Authors

Julia Hackler¹;  ¹ University of Oxford, UK

Discussion

Could you imagine if Aleksandr Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol fell in love while writing Evgenii Onegin and Mertvyye dushi? This is a real fandom on Ficbook.net! Among the sources used to create fanfiction are “classic” novels, particularly the Russian literary canon. These authors and their works are consistently in curricula of grades 5-11 in the Russian Federation and are particularly celebrated there for their “Russian spirit” and ability to guide the readers-students towards particular values such as nationalism, humanism, and morality (Romanenko 2020, p. 28, Sarsenov 2010, p. 503). Value-teaching education goals have dominated curriculum decisions through the 2010s, where they now are steeped in Putin’s nationalist ‘family values,’ which stress strict gender roles and the nuclear family through pronatalist policies to bolster the nation’s demographics (Sarsenov 2010, BBC Monitoring Former Soviet Union 2019). The use of these classic works as source material for fanfiction shows a creative impulse which I plan to discuss in conversation with education, queer identity, societal biases, and the legacy of canon. In my presentation, I will explore where and how this fanfiction faithfully reproduces traditional values from the classroom, and where and how it diverts, making something new from the state-approved curricula.

Considering the very visible exploration of non-traditional sexuality and gender on fanfiction sites, there is tension between the function of fanfiction as self-exploration and the values the Russian Federation insists are in classical literature. I will discuss textual analysis of these fanfictions as well as comment sections and author explanations to understand where and how these tensions are appearing, particularly surrounding homosexuality, masculinity, and femininity. On 9 July 2024, Roskomnadzor, the Russian Federal Government’s supervision of media, blocked Ficbook in Russia due to its slash and femslash content – or content about homosexual relationships. In response, on 4 October 2024 Ficbook announced they would sue Roskomnadzor and told Russian users to download a VPN (Ficbook 2024). Roskomnadzor’s attack indicates the visibility of fanfiction depicting non-traditional sexuality to the Russian government and how online spaces are currently battling for creative and personal freedom. My attention to slash and femslash fanfiction on Ficbook.net will explore how Russian citizens use the literary canon to oppose Putin’s values, instead seeking new or reopening obscured interpretations of these works within communities that are now in defiance of the government in accessing Ficbook.net.