Yevtushenko

Original recording for 2RES-FM

Broadcast 17 and 24 October 1994

BROADCAST 17 OCTOBER 1994.

Meredith: We are going to be turning soon to the Yevtushenko recording at the NSW Writers' Centre which we are starting off with a recording of the 1965 Shostakovich 13th Symphony. This was set to Yevtushenko's poems and it's actually the first recording of the symphony in Russia. It's a little scratchy, but well worth listening to. Then we'll be going into the tapes. So be prepared for a few scratchy sounds and irregularities but we'll just hear a little bit of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. Thank you very much.

SHOSTAKOVICH

Meredith: During both the Kruschev and Stalin eras the 13th Symphony by Shostakovich was circumscribed. Persecution was commonplace. There is even a dramatic allusion to Anne Frank in the symphony. We are going now to listen to the live recording of Yevgeny Yevtushenko on Saturday in Sydney at the NSW Writers' Centre. Yevtushenko is a famed novelist, poet and political activist, a defender of human rights in Soviet Russia. He is discussing and reading from his works at the Australian launch of his current book "Don't Die Before Your Death". This is an outstanding, dramatic and humorous presentation.

John Davies and Emily Gibson attended the launch and recorded Yevgeny Yevtushenko for Monday Arts Live. There are a lot of variations in the pitch of Yevtushenko's voice which we'll try and monitor here at the station but - just to be warned. So we'll cross to the recording of Yevgeny Yevtushenko on Saturday at the NSW Writers' Centre.

Irina Dunn: Welcome to the Writers' Centre. I would like to wish Geoffrey Dutton and our distinguished guest Yevgeny Yevtushenko (welcome in Russian). We are very, very thrilled today to have both Geoffrey and Yevgeny at the Writers' Centre. Many of you will remember Yevgeny when he was last in Australia some 28 years ago and there are quite a few people here who might number among shestidesiatki...

Yevtushenko: Shestidesiatniki.

I.D.: There are many of us of the 60s generation here today who correspond in some ways to the 60s generation in the then Soviet Union. I would like to introduce Geoffrey Dutton first of all who has been accompanying Yevgeny on his trip around Australia. Of course the reason that Yevgeny is here is to launch the Australian edition of his book "Don't Die Before Your Death" which is a fascinating account of the coup. It's an autobiographical novel. And it is available on sale outside and I'm sure Yevgeny afterwards will agree to sign it for you and possibly even write something in Russian for you. So without further ado I would very much like to introduce Geoffrey Dutton.

Geoffrey: It's great to be back here. The last time I saw this place was - I was chairman of the Society of Authors - and I forget his name now, a very nice bureaucrat anyhow - it was possible for once I suppose - but he took me out here and said "Do you think writers would like this place?" And I couldn't believe it. I thought "Boy!" Anyhow it's wonderful to see it looking so nice because it was really pretty rough then. It's a particularly good occasion for me today to think that the Sydney Writers' Centre has a Siberian hobo to visit it. He comes in a way in a different guise because - I shuddered when Irina said - my God, it's 28

28 years ago when I talked the very conservative Adelaide Governors of the Adelaide festival into letting this wild Russian come and be a guest at our festival and there was a terrible lot of groaning went on. In fact some active sabotage also went on a bit later on. But of course he was a stupendous success and then we went to Melbourne where he had an audience of 6,000 in Melbourne and then he came up here and then we got him (Brian Staley and I of Sun Books) we got him here again in 1973 I think it was and all this time he was performing - you can't say reading because these Russian poets they know not only all their own works off by heart but everybody else's as well and in several other languages. They put us to shame. Anyway it was as a poet that Zhenya came here and as a poet he was loved and his works we were very proud that we translated the first editions in the world of these poems. The big one "Bratsk Station" was not allowed to be published in Russia and one of the great moments of my life and I think a good one in Zhenya's life was when he arrived at Adelaide Airport we drove to Griffin Press where at that very moment "Bratsk Station" was rolling off the presses. He seized a copy and kissed it and that was the first copy in the world of his poem in a book form and then we published, I'm told by the experts' one of the first laptop editions of a book to be published in Australia. Brian ? did the organising and Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin and I did the translating - some 20 hours a day was the average I think. And we got these poems, the book was called "The City of Yes and the City of No" and I think that was translated and produced in two weeks and so, as I say, it was as a poet that he made these visits to Australia which were so successful. But of course he's always been a prose writer as well. I knew a few odd poems of his way back in the 50's. Patrick White wrote to me and said "I'm sending you a little book by a young Russian poet. I think we ought to watch him. It was called "A Precocious Autobiography" which he had actually very dangerously written in Paris, published abroad, which was a very tricky thing to do but it was an enchanting, wonderful, vibrant piece of prose; and then his first book to appear in English was the poem "Zima Junction", where he was born in Siberia. That appeared in Penguin. So he was always actually under this great, huge persona of a poet which of course is his major thing but he was always writing prose and a few months ago - he loves things to be done quickly - a few months ago he sent me this great manuscript, big novel, and said "Wouldn't it be nice to have this published in Australia when I visit it in October". It was translated I might add. It wasn't in Russian - it was translated. And having been a publisher as well as a writer I thought "Gee, how can it be...?" but anyhow Louise Adler of Heinemann gallantly rose to the occasion and somehow or other it was got out in time - it must be one of the records in Australian publishing to have had the book out and not helped too much by the Russian postal and courier service - is in an unbelievable state because every now and then Heinemann would ring up and say "We've now sent three copies of the proofs to Yevtushenko in Moscow and they've all come back again, so what do we do - where is he?" Anyway somehow or other they produced the book and with its terrific, exciting jacket so I have much pleasure in introducing him as a prose writer as well as a poet.

Yevtushenko: I just will read for you first a little piece from ?.

I will squeeze into this piece of prose one poem with your kind permission.

When I was about 13, 14 I accidentally heard a woman saying behind my back "God - this kid wasn't cooked long enough nor with the right recipe. Poor creature. He has such an ugly duckling profile." Immediately after this with urgent help of two little mirrors I installed a special system for the scrupulous observation of my profile which was reviewed so negatively. To my horror I discovered in my nose if not ugliness at least some obvious duckliness. For a while I almost stopped writing poetry and wasted a huge amount of time manipulating no less than two mirrors investigating the configuration of my nose with the fragile hope that this, not the best part of my face, would improve as I asked in my prayers. But, my nose tragically refused. Having lost all hope for it I began step by step to try to adjust to my own profile. It was an additional waste of time. Only when someone's shy lips whispered three magic words to me. and you can guess what they were, did I finally forget about this nasal problem. Until this moment I live in the pleasant illusion that I am not so ugly as to have to commit suicide.

May I share with you one of my unfortunately delayed ?

Believe me, in the warmth of our mothers

All of us are beautiful.

Some charming imperfection is perfect.

Some graceful incorrectness is poetically correct.

Just between you and me I shall tell you confidentially that for a long time I admired slightly fat legs. But this hasn't affected my respect for slim ones. Our kindness, our compassion, our mercy towards others, our own creative energy, our sense of beauty makes us beautiful as well.

In my opinion the greatest and the most subtle culture is more than just formal education. It is the culture of behaviour. This culture, in my opinion, is best based on the moral impossibility of being indifferent to others. Including your own family, neighbours, friends, your whole nation and the multicultural family of man. There are no borders or fences between those who suffer - and there is isn't a single person who doesn't suffer. But people cope with their suffering in different ways. Some people transform their suffering into hatred for others, into an aggressive inferiority complex, mixed up with megalomania (always). This makes their faces ugly. But people who have the courage to transform their suffering into a thirst for brotherhood become even more beautiful than God created them to be. Only in this way must we worry about the beauty of our faces. Otherwise we are lost. Indifference to others is hidden violence. Indifference to others is hypocritically polite rape. Indifference to others is undeclared war against the rest of humanity.

Once I wrote in one of my poems -

I would like to be born in every country

Have a passport for them all

To throw all bloody, boring foreign officers into panic.

Be every fish in every ocean

And every dog in the streets of the world.

I don't want to bow down before any idols

Or play at being a Russian Orthodox Church hippy.

But I would like to plunge deep into Lake Baikal

And surface, snorting, somewhere -

Why not in the Mississippi?

In my dumb beloved universe

I would like to be a lonely weed

But not a delicate narcissus

Kissing his own mug in the mirror.

I would like to be any of God's creatures

Right down to the last mangy Hyena

But never a tyrant,

Not even the cat of the tyrant.

I would like to be reincarnated as a man in any image

A victim of Paraguayan prison torture.

A homeless child in the slums of Hong Kong

A living skeleton in Bangladesh

A black in Capetown - but

Never in the image of Rambo.

The only people whom I hate are the hypocrites,

People-hyenas in hairy syrup.

I would like to lie under the knives

Of all the surgeons in the world

Be hunchback, blind, suffer all kinds of diseases

wounds and scars

Be victim of war or a sweeper of cigarette butts

Just so a filthy microbe of superiority doesn't creep inside of me

I would not like to be in the elite

Nor of course in the cowardly... ? .

I would like to love all the women in the world

And I would like to be a woman too - just once!

Men have been diminished by mother nature

Why couldn't we give motherhood to men?

If an innocent child stored below his heart

Men would probably not be so cruel.

I would like to bring Nefertiti to Pushkin

on a troika!

I would like to increase the space of a moment

a hundred fold so that in the same moment I could

drink vodka with fishermen in Siberia and sit together with Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Geoffrey Dutton drinking anything, except of course Coca-Cola.

Dance to the tomtoms in the Congo.

Strike a ?

Chase a ball with President ? at Copacabana Beach

I would like to know every language like the secret waters under the earth

And do all kinds of work at once

I would make sure that one Yevtushenko was merely a poet, The second an underground fighter -

I couldn't say where of course - for security reasons.

A student at Berkeley, the ? jolly Georgian Drinker

a teacher of Eskimo children in Alaska.

And a President somewhere, modestly, say in Sierra Leone.

I would like to fight on all your barricades, humanity

Dying each night like an exhausted moon

And resurrecting each morning like a newborn sun

With immortal soft ? on my head

And when I die a ? Siberian

Do not lay me in the earth of France or Italy

But in our Russian, Siberian earth

On a still green hill where for first time

I felt

That I was

Everyone.

So my advice to you is - don't use more than one mirror because in this case you will waste half of your life.

SHOSTAKOVICH

M.S.: And that was the first part of the Yevtushenko recording at the NSW Writers' Centre. You're on Monday Arts Live with Meredith Symonds and in the studio I have the two journalists who went up there - Emily Gibson and John Davies and they're going to talk about their impressions of the day which they were most thrilled and in awe I would say. I haven't spoken to them afterwards so John if you would like to come in to the microphone and, just a minute folks, -

John Thank you Meredith. I'm feeling quite superfluous at the moment but I will say a few words.

I think it's probably useful at the moment just to give a quick perspective on what it means to have this extraordinary man in Australia.

He published his first poems at the age of 16 in 1949 when Stalin was still running Russia. Very quickly he became a national hero - his books sold millions of copies. At 23 the KGB tried to recruit him but he outsmarted them. He told them he was a big mouth and if he did join them he'd tell all his friends. So they let him go.

In 1957 he was expelled from the writers' union. In normal cases that would have been the end of a career. By 1960 he was back in favour and allowed to freely travel outside the Soviet Union.

Throughout the 60s his popularity continued. In 1968 he was the only member of the Writers' Union to protest the invasion of Czechoslovakia. He got away with it. He kept on getting away with it for many years.

M.S.: Ah John's got a slight cough at the moment. Could I just cross over to you Emily to talk about - wasn't he actually making extraordinary remarks to you? You were sitting in the front row weren't you?

Emily: That's right - I was directly in the line of fire. And I - experienced the full - yeah - brunt of his - he called it flirtation afterwards. Are you all right now John - do you want to go on telling about ---

John: Yes - but actually that point in the performance - I don't know if you want to tell the listeners but there was a poem by Mayakovsky actually that he was reading. Geoffrey Dutton was reading in English and Yevtushenko was reading in Russian and the line was "You are the Mona Lisa that should be stolen" and at that point Yevtushenko was looking right at our Emily. So I think she enjoyed that.

Emily: I did - I really enjoyed it - yes!

John: Anyway - it's puzzling in some ways - some people do actually accuse Yevtushenko of being a collaborator with the KGB. It IS a fact that he had contacts in the KGB who let it be known to him that they were sympathetic. They would never make contact with him directly but when he needed to know something he could call them. He had their numbers. In another level it seems very likely that - at least I think so - from 1960 when he was allowed to travel freely something very important happened. He always went back. There never seemed to be any question of defection or anything like that and he basically never bad mouthed his country while he was abroad. So I think from those early days they probably realised there was a kind of essential loyalty they could rely on. And he was also in a way their best travelling advertisement for a long time. You've got an insight yourself now into what kind of personality - he became so immensely popular - a man who would say things that no one else COULD say and get away with it.

Now I think Emily might say a little bit more about the sheer physical impression that he makes IN performance.

Emily Yeah - well he's a really tall man - would he be about 61 or something like that?

John He's 61 now.

Emily But he looks very powerful and he's from Zima Junction in Siberia? and he would have been very good looking - he's quite lined now but he has amazingly beautiful blue eyes which pierce the audience and the way he read his poetry he'd sort of look up from his dog-eared pages and he would smile at the audience as if he couldn't believe that this was so great - what he was reading. He was enjoying it so much and he spilled that over into the audience. You couldn't not enjoy what he was reading really could you because he was so full of life and he loved poetry. It was great to experience someone like that really. He's a performance poet in a way I suppose but it's sort of like he couldn't be anything else. It's his whole persona.

John Yes - it's obviously part of the key to his popularity. When he was younger he could do up to 250 readings in a year in hospitals, factories, football stadiums - all kinds of places.

Emily Which is incredible - seeing the amount of energy he used because he never stopped moving the whole time did he?

John That's right. He starts off relatively quietly - with a humorous poem in this case. You can see him - I suppose all performers can do this - they can get the feeling when the audience is with them and then really start to go further and further. So - you've already heard - at times he's almost screaming, raging and waving his arms about; wandering about the room and -

Emily And by the time he was working with Geoffrey Dutton at the podium he was sort of moving his hips and grabbing him around his shoulders -

John That's right. There was one poem they did together alternately in English and Russian - by the end of it Yevtushenko had his head on Dutton's shoulder. A nice double act there.

Emily Anyway that's coming up in the next section that we're going to play I think. Was that the Mayakovsky poem that one or....

John That was one from his Anthology of Russian Poetry in the 20th Century that has just been published - a massive volume. I think we'll take a short interruption here.....

STATION ANNOUNCEMENT - SHOSTAKOVICH

Y: Ah, we now will make experiment with you, but with ourselves too. Probably we will be victims of this outcoming experiment, so we will read for first time just one little piece from my novel in two voices. Piece in my Siberian English, and piece in Australian English of Mr Geoffrey Dutton. So little piece - we are just - we will explain you the novel begins, main plot of novel begins with Special Investigator of Police Stepan Palchikov. That was a man - it's fictional character but with story based on reality because it was a man who discovered that in the May of 1991 some months before August putsch and our Ministry of Home Office ordered 250,000 of handcuffs from one very secret installation. So, let's beginning of the novel. But he's a charming guy, Stepan Palchikov, and I hope it will not boring for you to read some pieces of his career life. Probably if I will continue of this novel probably it will be just the same thing. I think the old stories are finished so but he probably had to survive. It's be pity to kill. Charming man.

