Alexander Golitsyn, a Gay Man at the Head of Church and Education in the Russian Empire
Alexander I’s friend, minister of religion and education, and target of homophobic intrigue.
Biographies of Russian LGBT People
Aleksey Apukhtin, a Gay Russian Poet and Friend of Tchaikovsky
Author of popular romances and poems that don’t reveal the beloved’s gender.
Saint Moses the Hungarian, One of the First Queer Figures in Russian History?
A monk rejected marriage, was castrated, and became a saint. How queer scholars read his life.
The Possible Homosexuality of Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich Romanov
A historian, liberal, and bachelor of the imperial family linked to the Rasputin murder case.
Andrey Avinoff, a Russian Émigré Artist, Scientist, and Gay Man
Orthodoxy, butterflies, friendship with Alfred Kinsey, and male eroticism in watercolors.
Poet and Minister Ivan Dmitriev and Same-Sex Desire in His Fables
Young favorites, gossip, and male love in the fables “The Two Doves” and “The Two Friends.”
The Homosexuality of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, Uncle of Nicholas II
All known evidence about the most powerful gay man in the Russian Empire.
The Diary of Pyotr Medvedev, a Bisexual Moscow Merchant, 1854–1863
A rare non-noble voice on marriage, faith, admiring young men, and masturbation with friends.
The Sodomy Case Against 18th-Century Russian Statesman Grigory Teplov
Nine serfs accused their master of rape. The case lay in the archives for two centuries.
A Homosexual at the Head of the Russian Empire’s Foreign Ministry. Minister Vladimir Lamsdorf
Forty years of diplomacy, a romance with the chancellery head, and Nicholas II’s nickname “Madame.”