On the Independence of Ukraine

On the Independence of Ukraine () is a controversial 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. The poem was never officially published; Brodsky himself read it in public only a few times. Known only from private manuscripts, it received publicity after it was published by Ukrainian nationalists as a demonstration of Brodsky's Russian nationalist views.
For quite some time, the authorship of the poem was disputed due to striking differences in style, e.g., by human rights activist Alexander Daniel, though Daniel admitted his mistake. Eventually, a video of Brodsky's public reading of the poem in the Palo Alto Jewish community center on October 30, 1992 was published online by a Boris Vladimirsky.