Women in the life of Osip Mandelstam. O.E
In the outgoing year, the 125th anniversary of Osip Mandelstam passed quietly and imperceptibly. A well-known literary critic, translator, prose writer, essayist and one of the finest poets of the last century.
"I was born on the night from the second to the third..."
Osip Mandelstam was born in the capital of Poland, Warsaw, in January 1891. Almost immediately, the family moved to St. Petersburg. This is the city of childhood and youth of the poet.
Mandelstam, the poet's biography is a confirmation of this, did not like to remember these years, give them comments, as well as his own poems. As a poet, he matured quite early, so his style was very strict and serious.
Here are the grains that can be found about the years of childhood:
"From the pool of evil and viscous
I grew up, rustling with a reed,
And passionately, and languidly, and affectionately
Breathing forbidden life.
("From the pool of evil and viscous...")
In the last line, Mandelstam described his passion for poetry. The poet's biography begins with a family entangled in faith and nationality. This is especially noticeable in the author's speech, his style. The language environment in which little Osip grew up was a little strange. Father Emilius, self-taught and a businessman, had absolutely no sense of language. Ornate, almost always unspoken phrases, bizarre tongue-tied tongue - Osip described his father's speech in the book "The Noise of Time" with such epithets.
Mother was the complete opposite. With a poor vocabulary, conciseness and monotony of turns, the dialect of Flora, a music teacher, her Russian speech was clear, sonorous and bright. From his mother, the poet passed on a subtle sense of the language of Russian culture, its accuracy, musicality and grandeur.
Not a boy but a poet
Upon completion of the famous Tenishevsky School abroad, Mandelstam continues his studies. Biography (short) gives reason to think about the importance of this period: Western Europe can be traced in his poems until his death. For three years, Osip manages to fall in love with Paris, study Romance philology at the University of Germany and live for his own pleasure in the Berlin suburb of Zehlendorf.
But the most vivid impression that Mandelstam the poet showed to the world was from the meeting with A. Akhmatova and N. Gumilyov. They talked weekly at literary gatherings. Many years after the execution of Nikolai Gumilev, in a letter to Akhmatova, the poet writes that he is still talking with him, because Gumilev was the only one who truly understood him.
The special attitude of the poet to Anna Akhmatova is well felt in his words: "I am a contemporary of Akhmatova". He spoke about it publicly, not being afraid of the regime of the existing power. And if you remember that Akhmatova was a disgraced poet, and also a woman, then for such statements one had to be Osip Mandelstam!
This was the period of a new trend in literature, which was created by A. Akhmatova with N. Gumilyov and O. Mandelstam. The biography of the poet restores this period of friction and controversy. The process was not easy: Anna Akhmatova was always capricious, Gumilyov was known as a despot, and Osip Emilievich easily flared up for any reason.
Attempt at writing
At the beginning of 1913, the poet published the first collection of poems at his own expense. Companions rejected the name "Sink", approved the acmeist one - "Stone". The current was famous for depriving the world of a foggy and elegiac light veil. Everything acquired clarity, firmness, strength and solidity. Moreover, this concerned both material bodies and spiritual culture.
New Russia
Osip Mandelstam, a brief biography practically does not affect this time, did not understand and did not accept the revolutionary changes of 1917. During this period, after studying at the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University, he tries to find himself in a new country. But all attempts end in a quarrel, scandal and, consequently, failure. By 1920, the crisis was growing. For five years, Osip did not write a single line.
After another nine years, the book "The Fourth Prose" is published. This is a small cry of pain and hatred for the participants of MASSOLIT in terms of its spiritual outburst. In addition to furious statements against opportunistic writers, the book reveals the main features of the poet's temper. Mandelstam easily overgrown with enemies, throwing personality assessments and unflattering judgments, which he did not keep in himself, he was quarrelsome, explosive, uncompromising and impulsive.
Mutual hatred escalated. Many hated the poet, but Mandelstam also hated many. The biography makes it possible to trace the extreme conditions in which the poet lived. And by 1930, he had a premonition of death.
During these years, the state began to give apartments to cultural workers. In 1933 he received an apartment and Mandelstam. Biography and creativity are briefly described by the case of Pasternak. Much later, he recalled how he provoked an outburst of rage from Mandelstam when, leaving, he said that now there was a place to write poetry. The poet cursed the apartment and advised to give it to "honest traitors."
The path is chosen
The poet is strengthened more and more by the consciousness of the tragedy of the chosen fate. Power and pathos appeared in the verses. It consisted in a powerless opposition to the “age-beast” of the independent poet. The strength was in the feeling of being equal to the coming age:
“... Put me better, like a hat, in a sleeve
Hot fur coat of the Siberian steppes,
Take me to the night where the Yenisei flows
And the pine reaches the star
Because I'm not a wolf by my blood
And only an equal will kill me.”
("For the explosive prowess of the coming ages...")
The poet's entourage, his close people only after a while appreciated these predictive lines. Mandelstam already then had a premonition of the Siberian exile, the death and immortality of his lines.
Mandelstam: short biography (by date)
- 01/03/1891 - was born.
- 1900-1907 - studying at the Tenishevsky School.
- 1908-1910 - studying at the Sorbonne.
- 1913 - publication of the collection of poems "Stone".
- 1919 - meets his future wife.
- 1923 - The second collection of poems is published.
- 1934-1937 - exiled to Voronezh.
- 1938 - died in camps in the Far East.
Mandelstam: biography, interesting facts
Not many people know about Osip's love for Marina Tsvetaeva. But even less is known about the end of their relationship and the serious intention of the poet to go to the monastery.
The move to Voronezh happened “thanks to” the epigram on the “highlander ruling the country”. Stalin's reaction was, to put it mildly, strange: "isolate, but preserve."
The first memorial sign dedicated to the poet was put on his own savings by the sculptor V. Nenazhivin, who was impressed by Mandelstam's poems.
One of the most tragic fates was prepared by the Soviet authorities for such a great poet as O. Mandelstam. His biography has developed so largely because of the irreconcilable nature of Osip Emilievich. He could not tolerate untruth and did not want to bow before the mighty of this world. Therefore, his fate could not have been otherwise in those years, which Mandelstam himself was aware of. His biography, like the work of the great poet, teaches us a lot ...
The future poet was born in Warsaw on January 3, 1891. Osip Mandelstam spent his childhood and youth in St. Petersburg. His autobiography, unfortunately, was not written by him. However, his memoirs formed the basis of the book "The Noise of Time". It can be considered largely autobiographical. Note that Mandelstam's memories of childhood and youth are strict and restrained - he avoided revealing himself, did not like to comment on both his poems and his life. Osip Emilievich was an early maturing poet, or rather, an enlightened one. Strictness and seriousness distinguish his artistic style.
