Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko (at birth - Gangnus). Born July 18, 1932 in Zima, Irkutsk Region - died April 1, 2017 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. Soviet and Russian poet.

Evgeny Yevtushenko was born on July 18, 1932 in Zima, Irkutsk region. According to other sources - in Nizhneudinsk.

Father - geologist and amateur poet Alexander Rudolfovich Gangnus (Baltic German by origin) (1910-1976).

Mother - Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko (1910-2002), geologist, actress, Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR.

In 1944, upon returning from evacuation from the Zima station to Moscow, the mother changed her son's surname to her maiden one. When filling out documents for changing the surname, a mistake was deliberately made in the date of birth: they wrote down 1933 so as 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. Excluded for " disciplinary action”, and also 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,” he said.

The 1950s, which were the time of a poetic boom, entered the arena of immense popularity, R. Rozhdestvensky, E. Yevtushenko. The performances of these authors gathered huge stadiums, and the poetry of the "thaw" period soon began to be called pop.

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).

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.

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. 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".

Yevtushenko's excessive success was facilitated by the simplicity and accessibility of his poems, as well as the scandals that were often raised by criticism around his name.

The literary style and manner of Yevtushenko provided an extensive field of activity for criticism. He was often reproached for doxology, pathos rhetoric and covert self-praise.

“Self-glorification cannot take the form of calm, self-confident self-admiration, nor can it be an expression authentic personality. Ambitions are exceptionally great and have long surpassed the scale of talent. The genre turns out to be fiercely polemical in every word, in every statement, and most importantly, the speaker cannot stop for a minute; having entered into a dispute with time and the world, he is forced to continuously manifest,” wrote literary critic Nikolai Gladkikh about his poem “Fuku!”.

Counting on a journalistic effect, Yevtushenko then chose for his poems themes of the party's current policy, for example, "Stalin's Heirs" ("Pravda", 10/21/1962) or "Bratskaya Hydroelectric Power Station" (1965). Or addressed them to a critical public (eg, Babi Yar, 1961, or Ballad of Poaching, 1965).

In 1962, the Pravda newspaper published the well-known poem "Stalin's Heirs" dedicated to the removal of Stalin's body from the mausoleum. His other works "Babi Yar" (1961), "Letter to Yesenin" (1965), "Tanks go through Prague" (1968) also caused a great resonance. Despite such a frank challenge to the then authorities, the poet continued to publish, travel throughout the country and abroad. Yevgeny Yevtushenko is published in the magazines Yunost (Youth, also a member of the editorial board of this magazine), Novy Mir, Znamya, which were known as opposition in Soviet times.

In 1963 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

08/23/1968, two days after the introduction of tanks into Czechoslovakia, he wrote a protest poem: “Tanks are moving through Prague” (1968).

His speeches in support of the Soviet dissidents Brodsky, Solzhenitsyn, Daniel became famous. Despite this, Joseph Brodsky did not like Yevtushenko (according to Sergei Dovlatov, his catchphrase “If Yevtushenko is against collective farms, then I am for it”) and sharply criticized the election of Yevtushenko as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1987.

In a 1972 interview published in October 2013, the Nobel Prize winner spoke extremely negatively about Yevtushenko as a poet and a person: “Yevtushenko? You know, it's not that simple. He is, of course, a very bad poet. And he's an even worse person. This is such a huge factory for the reproduction of oneself. According to the reproduction of himself ... He has poems that, in general, you can even remember, love, you can like them. I just don't like the level of the whole thing. That is, basically. The main such... the spirit does not like this. It just sucks."

Yevtushenko's stage performances gained fame: he successfully reads his own works. He released several CDs and audiobooks in his own performance: "Berry Places", "Dove in Santiago" and others.

From 1986 to 1991 he was the Secretary of the Board of the Writers' Union of the USSR. Since December 1991 - Secretary of the Board of the Commonwealth of Writers' Unions. Since 1989 - co-chairman of the writers' association "April". Since 1988 he has been a member of the Memorial Society.

On May 14, 1989, with a huge margin, gaining 19 times more votes than the nearest candidate, he was elected people's deputy USSR from the Dzerzhinsky territorial constituency of the city of Kharkov and was it until the end of the existence of the USSR.

In 1990, he became co-chairman of the All-Union Association of Writers in Support of Perestroika "April".

In 1991, having signed a contract with the American University in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he left with his family to teach in the United States, where he currently lives.

In 2007, the Olympiysky Sports Complex hosted the premiere of the rock opera White Snows Are Falling, created to the lyrics of Yevgeny Yevtushenko by composer Gleb May.

