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😉 Greetings to my regular readers and visitors of the site! The article “Joseph Brodsky: A Brief Biography, Facts” – about the life of a dissident poet, translator, prose writer, playwright, Nobel Prize winner.
Joseph Brodsky: biography
He was born on May 24 (according to the zodiac – Gemini) 1940 in a Jewish family, in the beautiful city on the Neva – Leningrad.
Father, Alexander Ianovich Brodsky, served as a military photojournalist. His return from the war took place in 1948. Later he got a job in a photographic laboratory, which was located at the Naval Museum. In 1950 he was demobilized and found work in several local newspapers.
Mother, Maria Moiseevna Volpert, worked as an accountant. My own maternal aunt, Dora Moiseevna Volpert, chose the profession of an actress.
Brodsky’s childhood fell on a difficult war and post-war period. Poverty, devastation, blockade and the absence of a father left their mark on the poet’s work.
In 1955, after graduating from seven classes, Brodsky dropped out of school and entered the mill as an apprentice at the plant. This decision was due to both problems at school and Joseph’s desire to support his family.
Then he tried to enter the school for submariners, but to no avail. At the age of 16, he got the idea of becoming a surgeon. For a month he worked in a morgue, dissected corpses, but eventually abandoned his medical career.
Brodsky’s work
For several years he tried more than a dozen professions: geophysical technician, orderly, stoker, photographer. He was looking for a job that could be combined with self-education and creativity. During this period, Brodsky wrote his first poems, studied English and Polish.
In 1960, Joseph made his first public appearance. He performed with the poem “Jewish Cemetery”, the work provoked a real scandal.
In the same year, Brodsky and his friend, a former pilot, had a plan to hijack an aircraft in order to cross the border of the USSR. But at the last moment they changed their minds, and a little later, his friend Oleg Shakhmatov was arrested. He told the KGB about this joint plan.
A month later, Brodsky was also detained, but two days later he was released, taking a pencil.
Dangerous Criminal Link
In the summer of 1961 Brodsky met Anna Akhmatova. A year later, they met Nadezhda Mandelstam (wife of Osip Mandelstam). In 1963 – with Lydia Chukovskaya.
In the same year, the newspaper Vecherniy Leningrad published an article entitled “Near-literary drone”. The poet was accused of a parasitic lifestyle.
In 1954, a wave of struggle against parasites swept across the Soviet Union. This wave also covered Brodsky. After all, he did not have a permanent job, living on meager royalties from translations.
In 1964, “thanks” to the vigilant Leningrad public, a criminal case was initiated against Brodsky. He was accused of parasitism. The poet was arrested 5 days later. A month later, while in the cell, he had his first heart attack.
Then, by a court decision, he was sent for a forensic psychiatric examination. According to the poet’s recollections, this was the most difficult time in his life. The examination established that the patient is capable of serving his sentence.
The poet was sentenced to 5 years in prison for parasitism. They sent him under escort together with criminal prisoners to a remote village near Arkhangelsk. According to the poet, he was happy during this period of his life. He managed to study English poetry over the years.
Under pressure from the domestic and foreign public, the term of punishment was reduced for the “dangerous criminal”. Two years later, he returned to his homeland.
Akhmatova and Chukovskaya were seeking his freedom. Letters in defense of Brodsky were signed by D. D. Shostakovich, S. Ya. Marshak, K. I. Chukovsky, K. G. Paustovsky, A. T. Tvardovsky, Yu. P. German and others.
In the USSR, Brodsky’s poems were not published, they were published abroad. The persecution continued until May 1972. Joseph Alexandrovich was given a choice – a psychiatric hospital or emigration. He had already been to a mental hospital and, according to him, it was much more terrible than a prison.
Brodsky chose emigration. In 1977, the poet became an American citizen.
Nobel Prize for the “parasite”
Soon he became a professor at Michigan, New York and other universities in the country. He travels a lot around the world, lives in London, Stockholm, Paris, but Venice becomes his favorite place on earth, to which many beautiful poems and a wonderful prose essay are dedicated.
In 1987, Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for an all-encompassing work imbued with clarity of thought and passion for poetry.”
The poet died in New York in 1996 of a heart attack. He was 55! The four heart attacks experienced during his life have done their destructive work.
He was buried in America. In 1997, Brodsky was reburied in the Protestant part of the cemetery on the island of San Michele, in beautiful Venice, which he loved very much.
Joseph Brodsky: personal life
Marina → Marianna → Maria
- In 1962 the poet met the artist Marina Basmanova. This was the first, pure and great love. The girl’s parents were against this union from the very beginning. Marina came to exile to Joseph. In 1968 they had a son, Andrei. But because of Marina’s betrayal with his friend, they broke up. Joseph was ready to commit suicide.
- Daughter – Anastasia Iosifovna Kuznetsova (born 1972) from the ballerina Marianna Kuznetsova.
- 1990 – official marriage with Italian Maria Sozzani, born in 1969, who had Russian roots. In this happy marriage, daughter Anna was born.
Joseph Brodsky and Maria Sozzani
Communication with parents
- Brodsky’s parents were not allowed to go to their son at the request of doctors. He, like a core, needed special care;
- they did not allow him to come to Leningrad for the funerals of his mother (1983) and father (1985).
Greetings from Leningrad!
- In 1995 I.A. Brodsky was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of St. Petersburg.
Joseph Brodsky: short biography (video):
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