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Homosexuality in the USSR (1956–82)

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Homosexuality in the USSR (1956–82) Homosexuality in the USSR (1956–82) Rustam Alexander Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2018 School of Historical and Philosophical Studies Faculty of Arts The University of Melbourne Abstract The history of Soviet homosexuality is largely unexplored territory. This has led some of the few scholars who have examined this topic to claim that, in the period from Stalin through to the Gorbachev era, the issue of homosexuality was surrounded by silence. Such is the received view and in this thesis, I set out to challenge it. My investigation of a range of archival sources, including reports from the Soviet Interior Ministry (MVD), as well as juridical, medical and sex education literature, demonstrates that although homosexuality was not widely discussed in the broader public sphere, there was still lively discussion of it in these specialist and in some cases classified texts, from 1956 onwards. The participants of these discussions sought to define homosexuality, explain it, and establish their own methods of eradicating it. In important ways, this handling of the issue of homosexuality was specific to the Soviet context. This thesis sets out to broaden our understanding of the history of official discourses on homosexuality in the late Soviet period. This history is also examined in the context of and in comparison to developments on this front in the West, on the one hand, and Eastern Europe, on the other. The thesis draws on the observation made by Dan Healey, the pioneering scholar of Russian and Soviet sexuality, that in the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death a combination of science and police methods was used to strengthen heterosexual norms in the Soviet society. Taking this observation as a point of departure, I explore late Soviet debates over whether homosexuality should be viewed and handled as a criminal and/or a medical phenomenon. The examination of these discussions will contribute to our knowledge about the oppression of homosexual men and women in the Soviet Union, providing insight into the roots of contemporary Russian homophobia and expanding our knowledge about Soviet history more broadly. Table of Contents Declaration ............................................................................................................................... iii Publications ............................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments...................................................................................................................... v List of illustrations ................................................................................................................... vii Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................ ix A Note on Transliteration & Translation .................................................................................. xi Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework ............................................................................... 3 Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 7 Sources .................................................................................................................................... 19 Thesis Overview ..................................................................................................................... 22 A Note on the Soviet Sodomy Law ....................................................................................... 25 Chapter 1: Homosexuality in the Soviet GULAG (1956–59) ............................................. 26 Yegorov’s Decree: Aims and Rationale ............................................................................... 28 Homosexuality and GULAG directors ................................................................................. 32 Homosexuality and GULAG doctors ................................................................................... 37 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 48 Chapter 2: Sex Education and Homosexuality under Khrushchev (1956–64) ................. 50 The First Soviet Sex Education Manual ............................................................................... 51 The “Thaw” and the Early Khrushchev-era Sex Education Manuals .................................. 54 Sex Education and Anxieties about the West....................................................................... 61 Homosexuality in Khrushchev-era Sex Education Manuals ................................................ 64 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 72 Chapter 3: Homosexuality and Soviet Sexopathology (1960–70) ...................................... 75 Homosexuality and Psychiatry under Stalin and Khrushchev ............................................. 77 Emergence of Soviet Sexopathology (1963) ........................................................................ 81 Sexology Elsewhere in the World ........................................................................................ 84 Curing Soviet Lesbians: Derevinskaia’s Dissertation (1965) .............................................. 87 Homosexuality and Psychotherapy: Nikolai Ivanov’s Methods .......................................... 89 Yan Goland and his Treatment Methods.............................................................................. 95 Kosarev’s Article: Attempts to Frame Homosexuality as a Disease (1967) ...................... 101 Soviet Sexopathology and Alfred Kinsey .......................................................................... 108 i Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 112 Chapter 4: Soviet Legal and Criminological Debates on the Decriminalization of Homosexuality (1959–75) .................................................................................................... 115 The Soviet Anti-Sodomy Law and Khrushchev’s De-Stalinization .................................. 117 The Latvian Case: Attempts to Criminalize Lesbian Sexual Activity ............................... 121 The Legal Argument for Decriminalization ....................................................................... 123 The MVD’s Objections to Decriminalization .................................................................... 130 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 138 Chapter 5: Between Disease and Crime: Homosexuality, Sexopathology , and the MVD (1970–80) ............................................................................................................................... 140 Soviet Sexopathology and Homosexuality in the 1970s .................................................... 141 From “Police” to “Science”: Shifting Approaches to Homosexuality ............................... 148 Between Private and Public: Yan Goland’s Medical Treatment of Homosexuality in the 1970s .................................................................................................................................. 158 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 166 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 169 Coda: Homosexuality After Brezhnev ............................................................................... 173 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 183 Appendix ............................................................................................................................... 201 ii Declaration I declare that: - The thesis comprises only my original work towards the degree of Doctor of Philosophy - Due acknowledgment has been made in the text to all other material used; and - The thesis is fewer than 100.000 words in length, exclusive of bibliographies iii Publications Published works by the author that have been incorporated into the thesis include: Alexander, Rustam. “Soviet Legal and Criminological Debates on the Decriminalization of Homosexuality (1965-75)”. Slavic Review 77, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 30– 52. Alexander, Rustam. “Sex Education and the Depiction of Homosexuality Under Khrushchev.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union, edited by Melanie Ilič, 349–365. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. iv Acknowledgments I would like to extend my warmest thanks to my primary supervisor, Julie Fedor, for her support, patience, and encouragement throughout the course of the project. I would also like to thank my associate supervisor Sean Scalmer for his continual faith in me and words of encouragement. I would like to thank Mark Edele, who kindly agreed to give his feedback on my work and also provided words of encouragement.
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