romanian Evtuşenco Evghenii (poet rus)
english Yevtushenko Yevgeny (Russian poet)
russian Евтушенко Евгений (русский поэт)


Yevtushenko Yevgeny - Russian poet
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-) - name also spelled Jevgeni Jevtusenko; Evgenii Evtushenko

Internationally the best- known of the post-Stalin generation of Russian poets. His early poems show the influence of Mayakovsky and loyalty to communism, but with such work as The Third Snow (1955), Yevtushenko became a spokesman for the young generation. Throughout the Khrushchev and the Brezhnev periods he travelled widely abroad, giving readings as a symbol of a new freedom in the Soviet Union. The 6-foot-3-inch Siberian poet received a great deal of attention especially in the United States.

"Why is it that in folk songs of all nations and all ages people express the desire to become birds? Because birds know no borders. People are mortally envious of animals for their freedom, and probably that is why we try to deprive them of it by forcing borders on them - be they the barriers of zoo, the bars of a circus cage, or the transparent but still prison-like walls of an aquarium. People insult their one God-given planet with impassable fences (which Robert Frost described with such a bitter irony) - with barbed wire, with iron or newspaper curtain. The division, the separation of the earth's surface, turns into mutual verbal and physical cannibalism. Our lack of knowledge of each other is like that of a blind sculptor, dangerous in his aggressive naiveté, who creates figures of so-called enemies." (from Divided Twins, 1988)
Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born in Zima in Irkutsk, as a fourth-generation descendant of Ukrainians exiled to Siberia. He moved in 1944 with his mother to Moscow, where he studied at the Gorky Institute of Literature from 1951 to 1954. In 1948 he accompanied his father on geological expeditions to Kazakhstan and to Altai in 1950. His first important narrative poem Zima Junction was published in 1956 but he gained international fame with Babi Yar, in which he denounced the Nazis and at the same time clumsily criticized his own country for forgetting the message of the "Internationale". "But those with unclean hands / have often made a jingle of your purest name. / I know the goodness of my land. / How vile these anti-Semites - without a qualm / they pompously called themselves / the Union of the Russian People." Babi Yar is one of a number of literary treatments of a massacre of Jews in occupied Kiev on 29 September 1941. Composer Dimitri Shostakovich set the words to music as part of his Thirteenth Symphony. The poem was not published in Russia until 1984, although it was frequently recited in both Russia and abroad.

The Heirs of Stalin (1961), published presumably with Party approval in Pravda, was not republished until 1987. The poem contained the warning that Stalin did not die. "And I appeal / to our government with a plea: / to double, / and treble, the guard at this slab, / so that Stalin will not rise again, / and with Stalin - the past." Yevtushenko dealt with burning topics of the day with a strong rhetorical note. He demanded greater artistic freedom, and his attacks on Stalinism and bureaucracy in the late 1950s and 60s made him a leader of Soviet youth. However, he was allowed to travel widely in the West until 1963. He then published A Precocious Autobiography in English, and his privileges and favors were withdrawn, but restored two years later. In 1968 he denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the poem 'Russian Tanks in Prague'.

In 1972 Yevtushenko gained a huge success with his play Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty, which was produced in Moscow. Since the 1970s he has been active in many fields of culture: writing novels, acting, film directing, and photography. He directed the film Kindergarten and acted in it, and in 1990 he directed the film Stalin's Funeral. He has also remained politically outspoken and in 1974 supported Solzhenitsyn when the Nobel Prize Winner was arrested and exiled. He sent an immediate telegram of protest to Brezhnev, in which he said that while he disagreed with Solzhenitsyn on many points, the author's explosive study Gulag contained "terrible documented pages about the bloody crimes of the Stalinist past."

In the West Yevtushenko was often criticized for being too soft, but the KGB records have shown him to have been working behind the scenes in support of Solzhenitsyn. He wrote to KGB chief Yuri Andropov, the future general secretary of the Communist Party: "There is only one way out of this situation, but nobody will dare choose it: recognize Solzhenitsyn, restore his membership in the Writers' Union, and afterward, just declare suddenly that Cancer Ward is to be published." Later he also suggested that Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize for Literature, which the author had rejected under pressure of the Soviet Government, should be posthumously restored. "He earned it with his entire life and work," Yevtushenko wrote in an article. His own speeches were constantly censored in magazines. In 1985, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev had just risen to power, Literaturnaya Gazeta, published by the Soviet Writers' Union, left out several major sections of Yevtushenko's remarks about Stalin's purges, the evils of collectivization, and the privileges of the elite. Yevtushenko himself declined to criticize the editing.

