The Trial of Joseph Brodsky
- The Trial of Joseph Brodsky
Editor's Note: This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the trial of Joseph Brodsky (1940–96), who was tried in Leningrad in 1964 for crimes against the state.
Joseph Brodsky was a Russian poet and translator who lived in the U.S. after being expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972. His publications include numerous books of poems and essays, among them A Part of Speech (1977) and To Urania (1988) and the essay collection Less Than One (1986), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He wrote in both Russian and English, self-translating and working with poet-translators including W. H. Auden, Derek Walcott, and Anthony Hecht. In 1991, he was named Poet Laureate of the United States. Brodsky was at the beginning of his career when the Soviet authorities found him guilty of “social parasitism” and sentenced him to five years of exile and hard labor. The transcript of his hearings, bravely recorded by the journalist Frida Abramovna Vigdorova (1915–65), was first circulated in samizdat and then published in numerous periodicals in France, Germany, England, the U.S., and Poland.
Throughout much of her life, Vigdorova actively aided victims of oppression, and she dedicated her final years to seeking justice for Brodsky. A journalist and writer who graduated from Moscow Pedagogic Institute, she was the author of a number of books on issues in education, including Diary of a Russian Schoolteacher. At the time of Brodsky’s trial she was a correspondent for Literaturnaya gazeta [Literary Gazette], but the chief editor forbade her to attend; under the circumstances, she was determined to witness the trial independently and kept a record of the proceedings, despite admonishments from the judge and harassment from the volunteer militia in the courtroom.
After Brodsky was sentenced, Vigdorova continued petitioning for his release. His sentence was commuted in 1965 after protests by prominent Soviet and international cultural figures, including Anna Akhmatova, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Vigdorova herself had died of cancer on August 7, 1965, before her efforts had any measurable effect. Lev Loseff reports in his biography of Brodsky that the poet kept a photograph of her on the wall over his desk for many years, first in Russia, then in America.
Books in English that provide valuable context and background for the trial are Lev Loseff’s Joseph Brodsky: A Literary Life and Efim Etkind’s Notes of a Non-Conspirator, part of which was published in NER in 1997 in a translation by Roberta Reeder.
What appears here is a new translation of the full trial transcript, with annotations provided by the translator, Michael R. Katz. [End Page 183]
First Hearing of the Case of Joseph Brodsky
Session of the Dzerzhinsky District Court
City of Leningrad, 36 Vostanie Street
February 18, 1964
Presiding Judge: Mme. Saveleva
Defense Counsel: Mme. Z. N. Toporova
What do you do for a living?
I write poetry. I translate. I suppose. . .
Never mind what you “suppose.” Stand up properly. Don’t lean against the wall. Look at the court. Answer the court properly. (To me) Stop taking notes immediately! Or else—I’ll have you thrown out of the courtroom. (To Brodsky) Do you have a regular job?
I thought this was a regular job.
Answer correctly!
I was writing poems. I thought they’d be published. I suppose . . .
We’re not interested in what you “suppose.” Tell us why you weren’t working.
I had contracts with a publisher.
Did you have enough contracts to earn a living? List them: with whom, what dates, and for what sums of money?
I don’t remember exactly. My lawyer has all the contracts.
I’m asking you.
Two books with my translations were published in Moscow. (He lists them.)
How long have you worked?
Approximately . . .
We’re not interested in “approximately.”
Five years. [End Page 184]
Where did you work?
At a factory. With geological groups . . .
How long did you work at the factory...
