EN
The article is based on the concept of literary geography (Geographielitteraire)and concerns the author’s geography (e.g., centres of literary activity, places of birth and death) and the geography of the literary space. The focus will be, however, on the conceptualization of spaces at Lake Constance in literary texts of the 19th and 20th centuries. Selected examples depict Lake Constance as 1) both an idyllic and dangerous space (Gustav Schwab and Eduard Morike), 2) a symbol of refuge from urban and industrial spaces and movement toward nature (Annette von Droste-Hulshoff and Hermann Hesse), 3) a border that is (impossible) to be crossed (Stanisław Dygat) and 4) a stage for crime novels (Lake Constance turns into Lake Murder). In almost all conceptualizations the ambivalence of this space is emphasized. In Polish literature, this space is presented in two texts: Jezioro Bodeńskie (Lake Constance) by Stanisław Dygat (1914–1978) and Wypędzeni do raju (Expelled to Paradise) by Krzysztof Maria Załuski (born 1963). While Dygat marks Lake Constance as an ambivalent place (border), Załuski places the lake “at the edge of the map”, at the end of a familiar world: the border can merely be a space of tragedy.