"On the Independence of Ukraine" (Russian: На независимость Украины) is a controversial Ukrainophobic poem by Joseph Brodsky written in the early 1990s, on the occasion of the 1991 Declaration of Independence of Ukraine and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union.
In the poem, Brodsky, in angry and insulting words expressed his feelings about the breach between the Ukrainian and Russian peoples.
In the poem's final lines, he states that independence-minded Ukrainians will, on their deathbed, abandon their love of poet Taras Shevchenko (considered the father of Ukrainian literature), and instead embrace poet Alexander Pushkin (considered the father of Russian literature): With God, eagles, Cossacks, hetmans, and vertukhais!
Brodsky himself is known to have read the poem in public only a few times, including at the Palo Alto Jewish community center on October 30, 1992.
[6] In 2015, a video of Brodsky's 1992 public reading of the poem was posted on Facebook by a user named Boris Vladimirsky.