Article
Author
Between 2019 and 2025, Russophone queer communities underwent a profound transformation from embodied party scenes to fragmented digital networks. While contemporary scholarship on Russian-speaking queer communities focuses predominantly on the damage inflicted after the 2013 propaganda law and views the human rights situation as gradually declining, this article examines the transformation in queer media landscape that occurred during the most turbulent period of dramatic changes in 2022: the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a series of ‘anti-LGBT’ laws, and an overall explicit turn toward conservative and authoritarian official rhetoric. Drawing on 35 interviews with queer activists and community members in emigration, alongside digital ethnography of platforms including VKontakte, Telegram, and Instagram, this article pinpoints a radical reconfiguration of community-building strategies—a shift from embodied presence and vibrant party scenes (LVBZ, Popoff Kitchen, Dragzina) to dispersed media networks with educational and support purposes (Cheers Queers, Centre-T). Tracing overall changes, this article argues that the role of media connections during the pandemic and the mediatization of 2021 protests enabled communities to build and sustain support networks that persist and assist people both in emigration and in Russia. These networks now function as vital spaces for those at the intersection of Russian-speaking and queer identity. This paradigm shift challenges linear oppression narratives, revealing how authoritarian constraint generates innovative forms of queer world-making across borders.
Keywords: mediatisation, queer diaspora, Russian LGBTQ+ activism, digital networks, queer joy, censorship
How to Cite: Tarasenko, E. (2026) “More than Digital Escapism? The Transformation of Russophone Queer Communities and Media under Censorship and War (2019–2025)”, Slovo. 37(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.14324/111.444.0954-6839.2186
None