Yevtushenko Brodsky should nominate the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko for the Nobel Prize in Literature from Russia. Five reasons why Yevtushenko deserved the Nobel Prize Was Yevtushenko a Nobel Prize laureate?

02.06.2020

Vladimir Krupin about the nomination of E. Yevtushenko and V. Pelevin to Nobel Prize on literature...

The Nobel Prizes in Literature are awarded solely on artistic merit, said Peter Englund, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy. He categorically rejected the suggestion that major events of the current year, such as the “Arab Spring” or natural Disasters in Japan, ITAR-TASS reports. “We strive to completely exclude all factors not related to the work itself, including the international situation, the author’s activities outside of literature, and the degree of its popularity,” he said. “The decision is made only on the merits of the work.”

This year, as RIA Novosti reports, the list of the most likely candidates for the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature, compiled by bookmakers from the British company Ladbrokes, included Russian writers Viktor Pelevin and Yevgeny Yevtushenko. However, they noticeably lag behind foreign authors. The list of favorites is headed by the 77-year-old poet Adonis from Syria, the second number is the poet from Sweden Thomas Tranströmer, the third is the Japanese prose writer Haruki Murakami. Pelevin, who was included for the first time in the list of candidates for the most prestigious prize in the world, shares places from 50th to 58th out of 77, and Yevtushenko, who has already been among the contenders for the Nobel Prize more than once, takes places from 60th to 71st.

We asked the famous Russian writer Vladimir Krupin to express his opinion about the declared apoliticality of the Nobel Committee and the contenders for the Nobel Prize in Literature from Russia.

Vladimir Krupin Although they claim that they are alien to political motives, they nominated the most politicized poet, Yevtushenko, who, as they say, “wavered along with the party line.” He was for Khrushchev, and for Brezhnev, and for Gorbachev, and for Yeltsin, and now, naturally, for Medvedev and Putin. I don’t blame him for this at all, because everyone chooses their own path, but at the same time, it is impossible to imagine that Yevtushenko’s poetry is on a level next to Rubtsov’s poetry. In addition, it seems to me that Yevtushenko’s preoccupation with popularity exceeds his talent.

Pelevin is simply depraved in his work. His nomination for the Nobel Prize only causes misunderstanding and surprise; this does not go into any way. If they declare that only the artistic merits of works are taken into account, then I simply don’t see them in Pelevin. To be honest, I tried to read his books, but I couldn’t.

In my opinion, the nominated candidates will only disgrace Russian literature if one of them actually receives the Nobel Prize. However, the Nobel Prize compromised itself a long time ago. I advise you to read Vadim Kozhinov’s article about the Nobel Prize, in which he argues that all the most significant writers of the 20th century passed by this award. And those to whom it was awarded have long been forgotten. Therefore, the Nobel Prize itself has long been meaningless in the literary process.

But I am completely calm about genuine Russian literature. She is alive and significant, she is leading in the world, because she was raised by Orthodoxy.

The legendary writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko was born in Siberia in 1932, and from his birth his whole life was associated with change. Evgeniy’s mother, Zinaida Ivanovna, changed her husband’s surname to her maiden name and registered her son as Yevtushenko. This is not surprising. The head of the family, Alexander Rudolfovich, was half German, half Baltic and bore the last name Gangnus. A little later, during the evacuation of the Great Patriotic War, in order to avoid problems with documents, the mother had to change the year in Evgeniy’s birth certificate to 1933.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko grew up in a creative family: his father was an amateur poet, and his mother was an actress, who later received the title of Honored Cultural Worker of the RSFSR. From an early age, his parents instilled in him a love of books: they read aloud, retold interesting facts from history, teaching the child to read. So, at the age of six, dad taught little Zhenya to read and write. For his development, little Yevtushenko chose not children's authors at all, reading the works of Cervantes and Flaubert.

In 1944, Evgeniy’s family moved to Moscow, and after a while his father left the family and went to another woman. At the same time, Alexander Rudolfovich continues to engage in the literary development of his son. Evgeniy studied in the poetry studio of the House of Pioneers, attending poetry evenings at Moscow State University with his father. Yevtushenko visited creative evenings, Alexander Tvardovsky, . And my mother, being a soloist of the theater named after. , often gathered artists and poets at home. Mikhail Roshchin, Evgeny Vinokurov, Vladimir Sokolov and others came to visit little Zhenya.

