AHRC Research Development and Engagement Fellowship 2022-24, £127,000

This project on the East German miner and protest singer Gerhard Gundermann (1955-98) is the first examination of his previously unpublished political musicals in the GDR. This has three significant aspects:

• it contributes to the ongoing reassessment of music and theatre in the GDR, a state in which all artistic expression involved a constant negotiation with state ideology and its functionaries;
• it examines Gundermann’s creative appropriation of agitprop tradition in order to voice criticism of the state;
• it sets Gundermann in an international context of protest singers in looking at his narrative technique and roleplay. Of particular interest is the narrative persona he developed to address the democratic deficits of the GDR and later the growing environmental threat.

The following articles have recently been placed in academic journals:

• ‘A Heroism for the New Times in the Protest Songs of Gerhard Gundermann’, Popular Music, 2024.
• ‘The Krabat Motif in the Songs and Musicals of Liedermacher Gerhard Gundermann’, Music & Politics,
• ‘The Influence of Franziska Linkerhand on the Political Songs of Gerhard Gundermann’, German Life and Letters, 2024.

For the practice as research component of this Fellowship Dave translated ten songs from the original German and recorded them for the CD Filling Station for Losers. Songs of Gundermann (2024). A journal article will also be written on the considerations of the translation process, both lyrically and musically.

A project website has been created at: www.songsofgundermann.com.  This contains music, text and links to research as well as a documentary video summarising the significance of Gundermann’s life and work.