>>511069061
>>511069061
>>511069061
SOLZHENITSYN: "They are lying. We know they are lying. They know that we know they are lying. And yet, they keep lying."
The Austrian royal councilor Sigismund von Herberstein described in his report Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii (Notes on Muscovite Affairs) his observations during his travels in Moscow in 1517 and 1526. He stated that homosexuality was present among all social classes.[7][8] The English poet George Turberville who visited Moscow in 1568 when Ivan IV ruled Russia during a bloody phase, was not shocked by the carnage, but about the open homosexuality of the Russian peasants.[9] Adam Olearius also reported that homosexuality among men existed on all levels of society and was not treated as a crime.[10] There are also reports of homosexual relationships between women.
Under the reign of Peter the Great in the 18th century, who introduced a wide range of reforms aimed at modernizing and Westernizing Russia, male homosexual activity was banned only for soldiers in military statutes. In 1832, the criminal code included Article 995, which stated that "muzhelozhstvo", or men lying with men, was a criminal act punishable by exile to Siberia for up to five years. Men lying with men was interpreted by courts as meaning anal sex. Application of the laws was rare, and the turn of the century found a relaxation of these laws and a general growing of tolerance and visibility.
In the wake of the October Revolution, the Bolshevik government decriminalized homosexuality. The Bolsheviks rewrote the constitution and "produced two Criminal Codes – in 1922 and 1926 – and an article prohibiting homosexual sex was left off both."[1] The new Communist Party government removed the old laws regarding sexual relations, effectively legalising homosexual activity within Russia