We believe that the life and work of such a poet as Mandelstam should be considered in detail. A short biography in relation to this person is hardly appropriate. The personality of Osip Emilievich is very interesting, and his work deserves the most careful study. As time has shown, one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century was Mandelstam. A brief biography presented in school textbooks is clearly insufficient for a deep understanding of his life and work.
The origin of the future poet
Rather, the few that can be found in Mandelstam's memoirs about his childhood and the atmosphere surrounding him are painted in gloomy tones. According to the poet, his family was "difficult and confused." In the word, in speech, this was manifested with special force. So, at least, Mandelstam himself thought. The family was different. Note that the Jewish family of Mandelstam was ancient. Since the 8th century, since the time of the Jewish enlightenment, he has given the world famous doctors, physicists, rabbis, literary historians and Bible translators.
Mandelstam Emily Veniaminovich, father of Osip, was a businessman and self-taught. He was completely devoid of a sense of language. Mandelstam in his book "The Noise of Time" noted that he had absolutely no language, there was only "lack of language" and "tongue-tiedness". Another was the speech of Flora Osipovna, the mother of the future poet and music teacher. Mandelstam noted that her vocabulary was "compressed" and "poor", the turns were monotonous, but it was sonorous and clear, "great Russian speech." It was from his mother that Osip inherited, along with musicality and a predisposition to heart disease, the accuracy of speech, a heightened sense of his native language.
Education at the Tenishevsky Commercial School
Mandelstam studied at the Tenishevsky Commercial School from 1900 to 1907. It was considered one of the best among private educational institutions in our country. At one time, V. Zhirmunsky and V. Nabokov studied there. The atmosphere that prevailed here was intellectual-ascetic. The ideals of civic duty and political freedom were cultivated in this educational institution. In the years 1905-1907 of the first Russian revolution, Mandelstam could not but fall into political radicalism. His biography is generally closely connected with the events of the era. The catastrophe of the war with Japan and the revolutionary time inspired him to create the first verse experiments that can be considered student's. Mandelstam perceived what was happening as a vigorous universal metamorphosis, renewing the elements.
Trips abroad
He received a college diploma on May 15, 1907. After that, the poet tried to join the combat organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in Finland, but he was not accepted there due to infancy. Parents, concerned about the future of their son, hurried to send him away from sin to study abroad, where Mandelstam went three times. The first time he lived in Paris from October 1907 to the summer of 1908. Then the future poet went to Germany, where he studied Romance philology at Heidelberg University (from autumn 1909 to spring 1910). From 21 July 1910 until mid-October he lived in Zehlendorf, a suburb of Berlin. Up to the very last works in Mandelstam's poems, there is an echo of his acquaintance with Western Europe.
Meeting with A. Akhmatova and N. Gumilyov, creation of acmeism
The meeting with Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov determined the formation of Osip Emilievich as a poet. Gumilyov in 1911 returned from the Abyssinian expedition to St. Petersburg. Soon the three of them began to see each other often at literary evenings. Many years after the tragic event - the execution of Gumilyov in 1921 - Osip Emilievich wrote to Akhmatova that only Nikolai Gumilyov managed to understand his poems, and that he still talks to him, conducts dialogues. How Mandelstam treated Akhmatova is evidenced by his phrase: "I am a contemporary of Akhmatova." Only Osip Mandelstam (his photo with Anna Andreevna is presented above) could have publicly stated this during the Stalinist regime, when Akhmatova was a disgraced poetess.
All three (Mandelstam, Akhmatova and Gumilyov) became the creators of acmeism and the most prominent representatives of this new trend in literature. Biographers note that friction arose between them at first, since Mandelstam was quick-tempered, Gumilyov was despotic, and Akhmatova was wayward.
First collection of poems
In 1913 he created his first collection of poems by Mandelstam. By this time, his biography and work had already been marked by many important events, and even then there was more than enough life experience. The poet published this collection at his own expense. At first he wanted to call his book "Sink", but then he chose another name - "Stone", which was quite in the spirit of acmeism. Its representatives wanted, as it were, to rediscover the world, to give everything a courageous and clear name, devoid of a foggy and elegiac flair, as, for example, among the Symbolists. Stone is a solid and durable natural material, eternal in the hands of a master. For Osip Emilievich, it is the primary building material of spiritual culture, and not just material.
Osip Mandelstam converted to Christianity back in 1911, having made the "transition into European culture." And although he was baptized in (in Vyborg on May 14), the poems of his first collection captured the passion for the Catholic theme. Mandelstam was captivated in Roman Catholicism by the pathos of the world organizing idea. Under the rule of Rome, the unity of the Christian world of the West is born from a chorus of peoples who are dissimilar to each other. Also, the "stronghold" of the cathedral is made up of stones, their "unkind gravity" and "spontaneous labyrinth".
Relation to the revolution
In the period from 1911 to 1917 at St. Petersburg University, at the Romano-Germanic department, Mandelstam studied. His biography at that time was marked by the appearance of the first collection. His attitude to the revolution that began in 1917 was complex. Any attempts by Osip Emilievich to find a place in the new Russia ended in scandal and failure.
Tristia compilation
Mandelstam's poems from the period of revolution and war make up the new collection Tristia. This "Book of Sorrows" was published for the first time in 1922 without the participation of the author, and then, in 1923, under the title "Second Book" was republished in Moscow. It is cemented by the theme of time, the flow of history, which is directed towards its death. Until the last days, this theme will be a cross-cutting one in the poet's work. This collection is marked by a new quality of the lyrical hero of Mandelstam. For him, there is no longer a personal time that is not involved in the general flow of time. The voice of the lyrical hero can only be heard as an echo of the rumble of the era. What happens in a big story is perceived by him as the collapse and construction of a "temple" of his own personality.
The collection Tristia also reflected a significant change in the poet's style. The figurative texture is moving more and more towards encrypted, "dark" meanings, semantic shift, irrational language moves.
Wanderings in Russia
Osip Mandelstam in the early 1920s wandered mainly in the southern part of Russia. He visited Kiev, where he met his future wife N. Ya. Khazina (pictured above), spent some time with Voloshin in Koktebel, then went to Feodosia, where the Wrangel counterintelligence arrested him on suspicion of espionage. Then, after his release, he went to Batumi, he was marked by a new arrest - now by the Menshevik Coast Guard. Osip Emilievich was rescued from prison by T. Tabidze and N. Mitsishvili, Georgian poets. In the end, extremely exhausted, Osip Mandelstam returned to Petrograd. His biography continues with the fact that he lived for some time in the House of Arts, then went south again, after which he settled in Moscow.
