THE LIFE AND WORKS OF OSIP MANDELSTAM
(1891 - 1938) Draft/24.5.2021 FINAL
Master Copy
SLIDE 1 – title page, with picture of Mandelstam
The 15th of January this year was the hundred-and-thirtieth anniversary of the birth of Osip Mandelstam.
Mandelstam was one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century, and this evening we are celebrating his life and work. We will read, in Russian and in English translation, 14 of his poems. And I will also try and give you an idea of what Mandelstam was like as a person, a human being and a man of letters, and describe the main events of his life.
- INTRODUCTION - EARLY LIFE
OSIP EMILIEVICH MANDELSTAM was born of Jewish parents on 15th January 1891 in Warsaw (then under Russian rule).
SLIDE 2 – Mandelstam’s parents
His father, Emily Veniaminovich Mandelstam was a leather merchant by trade. He was a merchant of the First Guild which gave him the right to live outside the Pale of Settlement. [черта оседлости = the area where Jews were allowed to settle.]
His mother, Flora Osypovna Verblovskaya, was an amateur musician.
SLIDES 3 and 4 – Osip as a young boy
Here are two pictures of Osip as a young boy.
Soon after Osip's birth the family moved to St. Petersburg. Osip was educated at the prestigious Tenishev Gymnasium (1900-07).
SLIDE 5 - The young Mandelstam in Europe
Mandelstam left school in 1907 and spent most of the next three years educating himself in Western Europe. He attended lectures at the Sorbonne University in Paris, and later visited Switzerland, Italy and Germany. He spent the winter of 1909 at the University of Heidelberg
By 1911 he had returned to St. Petersburg, where he studied in the history-and-philology faculty at the University. At that time he published five poems in the literary magazine, «Аполлон» (“Apollo”).
2. “THE SILVER AGE”, ACMEISM and
THE PUBLICATION OF STONE / КАМЕНь (1913)
SLIDE 6 – facsimile of title-page first edition of ‘STONE’
In the spring of 1913 Mandelstam published his first book, “STONE” / «КАМЕНЬ» - a collection of 23 poems written by him during the period 1908-1913, between the ages of 17 and 22. It made an immediate impact on the reading public.
This was in effect the beginning of Mandelstam’s literary career. It coincided with an intense period of cultural achievement in Russia. The years between 1895 and 1915 are known as “the Silver Age” – silver because the epithet “Golden” is used to describe the age of Pushkin.
The literary scene during this period was dominated by the Symbolists: Alexander Blok, Konstantin Balmont, Andrey Bely, Valery Bryusov and Vyacheslav Ivanov.
SLIDE 7 - The 'Tower' Building
Mandelstam began to attend the weekly literary gatherings at Vyacheslav Ivanov’s St. Petersburg apartment, which was nicknamed “The Tower”//«Башня». He also attended frequent meetings of the “Guild of Poets” («Цех поэтов»).
SLIDE 8 – Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyev
It was at one of the meetings at “The Tower” that he met two poets with whom his literary career was to be closely associated: Anna Akhmatova and her husband, Nikolay Gumilyev
This trio together founded what would become known as the Acmeist school. In fact, Acmeism was less a school or movement than it was a quest for clarity and precision – in reaction to the mysticism and vagueness of the Symbolists. Akhmatova desribed Mandelstam as the movement’s “first violin”.
“Akme” is the Greek for “the highest degree of something”. Years later Mandelstam described Acmeism as “a yearning for world culture” [// «тоска по мировой культуре»].
Mandelstam also wrote the Acmeists’ manifesto, “The Morning of Acmeism” // «Утро акмeизма», in 1913, though it was not published until 1919.
SLIDE 9 – Mandelstam as a young man
The title of his first collection, 'STONE', proclaims Mandelstam’s poetic principles. He found the title “STONE”/ «Камень» in a poem entitled 'A Problem', which had been written in 1833 by Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-1873), one of Russia’s greatest poets of the 19th century.
The poem describes a mysterious Stone in the valley which has fallen there from the mountain.
As Mandelstam proclaims in the Acmeists’ manifesto: “The Acmeists reverently take up the enigmatic Tyutchev stone and set it in the foundation of their building.”
For Mandelstam, stone was the basic building material, just as the word is the basic building material for a poem, and he saw himself as a “builder”. Mandelstam’s habit of thinking of poetry in architectural terms often leads him to write poems about buildings: The Admiralty, Notre Dame and Hagia [Aya] Sophia, to name but three.
