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As the burry one said, time will tell Kuzka’s mother. About Brodsky, Charles XII and the independence of Ukraine. For the independence of Ukraine

As the burry one said, time will tell Kuzka’s mother. About Brodsky, Charles XII and the independence of Ukraine. For the independence of Ukraine

Dear friends! It’s winter outside, but I really want sun and warmth. And green colors! And flowers!) Especially now, when it is very cold. Although winter is gaining momentum, we are already looking forward to spring and summer. And the desire to bring the sunny mood closer is increasing. Watercolor painting by Japanese artist Abe Toshiyuka is fragile, tender and airy, it literally immerses you in the atmosphere of summer and warmth. All his paintings are simply filled with light!

Many, when they see the paintings of Abe Toshiyuki, claim that these are the works of a photographer, everything that is depicted on them is so real. But this is watercolor! Transparent, delicate, breathable watercolor!

Some people are dubious about hyperrealism in paintings. Why copy nature so carefully when you have a camera for this? Why use such a complex and painstaking watercolor technique? After all, watercolor painting is, first of all, understatement, subtlety and fluidity. Abe Toshiyuki's paintings combine realism with light watercolor strokes; his painting gives a feeling of airy perspective and sun.

It seems to me that if paintings bring light and warmth, if we feel their mood, if they are catchy, then they have a right to exist. And this Japanese artist’s paintings are exactly like this. They have a lot of sun, glare, play of colors and shadows... They are alive. Someone said that painting allows you to see your surroundings at the moment when you look at it with love. Abe Toshiyuki's watercolors are filled with love, and we are delighted to enter the artist's world of colors. This technique gives the watercolor depth and creates a feeling sunlight and aerial perspective.

Abe Toshiyuki was born in 1959 in Japan. He taught art for 20 years, but always dreamed of becoming an artist and creating. At 49 years old, Abe decided to change his life and trust his dream. Another example is that our desires have the ability to come true. You just have to really want it)) For 2 long decades he was an ordinary art teacher (although I think many of his students remember their teacher with gratitude), and in just 5 years the Japanese artist became famous as a painter. Or maybe you should first give a piece of yourself so that the Universe can help you?) Japanese watercolor painting has acquired another famous name.

For 5 years, Abe Toshiyuki has earned several awards, he has personal exhibitions, and he has become a famous master. He was especially inspired by the watercolor painting technique. Japanese artist Abe Toshiyuki says that through his watercolors depicting the flow of a river, the fragility of flowers, and glare of light, the artist expresses the variability and transience of our world. And the Japanese are especially sensitive to such philosophical issues. Each painting, according to Abe Toshiyuki, must touch a person’s heart, otherwise it does not fulfill its purpose.

Whether this is so, whether the Japanese artist was able to touch all the strings of your soul and touch your heart, you can check right now. I present to your attention a selection of paintings by the Japanese master. And in order to create a special oriental atmosphere and emphasize the Japanese flavor, I tried to match the paintings with lines from Basho.

Watercolor painting – paintings by Abe Toshiyuki

Take a close look!
Shepherd's purse flowers
You will see under the fence.
Basho

Willow is bent over and sleeping.
And it seems to me that there is a nightingale on a branch -
This is her soul.
Basho

Pure spring!
Up ran up my leg
Little crab.
Basho

The leaves have fallen,
The whole world is one color.
Only the wind hums.
Basho

Bored with the long rain,
At night the pine trees drove him away...
Branches in the first snow.
Basho

You can see the cuckoo towards you
The ears of corn beckon in the field:
They wave like feather grass...
Basho

Butterflies flying
Wakes up a quiet clearing
In the sunlight.
Basho

Here intoxicated
I wish I could fall asleep on these river stones,
Overgrown with cloves...
Basho

O sacred delight!
On green, young foliage
Sunlight is pouring.
Basho

Dear friends! I hope that the watercolor by the Japanese artist gave me warmth and reminded me that summer is coming!)

Dear friends! I don’t understand what’s happening outside the window, but I really want sun and warmth. And green colors! And flowers!) Especially now, when it is very cold.. Watercolor painting by Japanese artist Abe Toshiyuka is fragile, tender and airy, it literally immerses you in the atmosphere of summer and warmth. All his paintings are simply filled with light!