Some sources attribute P.A. Sudoplatov's statement that E. A. Yevtushenko collaborated with the KGB, acting as an "agent of influence". However, in the memoirs of Sudoplatov himself, this is described as a recommendation from Sudoplatov’s wife, a former intelligence officer, who turned to her for advice to KGB officers regarding Yevtushenko: “to establish friendly confidential contacts with him, in no case recruit him as an informant.”

On July 18, 2010, Yevtushenko opened a museum-gallery in Peredelkino near Moscow, coinciding this event with his birthday. The museum presents a personal collection of paintings donated to Yevtushenko by famous artists - Chagall, Picasso. There is a rare painting by Ernst, one of the founders of surrealism. The museum operates in a building specially built next to the poet's dacha.

The growth of Evgeny Yevtushenko: 177 centimeters.

Personal life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was officially married 4 times.

The first wife is a poetess. They have been married since 1954.

The second wife is Galina Semyonovna Sokol-Lukonina. Married since 1961.

The third wife is Jen Butler, Irish, his passionate admirer. They have been married since 1978. Sons Alexander and Anton were born in marriage.

The fourth wife is Maria Vladimirovna Novikova (born 1962). Married since 1987. The couple had sons Evgeny and Dmitry.

Illness and death of Yevgeny Yevtushenko

In 2013, the poet underwent a complex operation. In the USA, in a clinic in the city of Tulsa (Oklahoma), 81-year-old Evgeny Alexandrovich had his right leg amputated. Yevtushenko's leg problems began back in 1997. His ankle joint wore out, and he was given a titanium one. At first, everything went well, but then the poet began to suffer unbearable pain - it turned out that the titanium joint in the leg did not take root. In the end, the situation went so far that the doctors had to amputate the limb.

On December 14, 2014, during a tour in Rostov-on-Don, Yevgeny Yevtushenko was hospitalized due to a sharp deterioration in his health. Then the poet was transferred to the Burdenko Neurosurgery Research Institute, and then to the Central Clinical Hospital of the Presidential Administration in Moscow. Then the poet ended up in the hospital after he slipped and broke his head while getting out of the bathroom. In addition, the press also reported that Yevtushenko's hospitalization was directly related to suspected acute heart failure and a fracture of the temporal bone.

In August 2015, in Moscow, doctors at the Central Clinical Military Hospital named after P.V. Mandryk performed an operation on Yevtushenko’s heart. To eliminate problems with the heart rhythm, the poet was given a pacemaker during the operation.

On March 31, 2017, the poet was hospitalized in serious condition. "Yevgeny Alexandrovich was hospitalized in serious condition, I can't talk about the details yet. I can only say that this is not a planned examination," said wife Maria Novikova.

According to relatives and friends, "He had cancer in an irreversible form. After studying the tests, the doctors gave him three months to live, but he lived less than a month," said Mikhail Morgulis, a close family friend. This diagnosis was made by American doctors about six years ago. Then the poet underwent surgery and part of the kidney was removed. A month before his death, doctors diagnosed the fourth, last stage of cancer.

“He left calmly enough, painlessly. I held his hand for about an hour before his death. He knew that we loved,” said the son of the writer Eugene.

The poet left a will in which he expressed his desire to be buried at the Peredelkino cemetery next to Boris Pasternak.

April 10 passed in the church of the Holy Right-Believing Prince Igor of Chernigov in Peredelkino. The funeral service was performed by the former head of the press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, rector of the Church of the Holy Martyr Tatiana at Moscow State University, publicist and literary critic Vladimir Vigilyansky.

Poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

1953-1956 - "Station Winter"
1961 - Babi Yar
1965 - Bratskaya HPP
1965 - "Pushkin Pass"
1967 - "Corrida"
1968 - "Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty"
1970 - "Kazan University"
1971 - "Where are you from?"
1974 - "Snow in Tokyo"
1976 - "Ivanovskie chintz"
1977 - "Northern allowance"
1974-1978 - "Dove in Santiago"
1980 - "Nepryadva"
1982 - "Mom and the Neutron Bomb"
1984 - "Distant relative"
1985 - "Fuku!"
1996 - "Thirteen"
1996-2000 - "In full growth"
1975-2000 - Clearing
2011 - "Dora Franco"

Novels by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

1982 - "Berry Places"
1993 - "Don't die before you die"

