Yevtushenko in Chicago

[Mills Charles]

In connection with the play "Anna Karenina",
VITALIST THEATER presents ...

Yevgeny Yevtushenko
reading from his works LIVE

This weekend,
September 24 at 7 pm & September 25 at 2:00 pm
Theatre Building Chicago, 1225 West Belmont, Chicago 
Tickets $35.00.  773-327-5252.  Seating is limited.

“One of the Russia’s most adventurous writers for more than thirty years.” Arthur 
Miller

“In my mind he is one of the true heroes of the entire Soviet period.” Norman 
Mailer

“Morality is a sister of conscience. And perhaps God is with Yevtushenko when 
he speaks of conscience. Every morning, in place of prayers I reread or repeat 
by memory two poems by Yevtushenko.”  Dimitri Shostakovich

Yevgeny Yevtushenko is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, and 
filmmaker.  He was born in 1933 in Zima Junction, Siberia.  His ancestors had 
been sent into exile after the peasant’s riot at the end of the 19th century.  In 
1949, he published his first poem in Soviet Sport and his first book was 
published in 1952.  As Yevtushenko once observed, Stalin’s death “released 
the instinct of truth.”  He was a pioneer of the readings on the Russian squares 
and at stadiums, giving voice to a generation that sought release from years of 
repression.  His early work won praise from Boris Pasternak, Carl Sandburg, 
and Robert Frost.  In Russia, he became nationally famous as a poet of love at 
22 years old. But very soon, before the appearance of Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov 
and other dissidents on the Russian political stage, his poetry became the first 
lonely voice against Stalinism. At the same time he found himself in the crossfire 
of Stalinist writers and some haughty snobs irritated by his unprecedented, giant 
public readings. But, his love for the audience continues even today in the 21st 
century.  He has twice filled up the Kremlin Theater’s 6,500 seats, and he has 
recited poetry in Carnegie Hall.  His diverse audience has included Siberian 
miners, Sachalin Island oil-drillers, cowboys at Elko, and Tulsa, Oklahoma 
middle-school children.  Three American Presidents have quoted his verses in 
their speeches.  

Yevtushenko opened the way to the “stolen world,” and now millions of 
Russians visit all corners of our planet. He has toured 94 countries and his 
works have been translated into 72 languages.  Numerous volumes of his 
poetry have appeared in English and many poets assisted in the translation of 
his verses, including John Updike, James Dickey, W. S. Merwin and Stanley 
Kunitz.  In 1961, Yevtushenko published “Babi Yar,” a protest poem against anti-
Semitism.  Today, that poem is inscribed in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in 
Washington, D.C.  That poem also became the basis for Dimitri Shostakovich’s 
13th Symphony.  He has also written and directed for film including 
Kindergarten, Soy Cuba, and Stalin’s Funeral starring Vanessa Redgrave and 
Claus Maria Brandauer.

>From 1988 to 1991, Yevtushenko served in the first freely elected Russian 
parliament, where he fought against censorship and other restrictions.  During 
the hard-liners’ attempt in 1991 to overthrow the government, Yevtushenko 
recited his poetry from the balcony of the Russian White House before two 
hundred thousand defenders of freedom.   As Stephen Kinzer recently noted in 
a 2003 New York Times article: 

“For nearly half a century Mr. Yevtushenko has been a piercing voice of 
conscience, sometimes bitterly angry, other times overflowing with enthusiasm 
and hope.  Many Americans see him as part Walt Whitman and part Bob Dylan; 
Russians know him as a wildly popular poet who embodies their country’s spirit 
and has often screamed truths that others feared to whisper.  His fame has 
spread far beyond his home-land, and today he is among the world’s most 
widely admired living writers.”

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