To quote Tony Kushner's Ethel Rosenberg, history is about to crack wide open--and with it (say the stage directions), goes the ceiling, too!We'll spend the first half of tomorrow's class thinking about what these cracking angels of history in America have to tell us about the world at the end of the cold war. The second half we'll hand over to Evgenii Kharitonov and his gray "gay fantasia" set a little earlier in the socialist East.
I encourage the class to approach his manifesto, "The Leaflet," as a conversation with the West about "queer time" and the place of the homosexual in world history (which always pitches itself as straight, no matter which ideology--communism or capitalism--is catching). Whereas "The Leaflet" is self-consciously political and aesthetic-philosophical in its subject, "The Oven" is inversely and intensely lyric. Consider it immanently, on its own terms, while also in sync with the asynchronous protagonists of "Pkhentz" and Queer, and similarly suffocated/liberated like Hedwig and the Angry Inch--whose namesake re-heats our cold war class in an East German oven before the Berlin Wall comes down and the semester ends...
I think that the relationship between the characters in The Leaflet really show the tension and the space available for queer interactions. The protagonist (do I just forget his name or did we never know it?) seeks connection and interaction with the character of Misha in a way that is definitely not platonic, yet constantly fears others knowing about his attraction. What I find the most interesting is that above all others, he fears Misha finding out about this love. He constantly questions what Misha will think about his walks and attempts to tell Misha how beautiful he thinks he is through his sister. What does this fear of being found out say about the state of LGBTQ relations in the Soviet Union? How did it differ at this time for the US? Bringing this question to the present, how would this text be manifested differently if it was written today by a Soviet author? by an American?
ReplyDeleteIn response to the state of LGBTQ rights in the USSR at the time and even today, I think it would be appropriate to bring up this article: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-29/world/42510859_1_sochi-russia-anti-gay-law-olympic-boycott
DeleteI’m not sure if anybody has brought it up before in class, but essentially it is now illegal to promote “nontraditional sexual relationships to minors” in Russia; the uproar has been publicized more because the 2014 Olympics will be held in Russia and athletes who are out are potentially subject to arrest.
I've heard/read a lot about this issue. It isn't just about the Olympics, either; during October, which is LGBTQ History Month in many nations around the world, parades and protests were brutally shut down and activists jailed for peacefully assembling. An article I read postulated that the backlash in Russia against LGBTQ people is in part because of their lack of a sexual revolution in the late 20th century, like the ones the USA and other western countries had. Instead, when the USSR fell, there was an attempt at a massive paradigm shift towards modernity as opposed to a drawn-out struggle like the American 70s-80s. Now the culture is swinging back towards conservatism.
DeleteI thought the reference to God in the The Leaflet was very interesting. "And it is also clear as day that everything fragile, deceptive, all the fallen angels, all that is in beads, paper flowers and tears, all this God keeps in his bosom; all shall have the first place in paradise and a divine kiss. The best of our young perished creatures he will seat closest to himself. And everything pious, normal, bearded, everything that is presented as a model on earth, though the Lord assures all this of his love, secretely in his heart he does not love it very much." In a conversation with the West, I think this point would definitely spark a lot of controversy. But I think it is a really good point, not necessarily with God, as I am in no position to affirm or deny anything about any God, but the point , as Anastasia geared us toward, is really about history. I think that what "we", meaning the straight western male, have successfully assured themselves a place in history, and respectively, as the "good guy". I think it is interesting that in this case God is being used as a symbol for something else. What do others think?
ReplyDeleteKharitonov ends the oven by saying, "a young man called to his friend from a balcony using exactly the same whistle as Misha and Sergei, a signal from some Western song they know," (215). Why does he end this piece with an allusion to the West? In the Leaflet, he writes, "Western law allows our flowers open meetings, a direct showing of us in art, clubs, gatherings, and declarations of rights--but what rights? and rights to what?" Based on the two pieces that we read for today, how do you think Kharitonov envisions the West? How might this Western imaginary interact with Kushner's model of either Tolerance or respecting Difference?
ReplyDeleteSpending time in/around a river seems to be a common occurrence in much of the literature we have read this semester. The protagonist of the oven frequently goes swimming with Misha, Lee is fascinated by the bodies of the young boys playing in the river, and Joe from Angels in America spends much of his time walking near the water in Central Park "just watching." The river setting reminds me of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself" which also depicts young men bathing together. Connecting this literary trend to a very real one, rivers and bodies of water tend to be popular places for people to congregate, especially in cities. Consider the Mississippi in St. Paul/Minneapolis, or the Thames in London. These public places attract people from many different backgrounds in a way that other public places (like a pub or a museum, for example) might not. How can we read these works in terms of their public and private settings, and how does the political interact with these spaces?
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the naked bathing boys of Pkhentz!
DeleteI'm not completely sure what's been talked about in the past couple of classes, but some of the posts from last time suggest an introduction to LGBTQ topics? This seems apparent in the literature for Tuesday. How has this idea been fitting into more recent discussions? How has it been viewed in Soviet society/any cross over with American society of the time?
ReplyDeleteIn The Leaflet, Kharitonov makes a powerful statement about stereotypes: "Just as Judaic people have to be ridiculed in anecdote and as the image of the sparrow-Jew has to be held firm in the consciousness of all non-Jewish humanity so that Judeophobia is not extinguished -- otherwise what would prevent the Jews from occupying all positions in the world? (and there is a belief that exactly this would be the end of the world) -- even so our lightweight floral species with its pollen flying who knows where has to be ridiculed and turned by the crude straight common sense of the simple people into a curse word." What does this statement say about the cruel persistence of stereotypes? How can we tie this quote to other texts we've read that highlight stereotypes and the effects they have on our protagonists, such as in Queer, the Bell Jar, Witchbird, and Angels in America?
ReplyDeleteKharitonov likens "the Jewish question" to "the homosexual question" - what ever will society do with "these people"? Hitler and Himmler answered the first, and modern Russia is in the process of answering the second. From Kharitonov's The Leaflet (his manifesto of homosexuality), he and the other Flowers (homosexuals) of society quite literally are the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. If their aesthetics and culture and lifestyle of "living by love alone" become visible and accepted, then society falls trap to lust and it spells the "End of the World."
ReplyDeleteContrast this manifesto to The Oven. The Leaflet says "We secretly control the tastes of the world," yet in The Oven he cannot manage to express himself and assert any non-platonic thoughts towards Misha. Yet these do not stand in contradiction. Rather, this self-restraint induces the expression of "the dance of impossible love" - the highest of art, fashion, expression, etc.