Talk:Yevgeny Yevtushenko

message: I removed the following paragraph from the aricle:
Many Russian readers now turn their backs on Yevtushenko, as the politically motivated, 'instructive' poetry that he keeps writing seems to fall out of favour with the Russians. However, he will probably go down in the history of Russian poetry as the author of some impressive poems, like Babi Yar, the long poem used by Shostakovich in his Thirteenth Symphony. In January 1993 Teldec records released Shostakovich's Symphony  No 13 with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Kurt Masur. The symphony now is very popular among the international conductors.
as a portion of it violates NPOV, and the rest is mentioned earlier in the article.  I've retained it on the talk page for referencing.  192.234.13.40 19:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. This article has suddenly gotten really slanted, as I have just discovered to my dismay. (What's all that about "naughty child of the regime", for God's sake?!) I will try and balance things out in a little while. K. Lásztocska 04:41, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: POV

message: A fellow Wikipedia user prefers to describe the Soviet attitude to the Babi Yar massacre, which I had described as "Failure to Commemorate", as "Concealment".  I am open to hearing from those with additional resources, but my understanding (both from web-based sources and from a program note for a performance of the Babi Yar symphony at the University of Maryland in which Yevtushenko personally participated on Oct 27, 2007) is that the poem was stimulated in the first instance by the poet's shock, when he visited Babi Yar, at the failure of the Soviet authorities to raise a monument at the site.  There were at least two aspects of the massacre that the Soviets apparently sought to avoid discussing: (a) the fact that Jews, as Jews, had been the first (though not the only) victims -- Soviet presentations of events of this kind preferred to stress that "Soviet citizens" had died, rather than specifically Jews; (b) the fact that some Ukrainians had collaborated with the Nazis in the killings.  However, as I understand it, the Soviets did not attempt to conceal the fact that a Nazi massacre had taken place at Babi Yar, which in their book was one of many Nazi atrocities against Soviet citizens.  Open to other information on this. Nandt1 16:52, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Soviet authorities did not conceal the Babi Yar massacre. What they did was to unfailingly present it as a massacre of "Soviet citizens", never once mentioning the specifically anti-semitic nature of the massacre. The fact that most of the victims were Jews was irrelevant to the Soviet authorities and never mentioned by them, they were only concerned with it as an attack on Soviet citizens. Perhaps "misrepresentation" or "distortion" would be a better term to use than either "failure to commemorate" or "concealment"? K. Lásztocska 17:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: As Lastochka/K. Lásztocska points out, we are not talking about the Soviet concelement of the Babi Yar massacre in terms of its occurance, the article was making a point about concelement of the Babi Yar massacre in terms of the Jews that died there. Nandt1, I think you yourself make this point in your message and we agree: "the Soviets did not attempt to conceal the fact that a Nazi massacre had taken place at Babi Yar." We are making a point that they tried to conceal the fact that the Nazi massacre at Babi Yar was predominately aimed at the Jews of the area - again something you agree with by saying that Soviets tried to avoid discussing that the Jews had been the first victims. I don't know how you interpret the meaning of "tried to avoid discussing" but that sure sounds like "concealment" in terms of who the majority of the victims were. And Yevtushenko's poem was specifically aimed at the outrage at the concealment of the Jewish death, not at the failure of the Soviet government to raise a monument. If what you're saying is true, and I agree that it is true, that the Soviet government preferred focusing on the Soviet deaths, why would they not commemorate the place that so many Soviets died at? They did not commemorate percisely because they tried to conceal the fact that the majority of victims were Jews. Yevtushenko's shock at the failure of the Soviet government to raise the monument at the site had a reason - the conceleament of Jews as victims and anti-semitism rampant in Soviet Union. He wasn't just shocked that the monument was not raised for the meer fact that it was not raised at the spot were so many Soviets died. He was shocked that it was not raised persisely because the Jews were concealed as victims and so no monument was raised to their memory. This might seem like semantics, but that's my understanding. He was outraged more about the concelement that underley the reason for the failure raise the monument. Without the concealment of Jewis victims, there wouldn't be any reason for the Soviet government to not raise the monument. And congrats on seeing Yevtushenko personally. Although this was likely not your intention, but your comments seem to convey that you think that meeting or seeing Yevtushenko give you views an added level of authority. I may be wrong in interpreting your comments above and while you may actually have an added level of authority after meeting or seeing Yevtushenko at Babi Yar symphony at the University of Maryland, having met Yevtushenko myself a few times over the last 13 years, I would still urge people to cite anything that they change, something that you agree with also. --RossF18 17:55, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That said, I think your (thanks K. Lásztocska) refrazing of the sentence works well and I'd leave it.