You may have heard students rave about a course called “Queer Russia” (RUSS235). Taught by Assistant Professor of German Studies Roman Utkin, the class combines Utkin’s areas of expertise: Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Before finding himself at the University’s Center for Humanities, Utkin studied philology at Kazan State University and Yale University and previously taught at Davidson College. Initially focused on German cultural studies, he turned back to Russian literature and film after coming to the U.S. The Argus sat down with Professor Utkin to discuss his academic journey, his recently published book, and recent political developments in Russia.
The Argus: What sparked your interest in studying Russian and Soviet literature, visual culture, and film?
Roman Utkin: I didn’t want to study anything Russian initially because I am from Russia and it [seemed] to me that I knew it all already. A big turning point was when I found myself living in the U.S., feeling homesick and nostalgic. I started rereading the classics and discovering a world that I thought I knew but didn’t really. It established a critical distance that is necessary for realizing what I actually am interested in. Because up to that point, I was very interested in things German way more than things Russian. But the turn to Russian material specifically was the result of my living away from Russia.
A: Can you tell us a bit about your academic journey?
RU: My journey started with my undergraduate studies in Russia, in the Republic of Tatarstan. Back when it was still the Soviet system, there was no distinction between a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree because the program of study was for five years but one diploma. You could only do what is now called the specialist degree, and then you could go to graduate school from there. That’s why I can’t say I have a B.A. on my transcripts because the number of classes I took amounts to an M.A., but it also wasn’t an M.A. program. With that caveat in mind, I entered the program in philology, which is the study of languages. In Russia circa 2000, you would apply to a major, so you’re not entering a liberal arts curriculum where you can take time to understand what truly speaks to your academic interests. My department within philology was called Romance and Germanic Philology. My primary subject of study was German. There was a lot of Russian and a little bit of English. Before graduating, I found myself in the U.S. and it was clear to me that after graduation, I was going to return, but I didn’t have a desire to go to graduate school right away.
So I graduated and was living in Connecticut. I knew that I wanted to be in education because part of my degree in Kazan we had to do a “practicum,” where we had to work as teacher apprentices in local high schools. I really enjoyed the experience of working with high schoolers. After moving back to Connecticut, I spent about a year and a half working as a substitute teacher, an experience that [was] extremely valuable, but I’m glad that it’s over. That was also the point where I realized that research was vying for my attention just as much as teaching itself. Then, I started looking seriously into graduate programs, and Yale happened to have an excellent Slavic Languages and Literatures department, which was my top choice. I was fortunate to be accepted into the program, and the rest is history.
A: Can you tell us a little bit about your Ph.D. journey?
RU: Everything was my favorite part about it. As difficult as it was at times, it was also extraordinary because of the kinds of friends that I made, because of the kinds of opportunities that I had, and because of the extraordinary teachers that I had. I suppose it was the social and intellectual milieu that was in some ways life-changing. Because of my prior interest in German literature and culture, one of the first seminars that I took in graduate school was called “Moscow/Berlin: Leftists Avant-Gardes in Interwar Soviet Union and Germany.” I’ve been teaching a version of that class since becoming a professor myself.
I was often asked by my American relatives or people [not in] academia, “How come you study Russian literature in the U.S.? That just seems completely counterintuitive.” But, for much of the 20th century, Soviet scholarship was under strict censorship. So there was a whole range of topics that were completely off-limits. And here, I was in a department where there were a number of émigrés from what used to be the Soviet Union, and their perspective on this literary heritage that I thought I knew fairly well, was completely different. It opened up genuinely new horizons for seeing the history of what we call Russia and its culture, its literature, its poetry, and its art. In America, during the Cold War, there was a very forceful school of studying [what we call Russia] in ways that were impossible to do in the Soviet Union. They were completely eye-opening. One particular area was émigré literature, culture, and diasporic communities.
My least favorite part of graduate school was preparing for qualifying exams, but what doesn’t kill you definitely makes you stronger. Also, there was a fear of everybody finding out that you’re actually not at all smart. For a long time, I was afraid that I would be politely asked to leave because there were a number of people that I knew didn’t make it to candidacy within the PhD program. But I stayed.
A: Your book “Charlottengrad: Russian Culture in Weimar Berlin” has been out for a little while now. What have the responses been like and do you have any other projects in the works?
RU: Publishing is very slow and reviews of academic books take a long time to come out. Some reviews are in the pipeline, and I’m anxiously anticipating them. There was a review in The Times Literary Supplement that came out, and the review’s been fairly positive.
