"We lapse into untruth only when we generalize the truth, which is easy when thoughts are abbreviated, when one encloses oneself within the ambit of a given reality."
– Zinaida Gippius
One of the most prominent criticisms of the study of queer history is questioning how one can label a person with a word that did not exist while that person was alive. The final and most important piece of evidence to prove that a person is asexual, nonbinary, genderfluid, demisexual, lesbian, or bisexual is that of self-identification. Unfortunately, with certain figures, self-identification does not exist, whether that be because they were keeping such information secret for their own safety or because they lived before the labels used today even existed or at least had no access to these labels. There is also a language barrier to consider in many cases; beyond just not having self-identification to look to for evidence, languages reflect the culture of the people who speak them. Each culture views queerness differently, and that can be evident in their language. For some, all these questions and conflicts are a reason to leave the subject alone entirely. Frankly, it is simpler to do so, and it removes the possibility of someday finding evidence that contradicts the conclusions that one spent so much time drawing.
All of this criticism lies on a simple and flawed basis, that labels are static and are expected to fit a person perfectly, and that the point of connecting a label to a historical figure is to end a conversation rather than to start one. Labels within the queer community serve two primary purposes, one to give a person a greater understanding of themselves in relation to the world around them, two to connect a community of people who share experiences. When looking at someone who never had access to the labels used today, the first purpose is largely irrelevant. The person in question is dead; their understanding of themselves and how they exist in relation to the world around them is static and unchangeable. One thing to note about this fact is that it means the person's understanding of themselves cannot be harmed or impeded by a label that is incorrect.
This leaves one purpose for a label, to connect a community of people who share an experience. It is here that the harm and healing done by studying queer history can be found. Healing, in that it can give a community of people a connection with someone from the past and provide a greater understanding of each other and themselves through that. Harm, in that it can give a misunderstanding to a community of people, leading to believing there are shared experiences where there are not. This harm can be mitigated by simply sharing the evidence for shared experiences whenever possible and not dismissing evidence that does not fit the shared experience. For anyone sharing queer history, these two guidelines are necessary to keep in the forefront of the mind, and for anyone learning about queer history, seeing any person or institution consistently failing to do either of these things is a warning sign.
Zinaida Gippius is an incredible barometer that will reveal a failure to meet either of these benchmarks. In the discussion of Zinaida Gippius, all of the conflicts mentioned above are present. Frankly, there are no modern labels that are a perfect fit, and to pretend there are would erase the complexities of their life before the exploration even begins.
There is no self-identification to be found that easily slots Gippius into any given identity. A Russian poet, their discussion of their own identity is held within the culture and understandings of the Russian language. This is particularly relevant in the Russian language's use of grammatical gender, which is something that the English language is unable to capture in any meaningful way. Within their poetry, Gippius made a point to switch back and forth between masculine and feminine gendering, leaning towards the masculine. In the study of their poetry, this has been demonstrated for English readers through coloured text, with one colour used to indicate when they are using feminine gendering and another for masculine. Since this is not a study of their poetry but their life, this is not a solution. The closest comparison the English language has to an equivalent of this is pronouns, which will be used to reflect Gippius' shifting of grammatical gender through their works.
She/her/hers pronouns will be used to represent the times that Gippius used feminine gendering in their works, he/him/his for masculine gendering, and they/them/theirs to represent how masculine gendered language is also the default as well as representing the uncertainty inherent to any discussion of her gender.
This first article will use she/her/hers pronouns, he/him/his, and they/them/theirs.
Born on November 20, 1869, in Russia, Gippius had an early start to writing. Though she received little formal education, she was writing poetry by the age of seven. She wrote about eventually being published:
"By the year 1880 I was writing verses, being a great believer in 'inspiration', and making it a point never to take my pen away from paper. People around me saw these poems as a sign of my being 'spoiled', but I never tried to conceal them and, of course, I wasn't spoiled at all, what with my religious upbringing."
She also got an early start in other aspects of her life. Though she had other options when Dmitry Merezhkovsky proposed to her early on into their relationship, she said yes, and they married in 1888. Hitting it off almost immediately, the two formed a close bond, though their marriage often looked unconventional to outsiders. The morning after their wedding, Gippius was found in her own bedroom sleeping and seemingly dismissed the suggestion that she should be doing otherwise.
