27/05/2015
The day before, the whole country celebrated the anniversary of the poet Joseph Brodsky. In honor of this, his daughter Anna Brodskaya-Sozzani visited Russia for the first time and gave an interview that caused a mixed reaction from the public: the 22-year-old girl admitted that she has no education, she does not know Russian and has not read many famous works my father. The interview was commented on by the writer Tatyana Nikitichna Tolstaya, who knew Brodsky personally.
« Brodsky's daughter Nyusha, so I.A. called her. I saw her when she was not yet a year old. And now the most perfect lily of the field has grown: it does not weave, it does not spin, but the Lord of heaven, come on, feed it,” he ironically your page on FB Tolstaya. “He denies copyright, Facebook (“as you know, all information from Facebook goes straight into the databases of the US National Security Agency”) and monetarism in general.”
According to the writer, young Brodskaya thinks that if there is no money, then people will begin to live happily, distributing the fruits of their labor and inspiration left and right. Now the poet's daughter lives in the English countryside with her “partner” and two-year-old daughter. And he also observes humanity, which, according to Tolstoy, “is eager to freely create and distribute.
Gorgeous. Italian of Russian origin.
And further, from hearsay, that she knows English, French, Italian, Russian... an aristocrat... from the Pushkin family (hard to believe).
I don’t know what their age difference was. I think about 30 years.
But 5 years with her were happier for the poet than the previous 50, but this is according to friends...
In January 1990, at a lecture at the Sorbonne, Brodsky saw Maria Sozzani among his students. We got married in September. The marriage produced a daughter, Anna Alexandra Maria, with whom Brodsky spoke English. (A strange compromise of languages. But probably for a small child who lives and most likely will live in the USA, this is the best option)
In general, there is little information about this story. (Not like about Marina)
Maria is also silent. I only found one interview
Conversation with a widow Nobel laureate Joseph Brodsky
Irena Grudzińska-Gross:
How did Brodsky's love for Italy arise?
Maria Sozzani-Brodsky:
Russians are divided into two categories: those who deify France, and those who are crazy about Italy. In Italy, Gogol and Vyacheslav Ivanov wrote, Tchaikovsky composed music, Alexander Ivanov painted. Joseph was open to many countries, but he was especially connected with Italy. Already in his youth he read Italian literature. We have talked many times even about little-known authors, whom almost no one remembers outside of Italy.
IGG:
It is difficult to believe that this early sympathy was caused solely by literary interests...
SME:
Of course, first there was cinema. Italian cinema - well, maybe after Tarzan - shaped his life (laughs). At the same time, Italian cinema owes a lot to Russia. During Stalin's times, when direct exchange between the two countries was difficult, Russian literature was not stopped being filmed in Italy. Joseph always remembered that already in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, contacts between artists in Italy and Russia were very intense.
Hence the choice of Rome as the location for his Academy...
SME:
Brodsky visited the American Academy in Rome three times, she inspired him. He spent a lot of time in it, the result was “Roman Elegies”. Rome was the logical choice, although Joseph also thought about Venice. In addition to the American Academy, Rome also houses the French and Swedish Academies. Joseph had a conversation with the burgomaster of Rome, Rutelli, who promised him that the city would allocate a building to the Academy. But a few months after Joseph’s death, it turned out that we did not have a building.
IGG:
Was the promise unfulfilled?
SME:
I don’t know if Joseph understood the burgomaster correctly, but I remember well that after a conversation with Rutelli, and this was in the fall of 1995, he became like a new person, he was so happy. He then told me: everything is fine, there is a building. And he was already sick, very sick. At the end of his life, he was actively involved in various projects to help people. He began to engage in this especially intensively after 1992, when he became the “poet laureate” of the United States. He then wanted to make poetry available in hotels or supermarkets - this project was implemented. Three or four years of his life were devoted to just such matters, and the Russian Academy in Rome was the last of them.
IGG:
As I understand it, the Russian Academy has already begun to function, although there is no building?
