Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Official website of the State –
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On October 22, 1987, the outstanding Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature with the following statement: "For his comprehensive work, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity."
Joseph Brodsky was born on May 24, 1940, in Leningrad. During the siege of Leningrad, his family managed to evacuate to Cherepovets, and from then on, moving became a permanent part of the poet's life. He dreamed of becoming a sailor and a doctor, but instead worked as a milling machine operator, a stoker, and a lighthouse keeper. He participated in geological expeditions to the White Sea, Eastern Siberia, and Yakutia, and even participated in the discovery of a small uranium deposit. Throughout this time, he read prolifically and taught himself English and Polish.
Nineteen-year-old Brodsky's first public appearance took place at a poetry tournament at the Gorky Palace of Culture in Leningrad. The young author immediately became a household name, and he entered the literary circles of the northern capital, meeting Anna Akhmatova, Bulat Okudzhava, Sergei Dovlatov, and many others.
"You know, I'm leaving my homeland…"
In the 1960s, Joseph Brodsky, along with many other literary figures, was hounded in the press and accused of parasitism, despite officially publishing in children's magazines and translating. He was arrested twice and exiled to the Arkhangelsk region. Against this backdrop, as well as his break with his lifelong muse, the artist Marianna Basmanova (many of his poems are dedicated to M.B.), the psychological problems that had plagued him since childhood worsened.
Samuil Marshak, Korney Chukovsky, Alexander Tvardovsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Dmitry Shostakovich, and even Jean-Paul Sartre issued official letters in defense of the poet. In 1965, after a year and a half of exile, Brodsky was released early. Nevertheless, he became persona non grata in the USSR. Only four of his adult poems were published, although he was already quite famous abroad and became a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. In 1972, the poet was asked to leave the country. His letter to Brezhnev asking him to stay at least as a translator went unanswered. The documents were processed in just 12 days, although such a process could usually drag on for up to a year.
Joseph Brodsky settled in the United States, where he accepted a position as "visiting poet" at the University of Michigan. Over the next 24 years, he held professorships at six American and British universities, taught the history of Russian literature and Russian and world poetry, and gave lectures and poetry readings in Canada, England, Ireland, France, Sweden, and Italy. His favorite city was Venice, which became the silent heroine of many of his poems.
“Yes, my heart is breaking even harder…”
On October 22, 1987, Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. He became the fifth Russian laureate, following Ivan Bunin, Boris Pasternak, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Like Solzhenitsyn, rehabilitation awaited him in his homeland, but unlike Solzhenitsyn, Brodsky was unable to return, embarrassed by the increased media attention and fearing for his health after several heart attacks.
The great poet died of sudden cardiac arrest on the night of January 27–28, 1996, in the study of his New York apartment. A bilingual collection of Greek epigrams lay open on the table. According to his own wishes, he was buried in Venice's San Michele Cemetery between the graves of Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Diaghilev.
In the history of Russian poetry, Brodsky remains one of the most masterful wordsmiths, striking in his rich metaphors, complex rhythmic patterns, and broken rhymes. Themes of time and space, love and loneliness, language and geometry, antiquity and the sea run vividly through his work.
We will remain a crumpled cigarette butt, a spit, in the shadow under the bench, where the corner does not allow the sun to penetrate, and we will be compacted in an embrace with the dirt, counting the days, into humus, into sediment, into a cultural layer.
Subscribe to the "Our GUU" Telegram channel. Publication date: October 22, 2025.
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