0000000000928774
AUTHOR
Kārlis Vērdiņš
Queer Male (Post)Soviet Narratives in Interviews by Rita Ruduša and Fiktion by Klāvs Smilgzieds
One culture within a culture is the culture of LGBT people in Latvia or, to use a contemporary designation, queer culture. In Latvia, queer culture is still practically invisible. In this paper I will analyse two types of queer narratives: documentary life stories collected by Rita Rudusa in her book Forced Underground (2012) and the manuscript of a collection of 12 short stories by Klāvs Smilgzieds (2014), originally published serially during the 1990s in an under ground Latvian gay magazine. Both types of texts employ different emphasis talking about queers in Soviet and post-Soviet life. Rudusa’s interviews reflect on the situation of being in the closet and on fear and loneliness, while…
Latviešu dzejproza 20.gadsimtā
KĀRLIS VĒRDIŅŠ LATVIEŠU DZEJPROZA 20. GADSIMTĀ Promocijas darbā apskatīta dzejprozas tradīcija latviešu literatūrā — poētiskās izteiksmes veids, kurš sevī apvieno gan prozas (darba grafiskais noformējums, sižetiskums, tēlojuma klātbūtne, dažādu žanru darbu imitācija), gan dzejas iezīmes (metra un atskaņu klātbūtne, subjektivitāte un liriskums, pirmās personas izmantojums). Rietumu literatūrkritika šo tradīciju dēvē par īpašu žanru un tā aizsākumu saista ar 19. gadsimta franču literatūru. Pētījumā izsekots latviešu dzejprozas attīstībai no tās aizsākumiem 19. gadsimta otrajā pusē līdz pat mūsdienu autoru darbiem. Analizētas galvenokārt darbu formālās iezīmes — atskaņu un metriskās sistēmas k…
The Latvian LGBT Movement and Narratives of Normalization
The article examines the visibility of the LGBT community in Latvian public discourse of the last thirty years and the history of LGBT activism. Special attention is paid to the normalization of same-sex relationships: to the social processes through which ideas and actions of a social group begin crossing the threshold of deviance toward becoming “normal” and acceptable to the majority. The history of Latvian LGBT activism can be seen as a struggle for normalization of the LGBT community and overcoming the effects of its pathologization and criminalization. More than 25 years after the decriminalization of male same-sex relationships, it should be asked why the level of homophobia in socie…