totalitarian regimes, building their
systems on the principles of morality
and spiritual bonds, turn to all
the same tools without inventing
anything new – prohibition,
control and dictatorship. So in
modern Russia, every year the
situation of the LGBTQ+ community
worsens, and the murder of human
rights activist Elena Grigorieva, and
the inability of the law enforcement
system to investigate and classify
this case adequately, clearly
demonstrate the danger of situation
for LGBTIQ + people living in Russia.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall
queer art receives a new impetus
in its development. For example,
on November 9, 1989, Heiner
Karov’s film «Coming Out», shot
at the leading film studio of the
GDR – DEFA, was released, which,
in principle, was impossible years
earlier, under the existing conditions
and circumstances. The main
theme of the film is the recognition
of it own homosexuality by the
main character. Previously, this
would definitely have become
a scandalous event, or didn’t
happened at all, but the Berlin
Wall fell that night, in 1990 the GDR
formally ceased to exist, and in
1992 the DEFA studio was closed [5,
стр.232]. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall, the long-awaited period of
liberation begins, which is clearly
reflected in the people and their
way of life, as shown in the works
of photographer Daniel Biskup,
whose exhibition is also presented
at the Museum in der Kulturbrauerei.
Between 1990 and 1995 he traveled
through East Germany, taking
photographs of a period of social,
political, and cultural changes.
So how much does the modern
understanding of queer culture
resonate with the events and
processes of the past? We can say
that today the concept of queer
has reached its zenith in its diversity
and interpretation – at the same
time, trying to fit into the concept of
«queer» a lot of concepts that are
not related to it, the true meaning is
often lost. In modern Germany, there
are still many problems associated
with the imperfection of legislation
regarding the protection of rights
of LGBTIQ+ people, hate crimes
and homophobia, lack of attention
from the police side and long, often
inconclusive, legal proceedings. All
this in aggregate does not allow
modern Germany to occupy leading
positions in index of countries
favorable for the life of LGBTIQ+
people. Although, objectively, the
problem is much wider – after all,
rights of LGBTIQ+ people are, first of
all, about human rights.
Borrowing the experience of
Western countries, Ukraine has
made a huge breakthrough in
recent years – from 2015, when
about 300 people came to the
Equality March in Kyiv, until 2019,
when the number of participants
increased to 8 thousand.
Nevertheless, there remains a
lot of work and transformation
that Ukraine must go through
to achieve at least the level of
modern Germany. The main thing
to remember is – that queer culture
is written here and now. And it is
written by us.
*[1] artguide.com | [2] moscowartmagazine.com |
[3] hdg.de | [4] de.wikipedia.org | [5] books.google.ru