Что празднует Иосиф Бродский в своем стихотворении ‘Сретенье’?

This article explores the way Candlemas Day is represented in Joseph Brodsky's poem of the same name (1972). The poem is considered in the light of the poet Brodsky's personal relations with the poet Anna Akhmatova, to whom ‘Candlemas Day’ is dedicated. Even though Brodsky follows the text of the Gospel of Luke, he “humanizes” the encounter between Simeon and the Child and foregrounds the prophetess Anna. In the image of the prophetess there appears another Anna – Anna Akhmatova as a guardian of poetic tradition. We are led even further from the canonical Candlemas by the absence of Joseph, who on icons is always present, holding two doves. But the “bird” of Joseph is still present in Brodsky's verse as an echo of the words that prophesy the future of the Child. The poetic Word, embodied in the poem, becomes just such a sacrifice, a tribute to tradition as Joseph's doves – however, not to God, but to Poetry.