what is the background of Yeugeny Yeutushenko?

Answer 1

off the top of my head Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (Russian: Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко) (born July 18, 1933) is a Russian poet. He also directed several films. Reportedly, long before the appearance of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov and the dissident movement in Russia, Yevtushenko, through his poetry, was the first voice to speak out against Stalinism.

Born Yevgeni Aleksandrovich Gangnus (later he took his mother's last name, Evtushenko) in the Irkutsk region of Siberia in a small town called Zima Junction. His maternal grandfather, named Ermolai Naumovich Evtushenko, was a Red Army officer during the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. His father, named Aleksandr Rudolfovich Gangnus, was a geologist, as well as his mother, named Zinaida Ermolaevna Evtushenko; who later became a singer. He accompanied his father on geological expeditions to Kazakhstan in 1948, and to Altai, Siberia, in 1950. Young Yevtushenko wrote his first verses and humorous songs "chastushki" while living in Zima, Siberia.

After the Second World War, Yevtushenko moved to Moscow. From 1951-1954 he studied at the Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow, from which he dropped out. In 1952 he joined the Union of Soviet Writers after publication of his first collection of poetry. His early poem So mnoyu chto-to proiskhodit (Someting is happening to me) became a very popular song, in performance by actor-songwriter Aleksandr Dolsky. In 1955 Yevtushenko wrote a poem about the Soviet borders being an obstacle in his life. He was banned from traveling, but gained wide popularity with the Russian public. His first important publication was the poem Stantsiya Zima (Zima Junction 1956).

Yevtushenko was one of the authors politically active during the Khrushchev Thaw (Khrushchev declared a cultural "Thaw" that allowed some freedom of expression). In 1961 he wrote what would become perhaps his most famous poem, Babi Yar, in which he denounced the Soviet concealment of the Nazi massacre of the Jewish population of Kiev in September 1941 as well as the antisemitism still widespead in the Soviet Union. The usual Soviet policy in relation to the Holocaust in Russia was to describe it as atrocities against Soviet citizens, and to avoid mentioning that it was a genocide specifically of the Jews. He published his first poem in 1949 and his first book three years later, drawing praise from the likes of Boris Pasternak, Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost. Following a centuries-old Russian tradition, Yevtushenko became a public poet. Therefore, Yevtushenko's Babi Yar was quite controversial and politically incorrect, "for it spoke not only of the Nazi atrocities, but the Soviet government's own persecution of Jewish people." The poem achieved widespread circulation in the underground samizdat press, and later was set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich as part of his Thirteenth Symphony. Publication of the poem in the state-controlled Soviet press was delayed until 1984.

In 1961, Yevtushenko also published Nasledniki Stalina (The Heirs of Stalin), in which he stated that although Stalin was dead, Stalinism and its legacy still dominated the country; in the poem he also directly addressed the Soviet government, imploring them to make sure that Stalin would "never rise again". Published originally in Pravda, the poem was not republished until a quarter of a century later, in the times of the comparatively liberal party leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Yevtushenko became one of the most famous poets of the 50's and 60's in the Soviet Union. He was part of the 60's generation, which included such writers as Vasili Aksyonov, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Robert Rozhdestvensky; as well as actors Andrei Mironov, Aleksandr Zbruyev, Natalya Fateyeva, and many others. As a close associate of writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and as a member of the 60's generation, Yevtushenko made an important contribution to promote progress, openness, human rights and freedoms in the former Soviet Union. In 1963, Yevtushenko, already an internationally recognised literateur, was banned from travelling outside the Soviet Union.[3]; the ban was lifted in 1965. At that time the KGB Chairman Vladimir Semichastny and the next KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov reported to the Communist Politburo on the "Anti-Soviet activity of poet Yevtushenko", but he was not intimidated.


Films
He was filmed as himself during the 50s as a performing poet-actor. Yevtushenko contributed lyrics to several Soviet films and contributed to the script of Soy Cuba (1964), a Soviet propaganda film. His acting career began with the leading role in Vzlyot (1979) by director Savva Kulish, where he played the leading role as Russian rocket scientist Tsiolkovsky. Yevtyshenko also made two films as a writer/director. His film 'Detsky Sad' (aka.. Kindergarten, 1983) and his last film, 'Pokhorony Stalina' (aka.. Stalin's Funeral, 1990) are dealing with life in the Soviet Union.

Yevtushenko Controversy
In 1965, Yevtushenko joined Anna Akhmatova, Kornei Chukovsky, Jean-Paul Sartre and others and co-signed the letter of protest against the unfair trial of Joseph Brodsky (he also co-signed the letter against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968), as a result of the court case against him initiated by the Soviet authorities. Nevertheless, "when Yevtushenko was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Brodsky himself led a flurry of protest, accusing Yevtushenko of duplicity and claiming that Yevtushenko's criticism of the Soviet Union was launched only in the directions approved by the Party and that he criticised what was acceptable to the Kremlin, when it was acceptable to the Kremlin, while soaking up adulation and honours as a fearless voice of dissent.[4] Brodsky repeatedly criticised Yevtushenko for what he perceived as his "conformism".[5] [6] Commenting on this controversy in A Night in the Nabokov Hotel, an anthology of Russian poetry in English translation, Anatoly Kudryavitsky wrote the following: "A few Russian poets enjoyed the virtual pop-star status, unthinkable if transposed to other parts of Europe. In reality, they were far from any sort of protest against Soviet totalitarianism and therefore could not be regarded as anything else but naughty children of the regime.

hope this helps?

Answer 2

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