SME:
So far, only the Brodsky Scholarship Fund is operating. The Academy's organizing committee, whose founder was, among other things, Isaiah Berlin, and whose members include Mikhail Baryshnikov, Louis Begley, Lady Berlin, V.V. Ivanov, Ann Kjellberg, Mstislav Rostropovich and Robert Silvers (Robert Silvers), organized many concerts and meetings. We have founded two foundations - one in America, it is intended for funds for scholarships, and the other in Italy, where (perhaps in Russia) we will raise money for the building. However, Americans do not like to give money for something that does not yet exist. The first scholarships were paid for by two generous Italians.
IGG:
And who received these scholarships?
SME:
The first was Timur Kibirov. He is 45 years old and one of the most talented poets in Russia today. He is also known among Italian Slavists, which is why we decided to choose him first. We need advertising, and this makes it easier to raise money for the Academy. Kibirov was immediately invited to eight Italian universities - this is where he is now speaking. The second poet, Vladimir Strochkov, will arrive at the end of summer. The third, Sergei Stratanovsky, will go to Italy in September.
We decided to start with poets in order to honor the memory of Joseph, and also because it is very difficult to send artists or musicians to Rome, since we are forced to enjoy the hospitality of the American and French Academies. We will probably be able to invite scientists, and we will be guaranteed access to libraries. At the request of the Russians themselves, scholarships will not last longer than three months. They are awarded by a jury that will change every two years. The holders of the fund cannot influence its decisions, and the names of the jury members living in Russia, although not classified, are not publicly disclosed, otherwise it would be difficult for them to work.
IGG:
Some argued that Brodsky was indifferent towards Russia. I never went, despite numerous invitations. Many believed that he should have returned, because he was the most outstanding Russian poet...
SME:
He did not want to return because his friends were already coming to meet him. His parents were no longer alive, the country was different, so he didn’t want to appear as some kind of diva when people had a lot of big worries. His life went in one direction, and returns are always difficult. If we had to move, we would go to Italy. We even talked about this - he would have gotten a job in Perugia, at the University for Foreigners, and then it would have been obvious. But these were just dreams. Joseph did not even want to be buried in Russia. The idea of a funeral in Venice was suggested by one of his friends. This is the city that, apart from St. Petersburg, Joseph loved most. Besides, selfishly speaking, Italy is my country, so it was better that my husband was buried there. It was easier to bury him in Venice than in other cities, for example, in my hometown Compignano near Lucca. Venice is closer to Russia and is a more accessible city.
But all this does not mean at all that he was indifferent or hostile towards Russia. In general, he was very rarely indifferent towards anything (laughs). He followed events in Russia very closely, primarily in the field of literature. He received many letters, people sent him their poems. He was delighted with how many poets there were - however, many of them felt his influence in their poems, which, on the one hand, brought him great satisfaction, but also surprised him. I was very worried about the war in Chechnya, as well as the war in Yugoslavia.
NY.
There are only a few photographs in RuNet. (Many people mention her “perfect beauty”, but in other photos I didn’t notice anything unearthly. She is beautiful, but typical)
Yes, now upd 2017 the girl (her name is Anna) has grown up)) There are several of her interviews online. For example this or this
“Brodsky has an article about poets’ girlfriends, where he writes that they don’t need brunettes with sharp features. What is needed is a blonde inarticulateness onto which poets can project themselves.
In this sense, they were opposite - he is a very sharp and concrete person, but there was some vagueness in her. Apparently, this fascinated him."
It seems to me that Maria has approximately the same traits.
I also remembered Tarkovsky’s film “Nostalgia”. There is also an Italian translator there, similar in type.. and also poetry..))
but the film was shot earlier, of course, so these are just associations.
The photo at the beginning of the post was taken by Mikhail Baryshnikov at the Florida Zoo:
“There are huge enclosures, the tiger was rubbing against the bars, and Joseph was purring: “Mrau... mrau... mrau”... He sat for probably twenty minutes. Then Maria came, and the tiger, that means, ran. They followed him ". Here and there. In parallel, on the other side there are also enclosures. In my opinion, with leopards. Maria looks at the leopard in one direction, and Joseph looks at the tiger in the other."
Joseph loved cats (and apparently all cats) very much.
