By most accounts Evgenii Aleksandrovich Evtushenko was born on 18 July 1933. However, according to some recent commentaries, he was born exactly one year earlier. The place of his birth is not in dispute – Zima, a small town situated on the Trans-Siberian railway north-west of Irkutsk. For Russians, being a Siberian, a “
sibiriak”, has connotations of physical strength, straightforwardness, self-reliance and, above all, freedom.
Like many ethnic Russians living in Siberia, Evtushenko came from varied stock. There was Russian, Belorussian, Ukrainian, Polish, Latvian, and Tartar blood in the family. His surname, typically Ukrainian, came from his mother’s family. His maternal great-grandfather, a peasant from Zhitomir, was exiled to Siberia for an arson attack on his landlord, and his
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Citation: Pursglove, Michael. "Evgenii Evtushenko". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 May 2005; last revised 15 August 2022. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5904, accessed 26 November 2024.]
