How it was №1 19.09.1998 (1998)

The program is dedicated to the court hearing, which resulted in a sentence of expulsion of the future Nobel laureate, poet Joseph Brodsky from Leningrad for a period of five years with mandatory labor.

Newsreel: Nobel Prize award ceremony for Joseph Brodsky in Stockholm in 1988. Photos from the trial that took place in Leningrad (now St.

Petersburg) in the premises of the Builders' Club on March 13, 1964 against the poet Brodsky, accused of parasitism.

Sergei Shultz talks about his acquaintance with Brodsky.

Characterizes him as an inquisitive person with an inquisitive mindset.

Sergei Shultz, together with Brodsky, were witnesses in the trial of Alexander Umansky.

During the search, all of his photographs and negatives, manuscripts of poems by Brodsky and Sergei Shultz, and a printed copy of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago were confiscated.

Oleg Shklovsky reads an excerpt from an article in the studio, titled "A Near-Literary Drone", published in the newspaper Vecherniy Leningrad in 1963. An excerpt from an interview with one of the authors of this article, Mikhail Medvedev.

Yakov Gordin talks about the existence of many informal literary circles in Leningrad.

But, according to him, the persecution of Brodsky was a planned and conceived action.

Leningrad Newsreel, 1962. Editorial office of Neva magazine.

Typewriting bureau; illustrations for articles.

An interview with Sergei Voronin, editor-in-chief of Neva magazine.

He talks about the demands made on writers by the party.

Yakov Gordin tells about the ideological meetings of political correctness that Yakov Lerner held with Brodsky, trying, in his words, to make a man out of Brodsky.

Later the poet dubbed him "the black godfather".

Newsreel "News of the Day", 1964. The trial of Yakov Katz.

Accused of parasitism.

Speech of Soviet citizens condemning such behavior.

The verdict is read.

After the first court session, Brodsky was sent for examination to a psychiatric clinic.

The medical report was drawn up in a form that satisfied the court.

Yakov Gordin describes the picture of what happened at the subsequent court session.

About the impressions that each of the participants had after the verdict was announced. 49 writers signed a petition in protest of this session.

After the statement of Jean-Paul Sartre, who spoke in support of the Soviet poet, a session of the Supreme Court followed, according to the ruling, the sentence was reduced to the time served and Brodsky was allowed to return to the Northern capital.

Nikolai Yakimchuk and Sergei Balakirev talk about their meetings with the prosecutors in the Brodsky case.

A fragment of the film "The Black Cross".

Fragments of an interview with Yakov Lerner.

Oleg Shklovsky reads out in the studio the official response received by the VID television company after contacting the FSB of the Russian Federation for assistance in organizing the filming of the program.

According to the document, "...there are no documentary materials regarding Joseph Brodsky in the archives of the FSB Directorate for St.

Petersburg and the Leningrad Region".

Sergei Shultz talks about how he gained access to documents recording the interrogations that were conducted with him and Joseph Brodsky.

In particular, the archives contain those poems by Brodsky that were once confiscated from him during a search.

Mikhail Kozakov talks about his acquaintance with the poet's work and his meetings with Brodsky.

Reads Brodsky's poems.

On July 26, 1989, by a decision of the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, the case against Joseph Brodsky was closed due to the absence of administrative violations in Brodsky’s actions.