The “Guardian” reported here today that the Russian-Jewish poet, Josef Brodsky, who was sentenced last March to five years’ hard labor by a Leningrad court on the charge of being “a parasite, ” has been released.
The harsh sentence evoked strong protests on the part of Soviet intellectuals and writers who claimed that Brodsky had, in reality, been punished for “anti-Soviet” attitudes. Copies of the appeal voiced by the writers on behalf of the young poet were circulated throughout the Soviet Union.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.