Childhood and education
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born on January 3 (15), 1891 in Warsaw into a Jewish family. The father of the future poet was a glove maker and merchant. In 1897, the future Osip Emilievich moved to St. Petersburg with his family.
In 1900, Mandelstam entered the Tenishev School. In 1907, he attended lectures at St. Petersburg University for several months. In 1908, Osip Emilievich left for France and entered the Sorbonne and Heidelberg University. During this period, Mandelstam, whose biography as a writer was just beginning, attended lectures by J. Bedier, A. Bergson, and became interested in the works of C. Baudelaire, P. Verlaine, F. Villon.
In 1911, due to the difficult financial situation of the family, Mandelstam had to return to St. Petersburg. He entered the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, but did not take his studies seriously, so he never completed the course.
Biography
early years
Osip Mandelstam
born on January 15, 1891 in Warsaw into a Jewish family. Father, Emil Veniaminovich (Emil, Khaskl, Khatskel Beniaminovich) Mandelstam (1856-1938), was a master glove maker and a member of the first guild of merchants, which gave him the right to live outside the Pale of Settlement, despite his Jewish origin. Mother, Flora Ovseevna Verblovskaya (1866-1916), was a musician. In 1896 the family was assigned to Kovno.
In 1897, the Mandelstam family moved to St. Petersburg. Osip was educated at the Tenishevsky School (graduated in 1907), a Russian forge of “cultural personnel” at the beginning of the 20th century.
In August 1907, he applied for admission as a volunteer to the natural department of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of St. Petersburg University, but, having taken the documents from the office, he left for Paris in October.
In 1908-1910, Mandelstam studied at the Sorbonne and the University of Heidelberg. At the Sorbonne he attends lectures by A. Bergson and J. Bedier at the Collège de France. He meets Nikolai Gumilyov and is fascinated by French poetry: Old French epic, François Villon, Baudelaire and Verlaine.
In between trips abroad, he visits St. Petersburg, where he attends lectures on poetry at the “tower” by Vyacheslav Ivanov.
By 1911, the family began to go bankrupt and studying in Europe became impossible. In order to bypass the quota for Jews when entering St. Petersburg University, Mandelstam was baptized by a Methodist pastor in Vyborg.
Studies
On September 10, 1911, he was enrolled in the Romano-Germanic department of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University, where he studied intermittently until 1917. He studies carelessly and does not complete the course.
In 1911, he met Anna Akhmatova and visited the Gumilyov couple.
The first publication was the magazine “Apollo”, 1910, No. 9. He was also published in the magazines “Hyperborea”, “New Satyricon”, etc.
Since November 1911, he regularly participates in meetings of the Workshop of Poets. In 1912 he met A. Blok. At the end of the same year he became a member of the Acmeist group.
He considered his friendship with the Acmeists (Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev) to be one of the main successes of his life.
Portrait of Mandelstam. L. A. Bruni (1916)
The poetic searches of this period were reflected in the debut book of poems “Stone” (three editions: 1913, 1916 and 1923, the contents varied). He is in the center of poetic life, regularly reads poetry in public, visits the “Stray Dog”, gets acquainted with futurism, becomes close to Benedict Livshits.
In 1915, he met Anastasia Tsvetaeva and Marina Tsvetaeva; a rapprochement with Marina occurred in 1916.
In Soviet Russia
After the October Revolution, he worked in newspapers, in the People's Commissariat for Education, traveled around the country, published in newspapers, performed poetry, and gained success.
In 1919, in Kyiv, he met his future wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna Khazina. During the Civil War he wanders with his wife around Russia, Ukraine, Georgia; was arrested by the White Guards in Crimea. He had the opportunity to flee with the whites to Turkey from Crimea, but, like Voloshin, he chose to remain in Soviet Russia. Moves to Petrograd, settles in the House of Arts. N. Chukovsky, who knew him closely, left the following memories of him from this period: “Mandelshtam was a short man, lean, well-built, with a thin face and kind eyes. He was already noticeably bald, and this apparently bothered him...” While in Ukraine, Mandelstam may have been in contact with a group of Ukrainian neoclassicists (modern literary scholars have noted some similarities between the poetics of the neoclassics and Mandelstam).
In 1922 he registered his marriage with Nadezhda Yakovlevna Khazina. Meets Boris Pasternak.
Poems from the time of the First World War and the Revolution (1916-1920) made up the second book “Tristia” (“Mournful Elegies”, the title goes back to Ovid), published in 1922 in Berlin.
In 1923, the “Second Book” was published with a general dedication to “N. X." - to my wife. In 1922, the article “On the Nature of Word” was published as a separate brochure in Kharkov.
From May 1925 to October 1930 there was a pause in poetic creativity. At this time, prose was written, to the “Noise of Time” created in 1923 (the title plays on Blok’s metaphor “music of time”), the story “The Egyptian Brand” (1927), varying Gogol’s motifs, was added. He makes his living by translating poetry.
