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Страницы сайта поэта Иосифа Бродского (1940-1996)

Из письма луны М.:
К. пригласила на ужин членов расширенного Совета, потом показала один из первых
твоих вестернов на четвертом этаже - "Одинокий ствол". Странно, я раньше этот фильм
пропустила. Сценарист, режиссер и главная кинодива - ЛФ. Там много драк, стрельбы,
нервного крутого смеха и десяток ослепительных постельных сцен. Оказалось, никто
раньше, кроме К., тоже этого фильма не видел... Потом проверила фильмотеку - всегда
был в свободном доступе... Но их там столько... А теперь их вообще - дурная бесконечность...
Даже странно - умнейшие люди наших Островов их создавали в какой-то бешеной горячке -
тысячи могилок мальчиков сгорели безвозвратно... В этом фильме ты играешь не просто
одинокого охотника, но Зверобоя, сердце которого ранила дочь богача, в роскошных
спальнях особняка которого проходит половина фильма, другая половина - твоя великолепная
стрельба, невозмутивмая ирония и желчные шутки, отлично поставленные драки и т.п. и т.д.
Порылась в архиве и штрих-пунктиром просмотрела "Сварливую жену", где ты играешь Сократа.
Познавательно! Получается, ЛФ чуть ли не наизусть знает "Диалоги" Платона... Могилки!!! Ц. М.

 

January 29, 1996


Joseph Brodsky, Exiled Poet Who Won Nobel, Dies at 55

By ROBERT D. McFADDEN


Joseph Brodsky, the persecuted Russian poet who settled in
the United States in the early 1970's, won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1987 and became his adopted country's
poet laureate, died yesterday at his apartment in Brooklyn
Heights. He was 55.

 
The cause was believed to be a heart attack, said Roger
Straus, Mr. Brodsky's friend and publisher. Mr. Brodsky had
open-heart surgery in 1979 and later had two bypass
operations, and had been in frail health for many years.

 
The poetry of Joseph Brodsky, with its haunting images of
wandering and loss and the human search for freedom, was
not political, and certainly not the work of an anarchist
or even of an active dissident. If anything, his was a
dissent of the spirit, protesting the drabness of life in
the Soviet Union and its pervasive materialist dogmas.

                But in a land of poets where poetry and other literature
was officially subservient to the state, where verses were
marshaled like so many laborers to the quarries of
Socialist Realism, it was perhaps inevitable that Mr.
Brodsky's wark -- unpublished except in underground forums,
but increasingly popular -- should have run afoul of the
literary police.

                He was first denounced in 1963 by a Leningrad newspaper,
which called his poetry "pornographic and anti-Soviet." He
was interrogated, his papers were seized, and he was twice
put in a mental institution. Finally he was arrested and
brought to trial.

                Unable to fault him on his poetry's content, the
authorities indicted him in 1964 on a charge of
"parasitism." They called him "a pseudo-poet in velveteen
trousers" who failed to fulfill his "constitutional duty to
work honestly for the good of the motherland."

                The trial was held in secret, though a transcript was
smuggled out and became a cause celebre in the West, which
was suddenly aware of a new symbol of artistic dissent in a
totalitarian society. Mr. Brodsky was found guilty and
sentenced to five years in an Arctic labor camp.

                But amid protests from writers at home and abroad, the
Soviet authorities commuted his sentence after 18 months,
and he returned to his native Leningrad. Over the next
seven years he continued to write, with many of his works
translated into German, French and English and published
abroad, and his stature and popularity continued to grow,
particularly in the West.

                But he was increasingly harassed, for being Jewish as well
as for his poetry. He was denied permission to travel
abroad to writers' conferences. Finally, in 1972, he was
issued a visa, taken to the airport and expelled. He left
his parents behind.

                With the help of W. H. Auden, who befriended him, he
settled in Ann Arbor, Mich., where he became a
poet-in-residence at the University of Michigan. He later
moved to New York, teaching at Queens College, Mount
Holyoke College and other schools. He traveled widely,
though never back to his homeland, even after the collapse
of the Soviet Government. He became a United States citizen
in 1977.

                Meanwhile, his poems, plays, essays and criticisms appeared
in many forums, including The New Yorker, The New York
Review of Books and other magazines. They were anthologized
in books in a growing canon that garnered the 1981
MacArthur Award, the 1986 National Book Critics Circle
Award, an honorary doctorate of literature from Oxford
University and, in 1987, the Nobel Prize in Literature.

