Authors

Discussion

This paper offers a queer reading of the Soviet fairy tale film Morozko (aka Jack Frost). It was directed by Alexander Row and released on a big screen in 1964. In a conventional sense, the fairy tale tells a story of coming of age as a villager Ivan travels across the enchanted woods and meets various characters from whom he learns valuable lessons. The most powerful of these characters is Morozko himself who commands cold temperatures. He is capable of rewarding people for good deeds and punishing them for bad ones. Eventually, Morozko arranges a marriage between Ivan and pious Nastenka. Applying a queer lens, we propose a different reading of the plot as it is portrayed in the film. Based on works of Sedgwick and Butler, we look at conventional narratives queerly to deconstruct heteronormative framework and see beyond heteronormativity in general. This allows to reinterpret Morozko as a surprisingly accurate – even though metaphorical – depiction of the Soviet gay male underground of the 1960s. There are signs that support our endeavour: the film openly plays with drag and khabalstvo (camp); gender and sexual ambiguity is not rare in Row’s films; and biographical details of some cast hint to the possibility of personal knowledge of Moscow queer cruising sites. Hence, we look at Morozko as a queer fairy tale telling a story of Ivan’s coming out, acceptance of his sexual self, and of him getting to know the social norms of the gay underground. In this queer sense, Ivan is a gay man from the Soviet provinces coming to the capital (the enchanted woods) in search for a greater freedom. As he finds himself navigating the secret queer world, he encounters different types of gay men whose identities are shaped by different sexual experiences: there are gay men from the criminal milieu (the gang of Solovey-Razboynik); there are those who lead double life searching for occasional sexual encounters in public toilets like Father Mushroom; there are open characters performing central roles on the Moscow pleshkas like the famous drag persona Baba Yaga; and finally, there is Morozko himself, a respectable member of art intelligentsia whose social position protects him and his minions from attacks of the official world. Ivan tries everything, including a bear identity, but eventually finds himself in the hands of Morozko who organises a heterosexual alibi for Ivan through an arranged marriage with weak-willed and subjectless Nastenka. This queer reading offers important implications for the better understanding of the Soviet gay everydayness of the 1960s which sheds light on a fairly poorly studied topic due to a relative lack of sources.