Gay History in Russia
LGBT history in Russia
The history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Russia and its historical
antecedents (i.e., the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire) has largely been influenced by the political leanings and levels of liberalism or tolerance of the rulers. It has also been influenced by the historically prohibitive nature of Russian Orthodox religiosity regarding sexuality.
Homosexuality has been documented in Russia for centuries. Government
attempts at preventing homosexual practices began in the 18th century,
with Tsar Peter the Greatbanning homosexual relations in the armed forces
in 1716, as a part of his attempt to modernise the country. In 1832 further
laws were enacted criminalizing certain sexual acts between two males,
however an LGBT subculture developed in Russia during that century,
with many significant Russians being openly homosexual or bisexual.
In 1917, the Russian Revolution saw the overthrow of the Tsarist government, and the subsequent foundation
of the Soviet Union, an explicitly socialist state. The new Communist Party government eradicated the old laws
regarding sexual relations, effectively legalising homosexual activity within Russia, but it remained illegal in
other Soviet provinces. In 1933, the Soviet government, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, recriminalised
homosexual activity, most probably to improve the strained relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, who
considered homosexuality sinful. Following Stalin's death, there was a liberalisation of attitudes toward sexual
issues in the Soviet Union, but homosexual acts remained illegal. Nonetheless, homosexual culture became
increasingly visible, particularly following the glasnost policy of Mikhail Gorbachev's government in the late 1980s.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the foundation of the Russian Federation in 1991, the Council
of Europe pressured the new administration to legalize homosexuality, leading President Boris Yeltsin to do so
in 1993.
Contents
1 Russian Empire
1.1 Anarchists & Kadets
2 Soviet Union
2.1 LGBT rights under Lenin: 1917–1933
2.2 LGBT history under Stalin: 1933–1953
2.3 LGBT history post-Stalin: 1953–1991
3 Russian Federation
3.1 LGBT history under Yeltzin: 1991–1999
3.2 LGBT history under Putin: 1999–present
4 ReferenceRussian Empire
Prior to Tsarist policy, homosexuality and cross-dressing were punished by
religious authorities or militias. Ivan the Terrible was accused of being gay,
in an attempt to discredit him. When Duke Dmitry was overthrown his broken
body was dragged through the streets, from his genitals, alongside his
reputed boyfriend.[1]
(Tsar Ivan IV, "the Terrible", was accused of having homosexual relations by his political opponents.)
In 1716, Tsar Peter the Great enacted a ban on male homosexuality in the
armed forces. The prohibition on sodomy was part of a larger reform
movement designed to modernize Russia and efforts to extend a similar
ban to the civilian population were rejected until 1835.[1]
In 1832, Tsar Nicholas I added Article 995 which outlawed muzhelozhstvo. While this could have created a ban
on all forms of private adult voluntary homosexual behavior, the courts tended to limit its interpretation to anal
sex between men, thus making private acts of oral sex between consenting men legal. The law did not explicitly
address female homosexuality or cross-dressing, although both behaviors were considered to be equally
immoral and may have been punished under other laws.[2]Persons convicted under Article 995 were to be
stripped of their rights and relocated to a Siberia for four to five years. It is unknown how many Russians were
sentenced under this law, although there were a number of openly gay and bisexual Russians during this era,
e.g. the conservative Nikolai Gogol, and homoerotic rites were popular among some religious dissidents in the
far north of Russia.[3] The relatively high number of openly gay or bisexual artists and intellectuals continued
on into the late nineteenth century.
Author and critic Konstantin Leontiev was bisexual, and one of the most famous couples in the late-nineteenth-
century Russian literary world were the lesbians Anna Yevreinova (a laywer) and Maria Feodorova (an author)
.[citation needed] Another notable Russian lesbian couple were author Polyxena Soloviova and Natalia Manaseina.
[4] Other notables included poet Alexei Apukhtin, Peter Tchaikovsky, conservative author and publisher Prince
Vladimir Meshchersky, Sergei Diaghilev, who had an affair with his cousin Dmitry Filosofovand, after the breakup,
with Vaslav Nijinsky. Mikhail Kuzmin's novel Wings (1906) became one of the first "coming out" stories to have
a happy ending and his private journals provide a detailed view of a gay subculture, involving men of all classes.
