Nineteen eighty-six saw the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of one of the landmarks of Soviet literature, Yevgeny Yevtushenko's Stantsiya Zima. At the time of its appearance in the journal Oktyabr' in October 1956, its twenty-three-year-old author was virtually unknown. This heavily autobiographical poema catapulted him to fame. Its narrator was seen as the representative of a generation which had grown up under Stalinism and which now, amid the reverberations of Khruschev's secret speech denouncing Stalin's ‘cult of personality’ in February 1956, was reassessing all the values it had hitherto accepted unquestioningly. The poem's themes provoked widespread controversy at the time and have remained at the centre of critical attention ever since.¹ Far less attention has been paid to the formal aspects of the poem, no doubt because here, as elsewhere in his work, the sheer brilliance and exuberance of Yevtushenko's verbal pyrotechnics render him somewhat suspect. So, too, does his undoubted ability as a reciter—one might almost say performer—of his own poetry. It is argued that the power of Yevtushenko's performance blinds the reader to grave deficiencies in his poetic technique. This argument, at least, cannot be used to denigrate Stantsiya Zima since, because of its considerable length, Yevtushenko has never recited it. Unlike, for instance, the celebrated Babiy Yar, the poem has always had to be judged from the evidence of the printed page alone.

Despite its fame, Stantsiya Zima has been published only three times in the Soviet Union. In its original journal form it was 998 lines long:² the 1969 version in the collection Idut belyye snegi was 979 lines long and in the 1975 Izbrannyye proizvedeniya 975 lines long. The latter two versions are very similar, the only difference being an omitted quatrain.³

In view of Yevtushenko's expressed preference for the “good old iambic”⁴ it is hardly surprising that this metre predominates. The pentameters are arranged in groups of alternating abab rhymes with a rhymes feminine and the b rhymes masculine. Yevtushenko does not, however, allow this conventional form to become repetitive. Deviations from it and variations on it can be found throughout the poem. A significant deviation from the metre occurs at lines 442-5 when a folk song, sung by a middle-aged woman picking berries, is cast in accentual metre (Gustým lésom bosonógaya) with alternating dactylic and masculine rhymes (bosonogaya / idyot / trogayet / beryot). An earlier example of imitation folk song occurs at lines 57-62 where, although the iambic metre is maintained, the line length is shortened to tetrameter (Da k solov'yu nema puti) and the rhyme scheme altered to abaaaa. Apart from the Ukrainian folk song, there are two other sustained deviations from the metrical norm. The first can be found in the allegorical episode (lines 570-7) when the Wheat answers the narrator's naive enquiry as to what he should do to ensure universal happiness. The answer is couched in trochaic tetrameters (Ni plokhoy ty, ni khoroshiy) although the abab / fmfm rhyme scheme is maintained.

The second example of deviation from the metrical norm follows immediately after the enigmatic answer given by the Wheat. Lines 578-609 constitute an alternative answer to the narrator's question, given by a man whose disillusionment with the behaviour of the local kolkhoz chairman, Pankratov, has forced him to leave Zima in search of Truth. The whole episode is written in what is basically anapaestic trimeter (B[UNK]l ŏn gōlŏdĕn, mōlŏd ĭ bōos) with occasional omission of a syllable (Pŏvstrĕchālsyă mn̄e chĕlŏvēk) and alternating dactylic and masculine rhymes. Not only is this section metrically different from the bulk of the poem; its opening lines show a deviation from the normal abab rhyme scheme. In these eight lines the rhyme scheme is ababacac (dorozhen'koy / teleg / khoroshinkoy / chelovek / malen'kiy / bos / rogalike / nyos). Such variations in the rhyme pattern appear to signal the beginning of each new section of the poem, each coherent grouping of the multitude of episodes that make up this most episodic of works.

