Poet Joseph Brodsky biography. Joseph Brodsky
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BRODSKY Joseph Alexandrovich (1940, Leningrad - 1996, New York; buried in Venice), Russian poet and translator.
Brodsky's life in the USSR
Brodsky's poems, as a rule, did not appear in the Soviet censorship press. Several of his poems were published in the Samizdat magazine Syntax (1958–60), which finally blocked his path to official literature. Brodsky's poetic translations became widely known.
In 1964, a trial was held of the poet, who was accused of "parasitism" and sentenced to five years of forced labor in the North. The trial was held in an atmosphere of anti-Semitism. Brodsky was sent by stage to the village of Norenskaya, Konoshsky district, Arkhangelsk region. The shorthand record of Brodsky’s trial, secretly made by the journalist and writer Frida Vigdorova, who was present at the trial, became widely known in the USSR and abroad, thanks to samizdat and numerous publications in the Western press. Subsequently, Brodsky was arrested several times and released after a short detention.
Life in the West
In 1972, the Soviet authorities handed Brodsky, contrary to his wishes, a visa to leave for Israel and actually sent him out of the USSR. He settled in the USA. In the West, Brodsky taught at various universities, being a "poet at the university" and a visiting professor at the University of Michigan and Columbia (USA), Cambridge University (England) and a number of colleges. In 1991, he became a professor of literature at Mount Holywalk College in South Headley, Massachusetts.
Brodsky's poems were markedly influenced by symbolism and surrealism, while at the same time they synthesized the features of classical poetic traditions and styles. His great poem “Isaac and Abraham” is written based on the Bible. Brodsky’s poem “The Jewish cemetery near Leningrad” is considered one of the best works on the Jewish theme written in the Soviet Union. In 1965 and 1970 in New York, two collections of Brodsky’s poems (“Poems and Poems” and “Stop in the Desert”) were published in Russian. In Stockholm, when asked by the interviewer whether he considers himself Russian or American, Brodsky answered: “ I am a Jew, Russian poet and English essayist».
In 1977, Brodsky published the first poetry collections in exile - “The End of a Beautiful Era”, summing up the last years of his work in Russia (1964–71), and “Part of Speech”, which included works of the pre-departure year and verses written over five years emigration. At the same time, Brodsky published critical prose and essays, mainly written in English and compiled in 1986 by the author in a separate collection, Less Than One, recognized as the best literary and critical book of the year in the United States. Brodsky wrote critical essays in Russian devoted to the works of A. Platonov (1973) and Marina Tsvetaeva (1979, 1981), published as prefaces to the publications of these authors in the West.
In the collection “New stanzas for Augustus. Poems to M. B., 1962-1982. " (1983) includes poems written over twenty years, united by one lyrical addressee. Poems from this collection, as well as previously unpublished works published in the expat periodicals, compiled the final Urania collection for Brodsky (1987; the English version of the same name in auto translations with the addition of several poems written in English, 1988). Selected Verses 1987–1989 compiled a collection of “Fern Notes” (1990). Brodsky is the author of two plays: Marble (magazine Twenty-Two, T.-A., 1984, No. 32) and Democracy! (1990).
In 1979, Brodsky was elected a member of the American Academy and the Institute of Arts and Literature (where he came from in 1987). In 1981, he was awarded the "MacArthur Prize of Geniuses", and in 1986, the National Prize for Literary Critics. In 1987, Brodsky received the Nobel Prize for Literature "for his comprehensive work, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity." In 1992, he was elected poet and laureate of the Library of Congress. In May 1995, on the occasion of the poet’s 55th birthday, in St. Petersburg the Zvezda magazine organized and held an international scientific conference on the work of Joseph Brodsky.
Since the end of 1987, Brodsky’s works have been widely published (including without the knowledge of the author) in Russia, where almost all of his works have been reprinted. Since 1997, Brodsky's collected works in seven volumes have been published in St. Petersburg.