Silentium (1910) (1), the first poem we are going to read, is one of the key poems of STONE. The title “Silentium” immediately takes us to the famous poem by Tyutchev of the same name.
In his poem Mandelstam celebrates the moment in time just as Aphrodite is about to be born of the sea-spray: At this point in time, word and music are still one, fused in unbroken unity.
The poem is also a celebration of the advent of Acmeism - with its famous line, which could almost serve as Acmeism's manifesto:
«Останься пеной, Афродита, / и слово в музыку вернись» // “Let Aphrodite become sea-spray again! /Let the word again become music”.
READ Silentium (1)
The First World War broke out in 1914. Mandelstam was exempted from military service and so did not fight in the War. In the period between 1914 and 1917 he lived in the Crimea and also in Petrograd and Moscow. He loved the Crimea because he saw it as an outpost of the ancient classical world. Later he wrote the essay 'Feodosia' about his time in the Crimea.
SLIDE 10 – Marina Tsvtaeva
In 1916 Mandelstam was involved with a poet who was in many ways as extraordinary as himself. This was Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941). As we know, Tsevetaeva emigrated in 1922 but returned to the Soviet Union in 1939, where she committed suicide two years later.
Mandelstam was briefly infatuated with Tsvetaeva throughout 1916. She wrote a number of poems to Mandelstam.
He himself addressed seven poems to Tsvetaeva, including В разноголосице девического хора/ In the polyphony of a girls’ choir (1916)
This poem is also a good illustration of the allusions to or reminiscences of Italy which frequently appear in Mandelstam’s poetry.
There is also a brilliant play on words, when Mandelstam refers to «Флоренция в Москве»// “Florence in Moscow”: Florence (‘Firenze’ in Italian) means 'blooming'; and the root of Tsvetaeva's surname is «цветок» - a bloom.
READ В разноголосице девического хора/ In the polyphony of a girls’ choir (2)
The 1917 Revolution in effect disrupted any literary career Mandelstam might have made for himself.
There is little information about Mandelstam’s activities during and immediately after the Revolution.
SLIDE 11 – Yakov Blyumkin
What we do know about is his encounter with the notorious Yakov Blyumkin, who started first as a Left Socialist-Revolutionary assassin, then became a Bolshevik, Cheka agent and spy.
The following story about Blyumkin and Osip Mandelstam is recounted by Mandelstam’s biographer, Clarence Brown:
"One evening...he was sitting in a cafe and there was the notorious Socialist Revolutionary terrorist Blyumkin, at that time an official of the Cheka, drunkenly copying the names of men and women to be executed on to blank forms already signed by Dzerzhinsky. Mandelstam suddenly threw himself at Blyumkin, seized the lists, tore them to pieces before the stupefied onlookers, then ran out and disappeared'.
For a few years after this event Blyumkin pointed his revolver at Mandelstam every time he met him.
SLIDE 12 - Nadezhda Khazina
In 1919 Mandelstam was living in Kiev. It was in Kiev that he met the artist Nadezhda Khazina. They fell in love and lived together for some months there. By 1920 Mandelstam had returned to what was by then Petrograd.
1922 marked two important events in his life: the publication of his second book of poems, Tristia, and his marriage to Nadezhda. After getting married, they settled in Moscow for two years.
3. PUBLICATION OF “TRISTIA”
SLIDE 13 – facsimile of title-page of first edition of “Tristia”
The title of the 1922 collection was Tristia This is also the title of a collection of verse by the Roman poet, Ovid. Although the title was not of Mandelstam’s choosing, it emphasises his identification with Ovid as an exile and outcast.
Tristia is Mandelstam’s most 'classical' book, if one takes the term as a reference to the culture of Ancient Greece and Rome. The poems are permeated by a lament for the loss of classical culture's system of values and for the lost European cultural tradition.
Poems of infidelity – Olga Arbenina
Throughout his life Mandelstam wrote a number of poems to various women. There is no doubt that he loved his wife, Nadezhda, very deeply. However, on several occasions he fell desperately in love with other women. Each time, it was an inspiration for the writing of poems.
These poems he himself called “изменнические стихи” // “poems of infidelity” and he tried – albeit unsuccessfully - to hide them from his wife.
SLIDE 14 - Olga Arbenina
His infatuations included Olga Arbenina, the beautiful St Petersburg actress who performed at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. Mandelstam fell in love with her during the last months of 1920.
