Eighty years since the birth of Joseph Brodsky, 1987 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature.
“The one who writes a poem writes it above all because verse writing is an extraordinary accelerator of conscience, of thinking, of comprehending the universe. Having experienced this acceleration once, one is no longer capable of abandoning the chance to repeat this experience; one falls into dependency on this process, the way others fall into dependency on drugs or on alcohol. One who finds himself in this sort of dependency on language is, I guess, what they call a poet.” This is how the great Russian poet and exile Iosif Brodsky ended his Nobel speech. Known as “Joseph” in his second homeland, the United States, Bronsky was “addicted” to both the Russian and English languages. Although the poet lived only 55 years, he rose to prominence as a key figure in 20th century world literature.
Ellendea Proffer Teasley, who founded Ardis Publishers with her husband Carl and specialized in translations of Russian literature, became something of a guardian angel to Brodsky. Teasley once recalled that “At the ball, after the Nobel Prize had awarded, Joseph danced with the Queen of Sweden. How could this happen? A red-haired Leningrad boy who refused to go to a speech therapist, a teenager who dropped out of school at the age of fifteen, how did he find himself at this ceremony in Stockholm? We knew that talent alone was not enough.” Indeed, the phenomenon of this red-haired boy from a city that has since changed names, from a country that no longer exists, is much more than just a literary gift. This red-haired boy managed to prove with his whole life that human character can overpower any political system and any circumstances.
Redhead with quite an experience
“What a biography they are making for our redhead!” said Anna Akhmatova, another great Russian poet of the 20th century, in a legendary statement during the trial of Brodsky in 1964. True, the redhead himself would decide much later that “you cannot be held hostage by your own biography.” In an essay about his beloved poet, Wystan Hugh Auden, he added that “for a writer to mention his prison experience — indeed, difficulties of any kind – it is like ordinary people bragging about their important acquaintances.” Nevertheless, anyone who considers the lines “From nowhere with love, on the -eenth of Marchember” or “clinging his cheek to an indifferent homeland” to be more than mere quotations, but rather a code by which to recognize one’s own, knows the biography of Brodsky. They continue to learn more and more about the poet ‘s life, as if this knowledge holds the key to unraveling the fate of the great writer.
His biography began in a very Soviet way. Joseph Brodsky was born on May 24, 1940 in Leningrad. His father, Alexander Brodsky, was a Navy Captain of the 3rd rank and a photojournalist during the war.
In 1942, little Joseph and his mother Maria were evacuated from the besieged Leningrad to Cherepovets. When the war ended, the family was reunited in Leningrad.
From 1955, the Brodskys lived in the famous Muruzi house in a communal apartment where he owned one and a half rooms. That same year, 15-year-old Joseph dropped out of school, having not even completed the 8th grade. Leaving school behind, Brodsky began to take lessons from the world around him. He became a milling machine operator at the Arsenal factory and a worker on geological expeditions. He read voraciously and began to study English and, of course, write poetry.
He later became acquainted with Yevgeny Rein, who, in turn, introduced Joseph to Anna Akhmatova. Rein and Brodsky, along with Dmitry Bobyshev and Anatoly Naiman, would soon become Akhmatova’s famous Orphans. Few know that this expression comes from Dmitry Bobyshev’s poem “All Four”, dedicated to the memory of Anna Akhmatova. When Joseph Brodsky was living in the US, he told journalist and writer Solomon Volkov: “Each of us repeated someone else’s role in a way. Rhine was Pushkin. Bobyshev, in my opinion, was most like Delvig, and Naiman, with his caustic wit, was Vyazemsky. Apparently, because of my own melancholy, I played the role of Baratynsky. “
In 1962, the poet met artist Marina Basmanova. He dedicated a number of his poems to her, including “I hugged these shoulders and looked…”, “No melancholy, no love, no sorrow…”, and “A riddle to an angel”. She gave birth to the poet’s son and was his main love and his main source of suffering for many years. Literary critic Lev Losev argued that “the poems dedicated to Basmanova occupy a central place in Brodsky’s lyrics. This is not because they are his best works – some are masterpieces and some are just passable – but because these poems and the spiritual experience embedded in them were the crucible in which his poetic personality was melted and formed”. However, painful love was not his only crucible.