Sources
- KEE, Volume 1 + Add. 2, count 546-547 + 231-232
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky (May 24, 1940 - January 28, 1996) is a Russian poet, writer, essayist and translator who emigrated to the United States of America already being famous and famous. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature, and in 1991-1992 he twice became a poet laureate in the United States.
Childhood
Joseph Alexandrovich was born on May 24 in Leningrad, a purebred Jew by birth. His father was a fairly well-known and respected person in his youth, as he served in the Naval Forces of the Soviet Union, but was discharged in 1950, after which he decided to pursue a career as a photojournalist.
Initially, he worked there, in the Navy, in one of the branches of a military newspaper, publishing various draft leaflets and inspiring articles. Later, he was promoted as a journalist, so he was able to travel freely around the cities of Russia, filming reports in the hottest spots. Joseph’s mother worked as an ordinary accountant, and her sister, being a talented and gifted person, was a famous actress of the Komissarzhevskaya theater.
Brodsky’s childhood was very difficult. Due to frequent business trips, the boy grew up without a father and was in the full care of his mother and her sister. At the time of Joseph's birth, the situation in the country was tense: hunger, unemployment, terrible siege months - all this was reflected in the residents who tried to leave as far as possible. Mother, fearing for the life and fate of the child, decides to move to Cherepovets, where little Joseph goes to first grade. However, in the future he replaces another 5 schools, as the family is evacuated from city to city.
Being in seventh grade, Brodsky decides to submit a request to the Baltic Maritime College to follow in his father's footsteps. But for unknown reasons, the boy almost immediately receives a refusal to enter. Having realized that, apparently, is still not suitable for the service, Joseph decides to continue his studies in high school.
Youth
In 1955, at the age of sixteen, Joseph Brodsky decided to go to work. This was due not only to the fact that he needed pocket money, but also to the desire to somehow help his family, which in those years was very poor. Initially, the young man is an assistant milling machine operator at the Arsenal plant. But the salary paid there does not at all cover the most meager expenses and labor spent on production.
Brodsky unsuccessfully tries to enroll in guides, and then gets inspired by the idea of \u200b\u200bbecoming a doctor and even goes to the assistant prospector at a local morgue. However, here he does not get what he wants, so after two months he goes to work in the boiler room.
Since 1957, Brodsky finally becomes a little closer to his dream of becoming a sailor. He travels and trades as part of the NIIGA expedition, swims in the White Sea, visits Eastern Siberia and Northern Yakutia. But in 1961, the expedition faced the most serious problem - the lack of animals for further crossing. Team members are forced to live for six months in one of the Yakut settlements, where Joseph suffered a severe nervous breakdown. After that, he is sent back to Leningrad.
Career of a poet
According to Joseph Alexandrovich himself, he began to compose poems only at the age of eighteen. Acquainted with such prominent poets as Tsvetaeva, Baratynsky and Mandelstam, he was so inspired by creativity and writing that he wanted to certainly try to create a work on his own. The first creations of the beginning poet were such poems as “Monument to Pushkin”, “Christmas Romance” and “Pilgrims”, which were written in a very musical and lyrical mood.
On February 14, 1960, Joseph Brodsky participated in his first public event with the participation of the most prominent writers and poets. The “Poets' Tournament" - this is the name of the event - takes place in the Gorky Leningrad Palace of Culture, which attracts talented people from all over the country. It was there that the budding poet Brodsky performs on the same stage with such personalities as Kushner, Sosnor, Gorbovsky and many others. For the "tournament of poets" he chooses the poem "Jewish cemetery", after reading which the opinions of the general public radically diverge. Some see Brodsky as a talented person who cares about the fate of his homeland, while others accuse him of blasphemy and wastefulness, as well as the absence of any skill and poetic talent.
