Yevtushenko's widow spoke about returning to Russia. Culture & Showbiz Widow Evgenia Yevtushenko asked fans to fulfill the poet’s last wish But so far the sons are not married

21.01.2024

MOSCOW, April 14. /TASS/. The widow of the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1 at the age of 85, Maria Yevtushenko, asked all his fans to fulfill the poet’s last wish - to come to the June Moscow concerts, which were planned as anniversary ones. She voiced this request on Friday at a press conference in TASS.

“I ask for help and support from readers, without the public this project will not take place,” she said. “Support us in memory of Evgeniy Alexandrovich.”

According to Maria Yevtushenko, the poet had two dying wishes - one to bury him in the cemetery in Peredelkino - next to the grave of his idol Boris Pasternak, and the second - to hold creative evenings - two big concerts in Moscow.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko developed the plot of these gala evenings and selected poems for the programs himself, said producer Sergei Vinnikov. “His voice will certainly be heard,” he noted. Participation was confirmed by actors Sergei Bezrukov, Maxim Averin, Sergei Shakurov, Dmitry Kharatyan, as well as the Turetsky Choir, singer Valeria, Angelika Varum and others.

“I hope we can persuade Alla Borisovna (Pugacheva),” he added.

My Yevtushenko on social networks

Vinnikov also said that a nationwide campaign #MyYevtushenko has been launched on social networks, in which anyone who cares about the poet’s work and who was a fan and admirer of his talent will be able to take part. “I’m sure there are millions of them in Russia,” he said.

“We invite everyone who expresses a desire to join our action to record a short video message with the motto “This is my Yevtushenko,” he continued. “This could be a few lines from the poet’s favorite poems, memories of what is for each of us meant his name, his work. You need to end your message with the phrase “This is my Yevtushenko.”

At the press conference, it was announced the creation of the Yevtushenko Foundation, which will popularize the poet’s work.

Festival programs in Moscow

On June 4, the program “Evgeny Yevtushenko in symphonic music” will be presented in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. It will be attended by the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra "Russian Philharmonic", conductor Dmitry Yurovsky, the Academic Choir of Russia named after. A. A. Yurlova, Chamber Choir of the Moscow Conservatory and soloists of Moscow musical theaters.

They will perform Dmitry Shostakovich's "13th Symphony", which was based on five works by Yevtushenko, and above all his famous poem "Babi Yar". There will also be a premiere of Laura Quint's work "Bullfighting Passion", written based on Yevtushenko's poem of the same name and which, in fact, became a requiem for the poet.

On June 13, the State Kremlin Palace will host a musical and poetic performance “If there is Russia, then there will be me,” in which famous theater and film actors will read Yevtushenko’s poems. Before the eyes of the audience, the Book of the Poet’s life will be created, displaying all the main milestones of his fate, as part of the fate of a large country called “Russia”.

The performance, along with those that have already become legendary, will also feature new works created by the poet in recent years. Popular performers will appear on the main stage of the country this evening - Joseph Kobzon, Lev Leshchenko, Alexander Gradsky, Nadezhda Babkina, Igor Nikolaev, Valeria, Intars Busulis, Sergey Volchkov, Dina Garipova, Olga Kormukhina and many others. They will perform songs written in different years based on the poet’s poems.

Producer Sergei Vinnikov also informed that “ticket prices have been reduced by 40% to make the concerts accessible to absolutely all admirers of talent.” The organizers guaranteed affordable prices for tickets, the cost of which starts from 600 rubles.

From the biography

Yevgeny Yevtushenko would have turned 85 on July 18. The poet was born at the Zima station in the Irkutsk region in 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. He is the author of more than 150 books, which have been translated into many languages of the world.

September 8th, 2018

The political rehabilitation of Bukharin became one of the key events of Perestroika. After it, cases of quitting the party were registered throughout the country. As a sign of protest. This is how people who lived back in 1937 reacted categorically. Others reacted differently. They were waiting for the rehabilitation of those innocently convicted and killed in Stalin's camps. The poem “Bukharin’s Widow” played a huge role in this. Yevgeny Yevtushenko read it at the Ogonyok evening at the Variety Theater, and he really wanted it to appear on the pages of the popular publication. Editor-in-Chief Korotich was always in doubt: to publish or not to publish the poem. In the end, Yevtushenko gave the poem to Izvestia, and they instantly published it.