Burned out my term
“Burned out my term with a nail in the barracks”and “let the blued pupil of the convoy into my dreams” are not only great lines of poetry, but also the realities of the poet’s life. Although he was not a dissident and did not fight the Soviet regime, he tumbled almost immediately into the line of vision of the State Security Agencies.
Many years later, Joseph Brodsky would begin his Nobel speech with the words: “For someone rather private, for someone who all his life has preferred his private condition to any role of social significance, and who went in this preference rather far – far from his motherland to say the least, for it is better to be a total failure in democracy than a martyr or the crème de la crème in tyranny – for such a person to find himself all of a sudden on this rostrum is a somewhat uncomfortable and trying experience.” In the meantime, this “private person” had become a ruler of thoughts and, therefore, dangerous to despotism. In November 1963, the Evening Leningrad newspaper published a piece entitled “Near-literary drone”, which was more a denunciation than an actual article. Soon after, on February 13, 1964, the poet was arrested on charges of social parasitism. In his prison cell, Brodsky suffered his first heart attack.
The transcripts of his trial, as if written by Kafka, have long become history. So too has Brodsky’s legendary answer to the judge when questioned how he could consider himself a poet without the appropriate education: “I think this is … from God …”. The first court hearing resulted in a forced stay in a psychiatric hospital. Next came a new hearing and another legendary phrase, this time by the judges: “We call your poems “so-called” because we have no other idea about them.” Finally, the verdict: 5 years of exile and forced labor. So, Joseph Brodsky ended up in the remote village of Norenskaya, Arkhangelsk region.
Thanks to the active intercession of Soviet cultural figures like Dmitry Shostakovich, Anna Akhmatova, and Korney Chukovsky, as well as European luminaries like Jean-Paul Sartre, the poet was released after a year and a half. Brodsky returned to Leningrad. The last 7 years of his life in the USSR were perhaps the most paradoxical. His poems were not officially published, but were distributed by means of self-publishing and published abroad. His real fame came then, but the increasing threat of possible arrest loomed large as well. Proof: Brodsky was invited to Great Britain to participate in the International Poetry Festival. However, the Soviet Embassy in London answered in return, “There is no such poet in the USSR”. Nevertheless, history has put everything in its place: the USSR no longer exists and the poet Brodsky belongs to eternity.
Bread of Exile
I left the country that had fed me” and “ate the bread of exile without leaving any crusts.” These lines would be written by Joseph Brodsky at the age of forty. In the meantime, on May 10, 1972, the poet was summoned to the State Security organs and strongly advised to emigrate. If not, a new arrest would follow. On June 4, 1972, the poet, deprived of his Soviet citizenship, landed in Vienna, where he was met by Carl Proffer. Thus began a new, American chapter in Joseph Brodsky’s life. He was free, happy, full of hope, and confident that, with time, he would be able to bring over his elderly parents as well. We know now, however, that Alexander and Maria would never see their son again. None of the poet’s efforts, nor any intercession on his behalf, offered results. The Soviet Government would hold the elderly couple hostage until the end of their days. This was the only way to take revenge on the rebellious Brodsky. The poet never did return to his homeland either. He said to Solomon Volkov: “… we know that it is impossible to enter the same river twice, even if that river is the Neva.” Even more definitely to Eugene Rein: “Zhenya, you can return to the crime scene, but you cannot return to the place of love.”
Brodsky’s life in the United States was not full of difficulties like a traditional story of emigration. He taught at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and at several other American universities. He wrote poetry and essays. For him, English became the language of communication and creativity. After being awarded the Nobel Prize, Brodsky said in an interview with BBC, “I cannot imagine my existence in only one language. … English is immensely dear to me.” Then he added: “The difference between English and Russian is like the difference between tennis and chess. In chess, the main thing is combinations, but in English, the ball immediately bounces at your face.”
Emigration eventually led Joseph Brodsky to Maria Sozzani, a beautiful Italian woman with Russian roots. Despite their 30 year age difference, the couple were married and had a daughter. The poet, who was finally happy, nevertheless suffered from an aching heart, which finally stopped the night of the 27th of January, 1996. Joseph Brodsky’s grave is located in the Venetian cemetery on the island of San Michele, where the poet always dreamed of being buried. We, still living, continue to reread his poems, and thoughts-prophecies: “I do not call for replacing the State with a library — although this thought has visited me many times. But I have no doubt that there would be less grief on the earth if we chose our rulers on the basis of their reading experience, and not on the basis of their political programs.”
Eugenia Sineva