The previously famous Soviet and Russian poet died at the age of 85.

This was reported by the poet’s friend Mikhail Morgulis.

“Evgeniy Alexandrovich has passed away into eternity,” Morgulis said, citing information from the poet’s son. Almost until the last moment, Yevtushenko remained conscious, he added.

The day before, Yevtushenko was hospitalized in serious condition at a hospital in Tulsa (Oklahoma).

According to the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov, he has already expressed deep condolences to the widow, relatives and friends of Yevtushenko.

“He was a great poet, his legacy is an integral part of Russian culture,” Peskov noted.

Yevtushenko asked to be buried in Peredelkino, near Moscow, near, and also not to cancel the concerts that were planned to be dedicated to his anniversary. This was announced by the general producer of the anniversary festival, Sergei Vinnikov.

Yevtushenko would have turned 85 on July 18. He planned to conduct a tour of the cities of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Also, the main stage venues in Moscow were to become the venue for the main anniversary events: the Concert Hall named after P.I. Tchaikovsky, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the State Kremlin Palace.

In the summer of 2015 in Moscow, doctors of the Central Clinical Military Hospital named after P.V. Mandryka performed a successful operation on Yevtushenko’s heart. To eliminate problems with the heart rhythm, the poet was given a pacemaker during the operation.

Evgeny Yevtushenko is a famous poet, prose writer, screenwriter and film director.

Since 1991, Yevgeny Yevtushenko lived permanently in the USA, where he taught at the University of Tulsa and gave lectures on Russian poetry and European cinema at other American educational institutions.

Biography of Evgeny Yevtushenko, story and episodes of life , obituary of death. When born and died Evgeny Yevtushenko, memorable places and dates of important events of his life. Poet Quotes, Photo and video.

Years of life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko:

born January 22, 1940, died April 1, 2017

Epitaph

“How can I forget about happiness,
about any trouble?
I don't know how to say goodbye.
I can't find the right words.

Better than mercilessness
press heart to heart.
I don't know how to say goodbye.
I learned to forgive."
Evgeniy Yevtushenko

Biography

A wonderful poet whose name was known throughout Russia, Yevgeny Yevtushenko was part of the galaxy of great sixties - along with Akhmadulina, Rozhdestvensky, Voznesensky, Okudzhava. But they knew and honored him not only in his homeland. Abroad and in particular in the USA, where Yevtushenko lived for more than 25 years, his work was also rated incredibly highly.

Yevtushenko was born during the Great Patriotic War, in exile. Eugene's poetic gift was revealed very early. Returning with his mother to Moscow, he published his first book of poetry at the age of twenty and immediately became a member of the Writers' Union. Further books were published one after another, and by the end of the 1960s, Yevtushenko was the author of more than fifteen published poetry collections and six poems. Moreover, the second of them, “Babi Yar”, published in 1961, not only thundered throughout the country, but was also translated into 72 languages ​​and brought the 29-year-old author worldwide fame.

Yevtushenko’s poems evoked not only applause, but also criticism, often quite caustic. For example, his famous contemporary and fellow writer Joseph Brodsky spoke very coolly about Yevtushenko’s talent. And many others could not forgive the poet for his pro-Soviet, propaganda poems and poems.

Nevertheless, for their captivating humanity, Yevtushenko’s poems were loved and memorized by thousands, if not millions of admirers. The poet, who possessed considerable artistry, also read them perfectly from the stage. Yevtushenko’s pop performances attracted full houses, and even after emigrating to the United States, the poet regularly returned to his homeland for such public readings.

At an advanced age, Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s health deteriorated. His leg was amputated, a pacemaker was installed, and in the last year of his life his long-standing cancer disease entered its final stage. The poet died in his American home, in his sleep, from cardiac arrest. Yevtushenko's last wish was to be buried in Peredelkino, next to Boris Pasternak, whom he considered his teacher.

