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10 HASHALOM May
2017
May 2017
HASHALOM
11
JEWISH WORLD
JEWISH WORLD
Russian poet who told the world about
Babi Yar dies at 84
By Ken Miller - Times of Israel
After gaining notoriety with poetry denouncing Stalin, Yevgeny Yevtushenko was catapulted to
international acclaim for his unflinching account of a 1941 massacre of Jews
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) —Acclaimed Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko,
whose work focused onwar atrocities and denounced anti-Semitismand
tyrannical dictators, has died. He was 84.
GinnyHensley, a spokeswoman for HillcrestMedical Center in the eastern
Oklahoma city of Tulsa, confirmed Yevtushenko’s death. Roger Blais, the
provost at the University of Tulsa, where Yevtushenko was a longtime
faculty member, said he was told Yevtushenko died Saturday morning.
“He died a few minutes ago surrounded by relatives and close friends,”
his widow, Maria Novikova, was quoted as saying by the Russian state
news agency RIA Novosti. She said he died peacefully in his sleep of heart
failure.
Yevtushenko gained notoriety in the former Soviet Union while in his 20s,
with poetry denouncing Josef Stalin. He gained international acclaim as a
young revolutionary with “Babi Yar,” the unflinching 1961 poem that told
of the slaughter of nearly 34,000 Jews by the Nazis and denounced the
anti-Semitism that had spread throughout the Soviet Union.
At the height of his fame, Yevtushenko read his works in packed soccer
stadiums and arenas, including to a crowd of 200,000 in 1991 that came
to listen during a failed coup attempt in Russia. He also attracted large
audiences on tours of the West.
With his tall, rangy body, chiseled visage and declaratory style, he was a
compelling presence on stages when reading his works.
“He’s more like a rock star than some sort of bespectacled, quiet poet,”
said former University of Tulsa President Robert Donaldson, who
specialized in Soviet policy during his academic years at Harvard.
Until “Babi Yar” was published, the history of the massacre was
shrouded in the fog of the Cold War. “I don’t call it political poetry, I call
it human rights poetry; the poetry which defends human conscience as
the greatest spiritual value,” Yevtushenko, who had been splitting his
time between Oklahoma and Moscow, said during a 2007 interview
with The Associated Press at his home in Tulsa.
Yevtushenko said he wrote the poem after visiting the site of the mass
killings in Kiev, Ukraine, and searching for something memorializing what
happened there - a sign, a tombstone, some kind of historical marker -
but finding nothing.
“I was so shocked. I was absolutely shocked when I saw it, that people
didn’t keep a memory about it,” he said.
It took him two hours to write the poem that begins, “No monument
stands over Babi Yar. A drop sheer as a crude gravestone. I am afraid.”
Yevtushenko was born deep in Siberia in the town of Zima, a name that
translates to winter. He rose to prominence during Nikita Khrushchev’s
rule.
His poetry was outspoken and drew on the passion for poetry that is
characteristic of Russia, where poetry is more widely revered than in
the West. Some considered it risky, though others said he was only a
showpiece dissident whose public views never went beyond the limits of
what officials would permit.
Dissident exile poet Joseph Brodsky was especially critical, saying
“He throws stones only in directions that are officially sanctioned and
approved.” Brodsky resigned from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters when Yevtushenko was made an honorary member.
Donaldson extended an invite to Yevtushenko to teach at the university
in 1992.
“I like very much the University of Tulsa,” Yevtushenko said in a 1995
interviewwith the AP. “My students are sons of ranchers, even cowboys,
oil engineers. They are different people, but they are very gifted. They are
closer to Mother Nature than the big city. They are more sensitive.”
He was also touched after the 1995 bombing of a federal government
building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. He recalled one woman in
his class who lost a relative in the blast, then commented that Russian
women must have endured such suffering all their lives.
“This was the greatest compliment for me,” he said.
Blais, the university provost, said Yevtushenko remained an active
professor at the time of his death. His poetry classes were perennially
popular and featured football players and teenagers from small towns
reading from the stage.
“He had a hard time giving bad grades to students because he liked the
students so much,” Blais said.
Years after hemoved to Oklahoma, Yevtushenko’s death inspired tributes
from his homeland.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on the Russian social media site
Vkontakte: “He knew how to find the key to the souls of people, to find
surprisingly accurate words that were in harmony with many.”