================================

Bukharin's widow

Anna Mikhailovna Larina,
I look at you stunned
strikingly,
because under your maiden name
has been hiding for so many years
miraculously survived
widow of Nikolai Bukharin.
You are the only book
from which
His portrait has not been torn out.
I saw this portrait
not in our country
and, as they say, in the "abroad" -
populist beard,
driver's cap on the forehead,
and black,
prophetically mournful,
the shine of a Bolshevik leather jacket,
and look
accustomed to surveillance by the Tsarist secret police
and its own GPU.
Here he is - the “favorite of the party”,
according to Lenin.
Peasant defender
one of the October luminaries.
Verbal chopping block for Trotsky
he put together as a temporary
pushed to the chopping block
and those who put it together.
Bank Repossession Wizard
and human seizures,
protected him like a vampire
Lenin's uninvited deputy:
“Are you demanding Bukharin’s blood?
We won't give it to you -
just know..."
And he didn’t give it to anyone.
I took this blood myself.
Squeezing the country like a pipe,
fingers already swollen
from the blood of former comrades,
he was approaching "Bukharchik"
what was Bukharin's name?
with tender sadness Sergo,
counting the last days -
and theirs,
and him.
And twenty-year-old Anechka -
angel of black time,
her husband's books
before I even had time to read it,
did not marry the crowned one -
for the half-exposed
married a doomed man
and this does her credit.
Nikolai Ivanovich was still alive,
but woke up in a cold sweat
from every elevator at night,
and, secretly repenting
in your own fear
and in glorification of the leader,
he was the first to call Pasternak great,
having let him down by this very accident,
and raised Boris Kornilov,
unwittingly pointing the killers at him.
What was Bukharin guilty of?
and all the old guard?
In many ways -
and in your own blood,
but you cannot execute twice.
Let's not execute them with oblivion,
Let's not execute with lies.
Blood spilled
we assure you
what's new -
We won't spill it.
The hunt for Leninists was on,
like the pygmies hunting for bison.
Nikolai Ivanovich lived without a shield,
but under sticky blood
with the fatal sword,
and Anya at the request of her husband
his will was memorized
and tore it to shreds,
becoming a living will.
The words of Bukharin's will
floated through sewer pipes,
but these are the same
undestroyed words
as embodied in a female image
memory of the nation,
carried in me
Soviet Decembrist -
his widow.
Soviet Decembrists
did not ask the highest
permission -
Is it possible to go to Siberia?
They were just thrown there
where the buckets stood like bowls of patience,
and only cobbles with guards -
that's who ruled here,
judged.
And the camps went -
Mariinsky,
Novo-Ivanovsky,
Tomsky,
where is the stench of gruel, footcloths
for women - the only TEZHE.
If ever
you will repeat this, descendants,
then repentance
won't help you anymore.
Took away from Anya
her one-year-old Yura,
and he has a surname, patronymic;
so that he doesn’t know who the father is,
they put me in an orphanage,
where is the big spoon
shoved a poisonous prison into my mouth
about Bukharin agents
and about the false father,
for millions of relatives.
And when, nineteen years later
in the Siberian village of Tisul
they met
in fear of the first date -
son and mother
for the first time the name "Bukharin" was revealed to him
it burned him like magma,
spilling out of the canteens,
pots gone crazy.
And mother
frighteningly
turned into a ventriloquist
for from her womb at last
with dying
exhausted by testamentary
spoke to him
his real father.
Former defendants
resurrected
become judges.
Former judges
become defendants.
Former losers -
people with great destinies.
Former false luminaries -
light bulbs, barely visible.
The revolution found itself
not those traitors at all.
Betrayed the revolution
deceitful "continuers".
Betrayed the revolution
and Lenin's precepts
expropriators of memory -
"revolutionary scholars".
Sorry, Anna Mikhailovna Larina,
which should be Bukharin.
Like a bitter history lesson
I have been granted a meeting with you.
Sorry, Yuri Borisovich,
which should be Nikolaevich.
Soon there will be "revolutionary experts"
big money
to pin down on your father.
They will immediately rush to you with hugs
who walked around you a mile away with caution.
Perestroika
they want to replace it with repainting.
But in an apartment on Krzhizhanovsky Street
there is a sign
epochal -
letter from KamAZ workers
in defense of Bukharin's honor.
Anna Mikhailovna,
you kept his will for a reason,
for we will say again to all the people:
if we come from October,
This means that we also come from Bukharin.
Today they are trying to strangle our glasnost
those to whom it is like a personal danger.
The real fathers of the revolution,
this is your saved voice -
our publicity.

The price of life has been underestimated
judaizing
the price of the figures was criminally inflated.
The real fathers of the revolution,
perestroika -
this is your will.
And the revolution will continue
and ours will continue
crippled race,
If we,
resurrecting every honest name,
on myself
country
dragging forward
let's become
our fathers
living wills!

[Autographs by E. Yevtushenko and V. Korotich]. Materials related to the attempt to publish E. Yevtushenko’s poem “Bukharin’s Widow”. .

Yevtushenko, E. Bukharin's widow. [M., 1987]. l. 30×21 cm. Typescript with minor copyright edits. At the end of the text is Yevtushenko’s signature. In the upper right corner of the l. 1 autograph of Yevtushenko “For Felix Medvedev, but only when I tell him to convey it by phone.”

Correspondence between Yevtushenko and Korotich. [M., 1987]. l. 30×21 cm.

Yevtushenko: “Vitaly, you didn’t say in Ogonyok what number to put my poem on?”

Korotich: “I told Medvedev to just get him, and now, at two, there will be an editorial meeting, I’ll try to clear everything up by the end of the day.”

Yevtushenko: “Now is absolutely the right time, both historically and psychologically, to publish this poem. Then it will only look like a response to already recorded official decisions. E.E.”

Yevtushenko, E. Bukharin's widow. [M.], . l. 30.5×37 cm. Galleys for the magazine “Ogonyok”. Below the text is the autograph of F. Medvedev: “Typed, but not printed. F. Medvedev."

A unique artifact of the era.

In the photo: Evgeny Yevtushenko and Felix Medvedev.

Felix Medvedev and Mikhail Gorbachev.

Felix Medvedev: "Face to face with Mikhail Gorbachev."

"...Mikhail Gorbachev was almost a living God for Felix. To stop the fall of the country into an impoverished communist “nowhere”, to turn the flow of established life 180 degrees, with one decision to destroy the dam holding back the natural infusion of history and culture of a huge backward but powerful power into the stream universal human history and culture - only the Titans are capable of this. Felix was incredibly proud that he had the opportunity to work at the peak of those unforgettable years: with his profession, as much as possible, he sought to help the policy initiated by Gorbachev of searching for the truth of past and current eras. "Glasnost", " justice" and "truth" became synonymous words for Felix. On his book, published at the height of perestroika and later presented to Mikhail Sergeevich, the journalist, with all the fervor of an enthusiastic maximalist, wrote an autograph to his idol: “You were my hope, remain so...”.

From the book by Felix Nikolaevich Medvedev "My friend - Evgeny Yevtushenko. When poetry filled stadiums...":

After the publication of a conversation with Bukharin’s widow Anna Mikhailovna Larina, “He wanted to change his life because he loved her,” cases of quitting the party were registered throughout the country. As a sign of protest. This is how people who lived back in 1937 reacted categorically... Others reacted differently. And more about this.

The whole country was waiting for the rehabilitation of those innocently convicted and killed in Stalin’s camps. Popular rumors and the desire to quickly find out about the beginning of rehabilitation rushed events. We talked about June 1988...

I came to Anna Mikhailovna in the cold November of 1987. We talked for many hours. The recorder worked tirelessly. But Anna Mikhailovna did not believe that what she told could be made public. She has seen many journalists over the last quarter of a century. The matter of returning her husband’s good name did not progress. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko remained deaf to her written appeals. She had completely given up. She lived in poverty with her son Yuri and daughter Nadezhda in a small apartment on the ground floor in the Profsoyuznaya Street area.

“The first widow of the country,” a young beauty, the wife of a major party leader, who spent eighteen years in exile, prisons and camps, the daughter of a prominent revolutionary buried in the Kremlin wall, Mikhail Larin, a talented memoirist, Anna Mikhailovna lived out her life in the most modest surroundings of a communal apartment, in almost absolute social isolation. They avoided her, they feared her.