When they did move in together, they would keep separate rooms, and Gippius would go on braiding her hair in a specific way that was meant to signal virginity. It is this as well as a number of statements she made around sex and sexuality, that bring us to the first identity often discussed when looking at Gippius' life, asexual.
Dmitry Merezhkovsky, her husband, is often very comfortably labelled as asexual, but with Gippius, there is more controversy. Having kept a rigorous journal outlining the relationships she experienced outside of her relationship, it is not confirmed that she had many sexual relationships. In fact, some of this journal discusses her draw to pursuing a person and her interest fading once the person shows returned interest. At one point, writing:
"As soon as I, assuming that the flame of my flesh is sensual desire, lead my body in this direction - my flames die out. Does this mean - depravity? That is, evasion?"
This being said, there are still a number of men and women who had some relationship with her, and many of them have been suggested or implied as lovers. It does seem that she did experience attraction throughout her life, writing:
"It is equally good and natural for each person to love any other person. Love between men may be endlessly beautiful and divine like any other. I am equally attracted to all God's creatures, when I am attracted."
So while Gippius might not lay at the farthest end of the asexual spectrum, there are many words that could be used to label her experiences as she described them, such as demisexual. One identity that is more clear is bisexual, which is often the word used to describe her sexuality as well as her gender identity at times. As made clear in the above quote, she was attracted to and had relationships with both men and women throughout her life, and this was something she accepted in others around her. In fact, much of her philosophy was based around the idea that love was pure and a religious experience no matter who the love was between writing:
"It is equally good and natural for any person to love any other person."
While her sexuality is by no means entirely clear, it is entirely queer, a theme that will continue into the discussion of her gender.
Before looking into the gender identity of Zinaida Gippius, the climate of gender relations throughout the Russian literary community must first be discussed. A close friend of Gippius, Alexander Blok, is in and of himself an interesting person to look at in the context of queer history, and his views on gender are ones that were shared by many others in the community Gippius and his husband frequented. Specifically believing there to be some perfect version of femininity, and this divine femininity was a spiritual figure sometimes put under the name Sophia.
Zinaida described this view of femininity as well as his own writing:
"In an attempt to define the two radiances that emanate from the two Principles, [Female] and [Male], in general this may be said: they are two equal and equipollent forces of creativity (or Life). Although equal, they are polar opposites: for a spark to be struck (as in electricity), they must be conjoined. Assuming that the fullness of conjunction is found in God (I employ that word without definition), we shall see that our imperfect world (the given reality, the actual person) imperfectly reflects the same divine picture. Every person carries within himself both Principles [(Female + Male)] but conjoined in an imperfect, and sometimes distorted, way. But the Principles remain unchanged, equipollent, and polar in quality, the m principle as positive electricity, the F principle as negative electricity.
Reflected in reality, F is the will to give all, m is the will to affirm all. If the real world were singular and anchored in prescriptiveness, there would exist an actually whole woman and an actually whole man. Then and only then would everything proceed in the flawless circle of sex: the bodily man would conjoin with the bodily woman, engendering children equally perfect in their way, who would then perform their own sex act—and what would then prevent such a world from continuing (or circling) endlessly? People thus constituted would have no occasion to concern themselves with "principles" of any kind, nor would it ever occur to them to do so. The woman would really be then what she is even now for some: "body and reflected light" (reflected from the man). For herself, she would be primarily a mistress or wife (which does not preclude her from caring for her children). Only unfortunate circumstances could externally deprive her of her one and only calling. In such a world, the sex act is rightfully at the center of "love" (Love = lust).
But the world is not constituted in such a . . . not even bestial but mechanical regime. Anyone, after a moment's thought, would understand that and would, I suppose, understand that he does not even want such a regime. (Not everyone, of course, engages in rumination, but that is as may be)."
It was this belief of some absolute and pure version of womanhood and manhood that led to the belief that ordinary people were a mix of traits from both extremes, of which Gippius wrote:
"The bodily differences between an actual man and an actual woman are important, of course. The body here should be viewed as a sign of the predominance in a given human being of the [Female] or [Male] principle [...] the body itself is not integrally reflective of the [Male] or [Female] principle and, second, the body does not determine personality."
Gippius believed that the human was made up of multiple (generally summarized into three) parts, and each of those parts may fall closer to each of the two genders he described above. That being said, the existence of the androgynous was not ignored by Gippius and came into play in many of his works, often being used in characters that represented himself.
