For me, home and Heimat are two different concepts.
The connotations coming to my mind for home are family, friends, home town, smells, tastes, a place being always warm and welcoming no matter which state you are in when you're coming home. Heimat on the other hand is broader, a geographical concept. For me it is connected to values and the valorization of them. Heimat, in contrast to home, is not taking you as you are. It is not home. Coming to Heimat, people want to see what you are doing, what you became. There is the librarian asking what you are doing, it is not such a cozy, safe place as the thing called home.
I am a bit sorry for the term "Heimat" being so idealized, misused and sentimentalized within the last centuries. It has a bit of patina on which urgently needs to be polished, not only because of those terrible monsters called "Heimatfilm". Heimat, misused throughout fascism needs to get a second change. It needs to be re-used as a local concept, not in bavarian folkloric mishmash but as a true concept of valorization and diversity.
I wonder when appreciation of Heimat actually starts and if it is getting more intense the more you are entering different cultural contexts. If you're suddenly able to seize "Heimat" at once, you are away from it. Not on a two weeks holiday trip or living 30 km away, but really living outside of it. Not having daily access to its outcome, to its habits and cultural events. I wouldn't have talked about Heimat when talking about home while I was still there but now it is easier to use the term (even if it still sounds sentimental).
Foto: Heimat Zine
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen