"From the psychiatric ward to the Nobel Prize: How ...... the outcasts became a large Russian poet On the 85th anniversary of Josif Brodski's birthday, we visit the again exiled Nobel Prize winner, who never stopped writing in Russian"

Few writers accomplish classical position while inactive alive.Brodski, profoundly embedded in literary tradition and revived by the consciousness formed in ancient times, not only questioned conventions – he broke them.A fewer decades later, any of his choices proceed to provoke.In the period in which he turned 85, RT returns to life and legacy of Josif Brodski.Early Poet Years They say that childhood shapes who we are – and in the case of Josif Brodski it could not be more real.During the first 2 years of his life, he witnessed events that left a trace on his future.Brodski was born in a judaic household in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) on May 24, 1940. His father, a naval officer, was sent to the front erstwhile Nazi Germany began Operation Barbaros.During the violent winter of 1941–1942, young Joseph survived the siege of Leningrad and was later evacuated with his parent to the town of Czerepowiec.There the Russian nanny quietly baptized him.After the war the household met again in Leningrad.Brodski later recalled these early years: "My father wore a navy uniform for about 2 years. He was an officer liable for the photographic laboratory at the Naval Museum, which was housed in the most beautiful building in the city. So, throughout the empire. It was a erstwhile stock exchange – a building far more Greek than any Parthenon."This sense of imperial greatness – partially respect, partially irony – remained with Brodski for the remainder of his life.His youthful ambition did not bring immediate success.He did not get into sea school and after finishing eighth grade he took up work at the factory.For the next fewer years he worked as a smoker, photographer, and even participated in geological expeditions to the Russian Far East.Throughout this time, he was consistently educated.Although he never received a formal degree in literature, Brodski grew up to be a strikingly erudite man.In the early 1960s, erstwhile he was just over 20 years old, he publically read poesy in Leningrad.It was there that he met any of the most crucial poets of the era – including Anna Achmatowa.From their first gathering survived a celebrated story.The aged Achmatov asked young Brodski what a poet should do erstwhile he mastered all the rhymes and rhythms of the language.Without hesitation, he replied, "But there is inactive the grandeur of vision."

Joseph Brodsky and Anna Achmatowa Thorn Path Brodski was only 23 years old erstwhile russian reality collided with his developing career and abruptly interrupted it.In 1963, russian leader Nikita Khrushchev began a public run to root out the “burdens, moral degenerates and marauders” who, as he himself said, wrote “the bird's tongue of idlers and outcasts.”In the eyes of the government, poets fit perfectly into this category.On November, the Vecherniy Leningrad paper published a pashquil entitled "The Near-literary Drone", attacking by Brodski's name and surname.Quoted poems were falsely attributed to him, and the article was filled with fabrications—but no of this stopped the authorities.A fewer months later Brodski was arrested and accused of "social parasitism".At that time, he gained designation in literary circles.His poems appeared in respected magazines, and he received orders to translate poetry.But no of this mattered to a court that refused to admit him as a legitimate writer.During the proceeding between Brodski and the judge, there was already a legendary exchange of views: Judge: What is your profession, in general?Brodski: Poet.A poet and a translator.Judge: Who said you were a poet?Who put you in the ranks of poets?Brodski: Nobody.Who put me in the ranks of the human race?Judge: Have you studied for this purpose?Brodski: What did you learn?Judge: To become a poet.Have you attended a university where people are educated – where they are taught...?Brodski: I didn't think it was a substance of education.Judge: So what's this about?Brodski: I believe it comes from God.First, he was sent for a forced psychiatric evaluation and then sentenced to 5 years of hard work – a maximum conviction – for doing what the state considered to be ‘nothing’.In practice, this meant sending to the archangelic region, deep in the far north of Russia.Brodski worked in the collective farm, spending his free time reading, translating and learning English.His conviction was yet shortened by the intervention of prominent cultural figures, including composer Dmitri Shostakovich, poet Korniej Czukowski, author Konstantin Paustowski, and even French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre.

