The previously famous Soviet and Russian poet died at the age of 85.
This was announced by a friend of the poet Mikhail Morgulis.
"Evgeny Alexandrovich passed away into eternity," Morgulis said, citing information from the poet's son. Almost until the last moment, Yevtushenko remained conscious, he added.
On the eve of Yevtushenko was hospitalized in serious condition in a hospital in Tulsa (Oklahoma).
According to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, he has already expressed deep condolences to the widow, relatives and friends of Yevtushenko.
"He was a great poet, his legacy is integral part Russian culture," Peskov said.
Yevtushenko asked to be buried in Peredelkino, near Moscow, next to, 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 Sergey Vinnikov.
Yevtushenko was supposed to 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 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 - famous poet, novelist, screenwriter and film director.
Born in 1933 in the Irkutsk region. His first poem was published in the Soviet Sport newspaper, and his first book of poems, Scouts of the Future, was published in 1952. In total, more than 150 books written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko have been published. Among his most famous creations are the poems "Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant", "Mother and the Neutron Bomb", a collection of poems "Citizens, listen to me." He is also the author of journalistic works, memoirs. Yevtushenko published an anthology of Russian poetry "A poet in Russia is more than a poet."
Since 1991, Yevgeny Yevtushenko has lived permanently in the United States, where he taught at the University of Tulsa, lectured on Russian poetry and European cinema at other American educational institutions.
(according to the passport - 1933) at the Zima station of the Irkutsk region. His father - Gangnus Alexander Rudolfovich worked as a geologist, his mother - Yevtushenko Zinaida Ermolaevna - geologist, actress and singer, Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR.
At the end of July 1944, Yevtushenko left for Moscow with his mother, where he studied at school and attended the poetic studio of the House of Pioneers. By this time, his parents were divorced.
Yevtushenko began to print at the age of 16. The first publication of poems in the newspaper "Soviet Sport" dated 1949.
In 1951-1954 Yevtushenko studied at the Literary Institute named after A.M. Gorky. In 1954, he was expelled from the institute (for supporting Vladimir Dudintsev's novel "Not by Bread Alone") and did not study anywhere else, getting an education on his own, including he was fluent in English, French, Italian, Spanish.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko's first book, Scouts of the Future, was published in 1952, the same year he became the youngest member of the Writers' Union of the USSR.
In the 1960s, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, along with Andrei Voznesensky, Bela Akhmadulina, Robert Rozhdestvensky and other writers - "sixties" collected a large number of spectators to read their poems at the Polytechnic Museum. This period includes his poems "And Others" (1956), "The Best of the Generation" (1957), "Apple" (1960); "Wave of the hand", "Tenderness" (1962); "White snows are coming" (1969).
In the 1970s, he wrote the poems "Snow in Tokyo" (1974), "Northern Surcharge" (1977).
In the second half of the 1980s, Yevtushenko made a lot of publicistic articles. In 1989, Yevtushenko was elected a people's deputy of the USSR from the Kharkov-Dzerzhinsky territorial district of the Kharkov region of the Ukrainian SSR.
In 1991 he was invited to the University of Tulsa (Oklahoma, USA) to teach Russian poetry.
Poems of the 1990s were included in the collections "Last Attempt" (1990), "My Emigration" and "Belarusian Blood" (1991), "No Years" (1993), "My Golden Riddle" (1994) and others. Books of a new century - "Between the Lubyanka and the Polytechnic" (2000), "I will break into the twenty-first century ..." (2001), "Between the city of Yes and the city of No" (2002).
As a prose writer, Yevgeny Yevtushenko showed himself in the stories "Pearl Harbor" (1967) and "Ardabiola" (1981), the novels "Berry Places" (1982), "Don't Die Before You Die (Russian Fairy Tale)" (1993), "Autobiography" (1963, French edition) and the book of memoirs "Wolf Passport" (1998), as well as in several stories and a number of essay-journalistic books.
In 1979, Yevtushenko starred as Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in Savva Kulish's film Rise. In 1983, he directed the film " Kindergarten", in which he acted both as a director and as an actor. In the same capacity as a screenwriter, director, actor, he appeared in the film "Stalin's Funeral" (1990).
Yevtushenko is the author of dramatizations and stage compositions - "On this quiet street", staged on the "Fourth Meshchanskaya", "Do the Russians want wars", "Civil twilight", staged on the "Kazan University", "Proseka", "Corrida" and others . He is also the author of plays, some of which became events in the cultural life of Moscow: "Bratskaya HPP" at the Moscow Drama Theater on Malaya Bronnaya (1967), "Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty" at the Taganka Theater (1972), "Thank you forever ..." at the Moscow Theater named after M.N. Ermolova (2002).
