Also known as Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Born: Stantsiia Zima, Irkutsk region, Siberia, 18 July 1933. Education: Educated at the Gor’kii Institute, Moscow, early 1950s. Family: Married 1) Bella Akhmadulina in 1954 (divorced); 2) Galina Semenova; 3) Jan Butler in 1978; 4) Maria Novika in 1986; five sons. Career: Went on geological expeditions with father to Kazakhstan, 1948, and the Altai, 1950. Member, Congress of People’s Deputies of USSR, since 1989; vice president, Russian PEN, since 1990. Lives in Moscow. Member: Honorary member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1987. Awards: USSR Committee for Defence of Peace award, 1965; Order of Red Banner of Labour (twice); State prize, 1984.
Publications
Collection
The Collected Poems 1952-1990, edited by Albert C. Todd, various translators. 1991.
Verse
Razvedchiki griadushchevo [The Prospectors of the Future]. 1952.
Tretii sneg [Third Snow]. 1955.
Shosse entuziastov [Highway of the Enthusiasts]. 1956.
Stantsiia Zima, in Oktiabr’, 10. 1956; as Winter Station, translated by Oliver J. Frederiksen, 1964.
Obeshchanie [Promise]. 1957.
Dye liubimykh [Two Loves], in Grani, 38. 1958.
Luk i lira [The Bow and the Lyre]. 1959.
Stikhi raznykh let [Poems of Several Years]. 1959.
Iabloko [The Apple]. 1960.
Red Cats. 1961.
Vzmakh ruki [A Wave of the Hand]. 1962.
Selected Poems, translated by Peter Levi and Robin Milner-Gulland. 1962.
Nezhnost’: novye stikhi [Tenderness: New Poems]. 1962.
Posle Stalina [After Stalin]. 1962.
The Heirs of Stalin, in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 14(40).1962; as Nasledniki Stalina, 1963.
Selected Poems. 1962.
Selected Poetry. 1963.
Khochu ia stat’ nemnozhko staromodnym [I Want to Become a Bit Old-Fashioned], in Novyi mir, 7. 1964.
The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, edited and translated by George Reavey. 1964; revised edition, 1981; as Early Poems, 1989.
Bratskaia GES. 1965; as The Bratsk Station, in New Works: The Bratsk Station, 1966.
Khotiat li russkie voiny? [Do They Want Russian Wars?]. 1965.
So mnoiu vot chto proiskhodit: izbrannaia lirika [Here's What Happens to Me: Selected Lyrics]. 1966.
Kater sviazi [Torpedo Boat Signalling]. 1966.
Kachka [Swing-Boat]. 1966.
New Works: The Bratsk Station, translated by Tina Tupikina-Glaessner, Geoffrey Dutton, and Igor Mezhakoff Koviakin. 1966; as The Bratsk Station and Other New Poems, 1967.
Yevtushenko Poems (bilingual edition), translated by Herbert Marshall. 1966. Poems, translated by Herbert Marshall. 1966.
Poems Chosen by the Author, translated by Peter Levi and Robin Milner-Gulland. 1966.
The City of Yes and the City of No and Other Poems. 1966.
Stikhi [Poems]. 1967.
New Poems. 1968.
Tramvai poezii [Tram of Poetry]. 1968.
Tiaga val’dshnepov [Roding Woodcock]. 1968.
Idut belye snegi [The White Snows Are Falling]. 1969.
Flowers and Bullets, and Freedom to Kill. 1970.
Ia sibirskoiporody [I'm of Siberian Stock]. 1971.
Stolen Apples, translated by James Dickey. 1971.
Kazanskii universitet. 1971; as Kazan University and Other New Poems, translated by Eleanor Jacks and Geoffrey Dutton, 1973.
Doroga nomer odin [Highway Number One]. 1972.
Poiushchaia damba [The Singing Dam]. 1972.
Poet v Rossii—bol’she, chem poet [A Poet in Russia Is More than a Poet]. 1973.
Intimnaia lirika [Intimate Lyrics]. 1973.
Ottsovskii slukh [Father's Hearing]. 1975.
Izbrannyeproizvedeniia [Selected Works]. 1975.
