18/03/2014
And Osif Brodsky. On the independence of Ukraine (1994)
Dear Charles XII, the battle of Poltava,
thank God, lost. As the burry one said,
"time will show Kuzka's mother", ruins,
bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine.
That is not green-even, wasted by an isotope, -
yellow-blakyt flying over Konotop,
cut from canvas, to know, Canada has in store.
For nothing that without a cross, but Ukrainians do not need it.
Goy you, towel, karbovanets, seeds in full zhmena!
Not for us, katsapam, to accuse them of treason.
Themselves under the images of seventy years in Ryazan
with flooded eyes they lived, as under Tarzan.
Let's tell them, sonorous mother pauses, delaying strictly:
a tablecloth to you, crests, and a road towel!
Get out of us in a zhupan, not to mention - in a uniform,
to the address for three letters, for all four
sides. Now let the Hans in the hut in chorus
with Poles put you on four bones, bastards.
How to climb into the loop - so together, choosing the path in more often,
and eating chicken from borscht alone is sweeter.
Farewell, crests, lived together - that's enough!
Spit, or something, in the Dnipro, maybe it will roll back,
proudly disdaining us, like an ambulance, jam-packed
leather corners and age-old resentment.
Do not remember dashingly. Your bread, heaven,
us, we choke on cake and kolob, not required.
There is nothing to spoil the blood, to tear clothes on the chest.
It ended, to know, love, since it was in between.
What to poke around in vain in torn roots with a verb?
You gave birth to the earth, soil, black soil with podzol.
It is full to swing the rights, to sew to us one thing, another.
This land does not give you, kavuns, peace.
Oh yes, levada-steppe, kralya, chestnut, dumpling!
More, go, lost - more people than money.
We'll get through somehow. And what about tears from the eye -
there is no decree on her, to wait until another time.
With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!
Only when you come and die, bullies,
you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
lines from Alexander, not Taras's nonsense.
Brodsky's heirs forbade publication of the poem, but it spread widely and became well known, demonstrating the radical evolution of Brodsky's views from Soviet-liberal to thickly imperial. In the modern cultural and political context, the poem is interesting primarily because you rub our democrat, liberal, supporter of freedom of creativity - and you will find under the outer layer a supporter of the One and Indivisible Empire (“The Russian State is One and Indivisible” - Code of Laws Russian Empire. T. 1. Part I, section 1, art. 1), since in Russia, as you know, every movement begins with the left foot, but with alignment to the right.
Another aspect of interest in the text is associated with the promise to the Ukrainians of the dangers that await them without the protection of Great Russia, which they so frivolously got rid of: “now let the Hans / with the Poles put you on four bones in the hut in a choir, bastards.” Naturally, there are different points of view on this matter, but something Nobel laureate undoubtedly predicted accurately.
True, the Great Russian defense to many in Ukraine both in Soviet and post-Soviet times reminded of the “prison of peoples”, because Ukraine is large and diverse, these are at least three different states, shot down by Stalin and Khrushchev into one, but Brodsky tried to forget about it.
Joseph Brodsky ON INDEPENDENCE
Dear Charles XII, the battle of Poltava,
Thank God it's lost. As the burry one said,
Time will show "kuzkina mother", ruins,
A bone of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine.
(Ukrainian troops together with Hetman Mazepa during Northern war of the eighteenth century, they unexpectedly changed the Russians, and went over to the side of the Swedish king Charles XII. However, the Swedes, along with the traitors, lost this war. And only the bones of posthumous joy remained from all this. Yes, even Khrushchev, who planted "Kuzkin's mother" to both Russia and Ukraine, giving the Ukrainians someone else's Crimea).
It's not green - visible, wasted by an isotope,
Zhovto-blakytny Lenin over Konotop,
Tailored from canvas, to know, Canada has in store.
For nothing that without a cross, but Ukrainians do not need it.
Bitter cherry karbovanets, seeds in full zhmena.
Themselves under the images of seventy years in Ryazan
With greasy eyes, they lived like convicts.
Let's tell them, with a voiced mother, marking pauses strictly:
A tablecloth for you, crests, and a towel for the road.
Get out of us in a zhupan, not to mention - in a uniform,
Three letters to the address, four letters to the sides.
Now let the Hans in the hut in chorus
With the Poles they put you on four bones, bastards.
How to climb into the loop, so together, choosing soup in more often,
And eating borscht chicken alone is sweeter.
Farewell, crests, lived together - that's enough!
Spit, or something, in the Dnieper, maybe he will roll back.
Disdainful proudly of us, as crowded packed,
Rejected corners and age-old resentment.
Do not remember dashingly, your bread, heaven
To us, choke on cake, you don’t need it for a long time.
There is nothing to spoil the blood, tear clothes on the chest,
It ended, to know, love, since it was in between.
What to poke around in vain in torn roots with a pokopom.
You were born by the earth, soil, black earth with a subzom,
It is full to swing the rights, to sew to us one thing, another.
This land does not give you, Kaluns, peace.
Oh, you levada, steppe, kralya, chestnut, dumpling,
More, go, lost - more people than money.
We'll get through somehow. And what about tears from the eye
There is no decree on her, to wait until another time.
With God, eagles and Cossacks, hetmans, guards,
Will you wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
Lines from Alexander, not bullshit from Taras.
The poem became prophetic. The poet, as if by command from above, wrote what was torn from his soul, without in any way forcing his poetic will. And I often read it aloud to my friends.
After all, there are already about a dozen articles that philologically convincingly prove that this poem is a fake and does not belong to Joseph Brodsky. So trust the philologists after that, they will prove everything that needs to be proved.
“I will try to comment point by point.
1. A year after the death of Joseph Brodsky, I came to New York to begin describing his archive. The state of the archive is chaotic, because the deceased did not like this business, drafts were often thrown away, and if something was preserved, then, rather, contrary to the will of Joseph Brodsky. However, I saw with my own eyes several pages with draft versions of the verse. It was typewritten, as usual with IB: with several versions of the quatrain side by side, sometimes with hand-editing. Now the whole thing, as I understand it, has not gone away: the archive is available to researchers upon receipt of a sanction from the IS Foundation.
2. Our hero actually read these verses at Queens College (and several times in all sorts of companies, where there could also be a tape recording). Barry Rubin, who hosted that IB talk in college, is still alive. I once copied this notorious film from him. In addition, the late Sasha Sumarkin, the compiler of "Landscape with a Flood" (more precisely, IB's assistant in this matter), was present at that speech. He said that he persuaded IB to include poetry in the book. He flatly refused: "they will misunderstand" ...
3. By the way, just now the idea came to mind that the presence of just a few drafts - approaches to the topic - indicates that the IB gave birth to a verse rather lengthy and difficult. But the beginning was the same everywhere: "Dear Charles the Twelfth ..."
Victor Kulle believes that there was a fairly strong Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, not shy about cursing the “damned Muscovites” and “katsaps”. And Joseph Brodsky was a patriot of Russia, as Kulle says: "... much more than all the villagers, great powers and anti-Semites put together." When the poet ended up in the United States, he, as is known, did not fall into Sovietology, like many dissidents, who worked off their bread and butter in this way. Joseph began to teach literature at a provincial university, far from all the capitals, in the provincial Ann Arbor. Later he wrote in The New York Times that he "is not going to smear the gates of the Motherland with tar."
