Judge: Your employment history? Brodsky: Approximately... Judge: We are not interested in “approximately”! Brodsky: Five years. Judge: Where did you work? Brodsky: At a factory. On geological expeditions... Judge: How long did you work at the factory? Brodsky: One year. Judge: As what? Brodsky: A milling-machine operator. Judge: And in general, what is your profession? Brodsky: Poet. Poet-translator. Judge: And who recognized you as a poet? Who enrolled you among poets? Brodsky: No one. (Without challenge). And who enrolled me in the human race? Judge: And did you study for this? Brodsky: For what? Judge: To be a poet? Did you not try to finish a higher education institution, where they train... where they teach... Brodsky: I did not think it was something conferred by education. Judge: Then by what? Brodsky: I think it is... (confused)... from God... Judge: Do you have any petitions for the court? Brodsky: I would like to know why I was arrested. Judge: That is a question, not a petition. Brodsky: Then I have no petition. http://www.polit.ru/article/2004/03/14/brodsky1/
When Yulia and I were in Venice, we of course took the water bus and went to the island of San Michele. It’s literally a real island with nothing on it except a church and a cemetery.
And almost at the same time as us, two batty women—apparently mother and daughter—came up to Brodsky’s grave. In wailing voices, imitating the author, they started reciting his poems. Both were wearing hats, and the whole thing looked absolutely insane, so we had to step aside and wait off to the side for about twenty minutes until they finally noticed our murderous stares from among the other graves and cleared off, giving us three minutes to stand there alone (and take a photo too, why not).
Then I thought: this is pretty amazing. There it is, a national treasure: people travel thousands of kilometers and, standing on an Italian island, wail out poems in Russian.
I went to Wikipedia to check whether there is a Brodsky Street anywhere in Russia. In the “Memory” section it says: “In Voronezh, there is Brodsky Lane.”
We’re losing our spiritual bonds, citizens. He was a Nobel laureate, after all. When it comes to showing portraits at the Olympics, Brodsky is there. But when it comes to naming a street after him, in Voronezh he gets a lane.
Happy birthday to the great Russian poet.