Voznesensky was born on May 12, 1933 in Moscow, Soviet Union. His father, Andrei Nikolaevich Voznesensky, was a professor of engineering, while his mother, Antonina Sergeevna Pastushikhina, influenced him early on by reading poetry in his presence.
Voznesensky graduated from the Moscow Architectural Institute in 1957 with a degree in engineering. His enthusiasm for poetry, though, proved to be stronger.
Voznesensky explores a wide range of forms and themes, from elegaic poems about his native land to rowdy celebrations of airports, American strippers, and Parisian motorcycle gangs. Major themes include war, death, violence, and injustice; the primary importance of nature; the role of the artist; and the deceptiveness of outward appearances. He is famous for his dramatic public readings of his poems, which he gives both abroad and in the Soviet Union. His most famous poem is the passionate "I am Goya, " which links the 18th-century Spanish artist and his grotesque etchings on war with images of suffering and death. His interest in art is reflected in such poems as "Master Craftsman" and "New York Airport at Night. " He submitted his first poems to Boris Pasternak, whom he acknowledges as his major influence. Important collections include Mosaic (1960), Antiworlds (1964), Nostalgia for the Present (1975; 1976), and An Arrow in the Wall (1987), a selection of poetry and prose. He is among the most outspoken writers in the Soviet Union against government censorship.
(Andrei Voznesenskii (1933-2010), an architect by educatio...)
(This is a collection of the best poems by Andrei Voznesen...)
(Translated and with introduction by Anselm Hollo. A very ...)
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Honorary member of the Russian Academy of Education (1993), the American Academy of Literature and Art, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, the Paris Academy Goncourt brothers and the European Academy of Poetry
Voznesensky married Zoya Borisovna Boguslavskaya in 1964.
