Article from an unpublished dictionary

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891-1938) was born into the family of Emil Veniaminovich Mandelstam and Flora Osipovna Verblovskaya, after whose father he was apparently named. He was educated at the St. Petersburg Tenishevsky School (1900-1907), where since 1904 V.V. Gippius taught literature, which is described in detail in Mandelstam's autobiographical prose The Noise of Time (1923). Communication with Gippius - one of the first Russian decadents, "a comrade of Konevsky and Dobrolyubov - militant young monks of early symbolism" ("The Noise of Time") shaped Mandelstam's literary tastes. “The power of V.V. continues over me to this day” (“The Noise of Time”). A general idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe "symbolist" predilections of the young Mandelstam can be obtained from his letter to Gippius dated April 14 (28), 1908 from Paris. Distancing himself from the “meonism” of N.M. Minsky, Mandelstam informs his recent teacher, “forever poisoned by Sologub, wounded by Bryusov” (“The Noise of Time”), about his passion for these two poets.

In Bryusov, the young Mandelstam was "captivated by the brilliant audacity of negation, pure negation", which was refracted in a peculiar way some time later in the poetic experiments of Mandelstam himself. “Nothing needs to be talked about, / Nothing should be taught, / For if there is no meaning in life, / It’s not a trace for us to talk about life” - from a 1909 poem by Mandelstam. Wed with Mandelstam's later assessment of Bryusov's work: "This wretched" nothingness "will never be repeated in Russian poetry" ("On the Nature of the Word", 1922). In the work of F.K. Sologub Mandelstam saw the revival of the Tyutchev tradition: “Sologub’s poems flowed from the Alpine Tyutchev peak in transparent mountain streams” (“To the Anniversary of F.K. Sologub”, 1924). Under direct influence"Sologubov's concept of a ghostly world" (L.Ya. Ginzburg) took shape in the poetics of early Mandelstam. It is more difficult to identify the no less significant influence on the early Mandelstam of the poetry of I.F. Annensky, perceived, as can be seen from Mandelstam's later essay "On the Nature of the Word", with an eye on the work of P. Verlaine. Probably, it was Annensky’s influence that predetermined the “humanization” (“On the nature of the word”) of the realities of the material world in Mandelstam’s poems (“Fabric, intoxicated with itself, / Coddled with the caress of light, / It experiences summer. / As if untouched in winter” from Mandelstam’s 1910 poem ) and his philologism, which contributed to the understanding of "world culture" as a "continuous quotation and quotation marks" (from Mandelyptam's characterization of Annensky's poetics). It is characteristic that Mandelstam names the names of the “predecessors” of Annensky and Sologub in a poem of 1909, formulating his creative credo: “In the ease of creative exchange / The severity of Tyutchev with the childishness of Verlaine / Tell me - who could skillfully combine, / Giving his stamp to the connection?”.

Annensky, whom Mandelstam visited in the summer of 1909, “received him very friendly and attentively” (N.Ya. Mandelstam), like Sologub, as indirectly evidenced by the final note of Mandelstam in 1924 “On the anniversary of F.K. Sologub": "Fyodor Kuzmnch Sologub - like a few - loves everything truly new in Russian poetry." However, the poet did not develop personal and creative relationships with many other symbolists for a long time. “The Symbolists never accepted him” (A.A. Akhmatova).

From September 1909 to April 1910, Mandelstam attended classes at the University of Heidelberg. At the beginning of his stay in Heidelberg, the poet pays a visit to D.S. Merezhkovsky and Z.N. Gippius, who refuse to listen to his poems. Similarly, the Merezhkovsky couple reacted to the first literary experiments of two other future acmeists - S.M. Gorodetsky and N.S. Gumilyov. The attitude of Z.N. Gippius to Mandelstam was little shaken by her subsequent acquaintance with Mandelstam's poems, received from a friend of the poet S.P. Kablukov, who saw in the works of Mandelstam traces of the influence of the works of Gippius. V.Ya. Bryusov, to whom Mandelstam passes his poems in October 1910, also speaks of them dismissively. Mandelstam's poems of the 1910s by A.A. Blok, despite the possible mediation of a friend and connoisseur of the work of both poets V.A. Piasta. Blok's images of "motor", "bends of the soul", "heart going to the bottom" were adopted by Mandelstam.

In a letter to M.A. Voloshin, left unanswered, the 18-year-old Mandelstam reacts as follows to the neglect of his poems in the symbolist environment: “I am forced to make a clear judgment about myself. Those who refuse me attention only help me in this.