Abe Toshiyuki (c)

Watercolor painting - paintings by Abe Toshiyuki

Take a close look!
Shepherd's purse flowers
You will see under the fence.
Basho

Abe Toshiyuki (c)

Willow is bent over and sleeping.
And it seems to me that there is a nightingale on a branch -
This is her soul.
Basho

Abe Toshiyuki (c)

Pure spring!
Up ran up my leg
Little crab.
Basho

Abe Toshiyuki (c)

The leaves have fallen,
The whole world is one color.
Only the wind hums.
Basho

Abe Toshiyuki (c)

The poem became prophetic. The poet, as if by command from above, wrote what came out of his soul, without in any way forcing his poetic will. And I read it aloud to my friends many times. A law-abiding citizen and member of a respected elite community, Joseph Brodsky did not dare to publish it in his books, but he did not leave a written ban on its publication. However, after his death, approximately a third of his poems were still unpublished. Another thing is that in all current collected works, including the last, most complete two-volume set, which finally included the poem “The People”, the poem “For the Independence of Ukraine” was deliberately not published in any version, the good thing is that they were at least mentioned his. It was no coincidence that he himself recognized the risk of reading his own poem. The poet Joseph Brodsky risked this by driving the law-abiding citizen somewhere to the side.

Let us take a risk together with the poet:

Dear Charles the Twelfth, the battle of Poltava,

thank God it's lost. As the burry one said,

time will tell - Kuzka’s mother, ruins,

bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops together with the hetman Mazepa during the Northern War of the eighteenth century they unexpectedly betrayed the Russians and went over to the side of the Swedish king Charles XII. However, the Swedes, together with the traitors, lost this war. And all that remained from all this were the bones of posthumous joy. Moreover, Khrushchev, who put “Kuzka’s mother” on both Russia and Ukraine by giving the Ukrainians someone else’s Crimea.

Perhaps today this poem by Joseph Brodsky is the most quoted. At the same time, despite all the evidence, an audio recording of the evening at Queens College, where the poet read this poem to a large audience, despite the confirmation of the most authoritative Brodsk scholars Lev Losev, Viktor Kulle, Valentina Polukhina, the assurances of his friends who personally heard the author read a poem, for example, Thomas Venclova, the majority of his liberal fans and researchers unfoundedly consider the poem to be a fake, a forgery. In response to the audio recording, they answer that he read this poem as a parody of himself; they call the organizers of the evening, who made and distributed this recording on the Internet, informers, informers. It’s good that neither Lev Losev, nor Viktor Kulle, nor Tomas Venclova bowed under their pressure. I think if there had not been this audio recording, and such responsible witnesses, politicians would have clearly documented that this poem does not exist at all. After all, there are already a dozen articles that philologically convincingly prove that this poem is a fake and does not belong to Joseph Brodsky. So after this, trust the philologists, they will prove everything that needs to be proven.

“I’ll try to comment point by point.

1. A year after the death of Joseph Brodsky, I came to New York to begin describing his archive. The state of the archive is chaotic, because the deceased did not like this work, drafts were often thrown away, and if something was preserved, it was most likely against the will of Joseph Brodsky. Nevertheless, I saw with my own eyes several sheets of paper with draft versions of the verse. It was a typescript, as usual with IB: with several versions of the quatrain side by side, sometimes with editing by hand. Now this whole thing, as I understand it, has not gone away: the archive is available to researchers upon receipt of permission from the Information Security Foundation.

2. Our hero actually read these poems at Queens College (and several times in various companies where there could also be a tape recording). Barry Rubin, who gave that IB talk in college, is still alive. I once copied this notorious film from him. In addition, the deceased was present at that performance Sasha Sumarkin— compiler of “Landscape with Flood” (more precisely, IS assistant in this matter). He said that he persuaded IB to include poetry in the book. He flatly refused: “they will misunderstand”...

3. By the way, just now the thought occurred to me that the presence of just several drafts - approaches to the topic - indicates that IB gave birth to the poem in a rather lengthy and difficult manner. But the beginning was the same everywhere: “Dear Charles the Twelfth...”

Victor Kulle believes that there was a fairly strong Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, which did not hesitate to curse the “damned Muscovites” and “Katsaps.” And Joseph Brodsky was a patriot of Russia, as Kulle says: “... to a much greater extent than all the villagers, great power people and anti-Semites combined.” When the poet ended up in the USA, he, as is known, did not fall into Sovietology, like many dissidents, who thus earned their bread and butter. Joseph began teaching literature at a provincial university, far from all capitals, in provincial Ann Arbor. Later he wrote in the New York Times that he “does not intend to tar the gates of the Motherland.”

According to Viktor Kulle, it may well be that in the emigrant world he encountered some very strong-willed Ukrainian nationalist, and he simply annoyed him. “Joseph, I repeat, was (like, perhaps, all great poets) a much greater patriot of his country than the variously colored bastards who made a profitable profession out of patriotism.”

