'We're not hidg': Gay and lbian Rsians say a cultural shift is unrway

Contents:

• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• UGANDA'S PRINT CALLS HOMOSEXUALY 'DISGTG' AFTER APPROVG NEW ANTI-GAY LAWS
• LARRY ELR: WE JT HAD GAY PRI MONTH, IT’S TIME FOR ‘LET’S TAKE EASY ON THE WHE MAN MONTH’

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

“Beg gay and raised that relign is hard. “I knew that bee I was gay, when Armageddon , I wouldn’t qualify. He asked me, ‘Are you [gay]?

I thk the most impact is the fact that people who didn’t know a gay guy actually knew one now. People nsir iends, part of their route, so now they had a gay iend. “Those were my gay showtun — I totally believe The Ltle Mermaid.

Uganda’s Print Yoweri Meveni lled homosexuals “disgtg, ” moments after signg a bill brgg to law harsh measur agast homosexualy, an terview wh CNN. ” Homosexualy is illegal 37 Ain untri — cludg Uganda.

UGANDA'S PRINT CALLS HOMOSEXUALY 'DISGTG' AFTER APPROVG NEW ANTI-GAY LAWS

But the new law signed by Print Meveni go further by tougheng existg penalti for anyone ught havg gay sex, crimalizg posive talk of homosexualy, and imposg jail terms of up to life prison for any acts of “aggravated homosexualy. The topic of homosexualy and s histori wh the lands that make up today’s Rsian Feratn has been, until recently, faiar chiefly to stunts of Eastern European or Slavic studi, particularly the fields of lerature, art and mic.

While the censorship mechanisms place durg Tsarist tim and the views on homosexualy held by the Rsian Orthodox clergy severely limed discsn or exprsn of same-sex lov, such relatnships did occur. In ntrast to the emphatic nmnatn of homosexualy regularly advanced by the Wtern church unr Catholicism, the Orthodox Church functned an environment where the fn of masculy clud same-sex relatns the spectm of possible sexual relatns. The years between 1905 and 1917 were pecially marked by an array of poets and wrers who alt wh homosexualy their works.

Perhaps the most famo example is Mikhail Kuzm (1872-1936), whose 1906 novel Wgs was the first “gay novel” ever published Rsia. This was also an era which saw an explosn of diverse artistic and lerary schools, among whose members were several openly lbian and gay thors of both prose and poetry. Proment poets this group clud Nikolai Kliuev (1884-1937), Mara Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) and Sofia Parnok (1885-1933), who was scribed as the “Rsian Sappho” – th, for a brief perd, beg lbian or gay was no longer an inty that had to be hidn, but one which uld be theoretilly openly celebrated.

LARRY ELR: WE JT HAD GAY PRI MONTH, IT’S TIME FOR ‘LET’S TAKE EASY ON THE WHE MAN MONTH’

In 1933, male homosexualy was recrimalized wh the addn of Article 121 to the law , which would rema force until 1993. The vasn of the Soviet Unn by Nazi Germany and the subsequent, wispread stctn further rerced the disptn of life for lbian and gay cizens of Rsia. Between 1976 and 1982, three articl on “Rsia’s Gay Lerature and History”, ” Death and Rurrectn of Mikhail Kuzm “ and “ Gay Life Before the Soviets: Revisnism Revised “ were published Gay Sunshe, Slavic Review and THE ADVOCATE rpectively.

The Gay Sunshe article was later clud the 1993 anthology Gay Roots: Twenty Years of Gay Sunshe: An Anthology of Gay History, Sex, Polics, and Culture eded by Wston Leyland wh substantial addnal materials add unr the tle “ Rsia’s Gay History and Lerature om the Eleventh to the Twentieth Centuri. ” Karlsky also ntributed a chapter on “Rsia’s Gay Lerature and Culture: the Impact of the October Revolutn” to the 1990 anthology Hidn From History: Reclaimg the Gay and Lbian Past eded by Mart Duberman, Martha Vic and Gee Chncey. Both of the says provi the rear wh a tailed picture of the plex social world shaped by the lbian and gay wrers and artists of Rsia prr to the October 1917 revolutn and the somber fat many of them met the new Soviet world.