Verfügung, um
unterschiedliche Adressaten gemäß registrierter persönlicher Eigenarten, Handlungen oder Äußerungen, beispielsweise Vandalen, Hexen, Pharisäer oder Zigeuner zu nennen.”).81
Contrary to primary stereotypes, secondary stereotypes work on a more unconscious level. As Hahn and Scholz state, secondary stereotypes work on the relational level, as an object in between two people.82 Firstly, these stereotypes describe the relationship between two people or two positions, and secondly, they relate to a specific ethnicity. In his essay “The
Stigmatized Other in Secondary Stereotypes: Tartar Message and Minced Tartar as German Memory Spaces ” (“Der Stigmatisierte Andere in Sekundärstereotypen: Tatarennachricht und Hackfleisch ‘Tartar’ als deutsche Erinnerungsorte”), Hotopp-Riecke illustrates secondary stereotypes with the examples of the culinary uses of Tartar and the term Tatarennachricht (a false message). According to Hotopp-Riecke’s definition, the secondary stereotype is more viable than the primary stereotype. In times of heightened awareness of discrimination and negative stereotypes, primary stereotypes can fall out of favor in accordance with ideas of “political correctness.” Hotopp-Riecke, however, asserts that the associations, patterns of
79 Hotopp-Riecke, “Der Stigmatisierte Andere in Sekundärstereotypen: Tatarennachricht und
Hackfleisch ‘Tartar’ als deutsche Erinnerungsorte,” 37.
80 Ibidem, 38. 81 Ibidem.
82 Hahn, Hans Henning, Stephan Scholz. Stereotyp. Identität und Geschichte: Die Funktion von
Stereotypen in gesellschaftlichen Diskursen. (Frankfurt a. M. / Berlin [u.a.], 2002) Cited in
Hotopp-Riecke, “Der Stigmatisierte Andere in Sekundärstereotypen: Tatarennachricht und Hackfleisch ‘Tartar’ als deutsche Erinnerungsorte,” 3.
19
thinking, and connotations that initially fed a stereotype cannot be easily eliminated. In this hidden state, they influence certain understandings of a nation or ethnicity on an unconscious level, becoming still more resistant.
Indirect references and usages of the label Tatar or Tartar are inscribed in Western cultural consciousness and understanding. Without knowing the exact meaning or point of reference, it “silently” becomes part of the cultural knowledge. This unconscious learning process is the reason for the permanence of secondary stereotypes.
Having concluded this overview of Tatar stereotypes and the function of stereotypes in general, I will now briefly introduce Joseph Beuys and his connection to the Tatars.
1.1.2. Joseph Beuys and the Tatars
This thesis focuses on Western stereotypes of Tatar identity in Western cultural expressions so as to arrive at an understanding as to why and how Joseph Beuys integrated Tatar identity into his artistic persona and to what extent this became an essential part of it. By “artistic persona,”I refer to Beuys’ performance of identity toward the outside world. His artistic persona is not to be understood as a mask, as this would indicate a split between what the external world sees and what lies hidden behind the mask. I understand his artistic persona as an identity created by Beuys in order to give visible expression to his theories. I do not intend to imply that he used his persona to turn his inner world or character into a public event; instead, I mean that he consciously created an outer self in order to convey his messages. This outer appearance could be understood as an extension of his approach to and attitude towards art. Rather than a mere shell, it is an act based on his artistic philosophy. He performs this self-cultivated being in public. His audience consists of the external audience that reacts to and thus co-creates this performative act, but I argue that Beuys also performs for his inner self, presenting a possible new reality and, by adding the Tatar element to his biography, extending his own identity and possibilities.
1.2. Relevance
Since 9/11, the fear of an uncivilized invading Other underwent a revival in international public discourse. In this binary opposition, the current Other to the West is understood as Islam, threatening Western civilization with invasion and uncontrollable terror attacks. In public rhetoric and political discourse, this binary is communicated as barbarism versus civilization.88 The idea of “barbarians” is a construct with deep roots in Western
88 Maria Boletsi and Christian Moser, “Barbarism Revisited: New Perspectives on an Old Concept,”
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consciousness and culture and has been widely discussed and researched in the humanities.89 However, as my introductory quote from the AfD shows, the copious research has not prevented people from being publicly denounced as barbarians even today. Especially in times such the current European migration crisis,90 it is a challenge to protect and respectfully integrate many diverse identities. I believe that uncovering and understanding historical stereotypes is the first step on the way to having a respectful relationship with the Other, to diminishing discrimination, and preventing deep rifts in society. Herein lies the contribution of my thesis.