Life line

July 18, 1932 Date of birth of Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Gagnus (Yevtushenko).
1944 Moving to Moscow with my mother, who returned from evacuation.
1949 Yevtushenko’s first poem was published in the newspaper “Soviet Sport”.
1952 Admission to the Literary Institute named after. Gorky. Publication of Yevtushenko’s first collection of poems, “Scouts of the Future.” Joining the Writers' Union of the USSR.
1954 First marriage to poetess Bela Akhmadulina.
1957 Expulsion from the institute for disciplinary and ideological reasons.
1963 Yevtushenko was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1986-1991 Yevtushenko holds the position of secretary of the board of the Union of Writers of the USSR.
1987 Yevtushenko was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1989 Yevtushenko was elected people's deputy of the USSR from the Dzerzhinsky territorial district of Kharkov.
1991 Emigration to the United States and began teaching at the University of Tulsa (Oklahoma).
2010 Yevtushenko opens a museum-gallery in Peredelkino, where his own collection of paintings by famous masters is exhibited.
2013 The release of Yevtushenko’s last lifetime collection of poems, “I Can’t Say Goodbye.”
April 1, 2017 Date of death of Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

Memorable places

1. G. Zima (Irkutsk region), where Evgeny Yevtushenko was born.
2. Meshchanskaya (4th Meshchanskaya) street in Moscow, where Evgeny Yevtushenko lived.
3. Literary Institute named after. A. M. Gorky, where Yevtushenko studied.
4. Tulsa (Oklahoma, USA), where Yevgeny Yevtushenko died.
5. Peredelkinskoye cemetery in Moscow, where Yevgeny Yevtushenko is buried.

Episodes of life

Yevgeny Yevtushenko became the youngest member in the history of the USSR Writers' Union: he was accepted there at the age of 20, bypassing the preliminary stage of a candidate for membership in the Union.

Yevtushenko was married four times and left five sons.

Documentary film “Evgeny Yevtushenko. I am different”, part 1

Testaments

“The 20th century was cruel, but it was from it that I learned humanity. There was also love, sometimes not entirely happy, but love itself is still happiness, and many hopes that were not fully realized - both mine and our generation - but are there really hopes that are fully realized? There is always something left for us and for our descendants.”

“We have no right to be ungrateful to the Motherland, but we must do everything so that it too is grateful to those who live without stooping to the shame of its theft, unmercifulness and arrogance.”

“I was able to see life from the very bottom to the very top, and I realized that at the bottom it is much cleaner.”

“We are all the products of those who believe in us.”

Condolences

“Yevtushenko was a great poet, his legacy is part of Russian culture.”
Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

“Evgeny Yevtushenko is a poet of great talent, a man with a capital M, a loving son of his Motherland. The genius of Yevtushenko is a phenomenon of several eras. He quickly appeared in the firmament of Russian literature and, together with other famous masters of words, became one of its main figures... He deservedly became our classic - interest in such creativity simply cannot fade away, he will be remembered for centuries.”
Vladimir Medinsky, Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation

“Poets do not die, poets like Evgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko. They do not die, they will live for a long time in our memory, in our hearts...”
Stanislav Govorukhin, film director, head of the State Duma Committee on Culture

On April 1, Yevtushenko died.
There is nothing to say that the era of the sixties finally died with him.

Contradictory era, contradictory people.
Yevtushenko was born in 1932. His place of birth is listed as the city of Zima in the Irkutsk region, but he grew up in Moscow.

His parents were geologists. They divorced early, the future poet's surname was changed from Gagnus to Yevtushenko, but he communicated with his father.
My paternal great-grandfather is a glassblower. His paternal grandfather was a Baltic German, a mathematics teacher, who wrote two textbooks, was repressed in 1938, and later released. The poet's father died in 1976.
In addition to geology, my parents were interested in the arts. My father wrote poetry, my mother was an actress.

Wikipedia says that Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko is an Honored Cultural Worker of the RSFSR. But I remember that for many years she worked at the Soyuzpechat kiosk near the Belorusskaya metro station; at least in the late 80s, anyone could buy a newspaper from her. She had an unkind character and did not communicate with the journalists who were besieging that kiosk.
Yevtushenko complained at concerts that his mother did not accept his help and wanted to live independently. Yevtushenko has a younger sister, born in 1945.

