Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky (24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian-American poet, essayist, and translator whose work emphasized metaphysical themes and classical forms amid Soviet oppression. Born in Leningrad to a Jewish family, Brodsky began composing poetry at age eighteen and gained early recognition from figures like Anna Akhmatova, but Soviet authorities arrested him in 1964 on charges of social parasitism, sentencing him to internal exile in Archangelsk for eighteen months. In 1972, under pressure from Western diplomats, he was stripped of citizenship and deported to the United States, where he settled, became a citizen, and taught at institutions including the University of Michigan and Columbia University. Brodsky received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1987 for "an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity," and served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1991 to 1992, advocating for poetry's role in fostering individual autonomy against totalitarian ideologies. His essays, collected in volumes like Less Than One, critiqued the Soviet system's denial of personal agency, drawing from his experiences of censorship and expulsion. Despite health struggles including heart surgeries, Brodsky produced prolifically in both Russian and English until his death from a heart attack in New York City.

Joseph Brodsky, born Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodskii on May 24, 1940, in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), was the only child of Aleksandr Ivanovich Brodskii and Mariia Moiseevna Volpert. His parents, both of Jewish descent, were assimilated and irreligious, with the family facing antisemitism despite their secular outlook. Aleksandr Brodskii (1903–1984), a professional photographer who worked for the Soviet Navy and as a military photojournalist, often traveled for assignments, leaving Mariia Volpert (1905–1983), an accountant and wartime interpreter of German, to manage the household.