Although Tatars have not been actively involved in any conflict since the Middle Ages, their ethnicity is still repeatedly used to stereotype the (hostile) Other. While the historical image of Tatar identity, communicated through stereotypes, associations, and connotations, has been researched widely,91 the contemporary stereotypical image of Tatar identity as conveyed through cultural media or political discourse has not yet been the topic of much scholarship. Building on Hotopp-Riecke’s hypothesis,94 I also believe in the endurance of historic fears and projections in contemporary Tatar stereotypes. It is in the combination of the notable presence of Tatar images in Western culture historically95 and in contemporary political discourse that I see the relevance of research on Tatar stereotypes in the West, research that sheds light on the transference of historic fears and their progression from these stereotypical images.
1.3. The aim of this research
As explained above, with this research I wish to enable a better understanding of stereotypical Tatar identity, how and by whom it is defined, and for what purposes. Therefore, I will analyze Tatar stereotypes in Western cultural expressions from the last three centuries with the aim of finding answers concerning the use of Tatar stereotypes and identity. These stereotypes will serve as a sort of mask against which Joseph Beuys’ employment of Tatar identity will be analysed. With Beuys as the central case study, I will focus on the function of his artistic persona and his adoption of the Tatar element into his biography and artworks. I set out to discover how Beuys appropriated Tatar identity, where his appropriation might
89
See e.g. Maria Boletsi and Christian Moser, “Barbarism Revisited: New Perspectives on an Old Concept,” among many others.
90 “Europe’s Migration Crisis,” Council on Foreign Relations, accessed Dec. 08, 2017,
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/europes-migration-crisis.
91
See Schmieder, Schenk, and Osterhammel.
94 Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 24. 95 Hotopp-Riecke, “Ikonografie der Angst. Deutsche Tatarenbilder im Wandel,” 21.
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overlap with pre-existing Western stereotypes, and what role this appropriation plays in the creation of his artistic persona.
1.4. Literature review
Known for his performances and having instigated the performative turn in the arts, Joseph Beuys is among the more extensively studied artists in performance and theater studies.96 His performances have been analyzed in detail and his artistic views have inspired many a creative maker as well as researcher. The pivotal event that I perceive to be the birth of his artist persona, his rescue by Tatars from a plane crash during WWII, which he only delivered as an oral narrative,97 has been analyzed before. However, it has not been analyzed as a performative act in itself.98 In his essay “Crash Course: Remarks on a Beuys Study,” Peter Nisbet focuses on this rescue narrative.99 He traces the history of its emergence, various retellings, and its public reception. Nisbet places the narrative within Beuys’ biography and oeuvre to support his claim that a closer look at these issues illustrates the “historical, diachronic character of the artist’s evolving oeuvre.”100 Frank Gieseke and Albert Markert also discuss the rescue narrative, but only as part of their detailed research and fact-checking in Aviator, Felt, and Fatherland (Flieger, Filz und Vaterland) on Joseph Beuys’ involvement in WWII.101Hans-Peter Riegel followed the search and dedicated some attention to the rescue narrative in the biography Beuys: The Biography (Beuys: Die Biographie), with the main aim
96
See for example Erika Fischer-Lichte and Saskya Iris Jain, The Transformative Power of
Performance: A New Aesthetics (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008), in which various performances by
Joseph Beuys are detailed in connection with theories of performance art.
97 There are several recordings of Beuys referring to the Tatar narrative in different interviews. The
first time, however, that Beuys told the narrative was in the interview Interview with Beuys about Key
Experiences with Georg Jappe held on September 27, 1976. This interview was first published in a
shortened version in Kunst Nachrichten, vol. 13, no. 1 in March 1977 (p. 72-81). The transcript in full, however, was published in Georg Jappe, Beuys Packen. Dokumente 1968-1996 (Regensburg: 1996), p. 206-220. A more literally translated and annotated version of the interview by Peter Nisbet can be found in Chapter 10 of Mapping the Legacy (p. 185-198). A second version of the narrative was recorded by Caroline Tisdall and published in the exhibition catalogue of the The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum retrospective of Beuys’ work in 1979 (London: Thames and Hudson).
98
The German artist Jörg Herold investigated Beuys’ origin myth at the exact location of the crash and published his findings in the artwork Heldenfriedhof (Hero Cemetery) in 2001. His research resembles a “creative exploration of a contemporary artistic myth.” Hatje Cantz Verlag, “Jörg Herold: Zeugnisse und Schriften der Reise eines Dokumentararchäologen,” HatjeCantz, accessed August 20, 2017, http://www.hatjecantz.de/joerg-herold-1622-1.html.