                The Swedish Academy, which awards the prestigious prize,
said he had been honored for the body of his work and "for
all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought
and poetic intensity." It also called his writing "rich and
intensely vital," characterized by "great breadth in time
and space."

                In 1991, the United States added to his honors, naming him
poet laureate. The rumpled, chain-smoking Mr. Brodsky had
for 15 years been the Andrew Mellon Professor of Literature
at Mount Holyoke College, in South Hadley, Mass., and had
been scheduled to return there today to begin the spring
semester.

                Joseph Ellis, a former faculty dean who brought Mr. Brodsky
to the college in the early 1980's, recalled yesterday how
his friend often was seen speeding around the campus in an
old Mercedes. He would interrupt conversations with
students and colleagues to jot down notes on bits of paper
he carried in his pocket. "He thought out loud in front of
his students in a way that was inspirational," Mr. Ellis
said.

                Mr. Brodsky, who wrote in English as well as in Russian,
though his poems were composed in Russian and
self-translated, was a disciple of the Russian poet Anna
Akhmatova, whom he called "the keening muse." He was also
strongly influenced by the English poet John Donne, as well
as Mr. Auden, who died in 1973. One volume of Mr. Brodsky's
poetry, "Elegy to John Donne and Other Poems," was
published in London in 1967. His "Selected Poems" had a
foreword by Mr. Auden.

                But Mr. Brodsky was best known for three books published by
Farrar, Straus & Giroux: a volume of poetry called "A Part
of Speech" (1977); a book of essays, "Less Than One"
(1986), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award,
and a book of poems, "To Urania" (1988). Other recent works
include a play in three acts called "Marbles" (Noonday
Press, 1989) and a book of prose, "Watermark" (Farrar,
Straus, 1992).

                Mr. Straus remembered Mr. Brodsky as "very warm, very
caring, very willing to give his friendship," especially to
young writers and other exiles, some of whom he championed
selflessly.

                Robert Silvers, co-editor of The New York Review of Books,
also spoke in glowing terms of Mr. Brodsky and his work.
"It was astonishing that a Russian poet should have emerged
as also one of the most powerful writers in the English
language in just these years of exile," he said.

                In Russia, Yevgeny Kiselyov, host of the weekly news
program Itogi, told the nation's te'evision viewers: "He
was the only Russian poet who enjoyed the right to be
called 'great' in his lifetime."

                It was also reported in Moscow that Gleb Uspensky, a senior
editor and co-publisher of the Russian publishing house
Vagrius, had met Mr. Brodsky in New York last fall and
asked him to return to Russia for a tour as part of a deal
to republish some of his works in Russian. Mr. Uspensky was
quoted as saying that Mr. Brodsky seemed interested, but
was torn by the prospect and did not agree.

                Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky -- whose first name is
sometimes given as Josip or Iosif -- was born in Leningrad
on May 24, 1940, to Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky, a
commercial photographer, whose status as a Jew kept him
often out of work, and Maria M. Volpert Brodsky, who was
linguistically gifted and often supported the family.

                The redheaded boy spent his early years living in a
communal apartment shared with other families. His parents
gave him a Russified, assimilated upbringing, and he
himself made little of his religious lineage, but as he
later recalled, his teachers were anti-Semitic and treated
him negatively.

                However, he was something of a spiritual dissenter, even as
a boy. "I began to despise Lenin, even when I was in the
first grade, not so much because of his political
philosophy or practice . . . but because of his omnipresent
images," he recalled.

                He quit school at the age of 15 and began working in what
proved to be a series of jobs, including laborer, metal
worker and hospital morgue attendant. Literature provided
an alternative to the drabness of his life. He learned
Polish so he could translate the works of Polish poets like
Czeslaw Milosz, and English so he could translate Donne.

                Beginning in 1955, he began to write poems, many of which
appeared on mimeographed sheets, known as samizdat, and
were circulated among friends. Others were published by a
fringe group of young writers and artists in the
underground journal Sintaksis.

                He began joining street-corner recitations, rendering his
poems in a voice that was soft yet dramatic, reflecting the
weariness and vibrancy in his verses. "He recited as if in
a trance," one friend recalled. "His verbal and musical
intensity had a magical effect." As his popularity began to
grow, he a'so made enemies among older, more entrenched
Leningrad writers.