Poetry

In such a creative atmosphere, young Zhenya was precocious and tried to imitate adults, also writing poetry. In 1949, Yevtushenko’s poem was published for the first time in one of the issues of the newspaper “Soviet Sport”.

In 1951, Evgeniy entered the Gorky Literary Institute and was soon expelled for not attending lectures, but the real reason lay in public statements that were unacceptable for that time. By the way, Yevtushenko received a diploma of higher education only in 2001.

Absence higher education did not prevent the young talent from achieving success in creativity. In 1952, the first collection “Scouts of the Future” was published, consisting of praising poems and pretentious slogans. And the poetry “Before the Meeting” and “Wagon” gave the start to the poet’s serious career. In the same year, Yevtushenko was accepted into the Union of Writers of the USSR, and the twenty-year-old boy became the youngest member of the organization.

Real fame to the young poet bring such works as "The Third Snow", "Poems different years" and "Apple". In just a few years, Yevgeny Yevtushenko achieves such recognition that he is called to speak at poetry evenings. The young poet read his poems along with such legends as Bella Akhmadulina.

In addition to poetry, prose that readers loved came from his pen. The first work, “The Fourth Meshchanskaya,” was published in 1959 in the magazine “Youth,” and later the second story, “The Chicken God,” was published. Yevtushenko published his first novel, “Berry Places,” in 1982, and the next, “Don’t Die Before You Die,” eleven years later.

In the early nineties, the writer moved to the United States, but did not stop there either. creative activity: I taught courses in Russian poetry at local universities and even published several works. Evgeny Yevtushenko still publishes his collections. So, in 2012, “Happiness and Reckoning” was released, and a year later - “I Can’t Say Goodbye.”

During his creative life, more than one hundred and thirty books were published, and his works are read in 70 languages of the world.

Evgeniy Alexandrovich not only received recognition among readers, but also earned countless awards. Thus, Yevtushenko was a laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the USSR State Prize and the Tefi Prize. The poet was awarded the “Badge of Honor” and the medal “For Services to the Fatherland” - and this is only a small part of the awards. A small planet is named after the writer solar system, which is called 4234 Evtushenko. Evgeniy Alexandrovich is also an honorary professor at King's College in Queens, the University of Santo Domingo, the University new school in New York "Nonoris Causa" and at the University of Pittsburgh.

Music

The poet's poems inspire many musicians to create songs and musical performances. For example, based on Yevtushenko’s poem “Babi Yar,” the composer created the famous thirteenth symphony. This work has gained worldwide recognition: “Babi Yar” is known in seventy-two languages of the world. Evgeny began collaborating with composites back in the sixties, working with such celebrities as Evgeny Krylatsky, Eduard Kolmanovsky and.

Songs based on the poet's poems became real hits. There is probably not a person in the post-Soviet space who does not know the compositions “And It’s Snowing,” “When the Bells Ring” and “Motherland.” The poet also managed to work with musical groups: his poems formed the basis of the rock operas “The Execution of Stepan Razin” and “White Snow is Falling.” Last piece premiered at the Olimpiysky sports complex in Moscow in 2007.

Movies

Yevtushenko managed to prove himself in films. The script for the film “I Am Cuba,” which was released in 1964, was co-written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Enrique Pineda Barnet. In Savva Kulish's film "Takeoff" the poet performed main role.

The film was released in 1979. And in 1983, the writer tried himself as a screenwriter and directed the film " Kindergarten", where he played a small role. In 1990, he wrote the script and directed the film "Funeral".

Personal life

The poet and writer was married four times. Evgeniy first married in 1954 to a poetess. But the creative union did not last long, and in 1961 Yevtushenko led Galina Sokol-Lukonina down the aisle. In this marriage they had a son, Peter.

The writer’s third wife was his admirer from Ireland, Jen Butler, and although the foreigner gave birth to Yevtushenko’s two sons, Anton and Alexander, their marriage also fell apart.

The fourth chosen one was the doctor and philologist Maria Novikova. Yevtushenko has been married to her for 26 years, raising two sons - Dmitry and Evgeny.

