Abstract

The article examines feuilletonistic and short prose texts about the incommensurability of death. These small pieces that appeared in scattered places are united by their exploration of the forms of symbolic behavior and thus the historically changing attitudes towards the dead and the past. The article discusses the memorial functions of these 1920s texts that are shaped by nationalistic and masculinist codes. The cult surrounding the death-mask plays a central role. The readings presented here show how the small modernist form, in its brevity, scarcity, and ephemerality, takes on an archival function which allows it, in the age of the masses, to go beyond commemorating the »individual spirit« (Hofmannsthal). In conclusion, the article contrasts the 1920s pieces with Helmar Lerski’s photographic project Metamorphosis through Light (1936). The series shows physiognomic studies of a single man, and, despite its ambivalent aesthetics, is read as a counterpoint to the interwar period’s heroic, masculinist death-mask cult.