It is no easy task to divide the poem up. The typographical breaks in the text are misleading. Half of them (six out of twelve, after lines 402, 441, 705, 919 and 954) simply precede or follow direct speech. Of the remaining six, one (after line 62) follows the interpolated Ukrainian song which is, in effect, direct speech. Of the others, three are signalled by changes in the rhyme pattern. For example, the break after line 321 falls in the middle of an aabccb sequence running from lines 319 to 324 (ile / ive / teni / rovno / bryovna / oni). The same sequence is found immediately after the break at line 842 (strannym / derevyannym / doma / mimo / Rimma / uma). At line 954, on the other hand, the abab sequence is maintained but the first rhyme of the quatrain (blizkikh) precedes the typographical break.

In the journal version of the poem there were four other typographical breaks: one (at line 669) unmarked by any change in rhyme scheme, one (line 787) preceding direct speech and two (lines 411 and 513) following direct speech and signalled by deviations from the abab rhyme pattern. The change in rhyme pattern is quite marked in both cases: the sequence after 411 runs aabcccbddee (kutsykh / kuzov / shiroko / kosilok / kosynok / korzinok / moloko / perepyolki / pereponki / galdel / glyadel) while after 513 we find aabccbddeffe (korova / kolola / selo / oglokhli / oglobli / sinyo / podlesok / podvesok / suete / manila / malina / koe-gde).

There are five other major deviations in the poem from the abab scheme at points where there are no typographical breaks in any version of the poem. In four cases the sequence is the same aabccb as is found at 321; at 143 dvoyek / dvorik / oki / kopilku / kobylku / kryuchki; at 610 utrom / poputnom / provozhal / znali / priezzhali / priezzhal; at 754 likhvoyu / khvoyu / retsept / glupyy / klube / kontsert and at 854 struzhki / kukushki / tormoznut / khvatkikh / lopatkakh / mazut. In the remaining instance, an eleven-line sequence beginning with the truncated line 631 (i byl takov), runs ababaccdeef.

On the basis, therefore, both of the typographical breaks and the deviations from the normal rhyme pattern, the poem can be tentatively divided into twelve sections, as follows:

1. 1-62 introduction; the author's ancestor

2. 63-142 the author's mother and father

3. 143-323 the author's childhood in Zima; dialogue between Childhood and Youth; his return to Zima and conversation with his younger brother Kol'ka.

4. 324-410 the River Oka; the old man's complaints about his nephew

5. 411-577 picking berries; dialogue with the Wheat

6. 578-609 criticism of Pankratov

7. 610-630 departure by lorry; the head of the household

8. 631-753 the author alone with Nature; his uncles; the tea shop; the complaints of the tipsy journalist

9. 754-843 the club; the author's musings on love

10. 844-853 love in Zima

11. 854-931 the railway; Vovka

12. 932-975 the answer given by Zima

The section I have chosen for special discussion (Section 6) needs to be quoted in full:

578 I pоsil y dоrоgоj-dоrоzinsкоj
                    mimо paknusik digtim tilig,
580 i s visilоj i zlоj kоrоsinкоj
                    pоvstricalsy mni cilоviк.
                    Byl оn pylsnyj, кurnоsyj, malinsкij.
                    Byl оn gоlоdin,
                                                            mоlоd i bоs.
                    Na birizоvоm tоnкоm rоgaliкi
                    оn bоtinкi kоzyjstvinnо nis.
                    Gоvоril оn mni s pylоm raznоi -
                    ctо ubоrоcnay gоrit,
                    ctо v коlkоzi оdni bizоbraziy
                    pridsidatils Panкratоv tvоrit.
590 Gоvоril:
                                        «Ni budu zaisкivats.
                    Я pоjdu.
                                        Я pravdu najdu.
                    Ni pоmоzit nacalsstvо ziminsкоi -
                    dо irкutsкоgо y dоjdu … »
                    Vdrug masina оtкuda-tо vyrоsla.
                    V nij s pоrtфilim -
                                                                      simvоlоm dil -
                    grazdanin paru sinоvyj
                                                                                v «villisi»,
                    кaк v prizidiumi,
                                                                      sidill.
                    «Zakоtilоss, ctоb mats pоplaкala?
                    Snarydilsy,
                                        girоj,
                                                                      v Zimu?
600 Ty pоmyniss isi Panкratоva,
                    ty pоjmiss isi, ctо к cimu … »
                    I umcalsy.
                                        Nо silu trizvuy
                    оyutil y sоvsim ni v nim,
                    a v parnisкi s virоj ziliznоy,
                    v bizmasinnоm, bоsоm i zlоm.
                    My prоstiliss.
                                                            Pоsil оn, malinsкij,
                    uvyzay stupnymi v pyli,
                    i bоtinкi na tоnкоm rоgaliкi
609 dоlgо-dоlgо
                                        кacaliss vdali …

