Rarely you can discover something serious, intellectual, and with a meaning on Instagram. We have been delighted to discover the @homocommunist. A very interesting encounter with ideology and eroticism with an academic touch. The page was created by Alexander Schneider, an editor and researcher based in Los Angeles. We decided to ask thim to sit with us for a discussion.
How did the @homocommunist page start? What is the main concept behind the page?
First of all, I myself am a homo and a communist. For me, these two things are interconnected, both related to liberation struggles which are inseparable.
I studied the USSR and related countries in my professional and academic life and on the side I collected a lot of research and art-related queerness and masculinity from those times and places, and I always wanted somewhere to share them. But I post more than that on my account, which I see as part of a project towards the development of an aesthetic and a history of “homocommunism.” That includes images and stories of all kinds of people I would consider comrades, like queer artists who defied fascist or homophobic governments, or those who celebrate the working class, especially the beauty of the proletarian body. And then there are a lot of men who I just think are hot.
Soviet gymnast Sergey Diomidov, 1968, by Yuri Somov
