E. A. Yevtushenko is a famous modern Russian poet, prose writer, publicist. Engaged in cinematographic activities.

early years

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born in Siberia, at the Zima station in the Irkutsk region (according to other sources - in the city of Nizhneudinsk of the same region), 07/18/1932.

His father - Alexander Rudolfovich Gangnus - was a Baltic German, amateurly engaged in poetry. Mother's name was Zinaida Ermolaevna Evtushenko. She was a geologist by profession and an actress by vocation. For her work she received the title of Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR.

At some stage, the mother decided to change her son's unfortunate surname Gangnus to her maiden name. During the execution of the necessary documents, a mistake was made: instead of the 1932 year of birth, the 1933rd was recorded, so that, according to the passport, Yevtushenko turned out to be a year younger. The fact of changing the paternal surname to the maternal one is mentioned in Yevgeny Alexandrovich's poem "Mom and the Neutron Bomb".

First steps in poetry

Yevtushenko's first poem appeared on the pages of the Soviet Sport newspaper in 1949. Then he studied at the Literary Institute, where he was taken even without a certificate of secondary education, and almost immediately admitted to the Writers' Union, given, apparently, that by that time (1952 ) he has already published his first collection of poems, Scouts of the Future. Later, by the way, the author himself assessed this book as weak and immature. Yevtushenko was expelled from the institute in 1957, citing “disciplinary sanctions”, but in fact because he was among those who supported V. D. Dudintsev’s novel “Not by Bread Alone”.

During the "Khrushchev thaw"

From the end of the 50s of the twentieth century, a period began when a real poetic boom reigned in the country. Everyone had on their lips the names of young poets B. Akhmadulina, A. Voznesensky, R. Rozhdestvensky, E. Yevtushenko, as well as an older poet and bard B. Okudzhava. Their poems were copied from notebook to notebook (books were then in great short supply), every self-respecting student in friendly conversations tried to “show off his intellect” - to quote the line of these poets by heart. Their work was indeed fresh, unusual and independent.

Poets performed to huge audiences: in stadiums, in assembly halls of universities. And Yevtushenko was then at the peak of his popularity. And poetic evenings in the hall of the Polytechnic Museum with the participation of the poets of the aforementioned galaxy beloved by the whole country have become a kind of symbol of the “thaw”. It was during these years that E. Yevtushenko published several collections that immediately became wildly popular: “Third Snow”, “Highway of Enthusiasts”, “Promise”, “Apple”, “Tenderness”, “Wave of the Hand”.

Variety of topics

Yevtushenko's poetry was distinguished by a wide range of moods, a variety of themes and genres. In his poems and poems there was patriotic pathos, and subtle intimate lyricism, and an anti-war spirit, and reflections on the historical fate of the motherland, on creative work and politics. The titles of the works speak for themselves: "Bratskaya HPP", "Northern allowance", "Corrida", "Under the skin of the Statue of Liberty", "Dove in Santiago", "Stalin's heirs", "Babi Yar", "Proseka", "Party cards ”, “Tanks are moving through Prague” and others.

The simplicity and accessibility of Yevtushenko's poems, the narrative and richness of figurative details contributed to the success. Despite the many scandals around his work, the negative reviews about him as a poet and a man of such authoritative people as Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky (1972), Andrei Tarkovsky, some literary critics, Yevgeny Yevtushenko continued to publish his works in such popular magazines as "Youth", "Banner", "New World", and release all new books. And the composer Gleb May even wrote a rock opera based on his poems “White Snows Are Falling”, which premiered in 2007 on the stage of the Olimpiysky sports complex.

In support of dissidents

It is known that Yevtushenko was among those few writers who publicly spoke in defense of the disgraced dissidents Brodsky, Daniel, Solzhenitsyn. But this did not prevent Joseph Brodsky from disliking Yevtushenko and sharply criticizing him. In the early 90s, Yevtushenko left for the United States to teach at the University of Tulsa (Oklahoma). He was married four times and has five sons. He died on April 1, 2017.