In 1960, Joseph made a tourist trip to one of the ancient cities of Uzbekistan - Samarkand. Here he plans not only to see the eastern sights, but also, perhaps, find inspiration in them for the creation of new poems. During the trip, Brodsky met Oleg Shakhmatov, a revolutionary-minded man who, after reading Joseph’s poems, does not hide his reverence and reverence for the poet. Young people even try to develop a plan to escape abroad, since Brodsky does not see his future in his homeland, but everything remains in words, and Chess soon disappears from Joseph's life.
Brodsky's obvious poetic talent and abilities were not perceived positively by all. By 1963, the newspaper “Evening Leningrad” published a negative review not only of Brodsky’s poems, but also of the poet’s personality. The article provides several lines of his latest creations, which form the phrase that excited the public - “I love someone else’s homeland”. After this, it becomes clear to writers and critics that persecution will soon begin against Brodsky, although the author himself does not share such views and continues to compose poems.
A year later, the fears are justified - in the same newspaper they print a complaint asking them to punish "Brodsky's parasitic", after which the poet is arrested and put in prison, where he has a heart attack. It is he who becomes the first serious health problem of Joseph, which he mentions in poems such as “What can I say about life?” What turned out to be long ”and“ Hello, my aging! ”. By the way, both works were written by Brodsky at the age of 30.
Relocation to America
Thanks to constant letters and requests from such famous poets and writers as Akhmatova, Tvardovsky, Paustovsky, Marshak, Mandelstam and others, Iosif Aleksandrovich was released from prison a year ahead of schedule. There was no longer any sense or desire to stay at home, so by 1972 he emigrated to the United States of America, where he subsequently published such books as “New Stanzas in August”, “Gorbunov and Gorchakov”, “Stop in the Desert”, “ The end of a beautiful era ”and others.
Since July 1972, Brodsky, almost finished with a writing career, became an ordinary university teacher. Over the last years of his life, he has been teaching young people at more than 25 universities in the United States of America. He gives lectures and master classes at New York University, teaches world literature and theory of poetry at Columbia University. He receives a good salary and, most importantly, freedom from the numerous persecutions, negative reviews and criticism that constantly haunted him at home.
Personal life
In 1962, Joseph Alexandrovich meets his first love - a novice artist Marianna Basmanova, who becomes a muse throughout almost the entire poetry career of Brodsky. He dedicates poems to her, takes care of her, and on October 8 of the same year, the son of Andrei is born to the couple. But family happiness has no place in Joseph’s life, on which persecution begins, therefore, in order to protect his wife and child, he divorces Marianne and moves out, staying in touch only by correspondence.
Already in exile in the United States, Brodsky meets Maria Sazzani, an Italian aristocratic girl whose mother was Russian. A year later, the couple legalizes the relationship, and in 1993 they have a daughter, Anna.
(1940-1996) russian poet, prose writer, essayist, translator
Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich is known as a poet, playwright, translator and essayist. After the collection of poems went abroad, the author also gained international fame. He became the youngest of the writers awarded the Nobel Prize. And not only was he able to expand the poetic potential of his native language, but also became a symbol of intellectual opposition to moral degeneration and total lie.
Childhood
Joseph Brodsky was born into an ordinary intelligent Leningrad family. My father was a certified geographer, and graduated from the School of Red Journalists. Since 1940, he worked for 8 years as a military photographer, went through the war, starting in Finland and ending with China. The cleansing of army ranks from people of Jewish nationality in 1950 caused demobilization. Since that time, the family was forced to be content with inconsistent earnings from small articles and pictures sold to various factory copies.
The difficult financial situation of the family was one of the reasons for leaving the future poet. Joseph Brodsky dropped out of school at 16. In just a few years, he managed to change a number of professions. At first he worked as a student on a milling machine, then as an assistant in the morgue, for a long time he worked as a stoker and a sailor.
Another significant reason Brodsky left school was the rejection of hypocrisy and total lies actively introduced among children.
