Forbidden people. Sixty years of prejudice and repression

The Moscow publishing house Individuum has published a Russian translation of the book Closed ( Red Closet ) by historian Rustam Alexander about the life of homosexuals in the Soviet Union. The book was published at a time when this kind of research actually prohibited the hastily adopted law on "LGBT propaganda".

Rustam Alexander talks about the times when Soviet gays lived in unbearable conditions. In 1934, an article of the Criminal Code appeared in the USSR, which declares a crime voluntary sexual intercourse of a man with a man, it lasted almost 60 years and was canceled in Russia only in 1993. The book contains the stories of Russian homosexuals, which became victims of homophobia: either they came to bars on charges of sodisting, as the famous singer Vadim Kozin, or were forced to live in an invisible prison, as they considered their desires unnatural, hid them from loved ones and tried unsuccessfully and tried to cure them.

Rustam Alexander was born in Russia, now he lives in Sydney and he collected materials for the book in the archives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine. Among her characters is the bold letter to Stalin a Scottish communist, an eccentric KGB lieutenant, psychiatrists and their patients, progressive and conservative lawyers, but the main character can be called a hypocritical and migrated to the prejudice of Soviet society, which is not able to talk about any sexuality, especially "abnormitative".

Rustam Alexander told Radio Liberty about his study.

- Books about LGBT have now been seized from Russian stores and libraries, so the theme of your academic study has become surchactic and even dangerous in Russia. When you started working on the book, did you feel that it was going to this?

-The idea to write a book appeared in 2020, but I began to deal with this topic in 2013, just in the very month when Russia first adopted the law against gay propaganda. To be honest, before the adoption of this law, I did not think at all that we, gays, live badly in Russia. But then he began to be interested: what was there before us? In 2013, he began to look for something on this topic, I found nothing, and I had the idea to do something myself.

- Your book is addressed to the English -language reader, who does not know the Soviet history very well, so you explain a lot with adapters. You immediately began to write in English, did not intend to make a Russian version?

- The entire period of writing a book was the process of self -discability, self -understanding. In principle, it was not my idea, I had a friend from Australia, whom we met in the Moscow Cafe "Propaganda". We have a conversation about politics and about this law, and he said: "Why don't you write a dissertation about gay historia in Russia?" I then asked: "And who will read it, who will be interested?" I myself did not understand that this is a topic that is simply not disclosed, and therefore it seems marginal. I am an example of such a self-impressive person ... No, I did not particularly repress my personal life, but I never thought that this was because we have this, and not me. Writing this book helped me understand everything and conceptualize everything. And in English I began to write because I left for Australia. I didn’t even think that it would once appear in Russian.

- That is, this is a kind of autopsychotherapy?

-A little bit of everywhere: therapy and the experience of writing something in English, and my background-I studied international relations ... The process itself was interesting, I understood that it was written very little on this topic, especially in Russian, so the adrenaline spurred. I constantly found new sources, it seemed to me: wow, how interesting it was to write about what no one wrote about before.

-In the 1920s, there was a period of relative freedom when the article of the Criminal Code was canceled. In 1934, the persecution of homosexuals began, you write about it. Now the story is repeated: repressions have resumed after a period of relative freedom. Do you see any pattern in this?

In the West, one of the injuries was an AIDS epidemic, and we have one of the serious injuries - this is a Gulag injury

-Of course, to some extent, the situation is really similar to the one that was a century ago. In the 20s, there was no legislation by which homosexuals could be pursued, and homosexuals themselves, as Ira Roldugin writes about it, tried to talk about themselves, protect their lifestyle. In 1993 (then I was only 5 years old) the period began when the law prohibiting homosexuality was not there, and Russia had a chance to form a serious gay movement. With the coming to Putin’s power, this all gradually began to curl up. It is sad to see that we are again stepping on the same rake. We will have a lot of time to fix this. But then there was a totalitarian society, and in the 2010s there was a hope that Russia would take on a democratic path, so it is difficult to talk about such historical comparisons. The main similarity is that the state actively imposes homophobia from above. This is the saddest and difficult, and this will have to work in the future.

-And one more similarity: society is still immersed in prejudices. Many people do not understand what homosexuality is and that it does not appear because someone has read Limonov’s book ...

- Or ate ice cream "Rainbow". I agree. We did not form strong gay groups and a chance was missed to create a layer of educational literature. 20 years have passed since the abolition of the Law on Sleariness before the adoption of the law on gay propaganda, and over these 20 years, the understanding of this phenomenon could be changed from below. But, unfortunately, nothing happened. Igor Kon wrote about this, but more names do not come to my mind. Western academicians predominantly engaged in this topic, they wrote to their public, which was familiar with Foucault, with the ideas of feminism and so on. And in Russia, during these 20 years, there have not been serious studies that could withstand the nonsense that they are now talking on TV. Therefore, I tried to write; I hope someone will be interested.

