Osip Mandelstam

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Osip Mandelstam
Mandelstam in the 1930s
Mandelstam in the 1930s
Native name
Осип Мандельштам
BornOsip Emilyevich Mandelstam
14 January [O.S. 2 January] 1891
Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire
Died27 December 1938(1938-12-27) (aged 47)
Transit Camp "Vtoraya Rechka" (near Vladivostok), Soviet Union
OccupationPoet, writer, essayist, translator
Literary movementAcmeist poetry, modernism
Notable works
  • Stone
  • The Noise Of Time
  • The Egyptian Stamp
  • The Fourth Prose
  • Voronezh Notebooks
Signature

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam[1] (Russian: Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам, IPA: [ˈosʲɪp ɨˈmʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mənʲdʲɪlʲˈʂtam]; 14 January [O.S. 2 January] 1891 – 27 December 1938) was a Russian and Soviet poet. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school.

Osip Mandelstam was arrested during the

corrective-labour camp in the Soviet Far East. He died that year at a transit camp near Vladivostok.[2]

Life and work

Mandelstam was born on 14 January 1891

Polish-Jewish family.[4] His father, a leather merchant by trade, was able to receive a dispensation freeing the family from the Pale of Settlement. Soon after Osip's birth, they moved to Saint Petersburg.[4] In 1900, Mandelstam entered the prestigious Tenishev School. His first poems were printed in 1907 in the school's almanac. As a schoolboy, he was introduced by a friend to members of the illegal Socialist Revolutionary Party, including Mark Natanson, and the revolutionary Grigory Gershuni.[5]

In April 1908, Mandelstam decided to enter the

University of Saint Petersburg, from which Jews were excluded. He converted to Methodism and entered the university the same year.[6] He did not complete a formal degree.[7]

Mandelstam's poetry, acutely

Sergei Gorodetsky. The nucleus of this group became known as Acmeists. Mandelstam wrote the manifesto for the new movement: The Morning Of Acmeism (1913, published in 1919).[8] In 1913 he published his first collection of poems, The Stone;[9]
it was reissued in 1916 under the same title, but with additional poems included.

Political persecution and death

In 1922, Mandelstam and Nadezhda moved to Moscow. At this time, his second book of poems, Tristia, was published in Berlin.[9] For several years after that, he almost completely abandoned poetry, concentrating on essays, literary criticism, memoirs The Noise Of Time, Feodosiya - both 1925; (Noise of Time 1993 in English) and small-format prose The Egyptian Stamp (1928). As a day job, he translated literature into Russian (19 books in 6 years), then worked as a correspondent for a newspaper.

Silver Age poets Mandelstam, Chukovsky, Livshits and Annenkov in 1914. Photo of Karl Bulla

First arrest

In the autumn of 1933, Mandelstam composed the poem "Stalin Epigram", which he recited at a few small private gatherings in Moscow. The poem deliberately insulted the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin:

...
His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits,
And his accurate words are as heavy as weights.
Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming,
And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming.
...

In the original version, the one that was handed in to the police, he called Stalin the "peasant slayer", as well as pointing out that he had fat fingers. Six months later, on the night of 16–17 May 1934, Mandelstam was arrested by three NKVD officers who arrived at his flat with a search warrant signed by Yakov Agranov.[10] His wife hoped at first that this was over a fracas that had taken place in Leningrad a few days earlier, when Mandlestam slapped the writer Alexei Tolstoy because of a perceived insult to Nadezhda, but under interrogation he was confronted with a copy of the Stalin Epigram, and immediately admitted to being its author, believing that it was wrong in principle for a poet to renounce his own work. Neither he nor Nadezhda had ever risked writing it down, suggesting that one of the trusted friends to whom he recited it had memorised it, and handed a written copy to the police. It has never been established who it was.[11]

Mandelstam anticipated that insulting Stalin would carry the death penalty, but Nadezhda and Anna Akhmatova started a campaign to save him, and succeeded in creating "a kind of special atmosphere, with people fussing and whispering to each other." The Lithuanian ambassador in Moscow, Jurgis Baltrušaitis warned delegates at a conference of journalists that the regime appeared to be on the verge of killing a renowned poet.[12] Boris Pasternak - who disapproved of the tone of the Epigram - nonetheless appealed to the eminent Bolshevik, Nikolai Bukharin, to intervene. Bukharin, who had known the Mandelstams since the early 1920s and had frequently helped them, approached the head of the NKVD, and wrote a note to Stalin.

