Dress, master

About the book of Olga Khoroshilova about the history of Russian travek culture

In the book “Russian Travei in History, everyday life and culture”, art critic and fashion historian Olga Khoroshilova describes what meanings in Russia of different eras filled what we usually call crossdressing. About whether this attempt was a great study of domestic travesty culture, says Alyosha Rogozhin.

Olga Khoroshilova. Russian travee in history, everyday life and culture. M.: Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2021. Content

The history of Russian travek and homosexual culture is a really little-research and promising area; Undoubtedly, there is a large request for works of this kind. Having decided to fulfill this social order, Olga Khoroshilova, a well -known specialist in the history of the costume, took up primarily for plots with dressing as more close to her main scientific interests. Nevertheless, to her, like anyone who thinks about it, it is obvious that the history of travee cannot be written as the history of the elements of clothing, alternately borrowed by one sexes from the other. Because the reasons why someone changed into the clothes of the other sex, the situation where it was socially acceptable, as well as the motives that encourage the practice of crossdressing, contrary to the existing norms, are extremely diverse. Any clothing can mark not only the gender, but also the estate affiliation, profession, nationality - therefore, the history of the vestments of people in their “unusual” position is closely connected with the history of these provisions themselves, the entire social structure and cultural forms in which it was embodied. And although the book of Khoroshilova demonstrates an understanding of the complexity of the problem, this text, alas, cannot be called even a sketch to its solution - rather, certain preliminary notes that outline a problematic field.

“Russian travee in history, culture and everyday life” is, first of all, a collection of short biographies of representatives of travesty culture (if something like something one can be allocated at all), divided into two parts-“traverse in the wild” and “travee of involuntarily”. In the first, we are talking about people who, for various reasons, dressed in clothes that were unusual for their gender, in the second - about those whose gender did not correspond to the floor or did not succumb to identification at all. The division into the head of the first part corresponds to the variety of situations (“in war”, “in literature”, “in fashion”), in which reincarnations took place, in the second, it seems, partly subordinates to chronology, and partly the author of the author of the pure arbitrariness. However, arbitrariness is the basic law of the development of this text. Its conceptual apparatus, with the help of which the variety of data in the experience of phenomena would be brought into some kind of system, is perhaps to one concept-travee. Working with concepts made in the book is almost exhausted by this quote:

“The modern language of genderology is rich in definitions. In addition to transgenderness and transsexuality, they now write a lot about the most difficult phenomenon of non -war identity (genderquir), each of its shade has already been assigned their own term. But among scientists and the Quirry community there is no consensus on what and how to call and where exactly to lay the boundaries between identities. To participate in these disputes is incredibly interesting, but you can easily confuse readers and put it in a heavy scientific language. Therefore, the main term of this book is trave, light, wide, complex, multi -color, most convenient. It successfully unites the past with modernity. It belongs to different contexts, covers the history of theater, literature, cinema, fine art, medicine, psychology, and culture of everyday life. It is no coincidence that Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a Pioneer of Quir-Theoria, a prominent researcher of homosexual culture addressed him. On his basis, he came up with the term transvestit and brought him to the title of his extensive scientific research “Transvestiten”.

Travei is an old theatrical role, these are professional imitators and impersonators of the XVIII and XIX centuries, these are modern brilliant drag artists, these are queens, spies, jokes-luxuries. These are people who fight with their inner sex, revealing their feelings in art and literature, on the stage of theaters and cabaret, these are those who pretend to be others and became a victim of a conservative society. All of them are Russian travee. ”

That, in fact, is all-for Sim, it is not followed by a review of historiography on this problem, nor any accurate formulation of research tasks, nor even a sane link apparatus and a list of literature (chosen bibliography and archival materials fit on two pages). And what follows?

As we have already said, the book combines biographies of people, for one reason or another, dressed in clothes of the other sex. The advantage of these biographies can be called that they are popular. If we are talking about the actor of the XVIII century Theater, Khoroshilova will certainly provide the reader with a certificate of who organized him, what the artists interacted with the public, etc., if it tells about the women-soldiers participating in the First World War, then Khoroshilova will explain who formed the female units, who was sent to what front they were sent. The disadvantage of these biographies is everything else, starting with their reliability.