People often tell me: they must have been summoned to the Central Committee, or at least the editor-in-chief gave the order to find Bukharin’s widow. Nothing like this. I first learned that Bukharin’s son, the artist Yuri Larin, was alive from the bard and artist Evgeniy Bachurin; I was always going to find him. Then Yevgeny Yevtushenko read the poem “Bukharin’s Widow” at the Ogonyok evening at the Variety Theater, and he really wanted it to appear on the pages of the popular publication. At that time I was running the poetry section of the magazine and decided to prepare a poem for publication. I took Anna Mikhailovna’s phone number from Evgeniy Aleksandrovich to get photographs of her and Nikolai Ivanovich. I received the photograph, but instead of ten minutes I stayed with Bukharin’s widow, as I already said, for many, many hours.

The editor-in-chief was always in doubt: to print or not to print Yevtushenko’s poem, to print or not to print the text of Bukharin’s letter-testament “To the future generation of party leaders.” In the end, Yevtushenko gave the poem to Izvestia, and it was instantly published there, and Ogonyok published Bukharin’s testamentary letter after Moscow News.

Despite these costs, the interview with Bukharin’s widow in Ogonyok gave the impression of a bomb exploding. Thousands of readers were shocked: the publication appeared so unexpectedly and it was so voluminous. And about whom? About perhaps the main “traitor” of the country, about the “spy” of all intelligence services, about the “renegade.” The name Bukharin, cursed, as it seemed, forever, instantly acquired citizenship rights. I received hundreds of letters and telegrams: people cried from the triumph of justice, from the triumph of historical truth. And one more thing: they were excited by Anna Mikhailovna’s sincere, ingenuous story about her fate.

The fact of publication of the material “He wanted to remake life because he loved it” was, in essence, the fact of the beginning of the public popular rehabilitation of the innocently convicted Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin and everyone who was deprived of life in those terrible years. Some time later, newspapers published the decision of the commission under the CPSU Central Committee on the rehabilitation of those convicted in the thirties. The first among them was N.I. Bukharin.

And the one who was shunned and feared like hell, the one who lived her life like a leper, became the most famous woman of our time, the most desired by journalists, historians, and writers. Soviet and Western. Life has changed dramatically: endless interviews, meetings, speeches, trips, receptions. Publication of memoirs “Unforgettable” in the magazine “Znamya”, publication of books by Bukharin and studies about him, performances, plays, films. Everyone wanted to see Bukharin's widow alive. MPEI students staged a play based on Ognykov’s publication and used the material in different countries, in particular in Sri Lanka, where a play about Bukharin is also being staged. Anna Mikhailovna visited Rome for the premiere of the feature film “Comrade Gorbachev,” created based on our conversation with Anna Mikhailovna.

They gave me a sugar bowl, on the bottom of which it was written: “Glass factory named after Bukharin.” Someone kept this rarity, risking their lives. I gave it to Anna Mikhailovna. They called from Leningrad: a record with a recording of Nikolai Ivanovich’s voice was found, on the other side - Lenin’s voice. Release date: nineteenth year.

=======================================

From Irina Vertinskaya’s book “Felix Medvedev. The trump fate of the legendary interviewer, bibliophile, gambler”:

Felix learned from his friend, artist and bard Evgeniy Bachurin, that Anna Larina, the widow of Nikolai Bukharin, the cult figure of the revolution, “the favorite of the party,” as Lenin called him, slandered and executed in 1937, was alive.

And twenty-year-old Anechka -
angel of black time,
her husband's books
before I even had time to read it,
did not marry the crowned one -
for the half-exposed
married a doomed man
and this does her honor... -

Yevgeny Yevtushenko will write about her tragic fate.

Ogonkovsky’s “pioneer” is tormented by the question: by what miracle did the wife of Bukharin, who was executed and anathematized for half a century, manage to survive to this day?

Having crossed the threshold of Anna Mikhailovna's house, Felix did not know how to behave with this unfortunate woman. There was no need for either reporter pressure, or exhortations and requests to tell about her past in as much detail as possible... Anna Mikhailovna felt human involvement in the journalist who came to her, sympathy for her bitter, tragic fate, and most importantly - human tact and a desire to listen and listen to her confession without interrupting or asking unnecessary questions...

