Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevtushenko in 2009
Born	Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Gangnus (1933-07-18) 18 July 1933 (age 83) Zima Junction, Siberia, USSR
Occupation	Poet, writer, film director, publisher
Nationality	Russian
Period	1949-current
Notable works	Babi Yar
Signature
Website
www.evtushenko.net

Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko (born 18 July 1933) is a Soviet and Russian poet. He is also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, publisher, actor, editor and director of several films.

Yevtushenko was born Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Gangnus (he later took his mother's last name, Yevtushenko) in the Irkutsk region of Siberia in a small town called Zima Junction on 18 July 1933 to a peasant family of noble descent. He has Russian, Baltic German, Ukrainian, Polish, Belarusian and Tatar roots. His maternal great-grandfather Joseph Baikovsky belonged to szlachta, while his wife was of Ukrainian descent. They were exiled to Siberia after a peasant rebellion headed by Joseph. One of their daughters - Maria Baikovskaya - married Ermolai Naumovich Yevtushenko who was of Belarusian descent. He served as a soldier in the Imperial army and as an officer in the Red Army during the Civil War. His paternal ancestors were Germans who moved to the Russian Empire in 1767. His grandfather Rudolph Gangus, a math teacher of Baltic German descent, married Anna Plotnikova of Russian nobility. Both of Yevtushenko's grandfathers were arrested during Stalin's purges as "enemies of the people" in 1937. Yevtushenko's father, Aleksandr Rudolfovich Gangnus, was a geologist, as was his mother, Zinaida Ermolaevna Yevtushenko, who later became a singer. The boy accompanied his father on geological expeditions to Kazakhstan in 1948, and to Altai, Siberia, in 1950. Young Yevtushenko wrote his first verses and humorous chastushki while living in Zima, Siberia. "His parents were divorced when [he] was 7 and he was raised by his mother." "By age 10 he had cranked out his first poem. Six years later a sports journal was the first periodical to publish his poetry. At 19, he published his first book of poems, The Prospects of the Future."

After the Second World War, Yevtushenko moved to Moscow and from 1951 to 1954 studied at the Gorky Institute of Literature in Moscow, from which he dropped out. He published his first poem in 1949 and his first book three years later. In 1952 he joined the Union of Soviet Writers after publication of his first collection of poetry. His early poem So mnoyu vot chto proiskhodit (That's what is happening to me <book of poems in Russian></Grazhdane, poslushaite menia (1989).) became a very popular song, performed by actor-songwriter Alexander Dolsky. In 1955 Yevtushenko wrote a poem about the Soviet borders being an obstacle in his life. His first important publication was the poem Stanciya Zima (Zima Station 1956). In 1957, he was expelled from the Literary Institute for "individualism". He was banned from traveling, but gained wide popularity with the Russian public. His early work also drew praise from Boris Pasternak, Carl Sandburg and Robert Frost.