Gorbunov and Gorchakov is a poem by Russian and English poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, essayist, dramatist Joseph Brodsky

Joseph Brodsky

Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky , was a Russian poet and essayist.In 1964, 23-year-old Brodsky was arrested and charged with the crime of "social parasitism" He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1972 and settled in America with the help of W. H. Auden and other supporters...

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Table of Contents

In the poem, fourteen cantos are named in a such way that the table of contents looks as a sonnet-like poem:

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 clinic 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 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.

Plot

Gorbunov and Gorchakov are patients in a mental asylum near Leningrad

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

. 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’ 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 Kafkaesque absurdity of Soviet surreality.

Translations

There are several English translations of the poem including one by Harry Thomas and one by Alan Myers

Alan Myers (translator)

Alan Myers was a noted translator, most notably of works by Russian authors.-Biography:Myers was born in South Shields, County Durham, in 1933. He attended the University of London between 1957 and 1960 and Moscow University from 1960-61...

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External links

• Иосиф Бродский. «Горбунов и Горчаков»