Russia's history of emancipation takes place in the form of a rondo: the new departure must be followed by repression, said Moscow theater critic Marina Dawydowa at the introduction to Sergei Nevski's documentary opera “The Simple”, which sets letters from Russian homosexuals from the decade after the October Revolution to music.

The texts on which the work is based, which are addressed to the psychiatrist, brain and reflex researcher Vladimir Bechterew (1857 to 1927), who collaborated with the Soviet power at an early age, had the Russian historian Ira Roldugina, who was connected to the Stuttgart Theater via Zoom from Moscow, in Bechterews Archive found.

Kerstin Holm

Editor in the features section.

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These are testimonies of young men, but also of some women from rural backgrounds, who erotically desire their own sex and reported to the scholar about it during the still revealing years 1925 to 1927, because he researched homosexuality, which had been decriminalized since the February Revolution, and gave lectures on it.

In 1934, “sodomy” was made punishable again and the time window of personal freedoms closed, said Dawydova, who compares the process with the law against homosexual propaganda passed in Russia in 2013 - after the super-liberal 1990s.

This foolish law, of course, assured the self-confessed lesbian Roldugina, that the LGBTQ community opened up its own history with all the more commitment.

Fled from marriage and family

The letters, which show a great openness, but also often impressive distance to the writing self, are all the more valuable since many homosexuals of that time destroyed testimonies for fear of persecution. Nevsky named his work "The Simple" (Russian: Prostyje) after the self-name of the gay subculture of the common people - workers, employees, students - in post-revolutionary Leningrad. Of course, at least the biography of his central figure, the Siberian farmer's son Nika Polyakov, is highly complex. Polyakov characterizes his disposition as distinctly "feminine", he never fights, loves handwork, cleanliness, order and harmony, which is why he often settles conflicts, even between couples, and makes friends easily.Like many of his fellow fates, Polyakov was married off in his youth and escaped from his wife and family. But then he went to self-study, even went to Germany, where he allegedly spent the time of the First World War in prison, and found - a happy exception among his fellow fates - a partner for life. From the strikingly eloquent and reflective Polyakov, Newski developed his most elaborate part, which, like the four others, is sung synchronously in German and spoken in Russian.From the strikingly eloquent and reflective Polyakov, Newski developed his most elaborate part, which, like the four others, is sung synchronously in German and spoken in Russian.From the strikingly eloquent and reflective Polyakov, Newski developed his most elaborate part, which, like the four others, is sung synchronously in German and spoken in Russian.

On the black stage of the Stuttgart theater, the director Ilya Shagalov has built a triptych of screens on which the video faces of the Moscow actors appear, whose texts are surtitled into German, before five singers from the Neue Vocalsolisten transfer them into a three-quarter-hour madrigal composition. The graceful Igor Bychkov from Moscow's Gogol Center gives the Siberian Polyakov, who confidently challenges Bechterew's hypothesis that homosexuality is above all instilled - because he himself was brought up just like his “normal” brothers and sisters. The countertenor Daniel Gloger intones Polyakov's memories of his first friend in a halting recitative, repeatedly articulating consonants,before it soars to coloratura fragments and thus makes the search for a language ear-catching. The line of tenor Martin Nagy alternates and intertwines with him, who conjures up the despair of a teacher consumed by unrequited passions with a broad palette between squeaking noises and spherical singing. The mezzo-soprano by Truike van der Poel rises glowingly above it with the lament of a student who claims to feel like a man, loves women and dreams of a sex change.The mezzo-soprano by Truike van der Poel rises glowingly above it with the lament of a student who claims to feel like a man, loves women and dreams of a sex change.The mezzo-soprano by Truike van der Poel rises glowingly above it with the lament of a student who claims to feel like a man, loves women and dreams of a sex change.

As a symbolic addressee of the poetic polyphony, the bearded baritone Guillermo Anzorena sits in the middle and supports the ensemble with a bass vocalise. Chromatically modulating and polymetrically interlocked with one another, the voices come together to form a kind of chorale, which sings of lack of understanding, the constant fear of one's own feelings, while video animations let wild flowers float in the empty cosmos. Finally, the faces of the singers mix with those of the actors, and a passage from Polyakov, in which he defends the normality of homosexuality and prophesies its legalization, sounds as a manifesto morphed from the Russian spoken text with a sung canon. In September the piece will be played at the Venice Biennale.

The rondo form of the historical material that Davydova spoke of has, of course, not yet been fully composed. During her research, Roldugina also came across the interrogation records of Polyakov, arrested in Leningrad after a raid by the GPU secret police in 1933, who betrayed other “pederasts”, but also confirmed his incredible life story. Polyakov and his co-arrested partner were sentenced to three years in a camp, but only the latter is known to have survived forced labor and was released.

Bechterew had been asked by Stalin's personal physician in December 1927 to consult him about his crippled left arm. After a three-hour examination, he came to the conclusion that Stalin suffered from paranoia, which he is said to have only said to the personal doctor. But on the same day Bechterew was poisoned while attending the theater, and his doctor, who came to see him at home, was accompanied by two doctors who apparently belonged to the GPU and stayed with the patient until he was dead.