Russia: The Man with Olena’s Legs

After seven months in official disgrace, Soviet Poet Evgeny Evtushenko was back in print last week. Spread over five pages of the Communist literary monthly Yunost (Youth) were four poems by the embattled hero of Russia’s younger generation, along with a photograph of the rebel in bourgeois tie and jacket. There was some contrition in his latest lines, but there was defiance as well.

In Back Again at Zima Junction (Ev-tushenko’s Siberian birthplace, which he recently revisited), Evtushenko concedes he was “unhorsed, honor nowhere near me” when he returned to Moscow from his reckless visit to Western Eu rope last winter. With a nod to the Kremlin, he admits: The “sharp criticism was useful in the final analysis.” But then he adds acidly:

I vow to guard you, Fatherland,

Against evilly covetous eyes,

Overeager careerists,

Show-off patriots.

Olena’s Legs, an allegorical tribute to Mother Russia, about an old woman whose limbs are still powerful, is an even more outspoken challenge to the authorities:

I’m not used to stoop,

My pride I’ve kept,

And my troubles

Won’t knock me off my feet.

I’ll throw myself without a care

Into any battle . . .

I’ve got your legs,

Olena’