Evgenia Debryanskaya | |
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co-founder, Democratic Union, Libertarian Party | |
Personal details | |
Born | Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR | 10 June 1953
Political party | Democratic Union, Libertarian Party |
Spouse | Aleksandr Dugin (formerly) |
Children | 1 |
Occupation |
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Evgenia Evgenievna Debryanskaya (Russian: Евгения Евгеньевна Дебрянская; born 10 June 1953) or Yevgenia Debryanskaya is a Russian dissident and LGBT rights activist.
She was also the co-founder of the Osvobozhdenie (Freedom), a radical group that emerged out of the first homosexual movement in Russia and the Democratic Union. [1] Former leader of the Libertarian Party of the RSFSR. [2]
Debryanskaya advocated for the withdrawal of the Soviet army from Eastern Europe, opening of the Russian borders, and the legalization of same-sex marriage. [3] She was also the first wife of Aleksandr Dugin, [4] the Russian political activist, who has been referred to as Vladimir Putin's " Rasputin" by the Milken Institute, as well as "Putin's philosopher", and "Putin's brain". [5] [6] Debryanskaya was called the first "open" lesbian in Russia in a 2008 interview in Ogoniok. [7]
Debryanskaya is also a writer and has directed auteur films.
Debryanskaya was born on 10 June 1953 in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Soviet Union. [8] She has been described as provincial and uneducated, since she did not finish college. [9] She was, however, wealthy and enjoyed political connections. Her money was attributed to her skill in gambling while she owed her connections to her being the illegitimate daughter of a Moscow Party boss. [9] Prior to living as a lesbian, Debryanskaya was in a heterosexual relationship with Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian philosopher and political agitator. [10] She met him when she was 30 years old. Both were said to have hated the Soviet regime. [9] They married and, in 1985, had a son called Artur Dugin, named in honor of Arthur Rimbaud. [4] Debryanskaya said that she and Dugin were members of the "black order of the SS", a circle of people led by Yevgeny Golovin who studied esoteric fascism and occultism. [11]
In 1987, Debryanskaya, Valeriya Novodvorskaya and Sergei Grigoryants co-founded the first official political opposition party in the Soviet Union Democratic Union. However, she was later expelled from the party for "amoral behavior". [12] [13] She was also a member of the Establishment of Trust between East and West. [14]
Debryanskaya helped establish the gay and lesbian rights movement in Russia in the early 1990s. [15] This was possible due to Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost policy, which lifted some restrictions on the freedom of the press and freedom of expression. [16] With Roman Kalinin and eight others, she founded the Moscow Organization of Sexual Minorities. This organization, later renamed Moscow Gay and Lesbian Union, published Tema, a newspaper that helped advance its goals such as the repeal of Article 21, the law that criminalised consensual homosexual activity. [16] She headed a campaign for the RSFSR Libertarian Party [2] nomination of the one-legged openly-gay Roman Kalinin for the President of Russia. The campaign failed because Kalinin was younger than the minimum age allowed by the Constitution of Russia. [13]
With Masha Gessen, she founded "Triangle" the organization supporting Russian lesbians. It was named after Pink triangle, a Nazi concentration camp badge identifying prisoners as gay. [7] [17]
One of her notable initiatives was the organization of a controversial pride parade in Moscow, which drew international attention to sexual minorities in the city. [15] This was announced with Nikolay Alexeyev on 27 July 2005. [15] The first-ever pride parade occurred a year later on 27 May 2006, ending in violence. [18] About 200 activists were arrested, including Debryanskaya and Alexeyev. [18] She was also involved with movie screenings, press conferences and discussions. [19]
Debryanskaya wrote and directed auteur films. Several of her initiatives were supported by international funding and, when these sources dwindled, nightclub owners. [20]
Later in life, Debryanskaya became an entrepreneur. [21] She owned a lesbian bar called Dietrich, which was stolen by Maksim Kozlouvskiy, her landlord. [22] In December 2015, Kozlouvskiy warned everyone to leave the club to avoid an imminent police raid. [22] Debryanskaya gave the keys to Kozlouvskiy and fled, but no police came. The landlord took over the establishment, saying it would be converted into a "natural nightclub". [22]