Proseka [The Track]. 1976.
Spasibo [Thank You]. 1976.
From Desire to Desire. 1976; as Love Poems, 1977.
V polnyi rost: novaia kniga stikhov i poem [At Full Growth: New Book of Poetry and Verse]. 1977.
Zaklinanie [A Spell]. 1977.
Utrennii narod: novaia kniga stikhov [The Morning Crowds: New Book of Poetry]. 1978.
Prisiagaprostoru: stikhi [An Oath to Space: Poems]. 1978.
A Choice of Poems by Evgeny Evtushenko. 1978.
Kompromiss Kompromissovich [Compromise Kompromissovich].1978.
The Face Behind the Face, translated by Arthur Boyars and Simon Franklin. 1979.
Ivan the Terrible and Ivan the Fool, translated by Daniel Weissbort.1979.
Tiazhelee zemli [Heavier than Earth]. 1979.
Kogda muzhchine sorok let [When a Man Is 40]. 1979.
Doroga, ukhodiashchaia vdal’ [The Road, Leading Far]. 1979.
Svarka vzryvom: stikhotvoreniia ipoemy [Explosion Welding: Poetry and Narrative Verse]. 1980.
Tret’iapamiat’ [Third Memory]. 1980.
Poslushaite menia [Listen to Me]. 1980.
Tochka opory [Fulcrum] (includes Pirl-kharbor [Pearl Harbour]). 1981.
Ia sibiriak [I'm a Siberian]. 1981.
Dyepary lyzh [A Pair of Skis]. 1982.
Belye snegi [White Snows]. 1982.
A Dove in Santiago (novella in verse), translated by D.M. Thomas.1982.
Mama i neitronaiia bomba i drugie poemy [Mother and Neutron Bomb and Other Poems]. 1983.
Otkuda rodom ia [Where I Come From]. 1983.
Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works]. 3 vols., 1983-84.
Dva goroda [Two Towns]. 1985.
More [Sea]. 1985.
Pochti naposledok: novaia kniga. 1985; as Almost at the End,translated by Antonina W. Bouis and Albert C. Todd, 1987. Poltravinochki [Half a Blade of Grass]. 1986.
Stikhi [Poems]. 1986.
Zavtrashnii veter [Tomorrow's Wind]. 1987.
Stikhotvoreniia [Poetry]. 1987.
Sud [The Trial], in Novyi mir, 11. 1987.
Stikhotvoreniia ipoemy 1951-1986 [Poetry and Narrative Verse]. 3 vols., 1987.
Posledniaia popytka: stikhotvoreniia iz starykh i novykh tetradei [Last Attempt: Poetry from Old and New Books]. 1988.
Pochti vposlednii mig [Almost at the Last Moment]. 1988.
Nezhnost’ [Tenderness]. 1988.
Poemy o mire [Verses on Peace]. 1989.
Stikhi [Poems]. 1989.
Grazhdane, poslushaite menia. . . [Citizens, Listen to Me. . . ]. 1989.
Liubimaia, spi. . . [Loved One, Sleep ... ]. 1989.
Pomozhem svobode! [We Will Help Freedom!], in Znamia, 4. 1990.
Ne umiraiprezhde smerti [Don't Die Before Death], in Ogonek, 10. 1992; as Don’t Die Before You’re Dead, translated by Antonina W. Bouis, 1995.
Pre-morning: A New Book of Poetry in English and Russian. 1995.
The Best of the Best: A New Book of Poetry in English and Russian. 1999.
Fiction
Chetvertaia meshchanskaia [Four Vulgar Women], in Iunost’, 2. 1959.
Iagodnye mesta. 1982; as Wild Berries, translated by Antonina W.Bouis, 1984.
Ardabiola. 1984.
Izbrannaia proza. 1998.
Plays
Bratskaia GES (produced 1968). 1967.
Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty (produced 1972).
Screenplays: Screenplays: Kindergarten, 1984; Detskii sad Moscow, 1989.
Other
Avtobiografiia. 1963; as A Precocious Autobiography, translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew, 1963.
Yevtushenko’s Reader: The Spirit of Elbe, A Precocious Autobiography, Poems. 1966.
