Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MoSeLit (Modernization of Sexuality and the Construction of Deviance in Soviet Lithuania)
Reporting period: 2021-09-01 to 2023-08-31
"MoSeLit - Modernization of Sexuality and the Construction of Deviance in Soviet Lithuania" is a historical research project, which explores the structures of homophobia and the formation of LGBTQ+ identities in modernizing Lithuanian society. While contemporary homophobia in Eastern Europe is often attributed to the legacy of the Soviet times, the historical research into the stories LGBTQ people and their systematic oppression in Soviet Lithuania is lacking. The main goal of MoSeLit is to provide a historical examination of how the understanding of queer sexuality as “deviance” was informed and formed in medical, criminological, educational and other discourses and practices in Soviet Lithuania, seeing it as a part of the bigger process of the modernization of Lithuanian society. Furthermore, combining archival research with oral interviews, the project sheds light on the oppression of LGBTQ people in Lithuania, as well as the possibilities for subjectification, community building, and agency. By focusing on the cultural and intellectual history of state-socialist Eastern Europe the project contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the development of modern discourse of sexuality and contemporary queer identities, and provides new insights into the historical context of contemporary discrepancies in sexual norms and attitudes in Europe.
The research part of this project had to parts: an intensive archival and library research in mainly Lithuanian language sources, which was conducted in Vilnius, and an oral history part. For the second part, interviews were collected across Lithuanian cities and villages with 16 LGBTQ people born between 1938 and 1977, and 4 experts (psychiatrists and psychologists). Research resulted in a digital archive of oral history recordings, transcripts, and scans of archival documents. Based in research results dr. Rasa Navickaitė delivered eight conference presentations, submitted three academic articles, published one article, organized three conference panels, organized two conferences and started putting together a special issue. The research results were broadly disseminated by means of public lectures and interviews with media. Four articles on LGBTQ history were produced for Lithuanian language media and one article, dealing with the Russian state anti-LGBTQ propaganda, for the English language international media. Additionally, the researcher gave five interviews to media, appearing on radio and in news portals. Finally, Navickaitė gave five public lectures in Austria and Lithuania.
The main scientific dissemination event of the project, an international scholarly workshop for graduate and post-graduate students "Queering Modernization in Eastern Europe: Deviant Sexualities, Gender Regimes, and the Limits of State Control" took place on June 29-30 at the University of Vienna. The workshop was a great opportunity for 11 selected doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to network and present their work on the subject of sexuality and modernization in Eastern and Central Europe. The event included also two public lectures by respected scholars in the field of history of sexuality studies and modern history, dr. Anna Hájková (University of Warwick) and dr. Lukasz Szulc (Manchester University).
The main scientific dissemination event of the project, an international scholarly workshop for graduate and post-graduate students "Queering Modernization in Eastern Europe: Deviant Sexualities, Gender Regimes, and the Limits of State Control" took place on June 29-30 at the University of Vienna. The workshop was a great opportunity for 11 selected doctoral and post-doctoral researchers to network and present their work on the subject of sexuality and modernization in Eastern and Central Europe. The event included also two public lectures by respected scholars in the field of history of sexuality studies and modern history, dr. Anna Hájková (University of Warwick) and dr. Lukasz Szulc (Manchester University).
In terms of scholarly impact, especially significant are the publications coming out of this project, all authored by dr. Rasa Navickaitė. The article “Modernizing Homosexuality in Soviet Lithuania: a Pathology, a Crime, and a Vice” (submitted to Slavic Review) has used the new archival findings and oral history interviews with gay men to present the first comprehensive analysis of the structures of homophobia, as they were ingrained in the modernizing medical services, psychiatry, as well as the rise of the police state in Soviet Lithuania. This is the first scholarly article to deal with the construction of the modern notion of homosexuality in Soviet Lithuania. The article ““Among the Characters from That Chapter”: Soviet Medicalization of Homosexuality in Lithuanian Lesbian Oral History Narratives” (submitted to the Journal of Lesbian Studies) is the first scholarly article to deal with the question of lesbian subject formation and the way that the modern pathologizing of homosexuality has affected and continues to affect the subjectivity, possibilities for agency and the life trajectories of homosexual women in Soviet and post-Soviet Lithuania. The article “Gender Complementarity and Sexual Deviance in Late Soviet Lithuanian Expert and Pedagogical Texts” (submitted to Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics) is a pioneering exploration of the history of ideas on gender and sexuality and the ways that the Soviet experts engaged with the theories and scientific developments in the West. Finally, the article “In the Name of Love? Sexuality, Gender, and Communist Morality in the Late Soviet Baltic Republics” (published in Themenportal Europäische Geschichte) is a scholarly contextualization and theoretically informed analysis of the original source material – the sexual education manual In the Name of Love (Jānis Zālītis, 1981), influential in late Soviet Latvia and Lithuania.
Through academic articles and dissemination activities, the research project contributes to progressive social change by demonstrating the historical injustices against sexual minorities in the context of state-socialism and advancing a human rights-based approach to LGBTQ people. The publications coming out of this project serve as an important basis for further knowledge production on this under-researched topic and will be useful for the civil society activists as well as policy makers.
Through academic articles and dissemination activities, the research project contributes to progressive social change by demonstrating the historical injustices against sexual minorities in the context of state-socialism and advancing a human rights-based approach to LGBTQ people. The publications coming out of this project serve as an important basis for further knowledge production on this under-researched topic and will be useful for the civil society activists as well as policy makers.