Collections of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

1952 - Scouts of the Future;
1955 - "The Third Snow";
1956 - "Highway of Enthusiasts";
1957 - "Promise";
1959 - "Bow and lyre";
1959 - "Poems of different years";
1960 - "Apple";
1962 - "Wave of the hand";
1962 - "Tenderness";
1965 - Bratskaya HPP;
1966 - "Communication Boat";
1966 - "Kachka";
1966 - “This is what is happening to me”;
1967 - "Poems and poem" Bratskaya HPP "";
1967 - "Poems";
1969 - "White snows are coming";
1971 - "I am a Siberian breed";
1971 - "Kazan University";
1972 - "The Singing Dam";
1972 - "Road No. 1";
1973 - "Intimate Lyrics";
1973 - "A poet in Russia is more than a poet";
1975 - "Father's rumor";
1976 - "Thank you";
1977 - "In full growth";
1977 - "Clearing";
1978 - "Morning people";
1978 - "The Oath to Space";
1978 - "Compromise Compromise";
1979 - "Heavier than the earth";
1980 - "Explosion welding";
1981 - "Poems";
1982 - "Two pairs of skis";
1983 - ""Mom and the neutron bomb" and other poems";
1983 - "Where am I from";
1985 - "Almost in the end";
1986 - "Poltravinochki";
1987 - "Tomorrow's Wind";
1987 - "Poems";
1988 - "Last attempt";
1989 - "1989";
1989 - "Citizens, listen to me";
1989 - "Beloved, sleep";
1990 - "Green Gate";
1990 - "Last attempt";
1990 - "Belarusian Blood";
1990 - "Poems and poems";
1993 - "No years: love lyrics";
1994 - "My Golden Mystery";
1995 - "My most-most";
1995 - "Last Tears";
1997 - "Slow Love";
1997 - "Nevilivashka";
1999 - "Stolen Apples";
2001 - “I will break into the XXI century ...”;
2007 - "Window overlooks the white trees";
2007 - "Hymn of Russia";
2008 - "Poems of the XXI century";
2009 - "My football game";
2011 - "You can still save";
2012 - "Happiness and retribution";
2013 - "I can't say goodbye"

