Joseph Brodsky - biography, information, personal life. Brodsky Joseph - biography Joseph Brodsky biography and personal
Name: Joseph Brodsky
Age: 55 years
Place of Birth: Saint Petersburg
A place of death: New York, USA
Activity: poet, essayist, playwright, translator
Family status: was married
Joseph Brodsky - biography
Poet, translator, playwright Joseph Brodsky belonged to the category of dissident poets. His works have recently been included in the school curriculum. His lyrics could have been in demand earlier if political themes had not been seen in them. How much more people who graduated from school would be familiar with Brodsky’s work.
Childhood years, the poet's family
Joseph was born just before the war into a Jewish family. My father was first a war photographer, then moved to a newspaper as a simple photojournalist. Brodsky's family experienced the siege of Leningrad, horror and hunger. Joseph and his mother were evacuated from their hometown to Cherepovets. After the end of the war, my father worked at the Naval Museum in a darkroom. My mother always worked as an accountant.
Having returned to Leningrad before the Great Patriotic War ended, the boy changed one school after another for various reasons. He dreams of the sea, of school, but they don’t take him there. Without finishing the eighth grade of school, the guy began working as a milling machine operator at a factory in order to somehow help his family. But fate had a difficult biography in store for him.
He was a very enthusiastic person and changed many professions. He wanted to become a doctor and got a job as an assistant dissector in a morgue. He worked at a lighthouse as a sailor and in a boiler room as a stoker. I even went on expeditions with research institute geologists as a worker. I learned about Siberia, visited Yakutia, and saw the White Sea.
Joseph Brodsky - poetry
But his passion for reading never left him; he mainly chose poetry, and along the way studied foreign languages (Polish and English). Joseph himself tried to write poetry from the age of sixteen. Of course, at the beginning of his work he imitated Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova. The poem that was first published was “The Ballad of the Little Tugboat.” It was published in one of the issues of the magazine “Koster”.
Brodsky’s performance at the “Tournament of Poets” in Leningrad changed the whole life of the future poet. From the text of his poems, which he recited there, they selected several lines and accused Joseph of loving a foreign homeland. The indignant public demanded punishment. Suddenly, a whole selection of letters from ordinary citizens suddenly appeared, concerned that the poet was not working anywhere, and “ordinary citizens” wrote in literate literary language.
And the authorities could not think of a better way to arrest the poet as a parasite. He suffered a heart attack in his cell. Brodsky was an unrecognized genius. The country's leadership offered the poet a choice: emigration or a mental hospital. The poet leaves for America, taking citizenship of that country. Here it is, the American page of Brodsky’s biography.
The further fate of the poet
Abroad, Joseph Brodsky does not give up writing poetry. He actively takes part in many poetry festivals. He teaches the history of Russian literature at leading universities. Engaged in translations from his native language into English. He publishes collections of his own poems. Receives the Nobel Prize in Literature. He writes an essay where he asks questions and gives answers to them himself.
Perestroika
The nineties affected not only the political side of life in the Soviet Union, but also the literary one. Joseph Brodsky's poems began to be published in magazines and newspapers, and the poet's books were published. Many times he received an invitation to come to his homeland. But he did not want unnecessary noise around himself and constantly postponed his trip to the Soviet Union.
Joseph Brodsky - biography of personal life
First love was big and bright. The native daughter of the artist and graphic artist Pavel Basmanov conquered the poet’s ardent poetic nature. He dedicated many poems to his muse. The young artist Marina Basmanova was also in love with the young man, meetings began, a civil marriage, and the birth of her son Andrei.
The relationship somehow changed dramatically after the child was born, the couple broke up with each other. After the breakup, Brodsky became seriously interested in the ballerina. Maria Kuznetsova was graceful and pretty. The girl born from this love received the name Anastasia. For a very long time Joseph does not dare to meet someone.
But Maria Sozzani won the poet’s heart. True, she was 29 years younger than her chosen one, but this age difference did not bother anyone at that time. In the early nineties, he proposed to her, and three years later Maria gave birth to her husband’s daughter Anna. Joseph had heart problems: angina pectoris, surgery, 4 heart attacks. Added to the health problems were worries about the death of my parents. Brodsky submitted a request to come to the Soviet Union for the funeral, but the government refused the request.