One character written later in his life was explicitly asked the question that many nonbinary people will recognize:
"Just answer one thing if you can/Are you a woman?
Are you a 'he'- or a 'she"
To which the character initially refuses to respond before eventually saying:
"But I cherish the name of your ancestor
And for him I will cross over the line of silence
To answer your question.
My answer is simple: I don't know."
This question likely comes directly from speculation in Gippius' personal life. Gippius would often dress as a dandy and would look purposefully masculine throughout his life, also generally using masculine gendered words within his poetry. He wrote about this saying:
"I wish to write as a man/person, not as a woman."
That being written, Gippius was also known to dress in clothing traditionally associated with femininity but did so in a way that was noted by many to be closer to how a man would dress as a woman rather than a woman would dress as a woman. His assistant Vladimir Zlobin wrote about the way he dressed:
"She was a strange being, almost like someone from another planet. At times she seemed unreal, as often happens with people of very great beauty or excessive ugliness. Brick-red rouge covering her cheeks and dyed red hair which looked like a wig. She dressed elaborately in shawls and furs (she was always cold) in which she would become hopelessly entangled. Her costumes were not always successful and did not always befit her age and rank. She would turn herself into a scarecrow."
That being written, it is clear that he was very attached to the image of a dandy which he fashioned explicitly after that of Oscar Wilde's archetype. This image included dress, as well as the personality associated with the dandy, including both the lack of sexuality attributed to the dandy figure as well as the misogyny.
He wrote:
"I cannot in all conscience say that I have ever had any prejudice against women. . . . [I]t simply transpired that my relationships with women shaped up differently from those with men, that a difference was noted willy-nilly—and noted it was. But here again, the main point and the serious difference was not in the sexual sphere. (In that sphere, for me, there was no substantial difference and as far as I am concerned, I never noted anything particular there.) But the main thing is: there was nothing of interest for me in the company of women. I simply was not interested in what they think and what they have to say or how they think and how they say what they have to say. I would take pleasure in chattering with them about anything whatsoever and I would observe them, but it never so much as entered my head to address any one of them on matters of primary concern to me. . . . Truth to tell, I was no particular favorite of women either and was also, as likely as not, of no interest to them, too."
His gender also had a clear impact on his relationships, romantic or otherwise. In the romantic sphere, the people he was with were sometimes people who were known to be attracted to exclusively one gender or another, a phenomenon scholar Jennifer Presto writes about saying:
"Gippius does not so much "heterosexualize" lesbian relationships, as complicate them."
Within his own marriage, it seems that he was accepted as not a woman and supported as such, though there were many comments made from the outside looking in. Outside of the romantic sphere, he did have a decent amount of support, but there was hostility.
Sometimes used as an attack and other times as an attempt to validate him, there was much speculation around the biological sex of Gippius. There was a commonly held belief that he was intersex, a belief that has since been largely debunked.
What is not lacking is Gippius' own discussion around his gender, one of the more clear pieces he wrote saying:
"I do not desire exclusive femininity, just as I do not desire exclusive masculinity. Each time someone is insulted and dissatisfied within me; with women, my femininity is active, with men-my masculinity! In my thoughts, my desires, in my spirit-I am more a man; in my body-I am more a woman. Yet they are so fused together that I know not."
Words like androgynous and genderfluid are common in the description of Gippius, and neither seems incorrect to use. In the end, the best words come from Gippius himself when discussing femininity, writing:
"Thus, in all the tangled threads of reality—in all its minutiae, errors, and nuances—one may uncover the selfsame effectual Principles [pure masculine and feminine]: separated and conjoinable, conjoined and separable."
Through all this contradiction and complexity, there are two stable points, the first is Zinaida Gippius' husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky with whom they remained deeply in love, and the second is religion which would play a large role in Gippius' life up to their death. It was partly through religion that they would meet and begin a relationship with Dmitry Filosofov.
This relationship, unlike others throughout their life, included their husband and the three of them would become a staple in the literary scene of Russia, almost understood as one entity under the name "the Merezhkovsky's."
The three's relationship was very close, all being writers of different kinds and very religious; their relationship played a large role in both their religion and their writing. Gippius viewed the relationship as a kind of 'domestic church' which represented and displayed many of their philosophical beliefs.
