Rasa Kamarauskaitė (RK)
As part of the series that discusses ‘periphery’ in the Baltic states, Lithuanian sexuality scholar Rasa Navickaitė (RN) challenges Western-focused approaches to Baltic sexuality studies, shares her thoughts about sexuality studies in Lithuania, and LGBT people’s situation in Lithuania.
RK: Could you introduce yourself and your work?
RN: It is funny that you are taking this interview from me, because I could take a similar interview from you, since we work on similar topics! But thanks for this opportunity. I am a lecturer and postdoctoral research fellow at Vilnius University in Lithuania. I have recently completed a MSCA-IF funded project called MoSeLit - Modernization of Sexuality and the Construction of Deviance in Soviet Lithuania, which was hosted by the University of Vienna. In this project I focused on LGBTQ people’s experiences and structures of homophobia in Soviet Lithuania and their effects to this day. I just started a new project about homophobia and anti-gender movements in post-Soviet Lithuania. Also, I do my best to promote my work beyond academia and to enhance society’s understanding about homophobia.
Rasa Navickaitė. Photo by Dovilė Dagienė
RK: How did you get interested in sexuality studies?
RN: Well, I am a lesbian myself, so already when I was studying for my Political Sciences bachelor’s degree at Vilnius University, I was looking for opportunities to engage in LGBTQ+ activism. In 2010 I helped with the first Baltic Pride in Lithuania. I wanted to talk about these issues, so I decided to write my BA thesis about media narratives regarding Baltic Pride. I continued to examine these issues during my MA studies at Utrecht University where I looked at (LGBTQ+) sexuality in the post-Soviet region through a postcolonial theoretical lens. I took a bit of a detour from sexuality studies with my PhD thesis at CEU. There I worked for a few years on transnational gender and women’s history. I think this was a good decision, because it gave me time to mature as an academic and as a person – the history of stigmatized sexualities in Lithuania is not an easy topic to write about. I came back to sexuality studies with my post-doctoral project, when I trusted myself more as a researcher and a historian.
RK: Can you tell me more about it?
RN: The project is finished, but I feel that I have barely scratched the surface. My focus was on LGBTQ people’s experiences and the various forms of homophobia in Soviet Lithuania. I was surprised to find out just how sophisticated Soviet homophobia was and eventually this is what I ended up writing the most about. I found many interesting stories, but probably the most compelling for me was the criminal case of Viktoras Petkus in 1978. He was a well-known anti-Soviet dissident and human rights activist who was put on trial for “pederasty” under Article 122, which criminalized sex acts between men. The case was clearly political, but the accusation of “pederasty” and rape of a minor was a way for the KGB to tarnish Petkus’s reputation. Although we don’t know if Petkus was actually gay, I think his case demonstrates that homophobia was a tool of oppression for the Soviet government, and we certainly need to talk more about that. I have published an article about it, but I think there is more to uncover. Apart from that, I also worked on lesbian history and the history of Soviet-style sexual education.
RK: Homophobia is indeed a widespread phenomenon in many parts of the world. How does Soviet homophobia in Lithuania compare to homophobia that has been researched and discussed in canonical texts produced in the West?
RN: Certainly, homophobia has been widely discussed in western academia. But I find it interesting that you chose to call [these texts] canonical. I do not see research on Eastern Europe as complementary to research about the West. I guess Western academia often steers us to think in that direction - to see the research on Eastern Europe as an embellishment of the Western canon with new interesting examples. I want to escape this type of thinking. Instead, I focus on revealing our history to ourselves and other countries in our region. It is not important to me if homophobia in Soviet Lithuania was same or different, better or worse than elsewhere. It is important for me to understand what it looked like and what it did to us and our community. Of course, it is important to engage with existing knowledge and theories. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities between homophobia in the West and in Eastern Europe, but I am more interested in the local specificities and telling our stories.
RK: You have brought up several very important points which are topical for this blog. Namely, questioning the construction of centre and periphery, which often implies that those positioned in the periphery lack authenticity and independent existence; that those positioned in the periphery are a lesser, diluted version of the centre. I am interested in your opinion about the questions of centre and periphery in the context of sexuality studies. What is at the centre and what is at the periphery in terms of knowledge production?