Yevtushenko's first novel Wild Berries (1981), was attacked by critics but it became a huge success among readers. In the story, which fused the past and the future, history and fantasy, Yevtushenko dealt among other things with the Stalinist collectivization of agriculture and the elimination of the kulaks, land-owning peasants. The author was advised to stick to poetry. In 1989 Yevtushenko became a member of the Congress of People's Deputies and next year he was appointed vice president of Russian PEN. When Yevtushenko was appointed in 1987 honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Russian-born poet Joseph Brodsky resigned in protest - he considered his colleague a party yes man. Brodsky has bitterly stated: "He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and approved." Yevtushenko's readers, however, have defended the poet faithfully, stating that "you can't blame him that he survived." In 1993 Yevtushenko received a medal as 'Defender of Free Russia,' which was given to those who took part in resisting the hard-line Communist coup in August 1991.

After the accession of Gorbachev to power, Yevtushenko introduced to Soviet readers many poets repressed by Stalin in the journal Ogonek. He aroused public awareness of the pollution of Lake Baikal, and when communism collapsed he supported the plan to erect a monument to the victims of Stalinist repression opposite Lubianka, headquarters of the KGB. In Don't Die Before You're Dead (1995) Yevtushenko gave his satirical account of the August 1991 coup, which eventually lifted Boris Yeltsin to power. In one scene the slain Grand Duchess Olga whispers her last poems into Yeltsin's ear. - Yevtushenko has been married four times: in 1954 he married Bella Akhmadulina, who published her first collection of lyrics in 1962. After divorce he married Galina Semenova. Yevtushenko's third wife was Jan Butler (married in 1978), and fourth Maria Novika (married in 1986).

For further reading: Soviet Russian Literature: Writers and Problems by M. Slonim (1967); 'The Politics of Poetry: The Sad Case of Yevgeny Yevtushenko' by Robert Conquest, in New York Times Magazine (30 September, 1973); Soviet Russian Literature Since Stalin by Deming Brown (1978); Evgenii Evtushenko by E. Sidorov (1987); Soviet Literature in the 1980s by N.N. Shneidman (1989); Refernce Guide to Russian Literature, ed. by Neil Cornwell (1998) - Suom.: Suomennoksia kokoelmissa Olen vaiti ja huudan, Kyllä ja ei, Laulava pato, Runoni, Valittua. Novelli Kananjumala samannimisessä antologiassa. - Translations: Yevtushenko's poems have been translated into English by such authors as James Dickey, Stanley Kunitz, John Updike, Richard Wilbur, and Ted Hughes
Selected works:

RAZVEDCHIKI GRIADUSHCHEGO, 1952
TRETI SNEG, 1955 - The Third Snow
SHOSSE ENTUZIASTOV, 1956
STANTSIYA ZIMA, 1956 - Zima Junction / Winter Station
OBESHCHANIE, 1957
DVE LIUBIMYKH, 1958
LUK I LIRA, 1959
STIKHI RAZNYKH LET, 1959
CHETVERTAIA MESHCHANSKAIA, 1959
IABLOKO, 1960
Red Cats, 1961
BABY YAR, 1961 - suom.
translation: The Milky Way by D. Ulzytuev, 1961
translation: A Network of Stars by T. Chiladze, 1961
translation: Don't Fall to Your Knees! by G. Dzagorov, 1961
POSLE STALINA, 1962
VZMACH RUKI, 1962
Selected Poems, 1962
The Heirs of Stalin, 1962
NEZHNOST': NOVYE STIKNI, 1962
AUTOBIOGRAFIA, 1963 - A Precocious Autobiography
Selected Poetry, 1963
The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtusenko, 1964
KHOCHU IA STAT' NEMNOZHKO STRAROMODYM, 1964
BRATSKAYA GES, 1965 - The Bratsk Station
KHOTIAT LI RUSSKIE VOINY?, 1965
Poems, 1966
Yevtusenko Poems, 1966
Yevtusenko's Reader, 1966
KATER ZVIAZI, 1966
KACHKA, 1966
The Execution of Stepan Razin, op. 119, score by Dinitri Shostakovich, 1966
Poems Chosen by the Author, 1966
The City of the Yes and the City of the No and Other Poems, 1966
SO MNOIU VOT CHTO PROISKHODIT, 1966
New Works, 1966
STIKHI, 1967
New Poems, 1968
TRAMVAI POEZII, 1968
TIAGA VAL'DSHNEPOV, 1968
BRATSKAIA GES, 1968
IDUT BELYE SNEGI, 1969
Flowers and Bullets, and Freedom to Kill, 1970
KAZANSKII UNIVERSITET, 1971 - Kazan University and Other New Poems
IA SIBIRSKOI PORODY, 1971
DOROKA NOMEN ODIN, 1972
Stolen Apples, 1972, translated by James Dickey et al.
IZBRANNYE PROIZVEDENIIA, 1975 (2 vols.)
POIUSHCHAIA DAMBA, 1972
Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty, 1982 (play)
POET V ROSSII - BOL'SHE, CHEM POET, 1973
INTIMNAIA LIRIKA, 1973
OTTSOVSKII SLUKH, 1975
IZBRANNYE PROIZVEDENIIA, 1975 (2 vols.)
PROSEKA, 1976
SPASIBO, 1976
From Desire to Desire / Love Poems, 1976
V POLNYI ROST, 1977
ZAKLINANIE, 1977
UTRENNYI NAROD, 1978
PRISIAGA PROSTORU, 1978
KOMPROMISS KOMPROMISSOVICH, 1978
The Face Behind the Face, 1979
Ivan the Terrible and Ivan the Fool, 1979
translation: Heavy Earth, 1979
TIAZHELEE ZEMLI, 1979
KOGDA MUZHCHINE SOROK LET, 1979
DOROKA, UKHODIASHCHAIA VDAL', 1979
SVARKA VZRYVOM, 1980
TALENT EST CHUDO NESLUCHAINOE, 1980
TOCHKA OPORY, 1980
TRET'IA OAMIAT', 1980
POSLUSHAITE MENIA, 1980
ARDABIOLA, 1981 - trans. - suom.
YAGODNYYE MESTA, 1981 - Wild Berries - Mansikkamaat
Invisible threads, 1981
IA SIBIRIAK, 1981
SOBRANIE SOCINENIY, 1982
A Dove in Santiago, 1982
DVE PARY LYZH, 1982
BELYE SNEGI, 1982
MAMA I NEITRONAIIA BOMBA I DRUGIE POEMY, 1983
OTKUDA RODOM IA, 1983
VOINA - ETO ANTIKULTURA, 1983
SOBRANIE SOCHINENII, 1983-84 (3 vols.)
KINDERGARTEN, 1984 (screenplay)
FUKU, 1985 - suom.
POCHTI NAPOSLEDOK, 1985 - Almost at the End
DVA GORODA, 1985
MORE, 1985
POLTRAVINOCHKI, 1986
STIKHI, 1986
ZAVRTRASHNII VETER, 1987
STIKHOTVORENIIA I POEMY 1951-1986, 1987 (3 vols.)
POSLEDNIAIA POPYTKA, 1988
POCHTI V POSLEDNII MIG, 1988
NEZHNOST, 1988
Divided Twins - Razdel'ennye bliznetsy, 1988
POEMY O MIRE, 1989
DETSKII SAD MOSCOW, 1989 (screenplay)
STIKHI, 1989
GRAZHDANE, POSLUSHAITE MENIA..., 1989
LIUBIMAIA, SPI..., 1989
DETSKII SAD, 1989
POMOZHEM SVOBODE, 1990
POLITIKA PRIVILEGIIA VSEKH, 1990
PROPAST - V DVA PSYZHKA?, 1990
Fatal Half Measures, 1991
The Collected Poems 1952-1990, 1991
NE UMIRAI PREZHDE SMERTI, 1993 - Don't Die Before You're Dead
MOE SAMOE-SAMOE, 1995
PRE-MORNING. PREDUTRO, 1995

See: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jevtusen.htm

updated: 2006-03-28 19:17:48