Zinaida Ermolaevna died at the age of 92, in 2002.

In early photographs, his childhood looks prosperous, although the child looks from under his brows.

Yevtushenko began publishing early and became a member of the joint venture at the age of 20. He became famous very quickly.

In those years, poets packed stadiums

Mikhail Svetlov, Andrey Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Evgeny Yevtushenko

By the time I can remember, it had already become something of a monument.
A song based on his poems, “Do Russians Want War,” was often heard on the radio. There are lines there: “Ask my wife” - which of the wives should have been asked? He was married to the poetess Bella Akhmadulina,

Then on her friend Galina Lukonina (last name after her first husband, poet Mikhail Lukonin).

Interestingly, both women did not have children of their own. With Lukonina, Yevtushenko adopted a boy, Peter, in 1968. Despite the fact that the marriage broke up, Yevtushenko helped his adopted son until the end of the latter’s life. And he died in 2015 in a psychiatric clinic. After the death of his mother, Galina, Peter drank a lot.

The third wife was an Irish woman who was a fan of the poet. She gave birth to two sons.

Yevtushenko lived a cheerful, stormy life.

His relationship with the authorities was complex. Either Yevtushenko wrote something very patriotic, or something with a hint of seditiousness.
For example, in 1961 Yevtushenko wrote the poem “Babi Yar”. She made a lot of noise. The fact is that in it he raised the topic of the Holocaust, while in the USSR they believed that all Soviet victims of war were equal.
The editor of the Literaturnaya Gazeta, where the poem was published, was fired. But Shostakovich wrote a symphony based on Yevtushenko’s poems, and Yevtushenko gained worldwide fame.
How many poets, directors, etc. have come out into the world since then with the theme of the Holocaust? So tell me after this that Yevtushenko was not a genius. Moreover, according to him, he composed “Babi Yar” without any ulterior motive: simply, while in Kyiv, he saw that there was no monument at the burial site, that garbage was being dumped there, and was indignant. He came to the hotel and wrote poetry.
Then Yevtushenko had to go, one might say, to his historical homeland, Siberia, and write the poem “Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station” about the feat of socialist construction. So where is the Bratsk hydroelectric power station now? Who needs electricity in this very Siberia? Why do we need our own production if everything can be bought in China?
For all this, Yevtushenko was greatly disliked by both patriots and Westerners, communists and anti-communists, especially since he was constantly on business trips abroad.
Yevtushenko loved public speaking and read his own poetry well. I was at one such performance in 1985. He was just getting ready to divorce his foreign wife. Or rather, he got divorced in 1987, but he was suspiciously cheerful and read a poem about a meeting in the taiga with a girl who had a mosquito net on her face, and he liked this girl so much that he had already destroyed 2 families and was ready to destroy another.

The last wife, Maria, is the mother of the poet’s two youngest sons.

Aldanochka

Long-awaited Aldanochka
looks:
guest or zhigan!
On her shoulder -
Berdanochka,
where in any trunk -
Jakan.
The fact that the guest
made sure
plucked moss with a sock,
and not that I trusted it,
and tried it out with her eye.
She has the habit of a sable.
Vigilantly sat on the porch
and adapted it to fit a fan
capercaillie wing.
And soft in all movements,
Signorita of the Three Courts
looks sideways, waving
camarilla of mosquitoes.
And a mosquito mantilla
trembles a little on alert,
Well, I'm silent
like a little one
even though he’s old already.
It’s hard to build a rolled-up cigarette -
I'm not good at this.
I'm telling a joke with words,
and without words something like this:
"I'm almost gone.
I lost the addresses.
I got caught
from Buenos Aires.
The one who burned two houses is the one
I’m glad and I’m hanging out.
The third house is about to burn down,
but I don't put it out.
I'm not a jerk at all
but to your hut
don’t let me take a nap -
and I’ll sleep her.
I forgot who I am.
I'm a total flaw.
I'm not from the clouds at all,
but rather from the pits.
I'm in the taiga among snags,
dainty knife,
from special tramps -
I'm wandering within myself.
And there are such swamps there,
uncut,
non-rotation,
but something blue
slowly blooming.
I've messed up so much in life,
everything I did was not right,
and I am all made of forget-me-nots.
I can't forget anything.
I destroyed everything, I broke everything,
but believe me, I'm lying:
didn't stop loving anyone
I won't stop loving anyone.
The locusts are falling,
How can you not spread it!
Love is not in love, Aldanochka,
there is still lovelessness.
You are so young now
and beautiful for the time being
and, trailing behind you,
mosquitoes eat you.
I'm a little old
but at this porch
let me stand
near your face."