RN: Well, first of all, I think we need to write more about Eastern Europe, and especially, the former Soviet republics. We still lack understanding about what was and is happening in the region. Stories about non-normative sexualities in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary are more represented in English-speaking academia, while the situation in the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine is lesser known. I think these countries are often perceived as versions of Russian history. It is evident in publications and applications to conferences: we often need to make explicit connections with Soviet (Russian) history. I think it is a Cold War legacy to think that Eastern European history [of sexuality] is a variant of Russian history. I guess we can talk about double marginalisation of sexuality studies in the ‘peripheral’ states. We are at the margins of both Western and Soviet historical narratives.
There is also another aspect to this. At one point I was interested in the potential of post-colonial theories to explain East European and Baltic experiences in the context of sexuality studies. I have to say that I chose the easiest path and looked at how Western countries marginalise Eastern Europe by portraying it as more homophobic. But now I think that it is more important to understand the role of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in forming ways of thinking about sexuality in Lithuania. Post-colonial and decolonial theories are useful in this regard, but they come out of the history of Western colonisation, so we should be aware of that.
MoSeLit Final Conference Poster. Design by Laura Varžgalytė
RK: You brought up very interesting ideas about the place of East European and Baltic sexuality studies in a global context. I would like to hear your opinion about the place of sexuality studies in Lithuanian academic contexts.
RN: Certainly, many topics in Lithuanian sexuality studies remain unaddressed. In particular, the history of LGBT people is not well-research. The first book that addresses the question of sex in Soviet Lithuania and includes a chapter on LGBT was only published in 2022. Sexuality and masculinity from a sociological perspective was well-researched by Artūras Tereškinas since 2000. However, research on sexuality in Lithuania remains limited and as a result, basic literature on the topic is missing. Having said that, I notice that younger scholars and university students are interested in it. Indeed, students in many disciplines want to write about sexuality, but they struggle to find supervisors. However, I think sexuality studies in Lithuania will evolve eventually.
RK: I agree with you that there is a lot to be done. But like you, I am also hopeful. I am glad that there are many young researchers who do not shy away from researching sexualities.
RN: On the contrary. I think that apart from a few radical right-wing academics, most are open to LGBT topics and we [i.e. sexuality scholars] should be more forthcoming and less shy to discuss these topics in Lithuanian academia.
RK: Indeed, more conversations about sexuality in Lithuanian academia are needed. How about the conversations about non-normative sexualities in everyday social discourses in Lithuania?
RN: There is a lot of improvement in this regard. LGBT topics are not discussed anymore as necessarily obscene or scandalous. Journalists have learned to talk about LGBT people with more respect and understanding and empathy. For example, the national radio recently published a podcast featuring an elderly gay man who shared his life story. He had been living with his partner for 52 years. It turned out to be the most popular podcast they ever made, which shows that people want to hear these stories. So, I think, as scholars we also have a duty to research and publish stories like this one, so journalists and artists have content to work with. However, unfortunately there are a lot of negative narratives about LGBT people too, which circulate on social media and alternative media sites. They are often spread by homophobic international organisations and the church and promote conspiracy theories and elicit fear. Therefore, I think some sections of society still hold very negative attitudes towards LGBT people.
Also, unfortunately, apart from a small number of progressive Lithuanian politicians, most are not taking steps to stop this kind of discourse. On the contrary, many politicians, including the current President, support and promote homophobic conspiracy theories. A good example of that was a backlash against ratifying the Istanbul Convention. These politicians’ conservative stance prevents any progress. If I am not mistaken, for the last 20 years, i.e. since Lithuania joined the EU and adopted basic non-discriminatory laws, there has not been any progress in terms of LGBT people’s legal rights. On the contrary, Lithuania adopted a ‘Gay Propaganda’ law, which censured LGBT content as harmful for minors. Even though the law is not actively applied now, it still exists, and it has done serious damage to our community.
MOSELIT Project Logo. Design by Laura Varžgalytė