By ROBERT H. DONALDSON on Sep 8, 2013, at 2:30 AM Updated on 9/08/13 at 4:15 AM
Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko sits at his home in Tulsa in 2007. Yevtushenko is considered by many the world's greatest living Russian poet. BRANDI SIMONS / Associated Press file
When classes began at the University of Tulsa this fall, a professor who is recognized around the globe for his creative genius was absent for the first time in many years - kept from his classroom by vexing medical issues.
During my years at TU, as president and member of the faculty, I was often approached by colleagues who expressed delighted surprise that Yevgeny Yevtushenko was a professor at the University of Tulsa. That Russia's greatest living poet has made Tulsa his home for two decades requires a little explanation.
I had known Yevtushenko since the mid-1980s, when I had hosted him for a poetry performance at Fairleigh Dickinson University. I was delighted to renew our friendship when he came to Tulsa to perform at a conference. Knowing that he occasionally lectured at East Coast universities, I asked him, after he had gotten a good taste of our city and university, if he would consider a visiting professorship at TU.
Donaldson
Yes, he replied. He felt very comfortable in Tulsa and was sure he could be productive here. The reason, he explained, was that he was reminded here of his native Siberia! Not the weather, he hastened to assure me, but the welcoming warmth of the people, made him feel at home.
This feeling was accentuated, he said, when he first visited Utica Square and heard "Lara's Theme" played on the outdoor speakers.
The arrangement for Yevtushenko to become visiting distinguished professor of literature, initially for a semester's worth of teaching, has been happily extended for more than 20 years by TU's administrators, and Zhenya has taught full classes of TU students - now numbering well over a thousand - in two courses each semester (on Russian cinema and literature).
Countless members of the Tulsa community have been auditors in these courses as well as members of the audience for the many public performances of poetry that Yevtushenko has staged, usually featuring students who had never before imagined themselves as readers of poetry.
Yevtushenko has continued to travel often to his native Russia, where he also has a home, and to performances all over the world, but Tulsa has been his "home base" where he has raised his family, written both a novel and countless poems, and edited a major scholarly multi-volume anthology of Russian poetry.
His wife Masha, trained as a physician in the Soviet Union, has been a valuable member of the Edison Preparatory School faculty, teaching Russian to hundreds of Tulsa students and conducting occasional study tours. His two youngest sons attended Tulsa Public Schools and are now studying at TU.
As a specialist on Russia, I am of course well acquainted with Yevtushenko's role, not only as a poet and performer, who filled stadiums during the Soviet period, inspiring many young people with the humanistic spirit of his literary work, but also as a political figure, enlisting as a major ally of Andrei Sakharov - and even winning election as a democratic candidate for the Congress of People's Deputies - in the waning years of the Soviet regime.
Yevtushenko's achievements recently have been collected and memorialized in the new "Museum-Gallery of E. Evtushenko" in Peredelkino, the writer's colony outside Moscow. It contains not only his own writings (published in 72 languages) and an interior of his working study, but also a room displaying hundreds of the photographs that he made during his international travels and two more rooms displaying works of famous 20th century artists, many presented to him by these admirers of his talent. These priceless collections have been donated by Yevtushenko as a gift to the Russian people.
I had the privilege of being given a tour of the museum by its director last September and can personally attest to the brilliant way that it sums up the career of this multi-talented artist. This summer, in celebration of Yevtushenko's 80th birthday, there were to have been performances and celebrations across Russia.
Regrettably, his health prevented him from traveling.
How many residents of Oklahoma have entire museums devoted to their work? How many members of the TU faculty have been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature? Return to your classroom soon, Zhenya. You are sorely missed.
Robert H. Donaldson is trustees professor emeritus of political science at the University of Tulsa.
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