Biography for
Joseph Brodsky More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

24 May 1940, Leningrad, Soviet Union. [now St. Petersburg, Russia]

Date of Death

28 January 1996, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA (heart attack)

Birth Name

Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodskiy

Mini Biography

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, named Aleksandr Brodsky, was a professional photographer, who worked for newspapers and magazines. His mother, named Maria Volpert, was a professional interpreter. Young Brodsky was brought up in an 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 in 1961 Brodsky met his first love, the artist Marianna Basmanova, who inspired him on writing a collection of poetry, dedicated to "M. B." She became the mother of his son Andrei. But his happiness was not on the agenda of the secret police. In 1963 he wrote a poem "Isaac and Avraam", based on the Old Testament and tried to publish it.

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 Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet judge announced that Brodsky was not a 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. Marianna Basmanova went along to live with Brodsky in his exile for several months. He was also visited by several Russian intellectuals and cultural figures.

The unfair trial and exile of Brodsky caused political protests from such prominent figures as Kornei Chukovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, Anna Akhmatova, Samuil Marshak, Yevgeni Yevtushenko, 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. In 1983 he published a collection of love poems, dedicated to Marianna Basmanova, with several verses titled "M. B."

In 1990 he married his Sorbonne student, Maria Sozzani, who was of Russian-Italian heritage, and in 1992 they had a daughter. Brodsky was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature (1987), and was Poet Laureate of the United States (1991-1992). He also made a documentary film about the city of Venice, which was his favorite place to visit. He died on January 28, 1996, and was laid to rest in the island of San Michele in Venice, near the tomb of Sergei Diaghilev.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov

Trivia

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

Appointed the US Poet Laureate for 1991 (appointement is for 1 year).

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987.

Wrote the Russia lyrics to the song: "Lili Marlene" (Lili Marleen) with music by Norbert Schultze, original lyrics by Hans Leip.

Browse biographies section by name

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z