Exile

On 26 May, Mandelstam was sentenced neither to death, nor even the Gulag, but to three years' exile in Cherdyn in the Northern Ural, where he was accompanied by his wife. This escape was looked upon as a "miracle"[12] - but the strain of his interrogation had driven Mandelstam to the verge of insanity. He later wrote that "at my side, my wife did not sleep for five nights"[13] - but when they arrived at Cherdyn, she fell asleep, in the upper floor of a hospital, and he attempted suicide by throwing himself out of the window. His brother, Alexander, appealed to the police for his brother to be given proper psychiatric care, and on 10 June, there was a second "miracle", which banished Mandelstam from the twelve largest Soviet cities, but otherwise allowed him to choose his place of exile.[12]

Mandelstam and his wife chose Voronezh, possibly, partly, because the name appealed to him. In April 1935, he wrote a four line poem that included the pun - Voronezh - blazh', Voronezh - voron, nozh meaning 'Voronezh is a whim, Voronezh - a raven, a knife.'. Just after their arrival, Boris Pasternak received a phone call from Stalin - his only conversation with the dictator, in which Stalin wanted to know whether Mandelstam really was a talented poet. "He's a genius, isn't he?" he is reputed to have asked Pasternak.[14]

During these three years, Mandelstam wrote a collection of poems known as the Voronezh Notebooks, which included the cycle Verses on the Unknown Soldier.

Actually, the fact that Stalin had given an order to "isolate and preserve" Mandelstam meant that he was safe from further persecution, temporarily. In Voronezh, he was even granted a face-to-face meeting with the local head of the NKVD, Semyon Dukelsky, who told him "write what you like", and turned down an offer by Mandelstam to send in every poem he wrote to police headquarters. After that meeting, NKVD agents ceased shadowing the couple.[15] There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that Mandelstam even rang Dukelsky to recite poetry over the phone.[16]

Second arrest and death

NKVD photo after the second arrest, 1938

Mandelstam's three-year period of exile ended in May 1937, when the

Nikolay Yezhov, denouncing Mandelstam. Getting him out of Moscow made it possible to arrest him without setting off a reaction.[17] He was arrested while on holiday, on 5 May (ref. camp document of 12 October 1938, signed by Mandelstam), and charged with "counter-revolutionary
activities."

Four months later, on 2 August 1938,[18] Mandelstam was sentenced to five years in correction camps. He arrived at the Vtoraya Rechka (Second River) transit camp near Vladivostok in Russia's Far East. From the Vladperpunkt transit camp he sent his last letter to his brother and his wife,[19] writing: I'm in Vladivostok, SVITL, barracks 11. I got 5 years for K.R.D. [counterrevolutionary activity] by the decision of the OSO. From Moscow, left from Butyrka on September 9, arrived on October 12. Health is very poor. Exhausted to the extreme. Have lost weight, almost unrecognizable. But I don't know if there is any sense in sending clothes, food and money. Try it, all the same. I'm freezing without proper things.[20][21]

On 27 December 1938, before his 48th birthday, Osip Mandelstam died in a transit camp of typhoid fever. His death was described later in a short story "Cherry Brandy" by Varlam Shalamov, who notes that his fellow inmates concealed his death for two days so they could continue to collect his rations.[22] His body lay unburied until spring, along with the other deceased. Then the entire "winter stack" was buried in a mass grave.[23]

Mandelstam's own prophecy was fulfilled: "Only in Russia is poetry respected, it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?" Nadezhda wrote memoirs about her life and times with her husband in Hope against Hope (1970)[24] and Hope Abandoned.[25] She also managed to preserve a significant part of Mandelstam's unpublished work.