Ukrainians are stupid and have no reason to be offended by the poet. Every poet defends the culture of his people, his country. Pushkin replied Mickiewicz the famous “Slanderers of Russia.” As a result, they stand peacefully on a shelf side by side. Both in Russia and in Poland...

As you know, the poem “For the Independence of Ukraine” is not the only case when the poet stood up to defend Russian culture. Milan Kundera at the Lisbon conference, he said something about Dostoevsky’s historical guilt in the invasion of Russian tanks into Czechoslovakia. And all the emigrants from of Eastern Europe he was unanimously supported. Joseph Brodsky responded angrily, calling Kundera a “stupid Czech redneck,” also without choosing any expression. Joseph Brodsky later wrote his famous essay “Why Milan Kundera is Unfair to Dostoevsky.” Many Europeans were offended by him then.

So in the case of Ukraine, Joseph Brodsky felt personally hurt. Again I turn to Viktor Kulle, who wrote about this poem: “It is quite obvious that it was written by a great poet. The style is typical Brodsky. There is no insult to Ukrainians here at all. There is irritation with these endless and absolutely idiotic accusations that flow from Ukrainians in an endless stream. All these “filthy crests” are the self-names of Ukrainians, which they attribute to the “filthy katsaps” (and this is also a Ukrainian name, since many Russians will not even understand who this is about). And all this is part of the propaganda mythology, the goal of which is to create a nation that does not exist, and which, no matter how hard you try, will not be able to be put together on the mere antagonism of Ukraine towards Russia, of which it is still a part, although not legally.

And the meaning of Brodsky’s poem is absolutely transparent. As a Russian (not Soviet) patriot, he could not perceive the separation of Ukraine except in the context of centuries-old construction Russian Empire and the fleeting destruction of the space of Russian culture... And albeit a crude, but geopolitically absolutely adequate prediction that leaving Russia will mean the inclusion of Poland and Germany in the sphere of influence in a secondary (at best) role. Ukrainians won’t find it enough. And for Russia it will be a difficult time, but for Ukraine it will be a complete nightmare..."

I don’t hide it, I think that this is one of the most best poems poet, and for the late American Brodsky, extremely sincere, extremely emotional, and at the same time, extremely specific.

It’s not a green-knuckle wasted isotope,

- the yellow-blakyt flies over Konotop,

cut from canvas: know, Canada has in store -

it’s okay that there’s no cross: but the Ukrainians don’t need it.

I immediately remember the Chernobyl isotopes, which pretty much spoiled the green Ukraine, and the powerful, quite radically minded Ukrainian community in Canada, well known to Joseph Brodsky, who, indeed, after the declaration of independence of Ukraine, hastened to visit their homeland with their Canadian canvases, and anti-Orthodox sentiments, strong in Ukrainian emigration. I also remember the history of the yellow-blue Ukrainian flag, which borrowed the yellow-blue colors from national flag Sweden. Everything is written with knowledge of the matter, with utmost honesty.

The following two lines struck me:

Goy, you rushnik-karbovanets, sunflower seeds in a sweaty woman!

It’s not for us, the Katsaps, to accuse them of treason.

This means that already in America, many years after leaving Russia, immersing himself in poetry, Brodsky is simultaneously immersed in the Russian element, he feels like a Russian - a “katsap”. I know that there are researchers who believe that this is, as it were, the voice of a lyrical hero, the voice of those Russians who poured vodka into their eyes somewhere in Ryazan, in whose name the poem was written. Firstly, Brodsky would somehow make it clear to readers that he is alienated from this hero. Secondly, it is unlikely that the devastated Russians would have read lines from Alexander or any lines at all before their death.

And thirdly, if the poem was written as if on behalf of the entire Russian people (as it actually is), which includes the disbelieved, the alexandered, and the Canadian-Americanized Russians, then you understand with what pain it was written, and with what a responsibility. This private poet, autonomous from everyone, alienated from Jews, and from Americans, and from all other nations and religions, suddenly takes upon himself the highest responsibility on behalf of all Russians to reproach the Ukrainians for their departure from a single imperial space, from a united Russia, “ gnawing chicken from borscht alone.” Joseph Brodsky does not reproach either the Georgians, or the Balts, or our Asians. But Ukrainians are part of ancient Rus', where do they go? We must say a farewell word to them:

Let's tell them, with a ringing mother marking the pause, sternly:

Good riddance to you, crests, and a towel to you.

