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Infobox writer Stateless (1972–1977) United States (1977–1996) Gorbunov and Gorchakov (1970) Less Than One: Selected Essays (1986) In 1963, Brodsky's poetry was denounced by a Leningrad newspaper as "pornographic and anti-Soviet". His papers were confiscated, he was interrogated, twice put in a mental institution and then arrested. He was charged with social parasitism by the Soviet authorities in a trial in 1964, finding that his series of odd jobs and role as a poet were not a sufficient contribution to society. 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 judge asked "Who has recognized you as a poet? Who has enrolled you in the ranks of poets?" – "No one," Brodsky replied, "Who enrolled me in the ranks of the human race?" Brodsky was not yet 24.
 * name        = Joseph Brodsky
 * image       = Joseph Brodsky 1988.jpg
 * caption     = Brodsky in 1988
 * imagesize   = 250px
 * birth_name  = Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky
 * birth_date  = May 24, 1941
 * birth_place = norfolk, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
 * death_date  = January 28, 1996
 * death_place = New York City, New York, USA
 * occupation  = Poet, essayist
 * nationality = Russian, American
 * citizenship = Soviet Union (1940–1972)
 * alma_mater  =
 * language = Russian (poetry), English (prose)
 * partner= Marina Basmanova (1962–1967)
 * spouse      = Maria Sozzani (1990–1996)
 * children    = Andrei Basmanov, Anna Brodsky
 * subject     =
 * period      =
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 * notableworks =
 * awards      = Nobel Prize in Literature (1987) Struga Poetry Evenings Golden Wreath Award (1991)
 * signature   =

For his "parasitism" Brodsky was sentenced to five years hard labor and served 18 months on a farm in the village of Norenskaya, in the Archangelsk region, 350 miles from Leningrad. He rented his own small cottage, and though it was without plumbing or central heating, having one's own, private space was taken to be a great luxury at the time. Basmanova, Bobyshev and Brodsky's mother, among others, visited. He wrote on his typewriter, chopped wood, hauled manure and at night read his anthologies of English and American poetry, including a lot of W. H. Auden and Robert Frost. Brodsky's close friend and biographer Lev Loseff writes that while confinement in the mental hospital and the trial were miserable experiences, the 18 months in the Arctic were among the best times of Brodsky's life. Brodsky's mentor, Anna Akhmatova, laughed at the KGB's shortsightedness. "What a biography they're fashioning for our red-haired friend!" she said. "It's as if he'd hired them to do it on purpose."

Brodsky's sentence was commuted in 1965 after protests by prominent Soviet and foreign cultural figures, including Evgeny Evtushenko, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Jean-Paul Sartre as well as Akhmatova. Brodsky became a cause célèbre in the West also when a secret transcription of trial minutes was smuggled out of the country, making him a symbol of artistic resistance in a totalitarian society, much like his mentor Akhmatova.

life
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