St. Petersburg and Its “Familiar Strangers”: Constructing “Queer” in Late Imperial Russia

This paper explores the spatial history of queer men’s experience in late Imperial St. Petersburg (1880-1914), and studies the attempts of municipal authorities to manage “the queer milieu.” The earliest known snapshots of a cohesive network of men pursuing opportunities for sex with other men in St. Petersburg is an account by an anonymous government official who had been an imperial minster and later Chairman of the Imperial Governing Council’s Legislative Department. The first half of the official’s dossier contains a timetable of activities we would today describe as “cruising,” along with commentary on common sexual and gender roles and their relationship to social class. The author of the dossier draws urgent attention to the threats posed by homosexuality, which he positions as a growing urban threat to the state and the military alike. The paper situates the preliminary position of the dossier vis-à-vis other key historical sources, and most importantly, the medico-forensic discussion of “homosexuality.” The paper draws out the implications of the dossier for the study of the city’s queer milieu where “queer” and “normal,” regulation and chaos, temptation and anxiety blurred in deceptive but partially decipherable ways.