Spirit of the times: Josif Brodsky (1)
The life and connections of an American citizen and a Russian poet and a Jew, born 85 years ago, an incomplete elementary school student, a metal apprentice, an assistant pathologist and geologist, a poet who was a victim of an ideological turn and political literary intrigues, he was tried twice, twice placed in an insane asylum, attempted suicide because of love, for parasitism was sentenced to five years of exile with community service, which a tractor driver on the Danilovsky collective farm did not appreciated as well as a song about it, enjoyed respect in the village of Norenska as an exile who rose up, "voluntarily" obtained a visa without the right to return and meet his parents, achieved a university career, won the Nobel Prize, was a poetic pop star, loved by women, loved cats, smoked a lot, died at 56 - and was buried for the second time in Venice, still a little far from Ezra Pound