According to Viktor Kulle, it is quite possible that in the emigrant world he ran into some very greyhound Ukrainian nationalist, and he simply got him. “Joseph, I repeat, was (like, perhaps, all great poets) a much greater patriot of his country than the variously colored bastards who made a profitable profession out of patriotism.”
Ukrainians are stupid and have no reason to be offended by the poet. Each poet defends the culture of his people, his country. Pushkin responded to Mickiewicz with the famous "Slanderers of Russia". As a result, they peacefully stand side by side on a shelf. Both in Russia and Poland...
As you know, the poem "On the Independence of Ukraine" is not the only case when the poet stood up with his chest in defense of Russian culture. Milan Kundera at the Lisbon conference said something about the historical guilt of Dostoevsky in the invasion of Russian tanks in Czechoslovakia. And all the emigrants from Eastern Europe unanimously supported him. Iosif Brodsky responded angrily, calling Kundera a "stupid Czech cattle", also without choosing expressions. Later, Joseph Brodsky wrote his famous essay "Why Milan Kundera is unfair to Dostoevsky." Many Europeans were offended at that time.
So in the case of Ukraine, Joseph Brodsky felt personally hurt. Again I turn to Victor Kull, who wrote about this poem: “It is quite obvious that it was written by a great poet. Style - typical Brodsky. There is no insult to Ukrainians here and close. There is irritation with these endless and absolutely idiotic accusations that flow from Ukrainians in an endless stream. All these “filthy Ukrainians” are the self-names of Ukrainians, which they attribute to “filthy katsaps” (and this is also a Ukrainian name, since many Russians will not even understand who it is about). And all this is part of the propaganda mythology, the goal of which is to create a nation that does not exist, and which, no matter how hard you try, cannot be put together on one antagonism of Ukraine to Russia, of which it is still a part, albeit not legally.
And the meaning of Brodsky's poem is absolutely transparent. As a Russian (not Soviet) patriot, he could not perceive the secession of Ukraine except in the context of the centuries-old construction of the Russian Empire and the fleeting destruction of the space of Russian culture ... And even though it was a rude, but geopolitically absolutely adequate prediction that leaving Russia would mean inclusion in the sphere of influence of Poland and Germany in second (at best) roles. Few Ukrainians will not seem. And for Russia it will be hard times, but for Ukraine - a complete nightmare .... "
I do not hide it, I think that this is one of the best poems of the poet, and for the late American Brodsky it is extremely sincere, extremely emotional, and at the same time extremely concrete.
That is not green-even, wasted by an isotope,
- yellow-blakyt flying over Konotop,
tailored from canvas: to know, Canada has in store -
for nothing that without a cross: but Ukrainians do not need it.
I immediately recall the Chernobyl isotopes, which pretty much spoiled the green-backed Ukraine, and the most powerful, well-known to Joseph Brodsky, rather radical Ukrainian community in Canada, who, indeed, after the declaration of independence of Ukraine, hastened to visit their homeland with their Canadian canvases, and anti-Orthodox sentiments, strong in Ukrainian emigration. I also remember the history of the yellow-black Ukrainian flag, which borrowed the yellow-blue colors from the national flag of Sweden. Everything is written with skill, with the utmost honesty.
I was struck by the following two lines:
Goy you, rushnik-karbovanets, seeds in a sweaty zhmena!
Not for us, katsapam, to accuse them of treason.
This means that already in America, many years after leaving Russia, immersing himself in poetry, Brodsky simultaneously immerses himself in the Russian element, feels like a Russian - a “katsap”.
I know that there were researchers who believe that this is, as it were, the voice of a lyrical hero, the voice of those Russians who filled their eyes with vodka somewhere in Ryazan, on whose behalf the poem was written.
Firstly, Brodsky would somehow make his readers understand his alienation from this hero.
Secondly, it is unlikely that the torn off Russians would have read lines from Alexander before their death, or any lines at all.
And thirdly, if the poem is written as if on behalf of the entire Russian people (as it really is), which includes tormented, and obaleksandrennye, and Canadian-Americanized Russians, then you understand with what pain it was written, and with what a responsibility. This private, autonomous from everyone, alienated from Jews, and from Americans, and from all other nations and religions, the poet, suddenly takes on the highest responsibility on behalf of all Russians to reproach the Ukrainians for their departure from a single imperial space, from a single Russia, " gnaw alone chicken from borscht.
After all, Joseph Brodsky does not reproach either the Georgians, or the Balts, or our Asians. But Ukrainians are part of ancient Rus' where do they go? We must say farewell to them:
Let's tell them, with a sonorous mother, marking pauses, strictly:
a tablecloth for you, crests, and a towel for the road.
Get out of us in a zhupan, not speaking in a uniform,
to the address for three letters for all four ...
sides. Let now in the hut Hansa's choir
with Poles put you on four bones, bastards.
Harsh, but disgustingly true. Indeed, if the Ukrainians did not find a place in united Russia, in our common empire, then, as Nikolai Gogol predicted long ago in Taras Bulba, all these Andriy, who forgot about the Russian land, have one road - to the Poles and the Hans. Poles and Germans have been sharpening their teeth on Ukraine for hundreds of years, even if later our “riding” brothers do not cry and do not cry for help. Enough! Enough! Enough!
Farewell, bastards! Living together is enough.
Spit, or something, in the Dnipro: maybe it will roll back ...
And in fact, how many centuries they lived with the same troubles, the same joys, fought together, won together, and everyone was on an equal footing, what kind of colonial relations between Russians and Ukrainians are there, rather, Moscow recruited from Ukraine both into the army and into the bodies, and into the highest officials of hard-working and executive citizens. And suddenly it was all over.
Sincere anger arises in the poet:
Do not remember dashingly! Your sky, bread
us - we choke on cake and kolob - not required.
There is nothing to spoil the blood, to tear clothes on the chest.
Ended, know, love, if it was in between.
What kind of colonies are there when all of Ukraine was molded by Russians from different pieces, not to mention the Crimea, finally stuck by the illiterate and ignorant Khrushchev, and even more ignorant Yeltsin in Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
But the ending of the poem by Joseph Brodsky is clearly prophetic, for whether it is good or bad, but without great Russian culture, without great poetry, there will never be a new Ukrainian nation. There is no nation without culture.
With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!
Only when you come and die, bullies,
you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
lines from Alexander, not Taras's nonsense.
Indeed, one can be brave Zaporizhzhya Cossacks, Stalin's eagles, Catherine's hetmans, camp guards (who else is most valued in the camp guard at all times? Except perhaps Asians, because they are indifferent to Russians?), but without relying on the great world culture no Cossack courage or vertukhai diligence will help.
Then you will have to go under another - the great German culture, but they will not tolerate any equality with themselves. You can’t call them katsaps, they will quickly let you know their lackey place. And you can't just build a national culture on local nonsense.
“Taras’s nonsense” is approximately in these lines of his: “Shut up, black-shave, she’s not with Muscovites, but Muscovites are strangers. It’s hard to shy away from you” (“Kobzar” Katerina). Although Taras Shevchenko owed much, if not all, to Russian culture, he decided to forget about it.
That's all. A sad and tragic, angrily farewell poem by a Russian poet. I sincerely regret that he did not dare to publish it during his lifetime, thereby removing all controversy.