However, by the mid-1920s, there was no trace of the former balance of hopes and anxieties in understanding what was happening. The consequence of this is the changed poetics of Mandelstam. "Darkness" now increasingly outweighs clarity in it. In 1925, there was a short creative surge, which was associated with a passion for Olga Vaksel. After that, the poet falls silent for a long 5 years.
For Mandelstam, the second half of the 1920s was a period of crisis. At this time, the poet was silent, did not publish new poems. Not a single work of Mandelstam appeared in 5 years.
Appeal to prose
In 1929, Mandelstam decided to turn to prose. He wrote the book "The Fourth Prose". It is not large in volume, but Mandelstam's contempt for the opportunistic writers who were members of MASSOLIT was fully splashed out in it. For a long time this pain accumulated in the soul of the poet. Mandelstam's character was expressed in The Fourth Prose - quarrelsome, explosive, impulsive. Very easily, Osip Emilievich made enemies for himself, he did not conceal his judgments and assessments. Thanks to this, Mandelstam always, almost all the post-revolutionary years, was forced to exist in extreme conditions. In anticipation of imminent death, he was in the 1930s. There were not very many admirers of Mandelstam's talent, his friends, but they still were.
Life
The attitude to everyday life in many ways reveals the image of such a person as Osip Mandelstam. Biography, interesting facts about him, the work of the poet are associated with his special attitude towards him. Osip Emilievich was not adapted to settled life, to everyday life. For him, the concept of a house-fortress, which was very important, for example, for M. Bulgakov, had no meaning. The whole world was a home for him, and at the same time Mandelstam was homeless in this world.
Recalling Osip Emilievich in the early 1920s, when he received a room in the House of Arts in Petrograd (like many other writers and poets), K. I. Chukovsky noted that there was nothing in it that would belong to Mandelstam, except for cigarettes. When the poet finally received an apartment (in 1933), B. Pasternak, who visited him, said when he left that now you can write poetry - there is an apartment. Osip Emilievich was furious at this. O. E. Mandelstam, whose biography is marked by many episodes of intransigence, cursed his apartment and even offered to return it to those to whom it was apparently intended: artists, honest traitors. It was the horror of realizing the price that was required for her.
Work at Moskovsky Komsomolets
Are you wondering how the life of such a poet as Mandelstam continued? The biography by dates smoothly approached the 1930s in his life and work. N. Bukharin, the patron of Osip Emilievich in power circles, arranged him at the turn of the 1920s and 30s in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets as a proofreader. This gave the poet and his wife at least a minimal livelihood. But Mandelstam refused to accept the "rules of the game" of the Soviet writers who served the regime. His extreme impulsiveness and emotionality greatly complicated Mandelstam's relationship with his colleagues. He was at the center of a scandal - the poet was accused of translation plagiarism. In order to save Osip Emilievich from the consequences of this scandal, in 1930 Bukharin organized a trip to Armenia for the poet, which made a great impression on him, and was also reflected in his work. In the new verses, hopeless fear and the last courageous despair are already more clearly heard. If Mandelstam in prose tried to get away from the storm hanging over him, now he finally accepted his share.
Awareness of the tragedy of one's fate
Awareness of the tragedy of his own fate, the choice he made, probably strengthened Mandelstam, gave a majestic, tragic pathos to his new works. It consists in opposing the personality of a free poet to the "age-beast". Mandelstam does not feel like a miserable victim, an insignificant person in front of him. He feels his equal. In the 1931 poem "For the explosive valor of the coming centuries", which was called "The Wolf" in the home circle, Mandelstam predicted both the impending exile to Siberia, and his own death, and poetic immortality. This poet understood much earlier than others.
The ill-fated poem about Stalin
Yakovlevna, the widow of Osip Emilievich, left two books of memoirs about her husband, which tell about the sacrificial feat of this poet. Mandelstam's sincerity often bordered on suicide. For example, in November 1933, he wrote a sharply satirical poem about Stalin, which he read to many of his acquaintances, including B. Pasternak. Boris Leonidovich was alarmed by the fate of the poet and declared that his poem was not a literary fact, but nothing more than an "act of suicide", which he could not approve of. Pasternak advised him not to read this work any more. However, Mandelstam could not remain silent. Biography, interesting facts from which we have just given, from this moment becomes truly tragic.
Surprisingly, Mandelstam's sentence was rather mild. At that time, people died for much less significant "offences." Stalin's resolution read only: "Isolate, but preserve." Mandelstam was sent into exile in the northern village of Cherdyn. Here Osip Emilievich, suffering from a mental disorder, even wanted to commit suicide. Friends helped again. Already losing influence, N. Bukharin wrote to Comrade Stalin for the last time that poets are always right, that history is on their side. After that, Osip Emilievich was transferred to Voronezh, in less harsh conditions.
Of course, his fate was sealed. However, in 1933, severely punishing him meant advertising a poem about Stalin and thus as if settling personal scores with the poet. And this would, of course, be unworthy of Stalin, the "father of peoples." Iosif Vissarionovich knew how to wait. He understood that there was a time for everything. In this case, he expected the great terror of 1937, in which Mandelstam, along with hundreds of thousands of other people, was destined to disappear without a trace.
Years of life in Voronezh
Voronezh sheltered Osip Emilievich, but hostilely sheltered him. However, Osip Emilievich Mandelstam did not stop fighting the despair that was steadily approaching him. His biography of these years is marked by many difficulties. He had no means of subsistence, they avoided meeting him, his further fate was unclear. Mandelstam felt with all his being how the "age-beast" was overtaking him. And Akhmatova, who visited him in exile, testified that in his room "fear and muse" were alternately on duty. The verses went on unceasingly, they demanded an exit. Memoirists testify that Mandelstam once rushed to a pay phone and began to read his new works to the investigator, to whom he was attached at that time. He said there was no one else to read. The poet's nerves were bare, in verse he splashed out his pain.
In Voronezh, from 1935 to 1937, three "Voronezh Notebooks" were created. For a long time, the works of this cycle were not published. They could not be called political, but even "neutral" verses were perceived as a challenge, since they were Poetry, unstoppable and uncontrollable. And it is no less dangerous for the authorities, because, according to I. Brodsky, it "shakes the whole way of life," and not just the political system.
Return to the capital
A sense of imminent death permeated many of the poems of this period, as well as the works of Mandelstam in the 1930s as a whole. The term of the Voronezh exile expired in May 1937. Osip Emilievich spent another year in the vicinity of Moscow. He wanted to get permission to stay in the capital. However, the editors of magazines categorically refused not only to publish his poems, but also to talk to him. The poet was begging. He was helped at this time by friends and acquaintances: B. Pasternak, V. Shklovsky, V. Kataev, although they themselves had a hard time. Anna Akhmatova later wrote about 1938 that it was an "apocalyptic" time.