                In 1963, after a Leningrad newspaper denounced the
23-year-old poet as "a drone" and "a literary parasite,"
harassments began in a pattern that seemed to confirm that
they had official backing. These led to a trial that began
in February 1964. A transcript sent to the West contained
this colloquy:

                Judge: What is your profession?

                Brodsky: Translator and poet.

                Judge: Who has recognized you as a poet? Who has enrolled
you in the ranks of poets?

                Brodsky: No one. Who enrolled me in the ranks of the human
race?

                Found guilty and given a sentence of five years, Mr.
Brodsky was sent to a labor camp near Arkhangelsk, where he
chopped wood, hauled manure and crushed rocks for 18
months. At night, in his bunk, he read an anthology of
English and American poetry.

                After his release and return to Leningrad, the harassment
resumed, but so did his work, and some of it began
appearing in the West. "Verses and Poems" was published by
the Inter-Language Literary Associates in Washington in
1965, "Elegy to John Donne and Other Poems" was published
in London in 1967 by Longmans Green, and "A Stop in the
Desert" was issued in 1970 by Chekhov Publishing in New
York.

                Despite his growing stature, however, he was denied
permission to attend writers' conferences abroad. In 1971,
he received two invitations to immigrate to Israel. In May
1972, he was summoned to the Ministry of the Interior and
asked why he had not accepted. He said he had no wish to
leave his country.

                Within 10 days, authorities invaded his apartment, seized
his papers, took him to the airport and put him on a plane
for Vienna. In Austria, he met Mr. Auden, who arranged for
his transit to the United States. After a year at Michigan
as poet-in-residence, he taught at Queens College
(1973-74), returned to the University of Michigan (1974-80)
and then accepted a chair at Mount Holyoke.

                Mr. Straus recalled that he was with Mr. Brodsky in London
when they learned about the Nobel Prize. "He was
overjoyed," Mr. Straus recalled. "It was fairly amazing
that Joseph should win at that young age." But publicly,
Mr. Brodsky made light of it. "A big step for me, a small
step for mankind," he joked.

                In naming him United States poet laureate in 1991, James
Billington, the Librarian of Congress, said Mr. Brodsky
"has the open-ended interest of American life that
immigrants have. This is a reminder that so much of
American creativity is from people not born in America."

                Mr. Brodsky is survived by his wife, Maria, and his
daughter, Anna, who were with him when he died.

                A Poet in His Own Words 

                Everything has its limit, including sorrow.

                A windowpane stalls a stare. Nor does a grill abandon

                a leaf. One may rattle the keys, gurgle down a swallow.

                Loneliness cubes a man at random.

                A camel sniffs at the rail with a resentful nostril;

                a perspective cuts emptiness deep and even.

                And what is space anyway if not the

                body's absence at every given

                point? That's why Urania's older than sister Clio!

                In daylight or with the soot-rich lantern,

                you see the globe's pate free of any bio,

                you see she hides nothing, unlike the latter. 

                -- From the title poem of the collection "To Urania"

                Darling, you think it's love, it's just a midnight journey.

                Best are the dales and rivers removed by force,

                as from the next compartment throttles "Oh, stop it,
Bernie,"

                yet the rhythm of those paroxysms is exactly yours.

                Hook to the meat! Brush to the red-brick dentures,

                alias cigars, smokeless like a driven nail!

                Here the works are fewer than monkey wrenches,

                and the phones are whining, dwarfed by to-no-avail.

                Bark, then, with joy at Clancy, Fitzgibbon, Miller.

                Dogs and block letters care how misfortune spells.

                Still, you can tell yourself in the john by the spat-at
mirror,

                slamming the flush and emerging with clean lapels. 

                -- From "Seaward," in the collection "To Urania"

                Citizen, enemy, mama's boy, sucker, utter

                garbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;

                a scalp so often scalded with boiling water

                that the puny brain feels completely cooked.

                Yes, we have dwelt here: in this concrete, brick, wooden

                rubble which you now arrive to sift.

                All our wires were crossed, barbed, tangled, or interwoven.

                Also: we didn't love our women, but they conceived.

                Sharp is the sound of the pickax that hurts dead iron;

                still, it's gentler than what we've been told or have said
to ourselves. 

