Dictionaries and Encyclopedias

*Gulab Singh (active ca. 1830) is one of the rare homosexual *dancing boys known by name. The twentieth century poet *Puran Singh according to one critic had a "feminine sensibility" and was strongly influenced by *Walt Whitman; he also translated into English *Bhai Singh whose poems are homosexual in feeling. Persian and Urdu poetry has heavily Punjabi poetry: see *Influence—Persian, —Urdu. *Omar Khayyam has been translated. For information see Omakara Aina Kaula, Punjabi Language and Linguistics: annotated bibliography, Patiala, 1992.

The first reference to male homosexual acts in Russia is in an English poem by *George Turberville written after a visit in 1568–69, though the legend of *Boris and Gleb deals with homoerotic bonding and *byliny date back to 1200 (first written down in the 1760s). The early *epic poem *Lay of Igor dating from 1200 is also relevant.

Anti gay *laws date from 1706 and anal sex was a criminal offence until 1917; it was recriminalized for sexual acts with males under sixteen in 1922 and for all males in 1933 under the *Communist leader Stalin and not decriminalized until the summer of 1993 when it was legalized by direct Presidential decree of President Boris Yeltsin. *Censorship (controlled by the *Orthodox Church until the Communist revolution of 1917) has been mainly strict except in the periods 1905–17 and from 1991.
The first poet of note is *Ivan Dmitriev (1760–1837) though in the field of *pornography much work remains to be done, especially on *oral poems and underground samizdat (illegal) publications which date from the eighteenth century. The poet *Mikhail Lermontov wrote several homosexual bawdy poems in his youth based on his experiences at cadet school in *St Petersburg in 1834–35 (they were first published in 1879 in *Eros Russe —see below).

The great Russian *Romantic poet *Pushkin—whose career was modelled on *Byron and who was notably accepting of homosexuality—wrote some gay poems. *Bawdry and *songs date from ca. 1840, though works probably date back much earlier and much more bawdry material of an oral nature is suspected than has come to light. Russian also has a rich tradition of erotic bawdy words and *dictionaries (see *Vladimir Kozlovskii, compiler of a dictionary of gay sexual slang).

Gay poetry in Latin (e.g., *Catullus, *Virgil) has been translated as have such poets as *Shakespeare and *Whitman. In 1879, in Geneva, the first anthology containing homosexual poems was published titled *Eros Russe. In the last decades of the nineteenth century the poet *Alexei Aputkin was the lover of the homosexual composer Tchaikovsky (who set his poems to music). The *decadent and *symbolist movements had a huge impact in Russia at this time, as did the poets of the *eighteen-nineties and later *modernism.
The twentieth century. The period 1905–1917, free of *censorship, saw the publication of openly gay poems. These were notably by *Mikhail Kuzmin (whose lovers included the *bisexual poet *Vsevolod Knyazev), *Nikolai Klyuev, *Vyacheslav Ivanov and the bisexual *Sergei Esenin, who committed suicide after writing a poem in his own blood (see the biography by *Fritz Mierau).
The coming to power of the Communist regime in 1917 and the overthrow of the system of the Tsar (who was an absolutist ruler in Russia as in China) changed life inexorably. From 1920 to 1933 very little material was printed and the Stalinist repression from 1933 saw gay life go underground. Some poets—such as *Anatoly Steiger—went into exile. *Valery Pereleshin (pseud.) lived in Brazil after emigrating from China. The novelist and *Nobel Prize winner *Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a poem of intimate friendship in 1938. The Russian novelist *Vladimir Nabokov emigrated to the United States where he wrote in English a satirical novel on editorship of the works of poets, Pale Fire, after himself editing an edition of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin; his father had been responsible for reducing the penalty for homosexual sex to a maximum of three months in 1903.

*Gennady Trifonov is an outstanding contemporary gay poet, a worthy successor to the earlier twentieth century poets. He has been imprisoned for writing gay poems (though the poems in question were only circulated in manuscript and were never printed—an example of the extent of gay persecution in *Communist Russia). The gay writer *David Dar, now living in Israel, wrote the first gay critique of Trifonov's work in Russian in 1978. A huge literature of oral poems relating to the Stalinist prison camps is only now beginning to be assessed: see *Libraries and Archives—Russian. A lesbian and gay archive exists in *Moscow the capital which also has a gay center.

Recent editing and translation in the west of twentieth century Russian poets—see *Vladimir Markov—has increased knowledge of Russian gay poetry. From 1990 material has been published in Russia, notably the complete poems of Kuzmin. Manuscripts by Klyuev, thought lost in the Stalinist purges, have recently come to light. *John E. Malmstad has written an outstanding life of Kuzmin, while *Simon Karlinsky, who lives in the United States, has written the only detailed literary surveys to date of homosexuality and Russian culture (with much reference to poetry). *Yevgeny Kharitonov, though best known as a prose writer, is an outstanding gay poet recently published. In 1997, a fine English language anthology of Russian gay poetry and prose Out of the Blue was published in San Francisco by *Gay Sunshine Press. There is no comprehensive anthology of gay poetry in Russia though one was planned in the 1920s (see *Kuzmin).

A huge number of literary histories of *Islamic languages containing much homosexual poetry have been written in Russian and these works need to be examined for comment: see *Literary Historians and Critics—Arabic, —Persian, —Turkish, —Urdu. Much research has been done in Russian on *Turkic languages and all the *languages of the USSR (the former Soviet Union in existence from after the revolution until 1990); this research was instrumental in recent interest in *oral poetry. *Overview—Polish is relevant as Polish and Russian have influenced each other, being neighboring languages.

