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“Bury Their Hearts”: Some Thoughts on the Specter of Homosexuality Haunting Russia

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Abstract

Russia's anti-gay propaganda laws and anti-gay sentiment have shocked many in the West. They shouldn't have. In Soviet Russia, the homosexual was seen as a sign of foreign pollution, a temporary aberration—like a criminal or a disease—that will disappear in a more socialist future. As a result, queer Russians were not so much the stable homosexual species that they have been in the past 150 years in the West as much as momentary communities of desire. In the post-Soviet era, this history of the homosexual as foreign is now confronted with American understandings of gays and lesbians as “born this way” as well as American homophobia that posits the homosexual as a threat to children and the “traditional” family. By examining the clash between Russian and American histories of sexuality, we can see that the current anti-gay politics in Russia was not predetermined by its history, but certainly shaped by it. With the confluence of an insecure state, growing nationalism, and the increasing importance of conservative Orthodox Christianity, Russia's history of sexuality has shaped the homosexual into its current form as a threat from outside, akin to Central Asian immigrants in the nationalist imagination, and a threat that must be eliminated.

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... components of the national community (Schaaf 2014, 24). Essig (2014) argues that homosexuality in Soviet Russia "was seen as a sign of foreign pollution, a temporary aberration-like a criminal or a disease," that would disappear through the implementation of Soviet Socialism (39). By labelling LGBTQ+ individuals as subversive and deviant, the Soviet Union countered the more favourable American attitudes towards homosexuality in the mid-to-late twentieth century. ...
... This framed the 'West' as weak or effeminate in the eyes of many Soviet people, something that could be traced to the "late-Soviet 'crisis of masculinity'" (Healey 2017, 138;Sleptcov 2017). Essig (2014) devotes significant attention to the historical development of LGBTQ+ research and evolving social attitudes, to contrast the stunted perceptions of LGBTQ+ peoples possessed by much of Russia. Paraphrasing Foucault, Essig (2014) posits that "the homosexual was born in the West, but she or he was stillborn in Russia" (Essig 2014, 42). ...
... Essig (2014) devotes significant attention to the historical development of LGBTQ+ research and evolving social attitudes, to contrast the stunted perceptions of LGBTQ+ peoples possessed by much of Russia. Paraphrasing Foucault, Essig (2014) posits that "the homosexual was born in the West, but she or he was stillborn in Russia" (Essig 2014, 42). In that, the Russian understanding of LGBTQ+ peoples is not fully formed-replaced instead by a curated national message intended to portray the national community as stoic, masculine, and in support of 'traditional family values.' ...
Article
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This essay seeks to explain the contemporary foundations for Russia’s heteronational identity, as well the prevalence of homophobia in Russian politics and society. Tracing the influence of Russian Christian Orthodoxy; the proliferation of social media and the internet, as well as; the agency political operatives possess, this essay posits that there is a path towards the inclusion of LGBTQ identities within a new Russian imagined community.
... Significant physical and discursive violence against the visibility of non-heterosexual bodies has risen as a result (Novitskaya 2017). Essig (2014) points to a particularly violent example of discourse related to the propaganda law. During a debate aired by state-run television network Poccия-1 on April 4, 2012, Dmitry Kiselyov, the controversial host of that network's weekly "News of the Week" program, explained his stance on the issue: "I think that just imposing fines on gays for homosexual propaganda among teenagers is not enough. ...
... 50). This clash occurs primarily between what Essig terms a rights-centered gay international activism "which was always a Western one" and "indigenous Russian values" and discourse (Essig 2014). This analysis also underscores the window of change available to LGBT+ activists. ...
... These implications are made more profound by the homophobic discourses harnessed by Putin's regime and the attendant climate of violence affecting LGBT+ communities and individuals throughout the RF, including shocking reports of "gay genocide" in Chechnya (Walker 2017). What is certainly not to be done, to paraphrase Essig's (2014) purposeful rephrasing of Lenin's question, is to more rigidly define a politically correct queerness while lowering the political costs of reinstituting stereotypes of "treasonous homosexuals" in the post-Soviet context or "gay villains" in the West. ...
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In 2016, images of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s face wearing make-up and superimposed on a gay pride flag were banned in Russia on the grounds of giving “the impression of a non-standard sexual orientation” of Putin. This intervention by the government into the image politics of Putin put Russian nationalism and sexuality into contestation with each other. In this paper, we map four “realms” or possible discourses of sexual citizenship and the Russian state. Through a semiological analysis of the “gay clown” meme, we unpack its contested meaning as a visual artifact of “queer globalization.” In light of the co-opting and criminalization of the meme and attempts by the Russian state to regulate the sexuality of its “first citizen,” we conclude that the “gay clown” meme demands a reassessment of how LGBT+ social movements use queer iconographies in virtual and public spaces.
... In the Russian Federation, the 2013 "gay propaganda law" clearly served such signaling purposes (Edenborg 2020c;Kondakov 2019a). In some cases, anti-queer violence itself took spectacular forms, such as when the Russian vigilante group "Occupy Pedophilia" circulated lms of torture and possibly murder of gay men (Essig 2014). ...
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... Furthemore, the absence of the definition of religious feelings in the law may render acts considered sinful, such as homosexual relationship, tantamount to blasphemy (Kuznetsov, 2014), which is particularly concerning given the increasingly homophobic climate inside the country (Essig, 2014;Kon, 2010). ...
... It all began as a game for him, and then he understood that he was making the world a purer place. (Sentence 1-285/2015, Chita) The cases related to charges against ideological groups emerged after the publicizing of a call for actions against 'paedophiles' by a nationalist radical who was inspired by a TV programme aired in 2011 (Essig, 2014). These crimes stimulated 'copycats', who may have been motivated less by ideology than by profit. ...
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This article presents the results of a study of the victimization of queer people in Russia before and after the ‘gay-propaganda’ bill was signed into law in 2013. Despite the development of hate crime legislation, few violent incidents against LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and questioning) individuals are recorded in the Russian legal system. An original method of court rulings analysis is put forward in order to move towards an actual number of criminal offences against these groups. All court decisions that mention non-heterosexual victims are reviewed to identify whether these cases could have been considered hate crimes. As a result, 267 first-instance criminal court rulings dealing with 297 LGBTIQ victims are identified in 2011–16. Descriptive statistical analysis demonstrates that the number of victims grew substantially after 2013.
... For states involved in such projects, gay visibility is regarded as a threat that must be quelled, but ironically, gay invisibility in the form of hidden networks of disguised homosexuals is viewed as an even larger danger, which must be exposed and rooted out (Baer 2013). In some cases, anti-gay violence itself functions as a spectacular warning signal to others, such as when the Russian vigilante group "Occupy Pedophilia" circulated films of torture and possibly murder of gay men (Essig 2014). For Amar (2013), the securitization of hypervisible gendered and sexualized bodies, portraying them as sources of pollution, is part of a new form of governance seeking to rehabilitate Global South communities perceived as menaced by globalization. ...
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... There is also a connection with the experience of numerous other countries where homosexuality was considered "criminal" and was punished by law, as it was in Russia (Healey, 2002). The Russian context is dominated by patriarchal regimes (Temkina, Zdravomyslova, 2014) and homophobia, peculiar features of Russian society (Stella, 2008;Wilkinson, 2013;Essig, 2014;Stella, Nartova, 2015;Omelchenko, 2015). The topic of this article requires that both the gender regimes in Russia and the logics and structures of prison subculture be taken into account. ...
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