In 1928, the last lifetime collection of poetry, “Poems,” was published, as well as a book of his selected articles, “On Poetry.”
Business trips to the Caucasus
In 1930 he finished work on the “Fourth Prose”. N. Bukharin is concerned about Mandelstam’s business trip to Armenia. In Erivan, the poet meets the scientist, theoretical biologist Boris Kuzin, and a close friendship develops between them. The meeting is described by Mandelstam in “Travel to Armenia.” N. Ya. Mandelstam believed that this meeting turned out to be “fate for all three. Without her, Osya often said, perhaps there would be no poems.” Mandelstam later wrote about Kuzin: “My new prose and the entire last period of my work are imbued with his personality. To him and only to him I owe the fact that I introduced the so-called period into literature. "mature Mandelstam." After traveling to the Caucasus (Armenia, Sukhum, Tiflis), Osip Mandelstam returned to writing poetry.
Mandelstam's poetic gift reaches its peak, but it is almost never published. The intercession of B. Pasternak and N. Bukharin gives the poet small breaks in everyday life.
He independently studies the Italian language, reads the Divine Comedy in the original. The programmatic poetological essay “Conversation about Dante” was written in 1933. Mandelstam discusses it with A. Bely.
In Literaturnaya Gazeta, Pravda, and Zvezda, devastating articles were published in connection with the publication of Mandelstam’s “Travel to Armenia” (Zvezda, 1933, No. 5).
Arrests, exile and death
In November 1933, Osip Mandelstam wrote an anti-Stalin epigram, “We live without feeling the country beneath us,” which he reads to fifteen people.
Boris Pasternak called this act suicide:
One day, while walking along the streets, they wandered into some deserted outskirts of the city in the Tverskiye-Yamskiye area; Pasternak remembered the creaking of dray carts as the background sound. Here Mandelstam read to him about the Kremlin highlander. After listening, Pasternak said: “What you read to me has nothing to do with literature or poetry. This is not a literary fact, but an act of suicide that I do not approve of and in which I do not want to take part. You didn’t read anything to me, I didn’t hear anything, and I ask you not to read them to anyone else.”
One of the listeners reported on Mandelstam. The investigation into the case was led by Nikolai Shivarov.
Prison photo, May 17, 1934
On the night of May 13-14, 1934, Mandelstam was arrested and sent into exile in Cherdyn (Perm region). Osip Mandelstam is accompanied by his wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna. In Cherdyn, Osip Mandelstam attempts suicide (throws himself out of a window). Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam writes to all Soviet authorities and to all her acquaintances. With the assistance of Nikolai Bukharin, as a result of interference in the matter of Stalin himself, Mandelstam is allowed to independently choose a place for settlement. The Mandelstams choose Voronezh. They live in poverty, and are occasionally helped financially by a few friends who have not given up. From time to time O. E. Mandelstam works part-time at a local newspaper and in the theater. Close people visit them, Nadezhda Yakovlevna’s mother, artist V.N. Yakhontov, Anna Akhmatova. Here he writes the famous cycle of poems (the so-called “Voronezh Notebooks”).
In May 1937, the term of exile ends, and the poet unexpectedly receives permission to leave Voronezh. He and his wife return to Moscow for a short while. In a 1938 statement by the secretary of the USSR Writers' Union, Vladimir Stavsky, addressed to the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N.I. Yezhov, it was proposed to “resolve the issue of Mandelstam”; his poems were called “obscene and slanderous.” Joseph Prut and Valentin Kataev were named in the letter as having “spoken sharply” in defense of Osip Mandelstam.
Mandelstam after his arrest in 1938. Photo of the NKVD
At the beginning of March 1938, the Mandelstam spouses moved to the Samatikha trade union health resort (Egoryevsky district of the Moscow region, now assigned to the Shatura district). There, on the night of May 1-2, 1938, Osip Emilievich was arrested a second time and taken to the Cherusti railway station, which was located 25 kilometers from Samatikha. From there he was taken to the NKVD Internal Prison. Soon he was transferred to Butyrka prison.
On July 20, the indictment was confirmed as follows:
The investigation into the case established that Mandelstam O.E., despite the fact that he was forbidden to live in Moscow after serving his sentence, often came to Moscow, stayed with his friends, tried to influence public opinion in his favor by deliberately demonstrating his “distress » position and painful condition. Anti-Soviet elements among writers used Mandelstam for the purposes of hostile agitation, making him a “sufferer”, and organized money collections for him among writers. At the time of his arrest, Mandelstam maintained close contact with the enemy of the people Stenich, Kibalchich until the latter was expelled from the USSR, etc. A medical examination recognized O. E. Mandelstam as a psychopathic person with a tendency to obsessive thoughts and fantasies. Accused of conducting anti-Soviet agitation, that is, of crimes provided for under Art. 58-10 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. The case against O. E. Mandelstam is subject to consideration by the Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR.