On the day of the 20th anniversary of the death of Joseph Brodsky, we are publishing for the first time a Russian translation of Anna Maria Brodskaya-Sozzani’s poem dedicated to her father
Text: Yuri Lepsky/RG
Photo: Marianna Volkova, Yuri Lepsky
I took this photo a few days ago in Venice, on the island of San Michele, the island of the dead, where they found last refuge Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Weill and Brodsky. On the marble tombstone of Joseph Brodsky there was a note taped with tape: “Greetings to you, Joseph, from St. Petersburg. Sorry. It's lonely without you. See you. VC.". I don’t know who “V.K.” is (or is). The note got wet; at that time it was raining heavily in Venice. I think that now it has simply been washed away from the marble slab.
I remembered her only because this piece of wet paper, like many other pieces of evidence, point to the peculiarities of the memory of this poet and man. To this day he is treated as if he were alive. Everyone - reading it or remembering it - enters into a dialogue with it, deeply personal and even intimate. Each of his readers and friends has their own Brodsky, their own territory of communication with him. His closest friend, Slavist from Amsterdam Case Verheil, told me: “...I’ve been talking to him for several years in a row. We meet at least once a week. This happens in my dreams, repeating with amazing consistency. We are not meeting in Russia, maybe in Paris, or Rome, or Amsterdam... We are talking. Moreover, both I and he know that he died, that he is no longer there. But this does not interfere with our conversation in any way; it’s not even about the content of these dreams. The main thing is the process of communication itself... When I wake up, I perfectly remember his face, his mood, the expression of his eyes, gestures, facial expressions, I hear his voice. But I don’t remember what we talked about with him. I strain my memory, trying to catch some details of the conversation, but in vain. And I tell myself: well, it’s okay, there’s not much left until the next meeting...”
Maybe the mysterious "V.K." - Is this Verheil Case? I don’t know, and that’s not what matters in the end. The main thing is who and what a person remains among the living.
Last May, his friends gathered in the courtyard of the famous St. Petersburg house of Muruzi at the intersection of Pestel Street and Liteiny Prospekt: the entire poetic world was then celebrating Brodsky’s 75th birthday. The poet grew up in this house and in this yard, from here he was forced to leave forever.
All his fans and friends know this yard and this house. But this time a person came here who was here for the first time - his daughter Anna-Maria. She was his happiness, he called her Nyusha. He died when Nyusha was not even three years old. Well, what could she remember about her father? Of course, journalists surrounded her and asked her a bunch of questions, including asking what she had read from Brodsky. I remember how well she answered. She said that she had read a little and that she would continue to read little and slowly in order to prolong this communication with her father for the rest of her life. This is her way of remembering him.
Anna Maria’s poem “To My Father,” which you will read today, is being published in Russian for the first time. This is the first result of her communication with her father’s poems, the revived memory of him. This is also her first poetic response to his poem “To My Daughter,” addressed to her.
All I have to add is that in addition to the famous translator and poetry expert Brodsky, Nastya Kuznetsova, the poet’s daughter, who permanently lives in St. Petersburg, took part in the translation of the poems. In the same yard, the sisters met, hugged and cried. This is how amazingly the life of Joseph Brodsky continues in hundreds, and maybe thousands of lives of those who love and read him.
TO MY DAUGHTER / MY DAUGHTER
Give me another life and I will sing
at the Rafaella cafe. Or just sit
right there. Even if the closet hangs in the corner for the time being,
if life and the Creator are not so generous.
Still, since the century cannot do without
without jazz and caffeine, I accept the thought
stand withered for twenty years through dust and varnish
squinting at the light, your blossoming and your deeds.
In general, keep in mind that I will be nearby. Perhaps it
part of my fatherhood is to become an object for you,
especially when the objects are older and larger than you,
strict and silent: this is remembered longer.
So love them, even if you know little about them,
let it be a ghost-silhouette, a thing that can be touched,
along with the worthless belongings that I leave here
in the language we share, in these clumsy songs.
Joseph Brodsky, 1994
Translation by Andrey Olear
TO MY FATHER / TO MY FATHER
I touch the foggy glass,
and a shadow in the night for a brief moment of warmth
suddenly it gets closer, the thread trembles...
