Essay Database

Yevtushenko's Babi Yar- Babi Yar, a poem written by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, tells the story of the Nazi invasion into a small part of Russia, in which, throughout the duration of World War II, over one-hundred thousand Jews, Gypsies and Russian POW's were brutally murdered. However, what is unique about this particular perspective is that the narrator is not a Jew, but a mere observer who is aghast at the atrocities that took place during the …

…remembering process, part of the humane society which feels a moral obligation to recognize what took place and to learn from that experience, lest humanity be condemned to repeat the unthinkable. Perhaps, it is most appropriate that Yevtushenko concludes the poem with the ironic charge of saying that only when all of the anti-Semitic and hate based people are hated and "spit on", can the narrator truly be a "Russian", the standard for true humanity.