"Babi Yar" - a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The tragedy of Babi Yar

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

"Babi Yar" is a poem written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, who was shocked not only by this tragedy of the victims of Nazism, but also by its absolute taboo in Soviet times. No wonder these verses became to some extent a protest against the policy of the then government of the USSR, as well as a symbol of the struggle against discrimination against Jews and the hushing up of the Holocaust.

Babi Yar tragedy

On September 19, 1941, the troops of Nazi Germany entered the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kyiv. Ten days later, after the explosion at the headquarters of the German command, which was carried out by a partisan sabotage group, it was decided to blame the Jews for this. But, of course, this was only a pretext, and not the real reason for the massacres. It was all about the “final solution” policy, which Kyiv was one of the first to experience. All the Jews of the capital were surrounded, taken to the outskirts, forced to strip naked and shot in a ravine called Babi Yar. Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem is dedicated to this terribleevent. Then about thirty-four thousand men, women and children were deliberately destroyed during one military operation. The executions continued in the following months, and prisoners, mentally ill people, and partisans became victims. But the problem was not even in this villainy, or rather, not only in it. For many years, the Soviet government refused to admit that the tragic events at Babi Yar were part of the genocide of the Jewish people - the Holocaust. This shocked the poet.

History of writing

Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich has a controversial reputation. His biography and work is criticized and praised from different sides. Some believe that during the Soviet Union, he enjoyed the love of the authorities, who treated him kindly. Others try to read hidden protest notes and hints in almost every work of his. But be that as it may, the poet became interested in this topic in his early years. He read Ehrenburg's poem dedicated to Babi Yar. But there, as prescribed by Soviet propaganda, nothing was said about the nationality of the victims. They were called "Soviet citizens". And Yevtushenko, as he himself wrote later, had long wanted to devote poetry to the problem of anti-Semitism in the USSR.

Travel to Kyiv

In 1961, Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko visits the capital of Ukraine. He goes to the scene of the tragedy and sees with horror that there is not only no monument to the victims, but even any mention of them. At the place where the executions of people were carried out, there wasdump. Trucks came to the place where the bones of the innocently killed lay, and dumped disgusting garbage. It seemed to the poet that by doing so the authorities seemed to be laughing at the executed. He returned to the hotel and there, in his room, wrote "Babi Yar" for several hours. The poem began with the lines that there is no monument at the site of the tragedy.

Meaning

When a poet sees what Babi Yar has become, he feels fear. And this seems to make Yevtushenko related to the entire long-suffering Jewish people. In the lines of the poem, he lives with him a terrible story of exile and persecution, including in Russia, where instead of recognizing the memory of these people, they only spit. He writes about pogroms and their victims, about fascism and heartlessness - about anti-Semitism in all its guises. But the bureaucratic machine of contemporary totalitarianism deserved his greatest hatred - the main point of this poem is directed against it.

First public performance

Who was the first to read Yevtushenko "Babi Yar"? Even in a Kyiv hotel room, these poems were first heard by Ukrainian poets Vitaly Korotich and Ivan Drach. They asked him to read the poem at a speech to the public that was to take place the next day. Rumors about the poem reached the local authorities, who tried to prevent the poet from meeting the public. But it was already too late. Thus, the wall of silence that arose around the tragedy in Babi Yar was broken. The poem circled in samizdat for a long time. When Yevtushenko read it in Moscow at the Polytechnic Museum,A crowd gathered around the building, which the police could hardly contain.

Publication

In September of the same year, “Babi Yar”, a poem by Yevtushenko, was first published in Literaturnaya Gazeta. As the author himself admitted, writing these poems was much easier than publishing them. The editor-in-chief of Literaturka suggested that he would most likely be fired if he decided to publish the poem. But he nevertheless took this bold step, dedicating this publication to the anniversary of the capture of Kyiv by the Germans. In addition, the poem was printed on the front page of the newspaper, which naturally attracted everyone's attention to it. This issue of Literaturka was such a shock that all copies were snapped up in one day. For the first time, sympathy for the tragedy of the Jewish people was expressed on the pages of an official Soviet publication, and even the presence of anti-Semitism in the USSR was recognized. For many, this sounded like an encouraging signal. But unfortunately, this was not destined to come true. On the other hand, the times were no longer Stalinist, and there were no special persecutions and repressions.

Resonance

Did Yevtushenko assume such a turn of events? "Babi Yar" caused a terrible scandal at the top of the Soviet leadership. The poem was considered "ideologically erroneous". But not only government and party officials were unhappy. Some writers and poets published articles, poems and pamphlets directed against Yevtushenko. They talked about how he was exaggerating Jewish suffering, forgetting about the millions of murdered Russians. Khrushchev declared that the author of the poemshows political immaturity and sings with someone else's voice. Nevertheless, Babi Yar, whose author became the center of all these scandals, began to be translated into foreign languages. The poems were published in seventy-two states. In the end, these publications made Yevtushenko world famous. But the newspaper editor who printed the poem was nevertheless fired.

The tragedy of the execution of Jews in Kyiv and its reflection in art

Following the example of Yevtushenko, who wrote "Babi Yar", other authors began to write poems about these events. In addition, those poets who wrote lines dedicated to the execution earlier decided not to keep them on the “table” anymore. So the world saw the poems of Nikolai Bazhan, Moses Fishbein, Leonid Pervomaisky. This event has been talked about. In the end, the famous Soviet composer Dmitry Shostakovich wrote the first part of his Thirteenth Symphony precisely to the text of Yevtushenko's poem. Even ten years before these verses, he also came to the place of executions and stood there over the cliff. But when thunder and lightning broke out over the poet's head after the publication of Babi Yar, he met with him and decided to write a symphony both on these and other works of the author.

Yevtushenko, who was the first to hear the music, was shocked by how accurately Shostakovich managed to reflect his feelings in sounds. But after that, the composer also began to have trouble. The singers refused to perform the vocal parts of the symphony (especially after the insistent advice of the then Ukrainian authorities). Nevertheless, the premiere of the work took place and caused a full house and a standing ovation. And the press was ominously silent. itled to the fact that the performance of the symphony became an involuntary demonstration of sentiments directed against the Soviet regime.

The power of art

In 1976, a monument was erected in a symbolic place. By that time, Babi Yar had already been filled in after an ecological disaster, when the dam broke, and clay mixed with water splashed onto the private sector. But the sign did not say a word about the victims of the Holocaust. The monument was dedicated to the death of captured Soviet soldiers and officers. But his very installation was nevertheless connected with Yevtushenko's poem. The power of art played its part. The then head of the Ukrainian government asked Moscow for permission to build a memorial sign. It was criticized in the world press as not reflecting the essence of the tragedy. And Yevtushenko's poem was forbidden to be read publicly in Kyiv until the time of "perestroika". But still there is now a monument in the tract of Babi Yar. Ukraine, having gained independence, put a symbolic menorah lamp. And to the Jewish cemetery from it, the Road of Sorrow is paved with slabs. In modern Ukraine, Babi Yar has become a historical and memorial complex of national importance. On the site of this reserve, words from Yevtushenko's poem are given as an epigraph. When the 75th anniversary of this tragedy was celebrated last year, the President of Ukraine said that the creation of the Holocaust memorial in Babi Yar is important for all mankind, because it must remember the dangers of hatred, bigotry and racism.