Mandelstam, Nadezhda (Emma Carson)
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Mandelstam, Nadezhda (Emma Carson) Figure 1: A photo of Nadezhda taken in 1925. Figure 2: A photo of Nadezhda (year unknown). Alternate spellings: Mandel'stam, Nadezhda; Mandelstam, Nadyezhda; Mandelshtam, Nadezhda; Mandel'shtam, Nadezhda; Наде́жда Я́ ковлевна Мандельшта́м. Born: 30 October 1899. Ethnicity: Russian. Class background: Middle-class. Field of activity: Literature. Spouse: Osip Mandelstam. Children: None. Died: 29 December 1980. Brief biography Nadezhda Mandelstam (born Nadezhda Khazina) was a Russian writer, educator and the fourth child (Links to an external site.) of Vera Yakovlevnak (Links to an external site.)and Yakov Arkadevich Khazin (Links to an external site.). After completing gymnasium prior to the October Revolution, Mandelstam studied to become an artist at Aleksandra Ekster's (Links to an external site.) studio in Kiev, where she became a close friend of Ilya Ehrenburg. Much of Mandelstam's early adulthood was spent at Junk Shop: a popular night club among literary and artistic circles. On 1 May 1919, this is where Nadezhda met her future husband, the poet, Osip Mandelstam. Their relationship began almost immediately, albeit they were separated for over a year during the Civil War. In March 1921, Osip returned to Kiev and a year later they 1 married and moved to Moscow. Through Osip's involvement in Russian literary circles, Mandelstam became associated with Anna Akhmatova, Lidiya Ginzburg, Boris Pasternak, Nikolai Punin, Isaac Babel (Links to an external site.) and Marietta Shaginyan, among others. Akhmatova, Ginzburg and Pasternak were particularly intimate friends. In 1934 Osip was arrested after writing a satirical poem about Stalin. (Links to an external site.)Nikolai Yezhov (Links to an external site.)and Genrikh Yagoda were among the secret police involved in Osip’s arrest and interrogating Osip and Nadezhda. In part due to intervention by Nikolai Bukharin and Pasternak, the severity of Osip's sentence was lessened; he was exiled for three years to Voronezh. After his term of exile, Osip and Nadezhda returned to Moscow. On 1 May 1938, Osip was arrested again and sent to a transit camp in Siberia, where he died in December. (Links to an external site.) After Osip’s second arrest, Mandelstam lived a mostly nomadic existence. To avoid persecution, she moved around several provincial cities. She also received her diploma and began teaching English in 1939. It wasn't until 1965 that Mandelstam settled in Moscow again and began writing her memoirs. Mandelstam died in 1980 from heart problems and was buried in the Kuntsevo Cemetery. (Links to an external site.) Biographical analysis Through Nadezhda Mandelstam resides a common narrative among writers during the period. She initially met the Revolution with vigour, but over the years became disillusioned and fearful of the Soviet Union. Mandelstam’s work at Ekster’s studio involved painting sets for theatre productions, many of which were overtly pro-Bolshevik. In her memoir Hope Abandoned, Mandelstam considers this period of her life to be embarrassing (Links to an external site.), as her support of the Bolsheviks waned after the Civil War. Much of Mandelstam’s disillusionment stemmed from the early hardships she and her husband faced in the 1920s. Osip struggled to publish his poetry and in 1923, his name was removed from the list of contributors to all Russian literary magazines. Andrew Wachtel and Ilya Vinitsky consider how, “The contemporary writer was expected to keep ‘in step’ with the cosmic revolutionary transformations,” (205). Unlike other prolific writers from the period, Osip did not embrace Socialist Realism (Links to an external site.) and continued to be an avid Acmeist poet. (Links to an external site.)The refusal to conform meant Osip and other writers like him increasingly found it harder to work. It also made them targets of the NKVD (Links to an external site.). Osip’s arrest in 1934 and subsequent exile with Nadezhda after writing the “Stalin Epigram” showed that although the poem was not published, the Mandelstams were regarded with suspicion. As Osip only read the poem to ten close friends (including Akhmatova and Pasternak), it was certain he was betrayed. Even before the Great Purge, trust among friends became difficult to maintain, as any small act against the regime could be reported and have severe consequences. The importance of blat in the Soviet Union and personal connections, in elevating a person’s position or undermining them, are also clear throughout Nadezhda Mandelstam’s life. Connections to people such as Bukharin, who was a friend of the Mandelstams, ensured Osip was able to make money doing translating jobs while he was unable to publish poetry in the 1920s and early 1930s. Osip’s connection to Bukharin and Pasternak also saved his and Nadezhda’s lives in 1934, after his first arrest. Interestingly, it was in May 1938 when Osip was arrested for the second time and sent to the transit camp, only two months after Bukharin was executed. His former connection to Bukharin may have led to this arrest; it is unlikely Stalin would have forgotten Bukharin’s defence of Osip after being slandered so veraciously. Nadezhda’s own luck at avoiding incarceration, despite her association with Osip, Babel, Bukharin, Lev Gumilyov (Links to an external site.) and Ginzburg, among other ill-fated victims of the purges, is also significant. It appears to be sheer chance and her resolve to continue moving, rather than staying in one place, which kept her alive in the end. As she did not publish any works until the 1970s, Mandelstam’s prominence in the field of literature only extended to being Osip’s widow. Hence, her only crime against the Soviet Union prior to the 1970s was association rather than action. 