Musical works were created on the poems of the poet. The poem "Babi Yar" became the literary basis of Dmitri Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony; Popular songs written on Yevtushenko's poems are "The river runs, it melts in the fog ...", "Do the Russians want wars", "Waltz about the waltz", "And the snow will fall, fall ...", "Your traces", "Thank you for the silence", "Do not rush", "God forbid", etc.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko's works have been translated into more than 70 languages and published in many countries around the world. In 2008, his book "All Yevtushenko" was published, which included all his poems from the first children's poems to the poems of recent years. At the end of December 2012 in Moscow, Yevtushenko "Happiness and loss", which included works of recent years.
On January 6, 2015, Yevgeny Yevtushenko presented a new collection "All Poems" at the ZIL cultural center, having been discharged from the hospital, where he ended up in December 2014.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko himself was the editor of many books, the compiler of a number of large and small anthologies, led creative evenings of poets, compiled radio and television programs, organized recordings, himself performed with poetry readings by Alexander Blok, Nikolai Gumilyov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, wrote articles, including for sleeves of records (about Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, Sergei Yesenin, Bulat Okudzhava).
Yevtushenko was the secretary of the board of the Writers' Union of the USSR.
He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts, an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Malaga, a full member of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences, an honorary professor Honoris Causa of the New School University in New York and King's College in Queens.
He was awarded orders and medals of the USSR, an honorary medal of the Soviet Peace Foundation, the American Medal of Freedom for his work in the defense of human rights, and a special badge of merit from Yale University (1999).
In 1993, his refusal to receive the Order of Friendship in protest against the war in Chechnya had a wide resonance.
Laureate of the Russian Television Academy "Teffi" award for the best educational program "A poet in Russia is more than a poet" (1998).
Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1984, for the poem "Mother and the Neutron Bomb").
Awarded with the international award "Citta di Marineo", awarded for outstanding achievements in the field of culture (1995).
Awarded with the US Literary Prize - announced as the poet of the Walt Whitman House Museum in 1999 (the award has been awarded since 1989, only American poets received it, Yevtushenko is the first foreign poet to receive this award).
For literary achievements in November 2002 Yevgeny Yevtushenko was awarded the international Aquila Prize (Italy). In December of the same year, he was awarded the Lumiere gold medal for his outstanding contribution to the culture of the 20th century and the popularization of Russian cinema.
In May 2003, Yevtushenko was awarded the Living Legend public order (Ukraine) and the Order of Peter the Great, in July 2003 - the Georgian Order of Honor. Marked with the Badge of Honor of the founder of the Center for the Rehabilitation of Children in Russia (2003).
In 2004 awarded the order"For services to the Fatherland" III degree.
Laureate of the International Literary Prize "Grinzane Cavour" in the nomination "The most widely read poet" (2005).
Honorary citizen of the city of Winter (1992), and in the United States - New Orleans, Atlanta, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Wisconsin.
In 1994, a minor planet was named after the poet solar system, discovered on May 6, 1978 at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (4234 Evtushenko, diameter 12 km, minimum distance from the Earth 247 million km).
In 2006 Yevgeny Yevtushenko was awarded prestigious literary prizes: Eugenio Montale Prize (Italy), Hristo Botev Prize named after the classic of Bulgarian literature (Bulgaria). And in early July 2006, the President of Romania presented the poet with the highest state order of the country for outstanding cultural merits.
Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko died in the United States at the age of 85. This was reported to TASS today by a friend of the poet Mikhail Morgulis. On the eve of Yevtushenko was hospitalized in serious condition in a hospital in Tulsa (Oklahoma).
"Evgeny Alexandrovich passed away into eternity," Morgulis said, citing information from the poet's son. Almost until the last moment, Yevtushenko remained conscious, he added.
According to the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin 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 said (cited by Interfax).
Yevtushenko asked to be buried in Peredelkino, near Moscow, next to Boris Pasternak, and also not to cancel the concerts that were planned to be dedicated to his anniversary. This was announced to TASS by the general producer of the anniversary festival Sergey Vinnikov.
Yevtushenko was supposed to 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 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.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko is a famous poet, prose writer, screenwriter and film director. Born in 1933 in the Irkutsk region. His first poem was published in the Soviet Sport newspaper, and his first book of poems, Scouts of the Future, was published in 1952.
