SOURCE: "Russian Poet Still Pleases, Provokes," in The San Diego Union-Tribune, May 6, 1993, p. F1.

In the following essay, Reynolds discusses Yevtushenko's reputation in relation to his politics.

If it is hard for a poet to become a legend in his time, surely remaining a legend is still harder.

Yet for the last three decades, through shifting regimes and ideologies, Yevgeny Yevtushenko has managed to remain the most famous of Russia's living poets.

From "Babi Yar," the 1961 poem that forced the Soviet Union to confront its anti-Semitism, to a forthcoming novel about the August 1991 coup that eventually launched Boris Yeltsin to the Russian presidency, Yevtushenko has somehow managed to have a hand in most of the political upheavals that have wracked his motherland in the last 30 years.

Many praise his courage to probe the social and political wounds of Soviet history, from anti-Semitism to neo-fascism.

"Mr. Yevtushenko told the...