I-DIFFERENT
POETRY OF YEVGENY YEVTUSHENKO
Yevtushenko is a comprehensively talented and very popular poet of our time, many of his poems set to music have become hits. He is also a director, I happened to star in his film "Stalin's Funeral", where he was also the author of the script, and, apparently, the hero.
How did a young man from the Siberian village of Zima become a famous poet?
Yevtushenko is very vital, he knows how to write talentedly about everything - from the first snow to such an “industrial” topic as the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station.
His heroes are innumerable - they are ordinary people and working people - a cashier, bartenders, saleswomen, elevator attendants and jazzmen. The poet reveals not only their work. But also their soul. So, the rude employee of "Balchug" turns, thanks to the warmth, into a tender girl.
The poet often turns to metaphor and reincarnation. Here is the car that has become a home. Or "When your face rose," like the Sun. Or he enters the image of a wallet offering its treasure.
The poet and lyrical hero are the embodiment of movement. He loves novelty and gets tired of the routine.
“I am different,” he writes. ("Prologue").
“I know - you will tell me: where is integrity?
Oh, there is great value in all this!”
Maybe he lacks a dogmatic core, his views on life are changing. But his strength is the knowledge of life. Here he writes about the station and Winter. What details in the description of a quiet village! Here is the biography of his grandfathers - soldiers, and childhood memories, when now "everything has become smaller." A warm welcome from relatives, and the ambiguous attitude of people to the death of Stalin. And how many characters: a girl whose husband drinks. Two uncles. Moscow journalist who "blown away the sails". Someone called it a "hole". But what kind of life is there, and how does the poet describe it.
The theme of the Motherland is a cross-cutting one for Yevtushenko. He loves her, but not with blind love, but critically. Then, in 1953, "time to think." Everyone thinks. The fifties in general are a time of searching.
“Everything thinks: doctor of medicine,
What in the boat complains to his wife,
And a woman on a motorcycle
Flying sheer on the rock. ("Park")
"I have two favorites - the revolution and you."
But he is against the pomposity of holiday anniversaries. Later, this is especially evident in the "Bratskaya HPP", he rejects Stalin and Stalinism, appeals to Lenin.
Also in the poem is his favorite hero - Vladimir Mayakovsky - a tribune and an enemy of vulgarity.
It is no coincidence that the hero of the film "Stalin's Funeral" Zhenya was called "Mayakovsky" in the class. Here is the sympathetic poem "Mayakovsky's Mother". He compares himself with Stenka Razin.
"Best of a generation,
Take me as a trumpeter!”
But sometimes the spirit of denial appears in the poet. "I scold everything outright." “In pursuit of cheap popularity,” evil tongues say about him. The poet opposes grounded philistinism. In the then well-being Yevtushenko sees an echo of the tragedy "The commissars are walking in orderly rows, who died for me." And the poem "Bratskaya HPP" is crowned with Bulat Okudzhava's song "And commissars in dusty helmets."
“Citizenship is an awkward talent
Why drag, like on a rope,
Haughtily snorting - to her.
And yet, which has become a textbook: “The bed is already made,
And you stand bewildered, and repeat in a whisper: what then ... "- is this about the death of Stalin, or personal? And even officialdom: the song “Do Russians want wars?”, But now we know firsthand about the war.
Yevtushenko is a child of the war, and he remembers a lot about it. Both fathers and his senior comrades were at the front. "Oh, weddings in war days
deceptive comfort
Words are unrevealed
About the fact that they won’t kill ”… (“Weddings”)
He was a Soviet poet through and through. But after perestroika, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, having become disillusioned with socialism, will become a democrat.
Yevtushenko himself is a Cosmopolitan. He writes about Tatars and Jews. He is "embarrassed not to know either Buinos Aires or Orco". He travels the world, which results in a cycle of American poems. America has a great Hemingway. But he also notices her callousness and alienation. It glorifies the national Cuban hero José Antonio.
In recent years, the poet lives in the United States.
In his youth, the poet already had a foretaste of a glorious future.
"He will rise recognized above the world
And say new words
And new words were spoken! Yevtushenko is in a hurry to live
“Do not be afraid to be young and early.
Being young and late is the trouble!”
But he writes with sympathy about the losers: "In every business there is a random boy."
“Citizens, listen to me” - in fact, is it necessary to publish if the poems are “not very good”? Now, when you can print any poems at your own expense, this is especially true.
True poetry is a challenge.
“Great talent always worries
And with the heat of the head circling
It may not look like a rebellion,
And at the beginning of the rebellion.
Eccentricity is always a rebellion against the ordinary - voluntarily or involuntarily.
Later, the poet, realizing that youth with its maximalism is leaving, inspires other fighters:
"Come on boys, come on, be brave."
Sometimes courage is simple honesty. But the moment will come for the youth, and they will begin to "get kinder from their own cruelty."
Yevtushenko's poems are humane. In the poem “In Memory of Ksenia Nekrasova,” he writes: “There are no uninteresting people in the world.” All people are interesting in their own way.
"He was interesting among people
By its very invisibility."
The poet's poems are deeply psychological, Yevtushenko's volume will replace a good psychology textbook!
"I'm greedy for people
And everything is greedy," he admits.
“It’s scary not to understand each other…
But it’s just as scary to understand each other in everything ”Also in the poem“ Depth ”:
“I know there is sometimes danger
In the serenity of the waves
After all, streams ringing clarity -
Not yet a sign of depth.
But I also know something else
And I don't bet a dime
Pointlessly deep pool,
Where you can't see anything."
He is not a supporter of extremes, he is close to the golden mean.
In the poem "Two Cities", the author rushes between them - the city "Yes", where everything is possible, but boring, and the dreary hard city "No", which, however, gives the nerve to life.
Subtlety in his love lyrics. He conveys well all the nuances and all the complexity of the relationship.
“You are big in love. You are brave
I am timid at every step.
I won't harm you
And good - I can hardly do it. ” The poet writes about cowardice, and the most inherent.
"We love hypocritically, carefully
We are friends half-heartedly, timidly. He is full of hope - and confused.
"Give me wealth
They didn’t say what to do with him” - is it about youth, or about talent?
"I'm playing smart in front of a fool
And I am becoming more and more a fool ”- not in the eyebrow, but in the eye!
Yevgeny Yevtushenko has many poems about love. The poet understands and sympathizes with his female heroines. He wants them to be free from sorrow, but he is unable to do this.
His hero understands his girlfriends, takes care of their peace. But he is rushing about, looking, from the outside it looks. Like a betrayal, but not without it.
He is the author of the famous song “Think of me on a spring night”. He was married to Bella Akhmadulina, dedicated his poems to her
"But I feel the breath of participation
And your face floats out of the dark
And a distant voice: "Don't be separated..."
Comrade devils, and again you ... The relationship was uneven, but dedications to her entered immortality like a song from the movie "Irony of Fate":
"That's what's happening to me." These songs are soulful and deep. And “Beloved, sleep” is original - this is a lullaby ... for a woman.
Love is sometimes, alas, superfluous, as in the poem "An Extra Miracle." Beauty breaks into the established order of things as an uninvited guest.
"You are kind, and you can not find fault,
But in its compassion of evil.
If you weren't so beautiful
It wouldn't be so terrible. "
"Every woman is guilty
A gift - without the possibility of a gift "(" Anticipation of the Verse ")
But the sad poem "Procession with the Madonna" at first - girls in white with hope, and a portrait with the Madonna - a symbol that separates them from the future - women in black with a difficult past, deceit ...
Later, a sense of maturity comes to the poet. Poems become more sustained and trimmed. He recalls his youth with nostalgia.
There - parties of poets well known to his "colleagues" "Let it seem like a game
It is not in vain that we huff in these disputes. He writes about the century: “I am older than myself at your 33”, “Mothers are leaving”.
The years go by
"Other times have come
Other names have come up."
Yevtushenko uses an interesting metaphor here. The new names are now "leaders", but not in the literal sense, the poet calls the youth living to the fullest the leaders. And for the older ones, “Only experience remains.”
"It's autumn inside of me," he admits. The poem contains thoughts about the meaning of life, about the eternal. The poem "White snows are coming" became a song.
"White snows are falling
Like at all times
Like under Pushkin. Stenke,
And after me."
Yevtushenko spoke with the poet Joseph Brodsky. To this poem, he and Brodsky wrote a tsinton - an alternation of lines under the common pseudonym Brodenko.
The poet turns to the theme of the classics. And this is not surprising. They are the heralds of generations, and they are also the forerunners.
The poet's life is tragic. “Poets in Russia were born
With a d'Anthes bullet in my chest." ("Lermontov") Lermontov had a difficult fate. No wonder he lived so little. Poem by M.Yu. Lermontov's "On the death of a poet" displeased the chief of the gendarmes, Benckendorff.