Now, we will read it now. Let's sit together and I will find - probably we will make some mistakes. Sorry. Our first time we will do it in English. You have same copy I hope? Same Chapter?

"The Personal Life of Investigator Palchikov"....

The remarkable thing about the personal life of Stepan Palchikov, Special Investigator, was that he had no personal life. At least, that's what his wife, Alevtina, head of the Reptile Department at the Moscow Zoo, insisted when he was God knows where on their tenth anniversary and didn't even send her a telegram from God knows where for the occasion.

When he did appear a few weeks later, stinking of trains and cheap hotels, he tried to worm his way into her good graces by handing her a flimsy bouquet of wilted carnations, which he had pulled out of his scuffed, overstuffed briefcase. He hugged her clumsily and kissed the tenderly curling tendrils on her nape. Softening, she had almost fallen for it, until she brought the bouquet to her nose rather sentimentally.

Right in the middle of the bouquet, like a particularly aromatic flower, was her husband's sock, soiled and sticky, long wear having eradicated its elastis....stic....damn!

G.D.: Elasticity

Y: - elasticity and colour.

Realising that his family life was over, Palchikov mumbled something in justification about organised crime, Russian Mafia, but Alevtina was inexorable.

Palchikov's belongings, along with Palchikov himself, and the sock inside the anniversary bouquet, were left outside the door.

Palchikov was forced to move into his office at the Ministry of Internal Affairs Home Office. He slept on the vinyl-covered coch...using co...

G.D.: Couch.

Y: couch, sorry, using files of criminal cases as a pillow, and washed his socks, underwear, and shirts in the hall toilet at night when everyone was gone from Home Office.

Once, interrogating an enterprising and grown-up grandson who had managed to fill his deceased granny's skull with diamonds from Siberia and send the galvanised coffin on the Sheremetyevo Airport - Brighton Beach route (allegedly so that she could rest in peace with her other relatives), Palchikov noticed that the suspect began laughing - totally unappropriately considering his shaky legal position - while looking up over Palchikov's head.

Palchikov turned, looked up, and, to his horror, saw his socks, hung to try the night before, dangling from the top of the administrative map of the Soviet Union. One of the pair had been the culprit in the demise of his family life.

G.D.: Despite all of Palchikov's attempts to hide his drama from his colleagues, they caught on thanks to the professional acuity of their observation and to their solidarity before those who underestimated the daily heroism of the knights of public law and order.

His co-workers, out of their professional habit of fabricating and exaggerating, created a beautiful, tormented story about Palchikov, in which he had been forced to leave his wife, out of principle, because perversely she preferred not just someone to him and his meagre salary, but someone with the same name, who was a computer co-operative owner and whose pride and joy was a home terrarium full of mini-invertebrates.

People in our country, and that includes the police, vastly prefer the modest and the miserable to the immodest and fortunate. Palchikov's reputation, supported by that cover story, which elicited compassion and respect, grew stronger, and he was given case after case, one more important than the next.

Once he was sent to a local capital to investigate an incident codenamed "Steam Engine", although it should have had an epigraph from the revolutionary song "Our steam engine, flying ahead...." because the next line says that its destination was Communism.

The regional capital city had a hospital for children with polio. It was outside the town in the former estate of the pre-revolutionary chairman of the local nobility, who on a romantic impulse in the early days of the revolution, had donated his white marble property for a people's hospital. For this he was thanked with a bullet between the eyes during the Civil War for allegedly corresponding with the last Tsar to plot his escape from the Ipatyev house when he was imprisoned in Ekaterinburg.

The hospital had almost two hundred children with polio. Despite the poor equipment and shortage of medicine, the heroic Russian country doctors saved all the children they could - if not all, then many.

And suddenly, in the middle of a harsh winter, the huge rusted boiler burst, a boiler cast before the revolution at the Putilov Factory. The walls of the hospital grew hoary with frost, and the recovery rooms were filled with children it was mortally dangerous to move. The experience of Russian History suggested setting up burshuiki, pot-bellied stoves, but this was a temporary measure at best. A new boiler was urgently needed to save the children.

The closest boiler factory was in Leningrad, and needed two months to prepare a new boiler. The city fathers got together. One had a brilliantly simple burst of genius - put a steam engine in the yard and pipe the steam heat into the hospital. They found an old steam engine with a working boiler, but the closest spur of the railroad was about five kilometres away. The military came to the rescue. They undertook the hauling operation to bring the steam engine to the hospital.

Y: This was an unprecedented event in the city's history, and all of the offices in town closed in excitement. Crowds waving red flags and paper flowers lined the street as if it were the first state visit of head of some hard-currency country. Three men in camouflage jackets - jackets - and with automatic rifles over their shoulders led off on motorcycles. Behind them marched squads of Pioneers, or Red Scouts, banging on drums which resounded in the frosty air. Then came a military band with brass boa constrictors encircling the snow-dusted uniforms of the musicians. In the middle of the street, four military tractors, dragging the steam engine with a sign reading "Communism is the Destination" on its sooty, labouring chest, tore up the asphalt with their treads and the resisting iron wheels of their "mammoth of the five-years-plan".

Driving along the footpath, parallel to the procession, was a small truck, quite unpresentable, shabby and coughing. On its running board were brilliantly polished boots, pleated like an accordion that could play any jig at all. The boots' owner, a slightly tipsy and ruddy major, brimming with front-line energy and resembling a matryoshka doll in army costume, commanded the operation. When the steam engine got stuck, the major shouted in the megaphone, no less inspirationally than General Suvorov in the Alps, "Well, come on now, boys, pull. Let's not shame Russia, my eagles! Let's help those kids. Forward, pull!"

G.D.: With the moral support of the people and the brass band, they managed to haul the steam engine into the hospital yard. They found piping and soldered up a system. Coal was delivered. But then came the rub - who was going to tend the boiler?

They needed professionals for that, railroad boiler men, and where do you find them? Here was a profession that had vanished along with the ghost of the steam engine that had never made it to the stop at the Commune.

Two old men, retired from the trade, were found. They turned out to be greedy creeps, albeit elderly ones, who made so much on their garden strawberries that they demanded ten thousand roubles for two months' work as stokers. And where could a regional polio hospital find so much money?

SHOSTAKOVICH - STATION ANNOUNCEMENT

Meredith And we're just flipping the tapes over here. So Emily and John are going to chatter at the New South Wales Writers' Centre.

John Thank you again Meredith. I might just explain in case you are wondering why Geoffrey Dutton is there -

Geoffrey Dutton is one of the old hands of Australian Literature - old friend of Patrick White. He's probably about the same age as Yevtushenko I think. They originally got to know each other in the early 60's when Geoffrey Dutton was involved in organising the Adelaide Festival. You might pick that up on the tape at the very beginning. He mentioned something about that. So they've known each other for about 28 years. They've kept in touch - Dutton has visited Russia. One of Dutton's own novels "Tamara" was set in Russia. The occasion of Yevtushenko's visit is the publication of his novel "Don't Die Before Your death". And it's actually published here before anywhere else in the world. It's the first appearance of it. And that's largely owing to his friendship with Dutton. Dutton explained the Yevtushenko has a certain impatience about him. As soon as he had a translation available he tried to think where he could get it published most quickly and I think he thought Geoff would be a soft touch. So he posted it to Geoff and said "Can you help?"

Anyway - it's an extraordinary book - a very long book, 500 pages - set mainly around the time of the coup in 1991 and also when it actually gets to the coup - you might remember that on the second day Yevtushenko was on the steps with Yeltsin with tanks all around, mortars loaded and that sort of thing.

