A Time to Heal

Abstract

In 1959, when Krushchev had temporarily loosened things up in Russia, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, along with Andrei Voznesensky and Belle Akhmadulina, recited impassioned poetry to crowds of 20,000 people in a Moscow square named after a suicidal poet, Mayakovsky. Since then Yevtushenko's career has had its ups and downs but he has never been quiet for long. Now glasnost has given him new breath. His most recent book of prose and verse is Almost at the End. Kindergarten, his autobiographical movie about his experiences as a waif in World War II, has been shown in the U.S. and can be rented on videotape. This article is adapted from a speech Yevtushenko made at the 1987 IPPNW Congress that was published in 20th Century and Peace, a Soviet magazine. Reprinted by permission.