On August 2, a Special Meeting of the NKVD of the USSR sentenced Mandelstam to five years in a forced labor camp.
On September 8, he was sent by convoy to the Far East.
From the Vladperpunkt transit camp (Vladivostok), he sent the last letter in his life to his brother and wife:
Dear Shura!
I am located in Vladivostok, SVITL, barrack 11. Got 5 years for k.r. d. by decision of the CCA. The stage left Moscow, Butyrki, on September 9, and arrived on October 12. Health is very poor. Extremely exhausted. He's emaciated, almost unrecognizable. But I don’t know if it makes sense to send things, food and money. Try it anyway. I’m very cold without things. Dear Nadinka, I don’t know if you’re alive, my darling. You, Shura, write to me about Nadya right now. This is the transit point. They didn’t take me to Kolyma. Possible wintering.
My dear ones, I kiss you.
Osya.
Shurochka, I’m still writing. I've been going to work the last few days and it's lifted my spirits.
They send us from our camp as a transit camp to permanent camps. I obviously fell into the “dropout” category, and I need to prepare for the winter.
And I ask: send me a radiogram and money by telegraph.
On December 27, 1938, just short of his 48th birthday, Osip Mandelstam died in a transit camp. (Varlam Shalamov indicates that Mandelstam could have died on December 25-26. In Shalamov’s story “Sherry Brandy” we are talking about the last days of the unnamed poet. After the poet’s death, for about two more days, prisoners in the barracks received rations for him as if he were alive - common at that time time in the camps practice Based on indirect signs and the title of the story, we can conclude that the story was written about the last days of Osip Mandelstam). Until spring, Mandelstam’s body, along with the other deceased, lay unburied. Then the entire “winter stack” was buried in a mass grave.
Researchers of the poet’s work also note that “a sense of tragic death permeates Mandelstam’s poems.” A foreknowledge of his own fate was a poem by the Georgian poet N. Mitsishvili translated by Mandelstam back in 1921:
When I fall to die under a fence in some hole, And there is nowhere for my soul to escape from the cast-iron cold - I will politely and quietly leave. I'll blend in with the shadows imperceptibly. And the dogs will take pity on me, kissing me under the dilapidated fence. There will be no procession. Violets will not decorate me, And the maidens will not scatter flowers over the black grave...
From a letter from N. Mandelstam addressed to L. Beria dated January 19, 1939:
I ask you: 1. To assist in the review of the case of O. E. Mandelstam and find out whether there were sufficient grounds for arrest and exile.
2. Check the mental health of O. E. Mandelstam and find out whether the exile was natural in this sense.
3. Finally, check to see if there was any personal interest in this link. And also - to find out not a legal, but rather a moral question: whether the NKVD had enough grounds to destroy the poet and master during the period of his active and friendly poetic activity.
The death certificate of O. E. Mandelstam was presented to his brother Alexander in June 1940 by the Civil Registry Office of the Baumansky district of Moscow.
Rehabilitated posthumously: in the 1938 case - in 1956, in the 1934 case - in 1987.
The location of the poet's grave is still unknown exactly. The probable burial place is the old fortress moat along the Saperka River (hidden in a pipe), now an alley on the street. Vostretsova in the urban district of Vladivostok - Morgorodok.
The beginning of creative activity
In 1910, Osip Emilievich's poems were first published in the St. Petersburg magazine Apollo. Mandelstam's early work gravitates towards the symbolist tradition.
Having met Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova, Mandelstam became a regular participant in the meetings of the “Workshop of Poets.”
In 1913, the poet’s debut collection of poems, “Stone,” was published, which was then completed and republished in 1916 and 1921. At this time, Mandelstam took an active part in the literary life of St. Petersburg, met B. Livshits, Marina Tsvetaeva.
In 1914, an important event occurred in Mandelstam’s short biography - the writer was elected a member of the All-Russian Literary Society. In 1918, the poet collaborated with the newspapers “Strana”, “Evening Star”, “Znamya Truda”, and worked at “Narkompros”.
Creative path
The first attempt at writing took place in 1910, when the first poems were published in the magazine Apollo. However, they did not delight the public, but became a launching pad for building the future. In the first verses, the poet gravitates towards symbolism; here the influence of Blok, the poetic giant of that era, is clearly felt. After Apollo, the poet was published in the magazines New Satyricon and Hyperborea.
The first collection of poems, Stone, was published in 1913, after which it would be edited and republished several times. At the same time, Osip actively participates in the literary life of St. Petersburg, establishes contacts with Akhmatova and gets acquainted with Blok. O E Mandelstam is an active participant in the Workshop of Poets and becomes close to the Acmeists.
