Overview

While the topic of queer sexuality in imperial Russia and the Soviet Union has been investigated for decades by scholars working in the fields of sociology, history, literary studies, and musicology, it has yet to be studied in any comprehensive or systematic way by those working in the visual arts. Queer(ing) Russian Art: Realism, Revolution, Performance is meant to address this lacuna by providing a platform for new scholarship that connects ""Russian"" art with queerness in a variety of ways. Situated at the intersection of Visual Studies and Queer Studies and working from different theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, the contributors expose and explore the queer imagery and sensibilities in works of visual art produced in pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet contexts and beneath the surface of conventional histories of Russian and Soviet art.

Full Product Details

Author:   Brian James Baer ,  Yevgeniy Fiks
Publisher:   Academic Studies Press
Imprint:   Academic Studies Press
ISBN:  

9798897830978

Publication Date:   06 November 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration Introduction Brian James Baer and Yevgeniy Fiks  Part One. Theoretical Framings  1. Between Semiotics and Phenomenology: The Problem of Queer Beauty Brian James Baer Part Two. Queer Beauty in Context 2. “In Appearance, Both a Lad and Lass”: Images of Androgyny in Eighteenth-century Russian Art Olga Khoroshilova (translated by Aleksei Grinenko) 3. The Queer Opacity of Alexander Ivanov’s Nudes: Between Biblical Themes and Greek Love  Nikolai Ivanov (translated by Aleksei Grinenko) 4. Prostitutes, Pierrots, and Priapus: The Queer Modernism of Konstantin Somov Brian James Baer  5. Modernism as the Uncanny of Stalinism: On Alexander Deineka’s Wartime Drawings Gleb Napreenko (translated by Aleksei Grinenko with Brian James Baer) 6. Carnivalesque Carnality: The Queer Potential of Sergei Eisenstein’s Homoerotic Drawings  Ada Ackerman 7. Moscow Conceptualism’s Erotic Objects Yelena Kalinsky 8. Queering Socialist Realism: The Case of Georgy Guryanov Maria Engström (translated by Ryan Green) 9. A Russian Schizorevolution?: Observations on the New Academy of Fine Arts and Queer Issues in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s Andrei Khlobystin (translated by Aleksei Grinenko) 10. The Lure of Implied Transgression as Revolutionary Retrospective: The Illicit as la Belleza in Bella Matveeva’s Art Helena Goscilo 11. Sexual and Gender Dissent in a Bipolar World: Georgy Guryanov and Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe Andrey Shental  12. “My Nationality Is My Sexuality”: The Post-Soviet, Diasporic, Non-Russian Queerness of Babi Badalov Roman Osminkin (translated by Innokenty Grekov) Part Three. Beyond Queer Beauty? Contemporary Post-Soviet Perspectives on Queer(ing) Art, Art History, and Artists  13. Architecture, Outer Space, Sex: Queering the Kollontai Commune in 1970s Frunze Georgy Mamedov and Oksana Shatalova (translated by Aleksei Grinenko with Adrienn Hruska) 14. Soviet Union, July 1991 Yevgeniy Fiks 15. LGBT Violence and the Limits of Realism: Polina Zaslavskaya’s Material Evidence Victoria Smirnova-Maizel (translated by Ryan Green) 16. The Battle over Names: Radical Queer on the Russian Activist Art Scene Seroe Fioletovoe (with translations by Innokenty Grekov) 17. Queer in the Land of the Bolsheviks, or the Archeology of Dissent Nadia Plungian (translated by Aleksei Grinenko) 18. A Queer (Re)Claiming of Russian and Soviet Art: An Interview with Slava Mogutin  19. “Queer and Russian Art?”: A Conversation between Katharina Wiedlack and Masha Godovannaya 20. Queering Sexual Minorities,: An Interview with Yevgeniy Fiks Index

Reviews

“In this impressive, wide-ranging volume, Brian Baer and Yevgeniy Fiks aim not only to take the initial steps in creating ‘a history of queer Russian art and artists’, but also to imagine ‘queer interventions in art histories’ (p. 18). [T]he volume is groundbreaking for Russian queer studies, particularly in its methodological sophistication and openness, which will undoubtedly inspire further work.” — Connor Doak, Australian Slavonic and East European Studies “Everywhere and throughout history queerness is a political act, yet missing narratives remain. That is why the comprehensive survey of queer Russian cultural practice mapped in these pages is so revelatory. The scholarly investigations contained herein are as capacious as the land-mass they mean to situate, and they are indispensable to any contemporary understanding of our accelerating international cultural and political dilemmas. Perhaps more importantly, you will be treated to probative examinations of the consequential disposition of current Russian queer cultural production, which shed light on the bold, resourceful, and inventive radicalism they represent. This book is essential reading for anyone concerned with twenty-first century meaning-making.”  — Avram Finkelstein, founding member of the Silence=Death collective [OR Avram Finkelstein, artist, writer, activist]

Author Information

Brian James Baer is Professor of Russian and Translation Studies at Kent State University. Founding editor of the journal Translation and Interpreting Studies and co-editor of the Bloomsbury book series ""Literatures, Cultures, Translation,"" his publications include the monographs Other Russias: Homosexuality and the Crisis of Post-Soviet Identity and Queer Theory and Translation Studies: Language, Politics, Desire, as well as the collected volumes Translation in Russian Contexts, with Susanna Witt, and Queering Translation, Translating the Queer, with Klaus Kaindl.  Yevgeniy Fiks is a Moscow-born New York-based artist, author, and organizer of art exhibitions. Yevgeniy has produced many projects on the subject of the Post-Soviet dialog in the West. Fiks’ books include Moscow (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2013), Soviet Moscow’s Yiddish-Gay Dictionary (Cicada Press, 2016), and Mother Tongue (Pleshka Presse, 2018).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions