DOCSLIB.ORG

Mythologies of Poetic Creation in Twentieth-Century Russian Verse

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

MYTHOLOGIES OF POETIC CREATION IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN VERSE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ona Renner-Fahey, M.A. * * * * The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Angela K. Brintlinger, Adviser ___________________________ Professor Irene Masing-Delic Adviser Department of Slavic and East Professor Richard Davis European Languages and Literatures ABSTRACT In my dissertation, I address how four twentieth-century Russian poets grapple(d) with the mysteries of poetic inspiration and I propose what I consider to be their personal mythologies of the creative process. As none of these poets offers a comprehensive description of his/her personal mythology of poetic creation, my task has been to sift through the poets= poems and prose in order to uncover pertinent textual references to themes of inspiration. The four poet-subjects are Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, and Olga Sedakova. Together they represent many of the factors contributing to the remarkable genius of twentieth-century Russian poetry. By looking at these four particular mythologies of poetic creation, we are able to view notions developed by both genders, within two faiths, in both capitals, and throughout the entirety of the century. It is significant that each of these poets has turned to prose to work out his/her ideas concerning the creative process. In reconstructing these mythologies of poetic creation, I have looked to the poets= entire oeuvres and the Asingle semantic system@ working within each of them. My work aims to bring together poets= prose and poetry and to offer readings of texts that are guided by the poets own concerns and beliefs. ii For Sophie and Maeve, with much love iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am thankful to have had much help and encouragement throughout the writing of this dissertation. My adviser, Angela Brintlinger, deserves my fullest gratitude; her comments have always been extensive and perceptive, her support constant. I simply could not have had a better adviser. I am also indebted to the other members of my committee, Irene Masing-Delic and Dick Davis. These two very inspiring professors were integral to the shaping of the final piece. The initial impulse for this dissertation came from a paper I wrote in a class taught by George Kalbouss. It is in part thanks to his enthusiasm for that paper that I had the confidence to expand it into a dissertation. Many other people have contributed to my work in one way or another. I am grateful both to my good friend Aneliese Everett and to the ever-helpful Beth Myre, for their technical support. I would also like to extend my thanks to Karina Ross, Daniel Collins, and Anelya Rugaleva, for answering questions I had concerning the Russian language; and to Valentina Polukhina, Galina Slavskaia and Mary Delle LeBeau for graciously sharing their knowledge with someone they have never even met. My friends and family were a key part of this process. Their support, patience, and enthusiasm have helped me so much more than any of them realizes. This is especially true of my husband, Eamon. Finally, I dedicate my work to my daughters, Sophie and Maeve. The countless hours I poured into this dissertation was precious time away from them. iv VITA January 21, 1970 . Born - Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1994 . M.A. Russian, Middlebury College 1991 . B.A. Russian, University of Wisconsin 2001 - present . .Russian Language Instructor, Department of Modern Foreign Languages Ohio Wesleyan University 1997 - 2000 . Graduate Teaching and Research Associate, Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. O. Renner-Fahey. ATsvetaeva=s Image through Symbolic Verse Biography.@ In A Festschrift for LeonTwarog: Working Papers in Slavic Studies, vol. 1 (Columbus, Ohio: The Ohio State University Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures, 2001), 255-283. 2. O. Renner-Fahey. AThe Contemporary American Poet Jim Harrison and his Letters to Esenin.@ In Russia and USA: Forms of Literary Dialogue. (Moscow: Russian State University for the Humanities, 2000), 54-62 (In Russian). FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . ii Dedication . iii Acknowledgments . ..iv Vita . v Note on Transliteration and Translation . viii Chapters: Introduction: The Secrets of their Craft . .1 1. Osip Mandelstam: AШум стихотворства@ [The Noise of the Craft] . .14 1.1 The Inner Dialogue, or the Aural Image . .21 1.2 The Birth of Memory . .24 1.3 The Paradox of Silence . 29 1.4 Breathing Poetry and the Suffocating Poet . .38 2. Anna Akhmatova: AПечальная Муза моя@ [My melancholy Muse] . 50 2.1 Muse-poems . 55 2.1.1 AМуза-сестра@ [The Sister-Muse]: 1912-1916 . 60 2.1.2 AМилая гостя@ [The Kind Guest]: 1921-1927 . 68 2.1.3 AМоею Музой оказалась мука@ [Torment became my Muse]: 1940-1964 . 77 2.2 Masked Muses . .92 2.3 Secrets of the Craft: Metapoetry . 96 2.4 The Omnipresent Window . .98 3. Joseph Brodsky: AАпофеоз звука@ [An Apotheosis of Sound] . .102 3.1 Reconciling Polar Attitudes . .107 3.2 The Occidental Mode . 110 vi 3.2.1 The Voice of Language . .110 3.2.2 An Acceleration of Consciousness . 113 3.3 The Oriental Mode . 115 3.3.1 The Suffocating Poet, Revisited . .115 3.3.2 A Theology of Language: Classical Aspects, Biblical Aspects . .122 3.3.2.1 The Seraphic Muse . .125 3.3.2.2 A Tree of Knowledge . 134 4. Olga Sedakova: AТаинственная глубина@ [The Secret Depth] . .138 4.1 The Verbal Icon . .142 4.2 Service . .145 4.3 The Silence of the Heart . .151 4.4 The Birth-Giving Depth . .155 4.4.1 Inspiring Dreams . .158 4.4.2 Inspiring Music . 173 4.4.3 Inspiring Visual Objects . .183 Conclusion . .189 Works Consulted . 196 vii NOTE ON TRANSLATION AND TRANSLITERATION In order that this study be comprehensible to the general English readership, I have provided translations of all quoted material. If the translations are not referenced, they are my own. References to translations by other authors can be found in the footnotes and/or parenthetical documentation. Generally, transliterated words in this dissertation follow the Library of Congress system. Exceptions to this system are names with established English spellings. One prominent example of this is the spelling AMandelstam@ rather than the Library of Congress version, AMandel=shtam.@ viii INTRODUCTION THE SECRETS OF THEIR CRAFT Every serious work of art tells the genesis of its own creation. Roman Jakobson Artistic creation, after all, is not subject to absolute laws, valid from age to age; since it is related to the more general aim of mastery of the world, it has an infinite number of facets, the vincula that connect man with his vital activity; and even if the path towards knowledge is unending, no step that takes man nearer to a full understanding of the meaning of his existence can be too small to count. Andrey Tarkovsky This dissertation is an attempt at understanding how the creative process is viewed by four Russian poets of the twentieth century: Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, and Olga Sedakova. It is in considering the following such questions that poets generally mythologize various elements of their vocation: Do my poems come from outside of myself and, if so, how? Do I consider my experience to be of a divine nature and, if so, in what forms does it appear? Which of my senses is most active during my inspired state? How do my fears and anxieties affect my creativity and what forms do they take? At times the poets in this study address these and other such questions in essays and/or interviews, and in so doing provide valuable information about the creative process. Most often, however, it is their poetry that reveals the images and notions they have formed 1 about their creativity. My method, then, has been to extract clues from these poets= verse, essays and interviews, and then to (re-)construct their mythologies of poetic creation.1 Mythologies of Poetic Creation Just what, precisely, does Athe creative process@ mean? One definition, put forth by René Wellek and Austin Warren, refers to the process=s Aentire sequence@ but provides only the first and last elements. According to this definition, the creative process should Acover the entire sequence from the subconscious origins of a literary work to those last revisions@ (85). In order to define this process fully, we need to identify those missing elements that occur between the poet=s subconscious impulses and conscious revisions. A significantly more comprehensive definition has been offered by the creativity researcher Frank Barren. The majority of the elements he identifies as comprising the creative process will be addressed in the mythologies presented here; a few of them, however, will not be covered. What the mythologies in the present study do not tend to include are the poet=s final, conscious revisions. Barren refers to such elements as: Athe author=s conscious intentions,@ Athe choice of form,@ Aimportant revisions,@ and Aunexpected or unplanned alterations in the intentions of form@ (quoted in Fehrman 21). On the other hand, those elements which are -- to varying degrees -- addressed in the mythologies of poetic creation are what Barren terms Apreconscious and unconscious intentions@ and Asudden inspiration,@ as well as what he identifies as emotional states, 1 A similar method has been taken by Nadezhda Mandelstam in her work Mozart and Salieri. She based her approach to the study of poetic creativity on the views of her husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, who himself Awanted to reconstruct the movement of poetic thought@ (105).
Recommended publications
  • Hints from Horace

    Hints from Horace

    HINTS FROM HORACE INTRODUCTION BYRON AND HORACE: “the great little poet’s wrong”1 Byron refers to Horace more often than he does any other poet except Shakespeare. There is at once characteristic aptness and characteristic irony in this, for Horace was a kind of Roman Southey – with genius. Where Byron is far from scared about giving political offence to the establishment, Horace never even thinks of doing so – one of his longest verse-letters,2 and several of his Odes, are addressed in terms of respect, nay reverence, to the Emperor Augustus, and his Carmen Seculare (a title appropriated by Byron for The Age of Bronze, a poem the reverse of Caesarist) was commissioned by the Emperor himself. Horace is committed to the political status quo of his time and place. Byron would never write the English equivalent of Caelo tonantem credidimus Iovem Regnare; praesens divus habebitur Augustus adiectis Britannis Imperio gravibusque Persis.3 [We believe that Jove is king in heaven because we hear his thunders peal; Augustus shall be deemed a god on earth for adding to our empire the Britons and dread Parthians.] or, … ego nec tumultum nec mori per vim metuam tenente Caesare terras.4 [Neither civil strife nor death by violence will I fear, while Caesar holds the earth.] 1: Don Juan XIV, 77, 2. 2: Hor. Epis. II, i. 3: Hor. Od. III, v, 1-4. 4: Hor. Od. III, xiv , 14-16. Many more examples could be adduced, of Horace’s intense patriotism and Caesarism,5 a Caesarism all the more intense for being, like Southey’s conservatism, that of a turncoat, a renegado: for Horace had fought at Philippi on the side of Brutus and Cassius.
  • Boris Pasternak - Poems

    Boris Pasternak - Poems

    Classic Poetry Series Boris Pasternak - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Boris Pasternak(10 February 1890 - 30 May 1960) Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language. Furthermore, Pasternak's theatrical translations of Goethe, Schiller, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and William Shakespeare remain deeply popular with Russian audiences. Outside Russia, Pasternak is best known for authoring Doctor Zhivago, a novel which spans the last years of Czarist Russia and the earliest days of the Soviet Union. Banned in the USSR, Doctor Zhivago was smuggled to Milan and published in 1957. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year, an event which both humiliated and enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In the midst of a massive campaign against him by both the KGB and the Union of Soviet Writers, Pasternak reluctantly agreed to decline the Prize. In his resignation letter to the Nobel Committee, Pasternak stated the reaction of the Soviet State was the only reason for his decision. By the time of his death from lung cancer in 1960, the campaign against Pasternak had severely damaged the international credibility of the U.S.S.R. He remains a major figure in Russian literature to this day. Furthermore, tactics pioneered by Pasternak were later continued, expanded, and refined by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other Soviet dissidents. <b>Early Life</b> Pasternak was born in Moscow on 10 February, (Gregorian), 1890 (Julian 29 January) into a wealthy Russian Jewish family which had been received into the Russian Orthodox Church.
  • Refractions of Rome in the Russian Political Imagination by Olga Greco