But the gendarme hears the refrain "There is God's judgment ..." In the poem "Pushkin Pass, Yevtushenko compares himself with the new Chatsky. The fate of the classics of Pushkin's time is sad. But they have remained for centuries. But the poet is looking for the secrets of their genius. And hopes to overcome the symbolic Pushkin Pass.
“And we must not give up before laziness,
To break ourselves without half measures,
And at their forerunners in overcoming -
Do not look for an example in weaknesses.
The history of the poem "Bratskaya HPP" is interesting. Yevtushenko stood up for dissidents, and for this he was "exiled" to the north, to Zima station. And the poet, in order to rehabilitate himself, writes a poem about the builders of a power plant in Bratsk, in the same region. Perhaps there was a social order? Life is complicated.
In the poem "Bratskaya HPP" the poet also appeals to the classics. For each, he finds a brief and apt description. The poem is not only about the builders, it contains the history of the revolutionaries of Russia and the Soviet history, it shows in the faces of the participants in the construction of the power plant the Peasant girl Nyushka, the Bolshevik, but also the local peasant Ivan Stepanovich, who, having seen the hydroelectric power station, died of confusion ... It is about morality, and its flaws, about love and about poetry. It is made in the form of a dispute between the Egyptian Pyramid, which was built by slaves, and the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant, which was built by enthusiasts, and the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant wins. “We are not slaves,” people say, and this poem, the song of socialism, is much praised by Lenin. Then the author changed his attitude to this poem, and changed a lot. But in October 2015, he gave a concert in Luzhniki "A poet in Russia is more than a poet", which was based on his poems from the "Bratskaya HPP", and poems of poets about whom he wrote there.
Time is running.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko was fond of form at the Literary Institute. He masterfully uses it. In the same Bratsk HPP, the rhythm conveys the mood of each movement - from Mayakovsky's "ladder" to the heavy syllable of the movement "In a Moment of Weakness". In addition to traditional rhymes, he has many inventions of his own. So, he uses internal rhymes: "dudes - with calves", full rhymes: "buy - fico", "pity - greed." The poem “White snows are falling”, despite the failure of stress and declension, is piercingly sincere.
All these advantages - a huge variety of topics and styles, aphorism, sincerity, citizenship and vitality make him a great poet, and his poems - a wonderful encyclopedia of life.
PART 2
Late Yevtushenko in his works, having parted a little with lightness and emotionality, becomes more mature, and sometimes tragic. From idealism he moves to realism. Here is a poem "for your information", where he states: youth is unique. Yevtushenko said that he has an unusual biography: "I went from Kamchatka to Vologda." "Borders get in my way," he wrote. And as if in the fulfillment of his desires - he himself is the most traveling poet: the USA, Portugal, Latin America. And he introduced us with his poems and poems. readers, with these countries.
He compares the artist with silent cinema - this is not only psychologism, but also imagery! In 1975, the poet wrote a wonderful poem "Alder Earring", which became a song for the film "And it's all about him." Many of the songs that we have loved since childhood are the songs of Yevtushenko - “This is what is happening to me”, “Do the Russians want wars”! Yevtushenko has a great sense of humor. "To give a damn" - Fenya is personified by a sticky, ugly woman. In the poem "mind and stupidity" the poet refutes the traditional criteria. "You will not find warmth in a cold serpent" "A man is not a man when there is no blissful stupidity of impulses in him." As a dialectician, Yevtushenko concludes that stupidity is a shadow of the mind.
"What does it mean to be wiser,
When will the soul of unbelief sip the poison?
Let my memory change me better
But let trust be with me!"
Yevtushenko is the first to notice the late Soviet grimaces - philistinism, bureaucracy, and makes fun of it. These are hucksters who profit from the memory of Vysotsky, and dudes in "Mom and the Neutron Bomb", "garbage in which the whole world is bogged down" - cars, "Ostankino needle" on which people were put, he is the discoverer of this expression. The poet complains about the lack of wind, the symbol of "stagnation". He waits for the wind of change... but the wind can also blow away the right past things. and the poet himself. The poet seemed to foresee all the paradoxes of the coming "perestroika", and he himself was its engine, in fact. A sad poem about a "drunken cow". being led to the slaughter. The poet writes a lot about the sad, but he is an optimist, this is the secret of his success. The poem "There is no poet outside the people" is characteristic, where the poet stands up against both window dressing and against ignorance and swagger, and against "sang along."
"There's alienation sang along
What is the connection with the people sang along?
Dump trucks scare him
he yearned for bast shoes."
The poet is not at all a soil worker, yearning for peasant Rus'. He's more of a westerner. In the poem "Nepryadva", he also touches on the dispute between the "Westerners" and the Slavophiles. "In his opinion, they have long been reconciled ... Pushkin, having united everything in himself. The poet is ready to sing such signs of progress as Kamaz, oil rigs, and - the built Bratsk HPS!. He sings of work - the work of a builder, the work of a worker, and a good poet is also a worker! Well, who is a poet? In his opinion, a poet is not a pure esthete, but not a "worker", he must know the culture. Well, it turns out involuntarily that the poet, even in a socialist country ... is slightly bourgeois. In Yevtushenko, Soviet romance and revolutionism are still strong, but still not “leftism.” Salvador Allende is closer to him than extreme communists (“The Dove from Santiago”).
In general, according to Yevtushenko, one can trace life in the country and its changes, he is historical, he studies and knows history, he worked a lot in the archives.
In the poem "Kazan University" the poet reflects the history of the university. As always, he approaches in a versatile way: Kazan is both the Tatar capital and the birthplace of the university, well, its main student is V. Ulyanov. And it turns out that the poem is about free-thinking fighters for the revolution, and their opponents. Lenin is the central figure of the poem, but the background that raised him is also important - time, forerunners and associates, but "there are no uninteresting people in the world", they are interesting in themselves - the poet is masterfully able to describe the simplest hero, what can we say about interesting ones? And these heroes are not idols, but living people with their weaknesses and illnesses. And through the lips of Professor Lesfarga, he pronounces the word "glasnost", which has entered perestroika.
This poem is an excursion into yesterday, which made it possible to understand Today and even Tomorrow, which will happen at the end of the 20th century.
In 1978, there was a rumor about Yevtushenko's suicide. At the same time, a coup took place in Chile, and the dictatorship of General Pinochet was established. The poet writes the poem "The Dove from Santiago" about the Chilean events. Salvador Allende, a leftist socialist, did not want and could not prevent the impending coup of the Pinochetites. All sympathy is on the side of Allende, who was "destroyed by cleanliness." Yevtushenko raises the question: is it permissible to destroy those who may be guilty of the tragedy? Allende did not want to prevent the impending rebellion. But "the blood of the innocent changes the direction of the road and it cannot be right." Yevtushenko was an anti-Stalinist, and opposed when it was not very accepted. He fully caught this time when the former heroes disappeared. Two of his grandfathers suffered from Stalinism himself. Extremes converge, and the author is at a crossroads. The poet raises another important issue - duality. He tells a story based on a real case. Twenty-year-old Chilean Enrique is always forced to choose in life: between his father and mother, who live separately, between a forty-year-old actress who wants to prolong her youth, and a girl of the same age, he is an artist, but not everything is smooth in high matters - there is a dispute between classics and avant-garde . His two friends, the tinsmiths, the priest personify ultra-leftism and conservatism. Enrique is "over the fight", but he is forced to be torn between two conflicting friends. The cinema hall is also split in two - a symbol of the people, where half are for Allende, and half are against. Allende himself is also dual, unable to cope with the elements of chaos.
"It's good and easy to be soulless
Hopelessly - born with a soul."
And this duality of the hero in everything gets its tragic denouement. The young man dies, having simultaneously killed morally his relatives, friends and ... an innocent dove. Yevgeny Yevtushenko emphasizes the parallel with himself. And he is often bifurcated, and he himself thought about this topic
"Everything in my life is so broken,
That it was impossible to stick together "And he was accused of all sins, in a step to the left or to the right. And the same heavy phone calls ...
Yevtushenko touches on the topic of fascism, unfortunately he writes about "scum, with a fascist girl covered up for the time being," unfortunately. Fascism is not only Hitler or Mussolini - it grows from below, from malice and meanness. "I hate death" - the words of the poet sound like a refrain.
Readers are always interested in the biography of the poet. This is the key to understanding creativity. And having opened the veil of his roots, Yevgeny Yevtushenko writes the poem "Mother and the Neutron Bomb". The best biography is the autobiography of the poet himself, and the question of his past is finally answered in this poem.
Biography and essay on creativity