99 Peter Nisbet, “Crash Course: Remarks on a Beuys Story,” in Mapping the Legacy: Joseph Beuys
1921-1986, edited by Gene Ray and Lukas Beckmann (New York: D.A.P., 2001), 5-19.
100 Gene Ray and Lukas Beckmann, Joseph Beuys: Mapping the Legacy, 1921-1986 (New York, N.Y.:
D.A.P., 2001), 2.
101 Frank Gieseke and Albert Markert, Flieger, Filz und Vaterland. Eine erweiterte Beuys Biografie
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of unravelling the truths and fictions surrounding Beuys’ life and oeuvre.102 Beuys’ adoption of shamanism has been researched by Karin Riedl in her thesis “Artist Shamans: On the Appropriation of the Concept of the Shaman through Jim Morrison and Joseph Beuys” (“Künstlerschamanen: Zur Aneignung des Schamanenkonzepts bei Jim Morrison und Joseph Beuys”)103 or Victoria Walter’s article “The artist as shaman: The work of Joseph Beuys and Marcus Coates.”104 Both works offer interesting insights on shamanism as the traditional Eastern methodology of healing and analyze Beuys’ integration of it into his oeuvre and artistic persona. However, in the existing Beuys literature, the Tatar component in particular in his rescue narrative and oeuvre has not yet been the center of attention. In addition, it is relevant to discuss the Tatar component in connection with the act of performance of his artistic persona, as mentioned earlier. Therefore, I see a need to reevaluate Beuys’ creation of his rescue narrative in light of the culturally rooted Tatar myth.
Concerning the academic literature around the Tatars, the following can be said: In the fields of history and anthropology, a broad range of academic literature has been published, mainly dealing with the Ottoman imperial expansion or the era of the Golden Horde. Travel literature describing the Tatars has been profoundly researched by Andri Bezzola105 and others.106 Nonetheless, there seems to be little analysis of Tatar stereotyping in recent Western cultural expressions. Hotopp-Riecke (see also Section 2.2.1. “Tatars in literature”) is among the few experts in the field, but his research (several articles and a recently published PhD on Tatar stereotypes) covers only a limited area (Tatar stereotypes in German literature, fiction, comics, and educational material, in terms of geographical descriptions, contemporary
discourse, and German narratives). For example, no research has yet been carried out on Tatar stereotyping in cinema, opera, or popular music. Moreover, the appearance and meaning of Tatar elements in Beuys’ life and work has not specifically been the subject of academic analysis to date.
102 Hans-Peter Riegel, Beuys: Die Biografie, (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2013).
103 Karin Riedl, Künstlerschamanen: Zur Aneignung des Schamanenkonzepts bei Jim Morrison und
Joseph Beuys. Masterthesis, Universität Bielefeld, 2014.
104 Victoria Walters, “The Artist as Shaman: The work of Joseph Beuys and Marcus Coates,” in
Between Art and Anthropology, edited by Schneider, A. and Wright, C., (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 35-47.
105 Gian Andri Bezzola, Die Mongolen in Abendländischer Sicht, 1220-1270: Ein Beitrag Zur Frage
Der Völkerbegegnungen, (Bern: Francke, 1974).
106 See for example Felicitas Schmieder’s “Europa und die Fremden. Die Mongolen im Urteil des
Abendlandes vom 13. – 15. Jahrhunder’t, Jürgen Osterhammel’s ‘Die Entzauberung Asiens: Europa und die asiatischen Reiche im 18. Jahrhundert” or the thesis by Bert Vandekerckhove and Kaçar Hilmi, “Beeldvorming Bij Simon De Saint-Quentin. Discoursanalyze Van De Historia Tartarorum” (Master’s thesis, Universiteit Gent, 2016).
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1.5. Methodology
For this thesis, I applied the following two research methods:
1. In-depth analysis of secondary literature on Tatar stereotypes (in Western cultural media) and literature dealing with the creation of Joseph Beuys’ artistic persona.
2. In-depth content analysis and formal analysis of primary sources such as documentaries, feature films (including a children’s cartoon), and popular music.
1.6. Thesis design
In order to understand Beuys’ adoption of Tatar identity I will first separately analyze the stereotypical image of Tatar identity in Western media through the centuries and secondly Beuys’ appropriation of Tatar identity. I will conclude this analysis with a comparative analysis in which I will set the results of my analysis on Western Tatar stereotypes against Beuys’ implementation of the Tatar element in his work and artistic persona.
