In the US, Yevgeny Yevtushenko died: the last wish and poems of the poet

The poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko died in the United States in the 85 year of life. About it TASS reported on Saturday a friend of the poet Michael Morgulis.

“Five minutes ago, Evgeniy Alexandrovich passed away into eternity,” he said. “His son Zhenya called me and told me this sad news. My wife Masha, unfortunately, cannot talk now.”

The poet’s friend also noted that almost until the very last minutes of his life, Yevgeny Yevtushenko was conscious: “He heard everything, reacted and, of course, understood that so many people were worried about him.”

With the poet, who was hospitalized on March 12 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his wife Maria Novikova was with him all this time. Their two sons, Dmitry and Evgeniy, who arrived at the hospital, also managed to say goodbye to him.

According to the general producer of the festival, which was to be held in Moscow for the anniversary of the poet, Sergei Vinnikov, Yevgeny Yevtushenko asked to be buried in the Russian literary village of Peredelkino, next to Boris Pasternak.

The producer noted that 29 March was called by the poet’s spouse Maria and connected with Yevgeny Aleksandrovich.

“Sergey, I am in a very serious condition in the clinic, the doctors predict my imminent departure,” Vinnikov relayed his words to a TASS correspondent. - I apologize to you for letting you down very badly. But at the same time, I ask you very much that the projects we have 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,” he added. - I will die with a calm soul. And I also ask you to convey my request to resolve the issue of my burial in Russia in Peredelkino not far from Pasternak’s grave.”

Yevgeny Yevtushenko July 18 was supposed to be 85 years old. He planned to conduct a tour of the cities of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. The main stages of Moscow should also be the place of the main commemorative events: the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and the State Kremlin Palace. Three weeks ago, the poet took part in a TASS press conference on celebrations on his anniversary.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born in 1932 into the family of geologist and amateur poet Alexander Gangnus. His first poem was published in the newspaper “Soviet Sport”, and his first book of poems “Scouts of the Future” was published in 1952, at the same time he became the youngest member of the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1963 he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1991, he signed a contract with an American university in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and left with his family to teach in the United States, where he lived his last years.

He is the author of more than 150 books that are translated into many languages ​​of the world.

ForumDaily made a selection of his most famous poems.

Babiy Yar

There are no monuments over Babi Yar.

Steep cliff, like a rough gravestone.

I'm scared. Today I have so many years as the very Jewish people.

I think now - I am a Jew.

Here I am delirious in ancient Egypt.

But here I am, crucified on the cross, I perish, and still there are traces of nails on me.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is me. Petty bourgeoisie is my scammer and judge.

I'm behind bars.

I hit the ring. Hounded, spat upon, slandered.

And the ladies with Brussels frills, squealing, umbrellas poked in my face.

It seems to me - I am a boy in Bialystok. The blood flows, spreading over the floors.

The leaders of the tavern stand are outraged and they smell like vodka with onions in half.

I, with my boot discarded, is powerless.

In vain I pogroms pray.

To the cackle: “Beat the Jews, save Russia!” - the meadowsweet rapes my mother.

Oh, my Russian people! - I know you

Essentially international.

But often those whose hands are unclean, with your pure name, sailed.

I know the goodness of your land.

How vile that, without flinching, the anti-Semites pompously called themselves the “Union of the Russian People”!

It seems to me - I am Anne Frank, transparent as a sprig in April.

And I love. And I do not need phrases.

I need each other to look. How little you can see, smell!

We can not leave us and we can not sky.

But you can do a lot - it is affectionately hug each other in a dark room.

Go here? Do not be afraid - it is the ghouls of the spring itself - it comes here.

Come to me. Give me more lips. Break the door? No - this is ice drift ...

Over Babi Yar rustling wild herbs.

Trees look menacingly, in a judge's way.

Everything is silently screaming here, and, taking off my hat, I feel like I am slowly turning gray.

And I myself, as a continuous silent cry, over thousands of thousands of people buried.

I am every old man shot here.

I am every child shot here.

Nothing in me will forget about it!

Let the “Internationale” thunder when the last anti-Semite on earth is buried forever.

Jewish blood is not in my blood.