Even a cursory reading of this passage reveals features that are typical of the poem as a whole. These include syntactic parallelism (582/583), word play (pyl'nyy / s pylom), alliteration (583, 589) and internal rhyme (583). Such devices are the stock-in-trade of any competent poet and are widespread in Yevtushenko's work as a whole, and in this poem in particular. What Yevtushenko brings to their use is wit and variety. Indeed, one single line (737), a pessimistic view of contemporary writers, illustrates all four devices:

On ni vlastitils,
                                        a blystitils duum.

Syntactic parallelism comes in various guises. The example at lines 582 and 583 is straightforward anaphora, whereas lines 11 and 12, though rhythmically and syntactically parallel, are contrasted semantically:

ctо y sкazal,
                                        nо byl sкazats ni dоlzin
ctо ni sкazal,
                                        nо dоlzin byl sкazats.

These lines are very close in form to the classical chiasmus. This is found in its pure form at lines 47 and 48:

mоl, tam prоstоj narоd zivit pо-barsкi
(G di i коgda pо-barsкi zil narоd)

or, within a single line, at 82 (ne sami eli khleb, a khleb ikh el). At line 432 there occurs yet another variant: contrasted parallelism within a single line:

(My razgribali sina vоrоka)
                              i uкryvaliss …
(pоputciцa ni uкrylass tоlsко).

However, what constitutes the most interesting feature of lines 578-609 is the appearance of three key word-roots, here represented by molod, pravda and vyrosla, which signal key concepts in the poem and run as leitmotifs through it. To these may be added a further three represented by the verbs otkryt' and dumat' and the adjective prostoy.

Of the six concepts represented by these words, the most important is youth. Yevtushenko was only twenty-three when he wrote the poem—‘very young’ (ochen' molodoy) as the author is described at lines 573 and 936. It is, however, not only the author who is described thus. The word molodoy recurs throughout the poem in a variety of contexts. For example the author's mother, when still a child, only becomes aware of the Civil War when she encounters a konnik molodoy (line 96); the milk drunk by the berry-pickers is molodoye moloko (line 417) and, in the same episode, the woman, as she sings her song, becomes young again, a fact emphasised by the folksy reduplication of the adjective (molodoyu-molodoy) (line 437), a form repeated at 499.⁵ At line 623 it is grass adhering to the wheels of a truck which is molodaya. No less frequent are derivatives. For example, after meeting his friend Vovka, the author goes out into the dawn (920):

Svitalо …
                    Vsi vокrug pоmоlоdilо.

The verb is aptly chosen; a new day has literally dawned, but, in the metaphorical sense, the author has rediscovered the idealism of youth and is now ready to face the challenge presented by a rejuvenated, post-Stalinist Soviet Union.

One use of a derivative of molodoy is particularly pointed. This occurs in Section 4 when, at line 349, the old man's complaint:

ctо ranssi mоlоdizs byla pоpucsi

is given additional force by his allusion, in the next line, to an organisation which includes the word molodyozh' in its full title:

ctо bоlsnо sкucnyj nynci коmsоmоl.

