caxtonian

JOURNAL OF THE CAXTON CLUB VOLUME XIV, NO. 11 NOVEMBER 2006 Collecting Mandelstam

R. Eden Martin source of this divine new harmony, which we call the poetry of Osip Mandelstam?”1 rguments about who was the greatest Sir Isaiah Berlin, who was fluent in both Abaseball player in the history of the Russian and English, singled out Mandel- game are entertaining, in part because there stam from other Russian writers as a “man are no “right” answers—only opinions. But of genius.”2 there are at least data. We know how many One of the best qualified to judge was home runs Ruth hit, and we can look up Ty Joseph Brodsky, the 1987 Nobel Laureate Cobb’s batting average. in literature. Brodsky, like Nabokov, was When it comes to the arts—painting, supremely accomplished in both Russian music, poetry—there are fewer relevant and English. In 1964 he was prosecuted in things to measure, and no yardsticks for Russia for “social parasitism.” Expelled in measuring the things which are most rele- 1972, he lived in the United States until his vant. No one would dream of judging the death in 1996. Because of his unique talent quality of a pianist by how fast he plays and perspective, it is better to quote him at Liszt, or how many recitals he played in a length than a dozen others. He called Man- year. Whitman’s greatness as a poet cannot delstam “the child of civilization” and be captured by measuring the length of his “Russia’s greatest poet in [the 20th] lists, or by counting the lines he wrote or century”3 : the books he sold. Mandelstam was a Jew who was living in Yet it is tempting to muse about the capital of Imperial Russia, relative greatness in the creative arts. whose dominant religion was Who was the greatest poet writing Orthodoxy, whose political struc- in English during the 20th Century? ture was inherently Byzantine, and whose alphabet had been Who was the greatest poet writing devised by two Greek monks.4 in any western language during the 20th Century? Many would answer: The Revolution brought on for Osip Mandelstam. But because him “a terrifying acceleration”: poetry cannot be translated into Its sublime, meditative, caesuraed another language—only recreated in flow changed into a swift, abrupt, it—and because relatively few pattering movement. His became people in the West (outside Russia) a poetry of high velocity and exposed nerves, sometimes read Russian, it would be hard to cryptic, with numerous leaps over work up much enthusiasm for either The poet in 1910 (ABOVE) and in the mid 1930’s the self-evident with somewhat side of the argument anywhere in abbreviated syntax. And yet in the United States, except possibly at a these Russian poets were greater artists this way it became more a song than Russian literature faculty cocktail party. than any poet writing in America at the ever Russia produced many excellent poets time, including Frost and Stevens. And before....5 during the past century. Cab drivers in some experts in a position to make such Brodsky pointed out the obvious—that Petersburg regularly quote Pushkin at judgments believe that Mandelstam was the translations of such music are utterly inade- length. The very best Russian poets of the greatest of them all. quate: 20th Century would certainly include Akhmatova wrote,“Mandelstam has no The English-speaking world has yet to Akhmatova, Blok, Mandelstam, Pasternak, teacher. That is something worth thinking hear this nervous, high-pitched, pure and Tsvetaeva—and one could make a case about. I don’t know a similar case in all of voice shot through with love, terror, for dozens of others. I believe that many of world poetry... [W]ho can show us the See MANDELSTAM, page 2 o MANDELSTAM, from page 1 guage, the ornate and twisted speech of an autodi- memory,culture,faith—a voice trembling, dact, where normal words are intertwined with CAXT ONIAN perhaps like a match burning in a high wind, the ancient philosophical terms of Herder, Leib- yet utterly inextinguishable. nitz, and Spinoza, the capricious syntax of a Tal- Book dealers cannot be held to the same critical mudist....”Osip’s mother,Flora,was a piano standards as academicians; and collectors under- teacher and intellectual who “loved to speak and The Caxton Club, Founded 1895 stand that salesmanship is an element of book- took joy in the roots and sounds of her Great Junie L. Sinson, President selling. Nevertheless, because book dealers have Russian speech, impoverished by intellectual Adele Hast, Vice-President Jane F. Carpenter, Secretary many books to sell and they cannot all be the clichés.” Gerald Bauman, Treasurer “greatest,” the relative level of enthusiasm about an Osip’s father moved the family to Petersburg Michael Thompson, Past President author or a book may hint at some underlying