    Refractions of Rome in the Russian Political Imagination by Olga Greco

    From Triumphal Gates to Triumphant Rotting: Refractions of Rome in the Russian Political Imagination by Olga Greco A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Comparative Literature) in the University of Michigan 2015 Doctoral Committee: Professor Valerie A. Kivelson, Chair Assistant Professor Paolo Asso Associate Professor Basil J. Dufallo Assistant Professor Benjamin B. Paloff With much gratitude to Valerie Kivelson, for her unflagging support, to Yana, for her coffee and tangerines, and to the Prawns, for keeping me sane. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ............................................................................................................................... ii Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter I. Writing Empire: Lomonosov’s Rivalry with Imperial Rome ................................... 31 II. Qualifying Empire: Morals and Ethics of Derzhavin’s Romans ............................... 76 III. Freedom, Tyrannicide, and Roman Heroes in the Works of Pushkin and Ryleev .. 122 IV. Ivan Goncharov’s Oblomov and the Rejection of the Political [Rome] .................. 175 V. Blok, Catiline, and the Decomposition of Empire .................................................. 222 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 271 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................
  • Eugene Miakinkov

    Eugene Miakinkov

    Russian Military Culture during the Reigns of Catherine II and Paul I, 1762-1801 by Eugene Miakinkov A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Department of History and Classics University of Alberta ©Eugene Miakinkov, 2015 Abstract This study explores the shape and development of military culture during the reign of Catherine II. Next to the institutions of the autocracy and the Orthodox Church, the military occupied the most important position in imperial Russia, especially in the eighteenth century. Rather than analyzing the military as an institution or a fighting force, this dissertation uses the tools of cultural history to explore its attitudes, values, aspirations, tensions, and beliefs. Patronage and education served to introduce a generation of young nobles to the world of the military culture, and expose it to its values of respect, hierarchy, subordination, but also the importance of professional knowledge. Merit is a crucial component in any military, and Catherine’s military culture had to resolve the tensions between the idea of meritocracy and seniority. All of the above ideas and dilemmas were expressed in a number of military texts that began to appear during Catherine’s reign. It was during that time that the military culture acquired the cultural, political, and intellectual space to develop – a space I label the “military public sphere”. This development was most clearly evident in the publication, by Russian authors, of a range of military literature for the first time in this era. The military culture was also reflected in the symbolic means used by the senior commanders to convey and reinforce its values in the army.
  • Some Poets Are Astonishingly Precocious: Arthur Rimbaud, for Ex

    Some Poets Are Astonishingly Precocious: Arthur Rimbaud, for Ex

    Morshen, or a Canoe to Eternity1 ome poets are astonishingly precocious: Arthur Rimbaud, for ex- S ample, wrote everything he had to write by the time he was nineteen. Nikolai Morshen’s development as a poet offers an opposite example. Gradually maturing in a leisurely and deliberate manner over almost four decades, this poet’s work, when viewed in its totality, is a study in ever deepening philosophical thought and ever more finely honed verbal mastery. The stages of Morshen’s development and their chronology are obvious enough: the verse of 1936 to 1946 (written prior to Morshen’s first published collection and, for the most part, not included in it); the three published books of verse, Tiulen’ (The seal, 1959), Dvoetochie (Punctua- tion: Colon, 1967), and Ekho i zerkalo (The echo and the mirror, 1979); and a few poems that have appeared in émigré journals from his fourth, unpublished collection, “Umolkshii zhavoronok” (The now-silent lark).2 To read this poetry in the order in which it was written is to realize that the concept of Darwinian evolution—a major theme in Morshen’s po- etry—applies not only to the examples of related animal species or related language groups, but also to the model of one man’s slowly maturing po- etic vision. Nikolai Nikolaevich Marchenko, who took the German word for “little Blackamoor” as his pen name, was born in Kiev on 8 November 1917, exactly one day after the October Revolution. His mother, Elizaveta Petrovna Toropova, came from a St. Petersburg family of government of- ficials.
  • Economies of Russian Literature 1830-1850 by Jillian

    Economies of Russian Literature 1830-1850 by Jillian

    Money and Mad Ambition: Economies of Russian Literature 1830-1850 By Jillian Elizabeth Porter A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Harsha Ram, chair Professor Irina Paperno Professor Luba Golburt Professor Victoria Bonnell Spring 2011 Money and Mad Ambition: Economies of Russian Literature 1830-1850 © 2011 by Jillian Elizabeth Porter 1 Abstract Money and Mad Ambition: Economies of Russian Literature 1830-1850 by Jillian Elizabeth Porter Doctor of Philosophy in Slavic Languages and Literatures University of California, Berkeley Professor Harsha Ram, chair This dissertation offers a sustained examination of the economic paradigms that structure meaning and narrative in Russian literature of the 1830s-1840s, the formative years of nineteenth-century Russian prose. Exploring works by Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Faddei Bulgarin, I view tropes such as spending, counterfeiting, hoarding, and gambling, as well as plots of mad or blocked ambition, in relation to the cultural and economic history of Nicholas I’s reign and in the context of the importation of economic discourse and literary conventions from abroad. Furthermore, I consider the impact of culturally and economically conditioned affects—ambition, avarice, and embarrassment—on narrative tone. From the post-Revolutionary French plot of social ambition to
  • Open Mueller Thesis Final.Pdf

    Open Mueller Thesis Final.Pdf

    THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE SCHOOL OF MUSIC PRETTY OPHELIA: THE DESTRUCTIVE NATURE OF OBJECTIFICATION THROUGH MUSIC AND PROSE LEAH W. MUELLER Spring 2012 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Music Education with honors in Music Reviewed and approved* by the following: Ted Christopher Assistant Professor of Music Thesis Supervisor Joanne Rutkowski Professor of Music Education Honors Adviser * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College i ABSTRACT Shakespeare’s Ophelia has long fascinated composers, painters, poets, and scholars alike. She is at first beautiful and pure, but descends into utter madness filled with dark coded phrases that leave plenty of room for mystery and interpretation. In this thesis I investigated the lack of personal identity and tragic circumstances that lead to Ophelia’s demise. All who surround her, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes, and even Shakespeare himself, constantly objectify her. The successive composers who have interpreted Ophelia diminish this objectification by giving her, her own voice. As part of this thesis project, a recital featuring the Brahms’ and Strauss Ophelia lieder as well as a performance of the original Shakespeare text was given on November 15th, 2011. The recital program, program notes, script, and video are included in this thesis. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii CHAPTER 1: OPHELIA IN PROSE Introduction 1 Ophelia and the Play 2 A Symbol of Purity 5 Ophelia Through the Feminist Gaze 8 CHAPTER 2: OPHELIA IN MUSIC Ophelia and the French 13 Ophelia and the Germans 16 CHAPTER 3: OPHELIA ONSTAGE Performance Planning 22 Rehearsing for the Performance 25 CHAPTER 4: SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, & CONCLUSION Summary 27 Discussion 28 Conclusion 29 BIBLIOGRAPHY 30 APPENDICES APPENDIX A: Performance Script 32 APPENDIX B: Recital Program 40 APPENDIX C: Recital Program Notes 42 APPENDIX D: Video of Performance Project 45 Academic Vita iii ACKNOWLEGMENTS I would like to thank Dr.
  • Russian Poets and the October Revolution: Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mikhail Kuzmin and Others

    Russian Poets and the October Revolution: Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mikhail Kuzmin and Others

    Sylaiev, O., Razumenko, I., Tararak, O., Vorozhbit-Horbatiuk, V., Prokopchuk, I. / Volume 9 - Issue 27: 436-444 / March, 2020 436 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.34069/AI/2020.27.03.48 Russian Poets and the October Revolution: Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mikhail Kuzmin and Others Русские поэты и Октябрьская революция: Александр Блок, Сергей Есенин, Михаил Кузьмин и другие Poetas rusos y la revolución de octubre: Alexander Blok, Sergey Yesenin, Mikhail Kuzmin y otros Received: January 22, 2020 Accepted: March 21, 2020 Written by: Oleksandr Sylaiev151 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-2388-5951 Iryna Razumenko152 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3221-4340 Oleksandr Tararak153 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-9740-0750 Viktoriia Vorozhbit-Horbatiuk154 ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5138-9226 Inna Prokopchuk155 ORCID ID: 0000-0001-9353-2169 Abstract Аннотация The article considers the question of the В статье рассматривается вопрос об идейно- ideological and creative evolution of famous творческой эволюции известных русских Russian poets at a turning point in the history of поэтов на переломном этапе истории ХХ the twentieth century - during the years of the столетия – в годы активного формирования active formation of a totalitarian state system тоталитарного государственного устройства и and its aesthetic socialist-realist doctrine. его эстетической соцреалистической Revolutionary maximalism, the idea of a доктрины. Революционный максимализм, идея complete renewal of all being, came not only полного обновления всего бытия шла не только from Marxism and the Bolsheviks, but was also от марксизма и большевиков, но prepared by literature, long before the подготавливалась и литературой, задолго до revolution, it had already “artistically matured” революции уже «вызрела» художественно в in the poetry of Alexander Blok, Sergey поэзии Александра Блока, Сергея Есенина, Yesenin, Osip Mandelstam, Vladimir Осипа Мандельштама, Владимира Mayakovsky and many others.
  • Atlantis 31.2