While Yeltsin was making his big speech Yevtushenko improvised a poem which he then described as the "best bad poem" he'd ever written. Yevtushenko himself was a Deputy of the Parliament from 1988 to 1991.

I'll just ask Emily for her impressions of the novel. She's been reading it

Emily (small laugh) Thanks!

John First impressions.

Emily Well - it's a thinly disguised autobiography in lots of ways isn't it?

John Oh certainly.

Emily His first chapter is about all the women - all the wives he's had. Which is quite fascinating because they all seemed to be really beautiful, really Russian and really ready to fall into his arms. And then he goes on to the character that we heard them reading about Palchikov and then it sort of drifts - it's sort of like poetry sometimes and prose at other times. His descriptions of places sometimes turn almost into poetry don't they? It's a great book - not like a normal novel.

John It is. In some of the imagery that comes through - he

describes a woman at one stage - he says "She hissed at me like a goose with the rank of Colonel" lots of mixtures of images that make it very interesting. When he is talking about his early marriages - he's married four times by the way - did you like his attitude? He seems to keep saying "It was all my fault - I was stupid".

Emily: "I did")

John: "No wonder she left me".

One aspect of him - one of the things in his poetry is that he never lets other people off the hook but he doesn't let himself off the hook either. He's quite happy to confess to his failings. There's a stage later in the novel where he says "I don't want to ever lose my foolishness". Which is quite nice. Palchikov at the reading didn't quite - it may be a bit inaudible on the tape - when Yevtushenko introduced Palchikov he said that he is a fictional character - I think he is one of the great fictional policemen, plodding detectives, and Yevtushenko said he was actually quite fond of Palchikov. He said it would be a pity to kill him even if he is an old Communist. So it's a very appealing, very engaging book. Very frank, honest - full of marvellous characters. One of my favourites is a drunken police chief with a line of poetry tattooed on his chest. He makes a wonderful appearance in one section.

Many, many, lovely characters. Many amusing scenes.

Emily We should probably go back to the reading now and listen to the rest of the episode on Palchikov with Geoffrey Dutton and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

SHOSTAKOVICH

G.D. The timber mill director, whose generous Russian merchant heart was unfortunately cramped by the criminal code, took a risk in the name of saving the children. He paid the money, faking papers so that the pensioners and their wives were put on the payroll as lumberjacks. Flames burst from the sparks, and the pensioners went about heating the hospital.

For two winter months the motionless veteran steam engine sent saving smoke into the clouds, and the city's inhabitants, beholding the miracle, praised their Russian ability to make do.

But in those two months the Leningrad company made a new boiler; the steam engine boiler was turned off to the disappointment of the children, who had grown accustomed to its friendly warmth.

The city fathers had a new problem: where would they get money to repair the asphalt churned up by the tractors and engine, and where were they now going to put the huge steam engine? They couldn't drag it back along the street!

Y: At last, the chairman of the city council, considered an intellectual because he played the flute in the amateur orchestra, slapped himself on the forehead and exclaimed with glee the magic Soviet words, "Scrap metal!"

G.D: It's me is it?

Y: I'm sorry. Me me me.

G.D: It is you.

Y: They carved up the steam engine with acetylene torches, sold the pieces by weight and used the money to repair the streets.

But suddenly this merry, inventive, and very human Operation Steam Engine installed to save children with polio from freezing was turned into a criminal case against its authors.

The mess was brewed up by the local deputy prosecutor who, in his phone calls to Moscow, hinted at political under...

G.D: - pinnings.

Y: underpinnings in the story that the steam engine had been used to sabotage democratic change in the country.

Palchikov was sent to investigate. He found that, according to the timber mill's payments, the team consisting of two old men and two old women, average age seventy-five, had broken the world record in logging by cubic metres - rather amazing when you consider that one of the old women, listed as the driver of the

G.D: skidding

Y: skidding tractor, had been paralysed for the last five years and could skid logs only from a wheelchair.

The deputy prosecutor, who had the long shaggy arms of a pithecanthropus and the short legs of Napoleon, drilled his gaze into the eyes (gummy with insomnia caused by his family problems) of the big-city investigator, and reported without beating around the bush, from democrat to democrat: "This fake team, comrade Palchikov, is merely one thread, which I pulled out in time, from a ball of crime. Here are the following criminal facts: squandering state property in the form of a steam engine by the local railroad authorities; malicious destruction of three kilometres of asphalt by our local militarists' use of tractors with the aim of un.....

G.D: undermining

Y: under ... un

G.D: undermining

Y: undermining perestroika; and finally, stealing, dismembering, and illegally selling the steam engine for the profit of the corrupt hospital administration. Comrade Palchikov, the Party apparat and its proteges never sleep.

G.D. "Oho", Palchikov said to himself with a grimace, "What an instinct for survival. Just seven years ago this great foe of the Party apparat sent the local music teacher to the camps in Mordova for anti-Soviet agitation simply because they found Solzhenitsyn's "Live without Lies", a photograph of Sakharov, and cassettes of Galich's dissident songs in her apartment."

Y. The deputy prosecutor leaned over the table and breathed - not even whispered, but breathed conspiratorially - "Comrade Palchikov, perestroika is in danger, believe me. I managed to uncover this case only because my direct superior, our regional prosecutor, is on vacation. In the Crimea, naturally, in Oreanda, that warm nest of the nomenklatura of course. I, for one, have applied five years in a row for a vacation at Oreanda, but they always stick me in the Truskovets. And as long as that Brezhnev's brown nose is on the job, my hands are tied."

G.D. "So that's your game" thought Palchikov. "You're worried about perks, not about perestroika. You want to ride that steam engine into the prosecutor's office. Oh it's all so boring and so disgusting I can't stand any more."

Y. But the deputy prosecutor kept on breathing his progressive intentions at him. "Comrade Palchikov, we have to use that steam engine to strike against the old guard. We have to turn this into a national case, Comrade Palchikov."

G.D. He wants to go all the way to the top, Palchikov thought wryly, so he put on his best ally face and nodded encouragingly. The Deputy Prosecutor ... no, that's you.

Y. The deputy prosecutor leaned over the table so far that it looked as if he were planning to give Palchikov a juicy kiss. "I'd like you to bring our conversation to the attention of your boss. He is a real worker for perestroika, for democracy. Actually, I'd like to meet with him....tete a tete. I have a few ideas.

G.D. And Palchikov did not deny himself the pleasure of watching the great progressive's face change as he spoke: "I'll be glad to do that. But haven't you heard that as of yesterday we have a new boss? The newspapers will have the story tomorrow. Yes, yes. You're right. Him. As they say, he's a Crystal-Clear Communist."

Y. The deputy prosecutor half-rose from his seat, like his Napoleonic legs straining from the need for reorientation. But he collected himself and bloomed judiciously with joy.

"At last!" he exclaimed. "What we need at the helm are Crystal-Clear Communists, and not those, who under the guise of perestroika, are actually destroying our great superpower. We've had enough democratic debauchery!"

G.D. And he.....

Y. And he returned to conspiratorially breathing out words, which were now more superpower-oriented. "All the more reason for a meeting with your new boss, all the more. I have to open his eyes to the situation in our region, which is approaching a conspiracy against socialism. Our regional prosecutor, for all his showcase Party membership, has long been a puppet of anti-Soviet extremists.

"The case with the steam engine is an example of the discrediting of our people's socialist ideals. Cutting up that bullet-riddled steel hero of the Civil and Patriotic Wars for scrap metal, selling off that honoured veteran of our yearly Five Year Plans by weight - that smacks of political vivisection. It's time to save our superpower."

G.D. "Want some advice?" Palchikov asked, hypocritically imbuing his voice with all the possible warmth that had emanated from the now dismembered steam engine.