This is not the end of the old man's complaint for, a few lines later, in a piece of pure Yevtushenko, combining chiasmus, alliteration, assonance, word-play and wit, he makes a statement which, incidentally, defies translation into English (371):

Ists mоlоdizs, a mоlоdоsti nit.

As so often in Yevtushenko, this generalised statement is followed by a specific example, drawn from personal experience, as the old man recalls his nephew (384):

Kaкоj оn mоlоdоj, кaкоj tam pyl

and ruefully laments his abandonment of youthful pursuits (389):

Nit, mоlоdizs tipirs ni ta, ctо ranssi.

The other leitmotifs all reinforce this central idea of youth. Truth (pravda) is the goal of the young author. To attain it he must discover answers to complex questions, must think for himself, must distinguish the Simple, which is desirable, from the Simplistic, which is not. The total process is one of growth, of self-realisation, of discovery (6-7):

My оtкryvaim nоvоi,
                                                  tо znacit,
Onо оtкrylоss prizdi v nas, v samik.

The verb otkryvat' is used twice more in the poem: at line 562, just before his conversation with the Wheat, the narrator opens his eyes, literally and metaphorically, to the world about him, and at line 854 Zima Junction is revealed when a mist, half-literal, half-metaphorical, clears away. Important derivatives of otkryt' are otkroven'ya (838) and otkrovennyy, which occurs in the very first line of the poem:

My, cim vzrоslij, tim bоlssi оtкrоvinny.

Here the word is linked with the concept of growth, a leitmotif whose importance is reflected in its frequency: vyrastal (135), rost (355), vozrast (370), vyrosla (594). To this list must be added the etymologically related root rod-, which occurs fourteen times in the poem, mainly in the form of the adjective rodnoy (73, 173, 218, 227, 496, 671). Zima Junction is, after all, the author's native town and the place to which he was evacuated as an adolescent from 1941 to 1944. There are some other derivatives of the root: nerodnaya (42), rodnya (252), rodilis' (752) and the Ukrainian ridna (55), as well as three instances of narod (47, 48 and 275), from whom the author sprang and on behalf of whom he claims to seek answers.

It could be argued that the high incidence of these two related roots results from nothing more than Yevtushenko's acute ear for phonetic similarities. On the other hand it could stem from an awareness, hitherto unremarked by critics, of etymological origins. Examination of another set of etymologically related roots which recurs frequently in the poem seems to argue in favour of the latter explanation. This is the adjective prostoy and its derivatives. The word clearly has positive associations for the poet. It is used for example to describe his father, in whom (103):

Dоbrоtnоi, prоstоi bylо ctо-tо.

This kindly, simple man cannot understand what the author, in lines omitted from all but the Oktyabr' version, euphemistically terms the “complexities” of Soviet society which make answers so difficult to come by for his son's generation:

Otкuda znal оn …
о tоm, ctо nam ni taк uz prоstо budit,
о slоznоstyk tyzilyk i bоlssik.

In the event, the answers themselves are simple, as two lines from the Oktyabr' version of the berry-picking episode (episode 5) illustrate:

Da etо vids оna sкvоzs dоzds i vitir
litila s pisnij, zarкоj i prоstоj.

Examples such as this shed new light on the potentially banal cliché prostoy narod (47) or the routine adverb in such lines as 536—

Ek, grazdani, mni s vami prоstо ymоr

and 684—

Im оtvicali коrоtко i prоstо.

The adjective prostoy is etymologically connected with the verbs proschat'sya/poproschat'sya (to take one's leave) and proschat'/prostit' (to forgive), both of which express fundamental themes of the poem.

Numerically important though the prostoy leitmotif is, there is one other which occurs still more frequently. This is the verb dumat' and its derivatives, seen first at line 14, where the author cites a failure to think as one of the main shortcomings in his life to date.

