Joseph Brodsky and Modern Russian Culture

This volume is a major contribution to the study of the life, work and standing of Joseph Brodsky, 1987 Nobel Prize Laureate and the best-known Russian poet of the second half of the twentieth century. This is the most significant book devoted to him in the last 25 years, and features work by many of the leading experts on him, both in Russia and the West. Every one of the chapters makes a real contribution to different aspects of Brodsky – the growth of interest in his work, his world view and political position, and the unique aspects of his poetics. Taken together, the sixteen chapters offer a rounded interpretation of his significance for Russian culture today.

Joe Andrew is Professor Emeritus at Keele University. He has published over 25 books, and hundreds of other pieces, mostly on nineteenth-century Russian literature, but he has also written on twentieth-century Russian literature, as well as Russian and British film.

Katharine Hodgson is Professor in Russian at the University of Exeter. Her recent work has been on post-Soviet changes to the canon of twentieth-century Russian poetry. She is now exploring the ways in which poets defined their poetic affinities and identities during the Soviet period.

Robert Reid is an Honorary Fellow of Keele University where he was formerly Reader in Russian. He has published widely on Russian literature. His most recent publication is Tolstoi: Art and Influence, edited with Joe Andrew (Brill, 2023).

Alexandra Smith is Reader in Russian Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She has published extensively on Russian literature and culture. Most recently she has co-edited a book on film adaptations of Russian literature: Film Adaptations of Russian Literature: Dialogue and Authorship.