There was some backlash to this and their openness with it, but it was mostly ignored by the Merezhkovsky's, who seemed quite happy. Now, their relationship garners much speculation, as Merezhkovsky himself was understood as asexual, and Filosofov was understood as homosexual. The simplest answer to this would be to say that, like Merezhkovsky, Filosofov saw Gippius as not a woman. It is partly their relationship that works to show Gippius' gender presentation was not simply presentation for the sake of their writing, but a part of their everyday life and reflected their inner understanding of themself. It is also something that indicates that both of their husbands understood and respected their identity.
It was only two years after the beginning of their new relationship that the 1905 revolution took place, something the Merezhkovsky's were fierce critics of. In the end, the Merezhkovsky's were forced to leave Russia for France. It was there that their political beliefs and movements became more clear and frequent, including a general disdain for the first world war, and sending letters to the soldiers on the front lines.
The October Revolution only made things worse and incited fury from Gippius as well as their husbands, and the three eventually moved to Poland, then back to France. Eventually, Filosofov was separated from the trio, though the three's relationship lasted fifteen years, and Gippius kept in contact with him for the rest of their life.
Merezhkovsky would begin one of the few publicly known conflicts in their relationship when, in the hope that the Nazis would overthrow the Bolsheviks, he showed support for them. The level of support is debated by many, but it has been said that at the height of his support, Gippius admonished him, saying:
"This is the end for us."
It was after this as well as exposure to what the Nazis were doing on the Eastern front that reportedly brought Merezhkovsky to condemn them finally. Filosofov would die in 1940, followed by Merezhkovsky in 1941, and finally Gippius in 1945.
Before their death, Gippius was working on a biography of Merezhkovsky, Nadezhda Alexandrovna Buchinskaya writing of it:
"Gippius spent the last months of her life working, mostly at nights. Filling one journal after another with that fine calligraphic handwriting of hers, she was preparing a major book that was to become, as she saw it, a proper tribute to her lifetime companion, the one she referred to as 'the Great Man'. She praised this man in terms which were most unusual for her – a woman of icy sharp intellect whose view on people around her was so utterly ironic. She must have loved him very, very strongly."
Gippius left behind a complex legacy, which has been interpreted in many different ways, some justified, some less so. What is clear that they valued love deeply, and they often discussed it as the center of their religious beliefs, which makes their final project a fitting bookend.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
Disclaimer: some of the sources may contain triggering material
Brickman, C. L. (n.d.). The Modernist Russian Lyric Thinks Through Classical Myth. 98.
Iangirov, R. (2008). Body and Reflected Light: Notes on Emigré Women’s Prose and Zinaida Gippius’s Unwritten Book “Women and the Feminine.” Russian Studies in Literature, 44(3), 7–36. https://doi.org/10.2753/RSL1061-1975440302
Krafft, E. K. (n.d.). Reading Revolution in Russian Women’s Writing: Radical Theories, Practical Action, and Bodies at Work. 303.
Lawton, D. (2021). Gippius, Gender, and Textual Work in the L2 Classroom. L2 Journal, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.5070/L213151782
Leydecker, K., & White, N. (2007). After Intimacy: The Culture of Divorce in the West Since 1789. Peter Lang.
Matich, O. (1979). Androgyny and the Russian Silver Age. Pacific Coast Philology, 14, 42. https://doi.org/10.2307/1316437
Mythos and Eros in Fin de Siecle Russia: Zinaida Gippius’ Sexual Revolution. (n.d.). Retrieved September 2021, from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/41230421.pdf
Presto, J. (1998). The Fashioning of Zinaida Gippius. The Slavic and East European Journal, 42(1), 58. https://doi.org/10.2307/310052
Presto, J. (1999). Reading Zinaida Gippius: Over Her Dead Body. The Slavic and East European Journal, 43(4), 621. https://doi.org/10.2307/309416
Presto, J. (2000). The Androgynous Gaze of Zinaida Gippius. Russian Literature, 48(1), 87–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3479(00)80024-1
Whaley, S. (2019, November 20). Who was Zinaida Gippius, Russia’s first feminist? https://www.rbth.com/literature/2014/11/20/a_life_unshackled_remembering_the_symbolist_poet_zinaida_gippius_41541.html
Zinaida Gippius and Vyliublennost: An Early Modernist’s Sexual Revolution. (n.d.).
Zinaida Hippius – Russiapedia Literature Prominent Russians. (n.d.). Retrieved September 2021, from https://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/literature/zinaida-hippius/