Y. "That's why I had requested that you come from the Centre," replied the deputy prosecutor.

G.D. "Drop the steam engine case," said Palchikov with the slightly scary, exaggerated concern of a kindly grandfather lecturing his ignorant grandson.

Y. "And why is that?"

G.D. asked the stunned deputy prosecutor.

"It could be misunderstood," Palchikov said and with his officially gentle firmness, staring hypnotically.

Y. "In what sense?"

G.D. "They might think that you want to build your career on railroad scrap. They'll accuse you of anti-Semitism since the chief surgeon at the hospital is Jewish. Don't waste your enormous prospects on this small change. You have a great future with the state," Palchikov predicted, while thinking grimly, "The terrible thing is that it's true. The victors won't be the superpower snakes or the liberal rabbits. The chameleons will win."

Y. Thank you! Sorry for some our inevitable mistakes. We did it without rehearsal.

SHOSTAKOVICH

PART 1 OF THIS BROADCAST CONCLUDES

PART 2 BROADCAST 24 OCTOBER 1994

M.S.: We are going to listen to Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13

before listening to the live recording of Yevtushenko a week ago. And - be warned - that the Yevtushenko recording does have variations in pitch and the Shostakovich has quite a few scratches on it too because it is an original 1965 first time recording of the symphony which was set to Yevtushenko's poetry.

SHOSTAKOVICH

(And now Yevtushenko speaking.....)

Y.: So and now we again make our thing without rehearsal. You know - I - one of my latest work was a giant anthology of Russian Poetry. I was working for this anthology about - anthology of 20th Century - about 23 years. This was published in English and was translated during this 23 years by Doubleday - and it was published in Australia as you well know - Penguin published it too so. And now it will be published in Russia. But in American 1400 pages and translated 253 poets. In Russian version will be 880 poets. So it will be printed I hope this year probably December this year.

Anyway I have already reading in Moscow - not my poetry, other poetry.

I would like just to read in English and Russian one fragment from my beloved poet Mayakovsky. Mayakovsky had one hundred years his anniversary last year and he was covered in the mud by some young poets. It was terrible you know to read these articles. Because they accused him politically. They accused him politically saying that he sold his soul to Bolsheviks. He never was selling his soul to Bolsheviks - he was Bolshevik. But to be Bolshevik before revolution was the same last year to be dissident. And Mayakovsky was in jail being 14 years old and so that's first accusation. But after they begun to accuse him they are saying he was not poet at all. And this is the style of some young poets - I call them jackals who are crawling on the battlefield after the fight was over and some of them - I am not talking about all of them - but about some of them because they are using freedom which was given to them from hands of our generation, from hands of people like writers of other generations. They began to use this freedom immediately against those who gave them this freedom. And this is a terrible...I don't think from such people could be great poets because poetry - how Pushkin said in his beautiful poem - beautiful tragedy - little tragedy - Mozart and Salieri - "Genius and envy are not compatible". So I think it's true because genius has no place in his soul for envy - genius is too busy. And Mayakovsky was a great poet and he is still a great poet and I do believe not these young jackals' opinion but I do believe the opinion of Pasternak.

Pasternak was absolutely different poet from Mayakovsky. Pasternak never was a communist but Pasternak admired Mayakovsky. He dedicated one of his best poems to Mayakovsky and Anna Akhmatova was our best, probably with Marina Tsvetaeva, one of Russia's best greatest poets - she appreciated Mayakovsky. He committed suicide but these guys what they're doing now they're putting poison bullets in already dead body of Mayakovsky. It's terrible you know - I mean real talent couldn't be based on such cruelty for the previous generation.

So we will read now one little fragment from our poem, very famous poem written by Mayakovsky. He was 22 years old. "The Cloud in Trousers".

So just one fragment - a piece in English and a piece in Russian. I hope you will - And he sounds so beautiful. In a moment I will find this a Russian version in all this mountains of paper. (inaudible)

No..nn..no it was here I will find it now. Sorry. Yah!

Geoffrey Dutton "OK, I'll read a few lines and then hand over to the Master.

"The Cloud in Trousers"

You think this is some malarial dream?

It happened,

happened in Odessa

"I'll come at four," Maria said

Eight.

Nine.

Ten.

(Yevtushenko reads in Russian)

You couldn't recognise me now;

a sinewy mass,

moaning,

writhing.

What can an unformed mass like this

Really want?

But there's a lot it wants!

After all, for the self

What's bronze is not important

nor's the fact

that the heart's become like frozen iron

At night you want to hide

the clanging echo that it makes

in something soft and womanly.

(Yevtushenko reads)

And now,

enormous,

I hunch by the window.

I melt the window glass with my brow.

Will love come or won't it?

And what kind?

A great passion

Or some lay-by-night?

A body like this, how can it have

a great romance?

Rather some petty,

peaceful little passing affairs.

The kind that shies at auto horns

and loves the jingle of pony bells.

(Yevtushenko reads)

Again and again,

burying my face with the rain

in its smallpox scarred face

I wait,

spattered by the thunder of the city's loud surf.

Midnight

leapt out with a knife,

caught up with me

and stabbed!

Chuck him out!

The twelfth hour of night fell

Like a condemned head from the block

(Yevtushenko reads)

A curse on you!

Haven't you had your pound of flesh?

Soon my mouth will be torn apart

in a scream

I listen:

Quietly

a nerve has sprung

as if from a patient in his cot,

and now,

little by little at first,

then more strongly,

the nerve begins to beat,

anxiously

and evenly, but ever faster,

until the first nerve and another two

flap up and down in frantic dance.

The plaster on the lower storey collapses from the dance.

Nerves,

important ones,

minor ones, so many of them:

jerk out feverishly,

and their feet give way beneath them!

And night clogs like silt in the room.

My heavy eye cannot get out of the silt.

Of a sudden

the doors begin to rattle

as if the hotel's teeth

were beginning to chatter

(Yevtushenko reads)

All of a sudden

you entered,

as sharply as "Here y'are,"

torturing the chamois of your gloves,

saying

"You know:

I'm going to get married."

(Yevtushenko reads)

"All right then, get married.

See if I care.

I'll get by.

See how calm I am:

Like the pulse on a corpse.

Do you remember? You said

"Jack London,

money, love and

passion,"

but all I could see

was that you were Mona Lisa

who had to be stolen,

and stolen you were.

(Yevtushenko reads)

Are you having me on?

"With less small change than a beggar has,

You own a wealth of emeralds."

Remember!

Pompeii perished

when Vesuvius was teased beyond bearing.

(Yevtushenko reads)

Hey!

Gentlemen!

Lovers of blasphemy,

crimes, and cattle slaughter -

The hardest thing to bear

you've ever seen

was in my face,

when

I'm absolutely calm?

(Yevtushenko reads)

I feel my ego

is not enough for me.

Someone's obstinately trying

to get out of me.

Hello!

Who's that?

Mother?

Mother!

Your son is wonderfully sick!

Mother!

He's suffering from fire in the heart.

Tell my sisters, Lyudmila, Olga,

there's nowhere left for him to go.

Each word and joke

he expels from his volcanic throat

is ejected like a naked prostitute

from a burning cathouse.

(Yevtushenko reads)

People can smell

grilling flesh!

Here they come!

Shining!

In helmets,

no time for boots!

Tell the fire brigade:

With tenderness they try to cool my burning heart:

I can cool it off myself.

I'll pump out tears by the barrel.

Who cares if it presses on my ribs.

It wants to jump! Jump out! Jump out!

It won't work. My ribs have collapsed.

You can't jump out of your heart!

(Yevtushenko reads)

Y.: Spaciba Geoffrey! Thank you! We made one experiment. We...it looks as we survived and you survived too.So I think both of us, Geoffrey and me, we would like very much to ask some questions. What you want we will do for you. We love you. We're ready to do everything for you.

I.D.: Can you read some more - is it possible?