Biography and essay on creativity
Evgeny Yevtushenko's father is a geologist and amateur poet A. R. Gangnus (1910-1976).
In 1944, upon returning from the evacuation from the Zima station to Moscow, the poet's mother, Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko (1910-2002), changed her son's surname to her maiden name (about this - in the poem "Mom and the Neutron Bomb"), - when preparing documents for name change, a mistake was deliberately made in the date of birth: they recorded 1933 in order not to receive a pass, which was supposed to be at the age of 12.
He began to publish in 1949, the first poem was published in the newspaper "Soviet Sport".
From 1952 to 1957 he studied at the Literary Institute. M. Gorky. He was expelled for "disciplinary sanctions", as well as for supporting Dudintsev's novel "Not by Bread Alone".
In 1952, the first book of poems, Scouts of the Future, was published - later the author rated it as youthful and immature.
In 1952 he became the youngest member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, bypassing the stage of a candidate member of the Union.
“I was admitted to the Literary Institute without a matriculation certificate and almost simultaneously to the Writers' Union, in both cases my book was considered sufficient reason. But I knew her value. And I wanted to write differently." - Yevtushenko, "Premature Autobiography".
In subsequent years, he published several collections that gained great popularity (Third Snow (1955), Highway of Enthusiasts (1956), Promise (1957), Poems of Different Years (1959), Apple (1960) , "Tenderness" (1962), "Wave of the hand" (1962)).
The appearance of the young poet on the literary scene coincided with the Khrushchev thaw and the partial liberalization of Soviet society. Yevtushenko's fresh and bright poems resonated with the positive mood of the youth.
One of the symbols of the thaw was the evenings in the Large Auditorium of the Polytechnic Museum, in which Yevtushenko also took part along with Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava and other poets of the wave of the 1960s. At poetry evenings at the Polytechnic, three authors were ambiguously treated: Yevtushenko, Voznesensky, Akhmadulina.
One of the first public performances of E. Yevtushenko in front of a large audience took place in the Central Lecture Hall of Kharkov in 1961. The organizer of this performance was the Kharkov literary critic L. Ya. Livshits.
His works are distinguished by a wide range of moods and genre diversity. The first lines from the pretentious introduction to the poem "Bratskaya HPP" (1965): "A poet in Russia is more than a poet" - a manifesto of Yevtushenko's own creativity and a catchphrase that has steadily come into use. Subtle and intimate lyrics are not alien to the poet: the poem “A dog used to sleep at the feet” (1955). In the poem "Northern Surcharge" (1977) he composes a real ode to beer - a favorite folk drink, which was then so lacking in the Far North. The poet touches on a variety of topics, including frankly political ones.
Yevtushenko traveled all over the Soviet Union and the entire globe in search of his themes and heroes. He also writes about working people - St. John's wort, builders, geologists ... ("Northern allowance", "Boat Communications"). Several poems and cycles of poems are devoted to foreign and anti-war topics: "Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty", "Corrida", "Italian Cycle", "The Pigeon in Santiago", "Mother and the Neutron Bomb".
This is a prose poem about peace and war and a possible nuclear...
He is the son of the MOPR, and in the poem the leitmotif is the struggle between the MOPR and Rolling Stone - the Western mass culture, which has now won in the end ... The poet's mother sang in the war, and tore her voice. The theme is Jesus Christ. Yevgeny Alexandrovich was a pioneer, but he is for God in his soul, and he is worried that the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up. Two bloods merged in him - a Komsomol member - a mother, and a father "surprisingly non-Komsomol".
The author took a sip of all the realities of the war, including fatherlessness, poverty, his stepfather left them when his sister "child non grata" was born. And then, rewriting the composers' reports to help his mother, the author also thinks about his fame. The poet writes about his youth, the first sprouts of capitalism, rich "dudes" - the children of the elite, and then, in the USA, he himself is already on an equal footing with these dudes. The poet exposes the dark sides of life - drug addiction of all stripes, drunkenness, materialism, and "addiction of power and money." And the apotheosis of all - the "leader" of drug addicts - "nuclear drug addict".
Any war is destruction and death. Auschwitz flashes before my eyes, and the poet describes the terrible props of a Christmas tree in war-torn countries. What will happen in a nuclear war? And the poet, with his inherent rich imagination, paints in detail, albeit a little protracted, a terrible picture of the apocalypse of nuclear war - the last of the wars. from which even the bunker will not save. Tomorrow may not be bright, but scary. The poet's mother subtly remarks, "God, what greed for things leads to. Because of this, they probably came up with a neutron bomb." All the heroes are afraid of war, including the former dude Leva and the "professor with the eyes of a carbonaria", and the poet is closest to the pacifist teenagers from Perugia who wrote "stop the neutron bomb"!
This poem brings together the threads of the poet's life and worldview. This is the strongest anti-war poem.
Yevtushenko is not only a poet. He is an excellent reciter of poetry, an actor, a director... He is a multi-talented person.
Evtushenkovedenie
In 1978, in a poem dedicated to Yuri Nekhoroshev, the poet states with humor "Yevtushenko experts appeared." But this appearance is not so bad, and not accidental - it means that the poet has reached a significant level!
Yevtushenko writes about these people and about the stages of his biography in the book Wolf Ticket. According to him, the first Yevtushenko expert was from Irkutsk. In 1996, V. Prishchepa published the monograph "Seminary", which made a unique overview and catalog of all facets of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's work over the past years.
In this book, the poet mentions "Yevtushenko expert number one - the submariner Yura Nekhoroshev." Interestingly, according to Yevtushenko, he began to seriously study his work during the Caribbean crisis. “Yevtushenkologist No. One knew by heart the whole “Yevtushenkian”, consisting mainly of revelations of me. He did not idealize me, but he did not love those who did not love me. Y. Nekhoroshev created the "Union of Evtushenologists", the first congress of which he nevertheless managed to hold. This union consisted of Muscovite Yevtushenko experts - the chairman of the chess club, a submariner, a cybernetician, the head of security for a printing house, an anesthesiologist and his wife, a cardiologist, Leningraders - a pharmacist, an engineer, a Donetsk designer, an Irkutsk police captain, a Ziminsky journalist, an Altai philologist, a Murmansk people's deputy of Russia ... "
Yevtushenko scholars performed poetry readings of Yevgeny Yevtushenko throughout the Soviet Union ...
Yuri Nekhoroshev wrote the Bibliographic Index. He is the author of several Collected Works of the poet and bibliographic reference books (Yu. Nekhoroshev, A. Shitov - Chelyabinsk, 1981; Y. S. Nekhoroshev - M .: Kniga, 1984, v. 7), in which many critical reviews, articles, abstracts of dissertations on the works of the writer 1949-1982
Today, a lot of articles in magazines, books and candidate and doctoral dissertations have been written about the poetry of E. Yevtushenko.
The brightest Yevtushenko expert is Valery Prishchepa, a native of the Bratsk region. Graduated from the Faculty of Philology of the Irkutsk State University, now - Professor of the Department of Literature of the Khakass State University. He defended his candidate and doctoral dissertations on the work of Yevtushenko. His colleague, Vitaly Komin, an Irkutsk journalist, studied, lived and worked in Zima in the 1940s–1950s. For more than 50 years he has been studying the life and work of the poet, he accompanied Yevtushenko on his many trips around Siberia.
In the journal "Irkutsk writer" 1 for 2014, Professor V. Zorkin published an article "The contribution of Irkutsk people to Yevtushenko studies." He highly appreciates the monograph of the Irkutsk journalist V. Komin and Abakan citizen, Doctor of Philology, V. Prishchepa “Winter is the capital of Yevgeny Yevtushenko”, published in Irkutsk in 2013, notes that “there are no similar studies in Russia, let alone abroad. today does not exist ... ”This is far from the first appeal to the work of our fellow countryman. On July 22, 2015, the presentation of the book “On the Steps of Years” dedicated to the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko took place at Helios CJSC (Bratsk). The book was presented by its authors V.V.Komin and V.P.Prischepa, well-known Yevtushenko scholars. For the authors, Vitaly Komin and Valery Prishchepa. Together, Vitaly Komin and Valery Prishchepa previously published the books “Winter is the capital of Yevgeny Yevtushenko” and “He came to the 21st century: the creative path of Yevgeny Yevtushenko”.
Journalist Vitaly Komin and Khakass University professor Valery Prishchepa spoke in great detail about the work on the new book and presented a documentary about the poet's recent visit to the cities of Irkutsk, Zima and Angarsk. The management of the plant, represented by Andrei Vladimirovich Smirnov, as well as all the admirers of the poet, wished the authors good luck in publishing other interesting works from the series “On the Steps of Years” planned by them. The series was expected to have 10 volumes. But during the life of the poet, only two came out. Recently, Siberian authors completed work on the third book...
Yevgeny Yevtushenko died on April 1 in the United States in a hospital at the age of 85 ...

