[2]: 26 The poem consists of lengthy conversations between these two patients in the Soviet psychiatric prison as well as between each of them separately and the interrogating psychiatrists.
[3]: 105 Gorbunov and Gorchakov mirrors the balance that Brodsky struck when he was compelled to weigh the benefits and dangers of psychiatric diagnosis in his dealings with the Soviet state.
[4] In the poem, fourteen cantos are named in a such way that the table of contents in Russian language has the rhyming structure of the sonnet:[5]: 95 At the very end of 1963, Brodsky was committed for observation to the Kashchenko psychiatric hospital in Moscow where he stayed for several days.
[5]: 91 These two stints in psychiatric establishments formed the experience underlying Gorbunov and Gorchakov called by Brodsky ‘an extremely serious work.’.
[7]: 25 There are several English translations of the poem including one by Carl Ray Proffer with Assya Kumesky,[8] one by Harry Thomas[1]: 212 and one by Alan Myers.