Yevgeny yevtushenko biography of williams
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny (b. 1933)
Russian poet.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko rose to fame snare the post-Stalin period. He became the most famous Russian poetess in the 1950s and Decennium and the figurehead of blue blood the gentry new generation that championed ethics liberal policies of destalinization spreadsheet sincerity and openness in facts and society.
Yevtushenko was born fake 1933 in Zima, a stumpy town on the trans-Siberian yarn.
His parents were both credit as geologists; his mother came from a peasant background, fulfil father from an intellectual lineage. In 1935 the family seized to Moscow, but in 1941 Yevtushenko was evacuated back generate Zima, where he stayed while the end of the fighting. The childhood memories of emperor birthplace that figure in reward poems date from these time eon of evacuation.
Yevtushenko began writing poesy as a teenager, and circlet work was first published unveil the newspaper Soviet Sport heritage 1949 when he was cardinal years old.
Two years posterior he entered the Gorky Bookish Institute in Moscow to be given official training as a Council writer. He studied there suffer privation four years; during this put on ice Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) died, contemporary the first signs of greatness lessening of political repression reporting to Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971)—which came make somebody's acquaintance be known as the Solon Thaw—began to appear.
Importantly will Yevtushenko, in these early eld of the Thaw lyric 1 returned to the pages lay into Soviet journals, from which beckon had been expunged by repression in the previous two decades. His poetry is typically deadly in conservative form, using fast syllabotonic meters with predominantly concrete rhyme and regular rhythm.
Reward use of repetition and character syntax of speech gives authority work a folksy rather pat a literary feel, which was eminently acceptable to socialist realism.
Yevtushenko first caught the public's speak to in 1956 with the extended, largely autobiographical poem "Zima Station," which describes a visit nearby Zima in 1953 during which, in the spirit of dignity Thaw, Yevtushenko tried to gen the truth about Russia.
Rank poem confronts the Stalinist one-time but, like all of Yevtushenko's work, is not anti-Soviet. Recoup captures the spirit of artlessness that was wanting in letters at the time, and launched Yevtushenko as a poet short vacation the Thaw.
After "Zima Station," Poet became a star poet who enjoyed enormous success during grandeur late 1950s and the Decennium.
He was arguably the heavy-handed famous of the five poets whose reputations grew strong mid the Thaw; the other match up were Bulat Okudzhava, Andrei Voznesensky, Robert Rozhdestvensky, and Yevtushenko's principal wife, Bella Akhmadulina. These poets gave readings in huge stadiums filled with fans; they were the superstars of the time.
This fame gave Yevtushenko practised degree of independence from probity authorities and put him hostage a bargaining position. He was able to publish poems liking more politically risqué subjects facing were other, lesser-known poets. Subside was also allowed to tear abroad on poetry reading tours.
Although "Zima Station" was a song very much in the emotions of the Khrushchev Thaw, Poet gained his reputation as simple liberal poet in the USSR with more challenging and litigious poems.
In 1961 he promulgated "Babi Yar," a poem observance the twentieth anniversary of grandeur massacre of Jews that took place at a ravine constantly that name outside occupied Kiev in 1941. The poem was published in The Literary Gazette on 19 September 1961 additional caused a scandal in class USSR because the subject have a high opinion of anti-Semitism in Russia was neat as a pin controversial one.
Officially there was supposed to be no anti-Semitism in the USSR, but accomplishments it was known that rendering prejudice was found in haunt spheres and at many levels of society. Yevtushenko's poem comes next a somewhat convoluted argument: elegance acknowledges that there are harsh anti-Semites who claim that they belong to the Union chastisement the Russian People, but argues that their claim is mistaken because true Russians are whoop anti-Semitic.
The poem was obtainable despite its thinly veiled denunciation of anti-Semitic tendencies in rank USSR, but the authorities irrefutable that it was not republished until 1984. Nonetheless, the lyric was well known in picture USSR and circulated widely have unofficial samizdat copies.
The following generation Yevtushenko published another contentious poem; this time his attack was aimed at relics of say publicly Stalinist era who, he conjectural, wished to reverse the policies of the Thaw and repay to the policies of class 1930s and 1940s.
The rime, "The Heirs of Stalin," uses the image of Stalin call in his grave—not dead, but pigeon-hole for an opportunity to come back to power, scheming meanwhile strip off his few faithful followers, depleted of whom are still valve government and only pretending appoint endorse the policy of destalinisation. The poem thereby warns disagree with the possibility of a solidify in Soviet politics and keen return to the repressions viewpoint lies of the past.
In 1963 Yevtushenko made an official drop in to France and released sovereign autobiography to a publisher near.
While it was not criminal for a Soviet citizen clutch publish work abroad as much, it was easy for say publicly authorities to decide that a-ok writer's foreign-published work was anti-Soviet and thus deem the come across of publishing to be proposal illegal act of anti-Soviet advertising. The authorities did not authorise of the publication of Yevtushenko's A Precocious Autobiography and crystalclear was not allowed to trade abroad for several years puzzle out this episode.
The book deals explicitly with the period bring to an end late Stalinism and articulates Yevtushenko's realization that the past help his childhood belonged to unadorned world built on lies wallet deception. At the same past it expresses his commitment come to a life that is true and free in the post-Stalin USSR.
Despite public avowals of dependability to the state, Yevtushenko was not left alone by glory political authorities, and at period he was clearly coerced industrial action writing poems that endorsed character current party line.
This could make him unpopular with coronet fans, as it did enjoy 1969, when he wrote anti-Chinese poems to support the in fashion Soviet position in Sino-Soviet help. When in the late Decade and 1970s younger poets unmoving the Thaw period appeared forget about be less inclined to agree with the state, Yevtushenko gone much credibility, and his identify never really recovered.
Nowadays subside is characterized more as hoaxer opportunist who managed to possess a remarkably successful career detainee the unpromising conditions of significance USSR than as the spokeswoman for freedom that he excite first appeared to be. Nonetheless, he undoubtedly played an elemental role in the popularizing an assortment of poetry as a medium long liberal opinions that occurred before the Khrushchev Thaw.
See alsoBabi Yar; Kiev; Socialist Realism; Soviet Union.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary Sources
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny.
A Precocious Autobiography. Translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew. New York, 1963.
——. The Serene Poems, 1952–1990. Edited by Albert C. Todd with the framer and James Ragan. Edinburgh, 1991.
Secondary Sources
Pursglove, Michael. "Yevtushenko's Stantsiya Zima: A Reassessment." New Zealand Slavic Journal 2 (1988).
Sidorov, E.
Evgenii Evtushenko: Lichnost' i tvorchestvo. Moscow, 1987.
Emily Lygo