Joseph Brodsky Collection, 1970-2010 (bulk 1993-1994):

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Biographical Note

Joseph Aleksandrovich Brodsky, the Russian poet was born in Leningrad, U.S.S.R. on May 24, 1940 to Russian Jewish parents. His mother worked as a professional translator, and his father served as a photographer for the Soviet Navy. As a teenager, Brodsky taught himself English and Polish and began writing poetry at age eighteen. Famed Russian poet Anna Akhmatova encouraged his poetry when they met in 1960. In 1962, in Saint Petersburg, Anna Akhmatova introduced Brodsky to the artist Marina Basmanova, with whom he would have a son, Andrey. The U.S.S.R. government charged and arrested Brodsky in 1963 for “social parasitism” or failure to work. The government tried and convicted Brodsky in March of 1964. Successful protests led by Anna Akhmatova, Evgeny Evtushenko, Dmitri Shostakovich and Jean-Paul Sartre during Brodsky’s detention eventually reduced his sentence from five years of physical work in a gulag labor camp to eighteen months in Siberia. Upon release, the KGB ordered him to leave the country and sent him to Vienna. While in Vienna, Brodsky lost his citizenship and soon immigrated to the United States. Brodsky settled in Ann Arbor, with the help of poet W. H. Auden. During the 1972-73 academic year, Brodsky was Poet in Residence and Professor of English and Russian at both the University of Michigan and Queens College in New York. Initially connected to the Pioneer Valley through professional collaboration with Peter Viereck, Brodsky filled the position of Poet in Resident and Distinguished Acting Professor at The Five Colleges from 1974-1975, as well as filling the position of the first of The Five College Distinguished Visiting Professorships. In 1981, Brodsky received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award and became a professor in the Five College Consortium, based in Amherst, Massachusetts. In 1982, Brodsky served as the Five College Professor of Literature at Mount Holyoke College. In 1986, he served as an Andrew Mellon Professor of Literature at Mount Holyoke College.

Brodsky was granted United States citizenship in 1977. In 1978, Brodsky was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters at Yale University. In 1979, he was inducted as a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and two years later received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation's "genius" award. Brodsky was a recipient of The International Center in New York's Award of Excellence. In 1986, his collection of essays Less Than One won the National Book Critics Award for Criticism and he was given an honorary Doctorate of Literature from Oxford University. Brodsky received the National Book Award for criticism in 1986. In 1987 he was honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature. Brodsky married a student named Maria Sozzani in 1990 while teaching literature in France and they had one daughter, Anna. In September of 1991, he became the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress or as the award is more commonly know, U.S. Poet Laureate. Brodsky died in New York City at the age of fifty-five on January 28, 1996.

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Scope and Contents of the Collection

The papers of Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) span the years 1972-1996, with the bulk of materials dating from 1993 to 1994. The collection is in English and Russian and is organized into the following series: Correspondence, Writings, Teaching Materials, Biographical Information, and Audio Visual Materials. The majority of which relate to poetry courses Brodsky taught as Professor of English while at Mount Holyoke College. Writings (1972-1996) include poetry published in the New Yorker. Writing include ssays published in the New Republic, Chronicle of Higher Education and the New Yorker, articles published in the New York Times Magazine and reviews published in the New York Times Book Review.

Teaching Materials include 94 audio cassettes that capture all of his class lectures for Russian 230: Poetry in Translation: The Nineteenth Century taught in the spring of 1993, and English 265: Lyric Poetry taught in the spring of 1994 as a Mount Holyoke College English and Russian faculty member. Also included are 55 CDs that are digital surrogates of the original audio cassettes, as well as transcriptions from the lectures delivered Poetry in Translation: The Nineteenth Century. Also included in Teaching Materials are course catalog descriptions of Poetry in Translation: The Nineteenth Century and Lyric Poetry. There are course notes in Brodsky’s hand, copies of course readings and student work both graded and ungraded. These course materials document Brodsky’s teaching style and vast knowledge of the poetic genre.