LITERATURE:
1 Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Collected works in 3 volumes. MOSCOW, "Fiction", 1984
2 Runin B. Lessons from a poetic biography (Notes on the lyrics of Evg. Yevtushenko). - Questions of Literature, 1969, No. 2
3 Nekhoroshev Yu., Shitov A. Evgeny Evtushenko. Scientific auxiliary bibliographic index. Chelyabinsk, 1981
4 Sidorov E. Yevgeny Yevtushenko: Personality and creativity. M., 1995
5 Artemov V., Prishchepa V. The man who was not defeated: Critical and biographical sketch of the life and work of E. Yevtushenko. Abakan, 1996

The future poet was born in Siberia on July 18, 1932. His father was from the Baltic Germans, so the mother of Evgeny Alexandrovich, after the birth of her son, again took her maiden name and recorded the child on her. Already during the evacuation at the beginning of World War II, the actual year of his birth was changed to 1933 in order to avoid difficulties with the papers.

The biography of Yevtushenko Yevgeny from childhood is closely connected with the creative environment: his father wrote poetry, and his mother was an actress. In 1944, they became Muscovites, but they did not stay together for long - their father left them. But the literary development of his son continued to be important to him - the boy was taken to the creative evenings of Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova.

First steps in creativity

It is not surprising that a child who grew up in this atmosphere began to show himself early. He, in imitation of his parents' friends, wrote poetry, and already in 1949 the first of them was published in Soviet Sport.

Two years later, he became a student at the Literary Institute, but was quickly expelled. Officially - for not going to lectures, in fact - because of the fact that he allowed public statements that were unacceptable for his time. By the way, Yevtushenko received his higher education only in 2001, which is mentioned even in a brief biography of Yevtushenko.

However, even without him, the gifted young man shows himself very brightly, releasing in 1952 the first collection of poetry, called Scouts of the Future. Thanks to this, the twenty-year-old Yevtushenko becomes a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR.

It took the next few years to achieve recognition - and now the poet was already reading his lines at poetry evenings.

He also realizes himself as a prose writer - in 1959 his debut story was published.

Prose works and emigration

Already recognized in creative circles, Yevgeny Yevtushenko became a novelist - "Berry Places" came out in 1982, and in 1993 he wrote a second one - "Chicken God".

The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko decided to emigrate to the States in the nineties. There he not only continued to produce poetry, but also taught.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko died on the first day of April 2017 - his heart stopped, he was buried next to Boris Pasternak in Peredelkino.

Personal life and interesting facts from the biography

The personal life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko was difficult - he married four times. The first marriage was quite early - in 1954 Bella Akhmadulina became his wife, but the two poets could not get along together, despite the common interests. Already in 1961, Evgeny Alexandrovich had a second wife - Galina Sokol-Lukonina, who gave him a son, Peter.

The third choice of the poet was Jen Butler from Ireland, his bright fan, but this marriage was short-lived, despite two children, Alexander and Anton.

And only with his fourth wife, Evgeny Alexandrovich lived until his death - the philologist Maria Novikova was a faithful support for him, contributed to creativity and raised two children - Dmitry and Evgeny.

The life of the poet was interesting and multifaceted. So, his poems were read by Paul McCartney, who said that his friends gave him the collection, and he periodically devoted time to reading Yevtushenko's poems in between concerts.

One of the most important events in his life back in Soviet times was a meeting with US President Richard Nixon.

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Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a Soviet and Russian poet, whose popularity peaked in the sixties. Songs were written on his poems that sounded in the most popular domestic films. He also gained fame as a screenwriter, prose writer and publicist.

City with a winter name

The biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko begins in 1933, in a small Siberian city. Father was a geologist. Mother is an actress. The settlement, with which the early period of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's biography is associated, has an unusual name - Zima. Having become famous, the poet will dedicate a lyrical work to his native city. "Where am I from? From the Siberian station Zima" - words from Yevtushenko's poem.

In the world of illusions and literature

He has been writing since the age of five. Already at the end of the thirties he created poems that, not knowing the age of the author, can be mistaken for the works of an accomplished poet. At least, this is what one of the authors of the biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko claims.

Parents supported classes in literature. Thanks to them, the future writer often attended poetry evenings. Father could talk for hours about the work of great Russian and foreign writers. In his autobiography, Yevgeny Yevtushenko once said: "There was a real vinaigrette in my head then. I lived in a world of illusions, did not notice anyone and nothing around."


Parents

They divorced in the early forties. Since 1944, Eugene lived with his mother in Moscow. But the poet always had a good relationship with his father. The mother was very attentive and careful about the compositions of her son. She collected his poems, often showed them to her ex-husband. And together they discussed the poetic gift of Eugene. But most of the poet's works have been lost.

An important period in the biography and work of Yevgeny Yevtushenko is the late 50s - early 60s. In those years, talented poets gathered entire stadiums. Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava were real celebrities, hundreds of fans came to listen to their poems.

Yevtushenko was not inferior in popularity to Rozhdestvensky and Akhmadulina. He inherited the skill of speaking from his mother. Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko, as already mentioned, was an actress by profession. In 1938 she became a soloist with the Moscow Stanislavsky Theatre. True, she played on stage for only three years. During the war she performed at the fronts. After completing her acting career, she entered the Geological Prospecting Institute.


Expulsion from school

In the biography of the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko there are no sudden ups and downs. His life was relatively favorable, which cannot be said about most of his colleagues, such as Joseph Brodsky. True, at the age of 15, Yevtushenko was expelled from school on charges of setting fire to a magazine. Father then sent Yevgeny to Kazakhstan, on a geological exploration expedition. For some time, Yevtushenko also worked in Altai.

The first works were published in 1949. Oddly enough, they appeared in the newspaper "Soviet Sport". Yevtushenko never received a certificate of secondary education. However, at the age of 19 he entered the Gorky Literary Institute. But he was expelled for supporting the work of Vladimir Dudintsev.

Early work

In 1952, a collection of Yevtushenko's poems was published. Among his early works there are many enthusiastic, patriotic, dedicated to Lenin and the ideas of communism. Later, the poet will say that Soviet propaganda is to blame for everything, into the power of which he fell when he was young.

Even in a brief biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, membership in the Writers' Union of the USSR is always mentioned. He managed not only to become a student of the Literary Institute, without having a matriculation certificate, but also to join a solid and prestigious organization by Soviet standards at the age of 19. He became the youngest member of the Writers' Union. This is an amazing fact in the biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He briefly mentions this event in one of his works as follows: "I was accepted to the institute and the Writers' Union on the basis of a book I had written." Around the same time, Yevtushenko became the secretary of the Komsomol organization.


Poetry boom

In the early sixties, the brightest period in the biography of Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko begins. He briefly expressed his position in literature and in society as follows: "A poet in Russia is more than a poet." Back in the fifties, Yevtushenko published the collections The Third Snow, The Promise, The Highway of Enthusiasts, and Poems of Different Years. At the beginning of his career, he published the books "Tenderness", "Wave of the Hand", "Apple".

The biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko developed smoothly and favorably. In his work, however, there was an amazing variety. He was not alien to intimate lyrics. In his youth, he composed patriotic works. In the seventies he wrote a cycle of poems devoted to the anti-war theme, for example, "Under the skin of the Statue of Liberty", "Corrida", "Dove in Santiago".

