Ilya Ehrenburg, Jewish-born Soviet writer, has disassociated himself from Russian critics who have attacked Yevgeny Yevtushenko for writing a poem denouncing anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union, according to a Moscow dispatch received here today.
The Soviet literary periodical, Literatura i Zhizn, had printed an article by D. Starikov, a Soviet critic, assailing Yevtushenko for writing the poem “Babi Yaar. ” In that poem, Yevtushenko deplored the fact that no monument has been put up for the 40,000 Jews murdered by the Nazis in Kiev at Babi Yaar, a section of the capital of the Soviet Ukraine. Starikov had accused Yevtushenko of backsliding, and had quoted from old Ehrenburg writings in support.
In his rejoiner, Ehrenburg wrote: “I deem it necessary to say that Starikov quotes from my articles and poems according to his own desire, abbreviating them so they correspond to his ideas and contradict mine.” The Moscow dispatch recalled that Ehrenburg declared recently on the Moscow radio: “I am a Russian writer. But as long as there is even one anti-Semite, I will respond and J. will have it written in my passport: I am a Jew.”
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