The spring semester began after the next vacation, Brodsky decided to work in his office, prepare for a meeting with students. In the morning he did not go to work; his wife found him dead of a heart attack. The last page of the biography of the great poet quietly turned.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky (May 24, 1940, Leningrad - January 28, 1996, New York) - an outstanding Soviet and American Russian poet, Russian and English essayist, playwright, translator, Nobel Prize laureate in literature 1987, US poet laureate in 1991— 1992
Born on the Vyborg side in the family of a military photojournalist. The name was given in honor of Joseph Stalin. Brodsky's father served in the navy, then worked as a photographer and journalist in several Leningrad newspapers, Brodsky's mother was an accountant. Joseph Brodsky's early childhood was during the years of war, blockade, and then post-war poverty and overcrowding. In 1942, after the winter of the siege, Joseph’s mother and Joseph left for evacuation to Cherepovets.
In 1955, having completed seven grades and starting the eighth, Joseph Brodsky left school and became an apprentice milling machine operator at the Arsenal plant. This decision was related both to problems at school and to Brodsky’s desire to financially support his family. Tried unsuccessfully to enter submariner school. At the age of 16, he got the idea of becoming a doctor, worked for a month as an assistant dissector in a morgue at a regional hospital, dissected corpses, but eventually abandoned his medical career. In addition, for five years after leaving school, Brodsky worked as a stoker in a boiler room, a sailor in a lighthouse, and a worker on five geological expeditions. At the same time, he read a lot, but chaotically - primarily poetry, philosophical and religious literature, began to study English and Polish, and translate Polish poets. He began writing poetry in 1956-1957. One of the decisive impetuses was the acquaintance with the poetry of Boris Slutsky. Despite the fact that Brodsky did not write direct political poems against the Soviet regime, the independence of the form and content of his poems, plus the independence of personal behavior, irritated ideological overseers.
In 1958, Brodsky and his friends considered the possibility of escaping from the USSR by hijacking a plane, but then abandoned this plan. This daring idea of the future Nobel laureate and his two comrades was born within the walls of the Smena editorial office. In 1959 he met Evgeny Rein, Anatoly Naiman, Vladimir Uflyand, Bulat Okudzhava.
On February 14, 1960, Joseph Brodsky’s first major public performance took place at the “tournament of poets” in the Leningrad Palace of Culture. Gorky with the participation of A. S. Kushner, G. Ya. Gorbovsky, V. A. Sosnora. The reading of the poem “Jewish Cemetery” caused a scandal.
In August 1961, in Komarovo, Evgeniy Rein introduced Brodsky to Anna Akhmatova. Together with Naiman and Rein, Brodsky was part of Anna Akhmatova’s last entourage, called “Akhmatov’s orphans.” In 1962, during a trip to Pskov, he met N. Ya. Mandelstam, and in 1963, at Akhmatova’s, with Lydia Chukovskaya.
In 1962, Brodsky met the young artist Marina (Marianna) Basmanova. The first poems with dedication “M. B." - “I hugged these shoulders and looked...”, “No melancholy, no love, no sadness...”, “A riddle to an angel” date back to the same year. They finally separated in 1968 after the birth of their common son, Andrei Basmanov.
On January 8, 1964, Vecherny Leningrad published a selection of letters from readers demanding that the “parasite Brodsky” be punished. On February 13, 1964, Brodsky was arrested on charges of parasitism. Two sessions of Brodsky’s trial were recorded by Frida Vigdorova and formed the content of the “White Book” distributed in samizdat. All prosecution witnesses began their testimony with the words: “I don’t personally know Brodsky...”, echoing the exemplary formulation of Pasternak’s persecution: “I haven’t read Pasternak’s novel, but I condemn it!..”.
The trial of the poet became one of the factors that led to the emergence of the human rights movement in the USSR and to increased attention abroad to the situation with human rights in the USSR. The transcript of Frida Vigdorova was published in several influential foreign media: “New Leader”, “Encounter”, “Figaro Litteraire”. At the end of 1964, letters in defense of Brodsky were sent by D. D. Shostakovich, S. Ya. Marshak, K. I. Chukovsky, K. G. Paustovsky, A. T. Tvardovsky, Yu. P. German.
