In following her bid for a Hungarian passport, Sandra Kogut's documentary "The Hungarian Passport" explores the difference between nationality and citizenship. The film was presented by the Watson Institute for International Studies last night in MacMillan 117.
For Brazilian citizens like Kogut, having a European passport is advantageous. European or American passports, unlike Brazilian ones, allow Brazilians to cross most borders with ease. Dual citizenships are a matter of convenience for Brazilians who travel. "Having two nationalities is like having two husbands - having two citizenships is like having two suits," Kogut's friend says in the documentary.
In the film, Kogut searches for documents that prove her Hungarian ancestry. In an interesting parallel, the documentary compares the difficulties Kogut had acquiring her passport with the institutional obstacles experienced by her grandparents during their immigration to Brazil. Fleeing the prospect of a Nazi invasion of Hungary, Kogut's Jewish grandparents immigrated to Brazil in 1937.
Unfortunately, a secret directive issued by the Brazilian government at the time forbade consulates to grant visas to prospective Jewish immigrants. For a moment, it looked like they might be without citizenship, as their Hungarian passports forbade them to return to Hungary and the Brazilian consulate refused to give them a visa. In mentioning this anecdote, Kogut demonstrates that while it may be impossible to have no cultural background, people can still be legally stateless.
Eventually both quests seem to reach happy resolutions. Kogut attains her passport, and her grandparents establish themselves in Brazil. But as a result, all find their lives changed in very unexpected ways.
Kogut has only used her Hungarian passport once. In fact, she said the process of attaining her Hungarian citizenship only re-emphasized her identification as a Brazilian. Kogut's grandfather never felt at home in Brazil despite the fact that he was legally no longer Hungarian. But Kogut's grandmother - who, unlike her husband, thinks of herself as a Brazilian - is still considered a Hungarian. Toward the end of the film, she says, "I have lived twice as long in Brazil as I did in Hungary, and that part of me which I brought from Europe may no longer exist there."
Though Kogut no longer uses her Hungarian passport, she said she values the year she spent attaining it. In a discussion after the screening, Kogut said she came to understand her Hungarian, Jewish and Brazilian facets in far more depth while searching for her Hungarian origins. Her experience taught her to put little faith in the "citizenship" granted by a passport because the citizenship attained by a passport is not an identity - a citizenship is just a legal technicality.
Like the film, identity "isn't about going back to one's roots, it's about taking experience and building an identity out of the synthesis of your facets," she said after the screening. Her passport serves two functions: It is both a membership card for the European Union and a symbol of the failure of institutions and bureaucracies to grasp the elusive quality of identity.