While there was a degree of government tolerance extended to certain gay or bisexual artists and intellectuals,
especially if they were on friendly terms with the Imperial family, the pervasive public opinion, greatly influenced by the Eastern Orthodox Church, was that homosexuality was a sign of corruption, decadence and immorality. Russian author
Alexander Amfiteatrov's novel titled People of the 1890s (1910), reflected this prejudice with two gay characters; a masculine lesbian attorney and a decadent gay poet.
Leo Tolstoy's Resurrection introduces a Russian artist, convicted for having sex with his students but given a
lenient sentence, and a Russian activist for gay rights as examples of the widespread corruption and immorality
in Tsarist Russia.[2]
These depictions of gay men and women in literature suggest that the government's selective tolerance of
homosexuality was not widely expressed among the Russian people and that it was also divorced from any
endorsement of LGBT rights. While other nations, most notable Germany, had an active "gay rights movement”
during this era, the most visible example of Russian homosexuality, aside from literature, was prostitution.
Anarchists & Kadets
Russian urbanization had helped to ensure that St. Petersburg and Moscow both had gay brothels, along with
many public places where men would buy and sell sexual services for or from other men.[1] While there certainly
was lesbian prostitution, and some alleged lesbian affairs, less was publicly said, good or bad, about gay or
bisexual women.[1] Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Romanov (the younger brother and uncle, respectively,
of Russian Emperors Alexander III and Nicholas II) served as the Governor of Moscow from 1891–1905.
His homosexual relationships were widely famous in Moscow.
Anarchist Alexander Berkman softened his prejudice against homosexuality through his relationship with
Emma Goldman and his time spent in jail, where he learned that working class men could be gay, thus
debunking the idea that homosexuality was a sign of upper middle class or wealthy exploitation or decadence.
Soviet UnionLGBT rights under Lenin: 1917–1933
One of the founders of the Kadets, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, had written a research paper on the legal
status of homosexuality in Russia, published by early gay rights advocate Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld in Berlin.
The Russian Communist Inessa Armand publicly endorsed both feminism and free love, but never directly
dealt with LGBT rights. The Russian Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and
homosexuality, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws and the initial Soviet criminal code kept these
liberal-libertarian sexual polices in place.
Yet, the legalisation of private, adult and consensual homosexual relations only applied to Russia itself.
Homosexuality or sodomy remained a crime in Azerbaijan (officially criminalised in 1923), as well as in
the Georgian and Central Asian Soviet Republics throughout the 1920s. Similar criminal laws were
enacted in Uzbekistan in 1926 and in Turkmenistan the following year, though it is not altogether clear why such practices were legal and illegal in different parts of the country.
LGBT history under Stalin: 1933–1953
The Soviet Union sent delegates to the German Institute for Sexual Science, as well as to some international
conferences on human sexuality, who expressed support for the legalization of adult, private and consensual
homosexual relations. However, in the 1930s, along with increased repression of political dissidents and
non-Russian nationalities under Stalin, LGBT themes faced official government censorship, and a uniformly
harsher policy across the entire Soviet Union.
Some historians have suggested that Joseph Stalin's enactment of the anti-gay law was, like his prohibition on abortion, an attempt to increase the Russian birthrate and build a better relationship with the socially conservative Eastern Orthodox Church. Some historians have noted that it was during this time that Soviet propaganda began to depict homosexuality as a sign of fascism, and that Article 121 may have a simple political tool to use against dissidents, irrespective of their true sexual orientation, and to solidify Russian opposition to Nazi Germany, who had broken its treaty with Russia.
(Under the Soviet administration of Joseph Stalin (pictured), homosexual acts in Russia were once more illegalized, and would remain so for the next 60 years.)
In 1933, Article 121 was added to the criminal code, for the entire Soviet Union,
that expressly prohibited male homosexuality, with up to five years of hard labor
in prison. The precise reason for the new law is still in some dispute.