On March 13, 1964, at the second court hearing, Brodsky was sentenced to the maximum possible punishment under the decree on “parasitism” - five years of exile with mandatory labor under the Decree “On Responsibility for Parasitism.” Brodsky was exiled to the Konoshsky district of the Arkhangelsk region and settled in the village of Norenskaya. In exile, Brodsky continues to write: “The Noise of the Rain...,” “Song,” “Winter Mail,” and “To a Poetess” were written during these years. Studying English poetry. Several poems by Joseph Brodsky were published in the Konosha regional newspaper “Prazyv”.
A year and a half later, the punishment was canceled under pressure from the world community (in particular, after Jean-Paul Sartre and a number of other foreign writers appealed to the Soviet government). In September 1965, Brodsky, on the recommendation of Chukovsky and Boris Vakhtin, was accepted into the professional group of writers at the Leningrad branch of the Union of Writers of the USSR, which allowed him to subsequently avoid accusations of parasitism. Brodsky begins working as a professional translator under a contract with a number of publishing houses.
In 1965, a large selection of Brodsky's poems and a transcript of the trial were published in the almanac Airways IV (New York). In his interviews, Brodsky resisted the image of a fighter against Soviet power imposed on him, especially by the American intelligentsia. He made statements like, “I'm lucky in every way. Other people got it much more, had it much harder than me.”
On May 12, 1972, Brodsky was summoned to the OVIR of the Leningrad police and given a choice: emigration or prisons and mental hospitals. On June 4, Joseph Brodsky was forced to leave his homeland. He leaves for the USA, where he receives recognition and normal conditions for literary work. Brodsky began working as a visiting professor at the Department of Slavic Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor: he taught the history of Russian literature, Russian poetry of the 20th century, and the theory of verse. In 1981 he moved to New York. Brodsky, who did not even graduate from school, worked at a total of six American and British universities, including Columbia and New York.
In the West, eight of Brodsky’s poetry books were published in Russian: “Poems and Poems” (1965); "Stop in the Desert" (1970); "In England" (1977); "The End of a Beautiful Era" (1977); "Part of Speech" (1977); "Roman Elegies" (1982); “New Stanzas for Augusta” (1983); "Urania" (1987); drama “Marble” (in Russian, 1984). Brodsky received wide recognition in the scientific and literary circles of the USA and Great Britain, and was awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor in France. He was engaged in literary translations into Russian (in particular, he translated Tom Stoppard’s play “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead”) and Nabokov’s poems into English.
In 1986, Brodsky's collection of essays, Less Than One, written in English, was recognized as the best literary critical book of the year in the United States. In 1987, Brodsky won the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was awarded to him for “comprehensive creativity, saturated with purity of thought and brightness of poetry.” Joseph Alexandrovich allocated part of the Nobel Prize for the creation of the Russian Samovar restaurant, which became one of the centers of Russian culture in New York. He himself remained one of its famous regular visitors until the end of his life. Brodsky was also a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Book Award, and was elected Poet Laureate of the United States by the Library of Congress.
With the beginning of Perestroika, Brodsky's poems, literary criticism and journalistic articles about the poet began to be published in the USSR. In the 1990s, books began to be published. In 1995, Brodsky was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg. Invitations to return to their homeland followed. Brodsky postponed his visit: he was embarrassed by the publicity of such an event, the celebration, and the media attention that would accompany his visit. One of the last arguments was: “The best part of me is already there - my poems.” The motif of return and non-return is present in his poems of the 1990s, in particular in the poems “Letter to an Oasis” (1991), “Ithaca” (1993), “We lived in a city the color of petrified vodka...” (1994), and in the last two - as if the return had really happened.
In 1990, Brodsky married Russian-Italian translator Maria Sozzani. He spoke English with their common daughter.
Joseph Brodsky died of a heart attack on the night of January 28, 1996 in New York. He was buried in one of his favorite cities - Venice - in the cemetery of the island of San Michele.
Evgeny Klyachkin, Alexander Mirzayan, Alexander Vasiliev, Svetlana Surganova, Diana Arbenina, Pyotr Mamonov and other authors wrote songs based on the poems of I. A. Brodsky.
