Official rebel
Sir: Surely those who supported Yevgeni Yew- tushenko (alias Eugenius Eutychianus, alias
Yesmebi Yesithinkso, alias Party Hack) as a brave rebel, and those who denounced him as a 'squalid psuedo-liberal,' in the context not of his biography, not of a study in Soviet affairs, but of the Poetry election, were equally wrong- headed Philistines quite unqualified to pro- nounce on any candidate therefor. Despite the vapourings of Mexican Maoists and profes- sional anti-communists, poetic excellence has nothing to do with political attitudes: Pushkin is none the worse a poet for supporting Nicholas
I's suppression of the Poles; The Flowering Rifle' is a marvellous poem however false and loathsome Campbell's views on Spain. Whether Yevtushenko seat that telegram to BrezhneV or not does not affect his standing as a poet.
Yevtushenko is a good poet (I have read him in Russian); so were other candidates, whose views on Vietnam, Rhodesia, Czechoslovakia, Biafra, and Wolverhampton, were not asked. In so far as undergraduates' opinions (who after all will be those listening or not listening) should be considered in the election, I can testify that Yevtushenko's candidature aroused an excited response that no other did, which response (while not, 1 admit, based on knowledge of his work) was not political (Yevtushenko's politics I never heard mentioned till the Amis letter, when it was decided Kinglsey Amis must be wrong by definition), but rather an aesthetic appreciation of an imaginative gesture. This of course does not affect his standing as a poet; but may be thought to enhance his suitability to lecture.
If it be objected that this distinction could re- admit political considerations. I answer that these are alien to the concept of a liberal uni- versity: if a fascist or a communist be the best qualified candidate, let him be appointed. One might object that the undergraduates might dis- rupt or boycott his lectures; but whether or no that be a legitimate consideration, it clearly did not apply in the present case. Therefore, what- ever the legitimate criteria for voting for or against Yevtushenko, his attitude to the Soviet government), whether ascertainable or not, was quite irrelevant.
L. A. Holford-Strevens Christ Church, Oxford
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