Nobel Prize in Literature · 1987
Joseph Brodsky
A Leningrad poet tried as a 'parasite' and expelled by the Soviet state, who became a Nobel laureate and America's Poet Laureate.
The Nobel citation: “for an all-embracing authorship, imbued with clarity of thought and poetic intensity”
- Born
- May 24, 1940, Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, Russia)
- Died
- January 28, 1996, New York, NY, USA
Literature prize
1987
Awarded alone.
Age that year
47years
Born in 1940.
Sources cited
13
Fact-checked September 24, 2026.
- At his 1964 trial, the judge asked who had ranked him among poets. He replied by asking who had ranked him as a member of the human race.
- At 14 he passed the entrance exams for a naval submarine school but was turned away because his papers listed his nationality as Jewish.
- He won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Literature at 47, one of the youngest writers ever to receive it.
- After Moscow expelled him in 1972, he became US Poet Laureate in 1991 and urged that poetry books be put in hotel rooms and sold in drugstores.
- For 12 years Soviet officials refused his elderly parents' requests to visit him abroad. Both died without seeing their only son again.
The breakthrough
Poems and essays that kept a broken literary tradition alive in two languages
Brodsky was a poet first. He wrote in Russian at a time when the Soviet state decided what could be printed, and almost none of his poetry was published at home. His poems passed from hand to hand in typed copies instead. They used strict, classical rhyme and meter, but filled those old forms with long, winding sentences, dry jokes and big questions about time, loss, exile and faith. He learned English and Polish on his own and translated poets such as John Donne and Czeslaw Milosz into Russian. After he was forced out of the Soviet Union in 1972, he kept writing poems in Russian while also writing essays directly in English. His essay collection Less Than One won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In it he described his Leningrad childhood and the poets who had shaped him. His central belief was that language is older and stronger than any government. Think of a language as a river: governments build dams and try to steer it, but a real poet keeps the current moving, and the river outlasts every dam. In his Nobel lecture he argued that reading great literature makes a person harder to fool with political slogans. The Swedish Academy praised his clarity of thought and poetic intensity.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5],[10]
“What all these men had in common, though, was that their hit list was longer than their reading list.”
What it meant for humanity
Brodsky's impact came in two forms: the example of his life and the reach of his words. His 1964 trial for 'social parasitism' became one of the best-known cases of Soviet persecution of a writer. The journalist Frida Vigdorova kept notes in the courtroom until the judge ordered her to stop. Her transcript circulated in samizdat, the hand-copied underground press, and was then printed abroad. Readers around the world saw a young poet insisting that writing poems was real work. Protests by Soviet and Western writers and artists helped win his early release in 1965. The case made him a symbol, in the West, of an artist standing up to a totalitarian state. In exile he became a bridge between Russian and English literature. He taught for years at the University of Michigan, Columbia and Mount Holyoke College. As US Poet Laureate he urged that books of poems be placed in hotel rooms and sold in drugstores; he wanted poetry to be as easy to find as gas stations. In 1993 he co-founded the American Poetry & Literacy Project with Andrew Carroll. The project gave free poetry books to schools, hospitals, train stations, jury rooms and other public places. His essays and Nobel lecture made a lasting case that reading protects people against tyranny. He became one of the most influential writers of his generation in both Russian and English.
- Frida Vigdorova's transcript of his 1964 trial circulated in samizdat and was published abroad, turning a local 'parasite' case into a worldwide symbol of the persecution of writers.[6],[9]
- Protests from Soviet and Western writers and cultural figures helped win his release in 1965, after about 18 months of a five-year sentence of exile and forced labor in the far north.[1],[5],[9],[10]
- In 1993 he co-founded the American Poetry & Literacy Project to make poetry part of everyday American life. One literary reference work says it has given away over one million poetry books.[10],[11]
- His essay collection Less Than One won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and his poetry had been translated into more than a dozen languages by 1987.[2],[3],[5]
- In his Nobel lecture he argued that literature is a defense against mass politics, and that choosing leaders by their reading rather than their programs would bring less grief to the world.[4]
Impact in numbers
Brodsky's impact is cultural and moral, and it cannot honestly be counted. His poetry renewed classical Russian verse at a time when the Soviet state had cut Russian literature off from its own past, and his generation, in his words, set out to restore that continuity. His trial made him a worldwide symbol of the writer's right to exist outside state control. In exile he carried Russian poetry into English and English poetry into Russian through his teaching, translations and essays. As US Poet Laureate and co-founder of the American Poetry & Literacy Project, he worked to put poetry into ordinary public places. We make no quantified claim: book giveaways and sales do not measure what a poem does for a reader. His record also includes an unpublished poem insulting Ukrainians, which was later celebrated in Russia after the 2014 seizure of Crimea.