On the other hand, he willingly read it more than once at evenings, knowing full well that it was being recorded on a tape recorder. Indeed, he personally was very worried about this unexpected separation of all Ukraine from Russia. His closest friend Lev Losev said: “He not only considered Ukraine to be a single, as they say now, “cultural space” with Great Russia, but he also strongly felt it as his own. historical homeland. I do not want to quote the last expression, because for Brodsky it was a very intimately felt idea. Feeling like “Joseph from Brod”…”
After all, it's not about how good the poem is. Any poet has failures, drafts, failures, treat this as a delusion of the author, but no, no. Already from year to year there is a wave of new liberal attacks: this is just a parody of Brodsky. Interestingly, the Ukrainians themselves are confident in the authenticity of the poem, and their controversy is already on a semantic issue. not random and constant comparisons of this poem with "Slanderers of Russia" by Alexander Pushkin. Both poets amazed their contemporaries with their unconcealed statehood and imperialism.
And the reason is about the same: the dispute of the Slavs among themselves.
What are you fussing about, folk vitias?
Why are you threatening Russia with an anathema?
What angered you? unrest in Lithuania?
Leave: this is a dispute between the Slavs,
Domestic, old dispute, already weighed by fate,
A question that you can't answer.
And in fact, it is not for the Americans to decide: “Will the Slavic streams merge into the Russian sea? Will it run out? here is the question…”
And if we also add Dostoevsky’s word about the Slavs, then we will feel even more acutely the ancient contradictions between seemingly close Slavic peoples: “Russia will not have, and never has had, such haters, envious people, slanderers and even obvious enemies, like all these Slavic tribes, as soon as Russia liberates them, and Europe agrees to recognize them as liberated! And let them not object to me, do not dispute, do not shout at me that I am exaggerating and that I am a hater of the Slavs! .. Perhaps for a whole century, or even more, they will ceaselessly tremble for their freedom and fear the lust for power in Russia; they will curry favor with the European states, they will slander Russia, gossip about it and intrigue against it…”
That's how Ukraine is, nothing new.
It is no coincidence that, inciting themselves, it was the Ukrainians who were the first to publish this poem by Brodsky “On the Independence of Ukraine” in 1996 in Kyiv in the newspaper “Voice of a Gromadyanin” No. 3. The expected flurry of swearing immediately followed. In Russia, for the first time, this poem was reprinted in Limonka, and then in the Day of Literature. It spread widely and became well-known, especially with the advent of the Internet, demonstrating the radical evolution of Brodsky's views from Soviet-liberal to imperial.
A certain Ukrainian academician Pavlo Kisliy gave his Ukrainian answer, which, unfortunately, was absolutely inexpressive poetically. How can one not remember “a line from Alexander or bullshit from Taras”, even the most radical Ukrainians instantly remembered the vivid lines from Brodsky, and no one remembers a word from the answer of the sour academician.
The response to “katsap-Brodsky” only contains a very badly rhymed list of historical grievances of Ukrainians:
Well, goodbye, katsapi!
Nareshti mi rose up with paths.
You, singing, back to the "evil empire",
We, Khokhols, know for a zmagannya with Poles ...
And good for you, worthless slave!
You are a fake dissident of the zabіshovichenoї Rosії,
Double-headed eagle faithful servant,
Pogonich of the invented Messiah.
Do not guess why you cursed Ukraine,
You are not a color for the Russian people.
You are a worthless imperial chauvinist,
Not a warty of Taras.
The poet and prose writer Oksana Zabuzhko tried to answer Joseph Brodsky:
Line "lament for the empire" - as if writing bee buv Brodsky,
That scholov od crying - i, vіd "їhawshi in Amgerst, castle.
Hey whoever you want, that cry. I am merrily chewing my teeth...
Third verse “Crimea. Yalta. Farewell to the Empire", 1993.
Neither the verse nor her article is convincing either. It would be better if they didn’t touch it, they exposed themselves to ridicule. Shortly before his death, Viktor Toporov offered his own version of the poem: “In my opinion, Brodsky’s demonstrative “Ukrainian phobia” is due to two reasons - macro and micro.
At the macro level, Brodsky never forgave the “leaders of the Union” for overlooking his inherent potential as a state poet, and reminded of this retroactively at the first opportunity: if I were printed in mass editions instead of Yevtushenko, you see, and would not fall apart your vaunted empire.
At the micro level, I would suggest recalling the film "Brother-2" with the uniquely disgusting "new Americans" from Ukrainians there.
It is clear that Brodsky did not communicate with any Ukrainians in the United States. Yes, and the Russians too. He communicated with Jews who had come in large numbers from the USSR.
However, some of the Jews came to the United States from Russia, while others came from (then not yet "from") Ukraine. And it was these Ukrainian Jews who rejoiced in the United States on the occasion of "independence". And it was to them, first of all, that the poet gave an angry rebuke ... "
It may well be that some personal first impulse to the appearance of the verse is felt. Maybe he read somewhere a poem by the Ukrainian emigrant poet Yevgeny Malanyuk: “Let the Polovtsian dogs tear the predatory heart of Russia ...” There was something, but there was plenty of jubilant Russophobia in the emigrant Ukrainian press after the declaration of independence, let us recall at least Balabanov’s film “Brother -2".
And therefore, in this case, I agree with Mikhail Zolotonosov, who wrote that “The emotional meaning of the “ode” is an insult to Ukrainians. They lived together, as one friendly family of peoples, and the Ukrainians suddenly left the "gurtozhitok", which is perceived by the poet (or his lyrical hero) as a betrayal, not so much political as family ... A curious situation: usually poems comment on life, but here life gave a comment to the poem ... "
That's right, the poem, albeit extremely emotional, but not so noticed in the press, now, during our Ukrainian-Russian confrontation, has indeed become a symbol of our relations. "We lived together, that's enough ...".
The poet himself said more than once that this is the private opinion of a private person. He liked to refer to his privacy. When he dine in his favorite Venetian trattoria, drinks his favorite grappa or Swedish vodka "Bitter Drops" - he really private person. Yes, the trouble is, being a great poet, when he touches poetry, he ceases to be a private person, and becomes the property of millions, and his opinion influences the opinion of millions. Sometimes more than the opinion of the president of the country. And in this sense, his ode to the independence of Ukraine is a document of the era!
And what about the tears from the eye,
there is no order for her to wait until another time.
It is no coincidence that today in the Internet voting this poem by Brodsky was included in the list of the hundred best poems of all times and peoples. The poem was written in 1991, first read to a wide audience in 1994, which is already interesting in itself. He launched him into public swimming after four heart attacks and two open-heart surgeries. I began to read it in classrooms already on the eve of death. It's not by chance. Less than two years remained before death. And how can one talk about the chance of such a poem for a poet?
The poet Naum Sagalovsky spoke very angrily about this poem: “The poem, in my opinion, is absolutely vile. You can probably choose another, not so harsh epithet, but why? The whole text breathes such undisguised hatred for Ukraine, for Ukrainians, that one is amazed. At first, in a sinful deed, I thought that this poem was an evil satire, as if a monologue of some not very, let's say, intelligent Russian chauvinist, over whom the poet scoffs with great pleasure. I must say that satire is sometimes present in Brodsky's work, so there was nothing surprising in such satire. But here is what Brodsky himself said before reading his poem in Stockholm in 1992: “Now I will read a poem that you may not like very much, but nevertheless ...” That is, he did not say anything about satire, in other words - a poem written in all seriousness, on behalf of the poet himself. Which, it seems to me, does not honor him, on the contrary, presents him in a completely unattractive light ... "
I read in the Russian Journal an article by a certain Alexander Daniel, where he, again publishing full text poems, then loudly calls it a fake. Of course, this rather evil poem by Joseph Brodsky today does not fit into any liberal canons of fans of the Orange Revolution. Of course, today it has become much more topical than at the time of writing.
