Osip Mandelstam: biography with photo

One of the most tragic destinies was prepared by the Soviet authorities for such a great poet as O. Mandelstam. His biography developed in many ways because of the intransigent nature of Osip Emilievich. He could not tolerate untruths and did not want to bow before the mighty of this world. Therefore, otherwise, in those years, his destiny could not be formed, which Mandelstam himself realized. His biography, like the work of the great poet, teaches us a lot ...

The future poet was born in Warsaw on January 3, 1891. He spent his childhood and youth in Petersburg Osip Mandelstam. His autobiography, unfortunately, was not written by him. However, his memories formed the basis of the book "Noise of Time". It can be considered largely autobiographical. Note that Mandelstam's memories of childhood and adolescence are strict and restrained-he avoided disclosing himself, did not like to comment on both his poems and his life. Osip Emilevich was an early ripe poet, or rather, enlightened. Strictness and seriousness distinguish his artistic manner.

We believe that the life and work of such a poet as Mandelstam should be considered in detail. A brief biography about this person is hardly appropriate. The personality of Osip Emilevich is very interesting, and his work deserves the most careful study. As time showed, Mandelstam was one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century . A brief biography, presented in school textbooks, is clearly insufficient for a deep understanding of his life and creativity.

The Origin of the Future Poet

Rather, in the gloomy colors, there is little that can be found in Mandelstam's memories of his childhood and the atmosphere around him. According to the poet, his family was "difficult and confusing". In a word, in a speech this manifested itself with particular force. So, at least, Mandelstam himself believed. The speech "element" of the family was peculiar. Let us note that the Mandelstam family was ancient. Since the 8th century, since the time of Jewish enlightenment, he has presented the world famous physicians, physicists, rabbis, historians of literature and Bible translators.

Mandelstam Aemili Veniaminovich, Osip's father, was a merchant and self-taught. He was completely devoid of a sense of language. Mandelstam in his book "The Sound of Time" noted that he had absolutely no language, was only "tongue-in-cheek" and "tongue-tied". Another was the speech of Flora Osipovna, the mother of the future poet and teacher of music. Mandelstam noted that her dictionary was "compressed" and "poor", the turns are monotonous, but it was clear and clear, "a great Russian speech." It was from the mother that Osip inherited, along with the musicality and predisposition to heart diseases, the accuracy of speech, the acute sense of the native language.

Training in the Tenishev Commercial College

Mandelstam during the period from 1900 to 1907 studied at the Tenishevsky Commercial College. It was considered one of the best among the private educational institutions of our country. At one time V. Zhirmunsky and V. Nabokov studied there. The atmosphere that reigned here was an intelligentsia-ascetic one. In this educational institution, the ideals of civic duty and political freedom were cultivated. In 1905-1907 the first Russian revolution could not but fall into political radicalism and Mandelstam. His biography is generally closely related to the events of the era. The catastrophe of the war with Japan and revolutionary time inspired him to create the first stihovtornyh experiments, which can be considered student. Mandelstam perceived what was happening as a vigorous universal metamorphosis, renewing the elements.

Travel abroad

He received the diploma of the school on May 15, 1907. After that, the poet tried to join the militant organization of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in Finland, but he was not admitted to minorities there. Parents, worried about the future of their son, hastened to send him away from sin to study abroad, where Mandelstam traveled three times. The first time he lived in Paris from October 1907 to summer 1908. Then the future poet went to Germany, where he studied Romanic philology at the University of Heidelberg (from the autumn of 1909 to the spring of 1910). From July 21, 1910 until mid-October, he lived in Tselendorf, a suburb of Berlin. Up to the most recent works in Mandelstam's poems there is an echo of his acquaintance with Western Europe.

Meeting with A. Akhmatova and N. Gumilev, creation of acmeism

The meeting with Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev determined the formation of Osip Emilevich as a poet. Gumilev returned in 1911 from the Abyssinian expedition to St. Petersburg. Soon the three of them often met at literary evenings. Many years after the tragic event - the shooting of Gumilyov in 1921 - Osip Emilievich wrote to Akhmatova that only Nikolai Gumilev managed to understand his poems, and that he still talks to him, and conducts dialogues. The phrase "I am a contemporary of Akhmatova" testifies how Mandelstam treated Akhmatova. Only Osip Mandelstam (photo of him with Anna Andreevna presented above) could publicly state this during the Stalin regime, when Akhmatova was a disgraced poetess.

All three (Mandelstam, Akhmatova and Gumilev) became the creators of acmeism and the most prominent representatives of this new trend in literature. Biographers note that friction between them initially began, because Mandelstam was quick-tempered, Gumilev was despotic, and Akhmatova was wayward.