2 Nonetheless, Mandelstam’s association with Osip did present difficulties in terms of employment and education. Obtaining a job through the Union of Soviet Writers (Links to an external site.) was impossible, as her husband was a well-known exile and furthermore, a Jewish person. When Nadezhda completed her dissertation under Viktor Zhirmunsky (Links to an external site.) at the Russian Academy of Sciences (Links to an external site.), despite his support and that of other linguists in the academy, it was ultimately rejected by Viktor Vinogradov (Links to an external site.) and Olga Akhmanova. Akhmanova justified this rejection because of anti-Semitic policies and because Nadezhda was, “…married to a scoundrel,” (Hope Abandoned, 386). After Yagoda recited the “Stalin Epigram” to him, Bukharin also cut his association with the Mandelstams entirely and Demyan Bedny (Links to an external site.), a former friend of the Mandelstams, also refused to intervene after Osip’s arrest. In The Centuries Surround Me with Fire: Osip Mandelstam, Mandelstam recalls how with the exception of the few individuals who supported her (i.e. Pasternak, Akhmatova and Ehrenburg), she was “…among enemies.” Despite there being close associations and intimate friendships between writers that were fostered in the early years of the Revolution, through Nadezhda’s hardships, it is clear how quickly these associations could be snuffed after an individual fell out of the regime’s favour. A final point to make on Mandelstam’s life and career was that her prominence, beyond being associated with Osip, only came in the 1970s when she published her memoirs Hope Against Hope (1970) and Hope Abandoned (1974). Although Stalin died almost twenty years before and restrictions on publishing had reduced significantly, Mandelstam still only published her memoirs and Osip’s poetry abroad. Mandelstam accepted the unlikelihood of her memoirs or Osip's poems being published in Russia until after her death. Even the only recorded interview of Mandelstam for the documentary The Centuries Surround Me with Fire: Osip Mandelstam (1981) was, by her request, not allowed to be released until after her death. Mandelstam’s paranoia at speaking out against the Soviet Union was still apparent; in her final years, she embodied the legacy of a generation of Russian writers, considered to be suffering from a, “…persecution mania [they] still haven’t recovered from,” (Hope Against Hope, 34). Mandelstam’s memoirs are testament to the fear she and other writers faced during the period and a veritable voice that was only granted to the survivors years after the worst of the purges were over. Figure 3: Mandelstam during the filming of The Centuries Surround Me with Fire: Osip Mandelstam in 1973. 3 Bibliography: Primary Sources: Akhmatova, Anna. My Half-Century. Trans. Ronald Meyer. Northwestern: University Press, 1977. Austin, Anthony. “Russians Bury Nadezhda Mandelstam.” The New York Times. 3 January, 1981. Accessed 20 August, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/03/world/russians-bury- nadezhda-mandelstam.html (Links to an external site.). Diamanda, Frank. The Centuries Surround Me with Fire: Osip Mandelstam. Web. Netherlands: VARA, 1981. Accessed 20 August 2016.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5ARWfrzOQk (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) Gerstein, Emma. Moscow Memoirs. Trans. John Crowfoot. London: The Harvill Press, 2004. Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Against Hope. Translated by Max Hayward. New York: Atheneum Publishers, 1970. Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Abandoned. Translated by Max Hayward. New York: Antheneum Publishers, 1974. Secondary Sources: Holmgren, Beth. "Nadezhda Mandelstam.” In Women’s Works in Stalin’s Time: On Lidiia Chukovskaia and Nadezhda Mandelstam, 97-168. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. James, Clive. “Nadezhda Mandelstam.” In Cultural Amnesia, 414-419. New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2007. Slonim, Marc. Soviet Russian Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Baines, Jennifer. Mandelstam: The Later Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Brown, Deming. “Literature re-examines the past.” In Soviet Russian Literature since Stalin, 253- 284. London: Cambridge University Press, 1978. Baines, Jennifer. Mandelstam: The Later Poetry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976.