Robert Ivanovich Rozhdestvensky (Russian: Ро́берт Ива́нович Рожде́ственский; 20 June 1932 – 19 August 1994) was a Soviet-Russian poet and Songwriter who broke with socialist realism in the 1950s–1960s during the Khrushchev Thaw and, along with such poets as Andrey Voznesensky, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and Bella Akhmadulina, pioneered a newer, fresher, and freer style of poetry in the Soviet Union.
