Gorbunov and Gorchakov
AuthorJoseph Brodsky
Original titleGorbunov i Gorchakov
TranslatorCarl Ray Proffer and Assya Kumesky (one translation), Harry Thomas (another translation), Alan Myers (one more translation)
CountryRussia
LanguageRussian
Genrepoem
Publication date
1970
Media typePrint

Gorbunov and Gorchakov (Russian: Горбунóв и Горчакóв) is a poem by Russian and English poet, essayist, dramatist Joseph Brodsky.

Composition and plot

Gorbunov and Gorchakov is a forty-page long poem.[1]: 212 

Gorbunov and Gorchakov are patients in a mental asylum near Leningrad.[2]: 26  The poem consists of lengthy conversations between these two patients in the Soviet psychiatric prison as well as between each of them separately and the interrogating psychiatrists.[1]: 212  The topics vary from the taste of the cabbage served for supper to the meaning of life and Russia's destiny.[1]: 212 

In Sanna Turoma’s words, the psychiatric hospital of Gorbunov and Gorchakov as a metaphor of the Soviet State is one example of Brodsky’s perception of the Kafkaesque absurdity of Soviet surreality.[3]: 105  Gorbunov and Gorchakov mirrors the balance that Brodsky struck when he was compelled to weigh the benefits and dangers of psychiatric diagnosis in his dealings with the Soviet state.[4]

In the poem, fourteen cantos are named in a such way that the table of contents in Russian language has the rhyming structure of the sonnet:[5]: 95 

  1. Gorbunov and Gorchakov
  2. Gorbunov and Gorchakov
  3. Gorbunov in the Night
  4. Gorchakov and the Doctors
  5. A Song in the Third Person
  6. Gorbunov and Gorchakov
  7. Gorbunov and Gorchakov
  8. Gorchakov in the Night
  9. Gorbunov and the Doctors
  10. A Conversation on the Porch
  11. Gorbunov and Gorchakov
  12. Gorbunov and Gorchakov
  13. Conversations about the Sea
  14. Conversation in a Conversation

History

At the very end of 1963, Brodsky was committed for observation to the Kashchenko psychiatric hospital in Moscow where he stayed for several days.[5]: 91  A few weeks later, his second hospitalization took place: on 13 February he was arrested in Leningrad and on 18 February the Dzerzhinsky District Court sent him for psychiatric examination to ‘Pryazhka’ (Psychiatric Hospital No. 2[6] located on the Pryazhka River Embankment) where he spent about three weeks, from 18 February to 13 March.[5]: 91  These two stints in psychiatric establishments formed the experience underlying Gorbunov and Gorchakov called by Brodsky ‘an extremely serious work.’.[5]: 90  The poem was written between 1965 and 1968 and published in 1970.[7]: 25 

Translations

There are several English translations of the poem including one by Carl Ray Proffer with Assya Kumesky,[8] one by Harry Thomas[1]: 212  and one by Alan Myers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Barańczak, Stanisław (1990). Breathing under water and other East European essays. Harvard University Press. pp. 212. ISBN 0-674-08125-0.
  2. ↑ Litz, Walton; Weigel, Molly; Parini, Jay (1974). American writers: a collection of literary biographies. Scribner. p. 26. ISBN 0684312301.
  3. ↑ Turoma, Sanna (2010). Brodsky Abroad: Empire, Tourism, Nostalgia. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0-299-23634-2.
  4. ↑ Reich, Rebecca (January 2013). "Madness as Balancing Act in Joseph Brodsky's "Gorbunov and Gorchakov"". The Russian Review. 72 (1): 45–65. doi:10.1111/russ.10680.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Brintlinger, Angela; Vinitsky, Ilya (2007). Madness and the mad in Russian culture. University of Toronto Press. pp. 90–95. ISBN 978-0-8020-9140-6.
  6. ↑ Now Psychiatric Hospital of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker
  7. ↑ Balina, Marina; Lipovetskii, Mark (2004). Russian writers since 1980. Gale. p. 25. ISBN 0787668222.
  8. ↑ "The "strange" theme in Brodsky". Essays in Poetics. 4 (1): 54. April 1979.
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