Word: yevtushenko
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...addition to Ehrenburg (a venerable intellectual with remarkable resiliency and staying power) the chief symbol in the West of dissonance in Soviet literature is the young poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko...
...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...
Without trying to say too much on too little evidence, it seems clear that Yevtushenko is basically a hireling of the Soviet government, bent on emulating the toadying tactics of Ehrenburg. At the World Youth Festival in Helsinki, where he paraded around in loud Italian silk shirts, Yevtushenko became so incensed at the anti-Communist demonstrations he composed a poem on the spot denouncing the "pimple-faced, gum chewing" students. "If I had not been a Communist before, I would have become one tonight," he said...
There is no denying both Ehrenburg and Yevtushenko have quarrels with the Soviet regime. But they value survival, and allow their opposition to creep into their work only by implication, and only occasionally...