Leave us in your zhupan, not to mention in your uniform,

to an address with three letters to all four...

sides. Now let Hansa's mansion be in the mud hut

with the Poles they put you on four dice, you bastards.

Harsh, but disgustingly true. Indeed, if there was no place for Ukrainians in a united Russia, in our common empire, then, as Nikolai Gogol long ago predicted in Taras Bulba, all these Andriys who forgot about the Russian land have one road - to the Poles and Hans. The Poles and Germans have been sharpening their grudge against Ukraine for hundreds of years, let our “read” brothers not cry and cry for help. Enough! Enough! Enough!

Goodbye, crests! We lived together, that's enough.

Don't give a damn about the Dnieper: maybe it will go backwards...

And in fact, for how many centuries they lived with the same troubles, the same joys, fought together, won together, and all on equal terms, what kind of colonial relations are there between Russians and Ukrainians, rather, Moscow recruited from Ukraine both into the army and into the authorities, and into the highest officials of hardworking and dutiful citizens. And suddenly it was all over. The poet expresses sincere anger:

Don't be rude! Your sky, bread

We don’t need to choke on cake and kolob.

There is no point in spoiling the blood, tearing clothes on the chest.

It’s over, you know, love, if there was between.

What kind of colonies are there when all of Ukraine was cobbled together by the Russians from various pieces, not to mention Crimea, which was stuck on as an illiterate and ignorant Khrushchev, and even more ignorant Yeltsin in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. But the ending of Joseph Brodsky’s poem is clearly prophetic, for, whether good or bad, without great Russian culture, without great poetry there will never be a new Ukrainian nation. There is no nation without culture.

With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!

Only when it comes to you too, you guys, to die,

you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,

lines from Alexander, and not the nonsense of Taras.

Indeed, one can be brave Zaporozhye Cossacks, Stalin’s eagles, Catherine’s hetmans, camp guards (who else is most valued in camp guards at all times? Is it Asians, because they don’t care about Russians?), but without relying on the great world culture no Cossack courage or Vertukhai diligence will help. Then you will have to fall under another - the great German culture, but they will not tolerate any equality with themselves. You can’t call them katsaps; they will quickly let you know their lackey place. And on local nonsense national culture you can't build it that easily. “Taras’s nonsense” is approximately in these lines: “ Cheer up, black-browed, she is not with the Muscovites, because the Muscovites are strangers. It's crazy to pay attention to you"(Kobzar" Katerina). Although I owed a lot, if not everything, Taras Shevchenko Russian culture, but decided to forget about it.

That's all. A sad and tragic, angry farewell poem by a Russian poet. I sincerely regret that he did not dare to publish it during his lifetime, thereby eliminating all controversy. On the other hand, I willingly read it more than once at evenings, knowing full well that it was being recorded on a tape recorder. Indeed, he himself was personally very worried about this unexpected separation of the entire Ukraine from Russia. His closest friend Lev Losev said: “He not only considered Ukraine to be a single, as they now say, “cultural space” with Great Russia, but he also strongly felt it as his historical homeland. I don’t want to put the last expression in quotation marks, because for Brodsky it was a very intimately felt idea. Feeling like “Joseph of Brody”..."

After all, the point is not at all how good the poem is. Any poet has failures, drafts, failures, treat this as a misconception of the author, but no, no. Already from year to year there is a wave of new liberal attacks: this is just a parody of Brodsky. It is interesting that the Ukrainians themselves are confident in the authenticity of the poem, and their polemics are based on semantic issues. The constant comparisons of this poem with “Slanderers of Russia” are not accidental either. Alexandra Pushkina. Both poets amazed their contemporaries with their undisguised statehood and imperialism.

And the reason is approximately the same: a dispute between the Slavs.

What are you making noise about, people?

Why are you threatening Russia with anathema?

What angered you? unrest in Lithuania?

Leave it alone: this is a dispute between the Slavs,

A domestic, old dispute, already weighed by fate,

A question that you cannot resolve.