Imagination? May be…
You pulled your coat tighter,
strumming rhymes in your pocket, but
found peace on distant shores.
How can you breathe there? Is it scary there? This fear
unknown to me now, since life is gifts,
downs, ups, rules of the game,
but from that frozen side of the glass
you are waiting, I feel it. And I came to you.
All memory - voices inside and outside -
resonates with you in me.
The last bell rings in college,
but you are not here, you are where your granite is.
Longing, love and voices in the darkness
I will never have enough on earth.
Anna-Maria Brodskaya, 2015
Translation by Anastasia Kuznetsova and Andrey Olear
Valentina Polukhina, an outstanding researcher of the work and biography of Joseph Brodsky, is an indisputable authority for me. And if she calls and says: “Come, I’ll introduce you to a wonderful person,” you should go without hesitation. So it was this time. On a bench among fallen leaves in the courtyard of the Fountain House in St. Petersburg, a young charming woman was sitting next to Polukhina. “Meet,” said Valentina Platonovna, “this is Nastya Kuznetsova.”
We met, and as soon as I asked something and Nastya began to answer, something happened to me: shock from the instantly recognizable manner of speech, facial expressions, gestures, gaze, lexical phrases... Everything betrayed Brodsky in her: appearance, speech, biorhythmics , energy charge. Polukhina looked at me sympathetically, fully understanding what was happening to me. I never tired of being amazed. Although everything that happened, strictly speaking, was very ordinary and completely understandable. I spoke with the daughter of Joseph Brodsky.
Nastya is wary of journalists and tries not to give interviews. In this sense, I was not an exception to her rules. And if it weren’t for the authority of Valentina Polukhina, who literally persuaded Nastya to answer several questions for the “Rosiyskaya Gazeta”, you would not have read a single line about her.
- Nastya, let's start with your mother. Tell us about her.
Well, what can I say about her that’s so special? My mother, Marianna Kuznetsova, was a ballerina in the corps de ballet of the Kirov Theater. Graduated from the Vaganova School. I studied there together with Natasha Makarova, Nuriev, in my opinion, studied in a higher course. It was star class. Nevertheless, my mother remained in the corps de ballet, which, by the way, she never regretted. She was not a public person. More likely even closed. But with theater tours she traveled all over the world. And thanks to her, for me, unlike most Soviet children, the world was never something behind seven seals. Mom is in Japan, mom is in America, mom is in France. Then she came and brought a bunch of interesting things. So my childhood was quite happy, not boring and without any special shocks.
-Where did you live then?
Until we were five years old, we lived with my grandmother and mother’s sister. When I was five years old, my mother got married, and we first lived on Rimsky-Korsakov Street, in a house with Atlanteans, next to the theater. And then, when I went to second grade and my brother was born, we moved to Zodchego Rossi Street. Our family lived there until 1996, if my memory serves me correctly. Then the house was resettled, and we were scattered around the city. Now I live in Brooks. It's almost a village, but the center is only an hour's drive away.
- And the apartment where you were brought from the maternity hospital?
For the first two months after my birth, my mother and I lived with my grandfather, on Sedova Street.
- Nastya, when did you find out who your father is?
I was 23 years old then. One evening my mother and I were sitting in the kitchen, and I no longer remember where this conversation arose. But at some point my mother suddenly announced that my father was Joseph Brodsky. I can’t say that it amazed or shocked me. I won’t lie: overall it was pleasant. But I suspected something before.
- What do you mean “suspected”?
Well, first of all, I knew that mom and Joseph were friends.
- How did you know this?
Yes, I knew from my mother. They had a company: Garik Voskov, Joseph, Misha Baryshnikov... As they say now, a youth party. I knew that they were quite close friends. Well, again, when I looked in the mirror, some thoughts on this topic arose.
- Did you and your mother have a normal relationship?
Yes, my mother and I have always been close. Without much pathos, but close.
- Can you say that your life is divided into “before” and “after”?
No no. Another thing is that when this became known not only to my mother, Joseph and I had more problems.
- For example?