- A significant part of your book is based on materials from the archive of Jan Goland . He is still trying to "heal" homosexuality. How do you feel about his methods?

-My attitude is neutral-skeptical. Indeed, he helped me, gave his archives, he is an extraordinary, charismatic character, reminds Chumak. Such a person who likes cameras like scandalous. Its treatment method has absolutely no effect. But if you look at obverse therapy in the West with its inhuman methods, what Goland has been doing for decades is children's games. He tried to force his patients to inspire himself that they like the faces of the opposite sex. He never insisted: you need to become a heterosexual. On the contrary, those patients who, in his opinion, could not achieve the desired result, he cut off. That is, he did not force anyone. And to some extent, perhaps even helped his patients, because before they come to him, they did not even know what homosexuality was. Many believed that this is a crime, a vice, they simply did not understand what to do about it. And he gave them a chance to talk about it.

“But he believes that his method is effective that he healed someone from homosexuality.”

- Perhaps the effect was the opposite: its patients, passing after 6-7 months of this therapy, understood that it was complete nonsense. They just told him: Jan Genrikhovich, everything is fine with me, goodbye, and then, perhaps, they understood that this was not a disease, but their integral part. Goland is almost 90 years old, he can do not say much about what he specifically did. But the diaries of his patients remained, who were all anonymized, he treated this very seriously: he realized that, doing this, he himself could fall into trouble. Therefore, he gave nicknames all his patients.

- I liked the story that you found in the archives of the KGB of Ukraine - about their former officer Alexei Petrenko. Please tell her

He traveled around the cities of Ukraine, met in parks and baths with men, made communications with them, twisted love

- In 2015, I found this business, 6 volumes. Alexei Petrenko-KGB lieutenant, 35 years old, he had a family, he beat his wife, was unhappy in marriage, with his career he didn’t really go well, because he constantly occupied money from his comrades, drank it somewhere, ran away from the service for 5-10 days, it was incomprehensible where he spent time, then returned. The authorities were all tired of it, and they decided to dismiss him. He decided to escape without waiting for an official dismissal. He traveled around the cities of Ukraine, met in parks and baths with men, made communications with them, twisted love. And two months later, when he realized that he needed to get out of all this somehow, he decided to create the appearance that he allegedly seduced them in order to hand over to the organs. He decided to make a setup, as a result of which he and his lovers came across. For the KGB, it was a shame, they examined him in every way to make it so that there were no more characters like him in the ranks of the special services. But he escaped in a short time, gave 5-6 years. Perhaps this is a case of internalized homophobia. In fact, everything that he did is that in Soviet society homosexuals were oppressed. If this law was not, then his fate, like the fate of all the heroes of my book, would have developed differently. What he did is the result of state homophobia.

- Is this homophobia exclusively state or part of the popular consciousness dictated by prison concepts?

In 1944, singer Vadim Kozin was arrested. One of the articles of the Criminal Code, according to which he was sentenced to 8 years of camps, 154a, "Sodill"

-When someone says that the Slavic peoples are more predisposed to homophobia-I think it is not true, because in the 50-60s and in America homophobia was a serious problem. But the huge influence of camp culture with its contempt for homosexual men and all this hierarchy ("roosters" and so on), of course, exacerbates the situation. This is such an injury for the Russian LGBT community. In the West, one of the injuries was an AIDS epidemic, and we have one of the serious injuries - this is a Gulag injury. With this injury, it is necessary to work, reflected, somehow discredit prison culture, show that it is the result of Stalinist repressions. Generation of young people gives me great hope, this prison environment is alien to them. Of course, over time, it will go into the far plan. But this is a nightmare, which is now actually very real in Russia. Anyone, especially in the present conditions, may be in prison. This radically changes the issue of the struggle for human rights in Russia. Gay Liberal in the United States took place in a democratic state, and in Russia the task is much more complicated. Russia generally has a huge bouquet of problems. The injustice is that there are so many huge events in Russia that the problem of gays is always somewhere at the end of the line. And if gays do not take the situation into their own hands, then they will always tell them: we are not up to you. But you can never move some groups of the population, saying that they are not important. If you fight for democracy, then for everyone, and freedom today, and tomorrow you - so, unfortunately, will not work.