The first collection of poems

In 1913 he created his first collection of poems Mandelstam. His biography and work by that time had already been marked by many important events, and life experience was already more than enough. The poet published this collection at his own expense. At first he wanted to name his book "Sink", but then chose another name - "Stone", which was quite in the spirit of acmeism. His representatives wanted to open the world anew, to give everything a brave and clear name, devoid of a misty and elegiac fleur, like, for example, the Symbolists. The stone is a solid and lasting natural material, eternal in the hands of the master. Osip Emilevich, he is the primary building material of spiritual culture, and not only material.

Osip Mandelstam back in 1911 adopted Christianity, having made a "transition to European culture." And although he was baptized in the Methodist church (in Vyborg on May 14), the verses of his first collection captured the fascination with the Catholic theme. Mandelstam captivated in Roman Catholicism 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, dissimilar among themselves. Just "stronghold" of the cathedral consists of stones, their "evil gravity" and "spontaneous labyrinth."

Attitude to the Revolution

In the period from 1911 to 1917, Mandelstam studied at the St. Petersburg University, at the Romano-German department. It was at this time that his biography was marked by the appearance of the first collection. His attitude towards the revolution that began in 1917 was difficult. Scandal and failure ended any attempt to Osip Emilevich find a place in the new Russia.

Tristia Collection

Verses of the period of revolution and war in Mandelstam constitute a new collection of 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 "The Second Book" was republished in Moscow. It is cemented by the theme of time, the flow of history, which is directed to its death. Until the last days, this theme will be through in the work of the poet. This collection is marked by a new quality of the lyric hero Mandelstam. For him, there is no longer a personal time, not involved in the general flow of time. The voice of the lyrical hero can only be heard as the echo of the era's hum. What happens in a great story is perceived by him as a wreck and the construction of a "temple" of his own personality.

The collection of Tristia reflected a significant change in the style of the poet. The visual texture is moving more and more toward ciphering, "dark" values, the semantic shift, irrational language moves.

Wanderings around Russia

Osip Mandelstam in the early 1920's. Wandered mainly in the southern part of Russia. He visited Kiev, where he met his future wife N. Ya. Hazina (pictured above), spent some time with Voloshin in Koktebel, then went to Feodosia, where Wrangel's counterespionage arrested him on suspicion of espionage. Then, after liberation, Osip Mandelstam went to Batumi. His biography was marked by a new arrest - now from the Menshevik Coast Guard . Osip Emilevich from prison were rescued by T. Tabidze and N. Mitsishvili, Georgian poets. In the end, exhausted to the extreme, Osip Mandel'shtam returned to Petrograd. His biography continues with the fact that he lived for some time in the House of Arts, then again went to the south, 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 going on. A consequence of this is the changed poetics of Mandelstam. "Darkness" now increasingly outweighs clarity in it. In 1925 there was a short creative splash, which was associated with the hobby of Olga Vaksel. After that, the poet pauses for a long 5 years.

For Mandelstam, the second half of the 1920s is a period of crisis. At this time, the poet was silent, did not publish new poems. None of Mandelstam's works appeared in 5 years.

Appeal to prose

In 1929, Mandelstam decided to turn to prose. He wrote the book Fourth Prose. In terms of volume it is not large, but in it the contempt of Mandelstam to writers-conjurers who were members of MASSOLIT was completely splashed out. For a long time in the soul of the poet this pain accumulated. In "The Fourth Prose," Mandelshtam's character was expressed: unruly, explosive, impulsive. It was very easy Osip Emilevich made his enemies, he did not hide his judgments and assessments. Thanks to this Mandelstam always, almost all post-revolutionary years, was forced to exist in extreme conditions. In anticipation of imminent death, he was in the 1930s. Admirers of talent Mandelstam, his friends were not very many, but they still were.

Life

The attitude to life in many ways reveals the image of such a person as Osip Mandelstam. Biography, interesting facts about him, the poet's work are related to his special attitude towards him. Osip Emilevich was not adapted to a settled life, to life. For him, the concept of a house-fortress, which was very important, for example, for M. Bulgakov, had no significance. The whole world was home to him, and at the same time Mandelstam was homeless in this world.

Recalling Osipi Emilievich in the early 1920s, when he received a room in the House of the Arts of Petrograd (like many other writers and poets), KI Chukovsky noted that there was nothing in it that belonged to Mandelshtam, except for cigarettes. When the poet finally received an apartment (in 1933), B. Pasternak, who was visiting him, said leaving that now you can write poetry - there is an apartment. Osip Emilevich came out of this in a rage. OE Mandelstam, whose biography is marked by many episodes of irreconcilability, cursed his apartment and even offered to return it to those whom it apparently intended: depicters, honest traitors. It was a horror from the realization of the fee that was required for her.