The daughter of the prominent revolutionary Yuri Larin (Mikhail Lurie), whose ashes rest in the Kremlin wall, Anna Mikhailovna occupied a squalid apartment on the ground floor on Krzhizhanovsky Street. Her circle of contacts was extremely narrow - few people dared to make friends with the wife of a leper, whose name, it seemed, would forever bear the stigma of “enemy of the people.” And in general, only a few knew that she was alive.

The conversation between the journalist and Anna Mikhailovna Larina lasted for many hours of revelations. The fate of a courageous and persistent woman evoked compassion and awe.

After her release, Anna Mikhailovna did not stop fighting for her name and the good name of her husband. Endless letters to party leaders remained unanswered. They succeeded each other - Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko... No one wanted to take responsibility, recognizing the absurdity of the charges brought not only against Bukharin, but also against the other victims of Stalin’s hysteria. And finally, Gorbachev!

For the first time, telling a journalist the story of her life, Anna Mikhailovna did not believe that Bukharin’s name would be cleared.

But Felix believed. And the first thing he did was rush to the boss:

- Vitaly Alekseevich! I met Bukharin's widow! I have amazing stuff! Her first interview! And Anna Mikhailovna dictated her husband’s will to me - she kept it in her memory all her life!

Korotich looked at the enthusiastic journalist and answered without much emotion:

– We need to think... I don’t know if there’s any point in rushing...

– But you can’t delay! – Felix convinced. - It's a bomb!

“Moreover,” Korotich remarked judiciously.

– Then let’s publish Yevtushenko’s poem “Bukharin’s Widow”! It's on my desk!

- Well, okay, give me all the materials, I need to think...

While the editor-in-chief was “thinking,” Yevtushenko took the poems to Bukharin’s former “alma mater” - the editorial office of Izvestia. The very next day, the revolutionary excited lines saw the light of day. The baton was picked up by Moscow News, which published Bukharin’s letter-testament. And then, constantly under pressure from Felix, Korotich made up his mind - Ogonyok gave the most sensational material on a topic that was already worrying millions of readers - a conversation between journalist Medvedev and Anna Bukharina-Larina. Felix titled this interview by repeating the words of Bukharin’s close friend Ilya Ehrenburg: “He wanted to remake life because he loved it.”

The journalist was right. The article had the effect of a bomb exploding. At least two generations of people by that time knew by heart the names of the “traitors” of the party - Trotsky, Rykov, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Tukhachevsky, Bukharin... They knew and did not doubt, did not ask questions. And now people are shocked. Some – with the truth, which was revealed so unexpectedly, others – with “slander of the party”. For the first time in Soviet history, cases of secession from the CPSU were recorded. The right to exist has returned to the name of Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin.

“I received hundreds of letters and telegrams,” says Felix. – People cried from the triumph of justice, from the triumph of historical truth. And one more thing: they were excited by Anna Mikhailovna’s sincere, ingenuous story about her fate.

The wave of rehabilitation “from above”, which began during the Khrushchev thaw, almost stopped under Brezhnev, suddenly began to gain momentum... Anna Mikhailovna’s life changed dramatically. Interviews, meetings, publication of her memoirs “Unforgettable”, trips abroad... The long-lost feeling returned when she could live and talk without fear of anything... And here she is holding a paper in her hands, summing up her many years of searching for the truth:

“The verdict of the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated March 13, 1938 regarding Bukharin N.I. canceled and the case was dismissed due to the lack of corpus delicti in his actions.”

In these stingy, official words - the whole life and tragedy of her family, grief and death, separation and despair, loneliness and fear, half a century of adversity and deprivation, youth and health, wasted in the camps... She wipes away quiet tears: “Nikolasha would be happy! »

Journalist Felix Medvedev was the first to tell people this tragic, but somewhat bright story. He wrote about what is eternal - about love and fortitude, which helped a weak woman, who spent almost twenty years in prisons, camps and exile, to survive and carry through the long years of oblivion the memory of her beloved.

============================================

I invite everyone to the groups “PERESTROYKA - an era of change”

“I still can’t believe that he’s gone. All the time it seems that he just went somewhere for a long time, and is about to return,” the widow of Evgenia Yevtushenko admitted to AiF in an exclusive interview Maria Vladimirovna.

Fell in love... with a hand

They lived together for 31 years. Despite the thirty-year age difference, we were always on the same page. Kindred souls.