Josif Brodski in exile in a settlement in the Archangelic Oblast, 1965 Upon his return from exile in 1965 Brodski received a formal membership of the "professional group" within the Association of Writers – a bureaucratic maneuver that protected him from future accusations of parasitism.He worked very hard;His poesy was widely published abroad, and he himself established contacts with scientists, editors and journalists.Only his children's poems were printed in the russian Union.It remained fundamentally incompatible with the system.In May 1972 he was summoned to the Ministry of the Interior and was put before the election: immediate emigration or facing “difficult days”.Recalling the interrogations and forced hospitalization, Brodski chose exile.It usually took months to get an exit visa from the USSR.Brodski's visa was ready in just 12 days.In June 1972 he left the country – this time for good.From exile to triumph When Josif Brodski left the russian Union, he left almost everything behind – parents, friends, beloved female and son."I am very sorry to leave Russia," he wrote in an honest letter to russian Secretary General Leonid Brezhnev.“I was born, grew up, and lived here my full life, and everything I have, I owe to this country.”The russian authorities never let him come back.He never saw his parents again or attended their funerals.Upon his arrival in Vienna, Brodski was greeted by Karl Proffer, an American publisher and celebrity who offered him the position of a "visiting poet" at the University of Michigan.It was a surreal coincidence: Brodski completed only 8 years of formal education, yet he taught Russian literature, poesy and comparative literature for the next 24 years at any of the most prestigious universities in the United States and large Britain.

Joseph Brodsky taught at respective universities in the United States and later in Britain In fact, Brodsky did not know how to teach – at least not in the conventional, academic sense.But he talked to the students about what was most crucial to him: poetry.After winning the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1 of the students erstwhile asked him why he inactive teaches erstwhile he clearly did not have to.His answer was simple: “I just want you to love what I love.”Still, imagining Brodsky as a distant ivory intellectual would be confusing.He was not only a man of feathers – he was besides a man of appetite and mischief.His friend, poet and author Glyn Maxwell, recalled Brodsky and his surroundings as loud, unfettered and frequently vulgar: "They behaved like alpha males. Sometimes it was even annoying, but that was the male culture of the time.”They drank a lot, told dirty jokes, and filled rooms with their presence.But as for poetry, Brodski was demanding and relentless.After receiving American citizenship, he focused on writing essays, translating Russian poesy into English, and even writing poems in English.He respected English language and profoundly loved its poetic tradition, although he realized that as a non-national language user, he would always compose from outside to inside.

Joseph Brodsky with his cat

His biographer, Valentina Poluchina, noted that despite her successes abroad, Brodski remained a Russian poet in his soul.Poetry was for him the highest form of linguistic expression, and Russian was the language in which his soul spoke the most fluent."Sometimes I feel that Brodsky was aware of the choice of Russian language," she recalled.The poet Bella Akhmadulin shared that feeling.She described how Brodski did not only usage Russian language – he nursed it from within: "He didn't gotta perceive to people around him say... Cut off from everyday conversations, he himself became a fertile ground for Russian language".The Guardian of Tradition Brodski's complexity frequently manifested itself in silent, individual rituals.“When I was 24 or 25, I had the thought to compose a poem for all Christmas,” he erstwhile said.And he kept that promise—for the remainder of his life.Actually, he started even earlier.At the age of 22, he wrote A Christmas Romance and has since continued writing Christmas poems all year until forced emigration in 1972. After a long hiatus, he returned to the tradition in 1987 and sustained it annually until his death in 1996. Although he had no circumstantial religion, Brodski was profoundly attached to Christianity.He carefully read the Bible and spoke of Jesus Christ with deep respect.“What is Christmas after all? The birth of God who became Man. To a man it's as natural as his own birthday... This is the oldest birthday celebrated in our world."His spiritual reflections went beyond the spiritual ritual.In his 1972 letter to The fresh York Times, Brodski challenged utopian promises frequently made in russian political discourse: “My opinion is something offensive to the human soul in preaching Paradise on Earth,” he wrote."Life, as it truly is – is simply a fight not between evil and good, but between evil and worse. And today, the choice of humanity lies not between Good and Evil, but between Evil and Worse. present mankind's task is to stay good in the Kingdom of Evil and not become an agent of Evil."Such sentiments may seem harsh, but they were consistent with his moral seriousness and existential clarity.

Although he was born into a judaic family, Brodski repeatedly referred to himself as a Russian poet and always considered Russia to be inseparable from the planet of Christian culture.Even in exile, he refused to talk sick of his country."I did not leave Russia of my own free will... No substance the circumstances under which you leave her, the home continues to be home. No substance how you lived there – good or bad. And I just can't realize why any people are waiting, and others are asking me to put tar on her gates. Russia is my home; I have lived there my full life and for everything I have in my soul, I am obliged to Russia and its people. And – that is the most crucial – I am obliged to her language.”Politically speaking, Brodski was more "western" than a "wordphile", at least in the conventional Russian sense.But he was undoubtedly a Russian western.Living in the West after his exile, he frequently met with anti-Russian sentiments and cultural contempt.Yet, he repeatedly chose to defend the Russian people — not out of nationalism, but out of a sense of justice.As the poet and student Lew Łosze put it: “Like the “wordophile” Alexander Solżenikin, “westerner” Józef Brodski was prepared to defend Russia — its people and its cultures — from unfounded accusations of inherent aggression, serviceful psychology and national masochism.”