Youth
At the age of 17, the life of Joseph Brodsky was not yet connected with literature, he became a worker in one of the expeditions that conducted geological research. As part of a group of researchers, he visited several times on the shores of the White Sea, in Siberia, in some areas of Northern Yakutia. During this period of his biography, the future poet reads a lot, paying special attention to works with a philosophical bias, and independently studies Polish and English.
The beginning of the creative path
The first poetic lines were written by Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich at the age of eighteen. A year later, the future poet gets acquainted with the then-famous authors of poetry, Sergei Dovlatov, Bulat Okudzhava and others. Brodsky's first literary debut is a poetry tournament in 1961. , then in his biography came a turning point.
The young author read his recently written work, The Jewish Cemetery. Brodsky not only performed the work in a new way, as if singing poetic lines. The content of the work was also innovative. Not all listeners unequivocally perceived the poems of the beginning poet. The execution of the "Jewish cemetery" by Brodsky caused a real scandal.
During this period, Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich tried to engage in translation activities.
In early 1961, Brodsky met with A. Akhmatova. This was one of the significant events in the fate of the young writer. Akhmatova appreciated the talent and became Brodsky's spiritual mentor. His biography of him during this period is replenished with a number of created works: poems “Hills”, “Guest”, “Isaac and Abraham”, poems.
From that moment on, Brodsky Joseph Aleksandrovich came to literary fame, however, official circles rejected the young poet, considering his work alien.
Court and Link
In 1964, arrest and a trial of Brodsky took place, which can serve as a vivid example of opposition to the system. The poet was charged with parasitism. The process was indicative, it was accompanied by the publication in the press of a number of incriminating articles. Details of the court became known to the world community, arousing interest in Brodsky. After this, the poet’s biographies were retold as a legend, and the name gained fame not only among writers and admirers of creativity.
At the end of the trial, the poet was sentenced to exile. Joseph Brodsky went to one of the villages of the Arkhangelsk region. Well-known poets and writers came to his defense. Protests in literary circles and the widespread interest of the world public contributed to the early release of Joseph Brodsky. The biography of the poet from this moment is confirmation of reaching a new level. The poet grew stronger spiritually, understood his true purpose, and decided not to back down from his principles. It was here that his personality was finally formed.
During this period, Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich reads works of English poets in the original, studying world literature. In a link both disparate poems and entire cycles were born. The works were published after the emigration of the author.
Return from link
The return to Leningrad was another test for Joseph Brodsky. In his case, he contained information about the court and the exile, spoiling his biography, this was the reason for the refusal to register him in an apartment owned by the family. Only the intervention of well-known and respected cultural figures helped solve this problem.
In order to avoid repeated accusations of parasitism, Brodsky, whose life is now under close supervision, with the support of K. Chukovsky and B. Vakhtin, takes a job as a translator in the USSR Writers Union.
The works written during this period reflected the atmosphere in which the poet lived and worked: alienation, lack of demand, constant humiliation and suspicion. For the first time a collection of poems by Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich was published abroad. Thanks to the support of friends, the author was able to transport part of his works abroad. Brodsky, whose work and biography became the subject of research by many literary scholars, is rightly considered a classic of Russian poetry.
After the end of the period known as the Thaw, the poet’s situation worsened. The attitude towards him on the part of representatives of the official authorities spoke of his obvious objection. Despite the love of the motherland, Brodsky had to emigrate.
Life in exile
In 1972, Joseph Brodsky, whose life and biography contains many turning points, makes a final decision and moves to the United States. A well-known author abroad immediately receives an invitation to work at the University of Michigan. The poet, who barely received incomplete secondary education in the Soviet Union, held professorships at many leading universities in the USA and Great Britain for almost a quarter of a century.
Brodsky's biography which is an example of successful emigration and arrangement in a new place, missed his native city. He especially wanted to meet with his parents, who had not been released from the country until his death. Parents were buried without the participation of the poet, who was refused a request for entry. The bitterness of the loss of dear people found expression in the works.