Marriage and family

In 1916, Mandelstam was passionately involved with the poet Marina Tsvetayeva. According to her biographer, "Of the many love affairs with men that Marina embarked upon with such intensity during this period, it was probably the only one that was physically consummated."[26] Mandelstam was said to have had an affair with the poet Anna Akhmatova. She insisted throughout her life that their relationship had always been a very deep friendship, rather than a sexual affair.[27] In the 1910s, he was in love, secretly and unrequitedly, with a Georgian princess and St. Petersburg socialite Salomea Andronikova, to whom Mandelstam dedicated his poem "Solominka" (1916).[28]

In 1922, Mandelstam married

Mariya Petrovykh in 1933–34.[30] Nadezha Mandelstam formed a lifelong friendship with Anna Akhmatova, who was a guest in the Mandelstam's apartment when he was arrested for the first time, but complained that she could never be friendly with Tsvetayeva, partly because "I had decided on Akhmatova as 'top' woman poet". She also complained that Tsvetayeva could not take her eyes off her husband, and that "she accused me of being jealous of her."[25]

During Mandelstam's years of imprisonment in 1934–38, Nadezhda accompanied him into exile. Given the real danger that all copies of Osip's poetry would be destroyed, she worked to memorize his entire corpus, as well as to hide and preserve select paper manuscripts, all the while dodging her own arrest.[24] In the 1960s and 1970s, as the political climate thawed, she was largely responsible for arranging clandestine republication of Mandelstam's poetry.[25]

Posthumous reputation and influence

Bibliography

Prose

  • The Noise Of Time (1925, collection of autobiographical sketches)
  • The Egyptian Stamp (1928, short novel)
  • The Fourth Prose (1930)
  • Journey to Armenia (1933, collection of travel sketches)

Poetry collections

  • Stone (1913/1916/1923)
  • Tristia (1922)
  • Second Book (1923)
  • Poems 1921–1925 (1928)
  • Poems (1928)
  • Moscow Notebooks (1930–34)
  • Voronezh Notebooks (1934–37)

Essays

  • On Poetry (1928)
  • Conversation about Dante (1933; published in 1967)[35]

