"Politics had much to do with tastes in poetry. Russian poets, especially if they were politically outspoken, were garnering huge followings among college students in the West. Yevgeny Yevtushenko was having a big year in 1968, both in political controversy at home and in artistic recognition abroad. Born in 1933, he belonged to a new school of Russian lyric poetry. Critics frequently suggested that others from the new school, such as Boris Pasternak’s protégé Andrey Voznesensky, also born in 1933, were better poets. But in the 1960s Yevtushenko was the most famous working Russian poet in the world. In 1962 he published four poems highly critical of the Soviet Union, including “Babi Yar,” about a massacre of Jews unsuccessfully covered up by the Soviets."

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Academics from RussiaNovelists from RussiaPoets from RussiaFilm directors from RussiaScreenwriters from Russia
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Academics from RussiaNovelists from RussiaPoets from RussiaFilm directors from RussiaScreenwriters from Russia

Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (18 July 1933 - 1 April 2017) is a controversial Russian poet and film director. During the Soviet era he spoke out publicly against Stalinism and rejected socialist realism, but was himself criticised by many Soviet dissidents.

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