Y.: Of course it's possible - of course it's possible. OK - If you are not tired we could read a couple of poems more.

So - you know one thing. I would like if I read one my

poems.. but another one, will not be mine.

Is a good - is one of my teachers he was - you don't know this poem, I am sorry what I am doing with you. Now I will find this beautiful poem - and it's here. I will tell you something about this poet. His first name Jaroslav. His second name Smelyakov...

SHOSTAKOVICH

M.S.: And we will go back to Yevtushenko reading some more poems in a second. You're on Monday Arts Live and in the studio are John Davies and Emily Gibson who were at the reading and will continue to discuss Yevtushenko. Welcome back to Monday Arts Live John and Emily.

Emily: Thank you Meredith

John Thank you Meredith. Yevtushenko there on the tape keeps saying "I'd like to read one piece of my poetry" but I don't think he got back to it very much. He got more interested in talking about other writers - Mayakovsky,

Smelyakov and Tsvetaeva...and reading their work with Geoffrey Dutton helping out reading in English. There are two comments - Josef Stalin himself said that "poets are the unacknowledged legislators of mankind". Yevtushenko calls them "the spiritual government". And they take it very seriously in Russia. Mayakovsky, Smelyakov and Tsvetaeva...two committed suicide and one spent many years in prison camps. Smelyakov was Yevtushenko's teacher and as we come back to the tape he will be talking about Smelyakov and then going on to read from his work. Emily.

Emily Oh it was - when you were talking about them committing suicide Yevtushenko had an interesting story about just how she, Tsvetaeva.... committed suicide and it was when Pasternak was helping her leave town quickly - she was in some political trouble and he gave her a rope to tie up her suitcase and it was that rope that she actually hung herself with. It was very sad. A very poignant story. He was really still quite upset about it.

John Yes! And sometime later when Yevtushenko was visiting the spot where she had hanged herself an old woman wanted to give him the nail that she had hanged herself from.

It's a serious business being a poet in Russia.

Emily That's right - they're almost like demi-gods.

John Yes.

Emily What were you reading about in his book "Don't Die Before Your Death?" You're ahead of me in that.

John That's right - there was a period, 1963, when he was in trouble again and the official newspapers were saying that the people's wrath would basically punish this young upstart. At the time Yevtushenko was basically "on the road" travelling around the countryside and he had car trouble. He stopped in a small town, in Kharkov, and a local policeman came over to the car, recognised him and said "How would you like your people's wrath Comrade? in the form of jam dumplings?"

And he was invited to stay in the town. They took care of him and fed him. He was invited to read and on the morning of the reading he woke up and there were 10,000 people in the village square outside waiting for him. And that's the kind of thing he says himself that saved him. He said "The people were my shield".

Emily That's incredible. It's an incredible place, Russia. The way they keep their poets up there on pedestals. You can see why - when you see someone like Yevtushenko, can't you? I mean he's so alive and he's really a big man in every sense of the word.

John He is. An extraordinary life, inside his country, outside - fishing with Castro, drinking with Steinbeck, cruising around with Beat generation poets. Remarkable.

Emily He hasn't had a bad life has he?

John Not too bad at all. I think we might be ready to go back to the tape. Now he's talking about Smelyakov.

SHOSTAKOVICH

Y.: In 1932 when he published his first poem he was very young - in 1930 he published his first poem - very young - eighteen years old and he was working in the printing house and he was printing his own book himself. And so he immediately became a nationally famous poet. But afterwards he was very uncarefully, carelessly criticised by Gorky. Was a special article by Gorky about petty hooliganism among some young writers. But of course Gorky didn't foresee what such an article written by him - because Smelyakov was a little bit hooligan and this article could be the basis for a future arrest of some young poets. But he didn't think about it. But Stalin and GPU - the former name of Cheka - of course they used it.

Above all, Smelyakov he was once sitting in the writers' open restaurant which is described in Bulgakov's novel "My Master and Margarita" and it was in 1932 when for the first time called by Radic who after became one of Stalin's first victims, was interned before Bukharin and they called him great man, father of nation or something like that and they were pulling on the rope - two ropes giant Stalin's portrait on the roof of this restaurant. At this time Raddick was standing and sipping his wine or water probably and he was very close so Smelyakov jumped over the fence of the little terrace and when ? was standing near this fence and he made pee on the moustaches of our beloved leader.

And he was arrested very quickly but he was arrested very softly - just for five years. According to Russian history this is very soft. So he was released from the prison in 1937. And 1937 was a most terrible year in the history of Russia because according to some information about 5,000,000 people were arrested during that one year. And he was released. That's why he had magic good luck, according again Russian history,

and afterwards he was captured by - he was a soldier in the war with Finland - stupid war - he was again arrested and the Fins liberated him in Karelia but they kept him as a war prisoner and he was working and when he came back he was accused of being captured by Fins so totally he spent 17 years behind the bars. In concentration camps. And when he came back, I met him on first day for us, because we all of us, we knew Smelyakov's poetry by heart. He was a great poet. We were absolutely overwhelmed. He knew many poems of our younger generation by heart. He was thrilling us. And he brought with him from concentration camp one beautiful, full of pure romanticism, poems about Soviet love - about the first years of socialism. It's incredible how he wrote this poem behind the bars. And so this is one of his most famous poems. A very short one - I remember by heart I hope. The English translation first. This poem was also written in concentration camp and afterwards some student composed music, they were singing with guitars, campfires all over Russia, this very famous song.

Geoffrey Dutton : It is called "Should I ever fall ill"

Should I ever fall ill,

I don't go to doctors.

It's to friends I turn.

(don't think that I'm delirious):

make my bed from steppes,

curtain the windows with mist,

set at my head

the night stars.

I always pressed forward.

I have no reputation for shirking.

Should I ever be wounded.

fighting for justice,

then bandage my head

with a mountain path

and cover me up

with a blanket of autumn flowers

I want nothing of powders or drops.

Let the sun's rays shine in the glass

The hot desert wind,

the silver cascade of a stream,

that's something worth being cured by.

Mountains and seas

waft winds of eternity,

When you see them you feel:

we live eternally.

Not with white pills or capsules

my path is strewn, but with clouds.

And I depart from you,

not down hospital corridors,

but down the Milky Way.

(Yevtushenko reads in Russian)

Y.: Now I would like to ask you one thing. I'll read - I would like to read - pa pa pa...Yah! I would like - I am sorry - I will read one my poem little to you too but I would like to read another one poet. It's this greatest, probably greatest Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva. A little bit about her. She left Russia - she published her book before Revolution. Being very young - she was 17 years old and after civil war she left Russia with her husband who was as a volunteer with the White Guards but being in Paris she didn't find her place in immigration and she was accused by some makers of literary fashion "too red". And she decided to go back to Russia and she came back in 1938 after the terrible year of 1937 and she was not blind, she understood what kind of nightmare was in Russia at the time. But they didn't touch her. They chose a very sadistical way of slow torture. They arrested her husband and afterwards they shot him in the first days of the war in 1941. They arrested her sister - she's 100 years old now her sister. She wrote some beautiful memoirs. And she's full of life. Full of life. Great, very strong woman. And they arrested her sister, many people around her. She was absolutely lonely with her sons teenagers. They didn't publish her poetry. And when she was living in Moscow going for evacuation Pasternak, trying, helping her to pack her luggage brought one rope and this rope afterwards unfortunately played a very important role in her life. And being in the city of Chistopa - most writers were located on the River Volga - she tried to get any kind of work. She was starving everywhere. In Paris, in Prague in immigration and afterwards in Russia. She was trying to get any kind of work. She was ready to wash dishes in the writers' canteen. But the official writers' wives refused her because they suspected her being German spy. Because she spent some years in Munich in immigration. So she moved to the little city of Yelabuga and she committed suicide - she hanged herself and so it was finished, her life, and I came to this little wooden hut and I remember - I wrote a poem about it "The Rope and the Nail" - when the owner a peasant woman she wanted to give me this nail. It was a big nail, a heavy nail made for horses noses from which she hanged herself.