More recently, a third possible reason for the anti-gay law has emerged from
declassified Soviet documents and transcripts. Beyond expressed fears of a vast
"counterrevolutionary" or fascist homosexual conspiracy, there were several high
profile arrests of Russian men accused of being pederasts. In 1933, 130 men
"were accused of being 'pederasts' – adult males who have sex with boys. Since
no records of men having sex with boys at that time are available, it is possible this term was used broadly
and crudely to label homosexuality.” Whatever the precise reason, homosexuality remained a serious
criminal offense until it was repealed in 1993.
The Soviet government itself said very little publicly about the change in the law, and few people seemed to
be aware that it existed. In 1934, the British Communist Harry Whyte wrote a long letter to Stalin condemning
the law, and its prejudicial motivations. He laid out a Marxist position against the oppression of homosexuals,
as a social minority, and compared homophobia to racism, xenophobia and sexism. While the letter was
not formally replied to, Soviet cultural writer Maxim Gorky authored an article, published in both Pravda and
Izvestia titled "Proletarian Humanism", that seemed to reject Whyte's arguments point by point. He rejected the
notion that homosexuals were a social minority, and argued that the Soviet Union needed to combat them in
order to protect the youth and battle fascism.
LGBT history post-Stalin: 1953–1991
A few years later, 1936, Justice Commissar Nikolai Krylenko publicly stated that the anti-gay criminal law was
correctly aimed at the decadent and effete old ruling classes, thus further linking homosexuality to a right-wing
conspiracy, i.e. tsarist aristocracy and German fascists.
When Joseph Stalin came to power, homosexuality became a topic unfit for public depiction, defense or
discussion. Homosexual or bisexual Russians who wanted a position within the Communist Party, were
expected to marry a person of the opposite sex, regardless of their actual sexual orientation. A notable
example was the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein, who despite his homosexuality managed to survive
by leading a double life, having affairs with men while married to a woman, producing films that were politically
pleasing to Stalin.
After Stalin died in 1953, he was replaced by Nikita Khrushchev, who proceeded to liberalize the Stalin era laws
regarding marriage, divorce, and abortion, but the anti-gay criminal law remained. The Khruschev government
believed that absent of a criminal law against homosexuality, the sex between men that occurred in the prison
environment would spread into the general population as they released many Stalin-era prisoners. Where as the
Stalin government confused homosexuality with pedophilia, the Khrushchev government confused homosexuality
with the situational, sometimes forced, sex acts between male prisoners. [1]
In 1958, the Interior Ministry sent a secret memo to law enforcement ordering them step up enforcement of the
anti-gay criminal law. Yet, during the late 1950s - early 1960s, Aline Mosby, a foreign reporter in Russia at the
time, attributed to the more liberal attitude of the Khrushchev government to the fact that she did see some gay
couples in public and that it was not uncommon to see men waiting outside of certain theaters looking for
dates with male performers. [The View from No. 13 People's Street. Aline Mosby. 1962]
Despite these rare examples, thousands of people were imprisoned for homosexuality annual and government
censorship of homosexuality and gay rights did not begin to slowly relax until the early 1970s, allowing for brief
statements. Kozlovsky was permitted to include a brief interior monologue about homosexuality in Moscow to
the End of the Line (1973). Perhaps the first public endorsement of gay rights since Stalin was a brief statement,
critical of Article 121 and calling for its repeal, made in the Textbook of Soviet Criminal Law (1973).
These references were characterized as being brief statements in a novel or textbook and were made by
heterosexuals. Vicktor Sosnora was allowed to write about witnessing an elderly gay actor being brutally
murdered in a Leningrad bar in The Flying Dutchman(1979), but the book was only allowed to be published in
Eastern Germany. When the author was gay and, in particular, if they were seen as supporting gay rights,
the censors tended to be much harsher.
Russian gay author Yevgeny Kharitonov illegally circulated some gay fiction before he died of heart failure in 1981.
Author Gennady Trifonov served four years of hard labor for circulating his gay poems and, upon his release,
was allowed to write and publish only if he avoided depicting or making reference to homosexuality.
