(5 of 5)
The prose comments of such writers on the role they play—seen most notably in Evtushenko's Precocious Autobiography—are fascinating for Western readers in general and highly recommended to Americans who still think that any sensible, freedom-loving Russian would like nothing better than to migrate for keeps to, say, Jersey City. The young poets exude a refreshing sense of purpose that comes with a mature consciousness of power. In the West, where writers have always been free to say what they please, composing a poem is neither an act of rebellion nor an act of courage. However daring a writer's pronunciamento, it is taken in stride by the movers and shakers as part of democracy's continuing dialogue. It sometimes makes Western writers feel frustrated.
But in Russia, during the years when ideas of any kind were considered enemies, authorities thought writing so explosive that they paid writers of all kinds the extreme compliment of sending them to Siberia for saying anything honest at all. Now Russian readers, long starved for words that would offer back to them an image of their own repressed hopes and feelings, stretch avidly to hear any new voice that is raised.
Evtushenko and Voznesensky read their poems to tens of thousands, and their books are bestsellers. They know that just by tweaking the nose of authority—attacking Soviet antiSemitism, for example, or just praising the crazy doings of the young—they are helping a whole land full of people come to life again. Like any number of Russian writers, they hope to fashion the challenging conception of a new destiny for Russia to replace the great dream of the Revolution, which drowned in blood and bureaucracy.