Arrest, exile and death
It remains for us to tell quite a bit about such a poet as Osip Mandelstam. His brief biography is marked by a new arrest, which took place on May 2, 1938. He was sentenced to five years hard labor. The poet was sent to the Far East. He never returned from there. On December 27, 1938, near Vladivostok, in the Second River camp, the poet died.
We hope you would like to continue your acquaintance with such a great poet as Mandelstam. Biography, photo, creative path - all this gives some idea of \u200b\u200bhim. However, only by referring to the works of Mandelstam, one can understand this person, feel the strength of his personality.
The poet Osip Emilievich Mandelstam today occupies a leading place among the greatest representatives of Russian Parnassus. However, the significant role of Mandelstam's work in the history of Russian literature is not always adequately presented in high school classes. Perhaps because the force of inertia in the teaching of literature at school is great and the echoes of Soviet literary criticism are still alive; perhaps, distrust causes the "dark" style of the poet; it seems difficult to present a panorama of his poetic universe.
“I was born from the second to the third / January in the ninety-one / Unreliable year - and centuries / Surround me with fire ... " According to the new style, Mandelstam was born on January 15, 1891 and died in 1938 in a transit camp near Vladivostok.
The poet's early childhood was spent in Warsaw. His father, a merchant of the first guild, was a glove maker; and the image of the house as a dark, cramped hole, saturated with the smell of dressed leather, will become the first stone in the foundation of Mandelstam's work.
In 1894 the family moved to Pavlovsk, in 1897 - to St. Petersburg. The future poet is 7 years old, and he is amazed by the architecture of St. Petersburg, the melodiousness of Russian speech. Even then, perhaps, a dream of the harmony of the world is born, and it must be felt and conveyed: “Out of the unkind gravity, I will someday create something beautiful ...”
The boy, Mandelstam, loves music very much, he listens to Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein in Pavlovsk: “At that time I fell in love with Tchaikovsky with painful nervous tension ... I caught Tchaikovsky’s wide, smooth, purely violin-like places from behind a thorny fence and more than once tore my dress and scratched my hands, making his way free to the sink of the orchestra ”(“ The Noise of Time ”, 1925).
From his mother, a wonderful pianist, the poet inherited a sense of inner harmony. Relations with life, over time, the poet will always build on his own inner tuning fork of truth.
Now we have access to an audio recording of several poems read by the author. Contemporaries were amazed at how he sings, reading poetry, dragging the audience with him. Mandelstam's poems should be perceived the way you listen to classical music: immersing yourself, following it.
At present, more than 50 poems by Mandelstam have been set to music. Songs based on the poet's poems are performed by T. Gverdtsiteli, A. Lugacheva, A. Buinov, A. Kortnev, I. Churikova, Zh. cellos, harps, etc. Mandelstam's poems set to music are heard in the films The Moscow Saga and The Man in My Head.
Mandelstam studied at the Tenishevsky School, a secondary educational institution. In the last years of his studies at the school, Mandelstam enthusiastically delivered speeches to the workers from the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Concerned about the future fate of their son, his parents send him to study abroad ...
In 1907-1908, Mandelstam studied at the Sorbonne University, where he listened, in particular, to lectures by A. Bergson, a French philosopher who had a significant influence on him. Henri Bergson imagined life as a cosmic “spirit of life”, a flow.
"Reality is continuous growth, endlessly continuing creativity." The intellect (reason), according to the philosopher, is able to cognize only the external, superficial essence of phenomena, intuition penetrates into the depths.
Bergson also influenced the poet's understanding of time. Mandelstam's time is inextricably linked with the feeling of movement, with the spiritual growth and improvement of man.
In 1909, Mandelstam spent two semesters at Heidelberg University, studying Romance languages and philosophy: “Merezhkovsky, on his way to Heidelberg, did not want to listen to a single line of my poetry,” he writes to Voloshin. In 1910 the poet returned to Russia. In the same 1910, the first publication of his poems took place in N. Gumilyov's journal "Apollo".
O. Mandelstam was baptized in July 1911 in the city of Vyborg out of inner conviction. This spiritual act was important for Mandelstam as a way to enter European culture.
Osip Emilievich was distinguished by a surprising unwillingness to rationally organize his life. He did not coordinate his actions with the possibility of personal gain.
For him, the only measure of what was proper, improper in the world was what Akhmatova called the feeling of “deep inner rightness.” read them to friends and acquaintances. “The first listeners of these poems were horrified and begged O.M. forget them."
The poet could not understand what was happening. So, it was more important for him to save his own life for the word to sound, for the truth to break the lie. And when, during the famine, which lasted most of his life, since the Soviet state did not honor the poet with earnings, Mandelstam suddenly got a certain amount, he, without putting aside in reserve, bought chocolates and all sorts of things and ... treated friends and neighbors' children, rejoicing in their joy .
A child's mouth chews on its chaff
Smiling, chewing
Like a dandy I will throw my head
And I will see the carduelis.
The leading theme of Mandelstam's poetry is the experience of building a personality. “Any moment of growth has its own spiritualized meaning, a person only has the fullness of existence when it expands at each stage, exhausting all the possibilities that age gives,” wrote the poet’s wife, N.Ya. Mandelstam.
Each book of poetry has a leading thought, its own poetic ray. “Early poems (“Stone”) - youthful anxiety in search of a place in life; "Tristia" - maturation and a premonition of a catastrophe, a perishing culture and the search for salvation; the book of 1921-1925 is an alien world; “New Poems” is an affirmation of the inherent value of life, renegade in a world where they have abandoned the past and all the values accumulated over the centuries, a new misunderstanding of their loneliness as a confrontation with evil forces that have abandoned the past, from the values accumulated over the centuries “Voronezh Poems” - life is accepted as it is, in all its fuss and charms ... "Stone" (1908-1915)
Mandelstam visited the "tower" of Vyacheslav Ivanov several times, but he was not a symbolist. The mysterious reticence of his early poems is an expression of the entry into the life of a young man full of doubts: “Am I really real / and will death really come?” S. Averintsev writes
“It is very difficult to find anywhere else in world poetry a combination of the immature psychology of a young man, almost a teenager, with such a perfect maturity of intellectual observation and poetic description of precisely this psychology:
From the pool of evil and viscous
I grew up with a reed, rustling, -
And passionately, and languidly, and affectionately
Breathing forbidden life.
and I will sink, unnoticed by anyone,
In a cold and swampy shelter,
Greeted with a welcoming rustle
Short autumn minutes.
I am happy with a cruel insult,
And in a life like a dream
I secretly envy everyone
And secretly in love with everyone.
This is not decadence - all boys at all times have felt, feel and will feel something similar. The pain of adapting to adult life, and most importantly, the especially acutely felt discontinuity of spiritual life, the unbalanced swings between delight and despondency, between sensuality and disgust, between craving for the “my you” that has not yet been found and strange coldness - all this for the boy is not a disease, but norm, but it is perceived as a disease and therefore hushed up.
