Babi Yar - Analysis of the Poem
Babi Yar - Analysis of the PoemYevtushenko speaks in first person throughout the poem. This creates the tone of him being in the shoes of the Jews. As he says in
lines 63-64, "No Jewish blood is mixed in mine, but let me be a Jew .
. . " He writes the poem to evoke compassion for the Jews and make
others aware of their hardships and injustices. "Only then can I call
myself Russian." (lines 66-67). The poet writes of a future time when
the Russian people realize that the Jews are people as well accept
them as such. If you hate the Jews, he asks, why not hate me as well?
True peace and unity will only occur when they have accepted everyone,
including the Jews.
Stanza I describes the forest of Babi Yar, a ravine on the
outskirts of Kiev. It was the site of the Nazi massacre of more than
thirty thousand Russian Jews on September 29-30, 1941. There is no
memorial to the thirty thousand, but fear pervades the area. Fear that
such a thing could occur at the hands of other humans. The poet feels
the persecution and pain and fear of the Jews who stood there in this
place of horror. Yevtushenko makes himself an Israelite slave of Egypt
and a martyr who died for the sake of his religion. In lines 7-8, he
claims that he still bars the marks of the persecution of the past.
There is still terrible persecution of the Jews in present times
because of their religion. These lines serve as the transition from
the Biblical and ancient examples he gives to the allusions of more
recent acts of hatred. The lines also allude to the fact that these
Russian Jews who were murdered at Babi Yar were martyrs as well.
The next stanza reminds us of another event in Jewish history
where a Jew was persecuted solely because of his religious beliefs.
The poet refers to the "pettiness" (line 11) of anti-Semitism as the
cause of Dreyfus' imprisonment. Anti-Semitism is his "betrayer" (line
12) when he is framed, and anti-Semitism is his "judge" (line 12) when
he is wrongly found guilty. Lines 13-14 claim that even the fine and
supposedly civilized women of society shun Dreyfus because he is a Jew
and fear him like they would fear an animal.
In stanza III, Yevtushenko brings himself to the midst of the
pogroms of Bielostok. He gives the readers the image of a young
boy on the floor being beaten and bleeding while he witnesses others
beat his mother. In line 24, he gives the reader the rationale of the
Russians who are inflicting such atrocities on the Jews. "'Murder the
Jews! Save Russia!'" They view the Jews as the curse of Russia;
a Jewish plague that must end in order to save their country from
evil. In a way they think that...
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