The motives of loneliness and the melancholy provoked by loneliness are extremely strong in Mandelstam's poems included in the "symbolist" part (poems of 1909 - early 1912) of his first book "Stone" (1913). “I don’t want my soul bends, / And I don’t want reason and Muse ...” - from a poem by Mandelstam in 1910 included in the first edition of “Stone”.

“The idea-image of Music with a capital letter” (N.S. Gumilyov) becomes another dominant motif of Mandelstam’s work of the symbolist period. This motif appears in Mandelstam's poems under the influence of the "Dionysian" concept of art developed by Vyacheslav Ivanov. Like all acmeists, Mandelstam was deeply influenced, if not by the poetics, then by the ideas of Vyacheslav Ivanov. In Ivanov's articles it is easy to find the main categories that Mandelstam used when building his own picture of the world. “Your seeds have sunk deep into my soul, and I get scared looking at the huge sprouts,” Mandelstam wrote to Vyacheslav Ivanov on June 20, 1909. It is significant that here Mandelstam uses the same “botanical” imagery as in one of his 1909 program poems of the year. "Breathing", which is dedicated to self-awareness as a person: "I am a gardener, I am also a flower."

A new stage in Mandelstam's attitude to symbolism was outlined with his entry into the first "Workshop of Poets", headed by N.S. Gumilyov and S.M. Gorodetsky, in 1911. “There were people with whom he could unite himself with the word “we”” (N.Ya. Mandelstam). Some time later, in the bowels of the "Workshop" "talks arose about the need to dissociate themselves from symbolism, which, by the way, already a year ago (in 1910) declared itself in a state of crisis" (A.A. Akhmatova), which is officially formalized by publication in 1 th issue of "Apollo" for 1913 of acmeist manifestos written by Gumilyov and Gorodetsky. The transformation of Mandelstam "from the most refined symbolist into a faithful acmeist" (Vas.V. Gippius) falls on the middle of 1912, when the poet writes the poem "No, not the moon, but a bright dial ...", which is considered to be a turning point in the evolution of Mandelstam's work from symbolism to acmeism. However, already in this poem, Mandelstam renounces not the symbolist commitment to mysticism, but the mystical extremes of symbolism. “Touching” the “milkyness of the stars”, he brings the traditional mystical image closer to the “earth”, arguing with the program poem “Stars” (1912) by S. Gorodetsky, which expresses the unwillingness to “read in starry, incomprehensible letters”. In the second half of 1912 - 1913, Mandelstam wrote and printed in the first and second editions of "Stone" (1915) a number of anti-symbolist "poetic manifestos" (poems "Pedestrian", "Casino", "Golden", "Lutheran" - 1912; " Maidens of midnight courage…”, “Valkyries are flying, bows are singing…” - 1913), partly compensating for the refusal of Gumilyov and Gorodetsky to publish his program article “Morning of Acmeism”. Acutely reacting in the above poems to the “inflation” of sacred concepts in the works of the Symbolists (cf., for example, in Mandelstam’s poem “Golden”: “Just don’t give me papers - / I can’t stand three-ruble notes” and in a later review of “Notes of an Eccentric” Andrei Bely: “Russian symbolism screamed so much and loudly about the inexpressible” that this “inexpressible” went from hand to hand like paper money”), Mandelstam, nevertheless, actively saturates his poems with symbolist realities (see, for example, the color palette the first "Stone", where the traditionally used by Russian poets "red" and "black" side by side with the renewed symbolists "white", "blue", "lilac", "gray", "gold" and already completely with the "symbolist" "turquoise" and "azure").

Characteristic in this sense is Mandelstam's attitude towards Andrei Bely. Severely criticizing Bely's prose and poetry in the articles "On the Nature of the Word", "Something About Georgian Art", "Letter on Russian Poetry", "Literary Moscow", "Storm and Onslaught", Mandelstam makes full use of Bely's stylistic discoveries, and often just the ones he makes fun of. So, Mandelstam's characterization of the plot of Bely's novel "Notes of an Eccentric": "In a book, you can peel out the plot by raking a bunch of verbal garbage, but the plot in this book is just a shambles", it would be appropriate to refer to the story of Mandelstam himself "Egyptian stamp" (1927), in which deviations from the plot are elevated to a principle. It was Mandelstam who was destined to subsequently write Poems in Memory of Andrei Bely (1934).