As for future projects, Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused a pretty substantial reckoning that previous wars that Russia was involved with didn’t trigger. Right now, I’m trying to understand and reconfigure my relationship to that space, how I understand it, and what projects are worth pursuing. In April, I’ll be presenting at the Center for the Humanities, where I’m a fellow. I’ll be presenting a very new material called, “Outcasts: The Last Queer Soviet Generation,” which will be a lecture about a documentary film that was made collaboratively by young activists in Leningrad in 1989, and by a Wesleyan alumna who majored in Soviet studies in the mid-80s and then created this fascinating documentary. She also shared with me the entire archive of the documentary that she shot while living in the late Soviet Union.
A: What inspires you to design courses the way you do, and how do you incorporate your own nostalgia for Russia into that?
RU: I had that nostalgia for Russia as a very young person who felt very lonely. I can’t say that I have it now. [At] Wesleyan, because we are a small school, but we have a critical number of students interested in many different things, and because our majors are structured in fairly flexible ways, there is an opportunity to offer classes that don’t necessarily cover something that you should know. So, there isn’t like a “Russia 101” class. For example, at the University of Kazan, if you were studying Russian philology, you had to take a course in general linguistics, a course in phonetics, and a course in theoretical phonetics. It was thorough, but it was profoundly uninteresting because of the structure. So, if I’m designing a class I try to make it intellectually exciting for myself, and then worthwhile for the students. I design it in a way that not only appeals to a broad population of students but also does something academically that reveals unique insights about this huge region that is the former Russian Empire.
A: What’s one thing that students don’t know about you?
RU: Well, everybody knows that I’m homosexual, so that’s not it. I’m not Russian. I have a Russian-sounding name, but ethnically I’m not Russian.
A: At the Navalny meeting, you said that Navalny was a figure that you could hide behind at certain points. I was wondering If you could talk a little bit about that and what you meant by that.
RU: That’s tough because it’s also still very fresh and the political reality that we live in is just so bleak. What I meant by that is because of Navalny’s extraordinary fame worldwide, because Navalny was in some ways larger than life because he had this miraculous resurrection almost after the attempt to poison him in 2020 because he came from the dead, there was this almost superhuman aura about him. He returned to Russia when it was absolutely clear that he would not be able to enjoy freedom. Because of Navalny’s symbol of the possibility of a different Russia and the weight of his moral authority, it made it very clear that there are Russians who are not these bloodthirsty, cynical orcs. There was this guy who was imprisoned and placed in these inhumane conditions, but his suffering allowed those of us who were against the war to feel that there was someone who represented the alternative. But with that person gone—brutally murdered—you can no longer hide behind a big name. Now, you have to resist yourself. You have to prove for yourself what it is that you were doing to not only stop the suffering in Ukraine but also to possibly change the situation in Russia.
I was at a Slavic conference when the news broke. There was a reading by an extraordinary journalist, Elena Kostyuchenko, who was presenting her book, “I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country,” which is titled provocatively intentionally. She said that she feels that Navalny’s death feels a little bit like growing up. You don’t have a parent figure and must stand up for yourself. I’m not sure that I share that point of view but I think it’s an important point that helps to clarify this moment of him being a symbol of something larger. With that symbol gone, we need to still support this idea of something larger and clarify what it is.
A: Do you have a favorite story or significant memory from your time at Wesleyan?
RU: I loved going to Berlin with my wonderful group of students. It was extraordinary. I’m not sure that program will continue, actually, but there could be others who might want to take an opportunity to continue it. I mean, it was also a risk that the students could have been unreliable characters, and doing things that were disruptive to the spirit of learning while abroad. I haven’t been here that long, but there are so many memories. But yes, it was this unique opportunity to get to know my students in Berlin, in a way that turned out to be a fabulous story. We created a Wesleyan community outside of Wesleyan in a very special way.
A: What were your favorite films this year?
RU: I jumped with glee watching “Poor Things” here in Middletown at Metro Movies. Also at Metro Movies, we had a screening of “Benedetta,” which was quite extraordinary. Yesterday, I taught a Soviet documentary film from 1965 called “Ordinary Fascism” which I think everybody should see.
A: Is there anything else that you would like to add?
RU: I promise that I’m more eloquent.
Leo Bader can be reached at lbader@wesleyan.edu.
Eugenia Shakhnovskaya can be reached at eshakhnovska@wesleyan.edu.