Mandelstam wrote a number of poems with a theatrical theme. Anna Akhmatova claimed that everything connected with the theatre, in Mandelstam’s poetry, had something to do with Olga Arbenina.
The poem we are now going to read, “Я наравне с другими / хочу тебе служить // I want to serve you, / As an equal with the others is a touching love poem. The poem is overpowering in its rhythmic effect.
READ Poem (3) (1920)
Я наравне с другими / Хочу тебе служить //
As an equal with the others / I want to serve you
SLIDE (15) – TRISTIA [Slide 13 again]
The religious element in Mandelstam’s poetry
As already mentioned, Mandelstam was brought up in a Jewish family. However, he considered that European civilisation would not have been possible without Christianity - which in turn would not have been possible without Judaism.
Thus, he regarded Judaeo-Christian values, along with Graeco-Roman culture, as the foundation of European civilisation.
While Mandelstam was proud of his Jewish heritage, he had nevertheless formally converted to the Protestant faith. Christianity was important to him for the moral and cultural values it represented. The theme of Christianity is dealt with in Tristia and also in his prose work, including his pamphlet Fourth Prose and various articles.
For example, in the article, “The Word and Culture”, published in 1921, Mandelstam wrote: «Теперь всякий культурный человек - христианин»/ “Now every cultured person is a Christian”.
This thought is confirmed in many poems of the period. A good example of this is the poem «Люблю под сводами седыя тишины» //“Under these vaults of eternal silence” (1921).
This poem, which was written in 1921, mentions St. Isaac's and two other great cathedrals of the Christian religion: Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and St. Peter’s in Rome. Mandelstam uses an astonishing metaphor when describing these cathedrals – “Storehouses of air and light // Granaries of universal good // And threshing-barns of the New Testament.”
The final stanza contains a quotation from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
«Зане свободен раб, преодолевший страх»
“Because the slave who conquers his fear//Becomes a free man”.
We will now READ this poem. (4)
Also in 1921 Mandelstam wrote a poem entitled “Концерт на вокзале» // 'Concert at the Station'. In 1928 it became the opening poem in his last book of poetry published during his life-time.
At a superficial level, in this poem Mandelstam is recollecting the traditional pre-Revolutionary summer concerts in the Pavlovsk station-building. But like many of Mandelstam’s poems, this poem is to be understood on different levels. First, the date when it was written – 1921 - is significant.
It was in 1921 that the Bolshevik regime brutally suppressed the Kronstadt Rebellion. After this, the intelligentsia could no longer have any illusions about the ruthless lengths to which the Bolsheviks would go to eliminate opposition.
1921 was also the year of the tragic deaths of Alexander Blok, in August 1921, and of Nikolai Gumilyev, who was suddenly arrested and executed by the regime on trumped-up charges, also in August 1921.
SLIDE 16 - Nikolai Gumilyev
Gumilyev was a close friend of Mandelstam and they were of like minds [«единомышленники»], and Osip Emilievich coudn't not react to his loss.
In the wake of Gumilyev's death, Mandelstam wrote two poems. 'Concert at the Station' is one of them. The poem is written, in the well-established tradition in Russian literature, on “The Death of A Poet”.
The poem begins with an allusion to Pushkin's last words “Impossible to breath” and Lermontov's line «И звезда с звездою говорит»// “And star calls out to star”.
But Mandelstam, by contrast, states: And not a single star speaks out.”
He ends the poem with mourning and lament for Gumilyev’s “dear shadow”, so the imagined Concert at Pavlovsk Station becomes a “funeral feast” - «тризна» - and requiem for his lost friend and fellow poet.
Concert at the Station is also a heart-rending lament for a lost culture, as well as a terrifying metaphorical depiction of the oppressiveness of the Soviet environment: «В последний раз нам музыка звучит» // “For the last time the music sounds for us.”
READ Concert at the Station – (5)
In the 1920s Mandelstam became the victim of recriminations from the newly empowered communists. He found it increasingly difficult to publish his work.
SLIDE 17 – Cover of 'The Noise of Time'
Despite this, in 1925 he managed to publish «Шум времени» // The Noise of Time, a collection of autobiographical essays. Donald Rayfield described The Noise of Time as “a haunting evocation of the cultural influences ... on the adolescent [Mandelstam].”
Another poem of infidelity – Olga Vaksel
SLIDE 18 – Olga Vaksel
In 1925 Osip and Nadezhda moved to Leningrad from Moscow. It was about this time that Mandelstam fell in love with Olga Vaksel.
