Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Found this quote of Joseph Brodsky in my 1999 scrapbook:

People become tyrants not because they have a vocation for it, nor do they by pure chance either. If a man has such a vocation, he usually takes a shortcut and becomes a family tyrant, whereas real tyrants are known to be shy and not terribly interesting family men. The vehicle of a tyranny is a political party (or military ranks, which have a structure similar to that of a party), for in order to get to the top of something, you need to have something that has a vertical topography.


It's from some essay of his, though I've no idea which one and what volume I found it in.

2 comments:

  1. It's from Brodsky's essay "On Tyranny" (1980). I don't remember which volume it's in, though it's probably "Less Than One". Lev Losev's authorised Russian translation of the passage reads:

    ???? ?????????? ???????? ?? ??????, ??? ?????????? ? ????? ?????????, ?? ? ?? ?? ?????? ???????????. ??????? ? ???????? ?????????? ?????? ???????????? ???????? ???? ? ??????? ??????????? ?????, ????? ??? ????????? ?????? ?????? ?????????? ? ?????? ?????? ?????? ? ????. ?????? ??????? --???????????? ?????? [??? ?????, ??? ????????? ?? ?????????? ?? ?????????], ??? ??? ????, ????? ????????? ?? ??????? ????-??, ????? ????? ?????, ???? ??????????? ???????????? ??????????.

    http://lib.ru/BRODSKIJ/brodsky_prose.txt

    09.22.05 - 12:56 pm

    ReplyDelete
  2. It reads so much better in Russian somehow. Thanks a lot, David!

    09.22.05 - 1:26 pm

    ReplyDelete