Songs of Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

“And yet there is something in our people” (Al. Karelin) - performed by Nat. Moskvin;
“And the snow will fall” (G. Ponomarenko) - Spanish. Claudia Shulzhenko;
“And the snow will fall” (D. Tukhmanov) - Spanish. Muslim Magomaev;
"Grandmothers" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. M. Zadornov and Nat. Moskvin;
"The Ballad of Friendship" (E. Krylatov);
"Ballad about the fishing village of Ayu" (Yu. Saulsky) - Spanish. A. Gradsky;
“Even applying all forces” (A. Pugacheva) - Spanish. Alla Pugacheva;
“You will love me” (N. Martynov) - Spanish. Viktor Krivonos;
"Eyes of Love" ("There's Always a Female Hand") (Brandon Stone) - Spanish. Brandon Stone;
"Eyes of Love" ("There will always be a female hand") (Mikael Tariverdiev) - Spanish. Galina Besedina;
"God forbid" (Raymond Pauls) - Spanish. A. Malinin;
"Dolphins" (Yu. Saulsky) - Spanish. VIA "Watercolors";
"Child is a villain" (group "Dialogue") - Spanish. Kim Breitburg (gr. "Dialogue");
"Envy" (V. Makhlyankin) - Spanish. Valentin Nikulin;
"Fawning" (I. Talkov) - Spanish. Igor Talkov; (group "Dialogue") - Spanish. Kim Breitburg (gr. "Dialogue");
"Spell" (I. Luchenok) - Spanish. Viktor Vujacic;
"Spell" (E. Horovets) - Spanish. Emil Gorovets;
“Will the clover field make noise” (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Eduard Khil, Lyudmila Gurchenko;
“Like a hollow ear” (V. Makhlyankin) - Spanish. Valentin Nikulin;
"Sound Recording Kiosk" (group "Dialog") - Spanish. Kim Breitburg (gr. "Dialogue");
"When the bells ring" (V. Pleshak) - Spanish. Edward Khil;
"When Your Face Came Up" (Brandon Stone);
“When a man is forty years old” (I. Nikolaev) - Spanish. Alexander Kalyanov;
“When a man comes to Russia” (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
“When a person betrays a person” (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Gennady Trofimov;
“I understood something in this life” (E. Gorovets) - Spanish. Emil Gorovets;
"Bell" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
Wallet (Brandon Stone);
"Beloved, sleep" (D. Tukhmanov) - Spanish. Valery Obodzinsky, Leonid Berger (Vesyolye Rebyata VIA), A. Gradsky;
“Love is a child of the planet” (D. Tukhmanov) - Spanish. VIA "Merry guys";
“There are no uninteresting people in the world” (V. Makhlyankin) - Spanish. Shaft. Nikulin;
"Metamorphoses" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. M. Zadornov and Nat. Moskvin;
“Our difficult Soviet man” (A. Babadzhanyan) - Spanish. Georg Ots, Muslim Magomaev;
“Do not be afraid” (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Gennady Trofimov;
"Do not rush" (A. Babajanyan) - Spanish. Muslim Magomayev, Anna German;
"No Years" (Sergey Nikitin);
“Am I really mortal” (S. Nikitin, P. I. Tchaikovsky);
"No one" (Yu. Saulsky) - Spanish. Zaur Tutov, A. Gradsky;
"Russian Songs" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
“My Song” (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Gene. Trofimov;
"Lament for a brother" (S. Nikitin);
"Lament for a communal apartment" (Louiza Khmelnitskaya) - Spanish. Gelena Velikanova, Joseph Kobzon;
“Under the creaky, weeping willow (“How to make your beloved happy”)” (G. Movsesyan) - Spanish. Georgy Movsesyan, Joseph Kobzon;
“Let me hope” (A. Babajanyan) - Spanish. Vladimir Popkov;
"Recognition" (Yu. Saulsky) - Spanish. Sofia Rotaru, Ksenia Georgiadi;
"The Princess and the Pea" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
“A simple song of Bulat” (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
"Professor" (group "Dialogue") - Spanish. Kim Breitburg (gr. "Dialogue");
"Child" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. M. Zadornov and Nat. Moskvin;
"Motherland" (B. Terentiev) - Spanish. VIA "Blue Bird";
"Spring" (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
"Romance" (E. Gorovets) - Spanish. Emil Gorovets;
"Fresh smell of lindens" (I. Nikolaev) - Spanish. A. Kalyanov;
"Save and Save" (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Valentina Tolkunova;
"Old friend" (I. Nikolaev) - Spanish. A. Kalyanov;
"Your footprints" (Arno Babajanyan) - Spanish. People Zykina, Sofia Rotaru;
"Til" (A. Petrov) - Spanish. Ed. Gil;
“You are leaving like a train” (M. Tariverdiev) - Spanish. VIA "Singing Guitars";
"By the Sea" (B. Emelyanov) - Spanish. Vakhtang Kikabidze;
“Beloved leaves” (V. Makhlyankin) - Spanish. Shaft. Nikulin;
“The Church must be prayed for” (Al. Karelin) - Spanish. Nat. Moskvin;
"Ferris Wheel" (Arno Babajanyan) - Spanish. Muslim Magomaev;
“What love knows about love” (A. Eshpay) - Spanish. Ludmila Gurchenko;
"I am a citizen Soviet Union"(D. Tukhmanov) - Spanish. Muslim Magomaev;
“I love you more than nature” (R. Pauls) - Spanish. Irina Dubtsova;
“I fell out of love with you” (V. Makhlyankin) - Spanish. Shaft. Nikulin;
“I want to bring” (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Gennady Trofimov;
"The river is running" - Spanish. People Zykina, Lyudmila Senchina, Maria Pakhomenko;
"Waltz about the Waltz" - Spanish. Claudia Shulzhenko, Maya Kristalinskaya;
"Long farewell" - Spanish. Lev Leshchenko;
"White snows are coming" - Spanish. Gelena Velikanova, V. Troshin;
"Sooner or Later" - Spanish. V. Troshin;
"My Motherland" - Spanish. People Zykin;
"Old Tango" - Spanish. Vit. Markov, Iosif Kobzon;
"Comrade guitar" - Spanish. Claudia Shulzhenko;
"Murderers walk the earth" - Spanish. Arthur Eisen, Mark Bernes, Alexandrov Ensemble;
"Do the Russians want wars?" (dedicated to Mark Bernes) - Spanish. Yuri Gulyaev, Mark Bernes, Vad. Ruslanov

Filmography of Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

Actor:

1965 - "Ilyich's Outpost" (Yevtushenko appears in a documentary insert about a poetry evening at the Polytechnic Museum)
1979 - "Rise" - K. E. Tsiolkovsky
1983 - " Kindergarten» - chess player
1990 - "Stalin's Funeral" - sculptor

Producer:

1983 - "Kindergarten"
1990 - Stalin's Funeral

Screenwriter:

1964 - "I am Cuba" (with Enrique Pineda Barnet)
1990 - Stalin's Funeral

Songs:

1961 - "The Career of Dima Gorin". The song "And it's snowing" (Andrey Eshpay) - Spanish. Maya Kristalinskaya. The song was also performed by Zhanna Aguzarova, Anzhelika Varum;
1975 - "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!", directed by Eldar Ryazanov. The song “This is what is happening to me ...” (Mikael Tariverdiev - performed by S. Nikitin);
1977 - "Office Romance", directed by Eldar Ryazanov. The song "We are chatting in crowded trams ..." Andrey Petrov;
1977-1978 - songs from the series "And it's all about him" (based on the novel by Vilya Lipatov). Music by E. Krylatov: "Alder Earring" - Spanish. Gennady Trofimov, Eduard Khil;
"Don't be afraid" - Spanish. A. Kavalerov;
"Steps" - Spanish. Gene. Trofimov;
1981 - In the sky "night witches". The song "When you sing songs on Earth ..." (E. Krylatov) - Spanish. Elena Kamburova.

