Sad news: Yevgeny Yevtushenko has died
mainThe Russian poet, famed for his Babi Yar lament, died today in Oklahoma, aged 84.
Babi Yar was set by Dmitri Shostakovich in his 13th symphony.
It excoriated both the Nazi genocide of Jews and Soviet anti-semitism.
Yevtushenko later modified his text under Soviet pressure to included Ukarainian victims and added an unpleasant line about ‘Israeli genocide of the Palestinians’.
His death was announced by his wife Maria, a Russian teacher in Oklahoma.
“No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.
Nothing in them in not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet.
And if a man lived in obscurity
making his friends in that obscurity
obscurity is not uninteresting. “
What is that from? I can’t find the quotation anywhere. Beautiful.
The poem is called “People” –
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/people-32/