Of course, the last line cuts the ear, where Brodsky opposes the “nonsense of Taras” to the Russian genius Alexander Pushkin. By the way, this line sharply outraged the patriotic poetess Tatyana Glushkova at the time.
But where does Alexander Daniel's blind confidence come from that this "poetic text can never and under no circumstances belong to Brodsky"? Why? Because the poet calls himself a “katsap” in the poem? So there are literally hundreds of statements by Brodsky, where he calls himself Russian, sometimes adding, "although a Jew."
Perhaps the lack of political correctness in expressions is surprising? But in relation to Asians, Africans, and “blacks” in general, Brodsky has much stronger, almost swear words. He was almost proud of his reputation as a "racist." Daniel was surprised by the word “steal”, but where did the thieves “rogue” come from in the poem about Zhukov? “Could phrases like “sew us one thing, another” ... belong to a poet known for the Catullean chiselling of the syllable?”
How else can they. There are plenty of thieves and common folk expressions in Brodsky's poetry. The impression is that this same Daniel does not know the poetry of his idol at all, or ... he is disingenuous for political reasons. Among the Broadskovologists of the most different countries no one doubts the authorship of this poem.
Maybe Daniel will call the author's recording of the performance of the poem at his evenings a fake? There are hundreds of witnesses to this performance at poetry readings. Maybe they need to be crossed out? These are my fans. Keepers of purity are ready to rob anyone.
This is especially true of Brodsky's legacy. All of his Russophile poems are deleted from all collected works.
The authorship of the poem by Joseph Brodsky "On the independence of Ukraine." undoubtedly, although, of course, textual critics still have to choose the finished version from manuscripts and author's notes without censoring the text itself. But it is high time to print it in books, so that there are no doubts among different Daniels.
The poem is beautiful, sharp, politically incorrect. But should a real poet think about some kind of political correctness?
When I read “On the Independence of Ukraine” in 1994, I truly and forever understood and highly appreciated the great Russian poet Joseph Brodsky…
Vladimir Bondarenko, Free Press http://svpressa.ru/culture/article/98751/?rss=1
Brodsky's poem -to independence Ukraine-
Lev Balashov
THE POEM OF I. BRODSKY "ON THE INDEPENDENCE OF UKRAINE" AND MODERNITY
From the book of O.I. Glazunova "Joseph Brodsky: An American Diary" (2005, pp. 72-73):
“In February 1994, after Ukraine became a member of the NATO Partnership for Peace program, Brodsky wrote the poem “For the Independence of Ukraine,” which exploded the notion of him as an emigre poet who broke forever with Russia and with his past.
One can treat Brodsky's poem differently, as well as Pushkin's Slanderers of Russia. But it is impossible not to note in the verses the anger of a person and a citizen of a country in relation to which an act was committed that called into question the history of interaction between the two countries, all friendly relations in the past. Why did cooperation with NATO of Ukraine, and not Georgia or, for example, Uzbekistan, provoke such an angry rebuff from Brodsky?
The answer is obvious: behavior loved one(in this case, a representative of the Slavic community) always hurts deeper and is perceived on a more emotional level. The ease with which Ukraine was ready to sacrifice relations with Russia for the sake of momentary gain (there was and could not be a military threat against it) blew up the poet, giving his words a special rigidity
The poem, read on February 28, 1994 at an evening at Quincy College (USA) and published in 1996 in the Vecherny Kyiv newspaper, caused an uproar in Ukraine. For ethical reasons, probably, it was not included in the collection of "Works of Joseph Brodsky" (St. Petersburg, 2001) and is currently available only in the Internet version. Although, by and large, it is not clear what the compilers of the collection were guided by in this case and why Brodsky's poems, which give a negative description of Russian reality ("The Fifth Anniversary", "Sketch", "Presentation"), are present in it.
Is the infringement of the feelings of a "foreign" people of concern to us more than our own?
We must not forget one important fact: although Brodsky’s poem is formally called “For the Independence of Ukraine,” it was written not in connection with the acquisition of state status by the country, but on the occasion of the hasty desire of its leaders to join their recently common enemy with Russia. Ukraine's desire to become a member of NATO was in fact a statement that now at any moment it can oppose Russia - its former partner and ally. It was this step of the Ukrainian leaders that not only Brodsky, but also many of his compatriots perceived as a stab in the back. This is probably why the theme of betrayal is heard by the poet throughout the entire poem.
At the beginning of the poem, the poet recalls the tragic events of the Northern War (1700-1721) for Russia, when the Ukrainian troops unexpectedly went over to the side of the Swedish king Charles XII("Dear Karl XII, / the battle of Poltava, / thank God, is lost. / As the burry one said, / time will tell "Kuzkin's mother."), and compares the behavior of the Ukrainian hetman with the statements of Lenin ("burry"), who during the first called for the defeat of his country in a world war on the grounds that this war was waged by an imperialist government.The mention of "kuzkina's mother" testifies to the sad continuity in the behavior of communist leaders, who, in an effort to retain power or in their narrow nationalist predilections, often neglected the interests of the country.Khrushchev's famous promise to show "Kuzkin's mother" to America in fact turned into an infringement of the territorial rights of Russia and the transfer of the Crimean peninsula to Ukraine in 1954.
The next line of the poem "yellow-blakyt flies over Konotop", on the one hand, continues the theme of Mazepa's betrayal (Ukraine took the yellow-blue state colors from Sweden, after its troops defected to the enemy during the Great Northern War), and on the other, - refers readers to the events of an even more distant past.
In the middle of the 17th century, the war with Poland, which began so well for Bogdan Khmelnytsky (Zaporizhzhya Cossacks defeated Polish troops several times), ended with the defeat of Ukraine in the Battle of Berestechka (1651) and the hetman's appeal to Russia with a request to annex Little Russia to the Muscovite state. After long hesitation, Moscow gave a positive answer to the hetman's request. The fluctuations were caused by the fact that the decision to annex Ukraine for Russia was inevitably followed by a war with Poland, which happened: in 1654 Ukraine became part of the Muscovite state, from 1654 to 1656 Russia waged war with Poland for the liberation of Ukrainian lands.
After the death of Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the situation in Ukraine changed. Khmelnytsky's successor Hetman Vyhovsky was a supporter of Poland; by entering into an agreement with Crimean Khan, he opposed Moscow, which resulted in the brutal defeat of the Russians near Konotop, which Brodsky mentions in the poem. About this battle, S.M. Soloviev wrote:
"The color of the Moscow cavalry, who made happy campaigns in 54 and 55, folded in one day; the winners got five thousand prisoners; the unfortunate were taken out into the open and slaughtered like sheep: so the allies agreed among themselves - the Crimean Khan and the hetman of the Zaporizhian Army!".