Of all Mandelstam’s infatuations, the one with Olga Vaksel was the most powerful. He wrote two love poems to her in 1925 and two more in 1935, when he learnt about her death by suicide.
A love poem to Olga Vaksel is the last poem in the last collection of poetry Mandelstam published in his life-time, in 1928 - the book “Poems”. This poem also portrays, in a frightening and sombre way, the incoming darkness of Soviet reality.
Darkness descended on him personally for the next five years. During this period he did not compose any poetry.
However, in 1928 he managed to publish three books. One of them was The Egyptian Stamp// гипетская марка», a surreal novella about the sufferings of a Russian Jew.
The two other publications were his third verse collection, Poems; and On Poetry, a collection of brilliant critical essays.
4. PUBLICATION OF POEMS/ СТИХОТВОРЕНИЯ (1928)
SLIDE 19 – facsimile of title-page of first edition of «Стихотворения»
Mandelstam’s third collection - and (as I’ve just said) the last one published during his life-time - consisted of (i) Камень/Stone, (ii) Tristia, and (iii) the third section, - poems written between 1921 and 1925.
5. PERIOD FROM 1925 – 1930: including GORNFELD FFAIR
and “FOURTH PROSE”/ «ЧЕТВЁРТАЯ ПРОЗА»
So, by 1928 Mandelstam's three books had seen the light of day, but he discovered that literary journals were now unwilling to publish his work, the spirit of which was utterly opposite to the stance expected from a Soviet writer.
And on top of this, after 1925 he was simply unable to write poetry.
He did write poems for children, and also supported himself by translating the novels of Western writers (19 books in six years!) and by revising translations of foreign novels, and by occasional journalism. In 1923, for example, he had interviewed the young Ho Chi Minh.
Gornfeld Affair : 1928 – 1930
It was his translation work which led to what became known as “the Gornfeld Affair”.
Mandelstam was given the task of revising a translation by Arkady Gornfeld of the novel by Charles de Coster, Till Eulenspiegel. He was then, totally unfairly and unjustly, accused of having plagiarised Gornfeld’s translation.
“Fourth Prose” – «Четвёртая Проза»
This experience understandably made him feel very bitter and prompted him to write “Fourth Prose” – “Четвёртая Проза”. It bore this title, because it was written after his prose works: “The Noise of Time,” “Feodosia” and “The Egyptian Stamp”.
Fourth Prose was published in the USSR only in 1988. It is a furious feuilleton or pamphlet directed against the literary establishment, and a masterful polemic against “authorised” literature.
Simultaneously, it is also a glorious tribute to genuine truth in literature and to faith in humanity.
6. 1930 – VISIT to Armenia; Farewell to Leningrad
I’ve mentioned the uneasy relationship Mandelstam had with the Soviet regime.
However, he had one powerful protector, Nikolay Bukharin, a member of the Politburo and head of the Comintern.
It was also thanks to Bukharin that Osip and Nadezhda were able to visit Armenia for eight months in 1930.
SLIDE 20 – ARMENIA (1)
Mandelstam ventured on this visit as a kind of escape from the hostile environment he found himself in. Moreover, he had long been interested in Armenia, and in its language and history. He deeply admired the country.
According to Nadezhda, he attached great symbolic value to Armenia as a source of Hellenistic/ humanistic and Judaeo-Christian values. He regarded it in effect as the cradle of civilisation.
SLIDE 21 – ARMENIA (2)
This visit led to the writing of the prose work, “Путешествие в Армению”//“Journey to Armenia”, which was miraculously published in 1933 in the Leningrad literary magazine, “Звезда” (“The Star”).
It was the last publication which appeared during Mandelstam’s life-time – that is, apart from the “Armenia” cycle of poems, and the poem “Leningrad”, which I’ll mention shortly.
Also, after his time in Armenia’ Osip Mandelstam miraculously found that he was once again able to write poetry. The cycle of poems, “АРМЕНИЯ” // “ARMENIA,” (published in 1931, in Novy Mir), is the direct result of this journey and ended the poet’s five-year silence.
We will now READ one of the poems of this cycle: No. (6)
“Я тебя никогда не увижу…”
(“I shall never see you again…”) (1930)
SLIDE 22 – Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam in the 1930s
On their return from Armenia, Osip and Nadezhda went first to Moscow and then to Leningrad, where they had hoped to settle. However, an official of the writers’ organisation, the poet Tikhonov, rejected Mandelstam's application.
