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A review by onegin
Gay Propaganda: Russian Love Stories by Masha Gessen, Joseph Huff-Hannon
emotional
informative
fast-paced
As soon as I saw this cover, I knew I wanted to read this book. It's a collection of interviews of a couple dozen LGBTQ+ Russians. This book was published on 2014, right before the Olympics in Sochi when the infamous law against homosexual propaganda was under attention in international media. That was seven years ago, and in a country like Russia, it's a long time, yet this book remains current, as the interviewees reflect on how the new legislation changed the attitude of the people around them.
As the editors pointed out, there's a slight selection bias in the interviewees - the editors couldn't reach out to every single gay person in Russia, and not everyone they reached out to agreed to be interviewed. But even in this selection there's a diversity of opinions, and different life situations - just like in any group of people. There are couples who raise children in Russia, others that seek political asylum in the USA, some that are LGBTQ+ activists, while others have carefully tucked themselves away in the closet. Each interview was not more than a couple pages long. In total, I'd say this gives a very general and surface level view of life as gay in Russia, yet this is still more than I've seen anywhere else.
This is a bilingual book: the first half is in English, the second half is the same text, but in Russian (I read the Russian half). When I started reading it, I thought it would make me sad and worried, but mostly, it made me hopeful. These are love stories, after all.
As the editors pointed out, there's a slight selection bias in the interviewees - the editors couldn't reach out to every single gay person in Russia, and not everyone they reached out to agreed to be interviewed. But even in this selection there's a diversity of opinions, and different life situations - just like in any group of people. There are couples who raise children in Russia, others that seek political asylum in the USA, some that are LGBTQ+ activists, while others have carefully tucked themselves away in the closet. Each interview was not more than a couple pages long. In total, I'd say this gives a very general and surface level view of life as gay in Russia, yet this is still more than I've seen anywhere else.
This is a bilingual book: the first half is in English, the second half is the same text, but in Russian (I read the Russian half). When I started reading it, I thought it would make me sad and worried, but mostly, it made me hopeful. These are love stories, after all.