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Gennady Nikolaevich Trifonov
(1945 - living) Russia

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Writer

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He was born in Leningrad. His studied at the Philology Faculty of Leningrad University were interrupted when he was called up for two years' service in the Soviet Army. He graduated in 1969.

When he was doing his military service at the age of twenty, the KGB learned that he was a homosexual. Their ceaseless efforts to force Trifonov to report on other homosexual soldiers drove him to attempt suicide. After that he was left alone for a few years.

From 1968 to 1973 Trifonov worked as secretary of the writer er Panova and her husband, David Dar; the latter was also gay. Gay writers in the Soviet Union risked persecution and arrest. Dar's and Panova's fame and status may have shielded Trifonov from KGB harassment. After Panova's death, however, the KGB heard that he had written articles on underground literature.

When he requested permission to emigrate to the US in 1975, Trifonov attracted the attention of KGB. In 1976 a criminal case was fabricated against Trifonov by the KGB, and he was arrested, tried and sentenced to four years in the prison camp.

Released from prison in 1980, Trifonov found it difficult to find work in literature, so he spent two years loading books for a bookstore. He continued to request permission to emigrate, and in 1986 the KGB again began criminal proceedings against him. His friends in the US launched a campaign to protect him, and KGB left him alone.

The relaxation of censorship and proliferation of gay journals that began with Gorbachev's glasnost and accelerated with the breakup of the Soviet Union meant that emigré and underground writers could be rediscovered and new writers could be published as well. And he finally got permissin to travel abroad.

A few serious gay writers have appeared on the Russian literary scene as well. Among these the most noteworthy is the poet Gennady Trifonov, who continues to write and has turned to prose. He now teaches Russian literature, history and English in a private high school in St Petersburg.

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Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Contemporary Gay and Lesbian History, from WWII to Present Day, Routledge, London, 2001 - et alii

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