Death

April 1, 2017 at the age of 85. The legendary poet died in a US clinic where he was. The writer’s wife, Maria Novikova, said that doctors gave Evgeniy Alexandrovich virtually no chance of recovery, but fought for his life until the last minutes.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko died in his sleep from cardiac arrest, surrounded by family and friends. He also managed to announce his last will - the poet’s dying wish was a request to be buried in the village of Peredelkino near Moscow.

Bibliography

Scouts of the future
Highway Enthusiasts
White snows are falling
I am Siberian breed
Compromise Kompromisovich
Almost at last
Darling, sleep
I will break through into the twenty-first century...
Happiness and retribution
I don't know how to say goodbye

Yevgeny Yevtushenko has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The initiator was the World Congress of Russian-Speaking Jews. The author of Babyn Yar may become a laureate of one of the most prestigious international awards, along with Pasternak, Bunin, Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky or Sholokhov. The decision to nominate the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who is now in Israel, for the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature was made in the Israeli parliament, at a meeting of the commission on issues of aliyah, absorption and diaspora. Almost all Russian-speaking Knesset deputies came to meet with the poet. “This may sound somewhat pathetic, but for me Yevgeny Yevtushenko is not just an outstanding poet, prose writer, screenwriter, director, actor, photographer, public figure,” noted Knesset member Mikhail Nudelman. “For me, he is a kind of spiritual tuning fork of that time, that era in which we were born, grew up and took place. I deliberately do not talk about him as a Russian or Soviet poet. His work beyond borders can rightfully be called a citizen of the world, since he writes about the most painful points of the whole world, not just Russia. And it’s no coincidence that his poems have been translated into 72 languages.” Professor Nudelman expressed the hope that one of the public organizations in Israel will nominate the poet for the Nobel Prize: “It is a matter of honor for Jewish public organizations around the world to achieve just such an assessment of his contribution to the treasury of world literature.”, revolutionary inventions or major contributions to culture or society. According to Alfred Nobel's will, prizes are awarded in five areas: physiology and medicine, literature, physics, chemistry and promoting world peace. Since 1969, on the initiative of the Swedish Bank, prizes in economics have also been awarded. The amount of the Nobel Prize in each category is 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.43 million). Russians most often became winners of the Nobel Prize for achievements in the field of physics (I. Tamm, P. Cherenkov, I. Frank, L. Landau, N. Basov, A. Prokhorov, P. Kapitsa, Zh. Alferov, A. Abrikosov, V. . Ginzburg) and literature (I. Bunin, B. Pasternak, M. Sholokhov, A. Solzhenitsyn, I. Brodsky). Nobel laureates in chemistry were N. Semenov, in physiology and medicine - I. Pavlov, I. Mechnikov, in economics - L. Kantorovich. The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to A. Sakharov and M. Gorbachev. Recall that the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature was won by the 88-year-old British writer Doris Lessing.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko began publishing in 1949. In 1952, his first collection of poems, Scouts of the Future, was published. In 1962 he participated as part of the Soviet delegation at the 7th World Youth Festival in Helsinki. His poems “Stalin’s Heirs” and “Babi Yar” became a sensation. Among the most famous are also the poems "

Bratsk hydroelectric power station

"(1965), "Under the Skin of the Statue of Liberty" (1970), collections of poems "Highway of Enthusiasts" (1956), "Intimate Lyrics" (1973), novels "Berry Places" (1981) and "Don't Die Before You Die" ( 1994). Yevtushenko directed two films based on his own scripts: “Kindergarten” in 1984 and “Stalin’s Funeral” in 1991. Dmitry Shostakovich wrote the “13th Symphony” (“Babi Yar”) based on the poet’s poems, as well as vocal music. symphonic poem "The Execution of Stepan Razin". They decided to nominate two Russians at once - President Vladimir Putin and poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko - for the Nobel Prize. They want to reward Putin for creating a state nanotechnology corporation, and Yevtushenko for the fight against anti-Semitism. It is hardly possible to consider these messages seriously, because only those who are asked to do so by the Nobel Committee themselves can recommend candidates for the Nobel Prize. At the same time, it will be possible to reliably find out whether this or that person was included in the list of nominees only after 50 years. However, among the nominees for this award are. Twice they proposed giving the peace prize to Joseph Stalin for ending the Second World War and once to Adolf Hitler, although the latter application was withdrawn. But, for example, Mahatma Gandhi, whom Vladimir Putin once described as the greatest democrat, never received his peace prize (see).

