The recently deceased Joseph Brodsky was a man who overcame formidable obstacles on his way to becoming a great Russian poet and Nobel Laureate: lack of a formal education, harassment by the Soviet secret police, and, perhaps most formidable, exile to a foreign land. His land of residence became not the culturally sophisticated Europe to which Russians are intimately connected, but the United States, a country--according to the stereotype--of pragmatic and philistine money seekers.
Despite these odds, Brodsky established himself as one of the greatest contemporary poets. His professional achievements are remarkable, but they are not what make him unique; after all, quite a few authors, Russians included, have blossomed in exile. Many others, too, have mastered the language of their adopted country, Nabokov and Aldanov among them. It is, rather, another trait that sharply divides Brodsky from other Russian exiles--his persistent unwillingness to visit his native land. He refused to return for even a short visit, even when such a trip was easy after the regime that had banished him had fallen from power. Brodsky's rejection of even a temporary return was especially strange given that in his work he constantly brooded on the loneliness of exile. He implicitly compared himself to Ovid, the Roman poet whom the relentless Augustus sent away to a distant hinterland of empire.
Many Russian intellectuals used to put off leaving the country in Soviet times because of the famous "Russian nostalgia"--and the fact that Soviet authorities would never allow them to return to the motherland if they "defected." As a native of Russia, I can attest to the fact that this was not an empty threat. It would seem logical, then, that Brodsky would at least occasionally have longed to visit his home and the "Third Rome", Moscow. Yet he did not.
