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And that makes me a real Russian. Conservative critics howled that "Babi Yar" is "pygmy spittle" aimed at the "crewcut Russian lads" who died in World War II. The crew-cut fourth generation thought it was great. In Mayakovsky Square last October, a crowd of more than 5,000 yelled "Babi Yar" until Evtushenko recited the 58-line poem.
Swashbuckling Zhenya Evtushenko is a virile, versatile poet with some of the moral passion of Russia's 19th century writers and an impish individualism all his own. His verse is by turns idealistic and irreverent, tender, irascible and brash. "I'm of Siberian stock," brags one of his poems. "I fear nobody's lip."
My Life, My Death. Evtushenko's party enemies have labeled him "pessimist."' "formalist," "revisionist." and every other -ist on the list save Communist, which he is, and is careful to show he is. But to Zhenya's worldly-wise contemporaries, a venomous review in the pravilnye (square) literary journals is the best advertisement of a writer's integrity. Since his first, ingenuous volume, which delighted the squares, all six of his books have been panned by the right pundits, snapped up, parroted throughout Russia, published abroad in 16 languages. Critic Boris Sarnov, a longtime Zhenyaphobe, conceded that if he appeared in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium (capacity: 105,000), "he would fill the place."