In the "Course of Russian History" by V.O. Klyuchevsky, the events near Konotop are described as follows: "Little Russia dragged Moscow into the first direct clash with Turkey. After the death of Bogdan, an open struggle began between the Cossack elders and the mob. His successor Vyhovsky was transferred to the king and with the Tatars near Konotop destroyed the best army of Tsar Alexei (1659). Encouraged by this and freed from the Swedes with the help of Moscow, the Poles did not want to cede to her any of her conquests. The second war with Poland began, accompanied by two terrible setbacks for Moscow, the defeat of Prince Khovansky in Belarus and the surrender of Sheremetev near Chudnov in Volyn due to Cossack treason. Lithuania and Belarus were lost. "
Behind a few lines of Brodsky's poem lies a full of drama story of the relationship between the two countries. And although not everything in this story was smooth and flawless, the good still prevailed over the bad, and this good, in the poet’s mind, was crossed out by the desire of the new Ukrainian leaders to openly take the side of NATO, their until recently common enemy with Russia.
It is beyond the scope of this book to study in detail the relationship between Ukraine and Russia, but if we are studying the work of a poet, it is quite natural to try to understand the reasons that prompted him to take certain actions. One cannot be satisfied with the considerations of one of the parties, in this case "offended" Ukraine, one should also consider the opposite point of view. And here one cannot do without turning to history, and this history, unfortunately, is far from idyllic.
The fact that Brodsky's opinion was dressed in an extremely emotional form can also be understood - after all, the act of Ukraine, which served as the reason for writing the poem, went beyond the historically established moral and ethical principles of interaction between friendly countries.
For a long period of history, Russia has built its relations with Ukraine on the basis of the idea of a Slavic commonwealth, often to the detriment of its own interests, not to mention the fact that potential enemies are not given away territories. Perhaps the negative charge of Brodsky's poem was directed not at Ukraine, but at himself, naive, who perceived this country as his closest friend and ally, on whom he could rely at any moment.
Losing friends, as well as your illusions, is always difficult, it is unlikely that anyone in such a situation manages to maintain an impartial tone of the narration and an impeccably balanced position of the observer.
*How this poem by Joseph Brodsky resonates with the current situation in relations between Russia and Ukraine! The Euromaidanists, in essence, continue Mazepa's dirty work ("stab in the back"). They don't just want association with the European Union. They want to do this by breaking deep historical, family and economic ties between Ukraine and Russia. This is where the problem is!
And most recently (end of January 2014), another trend has been revealed: civil war, to the collapse of Ukraine and, ultimately, to a severe aggravation of the conflict between Russia and the West, since Russia will come out in support of the pro-Russian forces in Ukraine.
*Yes, Brodsky is ambiguous. I broke a lot of firewood, but still did not completely lose what I call the Russian spirit.
“an excerpt from a video recording of Brodsky’s evening in the hall of the Palo-Alto Jewish Center on October 30, 1992, where he reads “On the Independence of Ukraine” in the presence of almost a thousand listeners.”
Joseph Brodsky
FOR THE INDEPENDENCE OF UKRAINE
Dear Charles the Twelfth, the battle of Poltava,
thank God, lost. As the burry one said,
time will tell - Kuz'kin's mother, ruins,
bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine.
That is not green-even, wasted by an isotope,
- yellow-blakyt flying over Konotop,
cut from canvas: to know, Canada has in store -
for nothing that without a cross: but Ukrainians do not need it.
Themselves under the images of seventy years in Ryazan
with flooded eyes they lived, as under Tarzan.
by address by three letters by all four
sides. Let now in the hut Hansa's choir
with Poles put you on four bones, bastards.
How to climb into the loop, so together, choosing bitches in more often,
Is it sweeter to nibble chicken from borscht alone?
Farewell, bastards! Living together is enough.
turned away corners and age-old resentment.
Do not remember dashingly! Your sky, bread
us - we choke on cake and the ceiling - not required.
There is nothing to spoil the blood, to tear clothes on the chest.
Ended, know, love, if it was in between.
What to poke around in vain in torn roots with a verb!
The earth gave birth to you: soil, black soil with podzol.
It is full to swing the rights, to sew to us one thing, another.
This land does not give you, kavuns, peace.
Oh yes, levada-steppe, kralya, chestnut, dumpling.
More, go, lost: more people than money.
We'll get through somehow. And what about the tears from the eye,
There is no order for her to wait until another time.
Lev Losev * "Joseph Brodsky. Experience literary biography". ZhZL series. - M.: Mol. guard, 2006.
On February 28, 1994, Brodsky gave a poetry reading at New York's Queens College, where he taught for a short time early in his American life. The audience was mostly English-speaking, and he read almost everything in English. Judging by the surviving audio recording, only four poems were read in Russian. Rummaging through the papers in search of one of them, Brodsky says: "Now I will find a poem that I like ... - and adds, as if addressing himself: - ... I will risk, however, to do this ..." This risky poem was "On Independence Ukraine" (1992, SNVVS). In the first reading, it can really make a shocking impression. The long invective is addressed to the Ukrainians, it contains a lot of rudeness and offensive ethnic stereotypes. The stylistic heterogeneity characteristic of Brodsky in general is increased here - Brodsky uses a full set of clichéd Ukrainianisms, mixing them with words and expressions from thieves' slang. Thus, the feeling of illegality and criminality of the separation of Ukraine from Russia is enhanced.
Let's tell them, with a sonorous mother, marking pauses, strictly:
a tablecloth for you, crests, and a towel for the road.
Get out of us in a zhupan, not speaking in a uniform,
to the address for three letters, for all four
side...
Farewell, bastards! Living together is enough.
Spit, or something, in the Dnipro: maybe it will roll back,
proudly disdaining us, like an ambulance, jam-packed
turned away corners and age-old resentment.
The poem begins with an appeal to the Swedish king Charles XII: "Dear Charles the Twelfth, the battle of Poltava, / thank God, lost ..." Charles XII lost the Battle of Poltava on June 27, 1709, which had huge consequences for Russia and Europe, but Brodsky's opening lines are ambiguous. From the further text it is clear that in the final analysis, almost three hundred years later, Russia was defeated after all. Voltaire's words are known: “What is most important in this battle is that of all the battles that have ever stained the earth with blood, it was the only one that, instead of producing only destruction, served for the happiness of mankind, since it gave the king the opportunity to freely enlighten so much of the world" .
Pushkin also proceeded from this ideological position in Poltava. Therefore, Brodsky’s poem ends with a warning about spiritual death for those who decided to break away from the “enlightened part of the world”, the cultural mainland laid by Peter and further cultivated by Russian (and not Russian or Ukrainian) poets and writers - from Pushkin and Gogol to Babel and Bulgakov.
With God, Cossack eagles, hetmans, guards.
Only when you come and die, bullies,
you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
lines from Alexander, not Taras's nonsense.
In Brodsky's literary practice, this was the only case when he decided not to publish a poem, not because he was dissatisfied with it, but for political reasons, because he did not want the poem to be understood as an expression of chauvinistic great-power sentiments. He realized that Ukrainians, with resentment and, even worse, some in Russia, would read the harsh accusatory lines with malice, but would not notice what prompted him to write a poem - “sadness ... about this split” (“sadness […] on behalf of that split”), as he said after reading “For the Independence of Ukraine” at Queens College. Meanwhile, this sadness is spoken of directly in the text of the poem. His emotional scale includes not only irony, anger and resentment, but also deep sadness:
Let's get through somehow. And what about the tears from the eye,
there is no order for her to wait until another time.