During the years of the "thaw" new names appeared in the literature. One of the symbols of this period, permeated with the spirit of freedom, was performances at the Polytechnic Museum. Bella Akhmadulina, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bulat Okudzhava and, of course, Yevgeny Yevtushenko read their elements in the audience of this university. The biography and personal life of the poet are eventful. In 1957 he married for the first time. The famous poetess Bella Akhmadulina became his chosen one. He was married four times in total.


Bella Akhmadulina

He fell in love with her in absentia, after reading a poem in the magazine "October". When he saw a fragile figure and an unusual non-Slavic face, he realized that he was gone. They lived together for three years. Around Akhmadulina there were always many admirers, which the jealous husband could hardly endure. There were no children in this marriage.

The personal life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, whose biography is the subject of our review, developed well after the break with Akhmadulina. Already in 1961, he married Galina Sokol-Lukonina, in the same year the first-born of the poet Peter was born. Akhmadulina was not lucky. She could not get pregnant for a long time. For many years, Yevtushenko believed that he was guilty of this - in 1961 Bella became pregnant, and he insisted on an abortion.


Personal life

From the second marriage, which lasted about ten years, the poet has a son. In 1978, Yevtushenko married an Irish woman, Jen Butler, a passionate admirer of his work. In this marriage, more sons were born - Anton and Alexander. In 1989, the poet married Maria Novikova, who bore him two more sons, Evgeny and Dmitry.


Emigration

In the mid-eighties, Yevtushenko took the post of secretary of the board of the Writers' Union. In 1989 he became a member of the human rights society "Memorial". And in 1991 he left for the USA. For many years Yevtushenko lectured at the University of Tulsa.

Last years

At a very advanced age, the poet suffered an illness that ended with the amputation of his leg. But even after the operation, he continued to meet with fans and even starred in the documentary "Dialogues with Yevgeny Yevtushenko." Even in the last years of his life, being a very sick man, he continued to work. In 2012, Yevtushenko published a collection of poems "Happiness and Retribution". In 2013 - "I can't say goodbye." In recent years, he has also worked on the anthology "A Poet in Russia is More Than a Poet".


Death

In March 2017, the poet was hospitalized. Yevtushenko was diagnosed with stage IV cancer. Six years earlier, he had undergone an operation to remove a kidney, which, according to doctors, led to cancer. The famous poet died on April 1, 2017 from cardiac arrest. Nine days later, mourning was declared in the city of Zima, where Yevtushenko's early years passed.

The Soviet and Russian poet, a legend of the 20th century, was buried in Peredelkino, next to Boris Pasternak. The funeral service was held in a church located in the writers' village.

Artworks

Interesting facts from the biography of Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko can be found in the book "Wolf Passport", published for the first time in 1998. In this work, the author recalls the past years, the early period of creativity. The memoir prose created by Yevgeny Yevtushenko includes the books "Six-paratrooper" and "I came to you, Babi Yar ...". The latter was published five years before the death of the author.

The works of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, published in the 60s, include the poems "Babi Yar", "Bratskaya Hydroelectric Power Station", "Pushkin Pass". He is the author of three novels - "Berry Places", "Bering Tunnel", "Don't Die Before You Die".

Cinema

Yevgeny Yevtushenko starred in five films. In 1965, he played a cameo role in the film Ilyich's Outpost. In 1967, he played a poet in the film I'm Curious - A Film in Yellow. Other paintings with the participation of Yevtushenko: "Kindergarten", "Rise", "Stalin's Funeral". The poet wrote the script for the latter.

Many people remember the works of Yevgeny Yevtushenko based on the films of Eldar Ryazanov. In "Office Romance" there was a song based on his poems - "We are chatting in crowded trams ...". Music composed by Andrey Petrov. In the film "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath" Sergei Nikitin performs the song "That's What Happens to Me..." (music by Mikael Tariverdiev). Yevtushenko's poems are also heard in the films "And it's all about him", "Night witches in the sky", "Dima Gorin's career".

Brodsky about Yevtushenko

Not everyone admired the literary style of this poet. The main critic of his work was Joseph Brodsky. He argued: "Yevtushenko is a bad poet, and a person is even worse." And once Brodsky, a man who suffered from the Soviet regime, uttered a phrase that became legendary: "Yevtushenko is against collective farms? Then I'm for it!"

Criticism

The poet changed his civil position several times, which caused sharp criticism from his colleagues. Many did not like Yevtushenko's manner of praising his literary gift. A very negative assessment was given to his prose by director Andrei Tarkovsky. After reading the story of Yevtushenko "Kazan University", he called the author mediocrity. About the poet as a person, Tarkovsky said: "He wants to please everyone: Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and girls."

Marina Vlady spoke not in the best way about the personal qualities of Yevgeny Yevtushenko. In her book "Vladimir, or an Interrupted Flight," she claimed that he was happy to communicate with Vysotsky, but treated him, like Voznesensky, with arrogance. In addition, he repeatedly promised to help in the publication of the works of the disgraced poet, but he did not keep his promises.

public position

Certain facts from the biography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko may seem suspicious. In the mid-sixties, he published several poems that caused a great resonance in society. One of them is called "Tanks are moving through Prague". For such a work, the author could easily end up behind bars or in a psychiatric hospital, which often happened to those whose work did not correspond to the official ideology.

However, Yevtushenko was not pursued. His books were not banned. He continued to publish, traveled all over the Soviet Union, and even in the 70s he was abroad more than once. At the same time, he supported dissident writers - Solzhenitsyn, Daniel and Brodsky, who spoke very unflatteringly about his work. According to the memoirs of Mikhail Weller, Yevtushenko helped his colleague more than once, despite his harsh criticism.


Interesting facts from the biography and personal life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko

  • There is a version that the poet collaborated with the authorities. She allegedly explains the reasons for unhindered trips abroad, which Yevtushenko made even in the era of stagnation. This point of view was expressed by intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov in his book of memoirs, but rather in the form of an assumption. However, such accusations need to be documented, and no evidence has been provided.
  • In Peredelkino, a writers' village once home to Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva and other poets, Yevtushenko opened a gallery in 2010. Here is his personal collection. The paintings were donated to the poet by the artists Picasso and Chagall. Among the works of painting there is also the work of Ernst, a painter who stood at the origins of surrealism.
  • In the late sixties, Yevgeny Yevtushenko visited Portugal. It was a semi-legal trip. The arrival of the Soviet poet was organized by Snu Abecassis, a publisher who later had problems with the state security agencies of Portugal. Impressed by this trip, the poet wrote the work "Love in Portuguese".
  • Some facts from the biography of the poet can be found in the novel by Vasily Aksenov "The Mysterious Connection", filmed in 2017. The title of this work contains words from a poem by Yevtushenko's first wife, Bella Akhmadulina. The first chapters of the book show the events of the early sixties. However, in the preface, the author warns that in his novel, as in every work of art, there is also a share of fiction.
  • According to Yevtushenko, his best work is The Pigeon of Santiago. The poet claimed that the poem saved more than three hundred people from suicide.
  • In 1963 Yevtushenko was nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Evgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko was born on July 18, 1932 in Siberia (10. Fig. 31). Grew up in Moscow. Many trials fell to the lot of the family, but the versatile development of children has always been in the first place for this family.