Selected translations

Reviews

References

  1. ^ Also romanized as Osip Mandelstam, Ossip Mandelstamm, or Osip Mandelshtam
  2. ^ a b Delgado, Yolanda; RIR, specially for (18 July 2014). "The final days of Russian writers: Osip Mandelstam". www.rbth.com. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  3. ^ Tararak, К. (21 May 2021). "На углу Мандельштама и Мессерера". Novaya Gazeta (in Russian). Retrieved 29 May 2021. В самый день его рождения (тогда считалось, что это 15 января; лишь недавно мандельштамоведы уточнили — поэт родился в Варшаве 14 января 1891 года) на здании Дома Герцена (современного Литературного института) открыли мемориальную доску работы скульптора Дм. Шаховского.
  4. ^ a b c "1938: A poet who mocked Stalin dies in the gulag". Haaretz. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  5. .
  6. ^ ""Интимная полутайна крещения Мандельштама" | МАУК Библиотека А.Аалто". Archived from the original on 16 March 2012. Retrieved 27 August 2011.
  7. ^ ""Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam (1889-1938) Russian Poet"". LitvakSIG Lithuanian-Jewish Special Interest Group.
  8. JSTOR 126351
    .
  9. ^ a b ""It gets people killed": Osip Mandelstam and the perils of writing poetry under Stalin". www.newstatesman.com. 9 May 2017. Retrieved 8 June 2020.
  10. .
  11. ^ Shentalinksy. The KGB's Literary Archive. p. 172.
  12. ^ a b c McSmith, Andy. Fear and the Muse. pp. 110–11.
  13. .
  14. ^ Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Against Hope. p. 146.
  15. ^ Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Against Hope. pp. 206–209.
  16. ^ Nerler, Pavel (24 June 2004). "Пусти меня, отдай меня, Воронеж ("Let me go, give me back, Voronezh"". Izvestya. Retrieved 12 December 2020.
  17. ^ McSmith, Andy. Fear and the Muse. pp. 194–195.
  18. ^ Extract from court protocol No. 19390/Ts
  19. ^ at 6 Gagarinsky Lane, Moscow.
  20. ^ Москва, Гагаринский переулок, 6. Последний адрес. Archived from the original on 20 November 2019. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  21. ^ Delgado, Yolanda; RBTH, special to (16 July 2014). "The final days of Russian writers: Osip Mandelstam". www.rbth.com.
  22. ^ "Los Angeles Review of Books". 29 October 2018.
  23. ^ Izvestia, 8 January 1991. Reproduced according to ed. – Osip Mandelstam and his time: Sat. memories. – Publisher L'Age d'Homme – Nash Dom, 1995 480 p. – p. 402. [1]
  24. ^
  25. ^
  26. ^ Feinstein, Elaine (1989). Marina Tsvetayeva. London: Penguin. p. 56.
  27. ^ Feinstein, Elaine. Anna of All the Russias, New York: Vintage Press, 2007.
  28. .
  29. ^ Clarence Brown, Mandelstam, Cambridge University Press, 1973
  30. ^ "3461 Mandelshtam 1977 Dictionary of Minor Planet Names". www.google.com.
  31. ^ Bellow, Saul. Jefferson Lecture. National Endowment for the Arts. 1977
  32. ^ Kuvaldin, Y. (Юрий Кувалдин): Улица Мандельштамa Archived 17 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine, повести. Издательство "Московский рабочий", 1989, 304 p. In Russian. URL last accessed 20 October 2007.
  33. ^ "Оксимирон, Агутин, Лагутенко, Shortparis, Noize MC написали песни на стихи Осипа Мандельштама. Премьера трибьюта "Сохрани мою речь навсегда" на "Медузе"". Meduza (in Russian). 14 January 2021. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  34. ^ Freidin, G.: Osip Mandelstam, Encyclopædia Britannica, 2001. Accessed 20 October 2007.

Further reading

  • Coetzee, J.M. "Osip Mandelstam and the Stalin Ode", Representations, No.35, Special Issue: Monumental Histories. (Summer 1991), pp. 72–83.
  • Davie, Donald (1977) In the Stopping Train Carcanet (Manchester)
  • Freidin, Gregory (1987) A Coat of Many Colors: Osip Mandelstam and His Mythologies of Self-Presentation. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London
  • Анатолий Ливри, "Мандельштам в пещере Заратустры", - в Вестнике Университета Российской Академии Образования, ВАК, 1 – 2014, Москва, с. 9 – 21. [2] Copie of Nietzsche.ru : [3]. Version française : Anatoly Livry, Nietzscheforschung, Berlin, Humboldt-Universität, 2013, Band 20, S. 313-324 : Mandelstam, un dionysiaque nietzschéen
  • Dr. Anatoly Livry, « Mandelstam le nietzschéen: une origine créative inattendue » dans Журнал Вісник Дніпропетровського університету імені Альфреда Нобеля. Серія «Філологічні науки» зареєстровано в міжнародних наукометричних базах Index Copernicus, РИНЦ, 1 (13) 2017, Університет імені Альфреда Нобеля, м. Дніпро, The Magazine is inscribed by the Higher Certifying Commission on the index of leading reviewing scientific periodicals for publications of main dissertation of academic degree of Doctor and Candidate of Science, p. 58-67. http://anatoly-livry.e-monsite.com/medias/files/1-13-2017.pdf[permanent dead link]
  • MacKay, John (2006) Inscription and Modernity: From Wordsworth to Mandelstam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press
  • Nilsson N. A. (1974) Osip Mandel'štam: Five Poems. (Stockholm)
  • Platt, Kevin, editor (2008) Modernist Archaist: Selected Poems by Osip Mandelstam [1]
  • Riley, John (1980) The Collected Works. Grossteste (Derbyshire)
  • Ronen, O. (1983) An Аpproach to Mandelstam. (Jerusalem)
  • Mikhail Berman-Tsikinovsky (2008), play "Continuation of Mandelstam" (published by Vagrius, Moscow. )

External links