School of Modern Languages & Cultures

Dr Nick Mayhew

  • Lecturer in Russian (School of Modern Languages & Cultures)

Biography

Before joining the University of Glasgow, I was a Fixed-Term Lecturer in Russian at the University of Oxford and an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Stanford University. I received my PhD in Slavonic Studies at the University of Cambridge.

Research interests

My research explores how gender, sexuality and religion interact historically, with a focus on Orthodox Christianity in Russia and Ukraine. I am interested in how religious traditions shape cultural understandings and lived experiences of gender and sexuality, and how gender and sexual identities influence religious thought and practice. Underpinning my research is a drive to challenge interpretations of religion that foster injustice.

My first book project, Queerness in the Early Modern Russian Orthodox Church, shows that patriarchal traditions paradoxically create queer possibilities. It argues against the scholarly consensus that Orthodoxy and queerness are historically incompatible, documenting the Church’s past disinterest in policing homosexuality, along with its surprising consecration of same-sex unions and veneration of transmasculinity.

I am now developing a new project, Visions of Justice: Sexual Violence and Christianity in Early Rus. Focussing on religious literature from medieval Rus, it explores what forms of harm were acknowledged in the context of sexual violence and the diverse visions of justice that emerged in response. I ask how medieval Christians made sense out of something devastating and senseless.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2018 | 2017
Number of items: 20.

2026

Mayhew, Nick (2026) История русского православия говорит: ЛГБТ-люди не прокляты = Russian Orthodox history says: LGBT folk aren't damned. [Website]

Mayhew, Nick (2026) Hanna Filipova. Male Same-Sex Relations and the Court of Peter I: Turning Muscovite. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. 134 pp., $44.99 (cloth), $34.99 (e-book). Slavic and East European Journal, [Book Review] (Accepted for Publication)

2025

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2025) Queerness in the Early Modern Russian Orthodox Church. Series: Genders and sexualities in history. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham. ISBN 9783032036780 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-03679-7)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2025) European ideas about homosexuality in Muscovy and the Russian Empire, sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. In: Flier, Michael S., Kollmann, Nancy, Rowland, Daniel and Monahan, Erika (eds.) Muscovy and the World: An Empire and Its Limits. Slavica Publishers, pp. 185-200. ISBN 9780893575212 (doi: 10.52500/IWVR3580)

2024

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2024) Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ soldiers call for more rights – as Russia forces minorities into active service. Conversation,

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2024) Vladimir Putin’s history war where truth is the first casualty. Conversation, 15 Feb.

2023

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Petri, Olga. Places of Tenderness and Heat: The Queer Milieu of Fin-de-Siècle St. Petersburg. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2022. xx + 254 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $48.95; $31.99 (e-book). Slavonic and East European Review, 101(3), pp. 574-575. (doi: 10.1353/see.2023.a912482)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism by Julie A. Cassiday, Madison, WI, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2023, 255 pp., $79.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-299-34670-6. Slavonica, 28(2), pp. 122-124. (doi: 10.1080/13617427.2024.2377890)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Contemplating the divine: How Andrey Rublev revolutionized icon painting. Times Literary Supplement(6274), [Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Holy foolishness and gender transgression in Russian hagiography from the Middle Ages to Modernity. In: Torres Prieto, Susana and Franklin, Andrei (eds.) Medieval Rus' and Early Modern Russia: Texts and Contexts. Routledge, pp. 49-66. ISBN 9781032187853

2022

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Petr and Fevroniia’s unorthodox marriage. Slavonic and East European Review, 100(4), pp. 654-673.

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Medieval and Trans Ways of Being. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 9(2), pp. 293-296. (doi: 10.1215/23289252-9612977)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956–1991: a different history by Rustam Alexander, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2021, x + 248 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-5261-5576-4. Social History, 47(1), pp. 115-116. (doi: 10.1080/03071022.2022.2009703)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Мужеложство и современные представления о русской традиции гомофобии. Критика феміністична, 5, pp. 92-98.

2021

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2021) Moscow: The Third Rome. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. Oxford University Press. (doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1243)

2020

Bulgakovsky, Dmitry and Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2020) Xenia the Servant of God, or Andrey Fyodorovich the Holy Fool. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 7(1), pp. 114-120. (doi: 10.1215/23289252-7914570)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2020) Queering sodomy: a challenge to “traditional” sexual relations in Russia. In: Wiedlack, Katharina, Shoshanova, Saltanat and Godovannaya, Masha (eds.) Queering Paradigms VIII: Queer-Feminist Solidarity and the East/West Divide. Series: Queering paradigms (10). Peter Lang. ISBN 9781788746793

2018

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2018) Eunuchs and ascetic masculinity in Kievan Rus. Medieval History Journal, 21(1), pp. 100-116. (doi: 10.1177/0971945818760119)

2017

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2017) Banning spiritual brotherhoods and establishing marital chastity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Muscovy and Ruthenia. Palaeoslavica, 25(2), pp. 80-108.

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2017) Reading the body: Hesychasm in the life of Saint Stephen, Bishop of Perm. Rossica Antiqua, 2017(2), pp. 63-78.

This list was generated on Mon Jul 13 18:22:50 2026 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Books | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Website
Number of items: 20.

Articles

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2024) Ukraine’s LGBTQ+ soldiers call for more rights – as Russia forces minorities into active service. Conversation,

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2024) Vladimir Putin’s history war where truth is the first casualty. Conversation, 15 Feb.

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Petr and Fevroniia’s unorthodox marriage. Slavonic and East European Review, 100(4), pp. 654-673.