In recent years, Yevgeny Yevtushenko has evaded a direct answer to the question of which of the Russian poets should be awarded the Nobel Prize. Apparently, the answer was obvious to him. And such confidence is unfounded

Text: Mikhail Wiesel/The Year of Literature, for RBTH.com
Collage: Year of Literature. RF

1.

Yevtushenko is one of those few poets in any literature, whose lines have entered the flesh of a living language, turned into sayings. "A poet in Russia is more than a poet"; “do the Russians want wars”; “there are no monuments above Babi Yar”; “this is what happens to me, my old friend does not go". Native Russian speakers pronounce these phrases without thinking where they came from, and they have a specific author:.

2.

At the same time, Yevtushenko is well known outside of Russia - which is also not so often the case with representatives of a great (in terms of the number of people for whom he is native), but a language that is not widely used in the world. Starting from the sixties, Yevtushenko traveled a lot around the world, speaking in huge halls (in one of them

I saw him and immediately offered the role of Christ in his "Gospel of Matthew"

He was so struck by how the blue-eyed Siberian guy held the audience). And since 1991, personal and professional circumstances have developed in such a way that almost all academic year, from September to May, he spent in the US, at the University of Tulsa. That also contributed to his recognition not only in the artistic, but also in the academic environment - from which the “applications” for the Nobel Prize come.

3.

Despite the inevitable jealousy in an artistic environment, even the most vehement dislikes of Yevtushenko's poetics and personality admitted: yes, he really passionately loves, knows by heart a huge number of poems (not only his friends, but also people personally and creatively not close to him) - and tirelessly all life is engaged in its dissemination and even propaganda. Suffice it to mention Yevtushenko's monumental anthology Stanzas of the Century (1995), in which for the first time the poems of many emigrants banned and therefore forgotten in the USSR were returned. And most recently, Evgeny Alexandrovich completed work on an even more monumental five-volume collection Ten Centuries of Russian Poetry (2013).

4.

Nobel Prize in literature, it is given not for any particular work (although sometimes it is implied, as in the case with), but “ according to the totality of merit and achievements ". The merits of Yevtushenko are undeniable: long before he returned poetry lovers to the stadiums, showing that the composition and, most importantly, the perception of poetry is accessible not only to highly educated residents of campuses and small artistic cafes, but also to the general public - no matter how ironically the representatives of the same educated stratum.

5.

At the same time, Yevtushenko is not a loner, not a random fluctuation, but a representative of a vast and fruitful literary direction, like ( silver Age) or W. S. Naipaul (post-colonial literature).

The legendary writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born in Siberia in 1932, and from birth, his whole life was associated with change. Eugene's mother, Zinaida Ivanovna, changed her husband's surname to her maiden name and recorded her son as Yevtushenko. This is not surprising. The head of the family, Alexander Rudolfovich, was half German, half Baltic and bore the surname Gangnus. A little later, during the evacuation of the Great Patriotic War In order to avoid problems with documents, the mother had to change the year in Eugene's birth certificate to 1933.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko grew up in a creative family: his father was an amateur poet, and his mother was an actress, who later received the title of Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR. From an early age, his parents instilled in him a love of books: they read aloud, recounted amusing facts from history, teaching the child to read. So, at the age of six, dad taught little Zhenya to read and write. For his development, little Yevtushenko chose not at all children's authors, reading the works of Cervantes and Flaubert.

In 1944, Evgeny's family moved to Moscow, and after a while his father left the family and went to another woman. At the same time, Alexander Rudolfovich continues to work literary development son. Eugene studied at the poetry studio of the House of Pioneers, attending poetry evenings at Moscow State University with his father. Yevtushenko visited creative evenings, Alexander Tvardovsky,. And the mother, being a soloist of the theater. , often collected the houses of artists and poets. Mikhail Roshchin, Evgeny Vinokurov, Vladimir Sokolov and others came to visit little Zhenya.

Poetry

In such a creative atmosphere, young Zhenya was developed beyond his years and tried to imitate adults, also writing poetry. In 1949, Yevtushenko's poem was first published in one of the issues of the Soviet Sport newspaper.

In 1951, Eugene entered the Gorky Literary Institute and was soon expelled for not attending lectures, but the real reason lay in public statements that were unacceptable for that time. By the way, Yevtushenko received a diploma of higher education only in 2001.