Sanskrit is the most ancient recorded language of India dating to the *Vedic hymns (believed to date from before 1100 B.C. and possibly as early as 2,000 B.C.); on the language see the entry in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. The relevant material is religious in basis as Sanskrit was the religious language of India (and is still so used). *Phallic worship, connected with fertility, is very ancient and one of the oldest loci of poetry. The language was replaced in the *Middle Ages by the vernacular languages such as Hindi and Bengali—dating from ca. 1000—of which Sanskrit is the precursor (these vernacular languages are sometimes called Prakrits). Sanskrit has exercised a strong influence on all *Indian languages (including the *Dravidian languages spoken in southern India through translation).

Material of relevance dates from the most ancient documents of *Hinduism, the *Vedas. The texts of *Buddhism were written in Sanskrit, though the Buddha used the prakrit or vernacular language Pali for speech. The *Upanishads, of which the *Bhagavad Gita is the main work, are major Hindu works. Homosexuality, though not mentioned in the Vedas or the Upanisads, is nevertheless incorporated into the cosmology of the Hindu universe: this universe is seen as a unity where nothing is excluded and male and female and all opposites are united, especially in *Brahman (and sometimes in *Siva).

The huge *epic poem the *Mahabharata, widely diffused both in India and in south east Asia as far as Indonesia in translation, is relevant: for instance, in the relation of *Krishna and Arjuna which exemplifies *disciple relationships, which pervade Indian civilization (see *Sikhism, *Kabir). Homoeroticism also appears in the smalller epic, the *Ramayana, which has been widely diffused in India and south east Asia. *Hymns to Shiva and *Krishna by men are strongly homosexual in inspiration, especially as the authors were usually men. Many poems have been written in the persona of Radha, Shiva's consort, addressed to Siva, by male poets and can be read homosexually.

*Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra is a *sex manual written in poetry which has a strong religious basis and one chapter refers to homosexuality. The Sanskrit *anthologies of poetry contain love poems, some capable of being read homosexually. *Tantric sexual rituals which are widely practised in India were originally compiled in Sanskrit and there is a homosexual side to tantrism. The openly gay *Thomas Meyer has translated poems from ancient Sanskrit.

Sanskrit mysticism stemming from the Upanishads strongly influenced *Sufism and such Sufi poets as the Persian *Rumi are inconceivable without the Sanskrit background. See also *Indian Philosophy and Religions, *Orientalism and *Translation—Indian languages. Arthur A. Macdonell, A History of Sanskrit Literature, 1899, is a concise introduction.

Overall, Sanskrit reveals there are strong homosexual aspects to the cultures of India and ancient Sanskrit traditions have continued in the modern vernacular languages descended from Sanskrit. Sanskrit greatly influenced the literature of the two most widely spoken languages in India—Hindi (see *Bhakti, *Kabir) and Bengali (see *Vaisnava poets, *Tagore). It also influenced all other *Indic languages of north India, especially through the bhakti movement and the cults of Krishna and Shiva. Sanskrit has influenced the Dravidian languages; e.g., see *Overview—Tamil. To the north, Tibetan and Nepalese *Buddhism took their basic documents from Indian Sanskritic Buddhism and have a strong Tantric component.
Dictionaries and Encyclopedias. Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition: see "Sanskrit" (brilliant overview). Shipley, Encyclopedia of Literature: see under "Indian". Cassell's Encyclopaedia of World Literature, vol. 1, 296–99 (under "Indian literatures"). Great Soviet Encyclopedia: see "Sanskrit Literature". New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics: see under "Indian Poetry".

Serbo-Croat
Serbo-Croat, a *Slavic language of the *Indo-European language family, is spoken in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro, all countries of the former Jugoslavia (in existence from 1947 to 1990). Material of relevance dates from 1600.
There are different dialects in Croatia and Serbia and the Croatian dialect is written in the Roman alphabet, while the Serbian dialect is in the Cyrillic. The first poets of probable relevance are the Ragusan *Petrarchists, *Bobali and *Durdevic. *Oral epics (notably Meho Smailagic sung by *Avdo Mededovic but first recorded by *Friedrich Krauss in 1885) show close male bonding (see *pobratim); they remain a rich unexplored source of homoeroticism in poetry and a huge number survive. Bawdy homosexual songs have existed from before 1903: see *Songs—Serbo-Croat.

In the twentieth century, *Vladimir Nazor may have been gay and the modern poet *Hamdija Demirovic, who has been translated into English by *Charles Causley, has written a poem with the *Nisus and Euralyus trope. *Allen Ginsberg has been translated as have classic authors such as *Homer. See Babilonia no. 16 (1984), 42–44 on contemporary gay life. A gay literary anthology is being compiled in Serbia by Dusan Malkjovic (information from Gay Times, 250th anniversary issue, July 1999, 88—in the article on gays in Serbia, 88–90).

*Porfirio Barba-Jacob and *Xavier Villaurrutia are notable poets of the earlier twentieth century while the poet *Salvador Novo Lopez has written a gay memoir. The major Spanish gay poet *Louis Cernuda died in the capital *Mexico City. The *Nobel Prize winning *Octavio Paz has written on *Cavafy and *A. Jimenez has edited bawdy poetry. *Ernesto Bañuelos Enriquez, a very fine *gay liberation poet, died of *Aids. *Abigael Bohórquez is an openly gay poet. *Carlos Monsivais the country's leading intellectual has brought a gay sensibility to writing about poetry. See also *Arturo Rojas.