Maslenitsa Effigy: The “Man in Women’s Clothes” of Russia’s Pre-Lent Carnival
A cross-dressing effigy in Maslenitsa customs as described in early 20th-century accounts.
Russia
Andrey Avinoff: A Russian Émigré Artist, Gay Man, and Scientist
How Orthodox Christianity, butterflies, a scientific career, and male eroticism came together.
Russian Poet Ivan Dmitriev, Boy Favourites, and Same-Sex Desire His the Fables 'The Two Doves' and 'The Two Friends'
A friend of Karamzin and Derzhavin, minister of justice, and a fable writer whose “friendship” turns into male love.
Sergei Romanov: A Homosexual Member of the Imperial Family
The life of Grand Duke – a “white marriage” without children, homosexuality, service in Moscow, and a tragic death.
Peter the Great’s Sexuality: Wives, Mistresses, Men, and His Connection to Menshikov
Was Russia’s first emperor bisexual? Or did he love only women?
The Diary of the Moscow Bisexual Merchant Pyotr Medvedev in the 1860s
His escapades and self-reflection.
Russian Empress Anna Leopoldovna and the Maid of Honour Juliana: Possibly the First Documented Lesbian Relationship in Russian History
"... she spends most of her time in the apartments of her favourite, Mengden."
Homosexuality in the 18th-Century Russian Empire — Europe-Imported Homophobic Laws and How They Were Enforced
From Peter the Great to Alexander I.
The Homosexuality of Russian Tsars: Vasily III and Ivan IV “the Terrible”
And who Fyodor Basmanov was.
Grigory Teplov and the Sodomy Case in 18th-Century Russia
Nine serfs accuse their master of rape.
Uncensored Russian Folklore: Highlights from Afanasyev’s “Russian Secret Tales”
“Sowing Dicks,” “The Fool,” and “The Soldier and the Priest.”
Homosexuality in Ancient and Medieval Russia
Same-sex relationships and how they were viewed from Kievan Rus to Peter the Great.
A Cross-Dressing Epic Hero: the Russian Folk Epic of Mikhaylo Potyk, Where He Disguises Himself as a Woman
Why does the hero put on “women’s dresses”?