One queer museum opened in St. Petersburg on November 27. Its creator is the community activist LGBTI and local historian Piotr Voskrishensky. Due to the recent law passed by State Duma for a complete ban on propaganda of LGBTI, the museum will only work for five days – and then its existence will become illegal. The website Sever.Realii reports on Russia’s first and for the foreseeable future last queer exhibition.
At the entrance, visitors are greeted by a portrait of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Russian composer and one of Tsarist Russia’s most famous homosexuals. After visiting the composer’s museum in Klin, Voskrishensky had the idea of creating a queer museum. He spent two and a half years amassing a collection of art objects for it.
According to Voskrishensky, the founder of the Tchaikovsky Museum, the famous composer’s brother Modesto, who was also gay, he built a small house on the estate where he himself lived. And in the office of Modest Tchaikovsky you can see the preserved peculiar interior of that time, Voskrishensky explains.
The recognizable “homosexuals» 19th century interiors are sculptures, antiques and statuettes depicting young men. For example, the hero of ancient Greek mythology, the Narcissus, which is perceived not only as a symbol of pride, but also as a symbol of same-sex love. Or o Antinous, the lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Since the 18th century, its images have been reproduced, among other things, as a queer symbol.
In the museum collection there are three semi-precious stones with the relief representation of Antinous. Two of them were created in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, when homosexuals were still sent to the gulag for “sodomism». The fourth relief representation of Antinous is pinned to the shirt of Piotr Voskricenski himself.
The collection of the St. Petersburg Queer Museum also contains the first edition of the treatise of the priest Pavel Florensky “The pillar and ground of Truth“(1914). Contemporaries assessed the book as a declaration of friendship with homosexual overtones and accused the priest of trying to “glorify ancient customs».
Overall, as reported by svoboda.org and relayed by the Athens News Agency, n exhibit includes about three dozen items which show how same-sex love and transsexualism have manifested in art over the past centuries. Piotr Voskrishenski searched the internet, second-hand shops and auctions for several years for all the figurines and rare books.
In five days, the exhibition will officially close. Piotr Voskricenski does not rule out the possibility that his museum will become an “exile museum” or a “refugee museum”, possibly of homosexuals, when he opens it in another, freer country. And he hopes that in the future all exhibits will again be able to be legally exhibited in Russia.
Source: News Beast
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