Absence higher education did not prevent the young talent from achieving success in creativity. In 1952, the first collection "Scouts of the Future" was published, consisting of praising poems and pathos slogans. And the start of a serious career as a poet was given by the poems "Before the meeting" and "Vagon". In the same year, Yevtushenko was accepted into the Writers' Union of the USSR, and the twenty-year-old boy became the youngest member of the organization.

The real fame of the young poet is brought by such works as "The Third Snow", "Poems of Different Years" and "Apple". In just a few years, Yevgeny Yevtushenko achieves such recognition that he is invited to speak at poetry evenings. The young poet read his poems along with such legends as, and Bella Akhmadulina.

In addition to poetry, prose, which was loved by readers, came out from under his pen. The first work "The Fourth Meshchanskaya" was published in 1959 in the journal "Youth", later the second story "The Chicken God" was published. Yevtushenko released his first novel, Berry Places, in 1982, and his next, Don't Die Before You Die, eleven years later.

In the early nineties, the writer moved to the United States, but he did not stop his creative activity there either: he taught courses in Russian poetry at local universities and even published several works. Yevgeny Yevtushenko still publishes his collections. So, in 2012, "Happiness and Retribution" comes out, and a year later - "I Can't Say Goodbye."

During his creative life, more than one hundred and thirty books were published, and his works are read in 70 languages ​​of the world.

Evgeny Alexandrovich not only received recognition among readers, but also earned countless awards. So, Yevtushenko was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the USSR State Prize and the Tefi Prize. The poet was awarded the "Badge of Honor" and the medal "For Services to the Fatherland" - and this is only a small part of the awards. Minor planet named after writer solar system, which is called 4234 Evtushenko. Also, Evgeny Alexandrovich is an honorary professor at King's College in Queens, the University of Santo Domingo, the University new school in New York "Honoris Causa" and at the University of Pittsburgh.

Music

The poet's poems inspire many musicians to create songs and musical ghosts. For example, on the basis of Yevtushenko's poem "Babi Yar", the composer created the famous thirteenth symphony. This work has gained worldwide recognition: "Babi Yar" is known in seventy-two languages ​​of the world. Evgeny began to collaborate with composites back in the sixties, working with such celebrities as Evgeny Krylatsky, Eduard Kolmanovsky and.

Songs based on the poet's verses became real hits. Probably, there is no person in the post-Soviet space who would not know the compositions "And it's snowing", "When the bells ring" and "Motherland". The poet also managed to work with musical groups: his poems formed the basis of the rock operas The Execution of Stepan Razin and White Snows Are Falling. The last work came out with a premiere at the Olimpiysky sports complex in Moscow in 2007.

Movies

Yevtushenko managed to prove himself in the cinema. The script for the film "I am Cuba", which was released in 1964, was written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko in collaboration with Enrique Pineda Barnet. In Savva Kulish's film "Rise", the poet played the main role.

The picture was released in 1979. And in 1983, the writer tried himself as a screenwriter and directed the film "Kindergarten", where he played a small role. In 1990, he wrote and directed the film The Funeral.

Personal life

The poet and writer was married four times. For the first time, Eugene married in 1954 to a poetess. But the creative union did not last long, and in 1961 Yevtushenko married Galina Sokol-Lukonina. In this marriage, they had a son, Peter.

The third wife of the writer was his admirer from Ireland, Jen Butler, and although the foreigner gave birth to Yevtushenko's two sons, Anton and Alexander, their marriage also broke up.

The fourth choice was the doctor and philologist Maria Novikova. Yevtushenko has been married to her for 26 years, raising two sons - Dmitry and Evgeny.

Death

April 1, 2017 at the age of 85. The legendary poet died in the US clinic where he was. The writer's wife, Maria Novikova, said that the doctors practically did not give Yevgeny Alexandrovich a chance to recover, but fought for his life until the last minutes.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko died in his sleep from cardiac arrest, surrounded by family and friends. He also managed to announce his last will - the poet's dying wish was a request to bury him in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow near.

Bibliography

• Scouts of the Future
• Highway Enthusiasts
• White snows are falling
• I am Siberian
• Compromise Kompromisovich
• Almost to the end
• Sleep, darling
• I'll break through into the twenty-first century...
• happiness and retribution
• I can't say goodbye

Vladimir Krupin on the nomination of E. Yevtushenko and V. Pelevin for the Nobel Prize in Literature...

