Queering Russian Media and Culture

219 Pages·2022·7.015 MB·English

by  Galina Miazhevich (editor)

Queering Russian Media and Culture
This book explores how queerness and representations of queerness in media
and culture are responding to the shifting socio-political, cultural and legal
conditions in post-Soviet Russia, especially in the light of the so-called ‘anti-
gay’ law of 2013. Based on extensive original research, the book outlines
developments historically both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union
and provides the background to the 2013 law. It discusses the proliferating
alternativevisions ofgender andsexuality,whichareincreasinglyprevalentin
contemporary Russia. The book considers how these are represented in film,
personal diaries, photography, theatre, protest art, fashion and creative
industries, web series, news media and how they relate to the ‘traditional
values’ rhetoric. Overall, the book provides a rich and detailed, yet complex
insight into the developing nature of queerness in contemporary Russia.
Galina Miazhevich is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Journalism, Media
and Culture at Cardiff University.
Routledge Contemporary Russia and Eastern Europe Series
95. Soviet Films of the 1970s and Early 1980s
Conformity and Non-Conformity Amidst Stagnation Decay
Edited by Marina Rojavin and Tim Harte
96. Europe, Russia and the Liberal World Order
International Relations after the Cold War
Timofei Bordachev
97. Russia after 2020
Looking Ahead after Two Decades of Putin
J. L. Black
98. The Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics
Secession, Integration, and Homeland
Anna Batta
99. Tatarstan’s Autonomy within Putin’s Russia
Minority Elites, Ethnic Mobilization and Sovereignty
Deniz Dinç
100. The State and Big Business in Russia
Understanding Kremlin–Business Relations in the Early Putin Era
Tina Jennings
101. Queering Russian Media and Culture
Edited by Galina Miazhevich
102. Shamanism in Siberia
Sound and Turbulence in Cursing Practices in Tuva
Mally Stelmaszyk
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
Routledge-Contemporary-Russia-and-Eastern-Europe-Series/book-series/
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Queering Russian Media and
Culture
Edited by
Galina Miazhevich
Firstpublished2022
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ISBN:978-0-367-48706-5(hbk)
ISBN:978-1-032-20196-2(pbk)
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DOI:10.4324/9781003042358
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In memory of Marina Blagojevic´ – a gender scholar, a feminist, and
an individual with an intrinsic ability to inspire people around her.

Contents
List of figures and tables ix
List of contributors xi
Acknowledgments xiv
Introduction 1
GALINAMIAZHEVICH
1 Queer first-person life writing in post-Soviet Russia: Between
symbol and secret 19
BRIANJAMESBAER
2 Queer readings of Soviet children’s films, 1931–1954 40
ALIAKSANDRAIHNATOVICH
3 Representations of female masculinity in Soviet history, or
visibility of diversity through art practice 57
VICTORIASUVOROFF
4 Transgression and the social body in Petr Pavlensky and Seroe
Fioletovoe’s political performance art 77
ALICEE.M.UNDERWOOD
5 A quare story of the North Caucasian lesbian and trans women
in the staging of The Voices 95
TATIANAKLEPIKOVA
6 Russia as the West’s queer other: Gosha Rubchinskiy’s politics of
fashion 114
MARIAENGSTRÖM
7 Queer economics: Worlds, appearances and the symbolic
exchange 134
VLADSTRUKOV
viii Contents
8 Lesbian love stories and online popular culture: The case of web
series 154
SAARARATILAINEN
9 Queering #MeToo: Russian media discourse on same-sex sexual
harassment in the context of a global anti-harassment movement 173
OLGAANDREEVSKIKH
Afterword: Making Russia queerer, or the strange paradox of
President Putin’s incitement to discourse 191
DANHEALEY
Index 200
Figures and tables
Figures
3.1 Coverof The Green Book, 2018, Suvoroff V. 60
3.2 First page of The Green Book, 2018 and sumi brushes,
Suvoroff V. 61
3.3 Pages 14–15 from The Green Book, 2018, Suvoroff, V. 62
3.4 Index, page 122 of The Green Book, 2018, Suvoroff, V. 64
3.5 Elements of art practice-based research ‘Towards the Green
Book: An Exploration of Approach to Female Masculinity
through Art Practice’ (Suvoroff 2018) including a photograph
of Maria Bochkareva. 66
5.1 The Voices performance in September 2020. Photo by Oksana
Portnaia, courtesy of the documentary theatre group
Philomela Project. 96
5.2 The Voices performance in September 2020. Photo by Oksana
Portnaia, courtesy of the documentary theatre group
Philomela Project. 106
6.1 Gosha Bergal, a counter-model from the Lumpen agency, the
starofthe‘Tatarin’musical video byAIGEL (66millionviews
on YouTube). 118
6.2 Lotta Volkova at the Vetements fashion show wearing the
remake of a Soviet school uniform. 119
6.3 Gosha Rubchinskiy, Renata Litvinova, Demna Gvasalia and
Ksenia Sobchak. 121
6.4 Timur Novikov, 1990. 122
6.5 Rubchinskiy’s remix of Soviet slogans (GTO: Gotov k trudu i
oborone SSSR – Ready for labour and the defence of USSR)
and Soviet state symbolics, spring-summer collection 2016. 123
6.6 The ’90s rave in ‘Dancefloor’ nightclub. 124
6.7 Lotta Volkova in ‘The dayof my death’ (Renata Litvinova,
2016). 125
6.8 Rubchinskiy’s military-religious remix for a new freestyle. 126