The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia

"The threat of social divisions based on sexual orientation in contemporary Russian society is no less relevant than the threats of the spread of racism, xenophobia, and nationalism," Lyosha wrote in the introduction to his thesis. He wrote that acceptance of sexual minorities, though it had increased in the 1990s, was on the wane— this was more of a hunch than something that he could support with evidence, so he might have skipped a footnote here.¹ He pointed to legislation that had been proposed in 2003—two parliament members had wanted to ban "propaganda of homosexuality."² The bill failed, but Lyosha argued that it signified an anti-gay backlash. The thesis might have struck Lyosha's professors as a bit alarmist and perhaps solipsistic—it seemed hard to observe a backlash against something they barely believed existed—but it was one of the most erudite, best- argued theses they had seen.³ As an outstanding scholar, Lyosha was offered the opportunity to stay at the department for graduate study.

There was a caveat: Lyosha had to broaden his subject. He could, for example, include other minority groups in his research. He had to agree, especially because the entire class was fretting about its future: in previous years graduates had found work as political technologists, but with the withering of public politics, demand had plummeted. Still, during his first year Lyosha proposed the following research topic: "Sexual Minorities in Political Discourse."

"I like it very much," his adviser said. "But you must understand that our academic council is very conservative, some members are very religious, so I'm afraid they won't allow you to dissertate on this topic." She spoke in jargon to him, because he was now a member of the academic club. They finally settled on "Minority discourse in

public politics." Lyosha would be looking at sexual and ethnic minorities, and at women as a minority group in politics.

Lyosha started teaching, helping a slightly older friend who taught the university's lone seminar on gender theory. He started publishing: the department's annual included his paper on women as a political minority. His research was exhilarating. He discovered the word "queer," wrote a paper on the evolution of the concept, and decided that it applied to him.

In the fall of 2009, Lyosha presented his dissertation for preliminary review. In the end, his adviser's demand that he broaden his topic had served a subversive purpose she hardly could have intended: Lyosha wrote about different minority groups as though they were equal to one another. He did point out that homosexuals in Russia had been granted only the bare minimum of legal rights—the right not to be treated as criminals—and had not yet reached full equality with the majority. Still, he wrote about gay people the same way that he wrote about women and ethnic minorities and his dissertation stressed the assumption that he was describing a process of inexorable legitimation and institutionalization of the various groups, all of which would eventually realize their potential to become not only the objects but also the subjects of politics.⁴

Lyosha spoke for twenty minutes and then faced an unprecedented hour and a half of questions from the twelve-member committee.

"Are you aware that homosexuality is a taboo topic in our country?" asked one.

"But it exists," responded Lyosha.

This was the only question that concerned Lyosha's actual topic. A lone committee member, whom Lyosha thought to be a closeted gay man, made a helpful suggestion on sources. The rest were anxious free-association queries. Members of the committee sounded angry with Lyosha, so angry that they could not or would not bring themselves to engage with his work. Their comments showed that they did not think a study like this should exist.

"I just attended a conference in St. Petersburg where they said that gender was no more," said one.

"What are 'minority groups' anyway?" asked another.

Lyosha sweated and used every trick he could think of to keep his rage from showing.

A few weeks later, he heard that the professor who had been helpful during the defense had been seen waving a copy of Lyosha's dissertation summary booklet during his own seminar, shouting in outrage, "This is ideological propaganda! This is propaganda of sodomy!" Lyosha was almost shocked a few weeks later to learn that the committee had cleared him for his defense.

The defense was, by all accounts, brilliant. The vote was unanimous.

Lyosha's academic triumph immediately translated into administrative power. He took over the one gender studies course he used to help teach, and redesigned it to include an LGBT component. Older faculty who had shunned him earlier were now polite, and made a production of welcoming his input. He sensed that they were vicious in what they said about him behind his back, but he chose to interpret this as a symptom of their powerlessness in the face of his newfound authority.