In total, more than 150 books written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko have been published. Among his most famous creations are the poems "Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant", "Mother and the Neutron Bomb", a collection of poems "Citizens, listen to me." He is also the author of journalistic works, memoirs. Yevtushenko published an anthology of Russian poetry "A poet in Russia is more than a poet."
Evgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko - Soviet poet and prose writer, director, screenwriter, actor, public figure, Nobel Prize in Literature 1963 nominee. Author of dozens of collections of poems, the poem "Babi Yar", the novel "Do not die later than death."early years
Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born on July 18, 1932 in Siberia. According to the passport, the year of birth is 1933. Both Baltic and German blood flows in Yevtushenko's blood through the father of the geologist, amateur poet Alexander Rudolfovich Gangnus. Mother Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko is a poet, geologist, Honored Worker of Culture of the RSFSR. After the birth of Evgeny, Zinaida Ermolaevna specifically replaced her husband's surname with her maiden name. She also changed the year of birth of her son, since at the age of 12 it was necessary to receive a pass. 
From childhood, Yevtushenko was attached to books. Parents helped to know the world with the help of books, regular communication. Yevtushenko recalls: “Father could spend hours telling me, still an unintelligent 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, at the age of 6 I learned to read and write, I read in one gulp indiscriminately Dumas, Flaubert, Boccaccio, Cervantes and Wells. There was an unimaginable vinaigrette in my head. I lived in an illusory world, did not notice anyone and nothing around ... ".
In the future, the father leaves his mother and Eugene, goes to another woman. With her, he forms his family. Despite this, Alexander Rudolfovich continues to raise his son. He took Evgeny to an evening of poetry 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 the benefit of Eugene. Zinaida Ermolaevna often sent letters to Alexander Rudolfovich containing poems written by her son.
She kept all the manuscripts of Eugene. There was even a notebook containing nine thousand rhymes. But it was not possible to save it. Mother also instilled in Eugene a love of art. Zinaida Ermolaevna was a soloist of 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.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko on video
Naturally, with such parents, Eugene mentally developed rapidly. He grew up as an erudite, literate child. Many of his peers envied him. Zinaida Ermolaevna was only glad that such wonderful poets as Vladimir Sokolov, Evgeny Vinokurov, Grigory Pozhenyan, Bella Akhmadulina, Mikhail Roshchin and many others visit their house. Yevtushenko lived, studied, worked in Moscow. He was a regular guest of the House of Pioneers. He studied at the Gorky Literary Institute, was soon expelled for "incorrect" statements.
Creativity Yevtushenko
The first book written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko was Scouts of the Future. It contains slogan, pathos poetry of the 50s. In the year of the release of the book, Yevtushenko also publishes his poems: “The Carriage” and “Before the Meeting”. This marked the beginning of his future serious creative work. In 1952, Yevtushenko became a member of the Writers' Union of the USSR, and he was the youngest in this community.The future fame of Yevgeny Yevtushenko is brought by collections of poems, which he writes further: “The Third Snow”, “Highway of Enthusiasts”, “Promise”, “Poems different years", "Apple".
Yevtushenko takes part in poetry evenings which were held 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 with his poems from the stages, 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. Yevgeny was invited then by a fan of his work, and the entertainer of this event was Livshits L.Ya. The audience 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 traced in the poem “A dog used to sleep at his 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”, “Corrida”, "Italian Cycle", "Dove in Santiago", "Mom and the Neutron Bomb", "Distant Relative", "Full Body" and others.
Many critics did not understand and did not accept the works of the poet. He was always at the head of some scandals, provocations. Among the scandalous poems were: "Stalin's heirs", "Pravda", "Bratskaya hydroelectric power station", "Ballad of poaching", "Wave of the hand", "Morning people", "Father's rumor" and not only.
His works are also noticed in journalism: “Notes to the autobiography”, “Talent is a non-random miracle”, “Tomorrow's wind”, “Politics is the privilege of all”.
Eugene writes easily, rhyme goes by itself, he plays with words and sounds.
Yevtushenko continues his creative way while reading his poems from the stage. Full halls of listeners come to his evenings. He is a huge success. Eugene releases books, CDs, where he performs his works. Among them: "Berry Places", "Dove in Santiago" and many others.
Yevgeny Yevtushenko's memoirs are well known: "Wolf Passport", "Sixty Men: Memoir Prose", "I Came to You: Babi Yar".
He is also known as an excellent director and screenwriter. So, Yevtushenko is the director and screenwriter of the military drama "Kindergarten" and the melodrama "Stalin's Funeral"
With musical groups, Yevtushenko's works are also available: Rock opera “White snows are falling ...”, his poems are present in “The Execution of Stepan Razin”.