    Atlantis 31.2

    Revista de la Asociación Española de Estudios Anglo-Norteamericanos Vol. 31, núm. 2 Diciembre 2009 31.2 (December 2009) 31.2 (Diciembre 2009) EDITORS Editores General Editor: Angela Downing Universidad Complutense de Madrid Assistant Editor: Ludmila Urbanová Managing Editor: Carmen Méndez University of Brno Universidad Complutense de Madrid Book Reviews Editor: Clara Calvo Editor’s Assistant: Juan Rafael Zamorano Universidad de Murcia Universidad Complutense de Madrid Universität Bremen Copy Editor: Jorge Arús Hita Universidad Complutense de Madrid EDITORIAL BOARD Consejo de Redacción BOARD OF ADVISORS Consejo Asesor Andrew Blake Heinz Ickstadt University of Winchester Freie Universität Berlin Martin Bygate J. Hillis Miller Lancaster University University of California at Irvine Teresa Fanego Susheila M. Nasta Universidad de Santiago de Compostela Open University Fernando Galván Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza Universidad de Alcalá de Henares Universidad de La Rioja BOARD OF REFEREES Consejo Científico y Evaluador Joan C. Beal Rachel Bowlby Graham D. Caie University of Sheffield University College London University of Glasgow Jesús Benito Sánchez Kris Van den Branden Gordon Campbell Universidad de Valladolid Katholieke Universiteit Leuven University of Leicester Marcella Bertuccelli Papi Mario Brdar Isabel Carrera Università di Pisa Josip Juraj Strossmayer University Universidad de Oviedo Nilufer E. Bharucha Laurel J. Brinton Shirley Chew University of Mumbai University of British Columbia University of Leeds Clare Birchall Manuel Broncano Robert Clark Middlesex University Universidad de León University of East Anglia Anita Biressi Jorge Luis Bueno Alonso Thomas Claviez Roehampton University University of Vigo University of Bern Maggie Ann Bowers Christopher S. Butler Tom Cohen University of Portsmouth Swansea University University of Albany Juan Camilo Conde-Silvestre David Johnson Victor J.
  • Gavrila Derzhavin and “The Committee for the Organization of Jewish Life” in Early 19Th Century Russia

    Gavrila Derzhavin and “The Committee for the Organization of Jewish Life” in Early 19Th Century Russia

    Gavrila Derzhavin and “The Committee for the Organization of Jewish Life” in Early 19th Century Russia Text and Translations by Matthew Raphael Johnson Few realize that the Jewish question was specifically addressed in imperial Russia under two successive emperors: Paul and Alexander I. Son and Grandson respectively of Catherine II, the “Jewish Commission” under Senator and poet Gavrila Derzhavin sought to alleviate the condition of the Jews in the newly incorporated parts of western Russia. What they discovered instead changed Russian royal opinion on the Jewish question forever. I. At the end of the 18th century, the decrepit Polish empire fell to pieces. Since most of the eastern lands of the Polish empire were once part of Kievan-Rus, these were absorbed into the Russian empire between 1772 and 1795. One consequence of this was that Russia found herself ruling over most of the world's Jewish population. Emperor Paul of Russia (1751-murdered 1801), concerned about peasant riots in these newly absorbed lands, ordered an inquest into their causes and possible solutions. These inquests very soon became concerned with the Jewish population. As a result, they were called the “Committee for the Organization of Jewish Life” and operated under both Paul and Alexander. Needless to say, it is extremely rare to find a discussion of this in the English language literature. Significantly, both committees were chaired by Senator Gavrila Derzhavin, a member of the imperial Senate and one of Russia's best known poets before Pushkin. The Senate's draft of the purpose and mission of the committee stated that it was to work to discover the cause of the financial complaints from peasants and the nature of their livelihood.
  • Gregory Freidin a COAT of MANY COLORS: OSIP MANDELSTAM

    Gregory Freidin a COAT of MANY COLORS: OSIP MANDELSTAM

    Gregory Freidin A COAT OF MANY COLORS: OSIP MANDELSTAM AND HIS MYTHOLOGIES OF SELF-PRESENTATION Copyright © University of California Press (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1987) Chapter I1 THE CHARISMA OF POETRY AND THE POETRY OF CHARISMA Nomen Est Omen And they said unto him, We have dreamed a dream, and there is no interpreter of it. And Joseph said unto them, Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you." Gen. 40:8 A man's name is one of the main constituents of his person and perhaps a part of his psyche. S. Freud, Totem and Taboo But how can I tear myself away from you, my dear Egypt of things? Osip Mandelstam, The Egyptian Stamp. Now it is a matter of coincidence that Mandelstam whose first name happened to be Osip was a namesake of the Biblical interpreter and dreamer. But once his parents made up their minds to name their first-born Joseph, the Egyptian career of Israel's most beloved son became an easily available exemplar for Mandelstam--one of the measures of his life's progress. To use Joseph in this way became especially tempting after Mandelstam had decided to pursue the vocation of lyric poet--in a way, a born dreamer and interpreter of dreams--one that was valued highly in the "Egypt" of his time but still remained to be properly conferred on a man of Jewish origin.[1] To spin this much meaning out of something so random and insignificant as a poet's first name may look more than a trifle archaic, but a more or less vague hope that a famous namesake can influence one's life is deeply imbedded in Western culture, the majority of whose members still have Christian names, that is, live under the guidance and protection, however attenuated by modernity, of a particular holy woman or man.[2] In Russian culture (and Mandelstam's mother was quite 1 This is the first chapter of A Coat of Many A Coat of Many Colors Freidin Chapter One: The Charisma of Poetry and the Poetry of Charisma at home in it[3]) this tradition remained relatively strong.
  • Osip Emilevich Mandelstam - Poems

    Osip Emilevich Mandelstam - Poems

    Classic Poetry Series Osip Emilevich Mandelstam - poems - Publication Date: 2004 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Osip Emilevich Mandelstam(1891 - 1938) Osip Mandelstam, also Osip Mandel'shtam, was born in Warsaw and grew up in sburg. His father was a successful leather-goods dealer and his mother a piano teacher. Mandelstam's parents were Jewish, but not very religious. At home Mandelstam was taught by tutors and governesses. He attended the prestigious Tenishev School (1900-07) and traveled then to Paris (1907-08) and Germany (1908-10), where he studied Old French literature at the University of Heidelberg (1909-10). In 1911-17 he studied philosophy at St. Petersburg University but did not graduate. Mandelstam was member of 'Poets Guild' from 1911 and hand close personal ties with Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev. His first poems appeared in 1910 in the journal Apollon. As a poet Mandelstam gained fame with the collection 'KAMEN' (Stone), which appeared in 1913. The subject matters ranged from music to such triumphs of culture as the Roman classical architecture and the Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It was followed by 'TRISTIA' (1922), which confirmed his position as a poet, and 'STIKHOTVORENIA' 1921-25, (1928). In Tristia Mandelstam made connections with the classical world and contemporary Russia as in Kamen, but among the new themes was the notion of exile. The mood is sad, the poet is saying his farewells: "I have studied science of saying good-by in 'bareheaded laments at night'. Mandelstam welcomed February 1917 Revolution but he was hostile at first to October 1917 Revolution.