We remember that Ukraine, namely Galicia, Brodsky felt his historical homeland (see Chapter I).
——————-
547
"Turned corners" (argo) - stolen suitcases.
548
Cit. according to the book: Izmailov N.V. Essays on Pushkin's work. L.: Nauka, 1975. S. 25.
549
After the death of the poet, an inept transcription of the text from the audio recording was published in Kyiv in the newspaper "Stolitsia" (1996. No. 13. Sept.). The publication was accompanied by a verse rebuke by Pavel Kysly, Academician of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine. Kysly listed all the historical grievances inflicted by Russia on Ukraine, and about Brodsky he wrote: “You are a biased, stinking tsap, / You were a recruited stinking goat, / Not worth Taras [Shevchenko's] fingernails.” But other opinions were also expressed in Ukraine. “Of course, we can perceive the poet’s scolding as an insult, but it is she who is an obvious spokesman for the author’s indifference. The author resorts to the archaic tradition of conspiracies associated with Ukrainian folklore. It is from the folklore and works of Shevchenko that Brodsky takes a crushing vocabulary, the intonation of a reckless anathema. […] To whom does the poet address? Undoubtedly, to power and its bearers, bearers of decline and discord. Yes, he identifies himself with the “katsaps”, frankly condemns the “seventy years” of life in the empire. But those whom he condemns are neither "Polyakhs", nor "Hans", nor "Ukrainians". These are the forces of discord and enmity, forces mystically unchained by Chernobyl, the most important event catastrophic break in history. […] In the end, I note that I. Brodsky, a reader and connoisseur of Grigory Skovoroda, a poet whom he puts on the same level with John Donne and Gabriel Derzhavin, shares main idea sage: "look into yourself." This living call recreates in Skovoroda's students a model of self-knowledge and immersion in "spiritual caves". This is the foundation of a real Monument - the Pure Logos, which is erected by Horace, Derzhavin and Pushkin. He opposes the active profane world. It is he who is the landmark of modernity, the light in the darkness, the call to life. The unity and opposition of “Alexander's lines” is equated with the Logos, and “Taras' nonsense” is equated with the active, militant creative Word of the poet-prophet” (Kravets 2001).
http://bungalos.ru/b/losev_iosif_brodskiy/80
* Lev Vladimirovich Losev (real name Lifshitz; June 15, 1937, Leningrad - May 6, 2009, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA) - a famous Russian poet, literary critic, essayist, friend of Joseph Brodsky.
From an interview with Lev Losev * to the Vedomosti newspaper(09/05/2006, No. 165 (1692) on the occasion of the presentation of books about Joseph Brodsky.
http://lib.rin.ru/news-lib/90735/.html
- It is known that Brodsky himself did not want philosophical or any kind of concepts to be extracted from his poems. Did he resist any ideologies and schemes?
An ideology is a set of beliefs. Brodsky liked to repeat the words of Akutagawa: "I have no convictions, I have only nerves." This is a very serious statement. Paul Ricoeur called ideology "the prison of the mind." Unfortunately, the human mind is so arranged that it strives for the comfort of stable beliefs. It takes a special discipline of freethinking to forbid yourself from forming beliefs. Of all the people I knew, Brodsky was the most free-thinking. At the same time, I believe that he was indifferent to what concepts someone builds on the basis of his poems.
- In the book, you write that Brodsky was a politicized person and, in particular, was sensitive to the separation of Ukraine from Russia (this is the subject of the poem “On the Independence of Ukraine”, which is not included in the collected works). How does this compare with the fact that Brodsky, in general, understood the need for the collapse of the empire?
Brodsky, although this may seem strange to some, was generally a man of full sense this word cheerful. He was interested in absolutely everything related to reality. Politics, especially everything that happens at home, he was keenly interested in. He rejoiced at the failure of the GKChP putsch, the return of its true name to St. Petersburg. Gorbachev at first seemed to him empty talk, but then it began to seem to him that this man, without knowing it, was led by Clio, the muse of history. He wrote a dashing hymn to Yeltsin - "Imitation of Horace": "Fly at the will of the waves, boat ..." He was very upset when punitive expeditions to Chechnya began.
Why he decided not to publish the poem "For the Independence of Ukraine" is understandable - he did not want to be maliciously quoted by those who maliciously quote him now on the Internet. His attitude to the Russian imperial past was, of course, negative. But he not only considered Ukraine to be a single, as it is now customary to say, “cultural space” with Great Russia, but he also strongly felt it as his historical homeland. I do not want to quote the last expression, because for Brodsky it was a very intimately felt idea. Feeling like “Joseph of Brod”.
Natalya Gorbanevskaya * "Another addition to ALIEN POEMS (answer to the question about Brodsky)"
http://ng68.livejournal.com/123368.html
“The poem “On the Independence of Ukraine” was first read by Joseph on February 28, 1994 in New York at Queens College, where it was recorded on a tape recorder and then transcribed with errors. In this form, it went for a walk in samizdat and was published in Kyiv in the newspaper "Stolitsa" (1996, number 13). You can read about this in Losev's "Joseph Brodsky", pp. 263-266.
I enclose in the trailer the exact text received from Joseph himself. Valentina Polukhina **
* Natalya Evgenievna Gorbanevskaya (May 26, 1936, Moscow - November 29, 2013, Paris) - Russian poetess, translator, human rights activist, member of the dissident movement in the USSR. A participant in the demonstration on August 25, 1968 against the entry Soviet troops to Czechoslovakia.
** Valentina Platonovna Polukhina (born 1936) is a Russian-British literary critic, a specialist in the work of Joseph Brodsky. Daniel Weisbort's wife English poet, translator, philologist and editor.
She met Joseph Brodsky in London in 1977. Since 1979, he has been publishing various studies and materials on his life and work.
Victor Toporov - To the question of "nonsense of Taras"
08/09/2008
http://www.online812.ru/2008/12/09/001/
In the summer that just ended, the epicenter of literary (and not only) disputes unexpectedly got a poem by Joseph Brodsky "On the Independence of Ukraine", presumably dated 1994, although most likely written three years earlier.
This seems to be the only poem that Brodsky himself categorically forbade to print. Although in 1996 it was still published in Ukraine - apparently, according to the principle "You need to know the enemy."
... In my opinion, Brodsky's demonstrative "Ukrainophobia" is explained by two reasons - macro and micro.
At the macro level, Brodsky never forgave the "leaders of the Union" for overlooking his inherent potential as a state poet - and reminded of this retroactively at the first opportunity: if I were printed in mass editions instead of Yevtushenko, - you see, and would not fall apart your vaunted empire.
At the micro level, I would suggest recalling the film "Brother-2" with the uniquely disgusting "new Americans" from Ukrainians there.
It is clear that Brodsky did not communicate with any Ukrainians in the United States. Yes, and the Russians too. He communicated with Jews who had come in large numbers from the USSR.
However, some of the Jews came to the United States from Russia, while others came from (then not yet “from”) Ukraine. And it was these Ukrainian Jews who rejoiced in the United States on the occasion of "independence". And it was to them, first of all, that the poet gave an angry rebuke.
(As a researcher, I have complete confidence in the validity of the "macrothesis"; the "microthesis", on the contrary, is a purely intuitive psychological guess.)
With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!
Only when you come and die, bullies,
you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
lines from Alexander, not Taras's nonsense.
