Tatiana Klepikova, a WGSI postdoc in 2019-2021, has just received a 1,5-million-euros grant from the German Volkswagen Foundation to start a research group on queer literatures and cultures under socialism. Her 5-year project “Light On! Queer Literatures and Cultures under Socialism” emerges from silences about LGBTQ+ cultures in the formerly socialist East-Central part of Europe and their alarming abuse by the growing right-wing populist movements, which over the past decade have justified introducing anti-LGBT+ laws and initiatives from Russia to Poland and beyond by the protection of respective nations from “non-traditional values.” This project will bring to light hitherto unknown queer literature that was written in private under the Communist rule and never officially published. Tatiana will lead a team of PhD and postdoc researchers who will uncover and analyze queer prose, poetry, and drama across four socialist contexts of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and the German Democratic Republic in the 1940s–1980s. This project is a continuation of Tatiana Klepikova’s work on the study of queer theatre in Russia and of her commitment to connecting queer voices from Eastern Europe to broader publics. Thus, during her postdoctoral tenure at WGSI, Tatiana edited and translated an anthology of queer plays by contemporary Russian authors, which was published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama last September.
A short video about Tatiana Klepikova’s project: https://youtu.be/vR1MlWmjjPU
Anthology of queer plays: Contemporary Queer Plays by Russian Playwrights: Tatiana Klepikova: Methuen Drama (bloomsbury.com)