The lyrical hero of Mandelstam's first poetry collection "Stone" enters the world, his task is to understand himself ... The leitmotif of the collection is listening to yourself. "Who am I?" - the main issue of adolescence. Given me a body - what should I do with it, So single and so mine?
The poet psychologically accurately conveys the torment of a developing self-consciousness:
... It will be my turn-
I can feel the wingspan.
Yes, but where will it go?
Thoughts of a living arrow?
During this period, feelings become especially acute. Alien invasions sometimes cause a sharp rejection:
So this is the real one
Connection with the mysterious world!
What an aching longing
What a disaster!
“The world of a teenager is full of ideal moods that take him beyond the limits of everyday life, real relationships with other people”:
I hate the light
Monotonous stars.
Hello, my old delirium -
Towers lancet growth!
Silence reigns in the first part of The Stone. In the second - sounds, noises appear and the process of "speaking" of the lyrical hero begins. The surrounding world, appearing through the "foggy veil" of the hero's perception (many epithets meaning "gray, foggy"), turns out to be bright and saturated with vibrant colors. The range of phenomena that fall into the sphere of the author's attention is growing wider.
The poet seeks to plow through all cultural layers, eras, to bring together the world of ancient, European and Russian culture in order to find the bearing axis on which human life rests. The highest commandment of acmeism, which formed the basis of Mandelstam's poetry, is this: "Love the existence of a thing more than the thing itself, and your being more than yourself"
… Few live for eternity,
But if you are momentarily preoccupied -
Your lot is terrible and your house is fragile!
"Tristia" (1916-1920)
In the last poems of "Stone" (1913-1915) and in the collection "Tristia" (1916-1920), Mandelstam realizes the goal - to enter European culture as an equal, to contain it and translate it into poetry. In order to preserve forever the best that was in it.
Conjugate and preserve times, conveying their inner connection, harmony and grandeur, was the meaning and purpose of the poet's life. K. Mochulsky, who helped Mandelstam prepare for the exam in the Greek language, recalls: “He came to the lessons with a monstrous delay, completely shocked by the secrets of Greek grammar revealed to him. He waved his arms, ran around the room and recited declensions and conjugations in a singsong voice. Reading Homer turned into a fabulous event; adverbs, enclitics, pronouns haunted him in his sleep, and he entered into mysterious personal relationships with them.
He turned grammar into poetry and argued that Homer is the more obscene, the more beautiful. I was very afraid that he would fail the exam, but by some miracle he passed the test. Mandelstam did not learn Greek, but he guessed it. Subsequently, he wrote brilliant poems about the Golden Fleece and the wanderings of Odysseus:
And leaving the ship, labored
In the seas the canvas
Odysseus returned, space
and full of time.
There is more “Hellenicism” in these two lines than in all the “antique” poetry of the much learned Vyacheslav Ivanov.
Mandelstam got used to every cultural epoch he came into contact with. He learned Italian in order to read Dante in the original and to comprehend the depths of his works.
The collection "Tristia" is an insight into life through love for a woman, through reflections on life and death, through religion and creativity, through history and modernity.
The main color epithets of the book are gold and black. Gold for Mandelstam is the color of the goodness of the world, unity and wholeness. "Golden" is often round: a golden ball, a golden sun, a golden belly of a turtle - lyre.) Black is the color of death and decay, chaos. In general, the color palette of "Tristia" is the richest of all Mandelstam's poetry collections. There are also such colors as blue, white, transparent (crystal), green (emerald), yellow, crimson, orange (amber, rusty, copper), red, crimson, cherry, gray, brown. Mandelstam expands the range of good and evil to the limit.
"Poems of 1921-1925"
The works of this collection convey the attitude of a thirty-year-old man, ready to embody himself in the world. At this age, a person understands that happiness is the work of his own hands, and it gives him joy to bring benefit to the world. Mandelstam feels full of creative forces, and in Russia - the era of the red terror, famine.
How did Mandelstam feel about the revolution? As to a troubled time in the history of Russia. Osip Emilievich did not believe in universal swift happiness, did not consider freedom a gift. The poem “The Twilight of Freedom” is dedicated to the events of 1918, where “swallows were tied into the fighting regions - and now / The sun is not visible ...“.
Twilight is the harbinger of night. Although the poet did not fully imagine the future, he prophesied the sunset of freedom: whoever has a heart, he should hear time, how your ship is sinking.
In 1921, N. Gumilyov was shot, in the same year, at the age of 40, A. Blok died. The terrible famine in the Volga region of 1921-1922 will put an end to S. Yesenin's relations with the Soviet authorities, and in 1925 the "last poet of the village" will not be.
You can not breathe, and the firmament is teeming with worms,
And no star says...
Mandelstam has no connections with this new, wild world. After emigration, arrests and executions, the poet finds himself in front of a different audience - the proletarian masses:
Unharnessed huge cart
Sticks across the universe
hayloft ancient chaos
It tickles, it fizzles.
Not rustling with our scales,
We sing against the wool of the world.
We build a lyre, as if in a hurry
Grow with a shaggy rune.
"What to talk about? What to sing about? is the main theme of this period. To give the world the strength of the soul, you need to know that what you give is in demand. However, the cultural and spiritual values of the past are not accepted by the bulk of the citizens of the young Soviet republic.
And the poet does not find in the surrounding reality an idea that gives birth to a song. History was a treasury of spiritual values for the poet, promising inexhaustible opportunities for inner growth, and modernity answered his devoted son with an animal roar:
My age, my beast, who can
look into your pupils
And glue with his blood
Two centuries of vertebrae?
Blood builder gushing
Throat of earthly things,
The backbone only trembles
On the threshold of new days...
Century, 1922
In time and space, where there is no place for creativity, the poet suffocates:
Time cuts me like a coin
And I miss myself.
This self-recognition sounds at that period of life when a person is especially acutely aware of his creative possibilities. "I miss myself!" - and not because I have not worked hard to find myself.
But time suddenly turned back: a huge, awkward, creaky turn of the steering wheel ... And I would be glad, but I can’t give myself to you, because you ... don’t take.
Who am I? Not a bricklayer straight
Not a roofer, not a shipbuilder.
I am a double-dealer, with a double soul.
I am a friend of the night, I am a skirmisher of the day.
“The twenties may be the most difficult time in the life of O. Mandelstam,” writes N. Ya. Mandelstam, the poet’s wife. Never before or later, although life later became much more terrible, did Mandelstam speak with such bitterness about his position in the world.