“What a biography, however, they are making for our redhead!” - Anna Akhmatova joked sadly in the midst of the trial of Joseph Brodsky. In addition to the high-profile trial, the controversial fate prepared for the poet a link to the North and the Nobel Prize, incomplete eight years of education and a career as a university professor, 24 years outside his native language environment and the discovery of new possibilities of the Russian language.
Leningrad youth
Joseph Brodsky was born in Leningrad in 1940. 42 years later, in an interview with a Dutch journalist, he recalled his hometown like this: “Leningrad shapes your life, your consciousness to the extent that the visual aspects of life can influence us. It is a huge cultural conglomerate, but without bad taste, without confusion. An amazing sense of proportion, classical facades breathe peace. And all this influences you, makes you strive for order in life, although you realize that you are doomed. Such a noble attitude towards chaos, resulting in either stoicism or snobbery.".
In the first year of the war after the blockade winter of 1941–1942, Joseph's mother Maria Volpert took him for evacuation to Cherepovets, where they lived until 1944. Volpert served as a translator in a prisoner of war camp, and Brodsky’s father, naval officer and photojournalist Alexander Brodsky, participated in the defense of Malaya Zemlya and breaking the siege 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 remembered his entire life walking through the museum as a child: “In general, I have quite wonderful feelings towards the navy. I don’t know where they came from, but here is my childhood, and my father, and my hometown... As I remember the Naval Museum, St. Andrew’s flag - a blue cross on a white cloth... There is no better flag in the world!”
Joseph changed schools frequently; His attempt to enter the naval school after the seventh grade was also unsuccessful. 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 dissector in a 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 and became interested in literature. The poems of Evgeny Baratynsky and Boris Slutsky made a strong impression on him.
Joseph Brodsky. Photo: yeltsin.ru
Joseph Brodsky with a cat. Photo: interesno.cc
Joseph Brodsky. Photo: dayonline.ru
In Leningrad, people started talking about Brodsky 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 flavor. For example, Brodsky. Taking the microphone stem with both hands and bringing it close to his mouth, he read loudly and liarly, shaking his head to the rhythm of the poetry:
Everyone has their own trash!
Everyone has their own grave!
There was noise! Some shout:
- What does poetry have to do with it?!
- Down with him!
Others scream:
- Brodsky, more!
At the same time, Brodsky began communicating with the poet Yevgeny Rein. In 1961, Rhine introduced Joseph to Anna Akhmatova. Although Brodsky's poetry is usually credited with the influence of Marina Tsvetaeva, whose work he first became acquainted with in the early 1960s, it was Akhmatova who became his personal 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” it entered Brodsky’s personal myth as a moment of initiation.”.
Court and world fame
In 1963, after a speech at the plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, the first secretary of the Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev began to eradicate among young people "sloths, moral cripples and whiners", writing on “the bird jargon of idle people and half-educated people”. Joseph Brodsky, who by this time had been detained by law enforcement agencies twice, also became a target: the first time for publication in the handwritten journal “Syntax”, the second time based on the denunciation of an acquaintance. He himself did not like to remember those events, because he believed: the poet’s biography is only "in its vowels and sibilants, in its meters, rhymes and metaphors".
Joseph Brodsky. Photo: bessmertnybarak.ru
Joseph Brodsky at the Nobel Prize ceremony. Photo: russalon.su
Joseph Brodsky with his cat. Photo: binokl.cc
In the newspaper “Evening Leningrad” dated November 29, 1963, an article “Near-Literary Drone” appeared, the authors of which denounced Brodsky by quoting poems other than his and juggling fictitious facts about him. On February 13, 1964, Brodsky was arrested again. He was accused of parasitism, although by this time his poems were regularly published in children's magazines, and publishers ordered translations from him. The whole world learned about the details of the trial thanks to Moscow journalist Frida Vigdorova, who was present in the courtroom. Vigdorova's recordings were sent to the West and found their way into the press.
Judge: What do you do?
Brodsky: I write poetry. I'm translating. I believe…
Judge: No “I guess.” Stand fast! Don't lean against walls!<...>Do you have a regular job?