Personal life
At the beginning of 1962, Joseph Brodsky, whose biography contains data on several stormy novels, met the daughter of the famous artist P. Basmanov. Marina Basmanova and Brodsky stayed together for only a few years. During this time, the poet devoted many works to his beloved woman. In 1967, the son of Marina Basmanova and Brodsky, Andrei, was born.
The reason for the breakup was another novel. This time, the ballet dancer M. Kuznetsova became the poet’s passion. As a result of a short relationship, Brodsky also had a daughter.
In 1990, Brodsky's biography up to this point, which did not contain data on the formalization of relations with women, marries a representative of the Italian aristocracy. The age difference between the spouses was almost 30 years. In marriage, the couple had a daughter.
World fame
At the age of forty, Joseph Brodsky, whose biography was already known in the West, thanks to works written in English, gains worldwide fame as a writer. The biography of Joseph Brodsky was replenished with another significant date, in 1987 becoming the youngest Nobel laureate in the field of literature. Then, for the first time in 20 years, the poet’s poems are published in the homeland.
By the end of the decade, the first studies of creativity appeared. Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich almost immediately receives many prestigious literary prizes.
Success and popularity were a fair reward for suffering and persecution. However, the experiences of past years did not pass without a trace. In the 90s, the poet underwent another heart operation.
In January 1996, Brodsky's wife announced his death. As it was established later, the cause was another heart attack. The poet is buried in Venice.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky Born in Leningrad a year before the start of World War II, in the family of a photographer and a housewife. During the war, father was a military photojournalist, and little Joseph and his mother spent wartime in evacuation. After the war, everyone again returned to Leningrad to their “one and a half rooms” - that is how I. Brodsky called their communal apartment in his autobiographical prose. “There were three of us in these one and a half rooms: father, mother and I. The family was an ordinary Russian family of the time. The time was post-war, and very few could afford to have more than one child. Some had no way to even have a father - unharmed those present: great terror and war have worked everywhere, especially in my city. Therefore, we should have been lucky, given the fact that we are Jews. "
Joseph did not even graduate from high school. At fifteen, he left her, feeling irresistible boredom. He changed many professions. He worked as a milling machine operator at a factory, a stoker in a boiler room, a laboratory assistant at the institute, and a worker in geological expeditions with which he visited Yakutia and Central Asia. Then he begins to write poetry.
In 1959, Brodsky met with Eugene Rain. Poems of the Rhine by this time were already highly valued among young Leningrad poets. He was acquainted with Anna Andreevna Akhmatova. First, Rhine showed her Brodsky's poems, and then he introduced her to the author himself. Akhmatova immediately appreciated the degree of talent of a still very young poet. She was attracted by temperament, audacity and the depth of poetry.
The period of apprenticeship that every poet has, passed at Brodsky very quickly. "Secrets of the craft" comprehended rapidly. Starting to write at the age of seventeen, by the age of nineteen or twenty he had already become a masterly verse master.
The formation of Brodsky’s poetic voice falls on a “poetic boom” in a country experiencing a massive enthusiasm for poetry. E. Evtushenko, A. Voznesensky, R. Rozhdestvensky and others assemble stadiums and huge halls for their performances. Books of poetry are published in thousands (if not millions) of copies. But Brodsky is not printed. The themes, images, tonality of his poems do not coincide with the canons of Soviet art, the canons of "socialist realism." Can a Soviet poet speak of the absurdity of life? How can he ask about the meaning of his own existence?
In 1954, a wave of struggle against parasites swept through the Soviet Union. This wave also covered Brodsky, who did not have a permanent job, living on meager remuneration fees. And Brodsky was arrested. An indicative open process took place. At the trial, he behaved with exceptional courage and dignity. When asked by the prosecutor who gave him the right to be called a poet, Brodsky answered: "I think it is from God."