Right, I can see how he dashingly taps his foot while reading.

I was surprised then that Yevtushenko was wearing some kind of colored jacket.
Subsequently, wherever he performed, he was always dressed in something unimaginable. Nobody else dressed like that.
I remember him at the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR - he then represented Kharkov, and wore an embroidered shirt for this occasion. He behaved defiantly: apparently, he felt that the time of the USSR was coming to an end. Was it he who brought embroidered shirts into fashion?

Then Yevtushenko liked to say that his biggest shock was the entry of Soviet troops into Prague in 1968.
I still don’t understand why this struck the sixties so much. The suppression of the Hungarian uprising did not strike, the execution of workers in Novocherkassk did not strike, but Prague did.
And today it is clear that if troops had not been sent in then, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact would have collapsed already in 1970. Would that be good?

I never particularly liked Yevtushenko’s poems, but I remember one thing:

Every case there is a random boy.
Fate did not give such talent,
and to them with the cool unkindness of stepmothers
include favorite things.

They feel it acutely
have been fighting for their rights for years,
but, as before, they look immature
treacherously rosy words.

They have diligent anxiety about everything.
They live without any doubts,
and, stepchildren, they cannot remain silent,
when sons are silent about something.

Those who are only happy with peace are alien to them,
who wouldn't mind running away from himself?
They feel with all their skin what is needed,
but they don’t know how to help it.

When sometimes, trying to no avail,
ruining the whole thing with lack of talent,
goes to battle for the truth, mediocrity,
talent, I'm ashamed of you.

1954
I wonder if he's talking about himself?

In addition, Yevtushenko understood and loved other people's poems and compiled an excellent anthology of Russian poetry. I have it, and when I open it, I remember the compiler with gratitude.

Yevtushenko enriched the treasury of Russian aphorisms with the expression “A poet in Russia is more than a poet.” He tried to put this into practice: he intervened in many matters, helped someone, and drew the attention of the authorities to some outrages.

Another famous aphorism does not belong to him, but is related to him. Joseph Brodsky hated Yevtushenko, and when he heard that Yevtushenko was in favor of the liquidation of collective farms (this was during Perestroika), he said: “If Yevtushenko is against collective farms, then I am for it.”

It is impossible to list all of Yevtushenko’s talents: he wrote prose, directed films, and acted in them himself. He said that Pasolini wanted to film it in the birth of Christ, but our authorities did not allow it.

A separate story is songs based on Yevtushenko’s poems. Probably everyone knows them and sometimes even sing them, for example, “And it’s snowing.” For some reason, I always want to sing “Thank you, party, for this snow in my destiny.”

Well, the man lived a bright, eventful life. And he did not give up, although he had been seriously ill in recent years. 6 years ago he had a kidney removed, 4 years ago his foot was amputated. But he came to Russia that year, and this summer, on the occasion of his 85th birthday, he was going to organize a big tour. But he didn’t make it.

For some reason they accuse him of living in the USA since 1991. He found a teaching job there. At that time he still had small children, and was no longer young.
But Yevtushenko never declared himself an emigrant and a fighter against the regime, and did not say nasty things about Russia. And he bequeathed to bury himself in Peredelkino, near the grave of Pasternak, whom he respected very much.

