"Wie es damals Mode war": Inscribing History and Cultural Identity into the Oderbruch in Theodor Fontane's Vor dem Sturm

In Theodor Fontane's historical novel Vor dem Sturm (1878), archaeological debates enforce a sharp distinction between the German and the Slavic in the March of Brandenburg, whereas the novel seems at ease with the borderland liminality of its regional geography. This article demonstrates that Fontane stages various spheres of German identity formation, including the archaeological and the geographic that exhibit different levels of comfort with the coexistence of Germanness and Slavicness. Ultimately, in having these spheres coexist, Fontane demonstrates the contingency of the present by depicting the past as a product of change and of human decisions, illustrating the inherent paradox of identity.