Nobel Prizes in Literature are awarded solely for artistic merit, said Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. He categorically rejected the suggestion that major events of the current year such as the "Arab spring" or natural disasters in Japan could play a role in the selection of the current laureate, ITAR-TASS reports. “We strive to completely eliminate all factors outside the work itself, including the international environment, the author's activities outside of literature, the degree of his popularity,” he said. “The decision is made only on the basis of the merits of the work.”

This year, according to RIA Novosti, the list of the most likely candidates for the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature, compiled by bookmakers from the British company Ladbrokes, includes Russian writers Viktor Pelevin and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. However, they noticeably lag behind foreign authors. The list of favorites is headed by the 77-year-old poet Adonis from Syria, the second number is the poet from Sweden Thomas Transtremer, the third is the Japanese prose writer Haruki Murakami. Pelevin, who for the first time entered the list of candidates for the most prestigious award in the world, shares places from 50th to 58th out of 77, and Yevtushenko, who has already been among the contenders for the Nobel Prize many times, takes places from 60th to 71st.

We asked the famous Russian writer Vladimir Krupin to express his opinion about the declared apathy of the Nobel Committee and the contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature from Russia.

Vladimir KrupinAlthough they claim to be alien political motives, but put forward the most politicized poet Yevtushenko, who, as they say, "fluctuated along with the party line." He was for Khrushchev, and for Brezhnev, and for Gorbachev, and for Yeltsin, and now, of course, for Medvedev and Putin. I do not blame him at all for this, because everyone chooses his own path, but at the same time, it is impossible to imagine that Yevtushenko's poetry stands next to Rubtsov's poetry in terms of its level. In addition, it seems to me that Yevtushenko's preoccupation with popularity exceeds his talent.

Pelevin in his work is simply depraved. His nomination for the Nobel Prize causes only misunderstanding and surprise, it does not fit into any gates. If they declare that only the artistic merits of works are taken into account, then I simply do not see them in Pelevin. To be honest, I tried to read his books, but I couldn't.

In my opinion, the nominated candidates will only dishonor Russian literature if one of them actually wins the Nobel Prize. However, the Nobel Prize compromised itself a long time ago. I advise you to read Vadim Kozhinov's article about the Nobel Prize, in which he proves that all the most significant writers of the 20th century passed this award. And those who were awarded it have long been forgotten. Therefore, the Nobel Prize itself has long meant nothing in the literary process.

But I am completely calm about genuine Russian literature. It is alive and significant, it is leading in the world, because it was grown by Orthodoxy.

Yevtushenko Brodsky. According to the mind, Russia should nominate for the Nobel Prize not Putin, but the significant Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, while he is alive. Yevtushenko is no less worthy of the Nobel Prize in Literature than the Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda or the Nobel Prize-winning writer Ivan Bunin.

Yevtushenko uttered a fraction in Russian and about the Russian language for ten encyclopedias. Not everything is equal. But in his best poems, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko is the best Russian in Russian poetry of the 20th century. He knew how to stylize the text under the essence, under the essential, what the text itself is about, under the aesthetics of the event, what the poem is about. In fact, Yevtushenko is not only a poet, but also a learned linguist, the same linguist-scientist as the poets Burliuk, Kruchenykh, Mayakovsky, Yesenin, Fatyanov were. These are masters of the highest artistic stylization by the methods of word and text. This is great science and divine instinct.

Brodsky did not envy Yevtushenko as a poet. Brodsky envied his ability to transform in the text and the ability to stylize, no less than the ability to stylize in the best craftsmen painting in Italy during the Renaissance. Yevtushenko is the correctness of style before the murder of the poet in himself. The essence is the main thing, the metaphor rushes out of turn, let poetry perish, I will repeat the main thing again, let the critics hang me for this, but I will explain to my people the main thing - and people will understand me - that's what the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko is like a shock worker-producer of literature on the mountain for Russia.

Yevtushenko is a great Russian poet. Many ingenious formulas from his poems have become proverbs, aphorisms and common clichés of the imagination of a generation from a generation of Russian people, as it was with Pushkin.

Brodsky did not envy Yevtushenko. Brodsky believed that Yevtushenko had ruined his talent by mimicking. Brodsky, for obvious reasons, could neither believe nor feel ever in his life that Russia can be loved just so selflessly, as something absolutely natural, which does not need to be imitated, but sometimes, on the contrary, needs to be muffled in oneself and in one's poems in order to outsiders and outsiders did not accuse the author of excessive pathos. But we do not accuse romantics of false artificial pathos - the authors of Italian operas and Neapolitan songs.

Brodsky envied not Yevtushenko, but Osip Mandelstam. With age, Brodsky increasingly moved away from simple memorable poetry, what we know and love, like the early Brodsky - to multi-vector sketches of what he learned about life, what he felt himself, what he considered his personal wise discoveries about the essence and paradoxes of being .