At that time we didn't know exactly where her grave is it was just written on the fence "In this side of cemetery Marina Tsvetaeva is buried" She was a great maestro of not only - I mean she was a very good poet capable of incredible confession. She was very skinless poet - also she was great maestro - she reformed Russian verse. So this is beautiful translation. I'll ask Geoff to read it. It was Elaine Feinstein I think: "An Attempt of Jealousy"

Geoffrey Dutton reads "An Attempt at Jealousy"

Home is your life with the other one,

Simpler, isn't it? One stroke of the oar

Then a long coastline, and soon

Even the memory of me

Will be a floating island

(In the sky, not on the waters):

Spirits, spirits, you will be

Sisters, and never lovers.

How is your life with an ordinary

Woman? without godhead?

Now that your sovereign has

Been deposed (and you have stepped down).

How is your life? Are you fussing?

Flinching? How do you get up?

The tax of deathless vulgarity,

Can you cope with it, poor man?

"Scenes and hysterics, I've had

Enough! I'll rent my own house."

How is your life with the other one

Now, you that I chose for my own?

More to your taste, more delicious

Is it, your food? Don't moan if you sicken.

How is your life with an image,

You, who walked on Sinai?

How's your life with a stranger

From this world? Can you (be frank)

Love her? Or do you feel shame

Like Zeus' reins on your forehead?

How is your life? Are you

Healthy? How do you sing?

How do you deal with the pain

Of an undying conscience, poor man?

How's your life with a piece of market

Stuff, at a steep price?

After Carrara marble,

How's your life with the dust of

Plaster now? (God was hewn from

Stone, but he is smashed to bits.)

How do you live with one of a

Thousand women, after Lilith?

Sated with newness, are you?

Now you are grown cold to magic,

How is your life with an

Earthly woman, without a sixth

Sense? Tell me: are you happy?

Not? In a shallow pit? How is

Your life, my love? Is it as

Hard as mine with another man?

Y.: Thank you - a beautiful translation. But in Russian it's better. (Yevtushenko reads "An Attempt at Jealousy" in Russian. We will read one little poem - four stanzas - one stanza in Russian one stanza - "Metamorphoses". One stanza in English one stanza in Russian. Where is my book? Yes, good now, let's hear! I am fine - are you? - probably will yes - I am fine - very good for self defence this book... it must be here...

This is fabulous translation because I thought translation - this poem impossible to translate. It is a poem based on the ancient irresistible charming names of the Russian villages. But my English translators found not less charming, not less irresistible names of ancient English, so in this case probably translation is better than original..

G.D.: Childhood is the village of Rosycheekly,

Little Silly, Clamberingoverham,

Leapfrogmorton, going toward Cruelidge,

through Unmaliciousness and Clearvisiondon.

(Y. reads in Russian)

Youth is the village of Hopeworth,

Expansiongrove, Seducehall,

and, well, if it's a bit like Foolmouth,

all the same it is Promising.

(Y. reads in Russian)

Maturity is the village of Divideways,

either Involvementhaven or Hidewell,

either Cowardsbridge or Bravewater, (Susie barks again)

either Crookedwood or Justfield.

(Y. reads)

Old age is the village of Tiredhead,

Understandmore, Little Reproach,

Forgetfast, Overgrownend,

and, God keep us from it, Lonelybury.

(Y. reads)

Y.: "Now we are defenceless. We are open for your torturing questions".

I.D.: I would very much like to ask you what conditions are like now for Russian writers and Russian publishing?

Y. Very bad for both because we are passing through transitional period of wild capitalism and our publishing houses, many of them like many cinemas for instance, many movie theatres, they are in hands of new, so-called new, Russian. The people who it doesn't matter what to sell, bananas, condoms, books, films and this why it sometimes bring books which how you say dictates bad their own taste. I call it McDonaldisation of Russian spirit. So, but, so it is a very difficult for another reason, it is very difficult survive to write professionally in Russia now, by many other reasons, for instance, we have our little newspapers, a very good newspaper - Literaturnaya Gazeta. It's a weekly. And they publish always poetry, prose, articles, something about politics, very, they are really very independent. They are not pro-Yeltsin newspapers, they are not pro-anti-Yeltsinist newspaper. It doesn't depend. Very intellectual, very good newspaper. And they have 400,000 subscribers which is not bad but they could not survive this and why? Because if they will rise price - paper itself getting more and more expensive. Production it's very expensive. There is one possibility. They will rise prices. But their main readers, who are they? They are intellectuals, they're engineers. You know, the backbone of Russian readers are engineers. They're backbone of our intellectuals, unlike in America for instance. They never include engineers as intellectuals, I don't know why. So !

I.D/: In Australia too.

Y. And now we have terrible disproportion of the salaries, for instance one nuclear engineer's salary now, mostly salary, is the same with one doorman in the casino makes as tips over one night. Many people now they work or they have sometimes three or four jobs and of course, you know, if you are getting tired if your eyes are sticky, you're terribly exhausted. You probably want to read but you couldn't read you know. And that's why many people are very exhausted. But it doesn't mean what is a thirst for literature disappeared, has gone in Russia. It's not true. I just came back from a big tour of many Siberian cities, and all in crowded halls again. But they make a little bit, not a little bit, pretty artificial prices we try to make them, to make it accessible because when Liza Minelli came to Russia and she was telling, when she came back to America, was telling how Russians love her. She probably didn't understand that tickets for her concerts cost $200 for comfortable seat and now average Russian engineer they get about $20 monthly so you understand what kind of Russians visit her concert. Its not because they didn't want to hear her or something like that - a big disproportionate - it's a very painful transitional period. For instance we have - our theatres survive very well because they were very skilful and they privatise serious by themselves, by stage directors, by administrators of theatre, by some actors, so they make co-operative and they try very skilfully sometimes using private support, sponsors. Happily some of our capitalists, they're not stupid they're, you know why, because many of them they're former scientists. Yes, I know, for instance when I was I will recite, make my reading in Novosibirsk. It's a famous city of scientists and my sponsor, men who paid for my readings, making these readings gratis for the scientists, he was a former scientist of very high quality who became owner of casino. He's an intellectual himself - he just said I'm fed up, not to get enough money. But it's a tragedy for man who's intellectual, he hates his work but he makes a lot of money. Happily for his conscience he invests all his money into development of arts. So now, we don't have for first time in all history of Russia, for first time during last five years we have no political censorship. But we have commercial censorship. Now because of freedom - and each publisher could say "I have freedom to publish or not to publish". It's a battle for money, for instance how they pay now for instance my book was sold up to about 100,000 copies and I got 2 millions and 2 millions when they were paying me they fall down - they became just nothing - you know - dust. Money, the value inflation is a terrible. It's now - I left Russia now being in Germany presenting my book in German Frankfurt fair just one month - during one month rouble fell down 30% - during one month - its terrible inflation.(interjection by Masha Yevtushenko)She's saying 100% - she's a woman - she knows such things. So 100% during one month. It's very difficult if you are right. OK! If you write a novel - you have to sit to write novel at least one year - two, couple of years. You make contract, they promise they'll pay such amount of money but you won't get it not because they're mean but for them it's also very difficult to calculate it. So that's why it makes the situation very shaky and creates incredible uncertainty amongst writers.

I.D.: Does this mean writers have to write inflation into their contracts with publishers?