Before he left Leningrad, Mandelstam wrote a number of poems on the theme of the city. One of these is titled «Ленинград»/ “Leningrad” (7).
This poem was written in December 1930, and immediately hand-written copies started being circulated. In order to stop this “samizdat,” it was decided to publish it in the main Leningrad magazine.
READ Poem (7) “Я вернулся в мой город, знакомый до слёз...”
// “I’ve returned to my city of childhood illnesses and tears”
7. LIFE IN MOSCOW 1931 – 1934
Not allowed to settle in Leningrad, the Mandelstams had to go to Moscow.
“Constant searching for some shelter, unsatisfied hunger for thought,” – the poet wrote in January 1931 on his 40th birthday, summing up the conditions of his life.
The search for shelter was met by the assignment of three small and squalid rooms in the Writers’ Union building, where the Mandelstams lived until the autumn of 1933.
SLIDE 23 – Mandelstam in the 1930s
The hunger for thought was assuaged by the poet’s reading of Dante – who, as I will be discussing later, was particularly precious to him - and by increasing creative activity. The poems which Mandelstam wrote in Moscow - between 1931 and 1934 - make up the collection known as “The Moscow Notebooks” // “Московские тетради”, which was published posthumously more than 50 years later.
“Волк” // “The Wolf” (8)
After the “Armenia” cycle of poems appeared in print (Novy Mir, March 1931), Mandelstam’s name as a poet gained new resonance, although the poems he now wrote could only be circulated privately. In March 1931 he wrote one of his most dangerous poems: “For the thundering glory of ages to come...”(8), known familiarly as “Волк” (”The Wolf”).
This poem is itself part of the so-called “Wolf” cycle. It reflects Mandelstam’s state of mind in Moscow at this time.
In no sense was Mandelstam a political poet, nor did he have any developed political awareness.
But he was acutely sensitive to his environment. He could not help but record these “sensations” in poetic form. “The Wolf” is a recognition by Mandelstam himself that such a recording was what he had to do - almost as if this were against his will.
The poem is extraordinary powerful, with enormous force compressed into its four stanzas. The poet [refers to] [brings out the image of?] the “wolf-hound age” (век-волкодав), which “hurls itself on his shoulders”.
The wolf-hound would normally be thought of as pursuing and killing the wolf. However, the poet asserts that he is “no wolf by his blood.” It is because of this – and the fact that Mandelstam is living in a totally different dimension from “the wolf-hound age” – that he cannot be destroyed by a (mere) wolf-hound: only his “equal” can silence him.
READ Poem (8) “За гремучую доблесть грядущих веков…”
(“For the thundering glory of ages to come..” )
«Александр Герцович»// “Alexander Gerzowitz” (9)
Another poem which Mandelstam also wrote in March 1931 is his eloquent poem, «Жил Александр Герцович»//“There lived Alexander Gerzowitz”. This is at first sight a light-hearted, humorous poem, parodying Lermontov’s “Молитва” (“A Prayer”), but it also has a deeper and, indeed, darker side to it.
The immediate inspirational source of the poem traces back to the incredibly cramped conditions of the communal flat where the Mandelstams stayed for several months. In the neighbouring room [!] two music pupils played the piano incessantly. 'Alexander Gerzowitz' was the real name of one of the residents of the communal flat.
At a superficial level, the poem seems like a running joke on its hapless hero’s name. The original puns on the Russian for “heart”, «сердце». So Alexander Gerzovitz becomes Александр Сердцeвич = in English Alexander Heartsovitch, before finally being transformed into Alexander Scherzowitz .
As I’ve already mentioned, the poem bears a close similarity to Lermontov’s «Молитва» (“A Prayer”).
However, in Lermontov’s poem, the prayer, repeated by heart, helps one to overcome the “difficult moments of life”. The poem radiates hope.
By contrast, for Alexander Gerzovitz, the Schubert sonata which he plays over and over again by heart is his last refuge, a consolation before death:
“Нам с музыкой-голубою
Не страшно умереть”
“With our beloved music
We’re not afraid to die,”
READ Poem (9) - Александр Герцович/Alexander Gerzowitz
Conversation About Dante / Разговор о Данте
I have already mentioned Mandelstam’s interest in Dante. This was especially strong throughout the 1930s. Anticipating his arrest, the poet obtained an edition of “The Divine Comedy” in small format (in the Italian original) and always had it with him in his pocket.
