Yevtushenko, Yevgeniy

Russia
poet and activist

A political poet, Yevtushenko divides his time between Russia, where he is Poet Laureate, and the United States. His great poem, Babii Yar, is the basis of Dmitri Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony. Yevtushenko has lived an activist’s life, spending his youth protesting against dissident trials at great personal risk and working closely with Andrei Sakharov. From 1988 to 1991, he served as a member of the first freely elected Parliament in the USSR. In 1991, the American Jewish Committee bestowed upon him the American Liberties Medallion.