A series of anti-symbolist articles by Mandelstam opens with an essay "On the Interlocutor" (1913), in which the poet, imitating the manner of K.I. Chukovsky-critic, represented by K.D. Balmont condemns the “priestly” position of early symbolism: “The poet immediately declares definitely that we are not interesting to him. Unexpectedly for him, we pay him the same coin: if you are not interested in us, and you are not interested in us. Later, Mandelstam admits that in "his best poems" Oh night, stay with me "," an old house"- Balmont extracts new and non-repeating sounds of foreign, some kind of seraphic phonetics from Russian verse."

First World War and the revolution put aside for some time the struggle between literary currents. However, Mandelstam's personal contact with the Symbolists, of course, continues. Since 1915, Mandelstam spends almost every summer with M.A. Voloshin in Koktebel, until July 1920, when the relationship between the two poets is interrupted. The Crimean landscape was reflected in a number of Mandelstam's poems of 1915-1920.

At an evening in the club of poets on October 21, 1920, Mandelstam's poems, later included in the book "Tristia" (1922), were for the first time favorably received by Blok. On the contrary, V. Bryusov, in a review of "Tristia" written in 1923, true to his previous assessments, calls Mandelstam's poems "meager."

Mandelstam himself tries to "summarize the symbolic period" of Russian literature in his articles of 1922-1923: "On the Nature of the Word", "Badger Hole", "Lunge", "Letter on Russian Poetry", "Storm and Onslaught". Some of them were later included in Mandelstam's book of articles On Poetry (1928).

Speaking negatively about the inclination of the Russian symbolists to “big themes and abstract concepts poorly captured in the word” (even in a poem of 1913, symbolism is ironically compared with a “cumbersome opera”), Mandelstam pays tribute to symbolism, “the bosom of all new Russian poetry”, precisely thanks to symbolism "joined to a wide range of interests of European thought." Pointing out that by the 1910s “individually finished poetic phenomena emerged from the “wide bosom of symbolism”, Mandelstam highly appreciates the work of Sologub, Annensky, Blok, noting individual successes of Balmont and Bryusov. The nullification of the literary struggle between symbolism and acmeism made it possible to remove the traditional opposition between the two currents: in the article "Storm and Onslaught", Mandelstam even suggested calling the acmeists "junior symbolists".

“Unconventional” (Yu.I. Levin) Mandelstam’s poetry of the 1930s developed according to its own laws, experiencing almost no literary influences (with the possible exception of the influence of V. Khlebnikov, especially his theoretical article “Our Foundation”). However, in the memoirs of Mandelstam's fellow camper, who brought to us the last literary assessments of the poet, the names of Balmont, Bryusov, Blok and A. Bely appear, "whom Mandelstam considered a genius."

Osip Emilievich (Joseph Khatskelevich) Mandelstam is a Jewish poet and essayist who lived in Russia and the USSR. Born January 3 (15), 1891, presumably died December 27, 1938. [ Brief information about him, see the articles Osip Mandelstam - a short biography, Mandelstam's work - briefly.]

Mandelstam was born in Warsaw (which then belonged to Russian Empire) in a wealthy family of Polish Jews. His father was a glove maker; mother, musician Flora Verblovskaya, was related to the famous literary critic S. Vengerov. Shortly after the birth of their son, the family moved to St. Petersburg. In 1900, young Osip entered the prestigious Tenishevsky School there.

Osip Mandelstam. Life and art

In October 1907, using the rich funds of his parents, Osip went abroad, where he spent several years, traveled around a number of European countries, studied at the Paris Sorbonne and at the German University of Heidelberg. When in 1911 the financial situation of his family worsened, Mandelstam returned to Russia and continued his education at the Romano-Germanic department of the Faculty of History and Philology of St. Petersburg University. During this time, he converted from the Jewish religion to Methodism(one of the Protestant confessions) - they say that in order to get rid of the "percentage rate" for admission to the university. In St. Petersburg, Osip studied very unevenly and did not complete the course.