Brodsky: I thought it was a permanent job.
Judge: Answer exactly!
Brodsky: I wrote poetry! I thought they would be printed. I believe…
Judge: We are not interested in “I believe.” Tell me, why didn't you work?
Brodsky: I worked. I wrote poetry.
Judge: We are not interested in this...
Witnesses for the defense were the poet Natalya Grudinina and prominent Leningrad philologists and translators Efim Etkind and Vladimir Admoni. They tried to convince the court that literary work cannot be equated with parasitism, and that 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 spoke on the side of the prosecution. The sentence was harsh: deportation from Leningrad for five years with mandatory forced labor.
Brodsky settled in the village of Norenskaya, Arkhangelsk region. He worked on a state farm, and in his free time he read a lot, became interested in English poetry and began to learn English. Frida Vigdorova and the writer Lydia Chukovskaya worked hard for the poet’s early return from exile. The letter in his defense was signed by Dmitry Shostakovich, Samuil Marshak, Korney Chukovsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Alexander Tvardovsky, Yuri German and many others. The “friend of the Soviet Union,” the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, also stood up for Brodsky. 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 author’s knowledge on the basis of samizdat materials sent to the West. The next book, Stopping in the Desert, was published in New York in 1970 - it is considered Brodsky's first authorized publication. After his exile, the poet was enrolled in a certain “professional group” at the Writers’ Union, which made it possible to avoid further suspicions of parasitism. But in his homeland, only his children's poems were published, and sometimes he was given orders for poetry translations or literary adaptations of film dubbing. At the same time, the circle of foreign Slavists, journalists and publishers with whom Brodsky communicated personally and by correspondence became increasingly wider. In May 1972, he was summoned to the OVIR and asked to leave the country to avoid new persecution. Usually, processing documents to leave the Soviet Union took from six months to a year, but Brodsky’s visa was issued in 12 days. On June 4, 1972, Joseph Brodsky flew to Vienna. His parents, friends, former lover Marianna Basmanova, to whom almost all of Brodsky’s love lyrics are dedicated, 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. Photograph: biography.wikireading.ru
In Vienna, the poet was met by the American publisher Karl Proffer. Through his patronage, Brodsky was offered a place at the University of Michigan. The position was called poet-in-residence (literally: “poet in the presence”) and involved communication with students as a guest writer. In 1977, Brodsky received American citizenship. During his lifetime, five collections of poetry 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-language essayist and, of course, an American citizen". An example of his mature Russian-language creativity were the poems included in the collections “Part of Speech” (1977) and “Urania” (1987). In a conversation with Valentina Polukhina, a researcher of Brodsky’s work, poetess Bella 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 comprehensive literary activity, distinguished by clarity of thought and poetic intensity.” In 1991, Brodsky took the post of US poet laureate - consultant to the Library of Congress and launched the American Poetry and Literacy program to distribute cheap volumes of poetry to the population. In 1990, the poet married an Italian with Russian roots, Maria Sozzani, but their happy union lasted only five and a half years.
In January 1996, Joseph Brodsky passed away. He was buried in one of his favorite cities - Venice, in an ancient cemetery on the island of San Michele.
Biography and episodes of life Joseph Brodsky. When born and died Joseph Brodsky, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. Poet quotes, Photo and video.
Years of life of Joseph Brodsky:
born May 24, 1940, died January 28, 1996
Epitaph
“Everything doesn’t end with death.”
Latin inscription on the grave of I. Brodsky
“What can I tell you about life? Which turned out to be long.
It is only with grief that I feel solidarity.
But until my mouth is filled with clay,
Only gratitude will be heard from it.”
From the poem by I. Brodsky “I entered a cage instead of a wild beast...”
Biography
Joseph Brodsky was the living embodiment of seemingly all the peaks and extremes in one human life. A professor at several American universities who did not even graduate from high school. Nobel Prize winner, who was mercilessly persecuted in his homeland for parasitism. A brilliant, incomparable talent, the author of poetry in Russian and English, and, moreover, a modest and sympathetic person who never speculated on his position as “offended by the authorities” and did not like to attract attention to himself. Brodsky was a great poet. How unfair it is that anxiety and suffering shortened his life, perhaps depriving us of many beautiful poems!