And back in 1986, when Petrozavodsk State University student Masha Novikova came to a meeting with the poet Yevtushenko, famous throughout the Soviet Union, to get his autograph for her mother, she could not even imagine that he would become her destiny.

As Evgeniy Alexandrovich later said, it was love at first sight. Moreover, he saw Maria herself a little later.

“I sat and signed books in a television studio, didn’t even look at people’s faces,” he recalled. “Then I saw... a hand that I immediately fell in love with.”

The July acquaintance quickly ended with a wedding. Evgeny Alexandrovich and Maria Vladimirovna got married on the last day of 1986. When asked how she felt connecting her life with the idol of millions, the poet’s widow shrugs: “I didn’t marry for fame, but for a beloved man, a close person.” And then, smiling, he adds: “Although, I must admit, it was a little scary.”

Yevtushenko was known far beyond the borders of the USSR. With the 37th US President R. Nixon, 1972. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

“He was never a star, he was not proud of his popularity,” says Maria Yevtushenko. - He simply didn’t have time for this. Evgeniy Aleksandrovich worked very hard, was always passionate and busy with something. In addition, he treated himself and his work with a degree of irony and self-criticism. Although he was known and loved even outside the country. I remember in 1987 we went to Paris. One day, at an early hour, we were walking along the still empty streets of the French capital... And suddenly the figure of a tall, broad-shouldered dark-skinned man in a black coat with a scarlet scarf appears out of the morning fog. He walks towards us with a determined gait and smiles widely. I froze in anticipation - what will happen next? And he came up, took Zhenya by the hand and joyfully exclaimed: “Yevtushenko?” It turned out that he, a native of Senegal who works as an architect in Paris, knows his husband’s work very well and always carries a sheet of paper with one of his poems in his wallet.”

"My Humanity"

The poet Yevtushenko called his fourth wife Maria his guardian angel. Although he admitted that quarrels do happen.

“By nature, she is as stubborn as I am,” he said in an interview with AiF three years ago. - We often argue and sometimes quarrel, but how good it is to make peace later... Masha is amazing. For me, she is a wife, a daughter, a sister, and even a strict grandmother. I got married to her. She is my guardian angel in the literal sense of the word.”

Maria Vladimirovna explains that she and her husband never quarreled or sorted things out, but they could argue. Both have a strong-willed character and their own point of view.

“We could talk about literature for hours, and our opinions did not always coincide. For example, I really love the early Mayakovsky, and Evgeniy Aleksandrovich, on the contrary, the late one. When he was selecting Vladimir Vladimirovich’s poems for the anthology, I tried to intervene, but he clearly said: “Don’t touch.”

At the same time, it was his wife who became his first literary critic - Yevtushenko read the newly born lines to her, asking her opinions first of all.

“From the very beginning, I half-jokingly warned him: “Either I always tell you that everything is brilliant, or I honestly explain why I didn’t like this and that.” And this is exactly what he always expected from me - an honest look and answer. Sometimes he agreed and changed something. Sometimes he said: “I know better.”

“We did not always agree with regard to raising children (the Yevtushenko couple have two sons - editor’s note),” continues Maria Alexandrovna. - My husband thought that I gave them too much freedom, and did not approve of the fact that they spent a lot of time on the computer. True, when they began to skillfully repair broken equipment, I admitted that there were advantages. But because of the age difference, we never had any misunderstandings. You see, Zhenya, in human terms, in soul, was younger than many of my peers. He was interested in everything, he was interested in literature, painting, modern art, photography... And he was always interested in people. Simple ordinary people. He interacted with readers with interest and listened to their stories. In the museum-gallery he created in Peredelkino near Moscow, in the first hall there is a photo exhibition “My Humanity”, consisting of photographs taken by Yevtushenko during numerous trips around the world and the country. And in 2015, Evgeniy Aleksandrovich crossed the entire country from West to East - from St. Petersburg to Nakhodka Bay in the Sea of Japan: 40 days by train, with stops in 26 cities, the same number of creative evenings. And everywhere the halls were full.”

Inability to betray

In 1991, the Yevtushenko family left for the USA - Yevgeny Alexandrovich began teaching Russian literature and poetry at the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. For this decision, he was often criticized and attacked by our compatriots.