Once again I cannot help but recall the amazing style of clothing that the poet adhered to. Why did he want brightness so much? All these flowers surprisingly do not fit with his stern face.
I remember he once complained about a poor childhood (which he had exactly the same, if not better, than all other Soviet children) and told a story. He dressed up in one of his colored suits, and some simple woman, like a cloakroom attendant, said to him: “Man, you have such a poor face!”
Probably, he still wanted to get as far away from any asceticism as possible. His specialty was shirts with prints, colored jackets, which were accompanied by caps made of the same fabric, rings and bracelets. Even under his winter clothes, he wore crocheted scarves in the form of a flower garland.

Here is a selection of his outfits.

The famous poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko has passed away. An era has passed. The poet died quietly - in his sleep. He died of a serious illness in a US hospital. Yevtushenko will be buried in Russia, not far from the grave of Boris Pasternak. Evgeniy Aleksandrovich himself asked for this.

Biography

The famous poet was born on July 18, 1932 at the Zima station in the Irkutsk region. But according to the passport, the correct date of birth is 1933. The real name is not Yevtushenko - Gangnus. Evgeniy Alexandrovich’s father is a geologist and amateur poet. Mother is a poetess, geologist, Honored Cultural Worker of the RSFSR.

After the birth of her son, the mother specifically changed her husband’s surname to his maiden name and changed the year of birth, since at the age of 12 it was necessary to obtain a pass.

Yevtushenko’s father left the family for another woman, but did not stop communicating with his son.

In 1944, the poet and his mother moved to Moscow. Yevtushenko lived, studied and worked there. The poet was a regular guest at the House of Pioneers. He studied at the Gorky Literary Institute. But he was expelled from the university for “wrong” statements. He did not re-enter the institute and began to educate himself. The poet was fluent in four foreign languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Yevtushenko's creativity

The first book was published in 1952. The work is called "Scouts of the Future." Later, the author himself gave him not the best assessment. He called it juvenile and immature.

Then several collections were published, and Yevtushenko became the youngest member of the USSR Writers' Union. His collections “The Third Snow”, “Highway of Enthusiasts”, “Poems of Different Years”, “Apple”, “Tenderness” became incredibly popular.

In the 1960s, Yevtushenko began speaking to the public, organizing poetry evenings. By this time, the poet had developed his own recognizable poetic style. In addition, evenings in the Great Auditorium of the Polytechnic Museum, where Yevtushenko, Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava gathered, became one of the symbols of that time.

Yevtushenko wrote many poems, in addition, his memoirs “Wolf Passport”, “The Sixties: Memoir Prose”, “I Came to You: Babi Yar” are well known.

Personal life

The personal life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko was eventful. The poet married four times and had five sons. Since 1991, Yevgeny Yevtushenko has lived in the USA.

Yevtushenko’s first wife is the famous poetess Bella Akhmadulina.

The second wife is Galina Semyonovna Sokol-Lukonina. The marriage produced a son, Peter.

Third wife – Jen Butler, Irish. They have been married since 1978. They had sons Alexander and Anton.

The fourth wife is Maria Vladimirovna Novikova. Married since 1987. The couple had sons Evgeniy and Dmitry.

Awards “Badge of Honor”, ​​“Order of the Red Banner of Labor”, “Order of Friendship of Peoples”, medal “Defender of Free Russia”, honorary member of the “Russian Academy of Arts” - this is just a small list of the poet’s awards. Yevtushenko was a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poem "Babi Yar". In 1978, a minor planet of the solar system was discovered at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, which was named after the famous poet.

Life in America

Since 1991, Yevgeny Yevtushenko has lived in the USA. He began teaching in Tulsa, Oklahoma. His wife Maria teaches Russian at school there. There were those who called Yevtushenko a traitor. The poet emphasized that his departure cannot be called emigration. In addition, Evgeniy Alexandrovich tried to visit Russia as often as possible.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko died on April 1 in the USA at the age of 84. The poet was diagnosed with cancer about six years ago. He had surgery and part of his kidney was removed.

But recently the disease returned, and doctors diagnosed it as stage IV. Doctors said that Yevtushenko could live for another three months, but he passed away much earlier.

The farewell ceremony will take place in two countries - Russia and the USA. Initially, it is planned to organize a civil memorial service and funeral service for a close circle of his family and friends in Tulsa, Oklahoma. After this, the poet’s body will be transported to Moscow for the official farewell ceremony.

