Book Condition: Near Fine apart from small 1/2 inch tear on last page at edge and some light brown tanning on inside cover to edge, otherwise, clear, bright text, with illustrations. A pioneering collection of writings on gay themes from before the Revolution (Pushkin, Kuzmin, Esenin) to the post-glasnost "New Russia (Aksyonov, Makanin, Trifinov, and many others). A major contribution to gay literature. OUT OF THE BLUE is a welcome anthology. Its makes available in English, in many cases for the first time, writings that were produced in Russia during the last 180 or so years. It contains poetry, short stories, excerpts from longer prose works, personal letters, journal entries, a play and a lengthy selection of letters to the editors of two gay journals that began publication in the post-glasnost era. There is also an introduction that places this collection in the context of Russian literature and history since its very beginnings in the 800s with the ascendancy of Kiev. If one wants to get a feel for what it has been like to be a gay man in this century in Russia, this would be an excellent book to consult. If one is looking for insight into the Russian lesbian experience, it is not to be found here. OUT OF THE BLUE (the title refers to the fact that the Russian word for ?gay? is ?blue?) is arranged chronologically into four sections. They correspond to the customary division of Russian literary and artistic production into its various periods. This division is sensible because in Russia both literary activity and sexual expression have been very much dependent on the attitude of the government at any one time. Periods of relative freedom (the early part of this century and the 1990s) have shown freedom in both the spheres, and periods of repression (the 19th century and the 1920s to the late 1980s) have similarly been repressive of both sexuality and literary expression. The first section looks at the Golden Age of Russian literature: the middle to late 19th century. There are excerpts from Tolstoy (He was not well disposed to homosexuality.), Gogol (There is evidence that he was a repressed homosexual.) and Pushkin, among others. Pushkin comes off quite well; he, most probably not homosexual, exhibited that most attractive trait in heterosexual men who are secure in their orientation: he was not threatened homosexuality in other men. The second section covers the literary production during the time between the 1905 revolution and 1920. This period is often called the Silver Period of Russian literature. This period produced Russia's great gay novelist, Mikhail Kuzmin. He is best known for his novel, WINGS, which is not excerpted in the collection. That is unfortunate. Still, there are two of his short stories and generous selection of poems. The second of the two stories, ?Virginal Victor: A Byzantine Tale,? is an atmospheric gem that does justice both to its exotic medieval setting and to the vagaries of homoerotic desire. The third section, ?Hidden from View under the Soviets: Underground Literature (1920-1980)?, documents the repression that gay men endured during this period. An event of signal importance in this era was Stalin's criminalization of homosexuality in 1933 with article 121. Article 121, which was not repealed until 1993, made male homosexual contact punishable with a prison sentence and made all mention of homosexuality taboo for 70 years. This meant that many gay men spent time in prison. Administration of this law was homophobic in the extreme. If, for example, a gay man were gang-raped in the army (all Soviet men served in the army at some point), it would often be the victim who went to prison. During this period in Russia, there was a poisonous conjunction between the model of homosexuality that designates only the passive partner as homosexual AND a very unforgiving institutionalized homophobia. The net effect of this conjunction was extremes of legal and sexual victimization. The literature of c
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