During the years of the revolution of 1905-1907, Mandelstam sympathized with the extreme left parties - the Social Democrats and Socialist-Revolutionaries, was fond of Marxism. After staying abroad (where he listened to lectures by A. Bergson and fell in love with poetry Verlaine, Baudelaire and Villon) he changed his outlook, became interested in idealistic aestheticism and at one time attended meetings of the Religious-Philosophical Society in St. Petersburg. In poetry, Osip Mandelstam at first gravitated towards symbolism, but in 1911 he and several other young Russian authors (Nikolai Gumilyov, Sergei Gorodetsky etc.) created the group "Workshop of Poets" and founded a new artistic movement - acmeism. Their theories were the opposite of the symbolist ones. Instead of foggy vagueness and mysterious mysticism, acmeists called for giving poetry, distinctness, clarity, filling it with realistic images. Mandelstam wrote a manifesto for the new movement (The Morning of Acmeism, 1913, published 1919). In 1913 he published his first collection of poems, The Stone, whose "tangible" title was in line with Acmeist principles.

According to some reports, Mandelstam had love affair with Anna Akhmatova, although she insisted all her life that there was nothing between them but close friendship. In 1910, he was secretly and without reciprocity in love with a Georgian princess and socialite Petersburg Salome Andronikov, to whom he dedicated the poem "Straw" (1916). From January to June 1916, the poet had a short relationship with Marina Tsvetaeva.

During First World War Mandelstam was not mobilized into the army due to "cardiac asthenia." During these years, he wrote “anti-militarist” poems (“Palace Square”, “The Hellenes Gathered in War ...”, “The Menagerie”), blaming all powers, but especially the Russian Tsar, for the bloodshed.

The name of the outstanding Russian poet Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891-1938) is well known. Collections of his works published in recent years have made available to a wide range of readers. literary heritage O. Mandelstam and discovered him not only as a remarkable master of lyric poetry and translator of world art classics, but also as the author of unique prose: autobiographical stories and philosophical essays, articles and essays on literature, art, and culture that are deep in thought.

The poetic heritage of O. Mandelstam is about 600 works of various genres, sizes, themes, including poems for children, comic poems and translations. No less diverse is the poet's prose: autobiographical sketches-memoirs that made up the story "The Noise of Time", the fantastic-realistic mini-novel "The Egyptian Mark", the confessional-accusatory "The Fourth Prose", cycles of travel and city sketches, theatrical and film impressions. O. Mandelstam also distinguished himself as a journalist, critic, and publicist.

Mandelstam's philosophical essays (such as The State and Rhythm, Human Wheat, Humanism and Modernity) occupy a special place in his work. They attempted to comprehend eternal truths not in the context of their own destiny, but on a huge scale, which is applicable to all peoples. Considering rather optimistically the possibility of creating a new, harmonious society, the poet hopes that the impact on culture provided by the revolution will be comparable to the Renaissance. The spirit of caring for the "universal hearth" permeates all of Mandelstam's work.

Mandelstam's cross-cutting theme is history. He not only knew history, but also deeply felt it. Along with history in the poetry of O. Mandelstam, there is also love lyrics: “I am on a par with others / / I want to serve you ...”, “Straw”, etc.

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born in St. Petersburg on January 3 (15), 1891 in the family of a small industrialist. He received his education within the walls of the Tenishevsky School. By 1912, O. Mandelstam decided on his literary interests, joining a group of acmeist poets and becoming employees of the Apollo and Hyperborea publications

From 1910 to 1920, O. Mandelstam traveled a lot around the country, living either in Moscow or in Petrograd. Georgia, Armenia, Crimea, the streets of Moscow and the intricate courtyards-wells of Petrograd-Petersburg - such is the poet's poetic geography. In 1920, O. Mandelstam settled in Petrograd, first in the House of Arts, then in the House of Scientists, where M. Gorky helped him get a job.

The 1920s were a blessed time for O. Mandelstam in the sense creative activity. His new poetry collections were published: "Tristia" (1922), which combined poems from 1916-1920; "The Second Book" (1923), which included works from 1916-1922; "Poems" (1928) - a book of selected lyrics for the period from 1908 to 1925. The collection "On Poetry" (1928) included separate articles written during the period from 1910 to 1924. In addition, 2 books of prose were published - The Noise of Time (1925) and The Egyptian Stamp (1928).

In the mid-1930s, O. Mandelstam's poems were known only to a narrow circle of readers. This circle gradually increased, although the official literature did not take into account the poet and his work. They were relegated to the elite periphery. According to the plan of high-ranking officials, the poet was doomed to remain silent. Mandelstam, following Tyutchev, wrote a poem called "Silence":

May my lips find

initial silence,

Like a crystal note

What is pure from birth!

