Famed Russian poet attacked anti-Semitism and dictators
OKLAHOMA CITY — Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, whose work focused on war atrocities and denounced anti-Semitism and tyrannical dictators, has died. He was 84.
Ginny Hensley, a spokeswoman for Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, confirmed Mr. Yevtushenko's death. Roger Blais, the provost at the University of Tulsa, where Mr. Yevtushenko was a longtime faculty member, said he was told Mr. Yevtushenko died Saturday morning.
“He died a few minutes ago surrounded by relatives and close friends,” his widow, Maria Novikova, was quoted as saying by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. She said he died peacefully in his sleep of heart failure.
Mr. Yevtushenko gained fame in the former Soviet Union while in his 20s with poetry denouncing Josef Stalin. He gained international acclaim as a young revolutionary with “Babi Yar,” the unflinching 1961 poem that told of the slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews by the Nazis and denounced the anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.
At the height of his fame, Mr. Yevtushenko read his works in packed soccer stadiums and arenas, including to a crowd of 200,000 in 1991 that came to listen during a failed coup attempt in Russia. He also attracted large audiences on tours of the West.
With his tall, rangy body, chiseled visage and declaratory style, he was a compelling presence on stages when reading his works.
“He's more like a rock star than some sort of bespectacled, quiet poet,” said former University of Tulsa President Robert Donaldson, who specialized in Soviet policy during his academic years at Harvard.
Until “Babi Yar” was published, the history of the massacre was shrouded in the fog of the Cold War.
“I don't call it political poetry, I call it human rights poetry; the poetry which defends human conscience as the greatest spiritual value,” Mr. Yevtushenko, who had been splitting his time between Oklahoma and Moscow, said during a 2007 interview with the Associated Press.
Mr. Yevtushenko was born deep in Siberia in the town of Zima, a name that translates to “winter.” He rose to prominence during Nikita Khrushchev's rule.
His poetry was outspoken and drew on the passion for poetry that is characteristic of Russia, where poetry is more widely revered than in the West. Some said he was only a showpiece dissident whose public views never went beyond the limits of what officials would permit.
Dissident exile poet Joseph Brodsky was especially critical, saying “He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and approved.” Mr. Brodsky resigned from the American Academy of Arts and Letters when Mr. Yevtushenko was made an honorary member.
Dr. Donaldson extended an invitation to Yevtushenko to teach at the university in 1992. Dr. Blais, the university provost, said Mr. Yevtushenko remained an active professor at the time of his death.
Mr. Yevtushenko's death inspired tributes from his homeland. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on the Russian social media site Vkontakte: “He knew how to find the key to the souls of people, to find surprisingly accurate words that were in harmony with many.”
Natalia Solzhenitsyna, widow of the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said on Russian state television that Yevtushenko “lived by his own formula.”
“A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” she said. “And he really was more than a poet — he was a citizen with a pronounced civic position.”