CultureHuman rightsEducation
No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.
The double edge
Brodsky's work caused no physical harm, but one poem has a troubling afterlife. In the early 1990s he wrote an angry poem about Ukraine's independence that lamented its break from Russia and mocked Ukrainians with ethnic slurs. He read it aloud in public but never published it, and his literary executor has argued it should not be taken as his settled view. After Russia seized Crimea in 2014, the poem was hailed in Russia as 'poem of the year', and the writer Hans Christoph Buch argues it has served to justify Russia's war on Ukraine. Buch also sees it as evidence that Brodsky thought in imperial terms.
- Moderate
An unpublished poem attacking Ukrainian independence
In the early 1990s Brodsky wrote and publicly read a poem that lamented Ukraine's break from Russia and insulted Ukrainians with slurs. He never published it. After Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea it was hailed in Russia as 'poem of the year', and the writer Hans Christoph Buch says it was used to justify the war against Ukraine.[12],[13]
Against the odds
Brodsky grew up in Leningrad in the late Stalin years, when official Soviet antisemitism was at its height. As a baby he lived through the Nazi siege of the city. Soviet identity papers listed every citizen's 'nationality', and his said Jewish. Teachers made antisemitic remarks in class. Around 1950 his father, a navy officer and war photographer, was discharged under a ruling that Jews should not hold high military rank. He struggled for years to find work, and the family lived mostly on his mother's pay. During the 1953 'Doctors' Plot', rumors spread that Soviet Jews would be deported to the far east. The Brodskys even sold their piano to prepare. At 14, Brodsky passed the exams for a submarine school but was rejected because he was Jewish. He left school at 15 and took jobs in a factory, a morgue and on geological expeditions. In 1964 he was put on trial as a 'social parasite'. The trial had antisemitic overtones: Jewish defense witnesses were asked to show their passports because their names sounded unusual. He was sentenced to five years of internal exile with forced labor in the far north and was released in 1965. In 1972 the authorities forced him to leave the country. For the next 12 years they refused his parents' requests to visit him, and he never saw them again.
1941
War
As an infant he lived through the Nazi siege of Leningrad, in which mass starvation killed huge numbers of the city's people; he later wrote that all three members of his family survived the war.[8],[11]
1950
Discrimination
His father was discharged from the navy under a Politburo ruling that people of Jewish origin should not hold high military rank, and then found it hard to get work as a Jew outside the Communist Party. The family lived mostly on his mother's salary.[7],[8]
1953
Persecution
During the 1953 Doctors' Plot, rumors spread of a plan to deport Soviet Jews to Birobidzhan in the far east. His family sold their piano to prepare for deportation, which Stalin's death averted.[8]
1954
Discrimination
At 14 he passed the entrance exams for a submarine academy but was refused because of the 'fifth paragraph', the nationality line on his papers that marked him as Jewish. He also recalled antisemitic remarks from teachers.[7]
1964
Imprisonment
Arrested in February 1964 and tried as a 'social parasite', he was sentenced to five years of internal exile with forced labor in the far north. The trial had antisemitic overtones: Jewish defense witnesses were asked to show their passports because of their 'unusual' names.[5],[6],[9]
1966
Censorship
Four of his poems appeared in Leningrad anthologies in 1966 and 1967, but for the next two decades almost all of his work could be read only in Western editions or in underground typed copies.[2],[6]
1972
Exile
In May 1972 he was told to emigrate. He said he did not want to leave, but was given two weeks and put on a plane to Vienna on 4 June 1972, leaving behind his parents and his young son.[2],[5],[11]
