soccer stadium were built on the site, and in time
a television station and factory were also built
there. However, no memorial was erected, which
Yevtushenko noted in the poem that he wrote
immediately after he visited the site in the fall of
- Yevtushenko’s poem and Shostakovich’s
symphony created enough government embar-
rassment that a monument was at last built in - This bronze monument is fifty feet tall, but
its inscription does not specifically mention the
Jews who died. Instead, it simply states that at
this location more than 100,000 citizens of Kiev
and Soviet prisoners of war were killed between
1941 and 1943. Finally, in 1991, Jewish groups
erected a large bronze menorah away from the
ravine and over the site where the bodies had
been burned and the ashes buried. The menorah
was vandalized in 2006, when the inscription at
the base was badly damaged. Jewish leaders
remain unhappy that children play soccer on
the site of the massacre, but since the site is a
popular park, there are no plans to change its
use. Yevtushenko’s poem ‘‘Babii Yar’’ is consid-
ered by many to be the most fitting and enduring
memorial to the Jews who died there.
Critical Overview.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s ‘‘Babii Yar’’ is contro-
versial and has accordingly attracted critical
attention. In 1961, in an essay published in the
New York Times, Harry Schwartz reported that
the Russian reception of ‘‘Babii Yar’’ was decid-
edly negative. Schwartz notes that Yevtushen-
ko’s reading of his poem resulted in two articles
appearing in the Soviet literary journalLitera-
tura i Zhizn. Both articles ‘‘bitterly denounced
Mr. Yevtushenko for allegedly slandering the
Russian people in his poem and for ignoring
the Communist party’s alleged opposition to
anti-Semitism.’’ Schwartz does not deal with
the technical or aesthetic virtues of ‘‘Babii
Yar’’; instead, his focus is on the political ram-
ifications of the poem. Indeed, the political ram-
ifications of Yevtushenko’s poetry have long
been an issue for critics reviewing his work. In
a 1966 critique ofThe Poetry of Yevgeny Yev-
tushenko, 1953–1965 in the Russian Review,
Louis J. Shein remarked on the success that
Yevtushenko had experienced. According to
Shein, ‘‘Yevtushenko’s fame is not due so much
to the high quality of his poetry as to his
outspoken criticism of Soviet bureaucracy.’’
Shein argues that Yevtushenko should be judged
‘‘solely on the quality of his poetry and not on his
‘political’ views.’’
In a lengthy 1973New York Times Magazine
profile of the poet, Robert Conquest notes Yev-
tushenko’s personal popularity with audiences
who attend his readings. In the early 1960s, his
audiences at times numbered ten thousand or
more, and ‘‘his poems were printed in editions
of 100,000.’’ This is a number unheard of for
most American poets, whose books might sell
anywhere from 500 to 2,500 copies. In speaking
specifically about ‘‘Babii Yar,’’ Conquest notes
that Yevtushenko ‘‘yielded to pressure on this
poem, eliminated two lines and added two others
to include Russian and Ukrainian victims of the
massacre.’’ In doing so, according to Conquest,
Yevtushenko elected to ‘‘play down the theme of
anti-Semitism’’ for which the poem is best
known. In a 1991New Republicarticle, the critic
Tomas Venclova devotes most of his attention to
criticizing Yevtushenko’s more controversial
reputation in Russia, especially his perceived
betrayal of dissident poets, which benefited his
own status and allowed him to travel more
extensively outside the Soviet Union. Venclova
also singles out a couple of Yevtushenko’s
poems for closer criticism, including ‘‘Babii
Yar,’’ which he calls ‘‘poetically feeble, and full
of sentimental cliche ́s.’’ Regardless of whether
critics admire Yevtushenko or his poetry—and
clearly many critics are not fans of either the poet
or his work—the importance of ‘‘Babii Yar’’
remains. It acts as a memorial to the Jewish
victims of the massacre at Babi Yar and as a
reminder of the dangers that anti-Semitism
presents.CRITICISMSheri Metzger Karmiol
Karmiol has a doctorate in English Renaissance
literature and teaches literature and drama at the
University of New Mexico, where she is a lecturer
in the university honors program. She is also a
professional writer and the author of several refer-
ence texts on poetry and drama. In this essay,
Karmiol discusses how ‘‘Babii Yar’’ functions
within the tradition of Holocaust poetry that
gives voice to the unspeakable.Babii Yar