Work in the "Moscow Komsomolets"

Are you interested in the way the life of such a poet continued, like Mandelstam? Biography on dates smoothly approached the 1930s in his life and work. N. Bukharin, the patron of Osip Emilevich in power circles, arranged it at the turn of the 1920s to the 1930s in the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets a proofreader. This gave the poet and his wife at least minimal means of subsistence. But Mandelstam refused to accept the "rules of the game" of Soviet writers who served the regime. His extreme impetuosity and emotionality greatly complicated Mandelstam's relations with his colleagues in the shop. He was in the center of the scandal - the poet was accused of interpreting plagiarism. In order to save Osip Emilevich from the consequences of this scandal, in 1930 Bukharin organized for the poet a trip to Armenia, which made a great impression on him, and was also reflected in his work. In the new verses, the desperate fear and the last courageous despair are more clearly felt. If Mandelstam in prose tried to escape from the storm that was hanging over him, now he finally took his share.

Awareness of the tragedy of one's destiny

Awareness of the tragedy of his own fate, his choice, probably strengthened Mandelstam, gave a grand, tragic pathos to his new works. It consists in opposing the personality of a free poet "to the beast-animal." Mandelstam does not feel like a miserable victim, an insignificant person before him. He feels himself equal to him. In the 1931 poem "For the rattling valor of future centuries", which was called in the domestic circle "Volk", Mandelstam predicted a future exile to Siberia, his own death, and poetic immortality. A lot of this poet understood earlier than others.

The ill-fated poem about Stalin

Mandelstam Nadezhda Yakovlevna, the widow of Osip Emilevich, left her two memoir books about her husband, which tells about the sacrificial feat of this poet. The sincerity of Mandelstam often bordered on suicide. For example, in November 1933 he wrote a dramatically 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 said that his poem is not a literary fact, but nothing more than a "suicide act", which he can not approve. Pasternak advised him not to read this work more. However, Mandelstam could not remain silent. Biography, interesting facts from which we have just brought, from this moment becomes truly tragic.

The verdict to Mandelshtam, surprisingly enough, was made quite mild. At that time, people died and for much less significant "faults". Stalin's resolution said only: "Isolate, but keep." Mandelstam was sent into exile in the northern village of Cherdyn. Here Osip Emilevich, tormented by mental disorder, wanted even to commit suicide. Friends again helped. Bukharin, who had already lost his influence, last wrote to Comrade Stalin that the poets are always right, that history is on their side. After that, Osip Emilevich was transferred to Voronezh, under less severe conditions.

Of course, his fate was a foregone conclusion. However, in 1933, severely punishing him meant portraying a poem about Stalin and thus as if to settle personal scores with the poet. And this, of course, would be unworthy of Stalin, the "Father of the Peoples". Iosif Vissarionovich could wait. He understood that everything had its time. In this case, he expected the great terror of 1937, in which Mandelstam was destined to disappear together with hundreds of thousands of other people.

Years of life in Voronezh

Voronezh sheltered Osip Emilevich, but sheltered him hostilely. However, he did not cease to fight the despair, which was steadily approaching him, Osip Emilievich Mandelshtam. His biography of these years is marked by many difficulties. He had no means of subsistence, he was avoided to meet with him, his fate was not clear. Mandelstam felt with his whole being how he was overtaken by the "century-beast". And Akhmatova, who visited him in exile, testified that in his room "fear and muse are on duty". The verses were unstoppable, they demanded an exit. Memoirists testify that Mandelstam once rushed to the payphone and began to read to the investigator, to whom was at that time attached, his new works. He said that there was no one else to read. The poet's nerves were brittle, and in his poems he splashed out his pain.

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, because they represented Poetry, unstoppable and uncontrollable. And for the authorities, no less dangerous, because it, according to I. Brodsky, "fluctuates the whole way of life", and not just the political system.

Return to the capital

Many poems of this period, like the works of Mandelstam in the 1930s, are permeated with the feeling of a near death. The term of the Voronezh exile expired in May 1937. Another year Osip Emilevich spent in the vicinity of Moscow. He wanted to get permission to stay in the capital. However, the editors of magazines categorically refused to not only publish his poems, but also talk to him. The poet begged. At that time his friends and acquaintances helped him: B. Pasternak, V. Shklovsky, V. Kataev, I. Ehrenburg, although they themselves had a hard time. Anna Akhmatova wrote subsequently about 1938 that this was an "apocalyptic" time.

Arrest, exile and death

It remains for us to tell quite a bit about such a poet as Osip Mandelstam. A brief biography of him was marked by a new arrest, held on May 2, 1938. He was sentenced to five years of hard labor. The poet was sent to the Far East. He no longer returned from there. On December 27, 1938, near Vladivostok, in the Second Rechka camp, the poet overtook death.

We hope you wanted to continue your acquaintance with such a great poet as Mandelstam. Biography, photo, creative path - all this gives some idea about it. However, only by referring to the works of Mandelstam, one can understand this person, feel the power of his personality.