Eloquent Silence
Sketches on the History of Homosexuality in Russia
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
For a long time, sexual relations between men in Russia were part of patriarchal masculinity. Subordinates were considered available. Only with urbanization, starting in the 1870s, did a specific homosexual subculture develop. Especially in the metropolises, St. Petersburg and Moscow, “little gay worlds” came into being: public meeting places where specific values and symbols applied. The city became a stage where the tetki cavorted. The era of visibility lasted only a little while. The gay subculture triggered rejection. Repression and tolerance coexisted, before the Soviet authorities made homosexuality a criminal offense in 1934.
(Osteuropa 10/2013, pp. 5–16)