The poet will be buried next to the grave of Boris Pasternak, in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow. Yevtushenko himself asked for this.

Evgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko is a Soviet poet and prose writer, director, screenwriter, actor, public figure, nominee for the 1963 Nobel Prize in Literature. Author of dozens of collections of poetry, the poem “Babi Yar,” and the novel “Don’t Die Later than Death.”

early years

Evgeny Yevtushenko was born on July 18, 1932 in Siberia. According to the passport, the year of birth is 1933. Yevtushenko’s blood flows both Baltic and German through the father of the geologist, amateur poet Alexander Rudolfovich Gangnus. Mother Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko is a poet, geologist, Honored Cultural Worker of the RSFSR. After the birth of Evgeniy, Zinaida Ermolaevna specifically replaced her husband’s surname with her maiden name. I also changed my son’s year of birth, since at the age of 12 he had to get a pass.

Since childhood, Yevtushenko was attached to books. Parents helped us understand the world through books and regular communication. Yevtushenko recalls: “My father could spend hours telling me, still a foolish child, about the fall of Babylon, and about the Spanish Inquisition, and about the War of the Scarlet and White Roses, and about William of Orange... Thanks to my father, I already learned to read and write at the age of 6, I read indiscriminately Dumas, Flaubert, Boccaccio, Cervantes and Wells. There was an unimaginable vinaigrette in my head. I lived in an illusory world, I didn’t notice anyone or anything around...”

Later, the father leaves his mother and Evgeniy and goes to another woman. With her he forms his family. Despite this, Alexander Rudolfovich continues to raise his son. He took Evgeniy to a poetry evening at Moscow State University. We went to the evenings of Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Svetlov, Alexander Tvardovsky, Pavel Antokolsky. The mother allowed the father to see his son. She understood that their communication was only for Eugene’s benefit. Zinaida Ermolaevna often sent letters to Alexander Rudolfovich, which contained poems written by her son.

She kept all of Eugene's manuscripts. There was even a notebook containing nine thousand rhymes. But it was not possible to save it. His mother also instilled in Evgeniy a love of art. Zinaida Ermolaevna was a soloist at the Stanislavsky Theater. She also had a musical education. Her frequent guests were artists who in the future became famous on the pop stage. Zinaida Ermolaevna constantly toured the country. During the war years, she even suffered from typhus while on tour.

Evgeny Yevtushenko on video

Naturally, with such parents, Evgeniy developed mentally rapidly. He grew up as an erudite, literate child. Many peers envied him. Zinaida Ermolaevna was only glad that their house was visited by such wonderful poets as: Vladimir Sokolov, Evgeny Vinokurov, Grigory Pozhenyan, Bella Akhmadulina, Mikhail Roshchin and many others. Yevtushenko lived, studied, and worked in Moscow. He was a regular guest at the House of Pioneers. He studied at the Gorky Literary Institute and was soon expelled for “incorrect” statements.

Yevtushenko's creativity

The first book written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko was “Scouts of the Future.” It contains slogan, pathos poetry of the 50s. In the year the book was published, Yevtushenko also released his poems: “Wagon” and “Before the Meeting.” This marked the beginning of his future serious creative work. In 1952, Yevtushenko became a member of the Union of Writers of the USSR, and he was the youngest in this community.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko's future fame comes from the collections of poems that he writes further: “The Third Snow”, “Highway of Enthusiasts”, “Promise”, “Poems of Different Years”, “Apple”.

Yevtushenko takes part in poetry evenings that took place at the Polytechnic Museum. His partners were those known to us and dearly loved: Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Bulat Okudzhava.

Yevtushenko understood that, thanks to his works, he was becoming a poet of the next generation. They were then called “sixties”. He dedicates the poem “To the Best of the Generation” to the new generation.

