Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov - Biography

Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov (1941-1981) was a Soviet writer of stories, plays and poetry. Posthumously, he would gain a modicum of notoriety for a collection of stories called Under House Arrest. After his death, he also received the Andrei Bely Prize. Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov was known for his frank discussions of his sexuality.

Government censorship and social restriction prevented Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov from publishing his work during his lifetime. Much like Daniil Kharms, Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov’s works were preserved through Samizdat methods and underground distribution. In part, the official rejection of Yevgeny Kharitonov came from his frank discussion of the place of the homosexual in the Soviet Union. His stories often illustrate an autobiographical pathos of a category of people that were denied official status and criminalized.

Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov was born in Novosibirsk on July 11, 1941. His mother Kseniia Ivanovna raised Yevgeny Kharitonov. His mother, who was a doctor, inspired a deep loyalty in Kharitonov for the entirety of his life. However, he insulated his mother from his writing.

Yevgeny Kharitonov began studying acting at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography (All-Union State College of Cinematography) in 1958. After Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov finished his studies in 1964, he acted for a short time. He would return to the Institute to pursue a doctoral program of study. He would write and defend a thesis that explored pantomime in cinematic acting.

Although Yevgeny Kharitonov’s writing was confined to the underground, Kharitonov was openly engaged in many other aspects of artistic life. With a part-time position, he investigated defective speech at Moscow State University in the Department of Psychology. At the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography, Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov taught pantomime and acting. At the Theater for the Deaf, Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov directed plays, including his own play in pantomime Enchanted Island. He also acted as the choreographer for Last Chance, a pop music group. During Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov’s life, it was these theatrically based jobs that provided him renown. Yet Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov considered them secondary to his true calling—writing.

In many ways, the writings of Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov anticipated the frank exploration of sexuality and injustice of the Chernukha media works of the late 1980s, when the monoculture of Socialist Realism was cracked by increased freedom of the press. Much like the reaction to Chernukha, Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov’s frank discussion of homosexuality was considered immoral. Unfortunately, Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov did not have the freedom later artists were given.

Other writers of Samizdat literature viewed the style of his writing brilliant; however, the subject of his writing caused discomfort for many of his readers. Yevgeny Popov described Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov’s writing as “deliberately shameless.” Popov also suggested that the subject would “scare off many readers.”

Yevgeny Kharitonov faced great personal risk by addressing the subject of homosexuality. The official state policy on the subject was that homosexuality had vanished from the Soviet Union along with the social and economic factors that produced it. Alternative expressions of sexuality were viewed as throwbacks to a corrupt capitalist past. Article 121 of the Russian Criminal Code allowed imprisonment of male homosexuals for up to five years. The resulting institutionalized homophobia precluded the work from ever having official.

Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov anticipated the eventual liberalization that would briefly blossom in Russia during the 1990s. Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov looked to the Western movements toward gay equality with skepticism. He viewed the goal of visibility as a superficial. However, Kharitonov chaffed under the weight of Soviet oppression. Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov espoused a complicated view of homosexuality. In his treatise on homosexuality The Leaflet (translated by Kevin Moss), Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov declares, “We are barren fatal flowers. And like flowers we should be gathered and put in a vase for our beauty.” Like many regressive apologists for sexual minorities, Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov viewed homosexual men as having a predominately aesthetic purpose in the world. His views contrast those of such apologists in that Kharitonov viewed a certain apocalyptic trend in the increasing visibility of homosexuals: “The stagnant morality of our Russian Soviet Fatherland has its purpose! It pretends we don't exist, but its Criminal code sees in our floral existence a violation of the Law; because the more visible we are, the closer the End of the World.” Certainly, there is a wry tone to this treatise and such confusion in conception may have anticipated the social ambiguity that would accompany the relaxation of the social laws and implosion of the Soviet Union.

In 1979, the KGB suspected Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov of murdering one of his gay acquaintances. The following year he sought official recognition for an experimental writers’ group. Seeking this recognition brought further scrutiny from the KGB. Klub Bellestrov (The Fiction Writers’ Club) would publish, but early in its founding it provoked police threats of arrest. Yevgeny Kharitonov’s apartment was seized by government authorities. Kharitonov’s associates defied government prohibition to reclaim Yevgeny Kharitonov’s writings. Unfortunately these later writings were later found in their apartments, which were also being surveyed.

Despite the restrictions Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov faced, he concluded that social repression had some benefits. When discussing the censorship and restrictions his literary oeuvre faced, Kharitonov declared, 'Violating them provides the nerve of our art. If they were taken away, our nerves would be taken from us and the ground yanked out from under our feet.' Although Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov addressed his writing concerns with a healthy dose of irony, the innate core of his subversive urge is indicative.

Some speculate that the stress from the KGB investigation contributed to the heart attack that lead to his death in June 29, 1981. Yevgeny Kharitonov died while walking along Pushkin Street in Moscow after spending the night working on a play.

Yevgeny Vladimirovich Kharitonov’s have been preserved in his collection Under House Arrest. This collection represents his previously unofficially published work written between 1969 and 1981. It was finally published in 1993. Kharitonov’s reputation as a Russian writer of homosexual themes is considered second only to Mikhail Alexeevich Kuzmin (1872-1936). The legacy of Yevgeny Kharitonov created a work that plumbed the cultural context of homosexuality while examining the more universal implications. Writing works as a tool to provoke and probe the socially constructed conditions of the Soviet Union.