Vladimir Makanin’s story “Prisoner of the Caucasus” was removed from the additional school curriculum in literature for the 11th grade after a denunciation by State Duma deputy from “A Just Russia” Yana Lantratova. She herself reported this to the lower house of parliament, and a video of her speech was published on her Telegram channel.
According to the deputy, Makanin’s work “promotes extremist LGBT themes.” In her speech, Lantratova mistakenly calls the story “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” probably confusing it with the story of the same name by Leo Tolstoy.
“This work tells about the homosexual attraction of a Russian soldier to a captured Caucasian militant <…>. Where did such a text, insulting the honor and dignity of Russian soldiers, regardless of their nationality, appear in our educational program?” — said the deputy during a speech in the State Duma.
Lantratova added that “Prisoner of the Caucasus” was removed from the school curriculum in March. Before this, in January, according to the deputy, she “began to receive en masse requests from parents” with complaints about the work. At the end of March, public commissioner for family protection Olga Baranets wrote about complaints from parents and the exclusion of the story from the additional school curriculum, with reference to a response from the Ministry of Education.
Vladimir Makanin’s story “Prisoner of the Caucasus” was written in 1994, on the eve of the First Chechen War. The lyrical hero of the work, a Russian soldier named Rubakhin, together with a colleague, takes a Chechen youth prisoner during a raid.
According to the plot, Russian soldiers were supposed to give it to the Chechens in exchange for the passage of a convoy. Being next to the young man, Rubakhin feels attracted to him. At the end of the story, a Russian soldier strangles a Chechen, fearing that he will scream and call for help to a detachment of militants passing by the gorge at night.