Yevgeny Yevtushenko: unknown facts about the famous poet
04/03/2017, 19:45, Yuri Zaitsev
1. "Like the last dude ...!"
Once, while visiting Bella Akhmadulina, the tipsy Vasily Shukshin began to ridicule Yevtushenko: they say, what is he - a Siberian who grew up at the Zima station, wears a bow tie, like the last dude! tarpaulin boots - not foppery? .. ”The altercation ended with the poet agreeing to
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Photo: Anatoly Lomokhov
2. At the Zima station of the Irkutsk region, June 18, 1932, the future poet was born
From his father's side, he has Latvian, German and Belarusian roots, from his mother - Polish and Ukrainian. Father Alexander Gangnus worked as a hydrogeologist, his developments were used in the construction of the Bratsk hydroelectric power station. Mother Zinaida Ermolaevna is an actress by her second profession. Without finishing her studies at the Geological Prospecting Institute, she entered the Music College. MM. Ippolitova-Ivanov, after which she became a soloist of the Moscow Theater. K.S. Stanislavsky.In 1944, Eugene's parents divorced - his father had another woman, but his communication with his son did not stop. Being himself an amateur poet, he gave the teenager a brilliant literary education.
3. At the very beginning of the war, parents sent 9-year-old Zhenya to be evacuated to their grandmothers
The boy traveled to the Irkutsk region alone. The journey took four and a half months. He rode, as he had to, mainly on the roofs of train cars, tied with a belt to the ventilation hatch. It has been bombed many times. However, the most terrible test was hunger. He earned money for a crust of bread and a mug of boiling water by reading poetry on the platforms. At one of the stops in the Urals, I went to the market, where aunts were selling freshly boiled potatoes. Fascinated by the aroma, he picked up one potato and began to sniff. Noticing this, the traders attacked the hungry boy and began to beat him. Broke ribs. He escaped from the angry speculators by a miracle - the homeless children recaptured ...
Yevtushenko Evgeny with his mother Zinaida Ermolaevna (1993). Photo: Nikolay Malyshev/TASS
4. “I stopped drinking vodka at 19.”
In the Abkhazian village of Gulripsh, where Yevtushenko had his own house, he was considered a noble winemaker. At one time, rumors spread about the poet's addiction to alcohol. False. “I stopped drinking vodka at the age of 19. the poet said. - And I drank it from the age of 12 ... ”This is when he worked at a factory that produced grenades during the war years. In dank Siberia, even children were allowed to drink - so that they would not freeze ... Yevtushenko developed his own philosophy regarding alcohol consumption. He believed that you can drink only in cases where the mood is good. Because this process enhances exactly the state in which a person is currently located - whether it be depression or joy ...5. The future poet composed the first poems at the age of 5:
“Why such a cold, why do I breathe with difficulty?Because Aunt Puddle became a fat Uncle Ice ... "
From childhood, he began to compile his own dictionary of rhymes, which, as it seemed to the boy, did not yet exist in poetry. There were about 10 thousand of them. Alas, over the years, the notebook with these notes was lost ...
Songs were written to Yevtushenko’s poems that have long become popular: “The river runs, it melts in the fog ...”, “Do the Russians want wars”, “Waltz about the waltz”, “Ferris wheel”, “And it's snowing ...”, “ Your footprints”, “Do not rush”, “God forbid…”
In addition to Russian, Yevgeny Yevtushenko was fluent in four languages: English, French, Italian and Spanish.
6. In 1991, Evgeny Aleksandrovich left for America with his family.
He taught Russian poetry and Russian cinema at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma and at Queens College in New York. By the way, Evgeny Alexandrovich received a diploma of higher education only in 2001. The fact is that shortly before graduating from the Literary Institute. A. M. Gorky, a fifth-year student Yevtushenko received disciplinary sanctions for public support of Dudintsev’s officially condemned novel “Not by Bread Alone”, after which he was expelled from the university.
