Biography Brodsky Joseph Alexandrovich
(1940-1996)
Poet, translator, critic, essayist, playwright
The first poetic experiences of I. Brodsky belong to 1957. In the early 60-ies begins to work as a poet-translator. By the same time, an acquaintance with AA Akhmatova, who highly valued his talent, was related.
Poems appeared in the samizdat journal “Syntax” (1959-1960 gg.).
On February 12, 1964, arrested and convicted by the Dzerzhinsky District Court of Leningrad on charges of parasitism, he was sentenced to a five-year exile in the Arkhangelsk region.
In the summer of 1972, Brodsky was forced to emigrate to the United States. He taught at universities. In 1980 he received American citizenship.
In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. In 1992 he became the Poet-Laureate of the USA. In his work Brodsky deals with the most important problems of human existence. He is non-national and apolitical.
The theme of St. Petersburg becomes an emotional dominant
In the poem, the poet’s personal time is associated with the time of the city. Petersburg acts as a repository of time, stopped and inspired by poetry. The text is saturated with specific toponyms, according to the text of the St. Petersburg novel, the poet’s movements around the city are easily restored, up to specific bus routes. The poet notices those buildings with which the literary history of Petersburg is connected: the house of Muruzi, the Razhezhuyu street, where the editorial office of “Apollo” was located, etc.
Many poems by Brodsky are devoted to Petersburg. Poems, where the St. Petersburg theme is most pronounced: Kellomäki (“Lost in the Dunes, Selected from the Chukhny:”); Embankment of the river. Buckles (“The
“Sretenie”
Anna Akhmatova
When she was brought to the church for the first time by the
Child, were inside from among the
People who were there constantly,
Saint Symeon and the prophetess Anna.
And the elder received the baby from his hands
Mary; and three people around the
Baby stood like a shaky frame,
That morning, lost in the twilight of the temple.
That temple surrounded them like a frozen forest.
From the views of people and from the gaze of heaven
The peaks concealed, having managed to spread out,
That morning, Mary, the prophetess, the elder.
And only on the crown with a random ray did the
Light fall to the baby; But he did
not know about anything yet and snored sleepily,
Resting on the strong hands of Simeon…
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