examines  documentation  procedures  and  linguistic  choices  among  the  region’s  Germanophonic
nobility.  With  their  considerable  knowledge  of  French,  this  group  was  not  only  able  to  accept
French  as  the  language  of  culture,  but  also  to  embrace  it  consciously.

Manfred  Schmeling

MIXEDNESS  AS  CONCEPT
An  Aspect  of  Cultural  Border  Crossing  in  Cultural  Studies  and  in  Literary
Writing
The  article  considers  aspects  of  intercultural  communication  from  the  perspective  of  literary
criticism.  The  central  idea  is  the  problem  of  conceptualizing  cultural  blending  processes  on  a
theoretical  and  a  literary  level,  as  well  as  the  question  of  the  applicability  of  such  concepts.  First,
the  metaphorical  discourse  which  goes  with  cultural  interaction  is  discussed  in  its  ideological
implications.  Further  reflections  focus  on  different  conceptions  of  “mixed  culture”  on  the  basis
of  the  postcolonial  discourse  of  authors  like  Salman  Rushdie  or  Homi  K,  Bhabha.  Finally  the
question  of  the  aesthetic  consequences  of  cultural  hybridity  is  asked.

Reinhard  Schneider
Riga  in  the  middle  ages,  a  merchant  city  at  the  Intersection  of  different
Cultures

Riga,  founded  in  1201  A.D.  near  the  mouth  of  the  Duna  river,  is  regarded  as  the  typical
example  of  an  early  Hanseatic  merchant  city.  Bishop  Albert,  the  founder  of  Riga,  hailed  from
Bremen,  and  up  to  about  1300  A.D.  two  thirds  of  its  inhabitants  were  Germans,  the  remaining
third  Livonians,  Lettonians,  and  Russians.  This  multicultural  city  (to  use  modem  terminology)
managed  in  general  to  resolve  its  linguistic  problems.  In  the  131*1  century  analysed  in  the  article
a  model  ordinance  of  arbitration  was  developed  which  betrayed  North  Italian  influence.  The
same  influence  can  be  discerned  in  the  city’s  building  ordinance  of  1293  drawn  up  in  a  reaction
to  the  consequences  of  unregulated  construction.  The  examples  show  a  city  situated  in  a  border
region  that  was  self-confident  and  intelligent  enough  to  assimilate  various  ideas  without,
however,  developing  a  typical  mixed  culture.

Günter  Scholdt
Border  Culture  as  a  political  issue,  august  scholtis  and  Others
The  mixing  of  languages  and  cultures  in  border  regions  is  of  special  significance  to  authors
living  there.  This  is  especially  true  when  national  unifying  tendencies  exert  additional
ideological  pressure  during  periods  of  political  unrest.  The  article  describes  typical  reactions  of
proponents  of  the  idea  of  mixed  cultures.  August  Scholtis,  e.g.,  coming  from  the  region  of

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