And in fact, it is not for the Americans to decide the question: “Will the Slavic streams merge into the Russian sea? Will it run out? here's the question..."? And if you add the word Dostoevsky about the Slavs, then we will feel even more acutely the ancient contradictions between seemingly close Slavic peoples: « Russia will not, and never has had, such haters, envious people, slanderers and even outright enemies as all these Slavic tribes, as soon as Russia liberates them, and Europe agrees to recognize them as liberated! And let them not object to me, do not challenge me, do not shout at me that I am exaggerating and that I am a hater of the Slavs!.. Perhaps for a whole century, or even more, they will constantly tremble for their freedom and fear the lust for power of Russia; they will curry favor with European states, they will slander Russia, gossip about it and intrigue against it...«

That's how Ukraine is, nothing new. It is no coincidence that, egging themselves on, it was the Ukrainians who were the first to publish this poem by Brodsky “For the Independence of Ukraine” in 1996 in Kyiv in the newspaper “Voice of the Giant” No. 3. Immediately, the quite expected barrage of abuse began. In Russia, this poem was first reprinted in “Limonka”, and then in “Literature Day”. It spread widely and became generally known, especially with the advent of the Internet, demonstrating the radical evolution of Brodsky's views from Soviet-liberal to imperial.

A certain Ukrainian academician Pavlo Kisliy gave his Ukrainian answer, which, unfortunately, was absolutely poetically inexpressive. How can one not remember “a line from Alexander or Taras’ nonsense?” Even the most radical Ukrainians instantly remembered bright lines from Brodsky, and no one remembers a word from the sour academician’s answer. The answer to “Katsap-Brodsky” provides only a very poorly rhymed list of historical grievances of Ukrainians

Well then, goodbye, katsapi!

We decided to go our separate ways.

You sing, back to the “evil empire”,

We, Ukrainians, need to make a difference with the Poles...

And good for you, worthless slave!

You are a fake dissident of Bolshevik Russia,

Double-headed eagle's faithful servant,

Pogonich of the invented Messiah.

It’s not good to guess why you cursed Ukraine,

The Russian people have no color.

You will be a worthless imperial chauvinist,

Not Taras's best nail.

Poet and prose writer Oksana Zabuzhko tried to answer Joseph Brodsky:

Lina “cry for the empire” - as Brodsky wrote,

I cried and cried as I went to Amgerst, the castle.

Whatever you want, cry. I'm happily grinding my teeth...

“Crim. Yalta. Farewell to the Empire", 1993.

It’s also not convincing, neither the poem nor her article. It would be better if they didn’t touch it, they exposed themselves to ridicule. He proposed his version of writing the poem shortly before his death Victor Toporov: “In my opinion, Brodsky’s demonstrative “Ukrainophobia” is explained by two reasons - macro and micro.

At the macro level, Brodsky never forgave the “leaders of the Union” for overlooking his inherent potential as a state poet, and reminded him of this retroactively at the first opportunity: they would have published me in mass editions instead Yevtushenko, - look, your vaunted empire would not have collapsed.

At the micro level, I would suggest recalling the film “Brother 2” with the clearly disgusting “new Americans” from the Ukrainians there.

It is clear that Brodsky did not communicate with any Ukrainians in the USA. Yes, and with the Russians too. He communicated with Jews who had come from the USSR in large numbers.

However, some of the Jews came to the United States in large numbers from Russia, while others came from (then not yet “from”) Ukraine. And it was these Ukrainian Jews who rejoiced in the United States on the occasion of “independence.” And it was to them, first of all, that the poet gave an angry rebuke..."

It may well be that some kind of personal impetus for the appearance of the poem is felt. Maybe I read somewhere a poem by a Ukrainian emigrant poet Evgeniya Malanyuk: « Let the predatory heart of Russia Polovtsian dogs will be torn apart...“Whatever, there was plenty of jubilant Russophobia in the emigrant Ukrainian press after the announcement of Independence; let’s remember, for example, Balabanov’s film “Brother-2”. And therefore I agree in this case With Mikhail Zolotonosov, who wrote that “The emotional meaning of the “ode” is an insult to the Ukrainians. They lived together, as one friendly family of peoples, and the Ukrainians suddenly left the “gurtozhitok”, which is perceived by the poet (or his lyrical hero) as a betrayal, not so much political as family... A curious situation: usually poems comment on life, but here life gave a commentary on the poem..." That’s right, the poem, although extremely emotional, is not so noticed in the press, now, during our Ukrainian-Russian confrontation, it truly became a symbol of our relations. " We lived together, that's enough...».

The poet himself has said more than once that this is the private opinion of a private person. He liked to refer to his particularity. When he dines at his favorite Venetian trattoria, drinks his favorite grappa or Swedish vodka “Bitter Drops” - he is truly a private person. But the trouble is, being a great poet, when he touches poetry, he ceases to be a private person, and becomes the property of millions, and his opinion influences the opinion of millions. Sometimes more than the opinion of the country's president. And in this sense, his ode to the independence of Ukraine is a document of the era!

And as for the tears from the eye,

there is no order for her to wait until another time.