Joseph was born in Leningrad, into a poor Jewish family; grew up without a father, moved from school to school. There were problems with his studies, there was not enough money, and, without finishing 8th grade, Brodsky went to work at a factory. Later, he visited as a worker on several geological expeditions in the North and Far East. Expeditions provided the opportunity to read a lot, and Brodsky greedily “swallowed” everything he could get his hands on; I learned languages on my own.
Many people asked for Brodsky, who was sentenced to five years of exile, and the poet was allowed to return to Leningrad. With Chukovsky's help, he got a job as a translator to avoid further charges. But the KGB did not lag behind: by that time foreign organizations and writers were already too interested in the poet; samizdat publications and unauthorized translations of his poems were published in Poland, Great Britain, and Italy. In the end, the poet received an ultimatum: either immediate departure from the country, or arrest, forced mental examination, etc.
Abroad, Brodsky, of course, became an exemplary hero; but, unlike many, the poet refused to play on his status as a victim of Soviet power. He immediately began teaching, teaching at the University of Michigan, Columbia, New York - a total of six significant universities in the USA and Great Britain. Brodsky's lectures were amazing: he did not know how to teach in the classical sense of the word, but every lesson with him turned into a dialogue with students and poetry readings.
Life seemed to be getting better. After perestroika, the attitude towards the poet in his homeland changed dramatically, they called him back - however, Brodsky could not decide to return. Abroad, he married the beautiful M. Sozzani, an Italian with Russian roots; they had a daughter. But Brodsky's health was completely undermined. He survived four heart attacks, suffered from angina pectoris, and smoked a lot. The fifth attack was the last for the poet. The authorities of St. Petersburg asked to allow Brodsky to be buried in his beloved city, but this would mean making for him the decision that he hesitated to make himself. In the end, Joseph Brodsky was buried in Venice, a city that he loved almost as much as Leningrad.
Life line
May 24, 1940 Date of birth of Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky.
1955 Leaving school, starting work as a milling machine operator at the Arsenal plant.
1957-1958 Work in geological expeditions on the White Sea.
1959, 1961 Work in Eastern Siberia and Yakutia.
1959 Meeting S. Dovlatov, B. Okudzhava.
1960 The first performance at the “tournament of poets” in the Palace of Culture named after. Gorky.
1961 Meeting A. Akhmatova.
1962 The first publication of Brodsky's poem in the magazine "Koster".
1964 Arrest on charges of parasitism, first heart attack. Link to Arkhangelsk region.
1965 Work as a translator at the Writers' Union.
1967 Birth of a son, Andrei Basmanov.
1971 Election as a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts.
1972 Deprivation of Soviet citizenship, expulsion from the USSR. Started teaching at the University of Michigan.
1977 Acceptance of American citizenship.
1987 Awarding Brodsky the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1990 Marriage to Maria Sozzani.
1993 Birth of daughter Anna.
1995 Receiving the title of honorary citizen of St. Petersburg.
January 28, 1996 Date of death of Joseph Brodsky.
February 1, 1996 Funeral service and temporary burial of Brodsky.
February 8, 1996 Memorial service in Manhattan.
June 21, 1997 Reburial of Brodsky in Venice.
Memorable places
1. House No. 24 on Liteiny Prospekt in St. Petersburg (Muruzi apartment building), where Brodsky lived in apartment No. 28 in 1955-1972.
2. House No. 15 on the street. Glinka in St. Petersburg (Benoit's house), where Brodsky lived in 1962-1972.
3. Komarovo, where Brodsky lived in 1962-1963.
4. The village of Norinskaya (Arkhangelsk region), where Brodsky lived in exile in 1964-1965.
5. Vienna, where Brodsky was exiled in 1972.
6. University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where Brodsky taught in 1972-1980.
7. Grace Episcopal Parish Church in Brooklyn Heights, where Brodsky's funeral was held.
8. Cemetery at the Church of the Holy Trinity, where Brodsky’s body remained until 1997.
9. Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Manhattan, where the memorial service was held.
