The HIV epidemic that swept the world in the 1980s left suffering and death in its wake, while also sparking a new moral panic around homosexuality. Yet the shared suffering also helped unite the HIV+ community, particularly – not though uniquely – gay men. If the epidemic led to aggravated homophobia in some quarters, it also created new opportunities for solidarity among those living with HIV, their loved ones and carers, as well as allies in fields such as medicine and journalism who supported them. HIV, therefore, has its own social and cultural history. A growing wave of scholarship has highlighted this history, especially in Western Europe and North America.
Less academic work has addressed the cultural history of HIV in the Soviet Union and Russia, the subject of the symposium at the University of Bristol on 16 June 2025. The event served as in part as a launch for The Outbreak: The Unknown History of HIV in the Soviet Union [Vspyshka: Neizvestnaia istoriia VICH v SSSR], a new monograph co-authored by Irina Roldugina (Bristol) and Katerina Suverina (Konstanz). The book is the first full-length study to document how social and cultural history of the disease in the Soviet Union of the 1980s. The authors analyse archival texts together visual sources (photographs, official propaganda posters), as well as new interviews with survivors of from that period.
At the Bristol symposium, we were privileged to receive responses from two activists with first-hand experience. We heard from Gennady Roshchupkin, who had been one of the first HIV+ individuals in Russia to speak publicly about his condition, even appearing on the popular Russian TV chat show Tema on 1992. 33 years on, the Bristol event provided Roshchupkin with a forum to reflect on his experiences at that period. He spoke especially powerful about the individuals who had supported him at the time, offering moving tributes. Evgeny Pisemskiy took up the story of HIV in the twenty-first century, noting how Russia made important strides in the early 2000s in HIV prevention and treatment, working with the global community. However, Pisemskiy offered a powerful invective about recent Russian policy: since 2012 the country has seen a new stigmatization of HIV together with the rise of state-sponsored homophobia and the traditional values agenda. This retreat from the progressive policies of the early 2000s has left vulnerable groups in particular with a lack of support. Pisemskiy suggested that Russia had come full circle, going ‘back to the USSR’ in the culture of silence and denial around the epidemic.
Despite the gloomy picture in the Russian Federation, the speakers emphasized the everyday heroism of people living with HIV and their allies, as well as their strong community spirit. The event attracted an audience of over fifty people, including health professionals and activists as well as scholars and students of modern languages. We are grateful to BASEES, UCFL and the University of Bristol for their sponsorship.
Connor Doak
University of Bristol