But I hate the malice that has hardened me to all anti-Semites, like a Jew, and therefore I am real Russian!

And it is snowing, and it is snowing ...

And the snow is falling, and the snow is falling,
And everything around is waiting for something ...
Under this snow, under the still snow,
I want to say for all:

"My most important person,
Look with me at this snow -
He is as pure as that which I am silent about
What do I want to say?”

Who brought my love to me?
Probably good Santa Claus.
When I look out the window with you
I thank the snow.

And the snow is falling, and the snow is falling,
And everything flickers and floats.
For being in my life,
Thank you, snow, to you.

With me this is what happens

This is what happens to me:
my old friend doesn't come to me
and go in the small vanity
various wrong ones.

And he doesn’t go around with anyone
and also understands this
and our discord is inexplicable
and both are tormented with it.

This is what happens to me:
not at all coming to me
he puts his hands on my shoulders
and stealing from another.

And tell that one, for God’s sake,
who put his hands on the shoulders?
The one I'm stolen from
in retaliation, too, will steal.

Not immediately the same answer,
and will live with themselves in the fight
and unknowingly outlines
someone distant myself.

Oh, how many are nervous and ill,
unnecessary connections, friendship unnecessary!
I already have an agony!

Oh, somebody, come on, break it.
strangers connection
and disunity of loved ones souls!

New York Elegy

In the central park of the city of New York
in the middle of the night, shaken up, nobody
I spoke with America quietly -
we are both tired of her speeches.

I spoke with America in steps.
Tired steps do not lie to the earth,
and she answered me in circles
from dead leaves falling into a pond.

It was snowing. He felt embarrassed himself
along the bars, continuing the gulba,
sitting on veins swollen neon
near the city of sleeplessness on the forehead,
on the cheerful smile of the candidate
trying to get in with difficulty,
where I do not remember that somewhere, -
but the snow did not care where.

And in the park here he fell undisturbed,
and, like on multicolored rafts,
the snowflakes went down carefully
on slowly sinking sheets,
on the balloon, pink and shaky,
about the stars rubbing sleep cheek,
sticky chewing gum
to the trunk of a pine with a childish hand,
on someone's forgotten glove,
to the zoo that sent the guests away,
and on the bench with the inscription sad:
"Here is a place for lost children."

Dogs snow licked lost.
Squirrels flickered in cast-iron vases
among the trees lost by the forests
lost eye beads.

Keeping a sullen and hidden
silently asking a reproach
lay boulders overweight granite
lost children of the former mountains.

Chewed zebras behind hay
lost in staring into darkness
Walruses, raising muzzles from the pool,
caught snow with a mustache on the fly

Walruses looked bitter and foggy,
in their own way, sparing as best they could,
lost children of the ocean
people children lost land.

I wandered alone, and only far behind the thicket,
as if the nights are a close pupil,
in the face of invisibly soaring
a red firefly swam its cigarettes.

And it seemed to be looking guilty,
without knowing that I pray for it,
Lostness unknown someone
lostness like mine.

And under the silent white snowfall,
united by his secret
America sat next to me
in place for lost children.

White snows are coming ...

White snows are coming
as the thread slipping ...
To live and live in the world
but probably not.

Someone's soul without a trace,
dissolving away
like white snows
go to heaven from the earth.

White snows are coming ...
And I'm leaving too.
I do not grieve for death
and not waiting for immortality.

I do not believe in miracles
I'm not snow, not a star,
and I will no longer
never ever.

And I think, a sinner,
well, who am i
that I'm hasty in life
loved life more?

And I loved Russia
with all the blood, the ridge -
its rivers in flood
and when under the ice,

the spirit of her five-wall
the spirit of her pine trees,
her Pushkin, Stenka
and her old men.

If it was unsweetened,
I'm not very hard.
May I live awkwardly
for Russia, I lived.

And I hope to hope
(full of secret alarms)
that at least a little
I helped Russia.

Let her forget
about me without difficulty
just let her be
forever, forever.

White snows are coming
like at all times
as in Pushkin, Stenka
and after me,

Big snows are coming,
already lightly painful
both mine and others
noticing traces.

To be immortal is not valid,
but my hope is:
if there will be Russia,
it means I will.

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