fell. Yevtushenko was forced to confess his irrep-
arable error. While others, like Solzhenitsyn,
chose silence, Yevtushenko got a second wind
and was praised by party organs for his civic-
mindedness.
This patriot, who has achieved extraordinary
freedom of movement, uses the word ‘‘interna-
tional’’ as a term of highest praise. In one of his
earliest and most publicized poems, ‘‘Babii Yar,’’
he addresses his audience: ‘‘O my Russian people!
/ I know / you / are international to the core.’’
While this cannot be taken literally, it does con-
firm usage elsewhere. For Yevtushenko, patrio-
tism and internationalism do not conflict.
Yet the springs of Yevtushenko’s art appear
to well up from the same source that fed the great
Russian novelists of the 19th century. In his
introduction to The Collected Poems, 1952–
1990 , Albert C. Todd says, ‘‘Confession, grap-
pling with self-understanding, is the impetus
behind most of the poems that are mistakenly
understood to be merely social or political. His
sharpest attacks on moral cowardice begin with a
struggle within his own conscience.’’
Yevtushenko wrote in 1965: ‘‘The first pre-
sentiment of a poem / in a true poet / is the feeling
of sin / committed somewhere, sometime.’’ His
experience in the ’60s gave him many opportuni-
ties for his brand of poetry. In 1964 he published
the big patriotic poem ‘‘Bratsk Hydroelectric Sta-
tion.’’ Although he’s silent about the cruel slave
labor used to erect the station, in a section entitled
‘‘Monologue of the Egyptian Pyramid,’’ he does
mention the whip under which the Egyptian
slaves labored. The comparison seems obvious
and intentional.
Yevtushenko often uses the monologue to
speak indirectly about himself. In ‘‘Monologue
of an Actress,’’ he speaks as an actress from
Broadway who can’t find a suitable role. ‘‘With-
out some sort of role, life / is simply slow rot,’’
she says.
This throws light on the public nature of
Yevtushenko’s calling as a poet, as well as on
his passivity toward events. Despite the confes-
sional nature of much of his poetry, he needs
public events—including his own feelings,
which he makes public—to become inspired.
In ‘‘Monologue of a Loser’’ (1978), he voices
the moral ambiguity of one who has played the
game of moral dice, the game into which every
poet in a closed society must buy if he wishes a
big public. ‘‘My modest loss was this: / dozens of
tons of verses, / the whole globe, / my country, /
my friends, / my wife,/ I myself—/ but on that
account, however, / I’m not very upset. / Such
trifles / as honor / I forgot to consider.’’
Other poems put his difficulties more
objectively.
In ‘‘My Handwriting,’’ he symbolizes the
Soviet ship of state as a ‘‘pugnacious coastal
freighter.’’ The lurch and list of the freighter
makes it difficult for the poet to write neatly.
Besides that, it’s very cold. ‘‘Here—/ fingers simply
grew numb. / Here—/ the swell slyly tormented. /
Here—/ the pen jerked with uncertainty / away
from some mean shoal.’’ Nevertheless, sometimes
‘‘an idea breaks through the way a freighter on the
Lena / breaks through to the arctic shore—.’’ Most
poets wouldn’t shift the metaphor this way, using it
first as a narrative idea, then using it to point to a
specific experience.
Todd suggests in the introduction that ‘‘ulti-
mately Yevtushenko will be judged as a poet, a
popular people’s poet in the tradition of Walt
Whitman.’’ But Yevtushenko himself uses the
uncompromising standards of art to illuminate
his moral life. In ‘‘Verbosity,’’ he confesses, ‘‘I am
verbose both in my daily life / and in my verse—
that’s your bad luck—/ but I am cunning: I
realize / that there’s no lack of will / behind this
endless drivel, / rather my strong ill will!’’ In the
end, though, he admits that ‘‘Eternal verities rest
on the precise; / precision, though, consists in
sacrifice. / Not for nothing does the bard get
scared—/ the price of brevity is blood. / Like
fear of prophecies contained in dreams, / the
fear of writing down eternal words / is the real
reason for verbosity.’’ Writing this clearly about
the moral intersection of poetry and precision is
no mean achievement.
It helps to read Yevtushenko literally.
Doubtless Yevtushenko felt he was speaking for
thousands like him. In ‘‘The Art of Ingratiating,’’
he seems to speak for the whole country. ‘‘Who
among us has not become a stutterer, / when, like
someone dying of hunger / begging from ladies on
the porch steps, / we mealymouth: / ‘I want to call
long-distance...’ / How petty authorities / prop-
agate themselves! / How they embody / the
supreme insolence!’’ Then he reports a prophetic
dream: ‘‘By breeding / bulldogs / from mutts, / we
ourselves / have fostered / our own boors. / I have
a nightmare / that in the Volga / our groveling /
has begotten / a crocodile.’’ The well wisher whoBabii Yar