Published in 1906 to inevitable scandal, Mikhail Kuzmin's bildungsroman 'Wings' follows the now rather trite queer version of the parallel 'coming of age' story: the 'coming out' narrative. Though in the second decade of the twenty-first century queer readers hunger for more complex representation than simply the protagonist coming to terms with and accepting or resigning themselves to their sexuality, 'Wings' remains an important part of the queer literary canon.

Not only is it credited as the first major Russian work to tackle 'homosexuality', its author also has the distinction of going a step further even than his arguably more famous contemporary, Oscar Wilde, and tackling the theme head-on: out of the shadows in which it lurked in 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and "into the street, which was bathed in bright sunlight." (p.99)

Indeed, comparisons to Oscar Wilde as well as to E.M. Forster are, to those who have dabbled in both of the former, completely fair in this reader's humble estimation. When looking for a champion of aesthetiscism and its intersection with pederasty--look no further than Oscar Wilde. When looking for a queer love story with a happy ending, look to Forster's 'Maurice.' In Kuzmin's 'Wings' we find both entwined.

Certainly by today's standards (and even ostensibly those selectively voiced in Victorian England), pederasty or, as it was levied against Wilde at his trials, the 'corruption of the youth' is not looked upon favorably. Though commonplace in the oft-evoked 'ancient Greece,' we've come to the general (selectively enforced) cultural understanding in 'The West' that it is indeed wrong for adults to boff teenagers--even if the teenager in question is the pursuer/ offers consent.

And so, for the love of god, if you are an adult please continue to advocate against the hyper-sexualization of teenagers in fiction and certainly also in real life.

That being said, it is pertinent to note that man/boy love has a long history within the gay community of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, particularly in times and places generally unhospitable to the kind of sexual experimentation straight teenagers have long been privy to. (There's also the flip-side to this: sexual experimentation between boys in places like boarding or military schools, etc. was a fairly accepted albeit 'don't ask, don't tell' thing until discussions of the evils of the relatively recently coined 'homosexuality' went mainstream).

Therefore, even though then, as now, there were certainly inherently coersive elements to the sexual relationships between adults and teenagers, it's not entirely fair to write them off as 'not ok' the same way we might now in the year of our Lord 2021.

Side note of interest on this point: the 'selectively enforced' societal horror at sexual relationships between adults and teenagers has almost exclusively been aimed at 'the gays' and rarely ever 'the straights.' Specifically, the seduction of middle-aged adult men by teenage girls/young women and ocassionally vice-versa receives a fraction (if any) of the blowback that comparable male-male relationships recieve. Just something to pay attention to.

This has been a PSA.

Now, back to 'Wings.'

Here, we have the story of protagonist 'Vanya' being inducted into the twin 'cults' of aestheticism and Hellenism by his mentor Larion Dmitriyevich Stroop and his Greek teacher, Daniil Ivanovich. Kuzmin is fairly direct in his intention to link both 'isms' with homosexuality, painting the pursuit of 'Eros' in such a relationship as much more rewarding and enriching, indeed 'aesthetic' than any heterosexual rolling around in the sack could ever be.

The women in 'Wings' get the short end of the stick, two fruitlessly falling in love with Stroop and one with Vanya. Though it isn't fair to say that Kuzmin lacks any sympathy for the ladies of 'Wings.' Nata is a spirited, fairly three-dimensional character, and Maria Dmitriyevna gets the most poignant speeches about love, sex, and marriage. Granted, her failed seduction of Vanya makes her out to be rather pathetic, but even so. There's something there even if the female characters are precluded from the utopia Kuzmin promises his queer male characters.

And make no mistake, 'Wings' makes it clear that living as a gay aesthete and hellenist is,in Kuzmin's view, peak civilization. There is something both empowering and yet distinctly self-destructive in that narrative. One can hardly pass blame on the socially oppressed for spinning a fairytale in which they are the heroes, though.

Finally, a note on audience. 'Wings' is so steeped in references (particularly to Greek and Russian historical figures) that without a good glossery, even the most cultured of readers would find themselves reaching for google. And even with a glossery in this edition, a little outside reading was, at least for me, an absolute necessity and made the mere 99 pages of this novella incredibly dense, slow going.

In terms of where 'Wings' ought to fall on a potential reader's queer literary 'to be read' list, I'd place it well below 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'Maurice,' and perhaps even below more classical texts such as Homor's 'The Iliad,' and Plato's 'The Symposium,' all of which definitely enhanced my reading experience. There are countless others that would undoubtedly be useful context such as the works of Walter Pater and some overview of Hellenism. Really, the references in and context needed to really 'get' what Kuzmin was dishing out in 'Wings' are practically inexhaustive. I see myself coming back to it again after doing more reading of my own.

And that all without even getting into Kuzmin's not uneventful life as an openly gay man in pre-revolutionary Russia.

But if you're willing to lay the necessary groundwork, 'Wings' has a lot to offer both as a love letter to the ideals it preaches, and also as an exemplar of queer joy in literary fiction.

For those, like me, who finished 'Wings' more intrigued than ever by what it was driving at, Evgenii Berstein's essay 'An Englishman in the Russian Bathhouse: Kuzmin's Wings and the Russian Tradition of Homoerotic Writing opens yet more doors for further reading.