Biographical Information includes original and photocopies of Joseph Brodsky's published poetry, essays, articles and reviews in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, the New Republic, Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Review and the New Yorker. Included are two interviews with Brodsky from 1986 and 1989, reflections from a former Mount Holyoke College student, Lynnette Labinger who visited Brodsky in 1970, articles that document Brodsky being awarded the Poet Laureate Consultant on Poetry to the Library of Congress or Poet Laureate in 1991, as well as programs and obituaries documenting Brodsky's death in 1996 and the Mount Holyoke College community memorial service held on February 20, 1996.

Audio Visual Materials include 3 audiocassettes, 2 CDs, 3 VHS recordings, 1 reel of 35mm film and 1 DVD of lectures, readings, speeches and panel discussions given or led by Brodsky, as well as a Mount Holyoke College memorial service honoring Brodsky after his death in 1996 and an October 8, 2010 anniversary celebration sponsored by the Russian Studies Department on DVD.

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Organization of the Collection

This collection is organized into five series:

• Correspondence June 1, 1982
• Writings ca. 1972-1996
• Teaching Materials 1993-1994
• Biographical Information 1972-2003
• Audio Visual Materials 1972-2010

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Correspondence June 1, 1982 1 letter

This series consists of one letter written on June 1, 1982 by Joseph Brodsky spent to George Brockway editor of W.W. Norton publishing house. In the letter Brodksy urges Brockaw to publish his colleague Peter Viereck's manuscript Applewood.

Writings 1972-1996 3 folders

This series contains an introductory essay written by Joseph Brodsky in 50 Poems by Osip Mandelstam published in 1977, typescripts of Brodsky's translation work on the poem To Urania published in 1980 and several poems published in the New York Times.

This series is arranged in chronological order.

Teaching Materials 1992-1994 13 boxes

This series includes 94 audio cassette recordings of Joseph Brodsky's lectures delivered as a Mount Holyoke College English and Russian faculty member in his courses Russian 230: Poetry in Translation: The Nineteenth Century taught in the spring of 1993 with transcripts, and English 265: Lyric Poetry taught in the spring of 1994. Also included are 55 CDs that are digital surrogates of the original audio cassettes, course catalog descriptions, lecture notes, course readings and student work.

This series is arranged in chronological order.

Russian 230: Poetry in Translation: the Nineteenth Century 1993 7 boxes

This series is arranged in chronological order.

English 265: Lyric Poetry 1994 6 boxes

This series is arranged in chronological order.

Biographical Information 1973-2003 1 boxes

This series includes original and photocopies of Joseph Brodsky's published poetry, essays, articles and reviews in the New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New York Times Book Review, the New Republic, Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Review and the New Yorker. Included are two interviews with Brodsky from 1986 and 1989, reflections from a former Mount Holyoke College student, Lynnette Labinger who visited Brodsky in 1970, articles that document Brodsky being awarded the Poet Laureate Consultant on Poetry to the Library of Congress or Poet Laureate in 1991, as well as programs and obituaries documenting Brodsky's death in 1996 and the Mount Holyoke College community memorial service held on February 20, 1996.

This series is arranged in chronological order.

Audio Visual Materials ca. 1985-2010 3 boxes

This series consists of two 3 1/2 inch floppy discs containing Joseph Brodsky's course notes and records, one DVD recording of the 1985 Mount Holyoke College Commencement where Brodsky spoke as the ceremony's commencement speaker, 2 CDs recording panel discussions Brodsky participated in in 1985, a WGGB VHS television segment reporting Brodsky's Nobel Prize in Literature award in 1987, 3 audio cassette recordings of Brodsky reading his poetry, 1 VHS tape of A Maddening Space recorded for the New York Center for Visual History in 1991, 7 audio cassette recordings, 1 digital surrogate captured on CD of the Mount Holyoke College community memorial service honoring Brodsky on February 20, 1996 and 1 DVD recording of Mount Holyoke College's celebration of the 70th anniversary of Brodsky's birth that took place on October 8, 2010.

This series is arranged in chronological order.

Correspondence June 1, 1982

Writings 1972-1996

Teaching Materials 1993-1994

Russian 230: Poetry in Translation: The Nineteenth Century Spring 1993

Biographical Information ca. 1974-2003

Audio Visual Materials 1972-2010