Gay the USSR – Foreign Policy

Contents:

• GAY THE USSR
• A DOUBLE DEFEAT: CATASTROPHE FOR GAY EMANCIPATN GERMANY AND THE USSR
• SUBSCRIBE TO DOWNLOADGAY SOVIET UNN FLAG (LGBT)

GAY THE USSR

Rsia is not an easy place to be gay. Though homosexualy is no longer outright illegal -- and has not been nsired a mental disorr sce 1999 -- a stubbornly homophobic stra of natnalism persists, as evinced most recently by an anti-homosexual "propaganda" bill that is gag momentum the State Duma.

Though homosexualy is no longer outright illegal — and has not been nsired a mental disorr sce 1999 — a stubbornly homophobic stra of natnalism persists, as evinced most recently by an anti-homosexual "propaganda" bill that is gag momentum the State Duma. Rsians are at least talkg about homosexualy today a way that wasn’t possible durg the Soviet perd — a silence that left a gapg hole Rsia’s historil rerd.

A DOUBLE DEFEAT: CATASTROPHE FOR GAY EMANCIPATN GERMANY AND THE USSR

In his latt work, Fiks unveils a particularly well-hidn piece of that history: gay cisg unr munism.

The artist’s new book, Mosw, is an evotive but unembellished medatn on gay cisg the pal cy, featurg photographs of the public toilets near the Hermage Garns; the stairs to the riversi embankment by Mosw Universy; the Bolshoi Theater; and many other inic lotns.

Fiks said much of his rearch om historians who wrote about gay life the Soviet Unn om the 1920s to the 1970s. In Rsian, a gay cisg se is lled "plhka, " which lerally means a "clear area. Gay men and women were pokg fun at Marx by turng him to their own gay in.

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Siarly, statu of Len regnal cy centers were known gay parlance as "Aunt Lena" and men arranged dat by sayg, "Let’s meet at Aunt Lena’s. Released a few weeks ago, the book is jt makg s way to gay activists Mosw, Fiks said. Fiks rells that many homosexuals were drawn to the promise of Marxism.

There was a certa tolerance and even gay liberatn the early years of the Soviet Unn, before homosexualy was re-crimalized 1933 and the muny went back unrground. "Gay Soviet history almost don’t exist, " said Fiks, stg at a sk New York’s Wkleman Gallery on a wdy Sunday Febary.

I am a New Yorker already, so ’s not anic for me to talk about [gay life] Rsia now.