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In Kiev, Dmitrij Kapitelman comes into contact with a lost homeliness
Photo: Artem Hvozdkov / Getty Images
In order to become a German citizen, Dmitrij Kapitelman has to bribe someone.
"It's not legal," he writes.
Because legally, he presumes, nobody in the Ukrainian bureaucracy gets his rights.
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Dmitry Kapitelman
Photo: Christian Werner / Hanser Berlin
What does the Ukrainian bureaucracy have to do with a German passport?
Ask the German bureaucracy!
The writer Dmitrij Kapitelmann is a so-called Jewish quota refugee, born 1986 in Kiev, schooled, socialized, studied in Germany, "working, tax-punctual, constitutionally patriotic, always stowing my purchases in less than seven seconds." He has lived here for 25 years, even slobbering up he can.
And yet, in order to be able to apply for German citizenship, he must first travel to Kiev at the behest of the Leipzig immigration authorities.
A document that certifies another document is missing.
"The specter of the lazy immigrant: Nobody fears it more than the immigrant himself"
Don't you understand?
Kapitelman doesn't understand either.
But he submits to the bureaucracies, both German and Ukrainian, and travels back to his childhood past.
He tells of this journey in his new work, a self-discovery book in which he finds so much more than himself. Deeper truths about the nature of migration, for example.
"The specter of the lazy immigrant: Nobody fears it more than the immigrant himself."
The German passport as life insurance
Why Kapitelman didn’t want to become a German all those years ago and now he does, that tells a lot about Germany.
Kapitelman wants the passport because he can finally vote "against the fascists" because he can then travel to almost any country in the world without a visa application.
You could say: Kapitel - you want the passport because then it is easier to get out of here.
"Who knows how far the fascists are still from power in Germany, dear compatriots."
"Migration actually never stops, even twenty-five years later I am still immigrating to Germany."
Above all, Kapitelman now wants to become German in order to distinguish himself from his parents, with whom he is at odds.
"Back then mom" in Kiev was willing to be happy and love itself. Today mom in Leipzig is a self-righteous know-it-all who gets along better with cats than with people.
It seems to be pure rationality, but maybe it's just depressed, who knows.
Kapitelman, in any case, is stuck in a conflict of loyalty: the old homeland of his parents there, his new homeland here, in between all the broken dreams and unfulfilled longings.
"Migration actually never ends," writes Kapitelman, "even twenty-five years later I am still immigrating to Germany."
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Title: A Formality in Kiev
Publisher: Hanser Berlin
Number of pages: 176
Author: Kapitelman, Dmitrij
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25.01.2021 7 p.m.
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Home and origin, right-wing populism in Saxony, the war in eastern Ukraine: These are serious issues that Kapitelmann negotiates without taking himself and his family too seriously.
That's what makes his book so special.
Kapitelman repeatedly breaks the ideological pathos with private irony.
Why did his father never apply for German citizenship?
"Emotional and Jewish reasons are obvious, but the couch and remote control are even closer." Kapitelman opens a hatch that sheds light on the gloomy debates of our time.
Every joke a caress
Despite all irony: Kapitelman shows his wound and that of his family, he shows the wounds of his old and his new home, he does what his mother and father apparently never could - show weakness.
In the Ukraine he comes into contact with a lost homeliness.
Even the floorboards of the old family apartment creak plaintively.
And so it happens that the trip to the German passport, with which he wanted to force distance from his parents, finally brings the family back together.
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Fascism: When the Federal President is not there A guest contribution by Dmitrij Kapitelman
Cultural affiliation is a complicated matter, as is family affiliation - that is what this book teaches.
The roots often go deeper than you think.
Kapitelman has written an affectionate book: affectionate towards his old homeland and his new one, his fatherland and his mother tongue, his papa and his mother.
Above all, a book with tender humor, every joke a caress.
"A Formality in Kiev" is a great parent-son love story, a plea for more heart and fewer formalities.
"Nothing is as indifferent as nationalities", Kapitelman writes, and ends with a question: "Do we really want to perish from something so indifferent, dear compatriots?"
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