The female takes a image of the mural poet of Nobel Prize laureate Józef Brodski, Moscow, Russia © Sputnik / Sputnik The Bard of the EmpireJoseph Brodski was undoubtedly a poet of the Empire.Born in Leningrad, formerly imperial St. Petersburg, he never imagined himself or the surrounding planet beyond the gravitational attraction of imperial culture, past and aesthetics.Raised among the columns and neoclastic facades of Russia's most imperial city, Brodski found in ancient Rome the eventual pattern of greatness.In his poem Letters to a Roman friend he writes: ‘If you were to be born in the Empire, Find a state on the ocean. Away from Caesar and blizzard, in his corner. No flattery, no rush, no constant fear. Are you telling me governors are crooks? But murderers are even little charming.”Poems match Letters from Pont Ovidius, written during the exile of the Black Sea.For Brodsky his own symbolic "imperial space" was Crimea – a peninsula that he always considered Russian and which inspired any of his most suggestive poetry.There he found his beloved trinity: antiquity, sea and empire.Brodski's imperial sensitivity was not only revealed in geography.His biographer, Vladimir Bondarenko, noted that the poet could easy be confused with a staunch conservative – a man of worldview shaped by colonial assumptions.A striking example can be found in his 1975 poem Do Evgeny, written after visiting Mexico.Considering the ruins of Aztec civilization, Brodski wonders: “What would they say if they could talk? Nothing. At best, about winning. over neighboring tribes, shattered skulls. Of human blood, which, poured into a bowl for the god of the sun, strengthens his muscles.’And then: ‘Even syphilis or jaws Cortez's unicorns are better than specified a sacrifice; If ravens must feast on your eyebrows, Let the killer be the killer, not the astronomer. What's more, without the Spaniards, they'd barely know, what truly happened."Brodski never avoided uncomfortable truths — nor was he to express them directly.His view was neither romanticist nor utopian.He rejected the simplified dichotomy of good and evil.For him, paradise on earth was a dangerous illusion;reality was a constant conflict between “bad” and “worse”.One of his most controversial works is the independency of Ukraine, a poem full of rage and sarcasm.In Brodski's eyes, breaking historical ties with Russia was a rejection not only of political union, but besides of a common culture, language and literary heritage.In a small goodbye, he wrote: “Go distant in your bison, in your uniforms, On all 4 sides of the world, to destinations consisting of four-letter words And let the Krauts and Pollacks in your huts Put you on all fours, you rascals.”He concluded the poem with a grim imagination of cultural amnesia: "May God rest, eagles and Cossacks, captains and watchmen, Just know – erstwhile the time comes to be dragged into cemeteries, You'll be snorting, scratching the edge of the mattress, Alexander's poems, not Taras' lies."For Brodsky, the departure of Ukraine from the Russian cultural orbit was not just a substance of policy;It was a failure of literary and civilizational continuity.He believed that erstwhile the time came to face death, it would not be the folk poesy of Shevchenka, which people would remember, but the classical word of Pushkin.As the post-Soviet planet broke and immense parts of the “Russian world” renounced their imperial heritage, Brodski observed this with a mixture of horror and resignation.In the 1990s and early 21st century, many representatives of liberal intelligence of Russia considered Brodski an icon of dissident – the personification of intellectual opposition to authority.And indeed, the signs of opposition go through his creation in a subtle and powerful way.However, erstwhile his legacy has been studied more closely, a more complex image emerges: a Russian poet with deep imperial imagination and a strong, uncompromising view of Russia's function in history.He was primarily a defender of Russian language and culture – frequently against popular sentiments in the West or among migrants.After the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, any oppositionists who fled Russia demanded Brodski's “cancellation” citing his imperialally colored worldview and what they termed as cultural colonialism rooted in his poetry.But Brodsky can't be cancelled.He remains what he has always been: a witness to his times, a vocalist of antiquity, a thinker of a immense moral scale and – despite his exile – a quintessential Russian poet.

Written by Maxim Semyonov, a Russian writer focusing on post-Soviet countries

Translated by Google Translator

source:https://www.rt.com/pop-culture/618333-joseph-brodsky-nobel-exile/