It turned out that this silence is explosive. It had a charge great strength. When in maturity, which came early, the word of the poet merged with the fate of the poet, it led Mandelstam to the camp of confrontation and resistance. A thin, vulnerable, concentrated lyricist, named a poet for a few, he was needed by many, however, already outside of his life.

He was portrayed as chamber, intimate, far from social storms. This was a favorite method of defamation of artists objectionable to the regime.

There was a time when O. Mandelstam tried to write an "Ode" to Stalin, to sing him. But the attempt failed. And then the poet told the truth, for which he had to pay the most expensive price - the price of life. In November 1933, he created a poem that became a turning point in his life.

We live, not feeling the country under us,

Our speeches are not heard for ten steps,

And where is enough for half a conversation,

They will remember the Kremlin mountaineer there.

His thick fingers, like worms, are fat,

And the words, like pood weights, are true,

Cockroaches are laughing mustaches,

And his bootlegs shine.

Among obsequious, pompous poems about the "leader of the peoples", the "luminary of science", the "dear and beloved" comrade Stalin, a bitter, desperately bold, revealing poem is born. Of course, it has not been published for many years.

Exhausted by need, indifference, surveillance, persecution, the muzzled poet with dignity went through all the stages of the way of the cross to death. The authorities punished the poet for a long time, mockingly, prolonging the torment and dragging him through all the circles of hell. On May 2, 1938, 4 years after the first arrest, O. Mandelstam was arrested a second time. Two years later (in June 1940), the poet's wife was given a certificate of her husband's death in the camp on December 27, 1938 from heart failure. This is the official version. In addition to it, there are others: some former prisoners said that they saw O. Mandelstam back in 1940 in the next batch of prisoners sent to Kolyma - they saw a deep old man.

“I must live, although I died twice,” O. Mandelstam wrote. How much is behind this line! Once, half in earnest, half in jest, he wrote:

What street is this?

Mandelstam street.

What a damn last name

How not to twist it

It sounds crooked, not straight.

There was little linear in it,

His temper was not linear,

And so this street

Or rather, this hole,

That's what it's called by name

This Mandelstam.

As if in jest, as if an epitaph. He foresaw a lot. This dreamer, vagabond, beggar, rhapsodist, minstrel, tyrant-fighter, poet, philosopher is spiritually present despite the fact that soon there will really be streets in different cities named after him. In Russia and abroad.

Cassandra.*

I did not search in blooming moments

Your lips, Cassandra, your eyes, Cassandra,

But in December solemn vigil

Memories torment us.

And in December of the seventeenth year

We lost everything, loving;

One robbed by the will of the people,

Another robbed himself...

Someday in the capital of a shaloy

At the Scythian holiday, on the banks of the Neva

At the sounds of a disgusting ball

They will tear the scarf from the beautiful head.

But if this life is a necessity of delirium

And ship timber - high buildings, -

I fell in love with you, armless victory,

And a hell of a winter.

On the square with armored cars

I see a man - he

Scares wolves with burning bunts:

Freedom, equality, law.

Sick quiet Cassandra,

I can no longer - why

The sun of Alexander shone,

A hundred years ago everyone shone?

December 1917

* Addressed to A. Akhmatova.

Literature:

"Soul of Love" - ​​a collection of poems

O. Mandelstam "Save my speech."

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 stand untruth and did not want to bow down to the mighty of the world this. 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. 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. 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. In that educational institution cultivated ideals civic duty and political freedom. 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 enter militant organization Socialist-Revolutionaries in Finland, but due to childhood he was not accepted there. 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 was from October 1907 to the summer of 1908. Then future poet went to Germany, where he studied Romance philology at the University of Heidelberg (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 latest works Mandelstam's poems echo 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 noted by many important events, and life experience even then was more than enough. 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 courageous and clear name, devoid of a foggy and elegiac flair, as, for example, among the Symbolists. Stone - solid and durable natural material, eternal in the hands of the 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. Up to last days this theme will run through the work of the poet. 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 is happening in 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 Kyiv, 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 poet's work is associated with his special attitude towards him. Osip Emilievich was not adapted to settled life, to 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 what went on life path such a poet as Mandelstam? 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 prowess of the coming centuries", which was called "The Wolf" in the home circle, Mandelstam predicted both the impending exile to Siberia and 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 in last time wrote to Comrade Stalin 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, to severely punish him meant to advertise a poem about Stalin and thus, as if to reduce personal accounts 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 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 way- all this gives some idea about him. However, only by referring to the works of Mandelstam, one can understand this person, feel the strength of his personality.