The verdict of the court was relatively mild (nevertheless, it was not Stalin's time) - 5 years of exile with involvement in hard physical labor. The poet was serving a link in the village of Norensky Arkhangelsk region. Living conditions were difficult, but they were no different from the conditions in which the locals themselves were. Consolation to Brodsky was the glory of the disgraced poet, a growing respect for his talent. In 1965, the first collection of "Poems and Poems" was compiled and transported abroad in America. Court and exile played a "favorable" role in the fate of the poet. Thanks to them, he gained fame and attention to himself, not only at home, but also abroad. Brodsky defends the creative intelligentsia on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Intercession of such people as A. Akhmatova, K. Chukovsky, J.-P. Sartre, D. Shostakovich and others, had an effect. The link lasted only a year and a half. The poet is returning home.
Brodsky was never a political poet. Never aspired to conflicts with the authorities. Until his departure, he hoped to print in his homeland. A certain vital and poetic credo is developed, thanks to which the poet can live and create in the world that is sent by fate. The quintessence of this creed was the 1972 poem Letters to a Roman Friend. Loneliness is realized, perceived as the best destiny for the poet. And the absurdity of the world around us causes only good-natured, although not without some bitterness, irony:
I am sitting in my garden, the lamp is on. No girlfriend, no maids, no acquaintances. Instead of the weak of this world and the strong - Only a consonant buzz of insects. Indeed, Postumus, chicken is not a bird, But grief is enough with chicken brains. If it fell to the Empire to be born, it is better to live in a remote province, by the sea. (II, 284)But such "prosperity" in its proud loneliness in the eyes of the Empire is against the law. In the spring of 1972, Brodsky was presented with an ultimatum: either he must leave the country, or "he will be in trouble." July 4, 1972, the poet flew to Vienna, and then to the United States.
Having lost his native language environment, native soil, Brodsky hardly gets used to the American situation. In his poems is now a terribly devastated world. The landscape turns into a still life. There will be no signs of time or place. The hero turns into "absolute nothingness", "a man in a cloak", still alive, but sandwiched from all sides by nothingness. In almost every work, we see a world of inanimate objects in which "a lonely eyelid twitches", i.e. the poet's view of this world. But in the end, this is the loneliness that he wanted, but only his taste turned out to be more bitter than sweet. Sometimes bitterness is so unbearable that the heart cannot stand it. And two heart attacks suffered by Brodsky are proof of this.
In 1987, Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize, becoming, incidentally, the youngest "Nobel" in literature. And in 1991, he was elected to the United States as a poet laureate. Brodsky dared to learn English not only in his prose work (mainly I. Brodsky’s prose was written in English), but also in poetic. Which was appreciated.
I. Brodsky died of a heart attack on the night of January 28-29, 1996 in his New York apartment.
He was buried in Venice, in the city that the poet loved and visited almost every year. Probably, Venice reminded him of his native Leningrad.
"What a biography, however, is made to our redhead!" - Anna Akhmatova joked gloomily in the midst of the trial of Joseph Brodsky. In addition to a high-profile court, a controversial fate prepared the poet for a link to the North and the Nobel Prize, incomplete eight classes of education and the career of a university professor, 24 years outside his native language environment and the discovery of new opportunities for the Russian language.
Leningrad youth
Joseph Brodsky was born in Leningrad in 1940. After 42 years, in an interview with a Dutch journalist, he recalled his hometown: “Leningrad shapes your life, your consciousness to the extent that the visual aspects of life can influence us. This is a huge cultural conglomerate, but without bad taste, without mishmash. An amazing sense of proportion, classic facades breathe peace. And all this affects you, makes you strive for order in life, although you realize that you are doomed. Such a noble attitude towards chaos, resulting either in stoicism or snobbery ”.