The “nonsense of Taras” is especially offensive here, because it is not “Ukrainians who speak”, but “Khokhols who lie” that is irreconcilably xenophobic Russian. The idea of adherence to a common culture for both peoples (Kruchik clings to this straw in his essay) is clearly far-fetched here.
The dramatic events of this August have given this discussion a new dimension.
The tone was set by Moscow neoconservatives (Krylov, Kholmogorov and a number of others), noting that the “belt of hatred” is formed not by all the countries of the Russian border, but only by those states from which we have been importing culture for decades: Polish and Georgian cinema, Estonian and, again, Georgian novel, Lithuanian and Georgian poetry, and so on.
The meaning of these arguments (with their undoubted anti-Georgian orientation) boils down to the fact that Soviet Russia was a common cultural colony of its political colonies and semi-colonies - and now the "cultural metropolises" are covered by a negative post-imperial complex.
Curious theory. However, it is worth remembering about Ukraine - and from it there is no stone left unturned. Well, it wasn't Dovzhenko's film studio that colonized Mosfilm!
Meanwhile, this theory should not be rejected completely; it just needs to be clarified.
Soviet Russia was indeed a cultural colony of its own colonies and semi-colonies - and it is hated now in the former "mother countries" in many respects just for this.
But in this case, you need to talk not about spiritual culture, but about everyday life: Georgian wine(not cinema) and, of course, barbecue; Riga radios, sprats (and seaside); Estonian dairy products… And, of course, lard – pink, warm and streaked… In our version of someone else’s theory, Ukraine enters, like a market seller’s knife, into this universally coveted product not so much food as pampering…
Political colonies and semi-colonies were indeed allowed some "spiritual" things that were forbidden in the metropolis, but all these were secondary (and therefore variable) "sexual characteristics".
Georgian poetry was invented by Pasternak! The best Georgian poet - Galaktion Tabidze - is just a sluggish imitator of Verlaine.
And Lithuanian - Mezhirov!
And Ukrainian - did not exist in nature!
But we exported from our neighbors, first of all, the culture of everyday life.
Goy you, rushnik-karbovanets, seeds in a sweaty zhmena!
Not for us, katsapam, to accuse them of treason.
The poet, as always, is right - even when he is wrong. Call yourself at least a Khokhl, at least a katsap, most importantly, don’t go into the oven.
Because just this stove can suddenly be fired up.
Which is exactly what happened this summer.
Victor Leonidovich Toporov (August 9, 1946, Leningrad - August 21, 2013, St. Petersburg) - literary critic, publicist and translator. He was the executive secretary of the National Bestseller award, a member of the jury of the Grigoryev Poetry Prize, a member of the Writers' Union of St. Petersburg and the creative union "Academy of Russian Literature".
Quote from comandante
Brodsky did not hesitate to express his (as it turned out correct) assessment national character aborigines of the territory...
I heard this poem before and remembered it ... Not words and formulations, but its spirit, idea, causticity, emotional outburst, lack of positive (to put it mildly) ... and very precise wording ... And I was surprised: where did the former Leningrader Brodsky come from such deep subtleties are known dark side Ukrainians, and what prompted him to create such a rather aggressive poem towards Ukrainians? I must say right away that the poem impressed me and, in a certain sense, I liked it, I felt its depth, but in this case I do not intend to blame or praise the work itself and its author. I don't want to play along with Brodsky or lash out at him angrily. This is completely superfluous ... I will do without ideology and propaganda ... I have read everything that has been written about him here, and this is quite enough: the spectrum of opinions is presented quite frankly in its opposite, and I am overwhelmingly on the side of those who this poem praises ... Thanks comandante for the correct publication!
But I will allow a relatively small analysis.
Firstly, the poem sharply outlines the negative aspects not so much of Ukrainians (they are different), but of Ukrainianness as a historical and mental phenomenon ... well, I am not going to defend the Ukrainians themselves, because who, if not themselves, are the basic bearers of this phenomenon ...
Secondly, it is noteworthy that such a rather malicious, but essentially concentrated negative about mental Ukrainianism was written by an ethnic Jew who calls himself Russian and, as I read, does not particularly attach himself to spiritual and nationalist Jewry. His ideology (worldview) is largely Western, or rather Anglo-Saxon, and more British than American. Therefore, it is not surprising that he rode through the Slavs, no matter how bad they were. However, I don’t know where he got such a brutal Ukrainophobia from... Maybe Ukrainians got sick of the Arkhangelsk zone? or the American Ukrainian community in Michigan and New York? Or maybe his parents/grandfathers (I don’t know where they came from to St. Petersburg) were smashed by the Ukrainian Nazis? Anti-Semitism in Ukraine is a long-standing phenomenon, stable and insurmountable until now, despite a long lull... This is incomprehensible to me, figuratively speaking, "where does the guy get Spanish sadness?"...
The exact date of writing the poem has not been determined (the beginning of the 1990s, to the so-called independence) ... I found a mysterious phrase on the Internet: "The authenticity of the poem has long been a cause for heated debate among scientists and Brodsky's admirers. And now, after 23 years after the appearance of the work, the authorship of Brodsky was proved .... Strange, however, the dispute, and these "scientists" and "admirers" themselves, if he himself performed it ...
And why did it lie around somewhere unclaimed for 23 years? ... The US authorities banned it from being "released" before the Maidan of 2014? Did he read someone else's, although the poetic style is clearly his?
Well, and thirdly: according to all "metrics", I myself belong to the so-called. "full-blooded Ukrainians", although she was born in the Baltics and raised in a Russian city near the coast of the southernmost part of the Baltic Sea. But until adulthood, often visiting grandparents in Ukraine, she mastered well the language and customs of the Ukrainian village, as well as the capital Kyiv ... As a result (moving her life around the republics of the USSR) she became a mental Soviet imperialist, painfully reacting to the current restrictions in this the very movement through the "places of childhood and youth" that have become to one degree or another familiar ... it just infuriates me!
The most vicious and Svidomo relatives, inherited from my parents’ brothers, have ceased to maintain contact with me, and I don’t remind myself of myself ... and those who live more modestly and poorer still experience good family feelings ...
Another thing is surprising: rewinding my memories to the 60s, I came to an interesting conclusion. In terms of the mentality of rural Ukrainians and urban Kyivans, in terms of their attitude towards Russia and towards Russians, the Maidan was ready to take place already in those years ... Everything that Brodsky so impartially described and not accidentally stuck out already really existed, but like dirty and unsightly stones and snags at the bottom of the reservoir, it was hidden by the semi-muddy water of Soviet patriotism and internationalism ... The tide went out - and everything was bare, bristled ... it smelled musty, like in a neglected swamp, all sorts of slugs, worms and predatory insects crawled out ... Not it’s worth saving this reservoir for the time being, until the vile living creatures die, and the stones and gilyaks crumble into dust ... But harmless fish, helplessly gaping their mouths in a dirty slush from lack of water, it’s a pity ... they need to be saved ... anyway someday ... let them sail to us in Russia ...
Here, something like this ... about independence and Brodsky ... chaotic and long ... it's hard to read such multi-bookoff texts ...