                -- From "Letter to an Archeologist," in the collection "To
Urania"

                So long had life together been that now

                the second of January fell again

                on Tuesday, making her astonished 'row

                lift like a windshield wiper in the rain,

                so that her misty sadness cleared, and showed

                a cloudless distance waiting up the road.

                -- From "Six Years Later," in the collection "A Part of
Speech"

                I was born and grew up in the Baltic marshland

                by zinc-gray breakers that always marched on

                in twos. Hence all rhymes, hence that wan flat voice

                that ripples between them like hair still moist,

                if it ripples at all. Propped on a pallid elbow,

                the helix picks out of them no sea rumble

                but a clap of canvas, of shutters, of hands, a kettle

                on the burner, bo'ling -- lastly the seagull's metal

                cry. What keeps hearts from falseness in this flat region

                is that there is nowhere to hide and plenty of room for
vision.

                Only sound needs echo and dread its lack.

                A glance is accustomed to glance back.

                -- From the title poem in the collection "A Part of Speech"

                For some odd reason, the expression "death of a poet"
always sounds somewhat more concrete than "life of a poet."
Perhaps this is because both "life" and "poet," as words,
are almost synonymous in their positive vagueness. Whereas
"death" -- even as a word -- is about as definite as a
poet's own production, i.e., a poem, the main feature of
which is its last line. Whatever a work of art consists of,
it runs to the finale which makes for its form and denies
resurrection. After the last line of a poem nothing follows
except literary criticism. So when we read a poet, we
participate in his or his works' death. In the case of
Mandelstam, we participate in both.


-- From "The Child of Civilization," in "Less Than One: Selected Essays"


 
Источник: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/17/specials/brodsky-obit.html?_r=2&scp=9&sq=Joseph%20Brodsky&st=cse

    Иосиф Бродский
        
  
            

"Рембрандт. Офорты"

        I

     "Он был настолько дерзок, что стремился
     познать себя..." Не больше и не меньше,
     как самого себя.
     Для достиженья этой
     недостижимой цели он сначала
     вооружился зеркалом, но после,
     сообразив, что главная задача
     не столько в том, чтоб видеть, сколько в том,
     чтоб рассказать о виденном голландцам,
     он взялся за офортную иглу
     и принялся рассказывать.
     О чем же
     он нам поведал? Что он увидал?

     Он обнаружил в зеркале лицо, которое
     само в известном смысле
     есть зеркало.
     Любое выраженье
     лица - лишь отражение того,
     что происходит с человеком в жизни.
     А происходит разное:
     сомненья,
     растерянность, надежды, гневный смех -
     как странно видеть, что одни и те же
     черты способны выразить весьма
     различные по сути ощущенья.
     Еще страннее, что в конце концов
     на смену гневу, горечи, надеждам
     и удивлению приходит маска
     спокойствия - такое ощущенье,
     как будто зеркало от всех своих
     обязанностей хочет отказаться
     и стать простым стеклом, и пропускать
     и свет и мрак без всяческих препятствий.

     Таким он увидал свое лицо.
     И заключил, что человек способен
     переносить любой удар судьбы,
     что горе или радость в равной мере
     ему к лицу: как пышные одежды
     царя. И как лохмотья нищеты.
     Он все примерил и нашел, что все,
     что он примерил, оказалось впору.

        II

     И вот тогда он посмотрел вокруг.
     Рассматривать других имеешь право
     лишь хорошенько рассмотрев себя.
     И чередою перед ним пошли
     аптекари, солдаты, крысоловы,
     ростовщики, писатели, купцы -
     Голландия смотрела на него
     как в зеркало. И зеркало сумело
     правдиво - и на многие века -
     запечатлеть Голландию и то, что
     одна и та же вещь объединяет
     все эти - старые и молодые - лица;
     и имя этой общей вещи - свет.

     Не лица разнятся, но свет различен:
     Одни, подобно лампам, изнутри
     освещены. Другие же - подобны
     всему тому, что освещают лампы.
     И в этом - суть различия.
     Но тот,
     кто создал этот свет, одновременно
     (и не без оснований) создал тень.
     А тень не просто состоянье света,
     но нечто равнозначное и даже
     порой превосходящее его.

     Любое выражение лица -
     растерянность, надежда, глупость, ярость
     и даже упомянутая маска
     спокойствия - не есть заслуга жизни
     иль самых мускулов лица, но лишь
     заслуга освещенья.
     Только эти
     две вещи - тень и свет - нас превращают
     в людей.

