In the 19th century the ghetto literature genre was a central phenomenon in avowedly Jewish literature both in German-speaking areas and in Central Europe in general. In terms of literary history the genre is associated with the rise of regional literature after the 1830s and the village chronicle in particular. This meant that in the course of the 19th century German-speaking areas (alongside Germany itself notably the countries of the Habsburg monarchy) saw the emergence of a wide variety of ghetto narratives. What all these had in common was their function as a literary response by Jewish authors to the cardinal issue of the potential forms available for Jewish emancipation and identity in that period.