It is no coincidence that today in an online vote this poem by Brodsky was included in the list of the hundred best poems of all times. The poem was written in 1991, first read to a wide audience in 1994, which is interesting in itself. He launched him into public swimming after four heart attacks and two open-heart surgeries. I began to read it in classrooms on the eve of death. This is no coincidence. Less than two years remained before death. And how can one talk about the randomness of such a poem for a poet?

The poet spoke very angrily about this poem Naum Sagalovsky: “The poem, in my opinion, is completely vile. You could probably choose another, less harsh epithet, but why? The entire text breathes such undisguised hatred towards Ukraine, towards Ukrainians, that one is amazed. At first, I sinfully thought that this poem was an evil satire, like a monologue of some not very, let’s say, intelligent Russian chauvinist, whom the poet mocks with great pleasure. It must be said that satire is sometimes present in Brodsky’s work, so there was nothing surprising in such satire. But here’s what Brodsky himself said before reading his poem in Stockholm in 1992: “Now I’ll read a poem that you may not like very much, but nevertheless...” That is, he didn’t say anything about satire, in other words, the poem written in all seriousness, on behalf of the poet himself. Which, it seems to me, does not do him credit; on the contrary, it presents him in a completely unsightly light...”

I’m reading an article in the Russian Journal by a certain Alexandra Daniel where is he, posting again full text poem, then loudly calls it a fake. Of course, this rather evil poem by Joseph Brodsky today does not fit into any liberal canons of fans of the Orange Revolution. Of course, today it has become much more topical than when it was written. Of course, the last line, where Brodsky contrasts the “nonsense of Taras” with the Russian genius Alexander Pushkin, is jarring. By the way, this line sharply outraged the patriotic poetess at one time Tatyana Glushkova. But where does Alexander Daniel’s blind confidence come from that this “poetic text can never and under no circumstances belong to Brodsky”? Why? Because the poet calls himself “katsap” in the poem? So there are literally hundreds of statements by Brodsky, where he calls himself Russian, sometimes adding, “albeit a Jew.” Maybe the lack of political correctness in expressions is surprising? But in relation to Asians, Africans and “blacks” in general, Brodsky has much stronger, almost obscene expressions in his poems, prose, and essays. He was almost proud of his reputation as a “racist.” Daniel was surprised by the word “kral”, and where does it come from in the poem about Zhukov thieves "rogues"? “Could phrases like “sew us one thing or another”...belong to a poet known for the Catullean precision of syllables?”

As much as they can. There is an abundance of thieves and common people expressions in Brodsky’s poetry. The impression is that this same Daniel does not know the poetry of his idol at all, or... he is disingenuous for political reasons. Among Brodskov scholars the most different countries no one doubts the authorship of this poem. Maybe Daniel will call the author’s recording of the poem performed at his evenings a fake? There are hundreds of witnesses to this performance at poetry evenings. Maybe they should be crossed out too? These are my fans. The guardians of cleanliness are ready to cut off anyone. This is especially true of Brodsky's legacy. All of his Russophile poems are erased from all collected works.

The authorship of Joseph Brodsky's poem "On the Independence of Ukraine." undoubtedly, although, of course, textual critics still have to select a finished version from manuscripts and author’s notes, without censoring the text itself. But it’s high time to publish it in books, so that there are no doubts among different Daniels. The poem is beautiful, sharp, politically incorrect. But should a real poet think about some kind of political correctness? When I read “For the Independence of Ukraine” in 1994, I truly and forever understood and highly appreciated the great Russian poet Joseph Brodsky...

Wandering around the Internet, I came across an extremely interesting article. I have never read this poem before. Truly poets are prophets!

Once upon a time a poem by Joseph Brodsky "For the independence of Ukraine", written in 1991 and first read publicly in 1994, caused a strong reaction among the Ukrainian intelligentsia. And now.. Vanga is resting...

Dear Charles the Twelfth, the battle of Poltava,
thank God it's lost. As the burry one said,
time will tell - Kuzka’s mother, ruins,
bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine.

That is not a green-kitchen, wasted isotope,
- the yellow-blakit flies over Konotop,
cut from canvas: know, Canada has in store -
it’s okay that there’s no cross: but the Ukrainians don’t need it.

Goy, you rushnik-karbovanets, sunflower seeds in a sweaty woman!
It’s not for us, the Katsaps, to accuse them of treason.
Themselves under the images for seventy years in Ryazan
with flooded eyes they lived, as under Tarzan.