“At any press conference, at every meeting with readers, he was sure to be asked a question about America. And this is precisely the topic that infuriated Zhenya. He emphasized many times that he does not live in America, he works there. He loved his work and his students very much. I once read a very good phrase - “Every wall is a door”, and I always tried to follow it. Find, feel for something good in each of your students, and teach the children that there is a way out in any situation, and they should never lose hope.

In general, Evgeniy Alexandrovich was a very unusual teacher. For example, he immediately introduced a rule in his classes: when writing a review of a book you’ve read or a movie you’ve watched, you don’t need to retell their plot. “I know perfectly well what they are talking about,” he told the students. “It’s important for me to know what strings of YOUR soul this work touches.” At first, the guys did not understand what they wanted from them, but later they wrote deep and heartfelt confessional essays.

There was an incident that perfectly characterizes the essence of Yevgeny Yevtushenko as a person. A correspondent from the New York Times came to the university. I listened to Zhenya's lecture. And after that I decided to interview students. And one of them said a wonderful thing: “You know, Professor Yevtushenko does not teach us Russian or European literature. He teaches us decency and conscience.”

This was really all Yevtushenko, who, according to Maria Vladimirovna, never forgave people for only one thing - dishonesty and meanness. It was precisely the inability to betray that he considered the main human quality.

“I have an open soul,” he said. - I love good people, I go to meet them and also try to bring something good. And I advise young people, first of all, to stand for the truth. There is not a single bad people on earth. People should feel responsible for humanity, but the understanding of the common must begin with themselves, their own family. If you are unhappy with something, look at yourself. And first, seek peace in your family. And then around. Love those around you. And don’t forget: there are still many people like them on earth, although you don’t know about them.”

Quite recently, one of the most remarkable poets of our time, whose poems were read by millions, passed away. Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s wife Maria Novikova was with him until the last minutes, as she has been all the time recently, when her husband began to be seriously ill.

Maria, the poet’s fourth wife, amazed all his loved ones with the dedication with which she cared for her sick husband. She spent a lot of time in American hospitals, trying not to leave her husband alone for a long time.

The marriage with Maria Novikova turned out to be the strongest and longest - Yevtushenko lived with her for thirty years, and they met when Maria was twenty-three years old and he was fifty-three, and on his part it was love at first sight.

By that time, he had already experienced three divorces and was completely free. Yevgeny Yevtushenko's first wife was the poetess Bella Akhmadulina, with whom the affair began when she had just turned eighteen. Their family life could not be called calm - quarrels between the spouses arose often, but they very quickly made up and dedicated poems to each other.

In the photo - Evgeny Yevtushenko and Bella Akhmadulina

Many years later, Yevtushenko recalled with bitterness that he forced his wife to have an abortion when she told him that she was expecting a child - it seemed to him that they were still young and they needed to live for themselves. Evgeniy thought that after the birth of a child, everyday problems would fall on them, which would prevent him from enjoying freedom and creating. Gradually they began to move away from each other, but Yevtushenko did nothing to save the marriage - even when Bella asked him to take him on a creative trip to Siberia in order to somehow improve the relationship, he again wanted not to burden himself and preferred freedom. The poet then grieved for a long time over his lost love and felt guilty that he did not allow his first wife to give birth to a child.

The second wife of Yevgeny Yevtushenko was Galina Sokol-Lukonina. They had known each other for a long time - before Yevtushenko, Galina was married to his friend, the writer Mikhail Lukonin, and the romance between them broke out after Galina separated from her husband, and Yevtushenko separated from Bella. They lived in marriage for seventeen years, but could not give birth to a child, and then they decided to take the baby from the orphanage, and so Petya appeared in their family. Galina worked a lot with her adopted son, who grew up as an athletic child - he swam, ski jumped, and when he grew up, he became an artist. The marriage with Galina broke up due to Evgeniy’s numerous affairs, which his wife was tired of forgiving him. The divorce was accompanied by a long division of numerous paintings given to them by friends, but Yevtushenko and Lukonina, who did not remarry after the divorce, were nevertheless able to maintain friendly relations.