In his early poems, full of youthful anguish and languor, he never left the anticipation of a future victory and the consciousness of his own strength: “I feel the span of a wing,” and in the twenties he kept talking about illness, insufficiency, and ultimately inferiority. From the poems it is clear what he saw as his insufficiency and illness: this is how the first doubts in the revolution were perceived: “who else will you kill, who else will you glorify, what lie will you invent?”
The poet in modern reality turns out to be a traitor ... to the interests of the working class. Emigrate is not an option. To live in Russia, with one's own people - such a choice, without hesitation, is made by Mandelstam, just like his friend and colleague A. Akhmatova. This means that we will have to find a new language to express the inner idea, to learn to speak the language of inarticulate elemental forces:
Mandelstam tries to find something that unites him with today's owners of streets and squares, to break through to their souls through the non-social, human, close to everyone.
He writes a poem about the French Revolution...
The language of the cobblestone is clearer to me than the dove,
Here stones are doves, houses are like dovecotes,
And the story of horseshoes flows like a bright stream
On the sonorous pavements of the great-grandmothers of cities.
Here are crowds of children - events of beggars,
Frightened flocks of Parisian sparrows -
Hastily pecked the grits of lead crumbs -
Phrygian grandmother scattered peas,
And a wicker basket lives in memory,
And the forgotten currant floats in the air,
And cramped houses - a row of milk teeth
On the gums of the senile - they stand like twins.
Here nicknames were given to months, like kittens,
And milk and blood were given to tender lion cubs;
And they will grow up - maybe two years
Held a big head on his shoulders!
The big-heads raised their hands there
And they played with an oath in the sand like an apple.
It's hard for me to say: I didn't see anything,
But still I will say - I remember one,
He raised his paw like a fiery rose,
And, like a child, he showed everyone a splinter.
They did not listen to him: the coachmen laughed,
And gnawed apples, with a hurdy-gurdy, kids;
Posters were glued, and traps were set,
And they sang songs, and roasted chestnuts,
And a bright street, like a straight clearing,
Horses flew out of the thick greenery.
Paris, 1923
Through a revolutionary theme close to Soviet Russia, through the image of a lion cub asking for understanding and sympathy, Mandelstam tries to break through to his new reader. His poetic speech is extremely concrete. Talking about the tender lion cub, he expressed his pain...
Mandelstam will never allow himself such a thing again. His self-esteem will resist violence, and the poet will come to the conclusion that it is unworthy to pray for "pity and mercy."
O clay life! O death of the age!
I'm afraid only he will understand you
In which is the helpless smile of a man,
who lost himself.
What a pain to search for a lost word
Raise sore eyelids
And with lime in the blood, for a strange tribe
Collect night herbs.
January 1, 1924
The poetic stream, recently such a full-flowing one, dries up, verses do not come. In 1925, Mandelstam's autobiographical prose was published with a telling title - "The Noise of Time". In the winter of 1929-1930, he dictates to his wife "The Fourth Prose". The “fourth prose” testified to the final liberation of the poet from illusions about the processes taking place in the country.
It was no longer necessary to hope that he could somehow fit into them, be understood, and be able to reach the reader. Awareness of this did not bring, as did the depressing everyday disorder and lack of money. But despite this, the feeling of inner freedom that always lived in Mandelstam, which he never wanted to give up, was strengthened, because for him it would be tantamount to creative death.
According to N.Ya. Mandelstam, “The Fourth Prose” paved the way for poetry.” The poet felt himself regaining his lost voice. “He returned to Mandelstam when he was advised to break the glass cap, to break free. There are no poems under a glass jar: there is no air. And this happened only five years later, thanks to a trip to Armenia in the spring of 1930, which Mandelstam had long dreamed of. The poet was able to break away from Soviet reality, touch the biblical beauty of the world - and poetic ear and
his voice returned.
"New Poems" (1930-1934).
In the first part of New Poems, the poet carefully tries his voice, as after a serious long illness, when a person learns everything anew. In the first part of the New Poems, the poet tries to combine the humanism and spirituality of past eras with today's. But this is not adaptation!
Having made a choice between fear and freedom in favor of inner freedom, he is ready to keep up with the times, but not adapting to it, but maintaining self-esteem. If in 1924 he wrote: “No, I have never been a contemporary of anyone ...”, now: I am a man of the Moskvoshveya era. See how my jacket is bristling… The poet believes that he should be honest with himself and with the future and tell the truth to his contemporaries.
I enter with a burning torch
To the six-fingered lie in the hut ...
In poems of 1930-1934!
for the first time direct and indirect assessments of friend, tormentor, ruler, teacher, fool sound. Now Mandelstam does not listen to the world, as in "Stone", does not guess it as in "Tpzpa", does not suffer along with the lord of the century ("what a pain - to look for a lost word, to raise sore eyelids"), as in the early 1920s , but feels the right to speak out loud.
I returned to my city, familiar to tears,
To veins, to children's swollen glands.
You're back here, so swallow quickly
Fish oil from Leningrad river lanterns,
Get to know the December day,
Where the yolk is mixed with the sinister tar.
Petersburg! I don't want to die yet!
You have my phone numbers.
Petersburg! I still have addresses
I live on the black stairs, and in the temple
A bell torn with meat strikes me,
And all night long waiting for dear guests,
Moving the shackles of door chains.
Leningrad, 1931
The poem “We live under us without feeling the country ...”, written in the autumn of 1933, for which the poet was arrested in May 1934, belongs to the same period.
It was not fear for life that was painful for the poet in prison. Back in February 1934, he calmly told Akhmatova: "I'm ready for death." The worst thing for Mandelstam is the humiliation of human dignity. The poet spent a little over a month in the Lubyanka. Stalin's verdict turned out to be unexpectedly sparing: "Isolate, but preserve." But when Nadezhda Yakovlevna
the poet’s wife, they allowed the first date, he looked terrible: “haggard, exhausted, with inflamed eyes, a half-mad look ... in prison he fell ill with traumatic psychosis and was in an almost insane state.”
From the memoirs of the poet's wife: “Despite the crazy look, O.M. I immediately noticed that I was wearing someone else's coat. Whose? Mom... When did she arrive? I named the day. “So you were at home all the time?” I didn’t immediately understand why he was so interested in this stupid coat, but now it became clear - he was told that I was also arrested. The reception is usual - it serves to oppress the psyche of the arrested person. Later, Mandelstam was unable to tell even his wife what exactly they did to him at Lubyanka.
On the very first night in Cherdyn, where he was exiled, Mandelstam tried to commit suicide. From the memoirs of his wife: “In his madness, O.M. hoped to “prevent death”, to run away, escape and perish, but not at the hands of those who shot ... The thought of this last outcome consoled our whole life and
reassured me, and I often - at various unbearable periods of our life - offered O.M. commit suicide together. O.M. my words always provoked a sharp rebuff.
His main argument: “How do you know what will happen next ... Life is a gift that no one dares to refuse ...“.