--RossF18 18:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, glad you like it. although given that apparently all three of us are personally acquainted with Mr. Yevtushenko, I almost wonder if maybe we shouldn't just get him on here to say for himself why he wrote the poem and what it all means. :)  K. Lásztocska 18:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Sounds like a plan. :) I think you have the best chance of that since if I remember correctly you actually go to the university he teaches at (my memory can be faulty) --RossF18 18:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did for a while, but I don't anymore. I took a literature class from him earlier this year that was just the coolest thing imaginable--when we were reading Pasternak, he would just spin off into a long series of reminiscences of the time he spent with Pasternak out at the dacha. Another writer would set off another rambling memoir of life, love, literature and philosophy in the Soviet Union. He's really quite brilliant--at times it would seem like he was just wandering through a stream of consciousness, but then at the end he would tie it all together with one perfectly-chosen image...oooh it brought out the poet in me, to be sure... :) I also *love* his fashion sense. :) K. Lásztocska 18:15, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, you were very lucky (he's definitely one of the greats) and yes, he has most *unique* fashion sense. --RossF18 18:20, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think I'll ever forget those bright purple pants...or the pink hat...or the bright blue shirt with the huge orange flowers...or the time he wore all of the afore-mentioned items at once... :) K. Lásztocska 18:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Ah, yes, and those jackets of his. Genius. :) --RossF18 18:26, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Patchwork pants and a Chinese-print silk shirt in March!! I also love how sometimes he gets stuck on a particularly evocative phrase or expression and repeats it every day for a month--he was especially fond of "big cheese" and "backseat driver" last spring. :) K. Lásztocska 18:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: On a somewhat of a side-topic: do we have an article on the Babi Yar massacre? K. Lásztocska 18:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Can we please talk about his poetry and not his clothes! Indeed, if the content of the article were restricted to his poetry, there would never be any POV controversy. When people conjecture about how he will probably be viewed by history, well then, it's just that: conjecture. This is an encyclopedia, not a platform for speechmaking (that is what discussion pages are for! :-) ). Certainly, Babi Yar needs to be thoroughly discussed - can we please keep on the Babi Yar page? Let's try to keep Yevtushenko about Yevtushenko. 69.14.48.127 (talk) 00:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think anyone is talking about conjecturing about how he will be viewed by history - i.e., putting our own opinion of how he will be viewed. However, a description of how Yevtushenko is viewed by scholars is an important point to include in an encyclopedia, especially for a such a political figure. Many articles about authors, poets, and painters discuss how these people were viwed by their colleagues and the general public - by providing cited sources. Noone lives in a vacuum. To make an analogy, perhaps a poor one, but if a Hitler article only talked about what Hilter did without mentioning the global condemnation of his actions, well, it would make for a poor article. And I don't really think there is any talk of discussing Babi Yar thoroughly in Yevtushenko's page. But Babi Yar is his most famous poem and to have no mention of it beyond the fact that he wrote it also doesn't make an article complete. A several sentence paragraph about how Babi Yar was received directly relates to Yevtushenko's political and cultural position in global society. To mention that he wrote Babi Yar and then suddenly became famous without mentioning what Babi Yar was about or why it made him famous makes little sense. You're more than welcome to provide a detailed discussion in the Babi Yar page. But the two issues are not mutually exclusive given that there is really no detailed discussion here. And the last time I checked, there wasn't a page solely to the Babi Yar poem. And if you're talking about the actual Babi Yar page, well, I think here the descussion focuses more on the poem and why Yevtushenko wrote it. The whole POV controversy is not because we're conjecturing but because we're deciding which historian's views to give more weight. Just because historians and contemporaries are yet to agree on Yevtushenko's position in history does not mean that we're cannot use sources to place him in broader context of the evolution of his country. And, on a separate point, I hardly think that a 1 or 2 sentence blurb about how he dresses on a discussion page bothers anyone. --RossF18 (talk) 02:55, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Babi Yar: Concealment versus Failure to Commemorate