In 1914, the poet became a member of the All-Russian Literary Society, and in 1915 he wrote the landmark poem “Insomnia. Homer. Tight sails."
Like a crane's wedge into foreign borders - Divine foam on the heads of kings
Popularity came to the poet only after the revolution; before that, he was read mainly by colleagues and a narrow circle of admirers. After 1917, Mandelstam began working with the newspaper Narkompros, while simultaneously traveling around the country, where he performed his works.
In the first post-revolutionary years, the poems Twilight of Freedom, Telephone and other famous works were written.
The second collection of poems was published in 1922 and is called Tristius, where poetry of associations dominates
Mandelstam was active in his work from 1924 to 1926, when he wrote poetry for children (the Primus cycle) and published the collection Balls. Then, until 1930, the poet took a poetic break, but did not sit idle, devoting himself more and more to prose and translations.
The last collection of poems, Poems, was published in 1928, after which Osip Emilievich did not publish, but wrote a lot of prose. He is interested in the Caucasus, where Mandelstam spends a lot of time, returning to St. Petersburg only in 1030, where immediately upon arrival he writes the poem Leningrad.
I returned to my city, familiar to tears, to the veins, to the swollen glands of children.
The final stage of creativity is given over to metaphor and it is unknown how the poet’s future fate would have developed if he had not written the anti-Stalin epigram in 1933 “We live beneath us without feeling the country”:
We live without feeling the country beneath us, Our speeches cannot be heard ten steps away,
She made a sharp turn in Osip's life - the author went into exile, where he spent 3 years until 1937. Life in complete poverty does not prevent him from writing, although there is not the slightest chance of getting published. In 1937, the author of the epigram received permission to return, but the music did not play for long - the poet was soon arrested and this time exiled further to the Far East.
Years of the Civil War. Mature creativity
In 1919, while traveling to Kyiv, Mandelstam visited the poetic cafe “HLAM”, where he met his future wife, artist Nadezhda Khazina. During the civil war, the writer wandered with Khazina throughout Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia. Osip Emilievich had a chance to escape with the White Guards to Turkey, but he chose to stay in Russia. In 1922, Mandelstam and Khazina got married.
Mandelstam's poems during the Revolution and Civil War were included in the collection “Tristia” (1922). In 1923, the collections “The Second Book” and the third edition of “The Stone” were published. In 1925, the writer’s autobiographical story “The Noise of Time” was published. In 1927, the story “The Egyptian Stamp” was completed. In 1928, Mandelstam’s last lifetime books, “Poems” and “On Poetry,” were published.
"Workshop of Poets"
It is so accepted that poets always need like-minded people and belonging to a certain movement. The “Workshop of Poets” group consisted of such famous personalities as Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Sergei Gorodetsky, and, of course, Mandelstam often attended the meetings. Osip Emilievich in his early years gravitated towards symbolism, but later became a follower of Acmeism, like his closest friends from the club. The grain of this trend is clear, distinct images and realism. Thus, in 1913, Mandelstam’s first collection of poems, entitled “Stone,” absorbed precisely the spirit of Acmeism. In those same years, he spoke publicly, visited Stray Dog, and also met Blok, Tsvetaeva and Livshits.
Interesting Facts
- The future poet’s grandmother, Sofya Verbovskaya, brought young Mandelstam to V. Ivanov’s poetry circle.
- Mandelstam was fluent in French, English and German, translated the works of F. Petrarch, O. Barbier, J. Duhamel, R. Schiquele, M. Bartel, I. Grishashvili, J. Racine and others.
- Mandelstam was in love with Marina Tsvetaeva and was very upset about the breakup - because of the unsuccessful romance, the writer was even going to go to a monastery.
- The works and personality of the poet Mandelstam were under the strictest ban in Russia for almost 20 years. His wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna, published three books of memoirs about her husband.
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Life and work in Soviet Russia
Immediately after serving his sentence in Georgia, the biography of Osip Mandelstam again returns him to his native Petrograd. His attitude towards the revolution is reflected in the next collection of poems called Tristia, which was published in 1922 in Berlin. Then he binds himself with sacred bonds with Nadezhda Yakovlevna. A sweet tragedy reigns in the works of that time, accompanied by a longing for parting with values, people and places. After this, the poet Osip Mandelstam goes into a deep and protracted poetic crisis, initially delighting his admirers only with rare poems in which he expresses sorrow over the death of the old culture. And in the five-year period (from 1925 to 1930) he wrote nothing at all other than prose. In order to somehow survive in harsh conditions, he is engaged in translations. The third and final collection, simply titled “Poems,” was published in 1928. In this he is greatly assisted by Bukharin, who occupies far from the last place in the Kremlin. However, supporters of Stalin, who is actively gaining strength, are looking for any excuse to frame the poet.