Uvisil y, ctо castо zil s оg lydкоj,
ctо malо dumal, cuvstvоval, kоtil.

Thinking, however, as Hamlet points out, has its inherent dangers. It can, for instance, kill spontaneous emotion in anyone not blessed with the nezadumchivost' (501) of the woman picking berries. Her very inability to kill emotion through an excess of thinking prompts further thoughts in the author (554)

Razdumyval rastirynnо i smutnо

just as a later encounter does, this time with the young man who criticises Pankratov (638 and 640),

… mni brilоss razdumcivii
… о mnоg оm dumal.

The author passes on the thoughts “honest and profound” thus prompted to the disillusioned journalist in the tea house who responds with the aphorism already cited:

                    а ctо sijcas pisatils?
On ni vlastitils, a blystitils dum.

In the course of the poem the narrator gropes his way towards an important conclusion about the nature of thought. It is, above all, a painful process (754):

Platil y za razdumiy s likvоj

but it is nevertheless a vital process (the formula davayte dumat' is twice repeated). Without thought, love is blind, and blind love is useless (814-15):

Nam ni slipоj lybvi sigоdny nadо,
a dumaysij, pristalsnоj lybvi.

Thought must now, however, tip over into cynical cerebration (837-8):

Я enay—
                              ists razdumsy оt nivirsy
Razdumsy nasi оt bоlssоj lybvi.

The importance of the dumat' leitmotif casts some light on the curious noun pridumschik used in the original Oktyabr' version of the poem to refer to the author's friend Vovka Drobin in episode 11. The qualities for which Vovka is best known are hardly traditional virtues, and the word pridumschik, which might be translated as ‘fibber’ or ‘crafty so-and-so’, could, in other contexts, have negative connotations. Here, however, the positive connotations associated with the root dumat' outweigh the negative. These positive connotations are reinforced a few lines later, when the last use of this root is given to Vovka (911-12):

Ty ctо, оdin taкоj? sкazal mni Vоvкa,—
Sigоdny vsi razdumyvayt, brat.

Yevtushenko may have realised the contradiction, for in the 1969 and 1975 versions of this poem the word pridumschik is dropped.

Episode 6 also illustrates one of the several minor themes in the poem, also designated by key words. This is the adjective bosoy, here referring to the narrator's alter ego, the young man at the start of his own search for truth. It is used to refer to him again at 931, and on two further occasions (20, 889). It and the related adverb bosikom refer to the Siberian Garden of Eden in which the narrator wandered before falling into the “complexities” of Moscow life. Another related word bosonogaya (442) links both these seekers after truth to the woman picking berries who, in her simple, inarticulate way, has found the Truth.

Episode 6, incidentally, also provides a link between the young critic of Pańkratov and the narrator through the adjective pyl'nyy. This echoes the verb pylit' applied to the narrator at line 20.

In the poem as a whole there are a number of other such minor themes. One is that of change. Both the author and his country are undergoing massive changes of outlook, philosophy and prospects. This is signalled in lines 3 and 4:

i sоvladayt v zizni piriminy
s bоlsimi piriminami v sibi

and reinforced by subsequent repetition of the -men- root: izmenil (379), smenyalas' (550), peremeny (738) and razmenyat' (823). Set against this theme of change is the reassuringly unchanging sight of the River Oka, to which there are four references.

A similar use of counterpointed themes can be seen in the juxtaposition of the major theme of simplicity and the minor theme of complexity (slozhnost'). In one place (163) Yevtushenko emphasises the point by using neslozhnyy as a synonym for prostoy:

Nо zizns,
                    bоlssik pripytstvij ni ciny,
                    liss оttоgо кazalass mni nislоznоj,
                    ctо slоznоi
                                                            risali za miny.

The theme is taken up elsewhere by slozhnost' (170) and, in the Oktyabr' version, by slozhnostyakh.

