Books by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
“It was in this context of being a rock-star poet that he wrote his autobiography at a very young age. It gives fascinating details about his life, which is not quite what you would have expected it to be. But it’s also a manifesto in favor of what would later be called ‘socialism with a human face.’…The memoir is a kind of monument to a particular way of thinking…What is so striking is the conviction with which he believes that it can all be reformed, and the excitement. There is this ‘Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive’ feeling which was characteristic of that period of the Khrushchev thaw” Read more...
The best books on The Soviet Union
Sheila Fitzpatrick, Historian
Interviews where books by Yevgeny Yevtushenko were recommended
The best books on The Soviet Union, recommended by Sheila Fitzpatrick
The Soviet Union was the world’s first communist country and lasted around seven decades. It played a key role in defeating Nazism in Europe and became a global superpower before collapsing unexpectedly in 1991. Sheila Fitzpatrick, a leading historian of the Soviet Union, recommends books that bring to life different aspects of it, from forced labour in Glavnoye Upravleniye LAGerey (GULAG) to the heady days of the Khrushchev thaw and including the memoir of Stalin’s beloved daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva.