Izbrannyeproizedeniia [Selected Works]. 2 vols., 1975.
Talent est’ chudo nesluchainoe [Talent Is a Miracle Coming Not by Chance]. 1980.
Invisible Threads. 1981.
Voina—eto antikultura [War Is Anti-Culture]. 1983.
Divided Twins = Razdel ennye blizne t sy: Alaska and Siberia,photographs by Evtushenko and Boyd Norton. 1988.
Politikaprivilegiia vsekh [Everybody's Privilege]. 1990.
Propast’—v dvapryzhka? [The Precipice—in Two Leaps?]. 1990.
Fatal Half Measures: The Culture of Democracy in the Soviet Union,with Antonina W. Bouis. 1991.
Translator, Mlechnyi put’, by D. Ulzytuev. 1961.
Translator, Seti zvezd, by T. Chiladze. 1961.
Translator, Na koleni ne padat’!, by G. Dzhagarov. 1961.
Translator, Tiazhelee zemli: stikhi o Gruzii, poety Gruzii. 1979.
Critical Studies:
”Herbert and Yevtushenko: On Whose Side Is History?” by George Gomori, in Mosaic, 3(1), 1969: ”The Politics of Poetry: The Sad Case of Yevgeny Yevtushenko” by Robert Conquest, in New York Times Magazine, 30 September, 1973; ”An Interview with Evgeniy Evtushenko” by Gordon McVay, in Journal of Russian Studies, 1977; ”Women in Evtushenko’s Poetry” by Vickie A. Rebenko, in Russian Review, 36, 1977: ”Yevtushenko as a Critic” by Vladimir Ognev, in Soviet Studies in Literature, 18(3), 1981; ”Yevgeni Yevtushenko’s Solo: On His 50th Birthday” by Yevgeni Sidorov, in Soviet Literature, 7(424), 1983; ”Two Opinions about Evgenii Evtushenko’s Narrative Poem: ”Man and the Neutron Bomb”: And What If This Is Prose? And What If It Is Not?” by Adol’f Urban and Gennadii Krasnikov, in Soviet Studies in Literature, 20(1), 1983-84; ”The Poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko in the 1970′s” by Irma Mercedes Kaszuba, in USF Language Quarterly, 25(1-2), 1986; ”Evtusenko’s Jagodnye mesta: The Poet as Prose Writer” by Richard N. Porter, in Russian Language Journal, 40(135), 1986; ”’Queuing for Hope’: About Yevgeni Yevtushenko’s Poem ‘Fuku!”’ by Pavel Ulyashov, in Soviet Literature, 9(462), 1986; ”Yevtushenko’s Stantsiya Zima: A Reassessment” by Michael Pursglove, in New Zealand Slavonic Journal, 2, 1988.
In the 1950s and 1960s Evgenii Evtushenko became the poet and spokesman for the younger post-Stalinist generation of Russian writers. He was responsible for reviving the brash, slangy, and direct poetic language of the revolutionary poets like Maiakovskii and Esenin, and reintroducing the personal and love lyrics so frowned upon by the authorities. The open demands he made on the international scene for greater artistic freedom, and for a literature based on aesthetic criteria rather than ideological standards, were partially responsible for the gradual easing of control over writers in the USSR.
Evtushenko’s writing has always been rooted in the autobiographical. His poetry is topical and journalistic, as in Stantsiia Zima (Winter Station), a celebration of his birthplace, a small provincial town situated on the famous Trans-Siberian railway, in the Irkutsk region. This poem records a visit in the summer of 1953 to Zima, describing the relatives and other people he encounters there, and his endeavours to come to terms with his anxieties and the public moral problems raised by Stalin’s death and the revelations that followed. Similarly, in ”Svad’by” (”Weddings”), 1955, he records the atmosphere of the terrible years he spent as a child evacuee from Moscow at Zima Station during the war. Not only did Zima Station provide a source for country characters and scenery, but Evtushenko also began to be influenced by Siberian folklore and folk song, an impact which was to shape many of his later poems.
