cheating moves, and clever adaptations to exist-
ing conditions (which became more and more
stifling after Khrushchev’s removal in October
1964). The poet himself pictured his rushing
about as a wise stratagem serving the liberal
cause. But not many Russian and non-Russian
intellectuals agreed with him; the dissident move-
ment virtually discarded Yevtushenko as an ally.
And that was irreversible.
‘‘Bratsk Hydroelectric Station’’ is a paean to
one of the typical Soviet industrial projects in
Siberia. (Today such projects, usually unprofit-
able and fraught with ecological disasters, are
repudiated by public opinion, and even by the
government itself.) The central part of the poem
consists of an argument between an Egyptian
pyramid and the Siberian powerhouse: the for-
mer symbolizes all the conservative and enslaving
tendencies of history (Stalinism supposedly
included), while the latter defends the cause of
idealist faith and human emancipation. Yevtush-
enko overlooked the fact that the opposition is
far from perfect: slave labor or near-slave labor
played an approximately identical part in build-
ing both monuments. And the forces of freedom
are represented in the poem by rather dubious
figures. One of them is Stenka Razin, leader of a
savage peasant revolt in the seventeenth century,
whose confessions sound chilling (‘‘No, it is not in
this I have sinned, my people, / for hanging boy-
ars from the towers. / I have sinned in my own
eyes in this, / that I hanged too few of them’’).
There is also a scene where young Lenin (never
named but perfectly recognizable) guides a
drunken woman (supposedly Mother Russia) by
the elbow, and she blesses him as her true son.
This transformation of Lenin into a Christ-like
figure insulted equally the followers of Lenin and
the followers of Christ.
Virtually the same applies to many of Yev-
tushenko’s later poetic works. The long poem
‘‘Kazan University’’ (1970) described czarist Rus-
sia with some wit and verve. Reactionary tenden-
cies of the nineteenth century brought to mind
Brezhnevian stagnation, and the liberal scholar
Lesgaft, harassed by theauthorities, might be
easily interpreted as a forebear of Sakharov. But
the university of Kazan was also the breeding
ground for Lenin, who, according to the author
(and to the Soviet textbooks), was the crown prince
of Russian democracy. Never mind that Lenin was
the very opposite of democracy—and that he never
attempted to conceal it. Transforming him into a
prophet of human rights, of brotherhood and jus-
tice, into a Gandhi or a Sakharovavant la lettre,is
nauseating. (It is also un-Marxist.)
Many of Yevtushenko’s poems on Western
topics are characterized by the same double-
think. Harangues against the ‘‘doltish regime’’
of Salazar, against the Chilean murderers or
American bureaucrats (‘‘Under the Skin of the
Statue of Liberty,’’ 1968) can be construed as
transparent allegories: in fact, the poet is attack-
ing native Soviet deficiencies. But at the same
time the attacks perfectly conform to the general
tenor of the Party’s propaganda; Salazar, Pino-
chet, the FBI, and the Pentagon always were
convenient bugaboos, and in that capacity
helped the Party to keep the people silent and
loyal. Moreover, the general picture of the West
in these poems is usually touristy and superficial.
Fascinated by material standards and the ever
changing fashions of the First World, Yevtush-
enko nevertheless mythologizes his role as ‘‘the
ambassador of all the oppressed’’ and a Russian
(and Soviet) patriot. There are also endless
exhortations for peaceful coexistence and friend-
ship of peoples (‘‘Russia and America, / Swim
closer!’’), essentially noble, but less than irre-
proachable in the era of de ́tente.
The poet’s editors and promoters tend to
emphasize his heroic gestures during the crisis
periods in the USSR. It is true that he sent a
telegram to Brezhnev protesting the Czech inva-
sion. It is also said that he phoned Andropov to
express his intention to die on the barricades if
Solzhenitsyn was imprisoned. But his protests
were incomparably more cautious, and much
less resonant, than the protests of real dissenters,
who paid with their freedom. And the telegram
to Brezhnev has the air of an intimate exchange
of views between allies: Yevtushenko speaks in it
about ‘‘our action,’’ which is a damaging mis-
take, ‘‘a great gift to all the reactionary forces in
the world.’’ The poem ‘‘Russian Tanks in
Prague,’’ moreover, was circulated secretly and
reached a very limited circle, so as to avoid doing
any harm to the poet’s career.
A poet’s dubious moral and political stance
does not always preclude good poetry. In Yev-
tushenko’s case, though, it does. His verses, as a
role, do not belong to the realm of poetry at all.
They are made up of middlebrow journalism and
an interminable flow of didactic chatter; they
have virtually nothing in common with the trueBabii Yar