A spokesman for President Vladimir Putin said the poet’s legacy would
remain “part of Russian culture.”
Natalia Solzhenitsyna, widowof the novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, said
on Russian state television that Yevtushenko “lived by his own formula.”
“A poet in Russia is more than a poet,” she said. “And he really was
more than a poet - he was a citizen with a pronounced civic position.”
Kiev Cadets honor guard takes part in commemorative events
at the Soviet monument to the victims of the Babi Yar ravine
in Kiev, Ukraine, September 29, 2016. (AP/Sergei Chuzavkov)
In this file photo taken on Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015,
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, 81, a Soviet and Russian poet,
performs in Moscow, Russia. (AP Photo/Alexander
Zemlianichenko, file)
In this Dec. 28, 1962 file photo, anti-Stalinist poet
Yevgenny Yevtushenko speaks during a reading of
his poetry in Moscow’s Tschaikovsky Concert Hall in
Moscow. (AP Photo)
Humankind dared to believe that tribal identities would diminish
in importance.
We were wrong. Those like me who grew up in the post-war era
never imagined we would again face rising attacks on Jews in my
own part of the world – in Europe.
Anti-Semitism is alive and kicking. Irrationality and intolerance
are back.
But we still see Holocaust denial, despite the facts. There is also
a new trend of Holocaust revisionism, with the rewriting of history
and even the honouring of disgraced officials from those days.
Hate speech and anti-Semitic imagery are proliferating across
the Internet and social media.
Violent extremist groups use anti-Semitic appeals to rouse their
forces and recruit new followers.
All this is in complete contrast to tolerance, the primacy of reason
and universal values.
Moreover, as the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, Lord
Jonathan Sacks, said last year, “The hate that begins with Jews
never ends with Jews”.
Today, we see anti-Semitism, along with racism, xenophobia,
anti-Muslim hatred and other forms of intolerance, triggered by
populism. I am extremely concerned at the discrimination faced
by minorities, refugees and migrants across the world.
I find the stereotyping of Muslims deeply troubling. A “new normal”
of public discourse is taking hold, in which prejudice is given a
free pass and the door is opened to even more extreme hatred.
Steps from this chamber, you will find a powerful exhibition
on Nazi propaganda. It is called “State of deception” and is
the product of our fruitful partnership with the United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum.
As this exhibition details, propaganda helped erode the bonds of
humanity. The word “Jewish” was used constantly in association
with society’s ills. Hardship and instability created fertile ground
for scapegoating. It is true that many citizens disapproved of
discrimination. But a majority accepted such sentiments, even if
only passively. Ultimately, indifference prevailed, dehumanization
took hold, and the descent into barbarity was quick.
These are lessons for our time, too.
We need to be vigilant. We need to invest in education and youth.
We need to strengthen social cohesion so that people feel that
diversity is a plus, not a threat.
The United Nations itself must do more to strengthen its human
rights machinery, and to push for justice for the perpetrators of
grave crimes.
Our “Together” campaign is focusing on countries hosting
refugees and migrants. Our Holocaust Outreach Programme is
active on all continents.
The Holocaust also saw great acts of heroism, from ordinary
people who protected others to diplomats who, at grave risk to
themselves, defied the Nazis to enable thousands of people to
escape certain death. Some of these are well known – Sweden’s
Raoul Wallenberg and Japan’s Chiune Sugihara. Some are
less so — Iran’s Abdol Hossein Sardari and, I am proud to say,
Portugal’s Consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes.
Today, we can be inspired by many cooperative efforts to bring
diverse groups together. We need to deepen this solidarity.
After the horrors of the 20th century, there should be no room for
intolerance in the 21st.
I guarantee you that as Secretary-General of the United Nations,
I will be in the frontline of the battle against anti-Semitism and all
other forms of hatred.
That is the best way to build a future of dignity and equality for
all – and the best way to honour the victims of the Holocaust we
will never allow to be forgotten.
Thank you very much.
Can you guess why it caused palestinian hysterics?
Even on a sombre day like International Holocaust Remembrance
Day, our “peace partners” cannot help themselves, and are
making it all about them.
Then again, it seems fitting they would remind us all about their
constant attempts to erase our history on this day.
In the meantime, it was nice to see the new UN Secretary-
General contradicting the recent UNSC resolution 2334, which,
among other things, determines that the Jewish Quarter in the
Old City of Jerusalem is ‘occupied territory’.