Links in the "Russian trave" are absent as such. On the other hand, the narrative, which leads Khoroshilov, is fiction to the point of absurdity. A significant part of the book is devoted to individual episodes from the history of travek culture: who looked like, who said what voice, who smiled to whom and all in this spirit. How do Khoroshilova know such details? Either from memoirs, or invented by herself. The point is not only that we cannot trust her for a word, without links - although we really do not recommend this. The fact is that if these details are conscientiously rewritten from sources, they, as every historian knows, need criticism and reconciliation with other sources. Otherwise, the text that claims to be scientific, that is, to the tested and rationally organized knowledge, simply reproduces the myths that its heroes created about themselves in memoirs. And although Khoroshilova really sometimes casts their words into question, only a free flight of thought leads her to this (but more often - does not fail it). Moreover, she almost does not quote them in the amount of more than one sentence - obviously, not out of concern about the volume of the text (it is consumed very uneconomically), but from the belief that she will state all this more interesting.

“Missy shone with happiness, and her smile multiplied in the glue of the silver fabulous brocade of her first court outfit. She easily entered the role, took compliments from the guests and, during the lottery, briskly ran with a ringing box around the hall. At night, she could not fall asleep and after many, in a row, she still bowed in the style of the nobleman “King Sun”, shuffled a chubby leg, took off her hat and painted it with plumage invisible vignettes in the perfumed air salon. ”

The heroine of this passage for the described moment turned six years old. It is difficult to assume that her sleepless nights were reflected in any documents. The problem is not that such episodes are found in Russian Travevo, but that it consists almost completely of them.

Another disadvantage, by virtue of which the book cannot be seriously perceived as a scientific work, is the lack of reflection and attempts to generalize the material at least at the level of the most elementary connections. Khoroshilova really collected quite a few phenomena of travesty culture-and stopped on this. From her work, we learn that in the Russian theater of the 18th century there were traverse, and noble women sometimes dressed in a male suit. How does this rebuild our idea of ​​the history of the theater or noble culture? No. We knew that everything happened in history, and once again we were able to make sure of this. I'm afraid for historical science this situation is not too productive.

When Khoroshilova still decides to draw some historical parallel, find some pattern, he hit the same arbitrariness and the accompanying vulgarity. So, for example, the story about the dispersal of the totalitarian sect of the 1920s ends:

“I believed it endlessly,” said Elena, the wife of Henry Schulz, “and even tried to explain everything bad by the fact that it was necessary, so correctly and I need to endure, because Dmitry was a transmitter of words from above. If it punishes, it is necessary.”

What a familiar scheme: promises of a bright future, reasonable gods-warriors, leading to the highest goal through the thorns of tests, suppression of dissent, threats of reprisal, circular bail, turning executioners into sacrifices, sadism and a common phrase “punished-it means that it was, they know better” ...

All that was practiced in the sect, a few years later applied the Stalinist government, which headed for total control and destroyed its dangerous doubles. Such a double was Dmitry Schulz and his “single temple”. ”

Indeed, in vain, historians of Soviet utopian thought study the political philosophy of education and the French revolution, classical idealism and Christian eschatological ideas. In vain, researchers of the repressions of the 1930s turn to the experience of the Civil War, analyze the political culture of the Bolshevik party and the expectation of its top about the imminent world war. In fact, all these processes are much more productive to consider, likening to the totalitarian manners of a small spiritualist. And what: both there and there they were beaten and intimidated, but someone promised happiness-did it really the same thing?

Therefore, if the “Russian traws” are able to produce some positive effect, then only as an illustration of the heterogeneity of this phenomenon. The reader, of course, can engage in the reflection of this heterogeneity and wondering what travesty is in all its diversity, but this book is, alas, not an assistant here.