For example, all sorts of stories began with journalists. Someone spoke on the topic of “the children of Lieutenant Schmidt,” but the topic did not become popular, since this story did not provide any benefits for me personally. Apart from a common cultural space, nothing connected Joseph Alexandrovich and I; we didn’t even have time to communicate. I know that “he was in the know,” and in one way or another he helped my mother through mutual friends. There was even an idea to send me to study in Ann Arbor, America, where he was then teaching. But the parents acted cunningly. They told me: there is an option to go to study in America for a year, but for this you need to perfectly complete your first year at the institute. “What else,” I thought, “besides studying, don’t I have anything to do?!” Naturally, she flatly refused. Moreover, I didn’t know about Joseph then.
- What if they knew?
Well, maybe I would have perceived this idea differently then.
- Where did you study then?
At the Pedagogical Institute, in Russian philology. By education I am a teacher of Russian language and literature.
- So what, you really became a teacher?
Well, in a way. While still in college, I worked part-time giving private lessons. Taught English language. But when I was eight years old, I realized that I wanted to translate books. This has become my profession. Fortunately, I have established a relationship with one of the St. Petersburg branches of the Eksmo publishing house. And now I’m doing what I love, what I can do, and I also get paid for it.
- Why do you think, Nastya, why did your mother tell you about your father?
Probably, I didn’t want some kind of uncertainty or understatement hanging over me. Now, being a mother, I understand that my mother told me all this at the right time: I was no longer a teenager when such news knocked me off my feet, I was an old enough girl to accept everything calmly and continue to live as I lived.
- Nastya, if it’s not a secret, how did your personal life turn out?
Not a secret. The first marriage was in his youth. My first husband and I are still best friends. Second marriage - in 1997. My husband is a university biologist. Five years later, their son Sashka was born.
- Does he compose poems?
I was composing at the age of three. But now he’s busy with something more serious: he and a friend are writing a fantasy novel.
- Doesn’t speak English?
Does not speak. Bye.
- Tell us about your relationship with Brodsky?
We didn't know each other. If you mean “cultural aspect,” then I both heard and read his poems quite early. They became a natural part of my world.
- Did you know Brodsky’s poems before that evening?
Well, of course! And I knew the poems, and I heard his voice in the recording. And since before Joseph I had not heard a single poet read his poems, it was his reading style that became natural, the most organic for me. That is, I thought that this is how it should be, this is how it should be. Later, when I began to read and listen to other poets, I realized that the bar was very high, most did not even reach it.
- Did you have any favorite poems by Brodsky?
And they were and are. Dedication to Lesha Losev: “I loved few. However, very much.”
- Do you have his books with autographs in your library?
- When did you read his essay?
Much later, somewhere in the early nineties.
I was struck by the structure of speech. Again, absolutely natural and understandable.
- In what ways do you think you are similar to your father?
If only I had my mother’s character, life would be easier.
- Do you have any relationship with Brodsky’s son Andrei Basmanov?
Well, of course. One of my fans introduced us. Long before “that evening.” I invited him to our home on Rossi Street. I was very puzzled by my mother’s reaction. Andryusha kissed hands and clicked his heels, as was customary among St. Petersburg hippies, and mother chuckled sarcastically. I couldn't understand what was happening.
- How did Andrei find out that you are brother and sister?
Four years have passed since his first visit. Another friend invited me to Marata Street, to Andrei’s, for his birthday. And at some point I call him into the kitchen and say: Andryusha, I have a gift for you. And, in fact, I tell him this whole story. Andrey was in some shock, but then somehow got used to this thought.
- Does Sasha know whose grandson he is?
Yes, he knows. And he is proud, but without fanaticism.
- How did you find out that your father died?
I remember this very well. We were sitting in some company in the evening. My then boyfriend came and said: “Sit on the chair.” I sat down. Only then did he announce: “Brodsky has died.” I fell silent. She sat and was silent. For a long time I couldn’t say a word.
All these year and a half that I knew who my father was, I was going to write to him. It’s not very clear what exactly, but I wanted to write. And then suddenly I clearly understood: that’s it, the train has left. It's a pity...
