Loading.
Please wait...
Registration | Forgot your password?
Home Biographies of writers Literary terms Essays Epigraphs
Biographies of writers "Biographies" by Joseph Brodsky
Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996)
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky was born in Leningrad on May 24, 1940.
The poet's mother, Maria Moiseevna, was an accountant.
Father Alexander Ivanovich is a photojournalist, and quite well known.
During the war, he worked as a correspondent in the Navy.
Joseph's mother believed that only hooligans study at the school, which is located next to the house, and sent him to a men's school (then there was separate education of boys and girls) far from home.
Joseph often caught a cold and stayed at home.
His neighbor Vladimir Uflyand, a future poet, recalled that at the age of ten, Osia " realized that he wanted to become a poet, and vowed to become one."
Joseph graduated from an eight year school in 1955 and, in search of himself, his vocation, went to work at a factory.
"I've been working since I was fifteen.
I have about the profession of a milling cutter, a geophysicist technician, a stoker, a sailor, an orderly, a photographer.
I worked in geological parties in Yakutia, on the White Sea coast, on the Tien Shan, in Karelia.
All this is recorded in my work book."
At the same time, he studied English and Polish.
Brodsky's first poetic experiments date back to 1957.
In the early 60s, he turned to translation work.
His attention was attracted by Slavic and English speaking poets.
By the end of the 60s, his name was well known among the creative youth of Leningrad and in unofficial literary circles.
In February 1964, Brodsky was arrested.
A case was fabricated against him: he was accused of parasitism, which at that time was a criminal offense.
As a result, he was exiled for five years to the village of Norenskaya in the Konoshsky district of the Arkhangelsk region.
At the trial, the question was answered.
"Why didnot you work?"
The 24 year old poet replied: "I was working.
I wrote poetry."
I wrote poetry."
- "Answer me, why didnot you work?"
- "I worked hard.
— "Why didnot you study this at the university?"
"I thought it was from God."
The famous children's writer Frida Vigdorova secretly took shorthand notes of the trial, since the meeting was closed and the press was not allowed to attend it.
In the collective farm "Danilovsky", where the exiled poet was sent, he was first a worker, that is, he performed a variety of unskilled work.
As the hostess, with whom he was a guest, recalled, "he carried manure, chopped fence poles...".
But for health reasons, he was allowed to change his work activity.
And he became a traveling photographer.
At this time (1965), his first book "Poems and Poems"was published abroad without his knowledge.
By this time, Brodsky was already a fairly well known poet.
Anna Akhmatova, S. Ya.
Marshak, Dmitry Shostakovich and many other personalities stood up for him, whose opinion the Soviet government could not ignore, especially since the Brodsky case received worldwide publicity.
In 1965, by a decision of the Supreme Court, the term of expulsion was shortened.
Under pressure from the international cultural community, Brodsky was released early.
This happened after a year and a half.
The poet returned to Leningrad.
However, this return in itself did not mean the end of the conflict with the authorities.
The poet wrote to the table, they were afraid to print it.
And, according to a wonderful Russian tradition, the disgraced poet took up translations.
For the entire period up to emigration, in addition to translations, Brodsky managed to print only 4 poems.
His work was known in the USSR only for the benefit of giving samizdat.
The poet's life in his homeland became more and more unbearable every day.
And on June 4, 1972, Brodsky was forced to leave Russia.
Brodsky, as he put it himself, "landed" in the United States, in New York.
Professor Brodsky taught the history of Russian and English literature at Southedley.
He wrote poems in Russian.
Since about 1973, he has been writing some articles and essays in English.
In 1987, Brodsky received the Nobel Prize in Literature (he became the fifth Russian laureate after Bunin, Pasternak, Shokhov and Solzhenitsyn).
In July 1989, the Supreme Court of the RSFSR dismissed the" case "of Brodsky" for the absence of an administrative offense in his actions."
In December 1987 For the first time after the 15 year emigration of I. Brodsky, Novy Mir published a selection of the works of the already world famous poet in his homeland.
And an avalanche of publications has already poured in.
Finally, in 1992-1994.
The Pushkin Foundation, to which the poet transferred the exclusive right to publish his works, prepared a collection of works in 4 volumes (compiled by V. F. Komarov, the Third Wave publishing house).
The poet's collections in Russian have been published abroad since 1965 (mainly in the USA).
While living abroad, the poet travels a lot around the world, lectures in different cities.
His impressions are reflected in poems, travel notes, essays.
Brodsky died from January 27 to January 28, 1996 in New York.
Akhmatova called Brodsky's poems magical.
The poet himself said this about poetic creativity in his Nobel speech: "The writer of a poem writes it primarily because versification is a colossal accelerator of consciousness, thinking, attitude, having experienced this acceleration once, a person is no longer able to refuse to repeat this experience, he becomes dependent on this process, as one becomes dependent on drugs or alcohol.
A person who is in such dependence on language, I believe, is called a poet."
Tags: biography, Brodsky
Discussion of the article / Your rating: I did not read it Perfectly Well
We recommend reading: Nikolay RUBTSOV Yevtushenko Evgeny Aleksandrovich MARSHAK SAMUEL YAKOVLEVICH
Andersen, Annensky, Akhmatova, Byron, Balmont, Baratynsky, Batyushkov, Bergholz, Blok, Bryusov, Bulgakov, Gogol, Gumilev, Derzhavin, Yesenin, Zhukovsky, Karamzin, Korolenko, Krylov, Lermontov, Lomonosov, Marshak, Mayakovsky, Merezhkovsky, Ostrovsky, Pasternak, Pushkin, Radishchev, Solovyov, Tolstoy, Tyutchev, Fet, Fonvizin, Fofanov, Tsvetaeva, Chukovsky, Aeschylus, biography, kuzmin, writer
Show all tags
I couldnot wait for success and set off without him.
Jonathan Winters
Copyright © 2011 biography
All rights reserved.
Developed at Veins Media