From childhood, Yevtushenko was attached to books. Parents taught their son to explore the world with the help of books and regular communication. Yevtushenko recalls: “Father could spend hours telling me, still an unintelligent child, about the fall of Babylon, and about the Spanish Inquisition, and about the war of the Scarlet and White Roses, and about William of Orange ... Thanks to my father, at the age of 6 I learned to read and write , read in one gulp indiscriminately Dumas, Flaubert, Boccaccio, Cervantes and Wells. There was an unimaginable vinaigrette in my head. I lived in an illusory world, did not notice anyone and nothing around ... ". “He loved poetry and gave his love to me. I read perfectly from memory and, if I didn’t understand something, I explained, but not rationally, namely, the beauty of reading, emphasizing the rhythmic, figurative power of the lines, and not only Pushkin and Lermontov, but also modern poets, reveling in the verse, which he especially liked » . Also, his father took him to poetry evenings. Not surprisingly, his son began to write poetry early.

Mother instilled in Eugene a love of art. Zinaida Ivanovna was a soloist of the Stanislavsky Theater, she constantly toured the country. Her frequent guests were artists who in the future became famous on the pop stage. She taught her son how to play the piano. He grew up as a very erudite child and many peers even envied him.

In 1952, Yevtushenko became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, and he was the youngest in this community. He continues to take part in poetry evenings alongside established and famous poets.

Yevtushenko is dimensionless, paradoxical, unpredictable and, despite the confession of many of his works, is very complex and ambiguous.

The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko can be called a poet-citizen. His perception of the world, his mindset, took shape under the influence of shifts in the self-awareness of society, caused by the first revelations of Stalin's personality cult. With all the timidity, half-heartedness, and inconsistency of the time, the poets stimulated the beginning renunciation of the ideology and morality of Stalinism, created a new spiritual climate of the “thaw” in life. Young E. Yevtushenko felt the encouraging winds of change earlier and perceived it more sharply than many.



His poetry concerns, perhaps, every corner of life: Motherland, history, time, relationships, creativity, friendship. His first works reflected the influence of Mayakovsky's work, in particular in form. However, from the first poems, his manner was determined: a variety of figurative means, colloquial intonation, honesty, innocence, inconsistency and rebelliousness of the lyrical hero, etc. The writer travels a lot, visiting all continents except Antarctica. This helped him learn to masterfully read human souls.

Yevtushenko takes everything very close, his view of the world is amazing. So, for example, he understands the Motherland in a special way, as a living being. She says that it consists of women, children, people we have met in life. Motherland is not a set of political slogans and phrases. Love for the Motherland is not love for the political system. This is not even love for nature (although nature is also a living being), but first of all it is people.

“Do not create an idol from the Motherland,

but do not rush into her guides.

Thank you for feeding you

but don't give thanks on your knees.

She herself is largely to blame,

and we are all guilty along with it.

To deify Russia is vulgar,

but to despise her is even more vulgar.”

The poet writes on his own behalf. No wonder that the discovery of other people's souls began with the discovery of oneself. And having examined himself, he is not afraid to declare loudly and publicly about the results:

"I'm different -

I am busy and idle.

and inappropriate.

I'm all incompatible

inconvenient,

shy and arrogant,

evil and good…”

Some accused him of a variety of interests, but this makes the author unique in his own way. Yevtushenko's relationship with criticism is a special and often dramatic topic. The poet is right when he complains about her excessive self-indulgence:

“I was both lucky and unlucky.

Some, noisily, praised me

And they poured honey on my way,

Others poured tar evil.

Many critics did not understand and did not accept the works of the poet. He was always at the head of some scandals and provocations. However, the most severe critic in his work is himself.

He is called the poet of Time and everyday life, the poet of immediate response, and also a deep internationalist.

Yevtushenko created a gallery of lyrical portraits, thereby confirming his well-known line: "There are no uninteresting people in the world." By love for people, the poet expresses love for the Motherland. He treats love and a woman with respect, elevating them, writing touchingly and with special warmth.

In the late 90s. and in the first years of the new century, a decrease in Yevtushenko's poetic activity was noticeable. This is explained not only by a long stay in the teaching job in the United States, but also by more and more intense creative searches in other literary genres and art forms.

In addition to poetry, the author also writes poems, short stories, songs (songwriter), articles and even several novels and short stories. He worked in the world of cinema: as a screenwriter, director and actor, in the theater, reading poetry from the stage and participating in the production of plays.

As a poet-citizen, he fearlessly spoke out in support of persecuted talents, in defense of the dignity of literature and art, freedom of creativity, and human rights.

Yevtushenko's works have been translated into more than 70 languages ​​and published in many countries around the world. In 1991, Yevtushenko signed a contract to teach at a university in the United States. He takes his family and leaves for permanent residence in America, where he lives to this day.

Was married four times. Since 1954 he was married to the famous poetess Isabella Akhmadulina. The second wife is Galina Sokol-Lukonina (married in 1961), the third is Jen Butler, Irish (since 1978). At present, his wife is Maria Vladimirovna (born in 1961), a doctor, philologist. Yevgeny Yevtushenko has five sons.

In 2007, the premiere of the rock opera "White Snows Are Falling" by composer Gleb May with lyrics by Yevgeny Yevtushenko took place.

He was awarded the Orders of the Badge of Honor (1969), the Red Banner of Labor (1983), the Friendship of Peoples (1993), and the Orders of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree (2004).

Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1984), the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of literature and art (2009), the Tefi Prize for the best educational program “A poet in Russia is more than a poet” (1998), etc.

Honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts, American Academy of Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Malaga, full member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences. Honorary Professor "Honoris Causa" at New School University in New York and King's College in Queens. Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, at the University of Santo Domingo.

Honorary citizen of Petrozavodsk.

On July 17, 2010, Yevgeny Yevtushenko opened his own museum in Peredelkino, which he bequeathed to the state. It is planned that the Yevtushenko Museum-Gallery will become a branch of the State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia.

In 1994, a minor planet in the solar system was named after him.

2.2 A few words about the verses chosen for illustration

The first poem, which immediately caught my eye, is considered a program for the writer's work.


I am different

I am busy and idle.

and inappropriate.

I'm all incompatible

inconvenient,

shy and arrogant,

evil and kind.

I love so much,

so that everything intersperses!

And so many things mixed up in me

from the west

and to the east

from envy

and to delight!

I know - you will tell me:

"Where is integrity?"

Oh, there is great value in all of this!

You need me.

I'm overwhelmed

like young hay

through branches, light and twitter,

through the cracks!

Long live movement and heat,

and greed

triumphant greed!

Borders bother me...

I feel awkward

not to know Buenos Aires,

New York.

I want to roam as much as necessary, London,

talk to everyone

let it be broken.

boy

hanging on the bus,

I want to drive in the morning Paris!

I want different kinds of art

Let art not give me life

and surrounds let from all sides ...

Yes, I am already besieged by art.

I see myself in a variety of ways.

I'm close

and Yesenin,

and Whitman

and Mussorgsky embraced the scene,

and the virginal lines of Gauguin.

I like

and skate,

and, scribbling with a pen,

not sleep at night.

I like

laugh in the face of the enemy

and carry the woman across the stream.

I dig into books

and carry firewood

I'm looking for something vague

and scarlet frosty pieces

watermelon August crunch.

I sing and I drink

not thinking about death

arms outstretched,

I fall into the grass

and if i die

on white light

then I'll die of happiness

that I live.


At the time when Yevtushenko began to publish, for many poets there was a generalized image of a lyrical hero. Little has been said about this poem. After reading a little about his activities, it becomes clear that Yevtushenko fulfilled the declared program in full. These poems marked a turn towards a closer look at the human character, and not just the appearance of a new lyrical hero.