In structure, the three-fold approach is organized as follows. The first part of the analysis (Chapter 2) will focus on Tatar stereotypes in the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century. For the nineteenth century, Lord Byron’s Romantic poem Mazeppa and its adaptation in nineteenth-century British theatre will serve as a case study. The poem will be introduced briefly, followed by a discussion of the research on Tatar stereotypes in nineteenth century British theater in the essay “From Byron to Byron: Mazeppa and the Tatars in Nineteenth-Century British Theatre” by Tiziana Morosetti. This analysis will be followed by further discussion based on the academic findings on Tatar stereotypes in twentieth-century German literature by Mieste Hotopp-Riecke. Departing from secondary sources in the first part of Chapter 2, I will proceed with an analysis of primary sources (music, documentaries and movies). In the field of music, Tatar identity in general and that of Genghis Khan in particular has been used various times, but none has evoked a richer image than that of the twentieth-century German pop group Dschingis Khan, famous for winning the Eurovision Song Contest in 1979. Of the many relevant visual expressions in moving images, two documentaries and two feature films serve as examples to analyze Tatar stereotyping in the twenty-first century. Finally, similarities and shifts in stereotypical Tatar identity as presented in these Western cultural expressions will be outlined.
Subsequently, in Chapter 3 I will introduce the case study and biography of Beuys. His work, persona, and artistic views will be examined to understand his use of Tatar elements. Also, his
24
rescue narrative will be analysed and interpreted. In this analysis, a range of academic literature will be consulted with the aim of understanding his employment of Tatar identity and to obtain insighst into the image of Tatar identity he spread. Finally, in Chapter 4, the results of the two analyses (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) will be tested against each other in a comparative analysis. Beuys’ employment of Tatar identity will be compared to the Tatar stereotype resulting from the analysis in Chapter 2. Beuys’ understanding and employment of Tatar identity within the framework of his oeuvre and artistic persona will be the center of attention.
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2. Tatar stereotypes in Western cultural expressions
It is difficult to define the quintessential Western stereotype of Tatars, as this image has changed multiple times and depends on the location of publication, the author(s), and the purpose. However, there are some characteristics and attributes associated with Tatars that appear in many sources and as such can be identified as aspects of the stereotype. These characteristics do not all need to be present simultaneously for their full meaning to be exploited; subtle references can have a stronger effect while leaving space for the audience’s imagination.
In this chapter, I will follow a two-fold approach in order to trace Tatar stereotypes in Western cultural expressions. On the one hand, I will introduce the Western stereotype of Tatar identity as discussed in the academic literature, and on the other hand, I will analyse Tatar stereotypes in cultural expressions directly. In structure, this chapter treats the cultural expressions in chronological order, from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.
Beginning by introducing Lord Byron’s nineteenth-century poem Mazeppa, I will proceed with a discussion of an analysis of Tatar stereotypes in the nineteenth century by Tiziana Morosetti, an Italian researcher specialized in the presentation and performance of non-European people in nineteenth-century Britain.108 Her essay “From Byron to Byron: Mazeppa and the Tartars in Nineteenth-century British Theatre” is particularly relevant. In this essay, she uses the case of Mazeppa to show how developments in nineteenth-century British theater influenced the formation of the image of Tatars in Britain. Following chronologically, Tatar stereotypes in twentieth-century literature as found by Mieste Hotopp-Riecke109 will be introduced. The German music group Dschinghis Khan will serve as primary source of analysis to identify Tatar stereotypes and their employment. Finally, I will analyse two twenty-first century documentaries and two feature films. In my analysis, I will focus on the representation or symbolic use of Tatars or Tatar characteristics.
Finally, I will compare the findings from throughout the centuries in the secondary sources and primary sources with the aim of discovering whether a development (or consistency) in the presentation of Tatars can be observed, and if the stereotypes laid out by Hotopp-Riecke and Morosetti can be identified within the primary cultural products. Where necessary, the stereotypes found in the secondary literature will be used to complement the findings from the analyses of the primary sources. The chapter concludes with a description of Tatar stereotypes found in the analysis of cultural expressions throughout the last three centuries.
108 Affiliated with the African Studies Centre at Oxford University, she focuses on African literature
and the evocation of ‘the exotic’ in nineteenth-century theater.
