https://urania.institute/en/tags/biography/Recent content in Biography on UrániaHugoen-usMon, 23 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/moses-ugrin/Mon, 23 Mar 2026 12:00:00 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/moses-ugrin/<p>The Life of the Venerable Moses the Hungarian is one of the most unusual texts in Old Russian hagiography. A monk of the Kyiv Cave Monastery who was taken captive to Poland, he refused for years to marry a wealthy and powerful woman, was castrated for it, and was later canonized as a model of chastity.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/nikolai-mikhailovich/Sun, 01 Mar 2026 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/nikolai-mikhailovich/<p>Nikolai Mikhailovich was almost the only Romanov praised both by his contemporaries and by historians of very different political persuasions — left and right alike. Within the family, he stood out as an intellectual who pursued scholarship seriously.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/turkish/ataturk/Sun, 07 Dec 2025 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/turkish/ataturk/<p>In this article, we first briefly look at the biography of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, his personality, and his short family life. Then, drawing on memoirs, diplomatic documents, and historians&rsquo; works, we trace the origins and evolution of the claim that he may have been homosexual or bisexual.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/avinoff/Wed, 26 Nov 2025 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/avinoff/<p>Andrey Avinoff was a Russian entomologist and artist, and a friend of Alfred Kinsey. He was a collector, a connoisseur of beauty, and a gay man, yet he never made his sexuality public. After the Revolution in 1917, Avinoff left Russia for the United States. His homoerotic watercolors were published only in the 21st century.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/dmitriev/Wed, 26 Nov 2025 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/dmitriev/<p>Ivan Ivanovich Dmitriev entered history as a notable sentimentalist poet of the late 18th–early 19th centuries and as a statesman who rose to the post of minister of justice under Alexander I. In official biographies, he appears as a strict, rational administrator. At the same time, sources and the memoir tradition suggest that young, talented men regularly appeared in his circle. His bachelor life, persistent rumors about the nature of his attachments, and the absence of public scandals create the impression of a figure whose private biography may have been deliberately shielded from publicity, yet remains legible through indirect evidence.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/turkish/mehmed/Tue, 04 Nov 2025 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/turkish/mehmed/<p>Byzantine authors of the 15th century remembered Mehmed II not only as the conqueror of Constantinople. Their texts also contain stories about his attraction to young men and about a possible intimacy with Radu the Handsome, the brother of Vlad Dracula.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/sergei-alexandrovich/Thu, 16 Oct 2025 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/sergei-alexandrovich/<p>In the Romanov dynasty (Russia’s ruling imperial family from 1613 to 1917), every adult family member was expected to marry and produce heirs — this was seen as part of one’s duty to both the family and the state. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich (a “Grand Duke” was a high-ranking title reserved for close male relatives of the Russian emperor), the brother of Emperor Alexander III, also married, but the couple never had children. The Grand Duke was homosexual.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/world/hassan/Wed, 02 Jul 2025 00:10:32 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/world/hassan/<h3 id="origins-and-early-service">Origins and Early Service</h3> <p>Suheil al-Hasan was born in 1970 in Syria&rsquo;s Latakia province.</p> <p>Al-Hasan is an Alawite. The Alawites are a religious community associated with the Shiite branch of Islam. Their doctrine includes elements of Islam, Christianity, and certain ancient Near Eastern traditions. In Latakia, Alawites make up a significant share of the population, and in Syria, members of this community have traditionally held prominent positions in the army and state institutions.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/russian-queer-history/18-peter/Fri, 07 Feb 2025 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/russian-queer-history/18-peter/<p>Peter the Great entered history as a reformer who drastically changed the old order. But his private life was no less turbulent and contradictory.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/world/thai-prince/Fri, 24 Jan 2025 00:10:32 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/world/thai-prince/<p>In 1848, King Rama III of Siam sentenced his friend, Prince Rakronnaret – also known as Kraison – to death. The prince, who was openly in relationships with men, was charged with treason. His execution followed the traditional method reserved for high-ranking individuals: he was placed in a velvet sack and beaten to death with clubs.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/moscow-bi/Fri, 22 Nov 2024 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/moscow-bi/<p>Information about intimate life in the 19th-century Russian Empire was left primarily by nobles. The diary of Pyotr Vasilyevich Medvedev, a Moscow merchant of the third guild, is a rare exception. From 1854 to 1863, he recorded his thoughts on faith, marriage, the body, desire, and sexual experience – with both men and women. This is the voice of someone outside the elite: a former peasant, a small entrepreneur, a resident of Moscow during the era of the Great Reforms.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/anna-leopoldovna/Sun, 10 Nov 2024 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/anna-leopoldovna/<p>Empress Anna Leopoldovna ruled Russia for only a year and remains a relatively little-known figure. She is rarely discussed in school textbooks. Yet her relationship with her lady-in-waiting (often rendered as ‘maid of honour’ in English), Juliana (Julia) von Mengden, deserves attention: it may represent one of the earliest documented indications of lesbian love in Russian history.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/russian-queer-history/homosexuality-of-tsars/Mon, 23 Sep 2024 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/courses/russian-queer-history/homosexuality-of-tsars/<h2 id="vasily-iii">Vasily III</h2> <p>Vasily III was Grand Prince of Moscow and ruler of the Russian state from 1505 to 1533. His reign is generally considered successful: stone construction expanded; Pskov, Smolensk, and Ryazan were incorporated into the state; and the country continued to recover after centuries of dependence on the Horde — the Mongol political domination often referred to as the “Tatar Yoke” — along with the raids and devastation associated with it.</p>https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/gn-teplov/Sun, 22 Sep 2024 22:45:37 +0700https://urania.institute/en/posts/russian-queerography/gn-teplov/<p>“Having summoned him to his bed, first caressing him and holding out promises of reward, and in the end also threatening him with a beating, he forced him to commit <em>muzhelozhstvo</em> (literally “lying with a man”) on him.” This is a line from the interrogation of a serf peasant, where he accuses his master, Grigory Nikolayevich Teplov, of “muzhelozhstvo” (a historical legal and church term usually translated as “sodomy”) and of rape.</p>