Gorbunov and Gorchakov (russian: Горбунóв и Горчакóв) is a poem by Russian and English

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wr ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal an ...

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

Joseph Brodsky Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (; russian: link=no, Иосиф Александрович Бродский ; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), USSR in 1940, ...

Composition and plot

''Gorbunov and Gorchakov'' is a forty-page long poem. Gorbunov and Gorchakov are patients in a mental asylum near

Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. 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. The topics vary from the taste of the cabbage served for supper to the meaning of life and Russia's destiny. 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

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

esque absurdity of Soviet surreality. ''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. 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 A sonnet is a poetic form that originated in the poetry composed at the Court of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II in the Sicilian city of Palermo. The 13th-century poet and notary Giacomo da Lentini is credited with the sonnet's inventio ...

: # Gorbunov and Gorchakov # Gorbunov and Gorchakov # Gorbunov in the Night # Gorchakov and the Doctors # A Song in the Third Person # Gorbunov and Gorchakov # Gorbunov and Gorchakov # Gorchakov in the Night # Gorbunov and the Doctors # A Conversation on the Porch # Gorbunov and Gorchakov # Gorbunov and Gorchakov # Conversations about the Sea # Conversation in a Conversation

History

At the very end of 1963, Brodsky was committed for observation to the

Kashchenko psychiatric hospital Pyotr Petrovich Kashchenko (russian: Пётр Петро́вич Ка́щенко; (9 January 1859) in Yeysk – February 19, 1920, in Moscow) was a famous Russian psychiatrist, social and agrarian activist, author of articles on mental healt ...

in Moscow where he stayed for several days. 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 located on the ) where he spent about three weeks, from 18 February to 13 March. These two stints in psychiatric establishments formed the experience underlying ''Gorbunov and Gorchakov'' called by Brodsky ‘an extremely serious work.’. The poem was written between 1965 and 1968 and published in 1970.

Translations

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

References

External links

* Иосиф Бродский.
Горбунов и Горчаков
� {{DEFAULTSORT:Gorbunov And Gorchakov Russian poems 1970 poems