Evtushenko’s poetic career began in earnest when he was given the chance to study at the Gor’kii Literary Institute in Moscow, the official training school for many of the Soviet writers after the war. He published widely in established journals in the 1950s, and his early books, Tretii sneg [Third Snow], Shosse entuziastov [Highway of the Enthusiasts], and Obeshchanie [Promise], made him famous and controversial with their outspokenness and flamboyance. Luk i lira [The Bow and the Lyre] followed, a volume that was the result of a stay in Georgia and contains many translations of Georgian poetry, and then the final volume of this series, Stikhi raznykh let [Poems of Several Years]. His poetry demonstrated a distinctive lyrical note in his treatment of nature, love, and various patriotic beliefs, celebrating the original ideals of the Revolution and condemning their corruption at the hands of the bureaucrats. It is compared frequently with the poetry of Maiakovskii with whom Evtushenko shares a dislike of hypocrisy and decadence, and a forthright, declamatory style.
Evtushenko began to write more boldly and to touch upon issues that had until then been kept under wraps. Such concerns included admitting the terrible mistakes of the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and 1940s and insisting that the truth be told. Such poems naturally caused a great deal of displeasure in certain circles: ”It will go hard with me at times,/and they will say: ‘He’d better hold his tongue!’.” This sharp political edge to the poetry went hand in hand with the youth’s general desire to reassess the direction of the revolution. Poetry for Evtushenko was not merely negative and critical; rather, it was a form of aesthetic affirmation and ideal statement. In ”Rakety i telegi” (”Rockets and Carts”), 1960, he declared the need for rocket-like art against the persistence of dull, plodding, ”cart-like” novels and operas. This stance, adopted by Evtushenko and others like Voznesenskii, was hugely popular and caused a large increase in book sales and attendances at poetry readings. In a poetry that desires ”art to be/as diverse as myself,” Evtushenko sought to write a more dynamic verse that challenged the orthodoxy of Soviet Realism with the emergence of a new subjective element. As he declared in ”Svezhesti” (”Freshness”) (1960), ”Freshness!/Freshness!/We want freshness!”
Evtushenko’s work and activities in the early 1960s were often stimulated by his wide travels, including visits to England, France, Catalonia, Ghana, Liberia, Togo, and Bulgaria, and in April 1961 to the United States. These years saw the publication of one of his most notable collections, Vzmakh ruki [A Wave of the Hand], which contains many of his poems written as a result of his worldwide travels; and Nezhnost’ [Tenderness], which includes more of his travel poems and impressions of foreign cultures and societies, particularly the last section with its poems on Cuba, which he had visited in 1962. Nevertheless, his political poems continued, with immense popularity: the controversial ”Babii Iar” (1961), a poem that mourns the Nazi massacre of Ukrainian Jews but which also attacks the vestiges of Soviet anti-semitism; Nasledniki Stalina (The Heirs of Stalin), published originally in Pravda, satirizes Stalin’s politics and his followers; ”Kar’era” (”A Career”), which deals with Galileo’s fight for truth against the authority of the church; and ”Iumor” (”Humour”), in which the power of laughter emerges triumphant over despotic power. However, the publication in Paris of his Avtobiografiia (A Precocious Autobiography), with its vivid sequence of scenes from his life and his idiosyncratic interpretation of Soviet history without submission to the Soviet censors, incurred official disfavour and privileges were withdrawn.
Favour was restored with the publication in 1965 of an ambitious cycle of poems entitled Bratskaia GES (The Bratsk Station), in which he juxtaposes the symbol of a Siberian power plant generating light in Russia with Siberia’s symbolic status as a prison throughout Russian history. The poems sought to reconnect modern Russia with its past, and were later adapted and performed as a play. More recently, he has turned increasingly to prose and the theatre. His play Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty, composed of selections from his earlier poems about the United States that attack its violence but celebrate the idealism of its youth, was performed in Moscow to great acclaim. This was followed by a novel, Iagodnge mesta (Wild Berries), and the novella Ardabiola.
Evtushenko has always demonstrated commitment in his writing and although appearing to be slapdash in style he nevertheless shifts adroitly from intimate to public themes. He has been influential principally as a consolidator of certain revived traditions, while his ringing militancy, stylistic versatility, and challenging self-assertive-ness in poetry have encouraged his contemporaries to emulate him.