An interesting minor theme is that of wandering, expressed by the verb brodit'/bresti and its derivatives. The narrator is a wanderer in search of Truth and five of the references allude to him (brodil 151, 634, 844, bryol 244 and brelos' 638). He is the descendant of Ukrainian peasants banished to Siberia in Tsarist times and thus condemned to a wandering life (breli, 33, bresti-ne dobresti, 54), which brought them finally to this remote spot on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The town of Zima has provided the inspiration for three other poems by Yevtushenko: Soyti na tikhoy stantsiy Zima, Otkuda vy? and Ziminskaya ballada. The most recent of these, Ziminskaya ballada (1975), is strongly autobiographical. Its 71 lines relate a single episode in Yevtushenko's youth when he was set upon by a band of young toughs and robbed of a rouble. However, its trochaic tetrameter and aabccb stanza mean that its formal differences from Stantsiya Zima make detailed investigation of it in this context unprofitable. On the other hand Soyti na tikhoy stantsii Zima, originally published in 1953, is written in the same iambic pentameter as Stantsiya Zima. Its 48 lines, printed without a break, fall naturally into 12 quatrains, the first three of which rhyme abba and the last nine abab. Both in form and content it reveals itself as a preliminary sketch for Stantsiya Zima itself. Like Ziminskaya ballada, it is a piece of pure narrative, devoid of the rather banal philosophising which is the weakest feature of the poema, and containing themes which are developed at length in the longer work—notably the River Oka and the theme of berry-picking (i prokhodit' brusnichnymi mestami).

If this is a modest prelude to Stantsiya Zima, Otkuda vy? (1959) is a much more ambitious sequel. Published only once in the USSR,⁶ this is a fully-fledged poema, 680 lines in length, divided into 22 sections of unequal length. As in Stantsiya Zima, Yevtushenko not only marks these divisions typographically, but deviates from the basic abab rhyme scheme. For example, the break between sections 3 and 4 falls after one line of an abbaa sequence (vezlo / khvalili / lili / zlo / razvezlo), while the break between sections 10 and 11 comes after one line of an abba sequence (ikh / voskresen'e / vesenne / zolotykh). There is a similar enjambement between sections 13 and 14, although here the abab pattern is maintained (medlim my / lozh' / mednuyu / polozh'). However, Yevtushenko further emphasises the break by including in the sequence the only pentameter in a poem otherwise written entirely in iambic tetrameters:

Citatils zdit,
                                        a my—
                                                            vsi midlim my.

This line is emphasised still more by being virtually rhymeless. In a poem which, unlike Stantsiya Zima, often has rhymes which are little more than phonetic echoes (geroy/geolog; prekrasno/bratstva; pridyotsya/primorskiy and many others), the rhyme medlim my/mednuyu is among the most distant. A few pages later, yet another variant occurs, when the end of section 19 is marked by a switch from rime croisée to couplets (lyubyat/lyudi/lyubya/tebya). Other variants occur in both the first and last sections of the poem, as well as in section 17. In all three sections the entire rhyme pattern deviates from the normal abab pattern. The 12 lines of section 1 are arranged 5:4:3, with the rhymes running ababa ccdd efe. The 9 lines of the last section, section 22, run abbacdccd, while the even shorter section 17 is cast in the form of a sestet, with the same aabcbc pattern as is found in Ziminskaya ballada (Vladivostok/strok/podrobno/voiny/podlozhka/glubiny).

The underlying structure of the poem, however, lies not in the sections indicated by the typographical breaks, but in the basic abab rhyme pattern. Interestingly, the fragment that appears in both Idut belyye snegi and Izbrannyye proizvedeniya is arranged in quatrains, with the single exception of a five-line sequence. This untitled poem begins with lines 13-16 of Otkuda vy? and continues with sections 6 and 7 of the original (lines 153-213).