In the photo - the poet with his third wife Jen Butler

The poet's third wife was Irishwoman Jen Butler, his longtime and passionate fan. They lived together for about eight years, Jen gave birth to the poet two sons - Alexander and Anton.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko met his fourth wife in Petrozavodsk, when he signed his books at a local television studio after a performance. He fell in love with Maria just by looking at her hands, and six months later she became his wife. They almost never parted, and when the poet came to Russia, he was always accompanied by his wife. In her marriage to Maria, Yevtushenko had two more sons, and she had enough time and energy to take care of everyone, which her husband often admired.

In the photo - Evgeny Yevtushenko and Maria Novikova with their sons

Their views on literature and politics very often did not coincide, but they always found a common language on any issue and they were never bored together. Maria was always there when he was once again hospitalized and did everything possible to get him out of his next illness, and he dedicated poems to her in which he expressed his love and gratitude.

Maria was grieving the death of her husband, and only thanks to the support of her sons and close friends was she able to come to terms with this grief.

The famous poet died in the USA at the age of 85. “He died peacefully, painlessly. I held his hand for about an hour before his death, he knew that he was loved,” said Yevgeny Yevtushenko Jr.

The widow of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1, on Thursday, April 14, at a press conference in Moscow, asked his fans to fulfill the poet’s last wish - to come to the June Moscow concerts. "I ask for help and support from readers

© Andrey Makhonin/TASS The widow of the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1 at the age of 85, Maria Yevtushenko, asked all his fans to fulfill the poet’s last wish - to come to the June Moscow concerts, which were planned as anniversary ones. She voiced this request on Friday at a press conference in TASS.

“I ask for help and support from readers, without the public this project will not take place,” she said. “Support us in memory of Evgeniy Alexandrovich.”

According to Maria Yevtushenko, the poet had two dying wishes - one to bury him in the cemetery in Peredelkino - next to the grave of his idol Boris Pasterak, and the second - to hold creative evenings - two big concerts in Moscow.

It is planned to erect a monument to the poet in the city of Zima. It is reported that the mayor of Irkutsk, Dmitry Berdnikov, made such a proposal to members of the city commission on toponymy. The initiative has already been supported, and a corresponding decision will be made at the next meeting.

The widow of the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1, asked his fans to come to the anniversary concerts that will be held in June in Moscow. TASS reports this. According to Maria Yevtushenko, the poet had two dying wills: to bury him in

“I hope we can persuade Alla Borisovna (Pugacheva),” he added.

My Yevtushenko on social networks

The legendary poet of the sixties died on Saturday at the age of 85. “I just talked with Masha, she said that the main civil funeral service will take place in Moscow, in one of the large halls of the capital. But before that, farewell will definitely take place in America - for the poet’s friends, relatives and colleagues,” Morgulis said.

Maria Yevtushenko, the widow of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1, asked his fans to fulfill the poet’s last wish: to come to the June Moscow concerts. The poet, according to her, had two dying wills: to be buried on

The widow of the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1 at the age of 85, Maria Yevtushenko, asked all his fans to fulfill the poet’s last wish - to come to the June Moscow concerts, which were planned as anniversary ones.

At the press conference, it was announced the creation of the Yevtushenko Foundation, which will popularize the poet’s work.

Festival programs in Moscow

The widow of the great poet Maria Yevtushenko told Komsomolskaya Pravda about this. The latest information I have is this. On Wednesday, April 5, at 5 pm local time, a farewell ceremony will take place for Evgeniy Alexandrovich at the University of Tulsa, where he taught. Professors and students will gather... Friends are flying in from New York, from many other US cities, that is, friends are gathering from all over America, whoever can fly.

The widow of Evgenia Yevtushenko asked fans and Alla Pugacheva to fulfill the poet’s last wish.

The widow of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who died on April 1, addressed his fans at a press conference in Moscow with a request to fulfill the poet’s last wish - to come to the June Moscow concerts.

From the biography

The last journey of the poet: today in Moscow they will say goodbye to Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
On Tuesday they will say goodbye to Yevgeny Yevtushenko in Moscow. The ceremony will take place at the Central House of Writers on Bolshaya Nikitskaya. The civil funeral service will begin at nine in the morning and last four hours. Then the funeral procession will go to the writer's village of Peredelkino, where the poet will be interred - not far from the grave of Boris Pasternak, as Yevtushenko himself wished. Only family and friends will attend the funeral, reports Russia 24 TV channel. The poet died on April 1 in the USA, where he moved in 1991. Yevtushenko is the author of more than 150 books that have been translated into many languages of the world.