Let's tell them, with a ringing mother marking the pause, sternly:
Good riddance to you, crests, and a towel to you.
Leave us in your zhupan, not to mention in your uniform,
at the address there are three letters on all sides, four.

Now let Hansa's mansion be in the mud hut
with the Poles they put you on four dice, you bastards.
How to climb into a noose, so together, choosing branches in the thicket,
Is it sweeter to bite chicken from borscht alone?

Goodbye, crests! We lived together, that's enough.
Spit on the Dnieper: maybe it will go backwards,
proudly disdaining us, like a crowded ambulance
turned away corners and centuries-old resentment.

Don't be rude! Your sky, bread
We don’t need to choke on the cake and the ceiling.
There is no point in spoiling the blood, tearing clothes on the chest.
It’s over, you know, love, if there was between.

There is no point in poking around in torn roots with a verb!
The earth gave birth to you: soil, black soil with podzol.
Completely download your license, give us one thing or another.
This land gives you, the Kavuns, no peace.

Oh yes, levada-steppe, kralya, bashtan, dumpling.

There is no order for her to wait until another time.

With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!

lines from Alexander, and not the nonsense of Taras.

And yet - This was written at the end of 91, and was first read in 94 - on the Ruin there is still no hint of Maidans and Maidanists

Don't find it strange that a poet who suffered from Soviet power(empire), opposed the independence of Ukraine? And the beginning of the poem: “Dear Charles the Twelfth, the battle of Poltava, thank God, was lost” - does not fit well with school course stories, but....

Why does Brodsky begin by addressing the Swedish king Charles XII, informing him that “the battle of Poltava, thank God, was lost”? Why lost?! Lost by whom?! Who lost? The influence of the Battle of Poltava on the course of history is enormous. For three hundred years, no one doubted that the Russians won at Poltava and thereby confirmed reunification with Ukraine, with their own ancient capital, Kiev. Everyone knew from the history textbook that the rise of the empire began with this victory. It turns out that they lost after the fact. And textbooks will be rewritten. Positive characters will be written down as negative ones. Traitors will be declared heroes. When Brodsky wrote these poems, it was still difficult for most of us to imagine that on the 300th anniversary of the Battle of Poltava, part of the progressive-patriotic population of Ukraine would be in mourning for the independence that failed three hundred years ago, that agitators who had been hit on the head would be running near the field of the Poltava battle asking: “Muscovites, huh?” and immediately handing those who speak Russian a leaflet with curses in native language, which a Muscovite should not, by definition, unspeak, and that Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko will sign for the anniversary of the Battle of Poltava in 2008, 7 years after writing the lines, a decree “on perpetuating the memory of Hetman Mazepa and the Ukrainian -Swedish Union”, since he cannot write a decree on celebrating the victory (this would be excessive even for him), and his hands were itching to sign something related to Ukraine, tied to the anniversary news feed. That the “neo-Mazepa” Yushchenko will even invite the Swedish king Carl XVI Gustav to Poltava to jointly unveil monuments to Charles XII and Mazepa on the Poltava Field. True, the current Charles was not at all happy to organize anti-Russian provocations together with Yushchenko, perpetuating the “embracing” of the loser king and the traitor hetman. And they didn’t buy this nonsense. The name of Charles XII there has not evoked any patriotic enthusiasm for a couple of centuries. Sweden does not need to assert itself through a battle three hundred years ago. And also a lost one.

Maybe Brodsky wrote not about 1991, but about the Maidan and what happened after it?

Those who see only politics in history do not see it as a tragedy. They don't see the most important thing in it.

"Time will tell - Kuzka's mother, Ruins,
bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine."

There is an irrevocable past, as the old slave, the slave with experience, explained. And the irretrievable past is always ruins. The ruins of the former, which will no longer be. And it is impossible to restore. Yes, and there is no point in restoring. The Dnieper will not go back. Even if you spit on it. Ukraine is moving away from Russia as “an ambulance, chock-full of turned corners and age-old resentment.” The joint will continue to collapse. Just look back and realize that Ruin remains. What has been unattainable since yesterday evening and therefore useless today.

“Oh, levada-steppe, kralya, bashtan, dumpling.
They probably lost more: more people than money.
We'll get by somehow. And as for the tears from the eye,
There is no order for her to wait until another time.”