-I liked the part of your study on attempts by advanced people to Khrushchev and in Brezhnev times to soften the legislation or even achieve the abolition of the 121st article. Why didn't it happen? It is not such an idle question, because in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and the GDR homosexuality was decriminalized in the 60s.

The first attempt to get rid of this legislation was in 1959

-Do not forget that in Russia the article was canceled in the 20s, only then again everything returned to its circle. In the USSR, the first attempts to cancel the Stalinist legislation were made in 1959, when Khrushchev ordered new versions of the Criminal Code. In the RSFSR, a meeting of respected lawyers was held, among whom there were two people who proposed to remove the first part of the law on sodistiness, which consisted in the ban on sexual relations between two adult men. At this meeting, one of the scientists, Boris Nikiforov, says that the law makes no sense. His colleague immediately assumes: yes, it is not clear what to do with him, it is necessary to remove. The chairman of the commission says: let's vote. Another lawyer immediately arises, who asks: what are the grounds for this? Silence hangs, no one says anything. The chairman of the commission asks again: will we discuss or will not? Who is against, who for? It turns out that for only two people, the rest are against. Thus, they leave this law. The chance to cancel this law - in principle, this could happen with one stroke of these people - was lost. But, as it turned out later, Nikiforov has already softened the law on sodisting with another subcommission a few months before the meeting. But his amendments were all corrected, and the law remained the same as it was under Stalin, with minimal changes. The decision was made by someone in the Kremlin, someone above did not like the idea of liberalizing such a relationship. This was the first attempt to get rid of this legislation in 1959. Then, after the Khrushchev thaw, more or less enlightened people began to appear in academic Soviet circles who began to criticize the law, saying that it makes no sense to pursue such people, because now with the construction of new housing it is very difficult to monitor their personal relations, and in principle, these relations do not interfere with anyone. In the 60-70s, scientists conducted this discussion. One of them in 1978 wrote a letter to the Ministry of the Interior with a request to cancel this law. Naturally, no one answered this letter. There were discussions, but, unfortunately, they did not have a practical effect. There was one lawyer who, on the contrary, tried to convince everyone that it was urgent to introduce a criminal punishment for women's women. It is interesting that his proposal was rejected, because it was believed that in the USSR there were no such relations between women. Many things happened, but few knew about it. When I found all these discussions, I myself was surprised.

- There was still the famous prison letter of Gennady Trifonov, and, I think, a lot of interesting things are lurking in the KGB archives.

“I won’t even be surprised if there is some story that will offer a different view of what is described in my book.” Or there will be some sensational details. I used sources from open archives, and in closed archives of the KGB and the FSB, of course, everything is the most interesting.

The homosexuality of the People's Commissar of Foreign Affairs George Chicherin was not a secret for the Politburo

- Of course, there were homosexuals in the Soviet leadership. We know exactly about Chicherin; I don’t know if you can believe information about Nikolai Yezhov ...

If there is no story, how will people understand that they are an object of oppression?

- This is true. Both singers and populists. In people close to power, life was easier. In the Brezhnev period, if a person had any connections in the party, he, of course, had a certain blat, some kind of concessions. In one of the chapters I write about "Mom Vlad", which says that there are a lot of cultural figures, security officials among homosexual people. Something similar is happening now: many politicians are known that they are gays, including among the most such conservative, homophobic politicians.

-And in America there were stories when conservative politicians came across with men-prostitutes.

- Yes, and I do not understand what drives these people, this is necessary to comment on the psychiatrist.

-Rustam, do you want to continue this study and write further about what happened in the 90s?

-Yes, the Russian Society of Quir-History does not. If there is no story, how will people understand that they are an object of oppression? A person must understand that what is happening to him now is not some unique phenomenon-it was before, and this will continue if a person is not self-figured. But in Russia there will be no gay movement if the problem with the democratic rights of all people is not better. Now I am working on a new book, I don’t know if it will be possible to publish it in English. Of course, I understand that this is more necessary for Russian -speaking people.

The poet Nikolai Klyuyev was arrested in 1934, when the campaign began against homosexuals

- Can you imagine Russia in which same -sex marriages are legalized, there are prides and there are no more homophobia?

- A lot of work is ahead. The number one task is to explain to people that if you do not engage in politics, then the policy will take care of you. And this is the first step to ensure that something in Russia changes. I do not want to diminish the problem of gays, but this year Russia has accumulated a huge number of problems that will have to get out for decades. So far, I can’t imagine prides and same -sex marriages. It is not a fact that this will not change in 5-10 years, all these historical changes can occur quickly enough. God forbid, let it happen rather.