To Putin from anonymous Swiss

The message that a certain International Center for Alternative Energy Research has offered to award Russian President Vladimir Putin's Peace Prize appeared in the Russian media. In the communiqué scientific center It is emphasized that "none of the currently known inventions in the field of alternative energy can effectively replace oil, and this is the reason that the whole world is desperately looking for a replacement for fossil fuels."

After this, the personality of the Russian President is spoken about: “President Vladimir Putin’s idea to create a Russian nanotechnology corporation” shows the leadership role and insight of the Russian President. “His efforts to find an effective replacement for oil serve all of humanity and are a contribution to the construction of global peace. Therefore, President Vladimir Putin deserves to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” says the text, signed by the center’s president, Aneta Ernest.

Let us recall that according to the law “On the Russian Nanotechnology Corporation”, adopted in September 2006, the total amount of funding for nanotechnology research in Russia should be about 180 billion rubles, and the Swiss emphasize that this is comparable “with all the Russian Federation’s allocations for science.”

It is noteworthy that it is not possible to find the International Center, which is supposedly based in Zurich; at least, there is no mention of such an organization on the global network. Russian specialists don’t know anything about him either. As NewTimes.ru writes, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and member of the editorial board of the international journal " alternative energy“Yuri Ryzhov said that this is the first time he has heard about such an organization. The idea itself also seems crazy to him.

Yevtushenko from grateful Zionists

Another proposal for a Nobel Prize, albeit in literature, came this week from the World Congress of Russian-Speaking Jewry. This organization, which unites Jewish Russian-speaking communities in 23 countries, announced that it is going to nominate poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The Congress announced this at a meeting between Yevtushenko and Russian-speaking deputies of the Israeli parliament, which took place on November 20. This action, the Congress said, is recognition not only of the poet’s outstanding literary merits, but also highlights the role he played in the fight against xenophobia and anti-Semitism.

Who nominates nominees for the Nobel Prize and how?

Theoretically, reports about the nomination of Putin and Yevtushenko for the prize may be true if the organizations reporting this are among those whom the Nobel Committee annually asks to name nominees for the prize. At the same time, the list of nominees in the Nobel Committee is classified for the next 50 years.

In general, the procedure for selecting Nobel laureates is as follows: every year the Nobel Committee sends letters to 200-300 people and organizations asking them to name their candidates for the prize in a particular industry. Then a commission of members of the Swedish Academy of Sciences selects a winner from this list in several stages.

Usually, among those who are asked to name nominees for the prize in literature are previous winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, the most authoritative professors of literature and linguistics at world universities, and presidents of national societies of writers.

The list of those who usually propose candidates for the Peace Prize is wider: this former laureates, members of national assemblies and governments, international courts, university rectors, and members of various international organizations.

Two high-profile deaths occurred last week.
And each one meant the end of an era.
And both happened in America - which, in my opinion, is also a significant event in itself.

Older people probably remember the issue of Ogonyok, the “flagship magazine of perestroika”, published in February 1987, where the cover depicted - against the backdrop of the winter Peredelkino landscape, in the then fashionable shaggy hats - four poets, whose names began to thunder during the years of Khrushchev “thaw”, From right to left - Robert Rozhdestvensky, Bulat Okudzhava, Andrey Voznesensky, Evgeny Yevtushenko.

In the same order they died down and left. First Rozhdestvensky, then Okudzhava, then Voznesensky, and last, last Saturday, April 1, Yevtushenko died - in distant Tulsa, in the state of Oklahoma, where he taught at the local university - by the way, one of the best in America, despite the apparent provincialism .

Yevtushenko’s death reminded us that his brilliant generation had practically dried up. Those others who were not in that photo, but who, together with the four poetic musketeers, who gathered entire stadiums for their performances, made up the elite of Russian culture of the late twentieth century, were also no longer alive.