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam (1891-1938) was born in Warsaw. His father was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family. Emily Veniaminovich fled to Berlin as a young man and independently joined the European culture but was never able to speak Russian or German fluently.

Mandelstam's mother, a native of Vilna, came from intelligent family. She instilled in her three sons, of whom Osip was the eldest, a love for music (she played the piano herself) and for Russian literature.

Mandelstam's childhood passed in Pavlovsk, from the age of six he lived in St. Petersburg. At the age of 9, Osip entered the Tenishevsky School, which was famous for educating thinking youth. Here he fell in love with Russian literature and began to write poetry.

The parents did not like the young man's passion for politics, so in 1907 they sent their son to the Sorbonne, where Mandelstam studied the work of French poets of different eras. He met Gumilyov, continued writing experiments. After the Sorbonne, Mandelstam studied philosophy and philology at Heidelberg University.

Since 1909, Mandelstam has been a member of the literary circle of St. Petersburg. He attends meetings in the "tower" of Vyacheslav Ivanov and gets acquainted with Akhmatova.

The beginning of creativity

Mandelstam's debut took place in 1910. The poet's first 5 poems were published in the Apollo magazine. Mandelstam becomes a member of the "Shop of Poets", reads poetry in "The Stray Dog".

Due to the impoverishment of the family, Mandelstam could not continue his studies abroad, so in 1911 he entered the Romano-Germanic department of the Faculty of History and Philosophy in St. Petersburg. For this, the young man had to be baptized. The question of religiosity and faith of Mandelstam is very complicated. Both Judaism and Christianity influenced his prose and poetry.

In 1913, Mandelstam's first book "Stone" was published. It was reprinted three times (1915, 1923), the composition of the poems in it changed.

Mandelstam - acmeist

All his life, Mandelstam was faithful to the literary direction of acmeism, which advocated the concreteness and materiality of images. The words of the poetry of acmeism must be accurately measured and weighed. Mandelstam's poems were published as an example of the poetry of acmeism under the declaration of 1912. At this time, the poet was often published in the Apollo magazine, which was originally an organ of the symbolists, to which the acmeists opposed themselves.

Fate into revolution and civil war

Service as a petty official did not bring money. Mandelstam wandered after the revolution. He visited Moscow and Kyiv, in the Crimea, by misunderstanding, ended up in the Wrangel prison. The liberation was facilitated by Voloshin, who claimed that Mandelstam was incapable of service and political convictions.

Hope and love of Mandelstam

In 1919, Mandelstam found his Nadezhda (Khazina) in the Kiev cafe KHLAM (artists, writers, artists, musicians). They got married in 1922. The couple supported each other all their lives, Nadezhda petitioned for a commutation of sentences and release.

The peak of poetic creativity

In 1920-1924 Mandelstam creates, constantly changing his place of residence (Petrograd room in the "House of Arts" - a journey through Georgia - Moscow - Leningrad).

In 1922-23 three collections of poetry by Mandelstam are published (“Tristia”, “Second Book” and the latest edition of “Stone”), poems are printed in the USSR and Berlin. Mandelstam actively writes and publishes journalism. Articles are devoted to the problems of history, cultural studies, philology.

In 1925, the autobiographical prose The Noise of Time was published. In 1928, a collection of poems was published. This is the last book of poetry printed during the life of the poet. At the same time, a collection of articles "On Poetry", the story "Egyptian Mark" was published.

Years of wandering

In 1930, Mandelstam and his wife traveled around the Caucasus. Publicism "Journey to Armenia" and a cycle of poems "Armenia" were created. Upon their return, the Mandelstam couple moved from Leningrad to Moscow in search of a home, and soon the impractical Mandelstam received a pension of 200 rubles a month "for services to Russian literature." Just at this time, Mandelstam ceased to print.

Civil feat of the poet

After 1930, the nature of Mandelstam's work changes, the poems acquire a civic orientation and convey the sensations of a lyrical hero who lives "not feeling the country under him." For this pamphlet, an epigram on Stalin, Mandelstam was first arrested in 1934. The reference to three years in Cherdyn was replaced by a reference to Voronezh at the request of Akhmatova and Pasternak. Sheltering the Mandelstams after their exile was an act of civic courage. They were forbidden to settle in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In 1932, Mandelstam was arrested for counter-revolutionary activities and died the same year in a transit prison in Vladivostok from typhus. Mandelstam was buried in a mass grave, the place of burial is unknown.

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