Why Do People Queer the Russian Literary Canon with Fanfiction?

• In Event: Subtext or Text?: Queer Temporalities and Popular Culture

Abstract

Despite tightened anti-LGBTQI+ legislation in Russia, queer fan fiction is still a way to explore and express queerness. In this paper, I study the ways fan fiction queers the Russian literary canon. As an example, queer fan fiction based on Russian classics, such as novels of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, is quietly reclaiming the Russian culture for queers, a culture that is hostile towards LGBTQI+ people. I study how the homosocial subtext of their novels is transformed into a homosexual text (Eve Sedgwick). With the digital humanities method of pattern recognition, I analyze the relationships that best invite the emergence of queer fan fiction, the motives and plots that are being transformed often, and the connection with tradition remaining in fan fiction. In this project, I try to answer the broader question of why people are called to queer the traditionally masculine characters of Russian literature (Henry Jenkins).

Author

• Ekaterina Tutatina, McGill U (Canada)