In 1984, a group of Russian gay men met and attempted to organize an official gay rights organization, only to
be quickly shut down by the KGB. It was not until later in the Glasnost period that public discussion was
permitted about re-legalizing private, consensual adult homosexual relations.
Russian FederationLGBT history under Yeltzin: 1991–1999
In 1989–1990 a Moscow gay rights organization led by Yevgeniya Debryanskaya was permitted to exist,
with Roman Kalinin given permission to publish a gay newspaper, "Tema".
No openly LGBT Russian has been elected to the parliament.[citation needed] The United Russia,Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Liberal Democratic Party of Russia and the A Just Russiaare the four major political parties in Russia and they tend to ignore LGBT-rights issues or endorse a socially conservative stance in opposition.[citation needed] A similar stance tends to be taken with the smaller political parties.[citation needed] The conservative Patriots of Russia and Right Cause expressly oppose LGBT-rights, while the liberal Yabloko supports a human rights platform, but generally avoids taking a public stance on LGBT-rights.[citation needed]
On 27 May 1993, homosexual acts between consenting males were legalised. However, there have been
reports that by 13 August 1993, "not all persons serving sentences under the old legislation have been
released from jail", and there have been "cases of homosexuals being re-sentenced and kept in jail, cases
of imprisoned homosexuals who cannot be located and of missing files.” The reform was largely the result
of pressure from the Council of Europe. While President Boris Yeltsin signed the bill into law on 29 April
1993,[16] neither he nor the parliament had any interest in LGBT rights legislation[1]
LGBT history under Putin: 1999–present
{In 1993, President Boris Yeltsin signed a law re-legalising homosexual acts in Russia.)
In 1996, a Russian LGBT human rights organization called "Triangle" was formed,
with several new LGBT themed publications and local organizations arising in light of
the fall of the Soviet Union.[1] Yet as was the case with the groups that arose during
1989–1990, many of these organizations, including "Triangle", folded due to lack of
funding as well as legal and social harassment.[1]
In 1999, homosexuality was formally removed from the list of Russian mental disorders
(due to endorsing ICD-10, which removed homosexuality in 1990).
In 2002, Gennady Raikov, who led a conservative pro-government group in the
Russian Duma, suggested outlawing homosexual acts. His proposal failed to generate enough votes but the
suggestion generated public support from many conservative religious leaders and medical doctors.[1]
In 2003, a new statute about military and medical expertise was adopted (1 July 2003); it contained «a clause
of "deviations of gender identification and sexual preferences" among the reasons of disability for military
service <...> this clause irritated the proponents of having equal rights for people of different sexual orientation
<...> [while] another clause said that different sexual orientation should not be considered a deviation.»
Finally, Valery Kulikov, the Major-General of the Medical Service, announced:
“ The new statute about military and medical expertise from 1 July 2003 does not
forbid people of non-standard sexual orientation from serving in the military….
The issue of person's homosexuality is not medical. There is no such diagnosis as homosexuality in medicine. There is no such illness in the classification of World
Health Organization. The new statute about military and medical expertise follows
international law practice. Therefore the reasons for evaluating the ability to serve for homosexuals are the same: physical and psychic health.”
“ People of non-standard sexual orientation can have problems when being
in the
Army, and therefore should not reveal their their sexual preferences, Valery
Kulikov
said. "Other soldiers are not going to like that, they can be beaten."»
In May 2005, LGBT Human Rights Project Gayrussia.ru was founded by Nikolai Alekseev to fight discriminations
on the basis of sexual orientation and raise awareness of LGBT issues in Russia. In July 2005, Nikolai Alekseev
launched the Moscow Pride initiative which has been organized every year since May 2006. As of July 2009,
LGBT Human Rights Project Gayrussia.ru is a transnational organization promoting LGBT Rights in Russia and
Belarus.
In 2006, Grand Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin was quoted as saying about Moscow Pride marchers, "If they come
out on to the streets anyway they should be flogged. Any normal person would do that – Muslims and Orthodox
Christians alike.” Similar comments were made by one of Russia's Chief Rabbis, Berl Lazar, who joined
Tadzhuddin in condemning the march, saying that it "would be a blow for morality".