Petrozavodsk. Poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko with his wife Maria and sons (seven-year-old Dima and five-year-old Zhenya) visiting mother-in-law Ghana Nikolaevna Novikova. (1994). Photo by Semyon Meisterman/TASS
7. In 1963, the poet was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the poem "Babi Yar"
In the USSR, for the same poems, which raised the topic of the Holocaust, which was taboo in the USSR, he was accused of anti-patriotism. Miraculously published in Literaturnaya Gazeta, it had the effect of a bombshell. All copies of that issue were instantly sold out. But the scandal flared up serious. And the editor-in-chief of Literaturka, Valery Kosolapov, who decided to publish it, soon lost his post ... Impressed by Babi Yar, Dmitry Shostakovich composed his famous 13th symphony. Which, being performed once, was immediately removed from the repertoire ...8. Officially, Yevtushenko was married four times.
The first legal wife was Bella Akhmadulina. They lived together for only three years, and all this time the husband was desperately jealous of his beautiful wife for her countless admirers. The stormy quarrels of the spouses were replaced by no less stormy reconciliations ... Passionate love ended due to Bella's pregnancy - the young poet was not ready for the birth of a child and forced his wife to have an abortion. For which later, bitterly repenting, he blamed himself for the rest of his life.
With Voznesensky and Akhmadulina (1984). Photo: Global Look Press
With his second wife, Galina Sokol-Lukonina, Eugene spent 17 years in marriage. They knew each other long before the divorce from Akhmadullina, but got together only after both of their marriages cracked at the seams. After seven years of marriage, the couple took from the orphanage and adopted a baby boy, Petya (1967), whose godmother was Galina Volchek. He became an artist.
According to the stories of relatives, the marriage broke up due to the numerous novels of Eugene on the side. After the divorce, the husband and wife maintained friendly relations. And the father never left his adopted son with his attention: he paid for his education in America, provided him with an apartment ... However, Peter, especially after the death of his mother, developed an alcohol addiction. Two years ago, he died of sudden cardiac arrest in a psychiatric hospital, where he spent six months due to mental illness.
For the third time, Yevtushenko married an Irish woman, Jan Butler. She worked in a Soviet publishing house, translated Russian literature and was an ardent admirer of the poet ... This marriage, which lasted eight years, gave Yevtushenko two sons: Alexander (1979) and Anton (1981). Both were born and live in London. The first-born works as a journalist for the Air Force. The second son is disabled. Anton was diagnosed with a rare incurable disease.
Evgeny Yevtushenko with his wife Jan (Jan Butler) Moscow (January 22, 1979). Photo: East News
From 1987 until the last day, the life of Evgeny Alexandrovich was connected with Maria Novikova (married - Yevtushenko). They were separated by 30 years of age. We met when Yevtushenko was filing a divorce from Can. It so happened that young Masha, a graduate of a medical school, approached the legendary poet to ask for an autograph for her mother. Five months later they got married.
Unable to get a job in America in the medical specialty, Maria received another education - philology, and devoted herself to teaching. Teaches Russian language and literature to college students.
In this marital union, Yevgeny Yevtushenko also had two sons: Yevgeny (1989) and Dmitry (1990). Both write poetry and translate their father's poetry into English. The senior is engaged in political science. The younger one is a computer scientist and plans to become a philologist.
9. Next to Yevtushenko until the last were relatives ... 39_014
Death began to creep up on the poet for a long time. In 2013, due to the developing inflammatory process, Yevtushenko's leg was amputated. Having barely recovered from the operation, the poet flew to Russia and gave more than 40 concerts around the country ...A year and a half ago, he was hospitalized in Moscow with a diagnosis of arrhythmia. To eliminate the problems associated with the heart rhythm, he was fitted with a pacemaker ...
This year, a big festival was being prepared for the poet's anniversary: in addition to anniversary evenings in different halls of Moscow, Yevtushenko planned to go on a tour of the cities of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
According to TASS, two days before the hospitalization, in a telephone conversation with the general producer of ceremonial events, Sergei Vinnikov, Evgeny Aleksandrovich turned to him with two requests. Firstly, he expressed a wish to be buried in Russia - in the writer's village of Peredelkino, not far from the grave of Boris Pasternak. And yet, admitting that he was in an extremely serious condition, he said: “I'm sorry ... that I let you down very much. But ... I ask you that the projects we planned together - an evening in the Great Hall of the Conservatory and a performance in the Kremlin Palace, take place without me. Promise me this. I will die with peace of mind…”
Next to the poet in the last hours were his sons Evgeny and Dmitry, and their mother Maria Vladimirovna, now the widow of Evgeny Alexandrovich ...
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