"This volume is a major contribution to the study of the life, work and standing of Joseph Brodsky, 1987 Nobel Prize Laureate and the best-known Russian poet of the second half of the twentieth century. This is the most significant book devoted to him inthe last 25 years, and features work by many of the leading experts on him, both in Russia and the West. Every one of the chapters makes a real contribution to different aspects of Brodsky - the growth of interest in his work, his world-view and political position, and the unique aspects of his poetics. Taken together, the sixteen chapters offer a rounded interpretation of his significance for Russian culture today"--
The volume represents a major contribution to the study of the life, work and standing of Joseph Brodsky, 1987 Nobel Prize Laureate and the best-known Russian poet of the second half of the twentieth century, arguably the most significant work on him in the last 25 years.
Contents
List of Charts, Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
Joseph Brodsky and Modern Russian Culture: Introduction
Joe Andrew, Katharine Hodgson, Robert Reid and Alexandra Smith
1 The Case of the Polukhina Brodsky Archive
Arina Bedrina
2 Valentina Polukhina and the Joseph Brodsky Museum Foundation
Mikhail Milchik and Anton Alekseevskii
3 Valentina Polukhina, Lev Loseff and the Invention of Brodsky Studies
Carol Ueland
4 Valentina Polukhina on Metaphor in Brodskys and Khlebnikovs Poetry
Willem G. Weststeijn
5 The Brodsky Legacy: Looking Backwards, Looking Forward
David Bethea
6 Between Reflective Nostalgia and Counter-Memory: the Reception of Brodsky
by Russian Authors after 1996
Alexandra Smith
7 Is Brodsky a Poet for Our Time?
Maria Rubins
8 Rethinking Joseph Brodsky: Imperialism, Conservatism, and the Primacy of
Aesthetics
Marat Grinberg
9 Joseph Brodsky (19401996) and Zbigniew Herbert (19241998): a Touch of
Normal Classicism
Zakhar Ishov
10 Joseph Brodsky the War Poet
Katharine Hodgson
11 Jewish Themes in Brodskys Poetry: in Search of His Ethnocultural
Position
Henrietta Mondry
12 From Variety to Monotony and Back: the Rhythm(s) of Brodskys Iambic
Tetrameters
Andrei Dobritsyn, Sergei Liapin and Igor Pilshchikov
13 A Room and a Half and the Art of Poetic Cinema
Olga Sobolev
14 Joseph Brodskys Postcards to Friends: Translingual Texts
Natasha Rulyova
15 Fifty Shades of Black: an Analysis of
in Conjunction with Its English Translation
Robin Milner-Gulland and Olga Sobolev
16 Echoing Dantes Footsteps: Joseph Brodsky on the Threshold of The Divine
Comedy
Olga Sedakova
Index
Joe Andrew is Professor Emeritus at Keele University. He has published over 25 books, and hundreds of other pieces, mostly on nineteenth-century Russian literature, but he has also written on twentieth-century Russian literature, as well as Russian and British film.
Katharine Hodgson is Professor in Russian at the University of Exeter. Her recent work has been on post-Soviet changes to the canon of twentieth-century Russian poetry. She is now exploring the ways in which poets defined their poetic affinities and identities during the Soviet period.
Robert Reid is an Honorary Fellow of Keele University where he was formerly Reader in Russian. He has published widely on Russian literature. His most recent publication is Tolstoi: Art and Influence, edited with Joe Andrew (Brill, 2023).
Alexandra Smith is Reader in Russian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She has published extensively on Russian literature and culture. Most recently she has co-edited a book on film adaptations of Russian literature: Film Adaptations of Russian Literature: Dialogue and Authorship.
