Бог и человек в стихотворении Иосифа Бродского ‘Разговор с небожителем’

This article attempts to give a detailed analysis of the poem, which has been only partially examined in the existing criticism. Throughout the poem four incompatible conceptions of God and man collide without merging with each other: the poet tells about the loving Father and humble, grateful man; about the incomprehensible Origin of All and of stoical acceptance of the world which man cannot change; about hostile despotic Force and man's rebellion against It; and finally, about the illusive nature of the very notion of God and of the resulting meaninglessness of human existence. The article proceeds by tracing these four concepts, which are not presented consecutively but interweave sometimes in one and the same stanza, if not in the same line. Some attention is given to comparing and contrasting the poem with Derzhavin's ‘Bog’ and ‘Reka vremen v svoem stremlen'i’, Pushkin's ‘Prorok’ and ‘Dar naprasnyi, dar sluchainyi’, and Lermontov's ‘Prorok’ and ‘Blagodarnost", as well as with Ivan Karamazov's “rebellion”.