The poem is very harmonious not only in the life of the writer, but also in the structure itself. The lyrical hero rushes about. He understands that before him is an immense world, which is rich in history, culture, characters, events, etc. He is interested in everything at once, because. he understands, thanks to his education and the breadth of his soul, that absolutely everything is valuable. His desire to try and plunge into everything is absolutely understandable. He boldly dreams, acts, creates. Not afraid of anything. The world is not divided into good and bad. It embodies the whole dynamics of modern life, the desire to know and feel everything that life can offer a person. Only then is death not terrible, because why be afraid of it if you have lived such a busy century. And only then can one rightly be called a creator of art.

The continuation of this riot of aspirations and desires becomes the next poem. However, it introduces a new theme, so classic for literature: the theme of love.


No, I don't need half of anything!

Give me the whole sky! Lay down the whole earth!

Seas and rivers, mountain avalanches

My - I do not agree to the division!

No, life, you will not fill me with a part.

Everything is complete! I'm up to it!

I don't want half of happiness

I don't want half the pain!

I just want half of that pillow

Where, gently pressed to the cheek,

Helpless star, falling star

The ring flickers on your hand.


Perhaps, nevertheless, in the raging world of the lyrical hero there is a force that protects him, calms him, makes it possible to gain strength for new victories: this is family and love. No matter how eventful life is, however, a kindred soul is also necessary for such a nature. Love is like a safe harbor in which one can think of the Eternal.

The next verse really struck me. It can touch the most hidden corners of the heart and reflect. The poetic text seems to continue the classic theme of Russian literature about a little man who lives his own life and seems gray and uninteresting to everyone. But if only one could truly read people's souls! Do not guess, do not perceive them through the prism of yourself, do not distort the meaning through unnecessary words, but communicate intuitively, spiritually. Then we would be able to appreciate the world and the amazing experience of everyone, even the smallest person.

It would seem that a person lives for quite a long time, but how little we manage to learn about those who are close to us. How little we have time to say to each other truly valuable words. And when people die, only a certain image of them remains, the material world, but spiritual wealth disappears forever.

The poet calls for an attentive and careful attitude to a person, to his spiritual world, to the subtleties of world perception, to an understanding of his individual value. This poem is a reproach, a poem is an appeal.

Comparison of a person with the world raises high the value of the spiritual principle in him: intellectual, emotional, moral values ​​perceived from previous generations and formed in individual experience; man is a world, a planet, he has a "secret personal world" that dies with the death of the man himself, despite the fact that people are left with the creations of his hands and mind. Comparison with the worlds of people speaks of the immensity of those spiritual values ​​that make a person an individual personality and constitute his main asset.

His lyrics are philosophical. Life and death are the usual components of these lyrics. A person is a mystery, because everyone lives their own unique experience in this multifaceted world, which the author wrote about in past poems. The stanzas are imbued with sadness and delight (again, two, perhaps, irreconcilable states).


There are no uninteresting people in the world.

Their fates are like the histories of the planets.

Each has everything special, its own,

and there are no planets like it.

And if someone lived unnoticed

and was friends with this invisibility,

he was interesting among people

by its very invisibility.

Everyone has their own secret private world.

There is the best moment in this world.

There is the most terrible hour in this world,

but all this is unknown to us.

And if a person dies

with him his first snow dies,

and the first kiss, and the first fight...

He takes all this with him.

Yes, books and bridges remain

machines and artists canvases,

yes, much is destined to stay,

but something is still missing!

Such is the law of the ruthless game.

Not people die, but worlds.

We remember people, sinful and earthly.

And what did we really know about them?

What do we know about brothers, about friends,

what do we know about our only one?

And about his own father

we, knowing everything, know nothing.

People are leaving... They cannot be returned.

Their secret worlds cannot be revived.

And every time I want again

from this irreversibility to scream.


The song was written by Mikael Tariverdiev with lyrics by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This poem was written in 1957, about 18 years before the release of the film The Irony of Fate. It was called "B. Akhmadulina. By that time, the poet had been married to the poetess Bella Akhmadulinna for three years. A song is also heard in this film to her verse "On my street ...".

Another amazing, very soulful work. It no longer has that feverishness of life that is heard in the previous verses. The lyrical hero feels "stunned". It seems to me that the reverse side of the hectic multifaceted world is shown here. Not being able to "read" each other's souls, being carried away by life itself, thinking about simple mundane things, people do not have the strength, ability or desire to find that kindred soul that would give the peace that the author spoke about earlier. The lyrical hero is surrounded by a large number of people called friends, loved ones, but his subconscious tells him that he does not live his own life, that he is missing something important.

Intimacy with people who are strangers in spirit results in unnecessary strife, partings, worries and, as a result, disappointment. Life seems to be passing by, because the most important thing has not been found - harmony.


Here's what's happening to me:

my old friend does not go to me,

but walk in petty fuss

different are not the same.

not with those walks somewhere

and he understands it too

and our discord is inexplicable,

and we both suffer with him.

Here's what's happening to me:

not at all the same comes to me,

puts his hands on my shoulders

and steals me from another.

say for God's sake

who should put their hands on their shoulders?

from whom I was stolen

in retaliation, too, will steal.

Doesn't answer right away.

but will live with himself in the struggle

and unconsciously marks

someone far away.

Oh how nervous

and the sick

unnecessary connections,

unnecessary friendships!

I already have a sense of urgency!

Oh somebody

strangers

connectedness

and disunity

close souls!


And the last poem that caught my attention:

GRATITUDE


She said, "He's already asleep!"

pulling the curtain over the son's bed,

and the overhead light was awkwardly extinguished,

and, cringing, the robe fell onto a chair.

We didn't talk about love,

She whispered something, burping a little,

the sound "p" like a grape, rolling

behind a white fence of teeth.

“You know: I spat a long time ago

for your life...

And suddenly so stunned!

A man in a skirt. Draft horse.

And suddenly - I'm a woman again ... Funny?

To be grateful was my duty.

Looking for protection in a defenseless body

I burrowed, flagged like a wolf,

into the trusting snowdrift of her bed.

But, like a driven wolf cub, alone,

she whispered her cheeks to me in tears.

and that she is grateful to me,

I was burned with cold shame.

I would surround her with a blockade of rhymes,

get lost, then turning pale, then blushing,

but woman! me! thanks!

for being me! man! gentle with her!

How could this happen in the world?

Forgetting about the meaning of its root cause,

we removed the woman. We are her

humiliated to equality with a man.

What an entertaining stage of society

cunningly prepared for centuries:

men have become something like women,

and women are almost like men.

Oh my god how the fold of her shoulder

I pressed into my fingers hungry and naked

and like the eyes of an unknown sex

transformed into women's, screaming!

Then their dusk was half-cloaked.

They flickered with quiet candles ...

How little a woman needs - my God! To be considered a woman.


A very touching and at the same time sad poem, reflecting the rapidly developing situation of our time, when women lose their natural harmony, contemplation, a sense of respect for themselves and their roots. In the frantic pace of life, a heavy burden of worries falls on fragile shoulders. The devaluation of marriage and relationships leads to loneliness and self-destruction. All this is especially detrimental to the female essence, whose mission is to bring harmony into the world, a connection with life, the bosom of nature, the family. Loneliness leads to depression and complexes, and those, in turn, completely destroy self-esteem. As a result, lost people meet, draw closer. But their closeness is not dictated by natural unity. Rather, it is protection, a kind of nourishment for hearts and wild souls. There is no place for love here. However, there is understanding, pity, which leads to self-reflection.