In the first year of the war, after the besieged winter of 1941-1942, Joseph's mother Maria Volpert took him to evacuation to Cherepovets, where they lived until 1944. Volpert served as a translator in the prisoner of war camp, and Brodsky’s father, naval officer and photojournalist Alexander Brodsky, participated in the defense of the Lesser Land and the breaking of the blockade of Leningrad. He returned to his family only in 1948 and continued to serve as head of the photo laboratory of the Central Naval Museum. Joseph Brodsky all his life recalled walking through the museum as a child: “In general, I have rather wonderful feelings towards the navy. I don’t know where they came from, but here is childhood, and father, and hometown ... As I recall, the Naval Museum, St. Andrew's flag - a blue cross on a white cloth ... There is no better flag in the world! ”
Joseph often changed schools; his attempt to enter the naval school after the seventh grade was not crowned with success either. In 1955, he left the eighth grade and got a job at the Arsenal plant as a milling machine operator. Then he worked as an assistant to the prosector in the morgue, as a fireman, and as a photographer. Finally, he joined a group of geologists and participated in expeditions for several years, during one of which he discovered a small uranium deposit in the Far East. At the same time, the future poet was actively engaged in self-education, became interested in literature. The strongest impression on him was made by the poems of Eugene Baratynsky and Boris Slutsky.
Joseph Brodsky. Photo: yeltsin.ru
Joseph Brodsky with a cat. Photo: interesno.cc
Joseph Brodsky. Photo: dayonline.ru
In Leningrad, Brodsky was talked about in the early 1960s, when he performed at a poetry tournament in the Gorky Palace of Culture. The poet Nikolai Rubtsov spoke about this performance in a letter:
“Of course, there were poets with a decadent soul. For example, Brodsky. Holding the microphone leg with both hands and bringing it close to his mouth, he loudly and burrily, shaking his head to the beat of the poems, read:
Everyone has his own trash!
Each has its own glob!
There was a noise! Some shout:
- What does poetry have to do with it ?!
- Down with him!
Others scream:
“Brodsky, still!”
Then Brodsky began to communicate with the poet Eugene Rain. In 1961, the Rhine introduced Joseph to Anna Akhmatova. Although Brodsky’s poems usually notice the influence of Marina Tsvetaeva, whose work he first met in the early 1960s, it was Akhmatova who became his full-time critic and teacher. The poet Lev Losev wrote: “Akhmatova’s phrase“ You yourself don’t understand what you wrote! ” after reading "The Great Elegy to John Donne" entered Brodsky's personal myth as a moment of initiation ".
Court and world fame
In 1963, after a speech at the plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee, the first secretary of the Central Committee, Nikita Khrushchev, began to be eradicated among young people "Loungers, moral cripples and whiners"writing in "Bird slang of loafers and underschools". Joseph Brodsky also became a target, who by this time had been twice detained by law enforcement agencies: the first time for publishing in the manuscript journal Syntax, and the second for informing a friend. He himself did not like to recall those events, because he believed: the poet’s biography is only “In his vowels and hissing, in his meters, rhymes and metaphors”.
Joseph Brodsky. Photo: bessmertnybarak.ru
Joseph Brodsky at the Nobel Prize. Photo: russalon.su
Joseph Brodsky with his cat. Photo: binokl.cc
In the newspaper “Evening Leningrad” dated November 29, 1963, an article appeared on the “Literary Literature Drone”, the authors of which branded Brodsky, quoting not his poems and juggling fabricated facts about him. On February 13, 1964, Brodsky was again arrested. He was accused of parasitism, although by this time his poems were regularly published in children's magazines, publishers ordered translations for him. The whole world learned about the details of the process thanks to Moscow journalist Frida Vigdorova, who was present in the courtroom. Vigdorova’s records were sent to the West and hit the press.
Judge: What are you doing?
Brodsky: I write poetry. I'm translating. I suppose…
Judge: No "I suppose." Stand as you should! Do not lean against the walls!<...> Do you have a permanent job?
Brodsky: I thought it was a permanent job.
Judge: Answer for sure!
