Ksenia Peterburgskaia: Cross-dressing and Narratives of Trauma in the Russian Orthodox Culture

• In Event: Before Drag: Pereodevanie and Gender Performance in Pre-20th Century Russia

Abstract

In this paper, I will examine the case study of Ksenia Peterburgskaia, the patron saint of St Petersburg, contextualising it in the broader history of cross-dressing and female transvestism in Russia. Ksenia Peterburgskaia is one of the most popular female saints in the Russian Orthodox culture, and yet the history of her popular representation - from a beggar, wearing her husbands clothes after his death to a canonisation as a miracle worker - has, so far, not been examined in this context.

Author

• Margarita Vaysman, U of St Andrews (UK)