Evgenia Debryanskaya
co-founder, Democratic Union
Personal details
Born (1953-06-10) 10 June 1953
Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR
Political partyDemocratic Union
SpouseAleksandr Dugin (formerly)
Children1
Occupation
  • Entrepreneur
  • activist

Evgenia Evgenievna Debryanskaya (Russian: Евгения Евгеньевна Дебрянская; born 10 June 1953) or Yevgenia Debryanskaya is a Russian dissident and LGBT rights activist.

She was also the co-founder of the Osvobozhdenie (Freedom), a radical group that emerged out of the first homosexual movement in Russia and the Democratic Union.[1]

Debryanskaya advocated for the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Eastern Europe, opening of the Russian borders, and the legalization of same-sex marriage.[2] She was also the first wife of Aleksandr Dugin,[3] the Russian political activist, who has been referred to as Vladimir Putin's "Rasputin" by the Milken Institute, as well as "Putin's philosopher", and "Putin's brain".[4][5] Debryanskaya was called the first "open" lesbian in Russia in a 2008 interview in Ogoniok.[6]

Debryanskaya is also a writer and has directed auteur films.

Biography

Debryanskaya was born on 10 June 1953 in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union.[7] She has been described as provincial and uneducated, since she did not finish college.[8] She was, however, wealthy and enjoyed political connections. Her money was attributed to her skill in gambling while she owed her connections to her being the illegitimate daughter of a Moscow Party boss.[8] Prior to living as a lesbian, Debryanskaya was in a heterosexual relationship with Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian philosopher and political agitator.[9] She met him when she was 30 years old. Both were said to have hated the Soviet regime.[8] They married and, in 1985, had a son called Artur Dugin, named in honor of Arthur Rimbaud.[3] Debryanskaya said that she and Dugin were members of the "black order of the SS", a circle of people led by Yevgeny Golovin who studied esoteric fascism and occultism.[10]

Activism

In 1987, Debryanskaya, Valeriya Novodvorskaya and Sergei Grigoryants co-founded the first official political opposition party in the Soviet Union Democratic Union. However, she was later expelled from the party for "amoral behavior".[11][12] She was also a member of the Establishment of Trust between East and West.[13]

Debryanskaya helped establish the gay and lesbian rights movement in Russia in the early 1990s.[14] This was possible due to Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost policy, which lifted some restrictions on the freedom of the press and freedom of expression.[15] With Roman Kalinin and eight others, she founded the Moscow Organization of Sexual Minorities. This organization, later renamed Moscow Gay and Lesbian Union, published Tema, a newspaper that helped advance its goals such as the repeal of Article 21, the law that criminalised consensual homosexual activity.[15] She headed a campaign for the nomination of the one-legged openly-gay Roman Kalinin for the President of Russia. The campaign failed because Kalinin was younger than the minimum age allowed by the Constitution of Russia.[12]

With Masha Gessen, she founded "Triangle" the organization supporting Russian lesbians. It was named after Pink triangle, a Nazi concentration camp badge identifying prisoners as gay.[6][16]

One of her notable initiatives was the organization of a controversial pride parade in Moscow, which drew international attention to sexual minorities in the city.[14] This was announced with Nikolay Alexeyev on 27 July 2005.[14] The first-ever pride parade occurred a year later on 27 May 2006, ending in violence.[17] About 200 activists were arrested, including Debryanskaya and Alexeyev.[17] She was also involved with movie screenings, press conferences and discussions.[18]

Debryanskaya wrote and directed auteur films. Several of her initiatives were supported by international funding and, when these sources dwindled, nightclub owners.[19]

Later in life, Debryanskaya became an entrepreneur.[20] She owned a lesbian bar called Dietrich, which was stolen by Maksim Kozlouvskiy, her landlord.[21] In December 2015, Kozlouvskiy warned everyone to leave the club to avoid an imminent police raid.[21] Debryanskaya gave the keys to Kozlouvskiy and fled, but no police came. The landlord took over the establishment, saying it would be converted into a "natural nightclub".[21]

References

  1. ↑ Pope, Cynthia; White, Renee T.; Malow, Robert (11 June 2014). HIV/AIDS: Global Frontiers in Prevention/Intervention. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-78029-5.
  2. ↑ "Dissidents No More: Three Russians Who Have Given Up Activism". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Retrieved 3 June 2022.
  3. 1 2 "The Bizarre Russian Prophet Rumored to Have Putin's Ear". The Bulwark. 27 April 2022. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  4. ↑ "Russian intellectual Aleksandr Dugin is also commonly known as 'Putin's brain'". NPR.org. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  5. ↑ "Putin's Rasputin". milkenreview.org. Retrieved 6 July 2022.
  6. 1 2 "БЕЗ СЕМЬИ" [WITHOUT FAMILY]. No. 52. Ogoniok. 2008. Archived from the original on 20 September 2012.
  7. ↑ Millinship, William (1993). Front Line: Women of the New Russia. Methuen. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-413-45671-7.
  8. 1 2 3 Gessen, Masha (2017). The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York, NY: Penguin. pp. 19, 20. ISBN 9781594634536.
  9. ↑ Gessen, Masha (2017). The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York, NY: Penguin. pp. 19, 257. ISBN 978-0-698-40620-9.
  10. ↑ Debryanskaya, Elena Anatolyevna; Yanova, Elena Alekseevna (2021). "The history of nuclear power development in the Russian Federation". Scientific Dialogue: Economics and Management. TSNS Interaktiv Plus. doi:10.21661/r-81173. S2CID 156314433.
  11. ↑ Tatyana, Voltskaya (14 May 2018). ""Мы бежали впереди, проверяя минное поле". Демсоюзу исполнилось 30 лет" ["We ran ahead, checking the minefield." The Democratic Union is 30 years old]. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
  12. 1 2 ""Вы словно ходите по лезвию ножа"" [It's like you're walking on a knife edge]. Russian Planet. 28 May 2014.
  13. ↑ Tolz, Vera; Tolz, Vera (1990). The USSR's Emerging Multiparty System. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 57. ISBN 0-275-93838-7.
  14. 1 2 3 Gdaniec, Cordula (2010). Cultural Diversity in Russian Cities: The Urban Landscape in the Post-Soviet Era. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-84545-665-8.
  15. 1 2 Belmonte, Laura A. (2020). The International LGBT Rights Movement: A History. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 151. ISBN 978-1-4725-1147-8.
  16. ↑ "Евгения Дебрянская — о писателе" [Evgenia Debryanskaya - about the writer]. Live lib.
  17. 1 2 "Moscow's first Pride ends in violence". xtramagazine.com. Retrieved 12 June 2022.
  18. ↑ ILGA Europe (2006). Pride Against Prejudice. London: ILGA Europe.
  19. ↑ Browne, Kath; Ferreira, Eduarda (3 March 2016). Lesbian Geographies: Gender, Place and Power. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-10564-0.
  20. ↑ Gessen, Masha (2017). The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia. New York: Penguin. p. 257. ISBN 978-0-698-40620-9.
  21. 1 2 3 Huetlin, Josephine (4 January 2016). "It's Legal to Steal a Gay Bar in Moscow Now". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 14 June 2022.
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