Y. Yes, we would like to - but not all publishers are bastards - they also depends - they don't know how much it will cost - they don't - it doesn't mean they will steal money from us. It's the situation. Many good publishing houses are very close to be bankrupt. For instance, Literaturnaya Gazeta, having 400,000 subscribers like The Australian, they need to give for rent half of their building for some commercial structure, for survival. And this is the situation - it's reality. So above all we have other problems - we have also not only economical problems - we have misuse of freedom. I mean misuse of freedom and some newspapers - Our newspapers were beautiful in the first years of perestroika, of the glasnost. I think even our TV. Now they're being in competition with each other - trying to survive and sometimes they...

(break corresponds to changeover of original tape)

SHOSTAKOVICH

M.S.: And that was the conclusion to the Yevtushenko presentation at the NSW Writers' Centre with Shostakovich's No. 13 Symphony. You have been listening to Monday Arts Live with Meredith Symonds.

BROADCAST CONCLUDES

(remaining portion of tape not broadcast)

Y.: ...friend Geoffrey Dutton was terrible, terrible article saying - they could work on our Russian yellow press such a people. So, and some newspapers they keep their dignity - they save - but afterwards distribution for the newspapers - terrible - books too. If you publish...I was carrying my books to Siberia myself because publisher are unable - it's cost a lot of money. Everything disorder - they could lose books or they could arrive too late. Above all the price of subscription for newspaper - it cost less than delivery of newspaper from post office - was a crazy situation so that's why it's very difficult but if you talk about situation of writers, professional writers, very difficult now. You know I mean we were in situation when State helped literature but controlled literature - but of course we didn't like the second. But in my opinion our State now behaves, they behave very criminally, I could say, with the culture because they left in such a transitional period - they left culture, arts, like Cinderella on the crossroad.

There is one point of view (you know how I love literature) one of them told me "You know of course I love poetry personally, your poetry, but let us to arrange everything in economics and afterwards we will help your culture". But they don't understand this modern kind of thing bullshit - sorry - they could not find right decision in economics because is criminal lack of culture inside them. So they don't understand that without great culture we could not develop economics. So this is - above all - but I don't want to accuse just government. That's silly too.

Because that's probably why I left the Parliament - one of the causes - because you know when we are fighting against - everyone knew what I was doing - against the monopoly of Party - but you know I'm helpless in economics. I have no any - I criticise it but I have no my own recipe what to do. And above all there is no text book how to transform State's monopoly into private enterprise. Especially in such a giant country like Russia - geographically very clumsy, multi-national, a very difficult country geographically. So, this is - I think we will be in the same situation some years. So we couldn't...

Question from member of the audience:

I'd like to ask you one of those general questions I think a lot of people in the Western world would like to ask, and it seems to me that it's a nice opportunity not to ask politicians but to ask an artist here. There's always been a very great appreciation and a lot of goodwill for the Russian people - we see them as being emotional people - people with great feeling and people with a great culture. I don't think there would be any year here in Sydney for example where a Chekhov play is not performed. What we can't understand is what is it that brings Russians to bring political disaster upon themselves and this has been going on you know back into the Tsarist era and most of this century. Is there some fatal flaw in the culture?

Y.: You know - I could tell you something. There is a big chasm between two worlds. Culture and civilisation. I think our culture of elite, Russian elite, was always very kind. But at the same time our life was always uncivilised. I mean uncomfortable - life. It - maybe if you read Russian classics you would say even before Revolution - I disagree with Solzhenitsyn because - Solzhenitsyn in my opinion idealised Russia before the Revolution. I do believe two classes who are living in Tsarist time. For instance I accused the Reds in the terrible assassination of Tsar and his family - was a terrible cruel action. But it doesn't mean that I idealised Tsar Nicholas the Second. It was a terrible corrupt Tsarist with Rasputin and other things - a stupid war against Japan, a stupid war with Germans, so many stupidities. Luxury life in the Winter Palace - people dying in the village - all this was disproportionate. You do not forget that Russia was the last - that all great Russian, cultural Russians were against it. Russia was lost first of all - we were three hundred years under Tartar's Mongolian yoke. In a way Russia was a shield which saved Europe from Mongolian invaders. That's true.But three hundred years. And after 300 years we were under the tough Tsarist dynasty. A yoke! And afterwards more than 70 years - that's why when it was a terribly exhausting and fratri...(encouragement from audience) fratricidal war which divided nations on the both sides were many good people including there were on the both sides. That's true! But when - but in my opinion - and again I'm not disagreeing with Solzhenitsyn, it was inevitable kind of Revolution. Revolution was not created by Bolsheviks - they just used the situation. Revolution was created by corrupted Tsarist regime. They were the authors of the Revolution. And afterwards people, many people, beautiful people in Russia - they left Russia. They were in immigration. And some beautiful people still was in Russia but afterwards, according to Thomas Carlyle quotation which I use in this novel "The fight against injustice was transformed into another, a new injustice". Under - in my opinion it was not socialism it was the same kind of feudalism under the pseudonym of the socialism - because Stalin was a kind of very cruel Tsar, cruel as a Ivan the Terrible. In the end Kruschev was a kind of Tsar, more joyful - not so gloomy in some movie pictures - sense of peasant's humour - Brezhnev was - yes with many relatives ? and so Gorbachev was the first man - that's why I appreciate him - despite - he was a Tsar too - a big - he could be Tsar according to General-Secretary and, but he chose another way. He unleashed glasnost and glasnost swallowed him. Predicted he or not? Probably not. I don't think he predicted that. But generally he did very good - he played very positive role in history in a certain period. Not in his final days. As Yeltsin in his first days played very positive role because you know - of course I couldn't over-estimate Mr Yeltsin's - today his unpredictability, his love to sleep when some Prime Minister waiting for him and so - I feel just ashamed - but let's not to forget that he if on 19 August 1991 Yeltsin couldn't come over the tank these putschists could win, could be terrible, could be again resurrection of barbed wires.

250,000 handcuffs - do not forget. They were ordered in the April. So for some people - probably for my hands too. So this is all - is a history of our country. We are lonely democracy. And we have by our character - in our character how to say - we are, we Russians we always without freedom of speech, without free elections. And so people don't know what to do with freedom. That's why in Russians - we are always in struggle, in all Russians because we are very anarchical at the same time. That's why being anarchical probably we sometimes need - looking for dictatorship which will keep us on the leash and saving from ourselves and some people want, dreaming about strong hand now like some people again now because all chaos, outside Ivan the Terrible under different names, outside chaos, that's the choice.

So, but we are learning democracy - we are making first steps and anyway let's not forget about good achievements that we have. First of all just five years ago we had a danger of nuclear war which could be last war of humanity. We could all be gone. Not to eat this Russian piroshki from the wonderful restaurant Russian Accent here. Not to hear this Australian from Glasshouse and not this Siberian from Zima Junction. Nothing -could be! But there is no such danger now. Nuclear war between two giant rivalry stupid rivalry systems. That's a great achievement. Berlin Wall is destroyed. Censorship in Russia is abolished. For ever or not I don't know. I don't want to play a role of prophet because I know that all prophets are false. So, and - but we must not to see just only defects or disasters in today's Russia alive.

We must be realistic and I think you know what is difference between pessimism and optimism? The fool, in my opinion, the fool optimism is a lack of information. In my opinion the fool-pessimism is a lack of imagination. That's all! I don't, I didn't lose my imagination. I am not going to lose it!

I.D: I would like to congratulate Yevgeny on the publication of his novel. (exchange in Russian) Very wonderful to have Yevtushenko and his wife Masha here at the Writers' Centre. We hope you will come back and visit us soon and we would like to present you with this book of the photographs of our exhibition.

Y.: Thank you. I would like to add that for me it was a great pleasure to be with you. I will sign all your books if you have them but it was a special pleasure, a great pleasure, incredible pleasure to meet again my great friend, Geoffrey Dutton. And it's such a wonderful thing - after twenty eight years we know each other - we didn't lose each other. So - there is no reason to be friends just for a while. Thank you.