Yevtushenko begins to perform his poems from the stage, conveying the depth of his thoughts to the viewer. For the first time he performs on the big stage in Kharkov in the central lecture hall. Evgeniy was then invited by a fan of his work, and the organizer of this event, Livshits L.Ya. The public was captivated by his work. Each work of Yevtushenko is filled with its own life, they are diverse in their own way. Either he writes about intimate lyrics, which can be seen in the poem “There used to be a dog sleeping at your feet”, then he proclaims an ode to beer in the work “Northern Surcharge”, then he touches on a political theme in the poems: “Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty”, “Bullfight”, “Italian cycle”, “Dove in Santiago”, “Mom and the neutron bomb”, “Distant relative”, “Full growth” and others.

Many critics did not understand and did not accept the poet's works. He was always at the head of some scandals and provocations. The scandalous poems included: “Stalin’s Heirs”, “Pravda”, “Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station”, “Ballad of Poaching”, “Wave of the Hand”, “Morning People”, “Father’s Hearing” and more.

His works have also been noted in journalism: “Notes to an autobiography”, “Talent is a miracle that is not accidental”, “Tomorrow’s wind”, “Politics is the privilege of everyone”.

Evgeniy writes easily, rhyme follows rhyme by itself, he plays with words and sounds.

Yevtushenko continues his creative path, reading his poems from the stage. Full houses of listeners come to his evenings. He is a huge success. Evgeniy publishes books and CDs where he performs his works. Among them: “Berry Places”, “Dove in Santiago” and many others.

The memoirs of Yevgeny Yevtushenko are well known: “Wolf Passport”, “Sixties: Memoir Prose”, “I Came to You: Babi Yar”.

He is also known as an excellent director-producer and author-screenwriter. Thus, Yevtushenko is the director and screenwriter of the military drama “Kindergarten” and the melodrama “Stalin’s Funeral”

There are also Yevtushenko’s works with musical groups: the rock opera “White Snows Are Coming...”, his poems are present in “The Execution of Stepan Razin”.

Yevtushenko’s poems were set to music, resulting in beautiful songs: “And it’s snowing,” “Motherland,” “This is what’s happening to me,” “When the bells ring,” “Under the creaking, weeping willow,” but this is just a small part.

Yevtushenko was appointed secretary of the Writers' Union. Later he becomes secretary of the Commonwealth of Writers' Unions. He is also the chairman of the April writers' association. Became a member of the Memorial Society.

Elections to People's Deputies of the USSR were held in Kharkov. So, Yevtushenko won, beating other candidates, leaving a huge, unattainable margin. He worked there until the collapse of the USSR.

In 1991, Yevtushenko signed a contract to teach at a university in the USA. Actually, Evgeniy takes his family and leaves for permanent residence in America, where he lived until his death.

Personal life of Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was officially married four times. His first wife is the famous poetess Bella Akhmadulina, with whom he had a creative union in his youth.

In 1961, Galina Semyonovna Sokol-Lukonina, the former wife of his friend Mikhail Lukonin, became the poet’s second wife. In 1968, the couple adopted a boy named Peter.

Yevtushenko’s head was turned by his admirer from Ireland, who subsequently became his third wife, Jen Butler. From her the poet has two sons: Anton and Alexander.

In 1987, Evgeniy Alexandrovich entered into a legal marriage for the fourth time. The poet’s wife was Maria Vladimirovna Novikova, who also gave him two sons: Evgeny and Dmitry.

Awards

“Badge of Honour”, “Order of the Red Banner of Labor”, “Order of Friendship of Peoples”, medal “Defender of Free Russia”, honorary member of the “Russian Academy of Arts” is just a small list of the poet’s awards. Yevtushenko was even a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature for his poem “Babi Yar.” In 1978, a minor planet of the solar system was discovered at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, which was named after the famous poet.

Death of Yevgeny Yevtushenko

On April 1, 2017, reports appeared in the press about the hospitalization of 84-year-old Yevgeny Yevtushenko in serious condition, but fully conscious. That same day, he died in his sleep from cardiac arrest, calmly and painlessly, surrounded by loved ones. Later, his son Evgeniy explained that his father suffered from kidney cancer, which returned after six years of remission.

According to Yevtushenko’s will, he will be buried in the writer’s village of Peredelkino, next to Boris Pasternak.