Brodsky believed that everything he said was the first and for the first time. And in this sense, he did not envy Yevtushenko, but another great Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam. He envied the fact that he managed to live in a rich European Russian environment in St. Petersburg until 1917 and in Petrograd in the 20s, until Stalinism ate and simplified everything, until St. with their feelings and depth of thought in Leningrad.

Creative death, in fact the extinction of St. Petersburg, is a separate issue, a separate tragedy of the entire Russian and Soviet civilization, which the USSR and Russia did not like and do not like to talk about as a secret indelible sin on their conscience. This is not only Stalin's or Brezhnev's, this is today's, Putin's greatest sin - Petersburg is fading away. But this is precisely the tragedy that the poet Joseph Brodsky experienced with all his ruined youth and all his unfulfilled life in all its fullness. The feeling of living on an island of a great European culture that is leaving, and at the same time living as in a cemetery, made up with jaunty pantomimes for progress, that's what killed Brodsky in his youth in his homeland. Live in a fantastic beautiful city- the capital of the former imperial Russia - dreams of Europe in Russia, a city that was centuries ahead of the country, and now - to be born under communism, to develop already in the 1950s and 60s, to depend on some Lenizdat, a Leningrad writers' organization, Leningrad newspapers and the pseudo-gurus of criticism and literature in them - that was Brodsky's daily torment - the gradual total grinding of St. Petersburg in symbols and people, officially invigorating, but fading city of Leningrad.

And in this sense, Joseph Brodsky envied Osip Mandelstam, his language, his metaphors, the fact that he still found at least something essential in all the flowering and splendor of human and artistic forms and lived in this and so juicy, magnificently created, as if on feast of youth and beauty dined in an amazing restaurant. This feeling of a feast of life and culture with all the dramatic collisions that Osip Mandelstam and Osip Mandelstam's Petersburg represented was what Joseph Brodsky envied and yearned for such an existence, for that poetic environment.

The optimistic culture of the Soviet era, and the best of Yevgeny Yevtushenko directly relates to it, simply prevented Brodsky from hearing the sincere notes of real lyrics or tragedy in essence. Brodsky believed that the poet should speak honestly about the complex. Yevtushenko could, in search of the most talented generalization - with all his passion, with hot breath, draw his “city at dawn” in front of people. Not always and not everyone liked it. One of the best lines in "The Master and Margarita" by the writer Mikhail Bulgakov is about "soar and develop for the holiday of May 1 or November 7" and about purchased inspiration, and this is about himself - in his youth, Mikhail Bulgakov, a writer from a priest's family, worked part-time in the department, composing and embodying slogans for demonstrations of workers on May 1 and November 7 - on communist holidays, in order to decorate communist columns. Is Mikhail Bulgakov less worthy of the Nobel Prize in Literature for his other literary works, brilliant novels and plays?

Brodsky and Yevtushenko. "They came together, water and stone ..." not in life, but in literature and in disputes about the meaning of life.

A living classic of Russian literature, an excellent Russian and Soviet poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko today is not so young and not as full of health as it might seem on the television screen. He is an old man and every day he can already die after his friends, other titans of Russian and Soviet literature of the 20th century. And dead poets and writers are not awarded Nobel Prizes.

Where is our great scholar and educator Igor Leonidovich Volgin, where is the democrat in the cube, specialist in texts Marietta Omarovna Chudakova, the chanter of the Decembrists Yakov Arkadevich Gordin and the tribune of poets of the revolutionaries of the leftists Lev Alexandrovich Anninsky to nominate the poet Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko for the Nobel Prize in Literature, as a proposal from Russia, while a good, real Russian poet is still alive? "Everyone dodging, every single one?"

When will this "we help no one" in the apparatus of modern Russian literature stop? When will Russia forget about the unspoken rule never to help anyone or anything great in their homeland?

Small-scale Teletubbies from morning to evening tell and sing to us about great tragedies and great torments, helping no one and nothing significant in the matter and fighting for their right not to help anyone, being at the very top and entertaining and oppressing for life.

There is no creative conflict between the poetic legacy of Brodsky and the poetic legacy of Yevtushenko.

Cultural figures, real writers of Russia would do a wonderful job for Russia and the Russian people by nominating Yevgeny Yevtushenko for the Nobel Prize in Literature, as long as this living classic is available to a generation. once in recent Russian history - "And marauders stood over the coffin and carry an honor guard."

Yevtushenko should be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. And it will be pride, a successful song, beautiful and timely for all of Russia.

The powerful, essential legacy of Joseph Brodsky will not be diminished by this.

Alexander Bogdanov,

St. Petersburg.