109 Besides working as researcher, he is the Managing Director of ICATAT (Institute for Caucasica,
26
2.1. Tatars in poetry and theater
In her essay “From Byron to Byron: Mazeppa and the Tartars in Nineteenth-Century British Theatre,”Tiziana Morosetti explores two important traditions in the development of Tatar stereotypes in nineteenth-century British theater: one centering around the figure of Tamerlane110 and the other around the Mazeppa legend.111 She states that both “Monk” Lewis’s play Timour the Tartar and Lord Byron’s poem Mazeppa (via Henry Milner’s 1831 adaptation) served as “major turning points in the construction of the Tartars [sic]”112 and had a “decisive influence on Victorian playwrights.”113 These plays stimulated the transition from Romantic poetry towards Victorian entertainment.
In the following chapter, I will introduce Morosetti’s findings that are relevant to Tatar stereotypes. I will mainly focus on Lord Byron’s poem for two reasons: first, after its
publication, it soon surpassed the Tamerlane tradition in the number of plays produced on the nineteenth-century stage,114 and secondly, Byron’s influence in creating a “character that, superimposed on the existing myth of the Tatars, ended up rejuvenating what was to prove one of the liveliest and longest-lasting tropes in nineteenth-century British theater.”115 In order to understand the influence of Mazeppa on the stereotypical image of Tatar identity, in the following analysis I will first briefly introduce the poem itself, the legend, and its connection to the Tatars (2.1.1.1.-2.1.1.3.) before concluding with some remarks on Henry Milner’s adaptation of Mazeppa (2.1.2.) and the key points of Mazeppa’s influence on the stereotypical image of Tatars in nineteenth-century British theater (2.1.3.).
2.1.1. Mazeppa
2.1.1.1. Lord Byron’s poem
Mazeppa is a narrative poem written by the British Romantic poet Lord Byron in 1818. It is based on a one-line episode in Voltaire’s History of Charles XII (1731) and treats the myth
110 Tamerlane, the European translation of Timur Lenk, was a Mongol military leader in the fourteenth
century. Plays about him included Christoper Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Chamberlaine’s burlesque Timour the Tatar, etc. (For more titles, see Morosetti, “From Byron to Byron,” 229.)
111 Foundational texts for this legend are mainly Lord Byron’s Mazeppa and other peripheral texts (For
more titles, see Morosetti, “From Byron to Byron,” 229).
112 Morosetti, “From Byron to Byron,” 228. 113
Ibidem.
114 Ibidem, 229. 115 Ibidem.
27
around the historical figure of Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), a young Ukrainian who later became the leader of the Ukrainian Cossacks.117
In Byron’s poem, the aged hetman (a Cossack leader)118 thinks back on his youth (from line 125 onwards) and describes his service as a page at the court of King John II Casimir in Poland. During one of the king’s long absences, he falls in love with the king’s wife, Countess Theresa, who “had the Asiatic eye.”119 When the king discovers the affair, he decides to punish the young servant. Mazeppa is tied naked to a horse and expelled from the court. The horse gallops with abundant energy onto the steppe. Stalked by wolves and injured by thorns and the wild ride, Mazeppa nearly dies twice. A swim through the river Dnieper weakens the horse. Mazeppa finally awakens, delirious from the pain, in the bed of a “Cossack Maid,”120
who takes care of him until his wounds are healed.
As the legend goes, Mazeppa changed his life dramatically after recovering from this near-death experience. Instead of serving a master, he decides to engage in the creation of an independent Ukrainian state. He eventually comes to lead the Cossacks and fights both Tatars and Poles in the center and north of Russia. The poem, framed by the reminiscing old hetman, deals with “the leadership of a nation by a ruler.”121 It emphasizes the suffering of the young Mazeppa during his banishment, illustrates the hero’s ride on the wild horse, and
demonstrates Romanticism’s fascination with the individual.
2.1.1.2. The legend of Mazeppa
The Mazeppa legend developed differently in the East and the West and so, according Hubert Babinski in The Mazeppa Legend in European Romanticism, one could speak of a Western and Eastern Mazeppa legend.122 The Western legend drew its inspiration from early stages of Mazepa’s life and increased the distance between the legend of Mazeppa and the historical figure.123 Ignorant about the eastern part of the world, “[T]to the Western nations [...] he was
117
Through Voltaire’s work, the attention was finally diverted from “the historical frame of Mazeppa’s life.” Morosetti, “From Byron to Byron,” 229.
118 “Hetman,” Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, accessed Dec. 22, 2017,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hetman.
119
G. Gordon Byron, Mazeppa: A poem (London: W. Dugdale, 1824), l.208.
120 Byron, Mazeppa, l.817.
121 Hubert F. Babinski, The Mazeppa Legend in European Romanticism (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1974), 24.
122
Babinski, The Mazeppa Legend, 4.
123 Byron’s poem was part of creating the myth around Mazeppa “that is as powerful as it is, however
