Mikhail Kuzmin

Mikhail Kuzmin grew up in Saratov and Saint Petersburg in a family of the minor nobility. He studied music with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and, after a spiritual crisis, travelled to Italy and Egypt and spent time among the Old Believers, a traditionalist Christian community. (His date of birth is given in the Gregorian calendar.)

In 1906 he published the novel “Wings”, the story of a young man who discovers his love for men and learns to accept it. It was the first Russian novel on this theme with a positive ending, and it caused a scandal. In the same years his “Alexandrian Songs”, set in ancient Alexandria, and his elegant, light poetry made him one of the leading figures of the Silver Age of Russian literature. He also composed songs and music for the theatre.

Kuzmin lived openly as a gay man in the artistic circles of Saint Petersburg. After the revolution he stayed in Russia, but was increasingly marginalised and lived in poverty. For over twenty years his partner was the young writer and artist Yuri Yurkun.

Kuzmin died of pneumonia in Leningrad in 1936, aged 63. Two years later, during Stalin’s purges, Yurkun was arrested and shot.