WIST Quotations

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- “A Career” (1957)

Dave — Mon, 26 Sep 2022 16:11:52 +0000

Time has a way of demonstrating
The most stubborn are the most intelligent.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
“A Career” (1957)
(Source)

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- “Fuku,” Almost at the End (1987) [tr. Bouis]

Dave — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 17:41:39 +0000

If you forget the victims
of yesterday’s sorrow
you could become
a victim of tomorrow.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
“Fuku,” Almost at the End (1987) [tr. Bouis]
(Source)

First printed, in Russian, in Novyi mir, No. 9 (1985). In "Yevtushenko: A Soviet Poet Turns to Movie Making," New York Times (2 Feb 1986), Yevtushenko translates it himself as:

He who forgets the victims of yesterday, may become the victim of tomorrow.

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- “People [Lyudi]” (1961), l. 1ff [tr. Milner-Gulland/Levi (1967)]

Dave — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 19:21:27 +0000

No people are uninteresting.
Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.

Nothing in them is not particular,
and planet is dissimilar from planet.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
“People [Lyudi]” (1961), l. 1ff [tr. Milner-Gulland/Levi (1967)]
(Source)

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- “People” (1961), l. 12ff, Selected Poems (1962)

Dave — Mon, 15 Aug 2022 20:07:08 +0000

In any man who dies there dies with him,
his first snow and kiss and fight.

[И если умирает человек,
с ним умирает первый его снег,
и первый поцелуй, и первый бой…]

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
“People” (1961), l. 12ff, Selected Poems (1962)
(Source)

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- “Yevtushenko: A Soviet Poet Turns to Movie Making,” New York Times (2 Feb 1986)

Dave — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 16:05:58 +0000

I, for example, do not like poems that resemble hay compressed into a geometrically perfect cube. I like it when the hay, unkempt, uncombed, with dry berries mixed in it, thrown together gaily and freely, bounces along atop some truck—and more, if there are some lovely and healthy lasses atop the hay—and better yet if the branches catch at the hay, and some of it tumbles to the road.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
“Yevtushenko: A Soviet Poet Turns to Movie Making,” New York Times (2 Feb 1986)
(Source)

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 18:15:41 +0000

Translation is like a woman. If it is beautiful, it is not faithful. If it is faithful, it is most certainly not beautiful.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
(Attributed)

Also attributed to Edmond Jaloux and Tahar Ben Jelloun.

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- In The Observer (15 Dec 1991)

Dave — Mon, 19 Sep 2022 16:55:40 +0000

Why is it that right-wing bastards always stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity, while liberals fall out among themselves?

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
In The Observer (15 Dec 1991)
(Source)

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny -- Interview (1986-02-02), “Yevtushenko: A Soviet Poet Turns to Movie Making,” by Serge Schmemann, New York Times

Dave — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 17:39:49 +0000

I write poetry, prose, and everything I do, I do on the principle of Russian borscht. You can throw everything into it — beets, carrots, cabbage, onions, everything you want. What’s important is the result, the taste of the borscht.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933-2017) Russian poet, writer, film director, academic [Евге́ний Евтуше́нко, Evgenij Evtušenko]
Interview (1986-02-02), “Yevtushenko: A Soviet Poet Turns to Movie Making,” by Serge Schmemann, New York Times
(Source)