STANFORD—The exhibit currently showing in the Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion, Remembering Joseph Brodsky, 1940–1996, has been extended to February 28, 2001, because of the additional interest accompanying the recent publication of Brodsky's Collected Works in English. Group tours in both Russian and English are now available.
The story of the Nobel prize recipient and U. S. poet laureate's life is told through books (many special editions), manuscripts, and photographs, some never before published from his teenage years. The collection of Irwin T. and Shirley Holtzman in the Hoover Institution Archives forms the basis of the exhibition. Additional materials are from the private collections of Lev Poliakov and Eleonara Larionova Kuliakov.
Brodsky, the victim of Soviet harassment, was convicted as a "social parasite" in 1964. The testimony from his trial, leaked to the western media, propelled him from a little-known twenty-three-year-old-poet to an international symbol of the individual's rights against the state.
Judge: Who recognized you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?
Brodsky: No one. And who enrolled me in the ranks of humanity?
Judge: Did you study this?
Brodsky: This?
Judge: To become a poet. You did not try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?
Brodsky: I didn't think you could get this from school.
Judge: How then?
Brodsky: I think that it . . . comes from God.
Brodsky's poems began appearing in the West following his trial. Within the next few years, translations of Brodsky's poems appeared in English, German, French, Hebrew, Polish, and Czech. Foreign visitors beat a path to Brodsky's door. The KGB took notice.
In May of 1972 during a visit from Carl Proffer, University of Michigan professor and head of a small publishing house, a message came for Brodsky to report to the Ministry of Visas and Immigration. An ultimatum was presented, leaving Brodsky no choice. He had to leave the country of his birth and language. Proffer helped to arrange a position at the University of Michigan; Brodsky accepted.
The Soviet authorities assumed that once Brodsky left the country he would become only one more émigré among many; his importance would accordingly diminish. This could not have been further from the truth. In fact, rare for a poet, Brodsky gained celebrity status with his dry humor, his openness to the media, and his prolific writings. His poems, reviews, interviews and later essays appeared not only in small literary journals but in the mainstream press, including the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Newsweek, Vogue, and Mademoiselle. He gave public readings. He bought a typewriter with roman letters and started writing in English. He received recognition, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur award in 1981, followed by a Guggenheim award, honorary doctorate in literature from Oxford, and National Book award for the book of essays, Less Than One. In 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Brodsky responded: "I'm the happiest combination you can think of. I'm a Russian poet, an English essayist, and an American citizen!"
From 1981 until his death in 1996 he spent each spring teaching at Mount Holyoke College. The eighteenth-century home in South Hadley with its rough maple floors reminded him of the room and a half in Leningrad and his mother's admonition not to walk barefoot on the wooden floors. His parents had tried for years to obtain exit visas, but their applications were always rejected; they both died without seeing their only son again. In 1996, he suffered a massive heart attack and died at the age of fifty-five, leaving his new wife, Maria Sozzani, and two-year-old daughter, Anna.
Remembering Joseph Brodsky can be seen through February 28, 2001 in the Herbert Hoover Memorial Exhibit Pavilion, located adjacent to Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus. It is open 11 A.M.–4 P.M., Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is always free to the public. For additional information or to arrange group tours in either English or Russian call 650/723–3563.