     Неправда?
     Что ж, поставьте опыт:
     задуйте свечи, опустите шторы.
     Чего во мраке стоят ваши лица?

        III

     Но люди думают иначе. Люди
     считают, что они о чем-то спорят,
     поступки совершают, любят, лгут,
     пророчествуют даже.
     Между тем,
     они всего лишь пользуются светом
     и часто злоупотребляют им,
     как всякой вещью, что досталась даром.
     Одни порою застят свет другим.
     Другие заслоняются от света.
     А третьи норовят затмить весь мир
     своей персоной - всякое бывает.
     А для иных он сам внезапно гаснет.

        IV

     И вот когда он гаснет для того,
     кого мы любим, а для нас не гаснет
     когда ты можешь видеть только лишь
     тех, на кого ты и смотреть не хочешь
     (и в том числе, на самого себя),

     тогда ты обращаешь взор к тому,
     что прежде было только задним планом
     твоих портретов и картин -
     к земле...

     Трагедия окончена. Актер
     уходит прочь. Но сцена - остается
     и начинает жить своею жизнью.

     Что ж, в виде благодарности судьбе
     изобрази со всею страстью сцену.

     Ты произнес свой монолог. Она
     переживет твои слова, твой голос
     и гром аплодисментов, и молчанье,
     столь сильно осязаемое после
     аплодисментов. А потом - тебя,
     всё это пережившего.

        V

     Ну, что ж,
     ты это знал и раньше. Это - тоже
     дорожка в темноту.
     Но так ли надо
     страшиться мрака? Потому что мрак
     всего лишь форма сохраненья света
     от лишних трат, всего лишь форма сна,
     подобье передышки.
     А художник -
     художник должен видеть и во мраке.

     Что ж, он и видит. Часть лица.
     Клочок какой-то ткани. Краешек телеги.
     Затылок чей-то. Дерево. Кувшин.
     Все это как бы сновиденья света,
     уснувшего на время крепким сном.

     Но рано или поздно он проснется.

             <1971>

     * На  киностудии "Леннаучфильм"  в  шестидесятые годы  кормилось немало
отверженных:  ученые,  идеи  которых  не  признавала   академическая  наука,
литераторы,  которые нигде  не  печатались  и  выживали  благодаря сценарной
работе.  Однажды   ко   мне,  редактору  студии,  подошел   режиссер  Михаил
Гавронский. Он вывел меня  в  коридор,  дал несколько листков со  стихами  и
сказал:  "Это  написал мой племянник  Ося.  Ему  нужно как-то  зарабатывать:
родители очень  волнуются,  что  он  без дела". Было это  в 1962 году. Стихи
показались  мне  замечательными,  и,  когда  ко  мне  пришел  молодой  Иосиф
Бродский, мы стали вместе думать, что бы ему написать.
     *  Он предложил сделать фильм  о маленьком буксире, который плавает  по
большой Неве. Через месяц он принес стихи о буксире и сказал, что это и есть
сценарий.  К сожалению, нам  пришлось отказаться от темы,  потому  что  было
ясно,  что  Госкино  никогда  не  утвердит сценарий в таком  виде. Иосиф  же
сказал,  что написал все, что мог. Через год, еще до ссылки, стихи о буксире
были  опубликованы  в  детском   ленинградском  журнале.  Эта   единственная
публикация  не  имела, конечно, никакого  значения  для судебного решения по
поводу "тунеядства" поэта.
     *  В  1971 году, пользуясь давностью знакомства,  я обратился к  Иосифу
Бродскому с  просьбой написать  текст в стихах к фильму "Рембрандт. Офорты".
Иосиф прочитал мой режиссерский сценарий  и сказал, что попробует. Через две
недели я пришел к нему и получил  четыре страницы  стихов. Он пообещал: "Это
проба. Когда фильм будет отснят, я напишу  больше". Фильм был снят, а  стихи
отвергнуты  сценарным  отделом  студии  "Леннаучфильм":  Бродский   уже  был
"слишком известной" фигурой.  Стихи так и остались у меня; копии у автора не
было, единственный  экземпляр был  отдан мне в руки прямо  с машинки. Сейчас
эти стихи Иосифа Бродского публикуются впервые.

        Виктор КИРНАРСКИЙ

     * "Московские новости". No. 5. 1996