His immersion in Dante’s poetry and meditation on the Italian poet’s creative method resulted in the essay, “Conversation About Dante” («Разговор о Данте»). It was written during the spring/summer of 1933 in Koktebel in the Crimea, but was not published in the Soviet Union until 1967.
The essay is a statement of Mandelstam’s own poetics and a study of Dante viewed through the lens of a fellow-outcast.
Sargidzhan Affair
Another incident illustrates Mandelstam’s complete estrangement from the literary establishment at the time. This is the so-called“Sargidzhan Affair”.
What happened is this. Mandelstam had complained to the Writers’ Union about the writer, Sergey Borodin, whose pen-name was Amir Sargidzhan. Borodin/Sargidzhan had failed to repay a debt to Mandelstam and had also physically assaulted both him and his wife.
SLIDE 24 – Mandelstam and Alexei Tolstoy
In 1933 the matter was referred to a so-called “comrades’ court”, presided over by the writer Alexey Tolstoy. Unfortunately, Tolstoy decided the matter totally in favour of Sargidzhan. The case became an obsession for Mandelstam, who deeply resented his treatment by Alexey Tolstoy.
The denouement was a scene worthy of Gogol or Dostoevsky. Mandelstam walked up to Alexey Tolstoy at the Writers’ Institute in Leningrad and, to the utter stupefaction of all present, slapped the enormous man across the face, saying: “I have punished the hangman who ordered the beating of my wife”.
This incident can hardly have helped Mandelstam’s standing either with the literary establishment or with the authorities.
SLIDE 25 - Mandelstam in the 1930s [repeat of Slide 23]
«Мы живём, под собою не чуя страны» (1933)
But Mandelstam’s most unforgivable crime against the Soviet regime was his satirical epigram about Stalin: “Мы живём, под собою не чуя страны” (“We live, but no longer feel the land under our feet. It was the writing of this poem in November 1933 - No. (8) - that led to his first arrest, in May 1934.
I say “writing”, but the poem was of course too dangerous to write down. Emma Gerstein in her “Moscow Memoirs” describes how Nadezhda invited her to their flat, specifically so that she could hear Mandelstam recite the poem, so that she could memorise it. Gerstein subsequently learnt that Osip had also recited the poem to others – one of whom must have denounced him to the NKVD.
The poem brilliantly conveys the utter moral deformity of Stalin and his surrounding court of “of scrawny-necked henchmen.”
It presents a terrifying picture of the evil of absolute power, repugnant both morally and aesthetically.
We will now READ this Poem [No. (10)]
8. 1934 - 8: Arrest, exile, sickness, death
SLIDE 26 - NKVD archive photo
Lubyanka: traumatic effect of arrest and interrogation;
Cherdyn – suicide attempt
The NKVD arrested Mandelstam on 13 May 1934. They searched his flat, and confiscated all his papers, including his unpublished poems. He was imprisoned at the Lubyanka and interrogated there. Mandelstam’s sudden arrest was for him, as for anybody, a terrible and frightening experience: it traumatised and distorted the poet's whole existence. We will probably never know what was done to him in the depths of the Lubyanka.
SLIDE 27 – Mandelstam at the Lubyanka
Mandelstam had been initially sentenced to hard labour at the White Sea Canal (which would have been tantamount to a death sentence). However, following Bukharin’s intervention – and appeal by Boris Pasternak - this was commuted to a sentence of three years’ exile in Cherdyn, a small town in the Urals. Nadezhda accompanied him there.
He had not been very long in Cherdyn before he attempted to commit suicide by throwing himself from a hospital window. He had, it appears, already tried to commit suicide while in prison in the Lubyanka, by slashing his wrists with a razor-blade he had concealed in his boot.
Following the telegram which Nadezhda sent to the Party's Central Committee and a further intervention by Bukharin, Mandelstam was permitted to “choose” an alternative place of exile.
Mandelstam chose Voronezh for three reasons. First, it lay in the European part of Russia. Secondly, it had an association with the 19th century poets, Nikitin and Kol'tsov. And, finally, it was in Voronezh that Mandelstam’s article, «Утро акмеизма» // “The Morning of Acmeism”), had been published in 1919.
Voronezh; “The Voronezh Notebooks”
SLIDE 28 - Mandelstam in the 1930s [repeat of Slides 23 and 25]
In the wake of his sudden arrest and terrifying experiences in the Lyubanka and in Cherdyn, the poet had descended into the deepest personal abyss. Nevertheless, despite all this, and despite his precarious legal position (and inability to earn any money by writing), in Voronezh Mandelstam was to experience another period of great poetic creativity.