Of the leitmotifs in Stantsiya Zima, only two survive in Otkuda vy? The theme of simplicity, of the need to avoid over-simplified answers, is announced early in the poem (36-9):

Ni razrisil y vsi vоprоsy,
vsi tо, ctо na dusu liglо,
nо stalо mni ligко i prоstо,
kоts i ni prоstо, ni ligко.

Here the key word prosto is reinforced by a typical piece of Yevtushenkian chiasmus, which is repeated at lines 228-9. The simplicity found by the narrator in Zima contrasts with what is again euphemistically referred to as the “complexity” of Stalinist society. One aspect of this “complexity” was the existence of political prisoners. On seeing a crowd of these, amnestied after the fall of Beria in 1953, the poet notes (32-3):

Kaк i v Mоsкvi, tut slоznо bylо
i mnоgоi ni risinо.

The theme is reinforced by the repetition of the etymological relations of prosto: proschat'/poproschat' (237) and proschat'/prostit' (68 and 253). In the last example, the poet confesses his sadness at the way his relatives readily forgive his Muscovite ways. The phrase “forgiving love” (proschayuschaya lyubov') is strongly reminiscent of the “thinking love” (dumayuschaya lyubov') which, the narrator asserts in Stantsiya Zima, is now needed in Russia.

The second, and more important leitmotif is signalled by the key word rodnoy (9 examples) and the closely related words rozhdennyy, rodimyy, narod (2 examples each), rod, rodich, nenarodno and priroda (1 example each). Indeed, this root appears in the opening lines of the poem:

V stipi rоzdinnyj,
                                                                      pоmni stips;
tajgu,
                    v tajgi rоzdinnyj,
                                                                                                    pоmni

and also in the fragment published in 1969 and 1975:

Otкuda rоdоm y?
                                                            Я s niкоj
sibirsкоj stanцii Zima.

The incidence of this root is even greater than in Stantsiya Zima, especially when the etymologically related derivatives of rasti are included (vyrastal, vyrastayut, vzroslen'ye, vzroslyy, rastut). Clearly the process of maturing and the search for the poet's roots have now become the dominant themes. The themes of discovery (otkryt'), youth (molodoy) and thought (dumat'), though briefly present in Otkuda vy? are now reduced to the level of such secondary themes in both works as change (associated with the root -men-) and truth (pravda). However, numerically dominant though the rodnoy/rasti theme is in Otkuda vy?, its effect is diminished by its use in one of the banal clichés from which the poem as a whole suffers. Four times (305, 364, 368, 590) the phrase kray rodnoy is used and on a fifth occasion (639) it is only slightly varied to kraya—rodimy.

The poem does share some of the more distinctive formal features of Stantsiya Zima, such as the use of anaphora (55-6):

Odnu lоdyzкu dirzit digоts,
druguy кripко dirzit mid

and of characteristically Yevtushenkian contrasted parallelism (71-2):

(… pоnyla ty tоnко)
ctо ni tоnu sоvsim,
                                                                                a tоlsко
igray v tо, ctо y tоnu.

Even more characteristic is the linking of adjacent unrhymed lines by using grammatically or etymologically related words at the end of each to create a kind of ‘false couplet’. There are at least four examples of this in Stantsiya Zima, one of which is the priezzhali/priezzhal ‘rhyme’. Others are popalsya/popadu (402-3), lozhnom/lozh' (802-3) and obmanom/obmanut' (818-19). Examples from Otkuda vy? include (411-12):

sbigass к ryzimu аmuru,
disytкi ryzik amurcat

and (395-6):

pripоmnyt tо, ctо ni smоgli my,
zabyv о tоm, ctо ni mоgli?!

Sometimes these ‘false couplets’ are achieved merely by using a different form of the same noun at the end of each line (659-60):

stоy na lvdu оdnоj nоg оy
i na цvitak—
                                                  drugоj nоg оj.

Elsewhere, Yevtushenko uses the same device to disguise a pair of couplets (559-62):

O gоrоd muzistva!
                                                                      Kaк lybyt
tiby tvоi bоlssii lydi,
i, uliцy tvоi lyby,
кaк lybyt кraj vокrug tiby.

