Peter Handke and Wolfgang Bauer as the leading figures of Avant-garde Literature in 1960s Austria

2. Summary Austrian avant-garde literature is nowadays considered an integral part of German literary history. Focusing on the avant-garde's early stage of the 1960s, the thesis seeks to look into (a) the conditions which gave rise to the progressive literature in the Austria of that time, and (b) its concrete manifestations in the works of the young authors. The opening part explains the origins of such a radical approach to form and content across literary genres. After 1945, Austrian culture and arts did not face the uncertain choice of literature in Germany, where another parting of the ways came in 1947, with the fundamentally different approaches between the West and the East. In Austria the initial debate was more efficient: the official policies clearly aimed at re-establishment of the modern and stable values as presented by the Austrian interwar great story-tellers such as Robert Musil and Hermann Broch. These efforts, however, were soon to become counterproductive. The conservative, and cumbersomely obsolete policies of the grand coalition between the social democratic SPÖ party and the newly established ÖVP party failed to provide fertile land for young authors, who grew up in the 1960s. It was these authors in particular who felt that the cultural and political atmosphere was extremely rigid,..