problems of modern (or any) poetics. For all his
declarations of ardor and fervor, Yevtushenko is
hackneyed, kitschy, and lukewarm. On almost
every page you stumble on something like ‘‘eye-
lashes laden / with tears and storms,’’ or ‘‘eyes
half-shut with ecstasy and pain.’’ Melodramatic
effusions (‘‘My love is a demolished church /
above the turbid river of memories’’) alternate
with revelations worthy of a sex manual (‘‘When
we love, / nothing is base or tasteless. / When we
love, / nothing is shameful.’’).
I am trying not to be unfair. There are some
concessions I must make in Yevtushenko’s favor.
He is usually free of Voznesensky’s pretentious-
ness. You can find in his books good similes,
successful vignettes of daily life, touching charac-
ters, and hair-raising stories that may, alas, be
tree. And his weaknesses become more obvious
in translation. I would be inclined to praise such
poems as ‘‘Handrolled Cigarettes’’ or ‘‘The Ballad
of the Big Stamp’’ (the latter is hilarious, though
it suffers in translation since it lacks a factual
commentary about Russian religious sects). And
of course Yevtushenko is a figure to reckon with
because of his inexhaustible energy. But all these
attractive traits are deeply tainted by his taste for
comfort and accommodation, by his eagerness to
play humiliating games with the censors, by the
mixture of self-admiration, self-pity, and coquet-
tish self-deprecation that have become his indel-
ible mark.
Today Yevtushenko is a member—by no
means the leader—of the liberal wing of the
perestroika establishment. His book of journal-
istic prose,Fatal Half Measures, from which I
have quoted extensively, traces his political
career between 1962, whenA Precocious Auto-
biography, published in the West, caused a pass-
ing commotion, and 1990, when his speeches
resounded, rather hollowly, in several public
forums. The book is preceded by a poem in
which Yevtushenko seems to be admonishing
Gorbachev: ‘‘Don’t half recoil, / lost in broad
daylight, / half rebel, / half suppressor / of the
half insurrection / you gave birth to!’’
But the book’s title perfectly applies to the
poet’s own style of action. Fatal half measures,
indeed. Yevtushenko lags desperately behind
events. The gap between his wordy, complacent
prose and the Soviet public mood became
unbridgeable long ago. In the book, Yevtush-
enko launches crusades against nuclear war,
against the monopoly of the Party, against
Russian chauvinism, against cruelty to animals,
and lots of other unsavory phenomena. Most of
his thoughts on these topics are with the angels.
But they are still wrapped in the old Soviet dis-
course, and that discourse is finally as dead as
nails. He strives to improve his fatherland with-
out rejecting the main part of the ideology that
makes such a project hopeless. He is what he
always was, a man of fatal half-truths, of fatal
half measures. In this way, he is the counterpart
of his presumably avid reader Gorbachev. Both
attempt to promote something like totalitarian-
ism with a human face. It never worked. It never
will.
Source:Tomas Venclova, ‘‘Making It,’’ inNew Republic,
May 6, 1991, pp. 33–37.Thomas D’Evelyn
In the following article, D’Evelyn discusses several
of Yevtushenko’s most famous poems, including
‘‘Babii Yar.’’
For about 30 years now, Yevgeny Yevtush-
enko has lit up the international scene with his
unique fireworks, a blend of chutzpah, charm,
and sheer gall. His most recent coup—a teaching
stint at the University of Pennsylvania—brings
the career of this Soviet poet to a pinnacle of
success. Now the publication of his complete
poems in English [The Complete Poems] will
provide opportunities for a long look at the
basis of his career, a large body of poems of
diverse kinds that is at once accessible and
beguilingly obscure.
Yevtushenko was 20 when Stalin died. He
rode the anti-Stalin wave to prominence, reading
in front of thousands and selling tens of thou-
sands of his books of poetry. Even when the
inevitable swerve came and Khrushchev
attacked modern art, Yevtushenko kept baiting
dogmatic bureaucrats and those he would call
‘‘comradwhatifers’’ in a poem. He also spoke in
solidarity with Jews. In 1963, the great hammerHE KNEW WHAT MATTERED MOST TO HIM. HE
WANTED A ROLE IN SOCIETY; HE WANTED TO BE
ACCEPTED AS A POET.’’Babii Yar