Born in Siberia in 1932, Yevgeny Yevtushenko was a Russian poet, novelist, actor, and director who achieved great fame in the Soviet Union during the cultural "Khrushchev Thaw" that occurred following the death of Stalin in 1953. Yevtushenko rose to prominence following the publication of his long poem Babiyy Yar, a work about the Nazi massacre of Jewish citizens in Kiev and the Soviet Union's refusal to acknowledge it. Many years later, in 1991, Yevtushenko received in the American Liberties Medallion: the highest honor conferred by the American Jewish Committee.