Music was put on Yevtushenko's poems, wonderful songs were obtained: “And it's snowing”, “Motherland”, “This is what happens to me”, “When the bells ring”, “Under the creaky, weeping willow”, but this is just a small part.
Yevtushenko was appointed secretary of the Writers' Union. He later becomes Secretary of the Commonwealth of Writers' Unions. He is also 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, bypassing other candidates, leaving in a huge, unattainable gap. There he worked until the collapse of the USSR.
In 1991, Yevtushenko signed a contract to teach at a university in the United States. Actually, Eugene 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. The first wife is the famous poetess Bella Akhmadulina, with whom he was in a creative union in his youth. 
In 1961, the second wife of the poet was Galina Semyonovna Sokol-Lukonina, the former wife of his friend Mikhail Lukonin. In 1968, the couple adopted a boy named Peter.
Yevtushenko's head was turned by his admirer from Ireland, who, as a result, became his third wife, Jen Butler. From her, the poet has two sons: Anton and Alexander.
In 1987, Evgeny Aleksandrovich entered into a legal marriage for the fourth time. The poet's wife was Maria Vladimirovna Novikova, who also gave him two sons: Eugene 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 Arts” is just a small list of the poet’s awards. Yevtushenko was even a candidate for Nobel Prize in Literature for the poem "Babi Yar". In 1978, a minor planet in 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, there were reports in the press about the hospitalization of 84-year-old Yevgeny Yevtushenko in serious condition, but fully conscious. On the same day, he died in his sleep from cardiac arrest, calmly and painlessly, surrounded by loved ones. Later, his son Eugene 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.
Yevtushenko died on April 1.
There is nothing to say that the era of the sixties finally died with him.
Contradictory era, conflicting people.
Yevtushenko was born in 1932. The place of his birth is the city of Zima in the Irkutsk region, but he grew up in Moscow.
His parents were geologists. They divorced early, the future poet changed his last name from Gagnus to Yevtushenko, but he talked with his father.
Paternal great-grandfather is a glass blower. Paternal grandfather - a Baltic German, a teacher of mathematics, wrote two textbooks, was repressed in 1938, later released. The poet's father died in 1976.
In addition to geology, my parents were fond of the arts. His father wrote poetry, his 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 with 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, she did not communicate with the journalists who besieged that kiosk.
Yevtushenko complained at concerts that his mother did not accept his help, she 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 frowningly.
Yevtushenko began to print early, became a member of the joint venture at the age of 20. He became famous very quickly.
In those years, poets collected stadiums
Mikhail Svetlov, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina, Evgeny Yevtushenko
By the time I remember myself, it had already become something of a monument.
A song based on his poems “Do Russians Want Wars” often sounded on the radio. There are lines: “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 (surname after her first husband, poet Mikhail Lukonin).
Interestingly, both women did not have their own children. With Lukonina, Yevtushenko adopted the boy Peter in 1968. Despite the fact that the marriage broke up, Yevtushenko helped his adopted son until the end of his 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 - a fan of the poet. She gave birth to two sons.
Yevtushenko lived cheerfully, stormily.
His relationship with the authorities was complicated. Either Yevtushenko wrote something very patriotic, or something with a touch of seditiousness.
For example, in 1961 Yevtushenko wrote the poem "Babi Yar". She made a lot of noise. The fact is that he raised the topic of the Holocaust in it, while in the USSR they believed that all Soviet victims of the war were equal.
The editor of Literaturnaya Gazeta, where the poem was published, was fired. But Shostakovich wrote a symphony to Yevtushenko's poems, and Yevtushenko gained worldwide fame.
Since then, how many poets, directors, etc. have come out with the theme of the Holocaust? So tell me after that that Yevtushenko was not a genius. Moreover, according to him, he composed “Babi Yar” without any ulterior motive: just, being in Kiev, he saw that there was no monument at the burial site, that garbage was dumped there, and was indignant. Came to the hotel and wrote poetry.
Then Yevtushenko had to go, one might say, to his historical homeland, to Siberia, and write the poem "Bratskaya HPP" about the feat of socialist construction. Well, where is the Bratsk hydroelectric power station now? Who needs electricity in this very Siberia? Why do we need our own production, if you can buy everything in China?
For all this, Yevtushenko was strongly disliked by both patriots and Westerners, communists and anti-communists, especially since he did not get out of business trips abroad.
Yevtushenko loved public performance and read his own poetry well. I was at one such performance in 1985. He was then about to divorce his foreign wife. Rather, he 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 is ready to destroy another one.