Overall, however, although the narrative passages of Otkuda vy? match anything from Stantsiya Zima, and although its occasional lapses into vapid philosophising are no worse, it lacks the great formal variety of the earlier work. Indeed, its relative formal monotony detracts from it as much as formal variety adds to Stantsiya Zima.

Throughout his career, Yevtushenko has repeatedly returned to his Siberian roots for inspiration. The lyric Ya—sibirskoy porody (1954), the narrative poem Po Pechore (1963) and the long cycle of poems Bratskaya G.E.S. (1965) are three products of this process, though none mentions Zima specifically. However, in Yevtushenko's first major excursion into prose fiction, the novel Yagodnyye mesta (1981), Zima plays an important role. The novel is set mainly in the desolate countryside around the town which, for the heroine Ksyuta, is the only town she has ever visited. Zima, with its railway sheds, provides one character with the opportunity to join the proletariat; for another, it is the place where a letter in Japanese can be translated. Many of the themes dealt with in Stantsiya Zima recur in the novel: berry collecting; youthful idealism confronted by cynicism; the nature of true literature; the discovery of self; the ravages of alcohol; the essence of Russianness. Like Stantsiya Zima, Yagodnyye mesta is episodic in structure and, indeed, the novel has many of the strengths and weaknesses of the poem. Its most memorable scenes are those packed with concrete detail (chapter 21 is a good example); its weakest parts are those devoted to abstract philosophical speculation, such as the obscurely pretentious prologue. Yet for all their thematic similarity, the two works are very different: the poem is a coherent, artistically integrated entity, whereas the novel is uneven, confusing and disjointed. To account for this difference, the reader need look no further than the obvious fact that the prose work, by its very nature, lacks most, if not all, of the unifying devices available to the writer of verse. These Yevtushenko exploits to the full in Stantsiya Zima. Whether he has been able to sustain this standard is a question to which he may have given an answer by switching to prose. In Yagodnyye mesta he puts into the mouth of another alter ego, the young poet Kostya Krivtsov, first a dismissive comment about his great contemporary Voznesensky and then the following answer to the question “What about Yevtushenko?” “He's also passé.” (Eto tozhe proydennyy etap.)

Others have subscribed to the same bleak view of Yevtushenko, most recently Martin Seymour-Smith, who pronounces him “written out”.⁷ Yet whatever the truth of this, the technical and thematic variety of Stantsiya Zima will secure his place in the history of modern Soviet literature.

Notes

1. There is a comprehensive bibliography of Soviet criticism of Yevtushenko in Russkiye sovetskiye pisateli: poety, Moscow, 1984, vol. 7, pp. 347-482. There are very few critical studies of Yevtushenko published in the West. Most notable are R. Milner-Gulland's introduction to the volume quoted in note 2 and the same author's article in the Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet Literature, Gulf Breeze, Florida, 1984, vol 7, pp. 115-22.

2. Most easily accessible in R. Milner-Gulland (ed.), Yevgenii Yevtushenko: Selected Poetry, Oxford, 1963, pp. 1-35, it is also found in Kachka, London, 1966, pp. 157-91.

3. All line references in this article are to the Izbrannyye proizvedeniya edition of the poem.

4. In his Khochu ya stat' nemnozhko staromodnym (1963).

5. In the Oktyabr' version, the adjective here was prostoy. Other examples of folks reduplication are rano-rano (644) and ochen'-ochen' (936).

6. Also in Oktyabr' (1958, no. 10, pp. 97-115), it is most accessible in Kachka (see note 2), pp. 53-75.

7. M. Seymour-Smith, Macmillan Guide to Modern World Literature, London, 1985, p. 1095.

This article is based on a paper given to the Anglo-Soviet seminar on Russian language and literature held in the Pushkin Institute, Moscow, 15-24 September, 1986.