Autorschaft und Inszenierung bei Wladimir Kaminer, Dmitrij Kapitelman und Kat Kaufmann

Abstract

This thesis examines concepts and expressions of authorship in literary and non-literary works by Wladimir Kaminer, Dmitrij Kapitelman, and Kat Kaufmann. All three belong to a group of post-Soviet Jewish authors who migrated to Germany in the 1990s as “Kontingentflüchtlinge” (quota refugees), following the fall of the Iron Curtain. Since then, they, as well as others with an East and Central European migration background, writing in German, have established themselves in the German literary field and achieved a high level of visibility in broader media discourses. The study therefore addresses current trends in the German literary market. It traces how the chosen authors in their works of autofictional writing explore complex questions of identity, including a cultural heritage that is shaped by ‚triad‘ of cultures. It asks, how in doing so, these authors are contributing to a shift in memory and identity discourses and broadened perspectives on historical events, migration, and understandings of Jewish identity in the German literary field. However, the work of Kaminer, Kapitelman and Kaufmann must also be seen in the context of a literary market where an author’s migration background can serve as a valuable distinguishing feature to attract attention, yet may also lead to reductive categorization. The project explores how the chosen authors deal with this ambivalence and which other themes they incorporate into their self-presentation in response to it. What role does the cultural heritage addressed in their texts play in these authors' concepts of authorship and the performative practices they employ both within and beyond their texts?

Furthermore, paratexts play a significant role in shaping the authors’ public images and the perception of their texts. In addition to being multicultural, the authors analysed are also multimedia-oriented, with their presence extending beyond literature into various media. Their media visibility includes social media activity, such as on Instagram, as well as interviews. The study shows how the authorial persona must be understood as an interplay between the strategies of the authors themselves, their publishers' marketing strategies and the interests of the literary public. Therefore, the voices of literary critics are also included in the analysis. The study is structured as follows: (1) it places post-Soviet Jewish migration in its historical, socio-cultural and literary contexts, (2) develops a methodological approach to self-presentation and performativity, and (3) provides an in-depth analysis of selected texts. These texts published between 2000 and the present, which illustrate relevant trends and developments in the individual author’s oevres as well as within the subfield of German-language Gegenwartsliteratur outlined, include Russendisko (2000) and Militärmusik (2001) by Kaminer, Superposition (2015) by Kaufmann, and Das Lächeln meines unsichtbaren Vaters (2016) and Eine Formalie in Kiew (2021) by Kapitelman. Drawing on theories of authorial self-representation (Jürgensen and Kaiser), paratexts (Gérard Genette) and the literary field (Pierre Bourdieu), the study combines a narratological approach with a literary-sociological perspective. Using this method, the study provides insights into the reciprocal dynamics of cultural heritage, authorship and self-representation in the current literary field.