Brodsky: I wrote poetry! I thought they would be printed. I suppose…
Judge: We are not interested in "I suppose." Answer why you did not work?
Brodsky: I worked. I wrote poetry.
Judge: We are not interested in this ...
Witnesses of the defense were the poet Natalia Grudinina and prominent Leningrad professors-philologists and translators Efim Etkind and Vladimir Admoni. They tried to convince the court that literary work cannot be equated with parasitism, and the translations published by Brodsky were performed at a high professional level. The prosecution witnesses were not familiar with Brodsky and his work: among them were a supply manager, a military man, a pipe-laying worker, a pensioner, and a teacher of Marxism-Leninism. A representative of the Writers' Union also sided with the prosecution. The verdict was harsh: deportation from Leningrad for five years with mandatory involvement in labor.
Brodsky settled in the village of the Norensky Arkhangelsk region. He worked at the state farm, and in his spare time he read a lot, became interested in English poetry and began to learn English. About the early return of the poet from exile, Frida Vigdorova and writer Lydia Chukovskaya were busy. A letter in his defense was signed by Dmitry Shostakovich, Samuel Marshak, Korney Chukovsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Alexander Twardovsky, Yuri German and many others. For Brodsky stood up and "friend of the Soviet Union" French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. In September 1965, Joseph Brodsky was officially released.
Russian poet and american citizen
In the same year, the first collection of Brodsky's poems was published in the United States, prepared without the knowledge of the author on the basis of self-published materials sent to the West. The next book, Desert Stop, was published in New York in 1970 - it is considered Brodsky's first authorized publication. After the exile, the poet was enrolled in a certain “professional group” under the Writers' Union, which avoided further suspicions of parasitism. But only his children's poems were printed at home, sometimes they gave orders for translations of poetry or literary processing of dubbing for films. At the same time, the circle of foreign Slavists, journalists and publishers with whom Brodsky spoke in person and by correspondence became wider. In May 1972, he was summoned to the OVIR and offered to leave the country to avoid new persecution. Usually the paperwork for leaving the Soviet Union took from six months to a year, but a visa for Brodsky was issued in 12 days. June 4, 1972 Joseph Brodsky flew to Vienna. His parents, friends, former lover Marianna Basmanova, to whom almost all Brodsky’s love lyrics, and their son, remained in Leningrad.
Joseph Brodsky with Maria Sozzani. Photo: russalon.su
Joseph Brodsky with Maria Sozzani. Photo: feel-feed.ru
Joseph Brodsky with Maria Sozzani and one-year-old daughter Anna. 1994. Photo: biography.wikireading.ru
In Vienna, the poet was met by the American publisher Karl Proffer. By his patronage, Brodsky was offered a place at the University of Michigan. The position was called poet-in-residence (literally: “poet in presence”) and involved communication with students as a guest writer. In 1977, Brodsky received American citizenship. During his lifetime, five poetry collections were published containing translations from Russian into English and poems written by him in English. But in the West Brodsky became famous primarily as the author of numerous essays. He defined himself as “A Russian poet, an English-speaking essayist, and, of course, an American citizen”. The example of his mature Russian-language work was the poems included in the collections “Part of speech” (1977) and “Urania” (1987). In a conversation with Brodsky’s creative researcher Valentina Polukhina, poetess Akhmadulina explained the phenomenon of a Russian-speaking author in exile.
In 1987, Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature with the wording "For a comprehensive literary activity, characterized by clarity of thought and poetic intensity." In 1991, Brodsky took over as the poet laureate of the United States, a consultant to the Library of Congress, and launched the American Poetry and Literacy program to distribute cheap volumes of poetry to the public. In 1990, the poet married an Italian woman with Russian roots, Maria Sozzani, but their happy union was only five and a half years old.
In January 1996, Joseph Brodsky died. He was buried in one of his favorite cities - Venice, in an old cemetery on the island of San Michele.