He filled three school exercise-books with the poems he composed during this period. These poems were also published posthumously - many years later, with the title «Воронежские тетради» (“The Voronezh Notebooks”). This was his last and loftiest outpouring of poetry.
The poems Mandelstam wrote in Voronezh are among his finest. They express a visionary intensity and a deep pathos, which are heightened by a sense of nervous foreboding. As with his earlier verse, there is a sense of constant alienation from the present age, which is seen as diseased and nightmarish.
The majority of the poems, in one way or another, touch on the theme of high art or European culture, and on his place of exile, the winter landscapes of which appear time and again in the Voronezh poems.
Poem To The Unknown Soldier // Стихи о Неизвестном солдате
It was in Voronezh that Mandelstam wrote «Стихи о Неизвестном солдате» (“Poem To The Unknown Soldier”, February/March 1937). [Poem (11) – excerpt (last 11 lines) to be read.]
This poem is a major piece of work and stands at the very height of Mandelstam’s creative achievement. I cannot possibly do justice to such a complex and magnificent poem in the course of a [50-minute] talk. I will mention just one or two features. In this work the poet appears before the reader as both “judge and witness” of his epoch.
In the words of Nadezhda (in “Hope Abandoned”), in ‘Poem To The Unknown Soldier' Mandelstam speaks not of his own death, but of the coming of an entire era of wholesale annihilation – when everyone dies “herded with the herd” // «с гурьбой и гуртом» - and when everyone becomes an “unknown soldier”, the author himself among them – hence the title of the poem.
In this poem Mandelstam uncannily prophesied a number of things which have already come to pass. These included foreseeing his own fate and predicting the immortality of his poetry.
Section 8: last 11 lines (Poem No. 11)
That prediction of the immortality of his poetry appears in the last stanza, where Mandelstam in effect casts himself as a representative of his whole generation. We will now read the last stanza [11 lines] from this work. (11)
SLIDE 29 - picture of Nadezhda Mandelstam in the 1930s
I would like to emphasise that Mandelstam wrote a number of striking love poems to his wife. One such example is the poem, «О как же я хочу» // “O how I wish” (22 March 1937), which is a beautiful lullaby dedicated to Nadezhda.
It is touching and haunting in its simplicity. Both the purity of feeling in the original and the powerful rhythm of the poetry are brilliantly captured in the late Chair of the Pushkin Club Richard McKane’s translation.
READ Poem (12) О как же я хочу // O how I wish
The next poem we are going to read is also a love poem and is the last poem which Mandelstam composed in Voronezh. This poem - «К пустой земле невольно припадая» //“Involuntarily inclined to the bare earth” (4 May 1937) [Poem No. 13] – was addressed to Natasha Shtempel'.
SLIDE 30 – Natasha Shtempel’
Natalya Shtempel’ was a school-teacher who befriended the Mandelstams in Voronezh. She became in fact Mandelstam’s only close friend and confidante there, and she greatly appreciated his poetry. It was a relationship of true friendship rather than any sort of romantic infatuation.
Natasha Shtempel walked with a slight limp, and the rhythm of the opening lines of the poem – quite remarkably (!) – imitates her limping gait.
It is a wonderful love poem by any standards. Mandelstam himself said of this poem: «Это самое лучшее, что я написал» (“This is the best poem I have ever written”).
Anna Akhmatova was very jealous of the poem and commented: «Написать такие стихи какой-то Наташе!» // “To write SUCH a poem to some Natasha!”
READ Poem (13) «К пустой земле невольно припадая» //(“Involuntarily inclined to the bare earth”
May 1937 : End of exile ; Return to Moscow region
SLIDE 31 – The Mandelstams after their return from Voronezh (1937)
On 16th May 1937 the poet’s three-year exile to Voronezh ended and the Mandelstams returned to Moscow. They were immediately informed that Mandelstam was a «лишенец», i.e. denied the right – amongst other things - to live in Moscow. They eventually settled in Kalinin, now Tver'.
Mandelstam’s health deteriorated further during this period. In the autumn of 1937 he had one or two heart attacks. In March 1938 the Literary Foundation arranged for the couple to stay in the sanatorium at Samatikha, to the south-east of Moscow.
