A (virtual) room of their own: the exploration of gender and sexual identities in Russian fanfiction

Notwithstanding increasingly severe censorship and the promotion of heteronormativity by the Russian government, some Russian writers have found a way to explore prohibited themes such as “non-traditional” sexualities and gender issues in a space of their own: the virtual communities of fanfiction archives. Renouncing the legitimacy of an official publication and gaining the anonymity of the web, Russian ‘wreaders’ (most of whom are women) have created an online safe space where censorship can be bypassed, and identity can be explored through the production and consumption of literature. Despite being studied in an Anglo-American context and perspective, fanfiction has largely been ignored by the Russian mainstream literary world, and this invisibility has granted a level of freedom that is unreachable through regular publishing, giving voices to a wider range of people that are usually silenced and invisible in the Russian literary discourse. Russian female and queer writers have united on fanfiction websites to establish a renewed samizdat sub-culture, and are building on a long tradition of underground literary movements using the tools of the digital era. Through the analysis of two sample texts and the presentation of the results of interviews, this contribution aims at shedding light on the inner workings of the Russian online literary community, and the complex interrelations between womanhood, queerness, literature, and (auto)censorship that emerge from the Russian fanfiction archives.