“Taras’s nonsense”, politically incorrect attitude towards Taras Shevchenko? No, when people frantically repeating the memorized mantra: “Vile, vile, sovereign, imperial...” run out of absolutely all arguments, they point to these lines, to “nonsense.” They say that if before his death there are not lines from Pushkin, but from Shevchenko, then this means that he believes that Ukraine has no right to independence, that it is a branch of Russia, etc. Nonsense! It doesn't mean anything! It's just an opinion that Pushkin great poet. And there is no insult to Ukraine here. Chekhov’s last words were in German “Ich sterbe”, and the great Russian philosopher Soloviev repeated psalms in Hebrew.
And returning to the poem, what conclusion should be drawn from this?
What conclusion can be drawn from the cry of pain and despair?! They indicate only pain and despair. Then you can think about causes, effects, processes.

Remember, Heine has: “When the world splits in two, the crack passes through the poet’s heart.”. These words have become commonplace, but this does not stop them from being true. This poem is the cry of a splitting heart... A cry of premonition of great misfortune

"Let Hansa's mansion now in the mud hut
with the Poles they put you on four dice, you bastards."

"With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!
Only when it comes to you too, you guys, to die,
you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,
lines from Alexander, not Taras’ nonsense.”

Behind the lines of Brodsky’s poem lies a dramatic history of relations between the two countries. Written at the end of 1991, and first publicly read in 1994, Joseph Brodsky’s poem “On the Independence of Ukraine” caused a stormy reaction, almost a scandal among the Ukrainian intelligentsia. And now... The swing swung towards the west, and again the country was sick of degenerates. Vanga is resting...

Dear Charles the Twelfth, the battle of Poltava,

thank God it's lost. As the burry one said,

time will tell - Kuzkinu, ruins,

bones of posthumous joy with a taste of Ukraine.

That is not a green-kitchen, wasted isotope,

Zhovto-blakitny flies over Konotop,

cut from canvas: know, Canada has in store

It’s okay that there’s no cross: but the Ukrainians don’t need it.

Goy, you rushnik-karbovanets, sunflower seeds in a sweaty woman!

It’s not for us, the Katsaps, to accuse them of treason.

Themselves under the images for seventy years in Ryazan

with flooded eyes they lived, as under Tarzan.

Let's tell them, with a ringing mother marking the pause, sternly:

Good riddance to you, crests, and a towel to you.

Leave us in your zhupan, not to mention in your uniform,

at the address there are three letters on all sides, four.

Now let Hansa's mansion be in the mud hut

with the Poles they put you on four dice, you bastards.

How to climb into a noose, so together, choosing branches in the thicket,

Is it sweeter to bite chicken from borscht alone?

Goodbye, crests! We lived together, that's enough.

Spit on the Dnieper: maybe it will go backwards,

proudly disdaining us, like a crowded ambulance

leather corners and age-old resentment.

Don't be rude! Your sky, bread

We don’t need to choke on the cake and the ceiling.

There is no point in spoiling the blood, tearing clothes on the chest.

It’s over, you know, love, if there was between.

There is no point in poking around in torn roots with a verb!

The earth gave birth to you: soil, black soil with podzol.

Completely download your license, give us one thing or another.

This land gives you, the Kavuns, no peace.

Oh yes, levada-steppe, kralya, bashtan, dumpling.

They probably lost more: more people than money.

We'll get by somehow. And as for the tears from the eye,

There is no order for her to wait until another time.

With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, guards!

Only when it comes to you too, you guys, to die,

you will wheeze, scratching the edge of the mattress,

lines from Alexander, and not the nonsense of Taras.

What was it? A prophecy?.. Or a closer look at the subtle nuances of the national character of the ethnic group living in Ukraine.

The name is an ethnic group, not a people.

A people is something deep, connected by a long unifying history...

But it doesn’t last long.. It just doesn’t. Just as there was no ruler to unite the non-clan.

There were rulers, but they did not unite the country and people, but tore it towards Poland, then towards Russia, then towards Germany and again towards Russia...

And again to the west and again to the east.

And the swing swung again towards the west, and again the country was sick of degenerates.

And these swings of history do not allow the country to wash itself of the vomit of the human race, They do not allow it to find peace and walk smoothly, and not shy away from roadside to side, picking up scraps on one side and begging on the opposite...

Seasick...

Original publication source:

Modern Western Slavists look at each other in horror every now and then. Their community gave Joseph Brodsky the Nobel Prize, but such people, such poets cannot receive Nobel Prizes, usually. According to many Western philologists, Brodsky is a notorious xenophobe, anti-feminist, homophobe, occasionally a militarist, in short, a monster. The Western world gave its soul to destroy this, but, being in some kind of eclipse, gave birth to a poet with such terrifying views. Moreover, Brodsky periodically did not really like Western civilization.