Russian LGBT network was founded in May 2006. At the current moment (July 2009) this is the first and only
interregional LGBT organization in Russia.
In late April and early May 2006, protesters blockaded some popular gay clubs in Moscow. After initial
complaints that police had failed to intervene, later blockade attempts were met with arrests.
In May 2006, a gay rights forum was held in Moscow. An accompanying march was banned by the mayor in
a decision upheld by the courts. Some activists, head of them Nikolai Alekseev tried to march despite the
ban and attempted to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This march is known as the first
Moscow Pride. This act and the presence of non-Russian activists aroused a nationalist reaction in addition
to a religious condemnation of homosexuality, leading to the presence of both neo-Nazi groups and Orthodox
protesters threatening the gay activists. Anti-march protesters beat the marchers, and about 50 marchers
and 20 protesters were arrested when riot police moved in to break up the conflict. The documentary
Moscow Pride '06 features the events that took place from 25 to 27 May 2006 in Moscow. It contains a
vivid testimony of the first attempt to stage a gay pride march in Russia as well as the festival organized
around it.”
On 27 May 2007, the Moscow Pride was banned again by the former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who had
earlier branded it as "satanic”, was held in Moscow again and for the second year running degenerated into
violent clashes with anti-gay protestors. For the second time police failed to protect gay rights activists.
Italian MP Marco Cappato was kicked by an anti-gay activist and then detained when he demanded police
protection. British gay rights veteran Peter Tatchell and Russian gay leader Nikolai Alekseev were detained
as well. The march is documented in the 2008 film East/West - Sex & Politics.
On 1 June 2008, Moscow Pride again attempted to hold a gay parade. Some 13 Orthodox opposers were held
by police for violent actions against protesters.
On February 2009, at the final press conference in Moscow the Russian LGBT Network and the Moscow
Helsinki Group published a paper titled «The situation for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgendered people
in Russian Federation». This is the first complex study of the legal situation of LGBT people in the history
of Russia. The 100-page paper contains the analysis of relevant Russian laws and also assembles and
generalizes specific instances of infringement of rights and discrimination.
(Nikolai Alekseev at the Slavic Pride festival on 16 May 2009. Two anti-riot police stopped Nikolai Alekseev and his partner, a transgender activist from Belarus.)
On 8 May 2009, Russian Duma rejected a bill criminalizing gay
propaganda in Russia (with only 90 votes in favor against 226 minimum required). This bill was initiated in 2007 by a Fair Russia party member and suggested
depriving those who "openly demonstrated a homosexual way of
life and a homosexual orientation" of the right to hold posts in
educational establishments or in the army for a term from 2 to 5
years. According toInterfax, the parliamentarians decided that
gay propaganda was not dangerous for society and thus could not
be punished under the criminal code. Nikolai Alekseev, Chief
organizer of the Moscow Pride, commented that with parliament
rejecting this bill, it is likely that theConstitutional Court of Russia
follows their request to cancel a similar law that is in force in the Ryazan Region.
On 16 May 2009, the Moscow Pride timed to coincide with Moscow's hosting of the 2009 Eurovision song
contest finals was broken up by police, with all 30 participants – including British human rights activist
Peter Tatchell – arrested.
On 17 May 2009, for the International Day Against Homophobia Russian LGBT network organized the
«Rainbow flash mob» in Saint Petersburg; this event brought together from 100 to 250 people by various
estimations, and the organizers consider it to be the most large-scale action in the whole history of Russia
dedicated to the problem of LGBT rights. Also the action in smaller scales has passed in more
than 30 cities of Russia
Technical editing by adamfoxie*blog. T0 continue to read word events that affect the gay community in some way as they happen, just keep coming to adamfoxie*
Our thanks to Wikipedia for all the information that the have accumulated in millions of subjects.
Technical editing by adamfoxie*blog. T0 continue to read word events that affect the gay community in some way as they happen, just keep coming to adamfoxie*
Our thanks to Wikipedia for all the information that the have accumulated in millions of subjects.
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