1972
Persecution
For 12 years the Soviet state refused his elderly parents' requests to visit their only son abroad, calling such a trip pointless. Both died without seeing him again.[8],[12]
Jewish background
Brodsky was the only child of two assimilated Jewish parents: Aleksandr Brodsky, a navy photographer and photojournalist, and Maria Volpert, who worked as a secretary, accountant and wartime interpreter. Assimilation did not shield him: the state never let him forget his origins. His identity papers listed his nationality as Jewish, and he wrote that at seven he already knew he was Jewish and was not ashamed of it. The YIVO Encyclopedia says he was acutely aware of his Jewishness and saw no conflict between it and his Russian identity and Christian leanings. He wrote on Jewish themes mainly in early poems such as A Jewish Cemetery near Leningrad (1958) and Isaac and Abraham (1963).[5],[6],[7],[8]
Key dates
May 24, 1940
Born Iosif Brodsky in Leningrad, the only child of Jewish parents Aleksandr Brodsky and Maria Volpert.[1],[5]
1950
His father is discharged from the navy under a ruling that Jews should not hold high military rank.[8]
1955
Leaves school at 15 and begins years of jobs in a factory, a morgue and on geological expeditions while teaching himself poetry and languages.[5],[10]
1961
Meets the poet Anna Akhmatova, who admires his work and becomes his mentor.[2],[5]
1963
The newspaper Vechernii Leningrad attacks him as a useless 'drone', setting the stage for his prosecution.[9],[11]
February 18, 1964
His trial for 'social parasitism' opens. In March he is sentenced to five years of internal exile with forced labor in the Arkhangelsk region.[2],[5],[9]
September 1965
Released early after protests by Soviet and Western writers and cultural figures; he returns to Leningrad.[1],[5],[9]
June 4, 1972
Forced out of the Soviet Union. After stays in Vienna and London, he settles in the US as poet-in-residence at the University of Michigan.[2],[5],[6]
1981
Receives a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.[2]
1986
Publishes Less Than One, a collection of essays that wins the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.[2],[5]
December 10, 1987
1991
1993
Co-founds the American Poetry & Literacy Project with Andrew Carroll to spread free poetry books across the US.[10],[11]
January 28, 1996
Dies of a heart attack at his home in Brooklyn, New York, aged 55. He is buried in Venice.[1],[5],[10]
Sources
- 1.Joseph Brodsky - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
- 2.Joseph Brodsky - Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Les Prix Nobel, The Nobel Prizes 1987), 1988
- 3.The Nobel Prize in Literature 1987 - Press release · Swedish Academy, via NobelPrize.org, 1987
- 4.Joseph Brodsky - Nobel Lecture (translated from the Russian by Barry Rubin) · NobelPrize.org (from Nobel Lectures, Literature 1981-1990), 1987
- 5.Brodsky, Joseph (by Tomas Venclova) · YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
- 6.Brodsky, Joseph (by Maurice Friedberg) · Encyclopaedia Judaica, via Encyclopedia.com
- 7.Less Than One (essay by Joseph Brodsky) · The New York Review of Books, 1979
- 8.In a Room and a Half (essay by Joseph Brodsky) · The New York Review of Books, 1986
- 9.The Trial of Joseph Brodsky (transcript by Frida Vigdorova, translated and annotated by Michael R. Katz) · New England Review 34 (3-4), archived copy, 2014
- 10.Joseph Brodsky (poet biography) · Academy of American Poets (Poets.org)
- 11.Brodsky, Joseph (Gale literary biography) · Gale, via Encyclopedia.com
- 12.A Note on Brodsky and Ukraine (by Keith Gessen), archived copy · The New Yorker, 2011
- 13.Ein hässlicher Fleck auf der sonst weissen politischen Weste - wie Joseph Brodsky dazu kam, in einem Gedicht die Ukraine zu schmähen (by Hans Christoph Buch) · Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2022
Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 7 corrections made. How we check
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