Thanks to the efforts of friends and acquaintances and the help of N. Bukharin, the authorities allow the Mandelstams to live in Voronezh. But they do not give either registration or permission to work. Whatever they could, the few remaining friends helped them, those who considered helping their neighbor more important than protecting their own lives. But this was not enough, very little.
Life continued on the edge of poverty, half-starving, and even really hungry, secret trips to Moscow to get at least some help from friends, lack of rights and exhausting everyday expectation of a new arrest, exile, execution.
"Voronezh notebooks" (1935-1937).
The first verses of the Voronezh period still bear the imprint of mental illness. Neologisms appear (more precisely, occasionalisms), which Mandelstam never had.
Speech stutters, it is chaotic and heavy. It took a suicide attempt to bring back to life. In the first Voronezh verses, the image of black soil is interesting:
Re-respected, re-black, all in the hall,
All in small withers, all air and a spectator,
All crumbling, all forming a choir, -
Wet lumps of my earth and will!
Well, hello, black earth:
be courageous...
Eloquent silence at work.
Previously, physical labor was not among the life guidelines of the poet, his attention was given to the cities: St. Petersburg, Rome, Paris, Florence, Feodosia, Moscow, etc.
And "it was necessary to go through the most severe trials, to fully experience the cruelty of the era that fell to his lot, in order to eventually come - paradoxically - to the feeling of his blood relationship with the natural world":
In the light air of the flute, dissolve the pain of the pearls.
Salt has eaten into the blue, blue color of the chenille of the ocean... New phenomena, independent of politics and history, are entering his poetic world. For the first time, the theme of childhood, "childishness" appears.
When a child smiles
With a fork and sorrow and sweetness,
The ends of his smile, not joking,
They go into the ocean anarchy ...
and although life becomes completely unbearable, Mandelstam works hard. “Here, in Voronezh exile, Mandelstam experiences a surge of poetic inspiration, rare in strength, even for him ... Akhmatova was surprised: “It is amazing that space, breadth, deep breathing appeared in M.’s poems precisely in Voronezh, when he was not at all free.”
Verbs with the semantics "to sing" come to the fore here. Natalya Shtempel recalls that in Voronezh “Osip Emilievich wrote a lot ... he was literally on fire and, paradoxically, he was truly happy.
The poem that concludes the second "Voronezh Notebook" - "Poems are not about a famous soldier" - and poems written in the winter of 1937, are connected by the idea of unity with people. These are poems in defense of human dignity, against Stalin's arbitrariness.
Death did not frighten Mandelstam. However, it is scary and humiliating to become an “unknown soldier”, one of the millions “killed cheaply”.
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born January 3 (15), 1891 in Warsaw in a merchant family. A year later, the family settled in Pavlovsk, then in 1897 moves to live in St. Petersburg.
In 1907 graduated from the Tenishev School in St. Petersburg, which gave him solid knowledge in the humanities, hence his passion for poetry, music, and theater began (the director of the school, the symbolist poet Vl. Gippius contributed to this interest). In 1907 Mandelstam leaves for Paris, listens to lectures at the Sorbonne, and meets N. Gumilyov. Interest in literature, history, philosophy leads him to the University of Heidelberg, where he listens to lectures for a year. Occasionally happens in St. Petersburg. Since 1911 Mandelstam studied at St. Petersburg University, studied the Old French language and literature. In 1909 met Vyacheslav Ivanov and Innokenty Annensky and entered the circle of poets close to the Apollo magazine, where his poems first appeared in print ( 1910 , № 9).
Poetry 1909-1911. imbued with a sense of the illusory nature of what is happening, the desire to escape into the world of pristine musical impressions (“Only read children's books”, “Silentium”, etc.); they were affected by the influence of the Symbolists, mainly French. In 1912 Mandelstam comes to acmeism. For the poems of this period, included in the collection "Stone" ( 1913 ; second revised edition, 1916 ), are characterized by the acceptance of the external reality of the world, saturation with material details, craving for strictly verified "architectural" forms ("Hagia Sophia"). The poet draws inspiration from the images of world culture, enriched with literary and historical associations ("Dombey and Son", "Europe", "I have not heard the stories of Ossian", etc.). Mandelstam is inherent in the idea of the high significance of the personality and worldview of the artist, for whom poetry "is the consciousness of one's own rightness" (the article "On the Interlocutor").
Since 1916, starting with the anti-militarist poem "The Menagerie", Mandelstam's poetry takes on a more lyrical character, more vividly responds to modern reality. The verse, becoming more complex, is overgrown with side associative moves, which makes it difficult to understand. In 1918-1921. Mandelstam worked in cultural and educational institutions, was in the Crimea and Georgia. In 1922 he moves to Moscow. During the intensified struggle of literary groups, Mandelstam retains an independent position; this leads to the isolation of Mandelstam's name in the literature. Poetry 1921-1925 few in number and marked by a keen consciousness of "apostasy." The autobiographical stories “The Noise of Time” belong to this time ( 1925 ) and the story "Egyptian stamp" ( 1928 ) - about the spiritual crisis of an intellectual who lived before the revolution on "cultural rent".
1920s were for Mandelstam a time of intense and varied literary work. New poetry collections have been released: "Tristia" ( 1922 ), "The Second Book" ( 1923 ), "Poems" ( 1928 ). He continued to publish articles on literature - the collection "On Poetry" ( 1928 ). Several books for children were also published: "Two trams", "Primus" ( 1925 ), "Balls" ( 1926 ). Mandelstam devotes a lot of time to translation work. Fluent in French, German and English, he undertook (often for the purpose of earning money) translations of the prose of contemporary foreign writers. He treated poetic translations with special care, showing high skill. In the 1930s When the open persecution of the poet began, and it became more and more difficult to print, translation remained the outlet where the poet could save himself. During these years he translated dozens of books. The last work published during the life of Mandelstam is the prose “Journey to Armenia” (“Star”, 1933 , № 5).
Autumn 1933 writes a poem "We live, not feeling the country under us ...", for which in May 1934 was arrested. Only Bukharin's defense softened the sentence - they sent him to Cherdyn-on-Kama, where he stayed for two weeks, fell ill, and ended up in the hospital. He was sent to Voronezh, where he worked in newspapers and magazines, on the radio. After the expiration of the exile, he returns to Moscow, but he is forbidden to live here. Lives in Kalinin. Having received a ticket to a sanatorium, he leaves with his wife for Samatikha, where he was again arrested. Sentence - 5 years in camps for counter-revolutionary activities. Stage was sent to the Far East. In a transit camp on the Second River (now within Vladivostok) December 27, 1938 of the year Osip Mandelstam died in the hospital barracks in the camp.