The last wife, Maria, is the mother of the poet's two younger sons. 
Aldanochka
Long-awaited Aldanochka
looks:
guest or zhigan!
On her shoulder
berdanochka,
where in any trunk -
jacan.
That the guest
made sure
pounded the moss with a sock,
and not to trust
and tried on with an eye.
She has the habit of a sable.
Vigilantly sat on the porch
and adapted to the fan
capercaillie wing.
And soft in all movements,
signorita of the three courts
looks askance, waving
camarilla mosquitoes.
And a mosquito net mantilla
trembles a little,
Well, I'm silent
how small
albeit an old one.
It's hard to build a self-roll -
I'm not an expert at this.
I'm talking jokes
and without words like this:
"I'm almost gone.
I lost the address.
I got into a trap
from Buenos Aires.
The one who burned down two houses is the one
happy and shalash.
The third house is about to burn down
and I do not extinguish.
I'm not a slacker at all
but in your hut
don't let it take a bite -
and I will burn her.
I forgot who I am.
I am a total wreck.
I'm not from the clouds
but rather from the pits.
I am in the taiga among the snags,
dainty knife,
from special vagabonds -
wandering in myself.
And there are swamps
not a hole,
sluggishness,
but something blue
blooms slowly.
So much messed up in life
everything that he did - everything is not right,
and I'm all - from forget-me-nots.
I can't forget anything.
Destroyed everything, destroyed everything
but believe me, I'm lying:
didn't love anyone
I don't love anyone.
The locust crumbles
how not to shake it!
Love is not in love, aldanochka,
there is still dislike.
you are so young now
and beautiful for the time being
and chasing after you
mosquitoes eat you.
I'm a little old
but this porch
let me stand
next to your face."
Directly, I can see how he famously stamps his foot while reading.
I was then surprised 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 on this occasion. He behaved defiantly: apparently, he felt that the time of the USSR was coming to an end. Didn't he bring embroidered shirts into fashion?
Then Yevtushenko liked to tell that his biggest shock was the commissioning Soviet troops to Prague in 1968.
I still don’t understand why this struck the sixties so much. The suppression of the Hungarian uprising did not impress, the execution of workers in Novocherkassk did not impress, but Prague did.
And today it is clear that if the troops had not been sent then, the USSR and the Warsaw Pact would have collapsed already in 1970. Would that be good?
I never really liked Yevtushenko's poems, but I remember one thing:
Every case has a random boy.
Such fate did not give talent,
and to them with the cool unkindness of stepmothers
favorite things are.
They take it hard
fighting for their rights for years
but, as before, they look immature
treacherously ruddy words.
They have a lot of anxiety about everything.
They live without doubt
and, stepchildren, they cannot be silent,
when sons are silent about something.
They are alien to those who are only glad for peace,
who is not averse to running away from himself.
They feel with their whole skin what they need,
but they can't help it.
When sometimes, trying to no avail,
ruining the whole thing with mediocrity,
goes to fight for the truth mediocrity,
talent, I'm ashamed of you.
1954
I wonder if he is talking about himself?
In addition, Yevtushenko understood and loved other people's poetry 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 it into practice: he interfered in many cases, helped someone, drew the attention of the authorities to some outrages.
Another well-known aphorism does not belong to him, but is associated with him. Joseph Brodsky hated Yevtushenko, and when he heard that Yevtushenko was in favor of liquidating the collective farms (this was during Perestroika), he declared: "If Yevtushenko is against collective farms, then I am for it."
All the talents of Yevtushenko cannot be listed: he wrote prose, directed films, and starred in them himself. He said that Pasolini wanted to shoot him in the birth of Christ, but our authorities did not allow it.
A separate story - songs on the verses of Yevtushenko. Probably everyone knows them and sometimes they even sing, for example, "It's snowing." For some reason, I always want to sing "For this snow in my destiny, thank you, party, to you."
Well, the man lived a bright, eventful life. And he didn't give up though last years was seriously ill. 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 arrange a big tour. But did not live.
For some reason, he is being blamed for having lived in the United States since 1991. He found a teaching job there. At that time, he still had small children, and his age was no longer young.
But Yevtushenko never declared himself an emigrant and a fighter against the regime, he never said 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 that he once complained about a poor childhood (which he had exactly the same, if not better, than that of 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 feature was shirts with prints, colored jackets, which came with caps made of the same fabric, rings and bracelets. Even under winter clothes, he wore crocheted scarves in the form of a flower garland.
Here is a selection of his outfits.