Joseph Brodsky, whose poetry I love, has a sensational, scandalous poem "For the independence of Ukraine". There is a lot of mystery in this work. For example, its date of creation is not exactly known, there are options from the end of 1991 (the collapse of the USSR) to 1994 (Ukraine's participation in the NATO Partnership for Peace program). Several versions of the text have been published on the network, which vary greatly. I have not seen serious literary studies of this poem, although the text is replete with allusions and understatements that invite commentary.
I give discrepancies, my own editing of distortions and an attempt to explain some details of the text.
There are two main variants of "For the Independence of Ukraine" in the network. Apparently, both were recorded by ear during the author's readings and were not verified by Brodsky himself.
The first version, apparently, from some readings in the United States at the beginning of 1992. It has a lot of absurdities and simplifications. poetic images. Interestingly, according to this version, critics seriously wrote notes and tried to analyze what Brodsky wanted to say.
The second option, apparently, relies on a video recording of Brodsky's speech, dated October 1992. Here she is:
At the same time, in the second version there are distortions in comparison with the video recording that I found.
In parallel, I give two options. In red, I mark the differences between the first option and the second. Blue color - distortions in the second variant, which are not consistent with the video recording (I will comment on both discrepancies below).
| First option | Second option |
Time will show "kuzkina mother", ruins, A bone of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine. It's not green - visible, wasted by an isotope, Bitter cherry karbovanets, seeds in full zhmena. With flooded eyes, they lived like convicts. Let's tell them, with a voiced mother, marking pauses strictly: A tablecloth for you, crests, and a towel for the road. Three letters to the address, four letters to the sides. Now let the Hans in the hut in chorus How to climb into the loop, so together, choosing soup in more often, Spit, or something, in the Dnipro, maybe he will roll back. Disdainful proudly of us, as crowded packed, Rejected corners and age-old resentment. Do not remember dashingly, your bread, heaven To us, choke on cake, you don’t need it for a long time. There is nothing to spoil the blood, tear clothes on the chest, What to poke around in vain in torn roots with a pokopom. You were born by the earth, soil, black earth with a subzom, This land does not give you, Kaluns, peace. Oh, you levada, steppe, kralya, chestnut, dumpling, We'll get through somehow. And what about tears from the eye With God, eagles and Cossacks, hetmans, guards, Lines from Alexander, not bullshit from Taras. | Dear Charles XII, the battle of Poltava, thank God, lost. As the burry one said, "time will show Kuzka's mother", ruins, bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine. yellow-blakyt flying over Konotop, cut from canvas, to know, Canada has in store. For nothing that without a cross, but Ukrainians do not need it. Goy you, towel, karbovanets, seeds in full zhmena! Not for us, katsapam, to accuse them of treason. Themselves under the images of seventy years in Ryazan Get out of us in a zhupan, not to mention - in a uniform, with Poles put you on four bones, bastards. How to climb into the loop - so together, choosing the path in more often, and eating chicken from borscht alone is sweeter. Farewell, crests, lived together - that's enough! proudly disdaining us, like an ambulance, jam-packed It ended, to know, love, since it was in between. You gave birth to the earth, soil, black soil with podzol. It is full to swing the rights, to sew to us one thing, another. Oh yes Levada-steppe, kralya, chestnut, dumpling! More, go, lost - more people than money. We'll get through somehow. And what about tears from the eye - there is no decree on her, to wait until another time. Only when you come and die, bullies, you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress, lines from Alexander, not Taras's nonsense. |
About those discrepancies that I highlighted in blue.
"Seeds in full zhmena" - this is what suggests itself, what the ear is ready to hear. But Brodsky reads: “Seeds in sweaty zhmene". Stronger.
“How to climb into a loop - so together, choosing a path in more often.” Why choose the path into the thicket if you want to hang yourself? (In the first version, there is a generally meaningless “soup”, which is supposedly connected with the next line about borscht.) Brodsky pronounces a completely logical “ boughs”: they say, we choose a stronger branch.
Now about the most mysterious for me first stanzas of the poem.
"Dear Charles XII" is an address, but in whose mouth is it put? Who could tell Karl that "the battle is lost"? Hetman Ivan Mazepa, a traitor to the Russian Tsar? But why "thank God, lost"? Because of a premonition, what would be even worse than the Ukrainian apocalypse predicted in the next two lines?
Burr is, in all likelihood, not just Vladimir Lenin, but the collective “chief Bolshevik”, as he quotes Nikita Khrushchev with his Kuzkin mother. The main Bolshevik portends a catastrophe for Ukraine.
"Green-quite, wasted by an isotope" - this, apparently, is about the flag of the Ukrainian SSR with traces of Chernobyl accident. But here Brodsky is mistaken. Soviet Belarus and Lithuania had green-red flags, and Soviet Ukraine had a “blue-sweet” flag.
I have an interesting thought about the line about the yellow-blue flag, "for nothing without a cross, but Ukrainians do not need it." There is a marginal version that the modern Ukrainian flag comes from the flag of the Kingdom of Sweden, that Mazepa adopted the colors from Karl before Poltava. (Most researchers believe that, in fact, these are the heraldic colors of the city of Lviv, the last stronghold of Ukrainian statehood in the Middle Ages.) It is quite possible that Brodsky is playing with the marginal version: “without a cross” - because the Swedes in the original have a blue flag with a yellow cross.
The rest of the poem, it seems to me, is more transparent.
Finally, I publish a version with corrected distortions, “beautiful” punctuation marks, the letter “yo” and correction of minor inaccuracies (“fast” I put in quotation marks - it’s clearer that this is a noun; “Levada-steppe” - should be “levada, steppe"). Enjoy.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky
"For the independence of Ukraine"
(no later than October 1992)
Dear Charles XII, the battle of Poltava,
thank God, lost. As the burry one said,
"time will show Kuzkin's mother, ruins,
a bone of posthumous joy with a touch of Ukraine.”
That is not green-even, wasted by an isotope, -
yellow-blakyt flying over Konotop,
cut from canvas, to know, Canada has in store.
For nothing that without a cross, but Ukrainians do not need it.
Goy you, towel, karbovanets, seeds in a sweaty zhmena!
Not for us, katsapam, to accuse them of treason.
Themselves under the images of seventy years in Ryazan
with flooded eyes they lived, as under Tarzan.
Let's tell them, sonorous mother pauses, delaying strictly:
a tablecloth to you, crests, and a road towel!
Get out of us in a zhupan, not to mention - in a uniform,
to the address for three letters, for all four
sides. Now let the Hans in the hut in chorus
with Poles put you on four bones, bastards.
How to climb into the loop - so together, choosing bitches in more often,
and eating chicken from borscht alone is sweeter.
Farewell, crests, lived together - that's enough!
Spit, or something, in the Dnipro, maybe it will roll back,
proudly disdaining us, like an ambulance, jam-packed
leather corners and age-old resentment.
Do not remember dashingly. Your bread, heaven,
us, we choke on cake and kolob, not required.
There is nothing to spoil the blood, to tear clothes on the chest.
It ended, to know, love, since it was in between.
What to poke around in vain in torn roots with a verb?
You gave birth to the earth, soil, black soil with podzol.
It is full to swing the rights, to sew to us one thing, another.
This land does not give you, kavuns, peace.
Oh yes, levada, steppe, king, chestnut, dumpling!
More, go, lost - more people than money.
Let's get through somehow. And what about tears from the eye -
there is no decree on her, to wait until another time.
With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!
Only when he comes and you die, bullies,
you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
lines from Alexander, not Taras's nonsense.
