“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 policies of the then government of the USSR, as well as a symbol of the struggle against discrimination against Jews and the silence of the Holocaust.
The tragedy of Babi Yar
On September 19, 1941, Nazi German forces entered the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kiev. 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 served only as an occasion, and not a real cause of mass killings. It was all about the “final decision” policy that Kiev was one of the first to experience. All 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 terrible event. 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 acknowledge that the tragic events in Babi Yar were part of the genocide of the Jewish people - the Holocaust. This shocked the poet.
Writing history
Evtushenko Evgeny Alexandrovich has an ambiguous reputation. His biography and work are criticized and praised from different angles. Some believe that during the time of the Soviet Union, he enjoyed the love of the authorities who caressed him. Others try to read out hidden protest notes and hints in almost every of his works. But be that as it may, the poet became interested in this topic in his early years. He read an Erenburg 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 Kiev
In 1961, Evtushenko Evgeny Alexandrovich visited the capital of Ukraine. He goes to the scene of the tragedy and sees with horror that there is not only a monument to the victims, but not even any mention of them. In the place where people were shot, there was a dump. Trucks came to the place where the bones of the innocently killed lay. They dumped disgusting garbage. It seemed to the poet that thus the authorities seemed to laugh at the shot. He returned to the hotel and there, in his room, wrote “Babi Yar” for several hours. The poem began with lines that there was no monument at the scene of the tragedy.
Meaning
When the poet sees what Babi Yar has turned into, he experiences fear. And it is as if Yevtushenko is related to the whole 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 just spit it on. He writes about pogroms and their victims, about fascism and soullessness - about anti-Semitism in all its guises. But the bureaucratic machine of the contemporary poet of totalitarianism earned his greatest hatred - the main spearhead of this poem is directed against it.
First public appearance
To whom was Babi Yar the first to read Yevtushenko? Even in the Kiev hotel room, these poems were first heard by Ukrainian poets Vitaliy Korotich and Ivan Drach. They asked him to read the poem at a speech to the public, which was supposed to take place the next day. Rumors about the poem reached the local authorities, who tried to prevent the poet from meeting with the public. But it was already too late. So the wall of silence that arose around the tragedy in Babi Yar was broken. The poem circled for a long time in samizdat. When Yevtushenko read it in Moscow at the Polytechnic Museum, a crowd gathered around the building, which the police hardly held back.
Publication
In September of that year, Babi Yar, Yevtushenko’s poem, was first published in Literaturnaya Gazeta. As the author himself admitted, writing these verses was much easier than publishing them. The editor-in-chief of Literature suggested that he would most likely be fired if he decided to print a poem. But he nevertheless took this bold step, devoting this publication to the anniversary of the capture of Kiev by the Germans. In addition, the poem was printed on the front page of the newspaper, which naturally attracted everyone's attention. This edition of Literature was such a shock that all copies were seized in one day. For the first time, the sympathy of the tragedy of the Jewish people was expressed on the pages of the official Soviet publication, and the existence of anti-Semitism in the USSR was also 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 Stalin's, and special persecutions and repressions nevertheless did not follow.
Resonance
Did Yevtushenko envision 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 sticks out Jewish suffering, forgetting about the millions of killed Russians. Khrushchev said that the author of the poem shows political immaturity and sings from someone else's voice. Nevertheless, Babi Yar, whose author became the center of all these scandals, began to be translated into foreign languages. Poems were published in seventy-two states. In the end, these publications made Yevtushenko world famous. But the editor of the newspaper, who printed the poem, was still fired.
The tragedy of the execution of Jews in Kiev and its reflection in art
Following the example of Yevtushenko, who wrote Babi Yar, other authors began to compose poems about these events. In addition, those poets who wrote the lines devoted to the shooting earlier decided not to keep them in the “table” anymore. So the world saw the verses of Nikolai Bazhan, Moses Fishbein, Leonid Pervomaisky. They started talking about this event. 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. Ten years before these verses, he also came to the place of executions and stood there over a cliff. But when thunders and lightning erupted over the poet’s head after the publication of Babi Yar, he met with him and decided to write a symphony on both these and other works of the author.
Yevtushenko, the first to hear the music, was shocked at how accurately Shostakovich was able to reflect his feelings in the sounds. But after that, the composer also got into trouble. The singers refused to perform the vocal parts of the symphony (especially after the urgent advice of the then Ukrainian authorities). Nevertheless, the premiere of the work took place and caused a full house and applause. And the press was ominously silent. This led 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 was already bombarded after an environmental disaster, when a dam broke, and clay mixed with water spilled onto the private sector. But the tablet 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 installation itself was nevertheless connected with Yevtushenko’s poem. The power of art played a role. The then head of the Ukrainian government asked Moscow to allow the construction of a memorial sign. He 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 Kiev until the time of Perestroika. But still there is now a monument in the tract Babi Yar. Having gained independence, Ukraine has set a symbolic lamp-menorah. And to the Jewish cemetery, the Road of Sorrow is paved with tiles from it. 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 seventy-fifth anniversary of this tragedy was celebrated last year, the President of Ukraine stated that the creation of the Holocaust memorial in Babi Yar is important for all mankind, as it must be mindful of the dangers of hatred, fanaticism and racism.