Word: yar
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Evtushenko in Germany and from him had learned all about "fashionable Moscow youth." In Minsk, where Dmitry Shostakovich's new 13th Symphony was performed for the first time outside Moscow, a critic castigated the composer for basing part of his score on Evtushenko's famed poem. Babi Yar, a savage indictment of Soviet anti-Semitism that the literary commissars have already made Evtushenko revise...
Then Khrushchev turned on Young Poet Evgeny Evtushenko: "He shows vacillations, instability of views ... I would like to advise Comrade Evtushenko and other men of letters that they should not seek cheap sensationalism." Everyone was aware, Nikita announced, that Evtushenko recently told a Paris audience that his poem, Babi Yar (which drew fire from the Kremlin), had been "criticized by dogmatists." Such behind-the-back remarks in foreign countries will not do, hinted the Premier: "If the enemies of our cause begin to praise you for works convenient to their purpose, then the people will justly criticize you. So choose...
...dedicated Communist, Yevtushenko has travelled widely in Europe and will soon visit the United States to present a series of lectures and readings. Several of his poems, particularly a bitter attack on Soviet anti-Semitism called Babi Yar, have struck a note of dissension. And various observers have written that he has become a symbol of rebelliousness for the restless element of Moscow's youth...
...display of courage did not last long. Two weeks after the Lenin Hills meeting, the party's ideological boss, Leonid Ilyichev, called in the poet and a number of other young intellectuals for an attitude talk. Ilyichev was especially angry over Evtushenko's poem Babi Yar, which condemned Soviet anti-Semitism and which had just been enthusiastically received in a new symphonic setting by Composer Dmitry Shostakovich. Cultural commissars quickly canceled further performances of the symphony. As for the poem, said Ilyichev, it should be changed to include an attack on West Germany. After a sleepless night, Evtushenko...
Song of Praise. The first movement is a scorching retelling of "Babi Yar,' Evtushenko's angry denunciation of Soviet antiSemitism. Into a flowing dirge, chanted in solo and choral recitation. Shosta kovich pours rafter-shaking eruptions of drums and orchestra, recapturing his old, uninhibited enthusiasm for color and excitement, rekindling the fire of Evtushenko's poem. The second movement is based on "Humor," a poem that makes the point that tyrants cannot imprison laughter, and the music - perfectly in the spirit of things - becomes impish, light and gay. The third movement, on a poem about a lonely...