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Мужеложство и современные представления о русской традиции гомофобии. Критика феміністична, 5, pp. 92-98.

Bulgakovsky, Dmitry and Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2020) Xenia the Servant of God, or Andrey Fyodorovich the Holy Fool. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 7(1), pp. 114-120. (doi: 10.1215/23289252-7914570)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2018) Eunuchs and ascetic masculinity in Kievan Rus. Medieval History Journal, 21(1), pp. 100-116. (doi: 10.1177/0971945818760119)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2017) Banning spiritual brotherhoods and establishing marital chastity in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Muscovy and Ruthenia. Palaeoslavica, 25(2), pp. 80-108.

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2017) Reading the body: Hesychasm in the life of Saint Stephen, Bishop of Perm. Rossica Antiqua, 2017(2), pp. 63-78.

Books

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2025) Queerness in the Early Modern Russian Orthodox Church. Series: Genders and sexualities in history. Palgrave Macmillan: Cham. ISBN 9783032036780 (doi: 10.1007/978-3-032-03679-7)

Book Sections

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2025) European ideas about homosexuality in Muscovy and the Russian Empire, sixteenth-eighteenth centuries. In: Flier, Michael S., Kollmann, Nancy, Rowland, Daniel and Monahan, Erika (eds.) Muscovy and the World: An Empire and Its Limits. Slavica Publishers, pp. 185-200. ISBN 9780893575212 (doi: 10.52500/IWVR3580)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Holy foolishness and gender transgression in Russian hagiography from the Middle Ages to Modernity. In: Torres Prieto, Susana and Franklin, Andrei (eds.) Medieval Rus' and Early Modern Russia: Texts and Contexts. Routledge, pp. 49-66. ISBN 9781032187853

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2021) Moscow: The Third Rome. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. Oxford University Press. (doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1243)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2020) Queering sodomy: a challenge to “traditional” sexual relations in Russia. In: Wiedlack, Katharina, Shoshanova, Saltanat and Godovannaya, Masha (eds.) Queering Paradigms VIII: Queer-Feminist Solidarity and the East/West Divide. Series: Queering paradigms (10). Peter Lang. ISBN 9781788746793

Book Reviews

Mayhew, Nick (2026) Hanna Filipova. Male Same-Sex Relations and the Court of Peter I: Turning Muscovite. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2025. 134 pp., $44.99 (cloth), $34.99 (e-book). Slavic and East European Journal, [Book Review] (Accepted for Publication)

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Petri, Olga. Places of Tenderness and Heat: The Queer Milieu of Fin-de-Siècle St. Petersburg. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2022. xx + 254 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $48.95; $31.99 (e-book). Slavonic and East European Review, 101(3), pp. 574-575. (doi: 10.1353/see.2023.a912482)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Russian Style: Performing Gender, Power, and Putinism by Julie A. Cassiday, Madison, WI, The University of Wisconsin Press, 2023, 255 pp., $79.95 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-299-34670-6. Slavonica, 28(2), pp. 122-124. (doi: 10.1080/13617427.2024.2377890)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2023) Contemplating the divine: How Andrey Rublev revolutionized icon painting. Times Literary Supplement(6274), [Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Medieval and Trans Ways of Being. TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, 9(2), pp. 293-296. (doi: 10.1215/23289252-9612977)[Book Review]

Mayhew, Nick ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0278-3323 (2022) Regulating Homosexuality in Soviet Russia, 1956–1991: a different history by Rustam Alexander, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2021, x + 248 pp., £80.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-5261-5576-4. Social History, 47(1), pp. 115-116. (doi: 10.1080/03071022.2022.2009703)[Book Review]

Website

Mayhew, Nick (2026) История русского православия говорит: ЛГБТ-люди не прокляты = Russian Orthodox history says: LGBT folk aren't damned. [Website]

This list was generated on Mon Jul 13 18:22:50 2026 BST.

Grants

Corporate Champion Award Finalist in the Proud Scotland Awards (2026)

Student Teaching Award in the category "Best College Teacher: Arts & Humanities" at the University of Glasgow (2025)

Early Slavic Studies Association article prize honourable mention for "Petr and Fevroniia's Unorthodox Marriage" (2024)

British Academy Early Career Research Network event grant for “Global Queer and Trans Histories Beyond Academia" (2023)

British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies event grant for "Queering Russia: Academia and Activism in Dialogue" (2022)

Alexander von Humboldt research fellowship (2022)

Andrew W. Mellon fellowship at Stanford University (2018-2021)

Early Slavic Studies Association article prize for "Banning Spiritual Brotherhoods and Establishing Marital Chastity in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy and Ruthenia" (2018)

Research fellowship at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University (2018)

Supervision

I would be thrilled to supervise graduate students interested in:

  • Religion and gender/sexuality
  • Religion and violence/trauma
  • LGBTQ+ history
  • Gender and sexuality in Russophone contexts
  • Gender and sexuality in the pre-modern world
  • Pre-modern East Slavic history and culture
  • Medievalism

Teaching

  • Censorship in Western Culture (MODLANG4013)
  • Classic European Cinema (COMPLIT4028)
  • Heroes (Heroic Men) (COMPLIT1001)
  • Literary Translation Studies (MODLANG5006)
  • Queerness in Russophone Cultures (RUSSIAN4042)
  • Russian Culture and State Power (RUSSIAN4038)
  • Russian Culture 2 (RUSSIAN2011)
  • Russian Language 2 (RUSSIAN2012)
  • Russian Junior Honours (RUSSIAN4033)
  • Russian Senior Honours (RUSSIAN4034)
  • Transnational Constructions of Gender (MODLANG5009)