Queer in Russia: A Story of Sex, Self, and the OtherIn Queer in Russia Laurie Essig examines the formation of gay identity and community in the former Soviet Union. As a sociological fieldworker, she began her research during the late 1980s, before any kind of a public queer identity existed in that country. After a decade of conducting interviews, as well as observing and analyzing plays, books, pop music, and graffiti, Essig presents the first sustained study of how and why there was no Soviet gay community or even gay identity before perestroika and the degree to which this situation has--or has not--changed. While male homosexual acts were criminalized in Russia before 1993, women attracted to women were policed by the medical community, who saw them less as criminals than as diseased persons potentially cured by drug therapy or transsexual surgery. After describing accounts of pre-perestroika persecution, Essig examines the more recent state of sexual identities in Russia. Although the fall of communism brought new freedom to Russian queers, there are still no signs of a mass movement forming around the issue, and few identify themselves as lesbians or gay men, even when they are involved in same-sex relations. Essig does reveal, however, vibrant manifestations of gay life found at the local level--in restaurants, discos, clubs, and cruising strips, in newspapers, journals, literature, and the theater. Concluding with a powerful exploration of the surprising affinities between some of Russia's most prominent nationalists and its queers, Queer in Russia fills a gap in both Russian and cultural studies. |
Contents
The Law | 3 |
The Cure | 25 |
Identity Politics and the Politics of Identity | 55 |
Queer Subjects and Subjectivities | 83 |
and Public Queerness | 105 |
The Intersection | 123 |
Conclusion | 161 |
Postscript | 173 |
| 229 | |
| 239 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
American antisodomy asked audience August body Boris Moiseev chapter Chechnya course create criminal culture Cure Debrianskaia described discos disease Eddie Eduard Limonov Ereev Eshche experts fact female festival Field notes Gay and Lesbian gay/lesbian gazeta gender Gessen heterosexual homo homoerotic homosexual Ibid identify identity politics IGLHRC Interview Isaev journal Kalinin Kostin Kukharskii Kurskaia leaders lesbian Limonov male masculine Misha Mogutin Moiseev Moscow Moskovskii komsomolets movement nationalist Nazi never organization person Petersburg pleshka pravda prison prosecution psychiatric public queerness public sphere queer activism queer activists queer desires queer sexual queer subjectivities queerness in Russia Roma Russian Russian queers Sadko same-sex Sappho seminar sexologists sexual identity sexual minorities sexual practices Shatalov sian social Soviet Stonewall speak stories Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky Fund Tema tion told transgression transsexuals Triangle Tuller Ugolkova Viktiuk Western woman women York young Zhenia Zhirinovskii Zhuk