I primarily mean the Nobel laureate in literature Joseph Brodsky, who, in my opinion, in modern Russian poetry is equal to Pushkin in the Russian classics of the 19th century. I mean Vasily Aksenov, Bella Akhmadulina, Sergei Dovlatov, Vladimir Maksimov, Alexander Galich, Pyotr Weil - and if we take it more broadly, then Neizvestny, and Tarkovsky, and Lyubimov, and many, many others.
Who's behind them? Zakhar Prilepin? Sergey Minaev? Vladimir Solovyov? Or maybe Vladislav Surkov, they say, publishes his literary exercises under the pseudonym Nathan Dubovitsky? Or Revenko with Skabeeva, Popov and Semin?

The Soviet socialist homeland once pushed almost the most outstanding writers and artists out of the door. This is our national tradition, such a “spiritual bond”. The best, the most talented are supposed to be spread rot. The motherland should treat its thinking, independent, out-of-the-ordinary sons not as a loving mother, but as an evil stepmother.

Yevtushenko, by the way, was an exception here - the authorities forgave him a lot, but in the end he, too, chose to live in an American university town for the last quarter century of his life - perhaps the most comfortable, calm and happy.

And two days before Yevtushenko’s death in California, in Palo Alto - the city where the amazingly large Stanford University and the headquarters of almost all the most advanced high-tech companies in the world are located: Apple, Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, Tesla Motors - he died brilliant theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate, student of the great Landau, academician Alexei Abrikosov, who also moved from Russia to the USA almost a quarter of a century ago and in 2003 received the Nobel Prize in Physics, already being an American scientist.

In an interview with Radio Liberty on the occasion of his being awarded the Nobel Prize, Abrikosov then said a piercingly bitter thing:
“In Russia at one time, when I was there, I suffered enough. And on this occasion, I am proud that this award is considered to belong to America.” I thought and repeated: “I’m proud of this.”

What do you want? Stepsons pay their evil stepmother handsomely.

The death of 88-year-old academician Abrikosov in the USA is a sign that the generation of outstanding scientists who succeeded the great ones - Joffe, Semenov, Kapitsa, Landau, Tamm, Zeldovich, Sakharov, Khariton - is also passing away. And behind them there is no one either. All the best have long been in the West. Russian Academy destroyed by the ambitions of people from Putin’s inner circle. Fundamental science is dying.

The following Russian winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics - 2010 - were also born, raised, educated and took their first steps in science in the USSR and in Russia, Sir Andrei Geim and Sir Konstantin Novoselov, who were knighted for scientific merits by the British Queen Elizabeth II, They have lived in Manchester for a long time and work at the university there.

As the now, alas, half-forgotten poet German Plisetsky once wrote:

We gave away our glory for free:
As you can see, she is not in our barns,
As you can see, we have no end of it -
As if they are too rich in talent!

How many people who have already glorified or could still glorify our country now live far beyond its borders? Scientists, writers, musicians, businessmen, lawyers, doctors, artists, filmmakers, journalists, athletes. Just representatives of the educated and active middle class. The count goes into millions.

This is called "brain drain". Its result in any country is the degradation of science, culture, education, the country’s ever-increasing lag in all areas, the archaization of intellectual and public political life.

The reason for the brain drain is not only the lack of proper funding for science, culture, and education. It is also a lack of freedom. Neither science, nor culture, nor education can exist for long in conditions of unfreedom. Even Stalin and Beria understood this, who were ready to forgive the Soviet scientists working on the creation of atomic weapons for any freethinking - as long as there was a result. It is no coincidence that the creator hydrogen bomb Academician Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov later turned into perhaps the most outstanding fighter for freedom and democracy in the USSR.

Regarding freedom, another great Russian man who left Russia to remain a free man, writer Vladimir Nabokov, once wrote:

“Perhaps no other nation has known such freedom as we know. In that special Russia that invisibly surrounds us, lives and holds us, permeates the soul, colors dreams, there is not a single law except the law of love for it, and there is no power except our own conscience. We can say everything about it, write everything, we have nothing to hide, and no censorship puts any obstacles in our way, we are free citizens of our dreams. Our dispersed state, our nomadic power is strong in this freedom, and someday we will be grateful to blind Clio for giving us the opportunity to taste this freedom and, in exile, to piercingly understand and feel our native country
Let us not blame the expulsion. Let us repeat in these days the words of that ancient warrior about whom Plutarch writes: “At night, in deserted fields, far from Rome, I pitched a tent, and my tent was Rome to me.”

90 years have passed, but it still sounds so relevant!