Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky was a Nobel Prize-winning Russian-Jewish poet, writer, director and translator, who was arrested and prosecuted by the Soviet regime before his emigration. He was born Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky on May 24, 1940 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg, Russia). He survived the Nazi siege of Leningrad during WWII. His father, Aleksandr Brodsky, was a professional photographer, who worked for newspapers and magazines. His mother, Maria Volpert, was a professional interpreter. Young Brodsky was brought up in a highly intellectual and stimulating atmosphere of his family. He studied languages for the purpose of reading the banned Western authors. Joseph Brodsky was an unusual individual with his own independent views. He was destined to be at odds with the Soviet system due to his highly original thinking and his uncommon ways. He got tired of being abused by the Soviet propaganda and countless portraits of Lenin at his school. In an act of disobedience to the totalitarian system he dropped out of school at the age of 15. Then he tried many different jobs, including a sanitary job in the morgue at the "Kresty" prison, where he would be imprisoned a few years later. From the age of 16 he was writing his own poetry and produced literary translations.

In 1961, Brodsky met the leading Russian woman poet Anna Akhmatova, at her dacha in Komarovo. That meeting was a pivoting point in his life as a poet and man. Anna Akhmatova and her circle was an unofficial incubator for talented youth. She praised Brodsky's poetry as "enchanting", and encouraged him to keep on writing. At that time Brodsky met his first love, the artist Marianna Basmanova, who inspired him on writing a collection of poetry, dedicated to "M. B. " But his happiness was not on the agenda of the secret police.

The Soviet regime attacked Brodsky after he wrote a poem "Isaac and Avraam", based on the Old Testament and tried to publish it in 1963.

He was arrested for an unofficial publication in an underground edition in 1963.

Then he was charged with "social parasitism" in 1964. The trial of poet Brodsky was designed to intimidate other intellectuals during the return of censorship under the hard-line regime of the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet judge announced that Brodsky was not an officially registered poet, and that his activity does not help the construction of Communism. He was sentenced to five years of hard labor. He was exiled to the remote Northern village of Norenskaya in Arkhangelsk region. There he was visited by several Russian intellectuals and cultural figures.

Marianna Basmanova went along to live with Brodsky in his exile for several months, and in 1965 she became the mother of his son, Andrei. The civil union between Joseph Brodsky and Marina Basmanova could not be registered officially due to obstruction from the Soviet authorities. Brodsky and Marina agreed to have the baby registered on the mother's name for the safety of their child. The unfair trial and exile of Joseph Brodsky caused political protests from such prominent figures as Korney Ivanovich Chukovskiy, Dmitri Shostakovich, Anna Akhmatova, Samuil Marshak, Evgeniy Evtushenko, and the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. After their written protests, his sentence was commuted.

In 1965, Brodsky returned to Leningrad (St. Petersburg), but his poetry was still under the Soviet censorship. That same year his first collection of poetry was published in USA. Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union Brodsky was forcefully sent to a Soviet mental institution, where the treatment consisted of wrapping him in cold, wet sheets.

On June 4, 1972, Brodsky became an involuntary exile from the Soviet Union. He made brief stops in Vienna and London, and then went to USA. There he worked as a visiting professor at several universities.

In 1978 he was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters at Yale University.

In 1979, Brodsky was indicted as a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

In 1981, Brodsky received the "genius" award from the MacArthur Foundation. While living in America, Brodsky tried to bring his father and mother to live with him. He sent many official requests and invitations, but all his requests were denied by the Soviet authorities, and his parents ended up dying in the Soviet Union without seeing Brodsky ever again. In the 80s he published a collection of love poems, dedicated to Marianna Basmanova, with several verses titled "M. B. " He also wanted to reunite with her and their son, Andrei Basmanov, but neither Marianna Basmanova, nor their son, were able to leave the Soviet Union to join Brodsky in emigration.

Joseph Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987), and was designated Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992). Outside of his writing profession, he founded a popular Russian restaurant in New York, and also made a documentary film about the city of Venice, which was his favorite place to visit.

In 1990 he married his Sorbonne student, Maria Sozzani, who was of Russian-Italian heritage, and they had a daughter. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Brodsky succeeded in bringing his son, Andrei Basmanov, for a father-son reunion in New York, and they were together for several months. By that time, his son already had a wife and three children living in Russia.

Appointed the US Poet Laureate, 10 May 1991-14 June 1992.

Biography in: "American National Biography". Supplement 1, pp. 67-69. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Pictured on one of ten USA nondenominated commemorative postage stamps celebrating "20th Century Poets", issued as a pane of 20 stamps on 21 April 2012. Other stamps in this issued honored Gwendolyn Brooks, e.e. cummings, Sylvia Plath, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, and Theodore Roethke. The price of each stamp on day of issue was 45¢.

Pictured on a Russian 17-ruble commemorative postage stamp issued 22 May 2015, celebrating the 75 anniversary of his birth.