Documenting the queer self: Kaspars Aleksandrs Irbe (1906-1996) in between unofficial sexual knowledge and medical-legal regulation in Soviet Latvia

Through narrative analysis of the diary of Latvian queer Kaspars Aleksandrs Irbe (1906–1996), written regularly from 1940 to 1996, the paper focuses on the examination of three themes by which Irbe documented his queer self. First, through the use of the unofficial sexual knowledge he had gained since the 1950s by reading works by early twentieth-century sexologists in German published before the Second World War. Second, through self-identification and identification of others on the basis of this unofficial sexual knowledge and Classical mythology. Third, through continual application of the concept of dark (sexual) and light (spiritual) drives to his experiences.