PUBLIC, not "private" response to Mss. Beljakova and Vynarska

Tue Apr 18 12:25:10 UTC 2006

Ms Beljakova and Ms Vynarska,

You are both entitled to your own opinions. You are not, however, 
entitled to flood this list with unsupported statements about 
literature and society, dismiss all posts and evidence to the 
contrary, and resort to increasingly histrionic and offensive 
litanies. This is NOT a chat room.

And yes, Professor Daniel Rancour-Lafferierre can be provocative and 
abrasive and pompous, and many people on this list have argued with 
him. Only: we have tried to keep our arguments on point and discuss 
the text and its context. And yes, DRL has a nasty little habit of 
quoting private correspondence publicly. His bad. But you, Ms. 
Beljakova, sent your nasty little private comments out to the list, 
and you, Ms. Vynarska, no matter how much you protest or how many 
languages you know or how often claim you're joking or that it's just 
like being blonde, you have made some nasty homophobic statements.

Between the two of you, I have had to read about twenty of these 
pieces -- which masquerade as literary discussion but actually say 
nothing about the text -- without responding. Now, I will respond, as 
one of those stupid little professors who are
> like little scared rabbits sitting in the 
> headlights of a car.

YES IT IS a problem to impose 20-21st century Western constructs on 
earlier and other cultures. On that we are all agreed.
But I disagree, publicly and with plenty of evidence from other posts, 
that homosexuality is in fact a new phenomenon or a purely political 
construct being imposed on poor helpless nineteenth century Russian 
literature. But it doesn't matter how many people have made valid 
posts on this topic, because that isn't really the point, is it, Ms. 
Beljakova?
Your "private" correspondence, which you yourself sent out to the 
whole list, makes it very clear that your animosity is personal and 
has nothing to do with literary analysis.

Your official argument, as far as I understood it -- it kept changing 
-- was that before the  twentieth century homosexuality didn't exist 
(it did), or if it did it wasn't "in your face" (do you know this, and 
so what?), or people were not aware of it (they were), because you and 
others were not aware of it (personal experience is never a substitute 
for statistics or research), or Pushkin didn't know about it (he did), 
or Pushkin would not make his Onegin bisexual/gay (well ... that was 
the literary discussion we were trying to have), and at any rate 
Tatiana wouldn't know about homosexuality (it was suggested only that 
she might have "sensed" some sexual oddity about Onegin).

In the parentheses are the public posts people made to counter your 
arguments, all of which you ignored. Instead we were treated to 
irrelevant arguments?/analogies?/what? about modern Zimbabwe and Queen 
Victoria ...

As for Tatiana,
>and Tatyana, no mater what, was a simple provincial girl ....

who, according to the actual text of EO, read a great deal of 
literature that includes rape (Clarissa) and women's rights (Mme de 
Stael) and other things that simple provincial girls didn't 
necessarily know about formally. But you've ignored that already.

Ms. Vynarska, you regale us with long "humorous" protestations about 
how you are not prejudiced and so qualified and various ridiculous 
suggestions about what these silly American academics are going to do 
next.

Nevertheless, your comments ARE homophobic, not because you disagree 
with DRL's position on Onegin's bisexuality --a lot of people do -- 
but because, unlike those people, you have nothing to say about the 
text itself, just a lot of gratuitous stuff about homosexuality. You 
claim homosexuality is merely a condition, like being blonde, and yet 
you continually compare it to diabetes, a disease. But no, we are not 
being homophobic ...

> ............................As to whether homosexuality is a medical 
>condition (or congenital disease) or not I can only add that this is 
>what it is still considered to be among regular inhabitants in my 
>native Ukraine, as far as I know, regardless of whether smb likes it 
>or not. I hope you are not up to organizing a sexual revolution in 
>that country. 
> Besides, I have a long and very challenging career behind my back, 
>working as an in-house translator for three research institutes of 
>medical profile as well. I am not commenting, I am just reporting. 
>Homosexuality was a permanently discussed topic in The Lancet. I 
>assure you that The Lancet is not smth like Cosmopolitan or Playboy.

What are "regular" inhabitants? Undoubtedly many people around the 
world believe homosexuality is a disease, so what? Most people in the 
1400s believed the world was flat. Many people around the world do not 
know that Ukraine exists, does that mean it doesn't?
The majority of the medical establishment has long discarded the 
canard that homosexuality is pathological. I'll have to check with The 
Lancet, since you imply they are still on board.

Your earlier post that golubaia kul'ture was "implanted" (= unnatural 
and alien) into Russia after perestroika and was "rude" and 
"aggressive" is staggering.

First of all golubaia kul'tura was always around, plenty of actual 
evidence was offered. And societal awareness of sexual ambiguities 
does not proceed in a linear chronological fashion. Yes, according to 
pedestrian Soviet morality homosexuality didn't exist, and yet it was 
quite evident in the Silver age, long before perestroika, but also 
long before as well.

Your comments about the purported "rude" "aggressive" nature of gay 
culture and the reference to a "propaganda circus" is the classic 
discourse of bigotry. For that matter, everything you don't like is 
dismissed as "aggressive." I won't even dignify the part about 
protecting the children from these nasty literary deviations.
This kind of rhetoric has been thrown at Blacks who dared to expect 
fair voting and housing rights ("uppity" coloreds), and, of course, at 
Jews, at feminists etc.
It is nothing less and nothing more than a way to insult people and 
doesn't belong on this list, whether or not you package it as a 
discussion of literature. You are entitled to be whatever you want to 
be. And you can keep inundating this list claiming you're not 
homophobic, but your comments are, were and continue to be.

As far as I'm concerned, both of you: your remarks are mostly 
gratuitous, your arguments ignore all inconvenient opposing evidence, 
your protestations are disingenuous, your tone is snarky, and your 
comments have precious little to do with your official literary 
pretext. They just fly in the face of tolerance and decency.

Just my opinion.
After all, I've read yours over and over again.
-FR

Francoise Rosset
Russian and Russian Studies
Interim Chair, Women's Studies
Wheaton College
Norton, Massachusetts 02766
Office: (508) 285-3696
FAX:   (508) 286-3640

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