Zipser Barockautoren: Kapitel einer deutschen, ungarischen oder slowakischen Literaturgeschichte?

Abstract This article examines forms of collective identity in texts by and about Daniel Klesch (1624–1697), a Baroque author from the Zips (Spiš) region of the Kingdom of Hungary. By analysing how these texts refer to homeland, descent and language, it considers the difficulties of assigning early modern writers to modern national literary histories. In occasional poems of the 1660s, the Zips is repeatedly described as patria, or homeland, and references to Gepid ancestry express a distinct Zipser-German identity. In Klesch’s writings from exile in the 1670s, the Kingdom of Hungary increasingly appears as his homeland, although the Zips retains its significance as his more particular patria. At the same time, Klesch positions himself within German-language literary and scholarly culture. These regional, ethnic-linguistic and territorial forms of belonging were not mutually exclusive. Rather, different aspects of collective identity could be emphasized according to the circumstances and intended audiences of individual texts. The apparent contradictions arise not from the sources themselves but from their later interpretation within modern national literary histories, which tend to privilege certain forms of belonging over others.