10. Cemetery of San Michele (Venice), where I. Brodsky is buried.
Episodes of life
In 1960, Brodsky and his friend O. Shakhmatov were thinking of hijacking a plane and escaping abroad. O. Shakhmatov, who was arrested on another issue, told the authorities about this idea, and Brodsky was detained. This time he was quickly released, but it was a bad start to his future relationship with the KGB.
One of the most amazing character traits of Brodsky was his humility. Despite the persecution, he considered himself lucky: after all, many were treated much worse. And he once called the year and a half spent in exile the best time in his life.
Brodsky was a very generous person. When his position abroad was strengthened and financial stability appeared, he never refused financial assistance to others. In particular, thanks to him and M. Baryshnikov, R. Kaplan opened the famous Russian Samovar restaurant, which became a kind of cultural center for emigrants in New York.
Interview with I. Brodsky about poetry
Testaments
“It’s probably impossible to save the world, but it’s always possible to save an individual.”
“One should study philosophy, at best, after fifty. Build a model of society - and even more so. First you should learn how to cook soup, fry - even if not catch - fish, make decent coffee. Otherwise, moral laws smell like a father’s belt.”
“The Last Judgment is a Last Judgment, but in general, a person who lived his life in Russia should be placed in heaven without any further discussion.”
Condolences
“He's not the first. Unfortunately, he is the only one."
Sergey Dovlatov, writer
“From his first steps in poetry, Joseph Brodsky amazed with such the power of genuine lyricism, such an original and deep poetic voice that he attracted not only his peers, but also those who were much older and incomparably stronger than us.”
Alexander Kushner, poet
“A man who once found the strength to get up from his desk in the eighth grade and leave school forever; a person who allowed himself to be dependent only on his talent and on no one or anything else; a person with a truly rare sense of freedom - such a person did not want and could not afford to depend even on his own body, on its ailments and infirmities.”
Peter Weil, writer
Despite worldwide recognition and fame, this block stands apart in it. This is not surprising for a poet who valued his independence more than anything else in this world. Until now, many believe that he is more loved and revered outside Russia than inside it, where many are completely unaware of who Brodsky is. His biography turned out this way. Often it developed contrary to his wishes. But he never caved in under the circumstances.
Brodsky, biography of the Soviet period
The place and time of birth are important in the fate of any person. And for a poet they are even more significant. It so happened that Leningrad became the starting point for the fate of the future poet. Here, in an ordinary intelligent Jewish family, Joseph Brodsky was born in 1940. The poet's biography began on the banks of the Neva, in the former capital of the former empire. This unusual city with its mystical aura largely determined the fate of the future poet. He started writing poetry very early. And they began immediately with a high level of poetic skill. Brodsky simply did not have the period of emulation and imitation of models that is usual for many young talents. His poetry was initially difficult to perceive, the imagery was multidimensional, the style was pretentious and refined, and the level of versification was highly professional. This is exactly how the poet Joseph Brodsky entered Russian literature and remained faithful to his once chosen path. His biography does not have a period of apprenticeship; from his first steps in literature, he declared himself as a master of unique qualifications.
But the external events of his life developed along a rather strange and at the same time quite logical trajectory for Soviet times. Despite the recognition of many authoritative people in Russian literature, his poems were ignored and not published in the Soviet Union. His work was not in demand by the Soviet literary administration, and the poet was not going to make the slightest compromise with the literary nomenklatura. Then everything was in Soviet traditions - a trial for parasitism and 5 years of exile in the Arkhangelsk region. “Oh, what a biography they are making for our redhead,” Anna Andreevna Akhmatova said ironically about this. The poet was brought back from exile by a public campaign in his defense that unfolded in the Soviet Union and abroad. Jean-Paul Sartre promised a lot of trouble to the Soviet nomenklatura delegations during their visits to France. The poet returned from exile as a winner.
Brodsky, biography in exile
The poet had no particular desire to leave his homeland. But there was no doubt that the repressive machine had unclenched its jaws only temporarily, and in the near future it would definitely reckon and take revenge for the forced concession. Brodsky chose freedom. From 1972 to 1996 he lived in the United States. He achieved all possible honors - the Nobel Prize and the title of Poet Laureate. Nobody asks the question of who Brodsky is. A brief biography of him is contained in all reference books and textbooks. Students get to know her when
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