message: Recently, thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of one particular user, this article has ceased to be a biography and has turned instead into a collection of disparaging quotations and unfavorable commentary loosely held together by a chronological framework and a few references to specific poems. This article is now unencyclopedic, biased, uninformative and in short, unacceptable by any higher standards that an encyclopedia should hold itself to. 
As it stands, some serious re-writing is needed. I would not be in the slightest bit opposed to a "Criticism" section (although in the interest of balance we should also include some laudatory quotes--perhaps we could put both positive and negative reactions under the heading of "Reception"?) but scattering insulting remarks and commentary throughout the article like confetti (especially in a biography of a living person) is unprofessional and absurd.
I regret that I am busy enough in real life for a few more weeks now to be incapable of doing any large-scale Wiki work, but I post here in the hopes that someone with a bit more spare time can. K. Lásztocskatalk 18:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality issues 1 

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:37, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Timeyevtushenko.jpg

message: It's been said that per WP:CRITS, criticism sections should be integrated into the article. Do you think that is meant for just politicans and would authors be different given that it's more likely that their criticism sections are more literary in nature as opposed to political criticism? If the two types of criticism  sections (in my opinion) are not different in nature, then we should really start to integrate the criticism into the article itself. And for Yevtushenko, the Criticism section does seem to be a combination of both his political critics (both good and bad) and his literary critics (again, both good and bad). Just putting it out there for discussion.--RossF18 (talk) 20:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I do not agree with your interpretation of WP:CRITS.  I consider Criticism sections, when balanced, to be incredibly valuable, just as are Reception and Awards sections. - BalthCat (talk) 04:25, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism section integration 

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thread_title:  Copyright problem 

message: I'm somewhat bothered by the image in the infobox. Basically Nixon takes the focus away from Yevtushenko who's after all the subject of this article. Wouldn't it be better to use this image ? Or, as I see there was a non-free image being used here under fair use but whoever put it in didn't bother writing a fair-use rationale. Now, for an article like this, which focuses on a specific person a fair-use rationale can be made for some images out there.Volunteer Marek (talk) 05:03, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No objections (or even discussion!) in over three years? So I have replaced. I think this is a very strong image and is used as the main image at his ru:wiki article. It shows he was still very much alive in 2009. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:48, 15 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: Substituted at 11:03, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: This section isn't particularly useful. Reading between the lines, it is obvious what it is trying to say but it clearly isn't a neutral perspective; the British-American establishment are unwilling to praise Yevtushenko to the extent that they praise Solzhenitsyn because Yevtushenko was regarded as insufficiently hostile to his own country to be useful in subversive geopolitical propaganda. That is basically what they are trying to get across. Shall we just scrap this section? Claíomh Solais (talk) 15:24, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I don't think so. Not while it has perfectly reasonable material from notable commentators. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:42, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: This section obviously violates neutral point of view and fails to take into account the praise Yevtushenko received. Beaumain (talk) 12:50, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Criticism" section is dodgy 

message: The New York Times article is quoted uncritically:
Moreover, "when Yevtushenko was nominated for the poetry chair at Oxford in 1968, Kingsley Amis, Bernard Levin, and the Russian-Hungarian historian Tibor Szamuely led the campaign against him, arguing that he had made life difficult for his fellow Soviet writers."
All three were in fact prominent ultra-right commentators, who would have had similar objections to any Soviet candidate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.140.123.62 (talk) 09:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: Tibor Szamuely served in the Red Army, and had an uncle in the briefly lived Hungarian Soviet Republic. Is that "ultra-right"? -86.129.162.179 (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxford chair of poetry 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081004191523/http://spintongues.msk.ru/VoznesenskyYevtuh.htm to http://spintongues.msk.ru/VoznesenskyYevtuh.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: English 2409:4062:2D92:CD5C:8EC:717B:E5D3:6A0A (talk) 10:43, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Would you care to offer any further explanation of what you mean?  Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Yevgeny yevtushenko,s father lived in- 

message: The poet stops there to- 2409:4062:2D92:CD5C:8EC:717B:E5D3:6A0A (talk) 10:45, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, still no idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:57, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  English 

message: I've just read "Precocious Autobiography" by him, and it is very clear he plays down his aristocratic ancestry in there, although it is obvious that he had some in the recent past. -86.129.162.179 (talk) 12:45, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  His noble roots