Mandelstam's verse, outwardly traditional (according to meter, rhyme), is distinguished by semantic complexity, based on a great philological culture. The subject part of words is often replaced by an associative one, which has roots in the historical life of the word.
The convergence of words of different meanings, the elation of intonation, traditionally go back to the high, “odic” style, originating from M.V. Lomonosov. In 1933 The book "Conversation about Dante" was written, which most fully outlines Mandelstam's views on poetry.
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam is a Russian poet of the 20th century, essayist, translator and literary critic. The influence of the poet on contemporary poetry and the work of subsequent generations is multifaceted; literary critics regularly arrange round tables on this issue. Osip Emilievich himself spoke about his relationship with the literature surrounding him, admitting that he "floats on modern Russian poetry."
Creativity and biography of Mandelstam as a representative of the Silver Age are studied in schools and universities. Knowledge of the poet's poems is considered a sign of a person's culture along with knowledge of creativity or.
In Warsaw, on January 3, 1891, a boy was born into a Jewish family. They named him Joseph, but later he would change his name to "Osip". Father Emil Mandelstam was a glove maker, a merchant of the first guild. This gave him the advantage of living outside the settled way of life. Mother Flora Ovseevna was a musician. She had a great influence on her son. In maturity, Mandelstam will perceive the art of poetry as related to music.
After 6 years, the family leaves Warsaw for St. Petersburg. Osip enters the Tenishevsky School and studies there from 1900 to 1907. This school is called the "forge of cultural personnel" of the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1908, Osip went to Paris to study at the Sorbonne. There he spends two years. Mandelstam gets acquainted with, passionately interested in French poetry and epic. It reads , and . And in between trips to Paris, he attends Vyacheslav Ivanov's poetry lectures in St. Petersburg, learning the wisdom of versification.
During this period, Mandelstam wrote a touching short poem "Tender Tender", dedicated to. This work is significant for the poet's work as one of the few representatives of love lyrics. The poet rarely wrote about love, Mandelstam himself complained about "love dumbness" in his work.
In 1911, Emil Mandelstam suffers financial difficulties, so Osip can no longer study in Europe. To enter the University of St. Petersburg, he is baptized by a Protestant pastor. From this year until 1917, his studies continued intermittently at the Romano-Germanic department of the Faculty of History and Philology. He doesn't study very hard and never gets a diploma.
He often visits Gumilyov's house, gets acquainted with. Subsequently, he considers friendship with them one of the greatest successes in life. He began to publish in the journal "Apollo" in 1910 and continued in the journals "Hyperborea" and "New Satyricon".
In 1912 he recognizes Blok and shows sympathy for the Acmeists, adding to their group. Becomes a participant in the meetings of the "Workshop of Poets".
In 1915, Mandelstam wrote one of his most famous poems, Insomnia. Homer. Tight sails.
Literature
Osip Mandelstam's debut book was called "Stone" and was reprinted in 1913, 1916 and 1923 with different content. At this time, he leads a stormy poetic life, being at its epicenter. How Osip Mandelstam reads his poems could often be heard in the literary and artistic cabaret Stray Dog. The period of "Stone" is characterized by the choice of serious, heavy, "severe Tyutchev" themes, but by the ease of presentation, reminiscent of Verlaine.
After the revolution, popularity came to the poet, he actively published, collaborated with the newspaper "Narkompros" and traveled around the country, speaking with poetry. During the civil war, he had a chance to escape with the Whites to Turkey, but he chose to stay in Soviet Russia.
At this time, Mandelstam wrote the poems “Telephone”, “Twilight of Freedom”, “Because I could not hold your hands ...” and others.
The mournful elegies in his second book "Tristia" in 1922 are the fruit of the unrest caused by the revolution and the First World War. The face of the poetics of the Tristios period is fragmentary and paradoxical, it is the poetics of associations.
In 1923, Mandelstam wrote the prose work The Noise of Time.
In the period from 1924 to 1926, Mandelstam wrote poems for children: the cycle "Primus", the poem "Two trams Click and Tram", the book of poems "Balls", which included the poems "Kalosha", "Royal", "Avtomobilishche" and others.
From 1925 to 1930, Mandelstam takes a poetic break. He earns a living mainly by translations. Writes prose. During this period, Mandelstam creates the story "Egyptian stamp".
In 1928, the last collection of the poet "Poems" and a collection of articles "On Poetry" were published.
In 1930, he traveled around the Caucasus, where the poet went on a business trip at the request of Nikolai Bukharin, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. In Erivan, he meets the scientist Boris Kuzin, who had a great influence on the poet. And, although Mandelstam almost never published, he writes a lot in these years. His article "Journey to Armenia" is published.
Upon returning home, the poet writes the poem "Leningrad", which Mandelstam begins with the winged line "I returned to my city, familiar to tears" and in which he confesses his love for his native city.
In the 30s, the third period of Mandelstam's poetics begins, in which the art of metaphorical cipher predominates.
Personal life
In 1919, in Kyiv, Osip Mandelstam falls in love with Nadezhda Yakovlevna Khazina. She was born in 1899 in Saratov to a Jewish family that converted to Orthodoxy. At the time of her meeting with Mandelstam, Nadezhda had an excellent education. They met at the H.L.A.M cafe. Everyone spoke of them as a clearly in love couple. The writer Deutsch writes in his memoirs how Nadezhda walked with a bouquet of water lilies next to Osip.
Together with Mandelstam, Khazina wanders around Russia, Ukraine, Georgia during the civil war. In 1922 they get married.
She does not leave him even during the years of persecution, following him into exile.
Arrests and death
In 1933, according to Mandelstam, he actually commits an act of suicide by reading an anti-Stalinist work in public. After the poet witnessed the Crimean famine, Mandelstam wrote the poem “We live without smelling the country beneath us,” which the listeners called the “Epigram on Stalin.” Out of a dozen people, there were those who denounced the poet.
A premonition of future repressions was the poem "For the explosive valor of the coming centuries ...", in which Mandelstam described the tragic fate of the poet.
On the night of May 14, 1934, he was arrested, followed by exile in Cherdyn, Perm Territory. There, despite the support of his wife, he already makes a real suicide attempt, throwing himself out of the window. Nadezhda Mandelstam is looking for ways to save her husband and writes to all authorities, friends and acquaintances. They are allowed to move to Voronezh. There they live in complete poverty until 1937. After the exile ends, they return to Moscow.
Meanwhile, the "Mandelstam question" is not yet closed. Discussed at the level of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs and the Union of Writers poems of the poet, called "well-wishers" obscene and slanderous. Clouds were gathering, and in 1938 Mandelstam was again arrested and sent to the Far East by stage.
On December 27, 1938, the poet died. He died of typhus and, along with other unfortunate people, was buried in a mass grave. The burial place of Mandelstam is unknown.