April 1938 : Second arrest ; death in December 1938
On 30 April 1938 Mandelstam was arrested there. He was held for several months at the Lubyanka before being sentenced to five years’ hard labour “for counter-revolutionary activities.”
Osip Mandelstam was subsequently sent to a transit prison-camp near Vladivostock, where he died of cold and starvation in appalling and harrowing circumstances. He was buried with many others in an unmarked, communal pit. An official death certificate was issued two years later in 1940. That simply said that Mandelstam died there of “heart failure” on 27 December 1938.
Mandelstam was formally rehabilitated in 1956, but his poems were not allowed to appear in the Soviet Union until 1974, and then only in an edition intended primarily for sale abroad.
11. NADEZHDA MANDELSTAM
SLIDE 32 - picture of Nadezhda Mandelstam in the 1930s [Slide 29 again]
The survival of about 200 poems which Mandelstam wrote after 1930, the poet’s own survival after his 1934 arrest, and (until more recently) virtually all our information about his later life, are due to the extraordinary woman who joined her fortunes with his in 1919.
It is thanks to the determination and courage of Nadezhda Mandelstam that the 200 poems which her husband wrote after 1930 were preserved for posterity, along with his prose work. Nadezhda hid manuscripts and memorised poems and prose in case all copies were destroyed.
As Mikhail Bulgakov so tellingly wrote: «Рукописи не горят!» // “Manuscripts don’t burn!”
9. CONCLUSION
SLIDE 33 – Osip Mandelstam [Slide 1 again]
In conclusion - through the “black velvet of the Soviet night” – сквозь «чёрный бархат советской ночи» – Osip Mandelstam shines as a beacon of civilisation, and of the very highest cultural, aesthetic and moral values. His life and work are a triumphant affirmation of the human spirit.
As Iosif Brodsky said in his Essay 'Son of Civilisation':
«ОН ТРУДИЛСЯ В ПОЭЗИИ ТРИДЦАТЬ ЛЕТ, И СОЗДАННОЕ ИМ СОХРАНИТСЯ, ПОКА СУЩЕСТВУЕТ РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК.» //
“HE WROTE POEMS FOR 30 YEARS, AND HIS POETRY WILL REMAIN AS LONG AS THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE CONTINUES TO EXIST.”
There is no sense in making of Osip Mandelstam a champion of human rights or activist fighter against the totalitarian regime. However, nobody can say that he was lacking in courage or was unable to take action.
In 1928 he had learned from a chance conversation on the street that five elderly bank officials – specialists left over from the ancien regime – had been sentenced to death for (alleged) embezzlement or negligence.
Much to his friends’ and his own surprise, Mandelstam raised such a hue and cry over all Moscow that the five men were saved.
Perhaps they were saved as a result of his decisive move to send Bukharin his book 'Poems' // «Стихотворения»,with the ominous inscription:
“Every line in this book argues against what you plan to do”.
He mentions this episode obliquely in his work «Четвёртая проза» (Fourth Prose).
So, Osip Mandelstam fulfilled his duty as a poet, prophet and human being, in an epoch of unprecedented horror and died, sharing the fate of millions of his fellow citizens.
As a last desperate measure of salvation, in January/February 1937, Mandelstam wrote a poem entitled “ODE TO STALIN” («СТИХИ О СТАЛИНЕ») (14). However, he was unable to produce anything like a eulogy of the dictator. In the event, the poem did not help him, and it was not accepted for publishing.
Our final reading is going to be of a four-line excerpt from this poem. Nadezhda believed that Mandelstam in fact wrote these four lines separately and then - out of context - incorporated them into the “Ode to Stalin”.
In the first two lines of the excerpt, Mandelstam notes how, along with all the other ordinary people who are “marching faraway”, he is made to “grow smaller”... .
However, in the final two lines, he strikes a distinct note of hope, that he will arise from the dead and return to life. I believe that these lines, which resonate with renewed meaning today, show his deep certainty that the spirit of the poet will outlive that of the tyrant.
SLIDES 34 + 35 – Monument to Mandelstam (2nd one with the candle)
READ (extract from) Poem (14) (1937)
[«УХОДЯТ ВДАЛЬ ЛЮДСКИХ ГОЛОВ БУГРЫ» //
“The crowds march away – people’s heads become small mounds”]
[N.B. I won’t say this opening line when announcing that we’re going to read the extract.]
AFTER READING OF LAST POEM
SHOW SLIDE 36 – portrait of Osip Mandelstam [repeat of Slides 1 and 33]
David Brummell