when Osip was six years old.7 (St. Petersburg was Council reality. John Wronoski of Lame Duck Books to undergo several name transformations during Class of 2007 probably deals with more fine Russian literature Mandelstam’s lifetime—to Petrograd, then Bruce H. Boyer than any other American book dealer. In the fall Leningrad; today it is called Petersburg, which is William D. Mulliken William Drendel of 2005 he offered an inscribed copy of Mandel- the name I use.) Although they were Jews, neither Caryl Seidenberg stam’s first book, Kamen’ (“Stone”), 1913, which of Osip’s parents was religious, so he rarely C. Steven Tomashefsky he described as follows: attended synagogue. He remembered visiting his Class of 2008 paternal grandfather at his home in Riga: Anthony Mourek The first work of the greatest Russian poet Carolyn Quattrocchi after Pushkin (and one of the few indisputable My grandfather, a blue-eyed old man in a skull John Blew titans of twentieth century literature) the cap which covered half his forehead and with Barbara Denemark Long pathos of this rare and fragile book would the serious and rather signified features to be Edward C. Bronson require another Mandelstam to convey in seen in very respected Jews, would smile, Class of 2009 words. A holy relic. rejoice, and try to be affectionate—but did not Rob Carlson know how.... Suddenly my grandfather drew Kim Coventry So who was this Russian poet, Osip Mandel- from a drawer of a chest a black and yellow silk Ed Hirschland stam? And why write about him for American Wendy Husser cloth, put it around my shoulders, and made David Mann readers who do not read Russian? me repeat after him words composed of Appointed Officers Last question first. One does not have to read unknown sounds; but, dissatisfied with my Paul T. Ruxin, Programs Mandelstam’s work in the original to realize that babble, he grew angry and shook his head in 8 Paul F. Gehl, Archivist he led a fascinating and tragic life, which is of disapproval. I felt stifled and afraid. Hayward R. Blake, FABS interest apart from the artistic merit of his verse. Clarence Brown, his biographer, writes that Representative Frank J. Piehl, Historian Also, the story of his books—how and when they though Osip resisted learning the Hebrew lan- Committees appeared, the difficulties of getting accurate bibli- guage, his rejection of his Jewish inheritance was Robert Cotner, Development ographic information, and the travails of trying to not permanent. His upbringing also “probably William Drendel, Exhibitions collect these books today—will be familiar to col- intensified a striving after religious conviction.”9 Adele Hast, Finance lectors of great writers in English or any other During the latter part of the 1890’s, young Osip Ed Quattrocchi (Honorary Chair), J. William Locke, Dorothy Sinson language. But, more important, Mandelstam lived received tutoring at home. In 1899 at the age of 8 (Co-Chairs), Friday Luncheons and wrote under terrible hardships—censorship, his parents enrolled him in a fine school—the Dan Landt, Membership threats from Stalin’s government, incarceration Tenishev School—which offered a classical edu- Junie L. Sinson, Nobel Study Donald Chatham, Publications and torture, extreme poverty and hunger, and cation, combined with practical scientific and Martha Chiplis, Publicity internal exile. As awful as these conditions were commercial courses. The tuition expenses were a Wendy Husser, Web Site for ordinary Russians, they were probably even burden to the family, which was far from wealthy. Caxton Club Staff worse for Jewish intellectuals. How Mandelstam Osip’s program covered eight years—the Ameri- Dan Crawford, General Manager was able to create transcendent poetry in such can equivalent of the last six years of K-12, and Caxtonian wretched circumstances—and how his wife was the first two years of college. (Vladimir Robert McCamant, Editor able to preserve his work during and after their Nabokov—driven by the family chauffeur— Wendy Husser, Copy Editor Carolyn Quattrocchi, Copy Editor years of internal exile—is a story of the tri- began attending the Tenishev School four years Robert Cotner, Founder umphant human spirit. after Mandelstam had left.) Osip took the stan- Kathryn DeGraff, Matthew dard courses—including the classical languages, J.Doherty, Wendy Husser, Paul Ruxin, Florence Shay, Contributing sip (“Joseph”) Mandelstam was born in German, biology and chemistry.According to one Editors OWarsaw on January 15, 1891.6 His father, of Osip’s classmates, his grades were generally ©2006, The Caxton Club. The Caxtonian is Emil Mandelstam, was a leather merchant. Osip poor.10 published monthly by The Caxton Club, wrote that his father “had absolutely no language; But Osip found time to read the classic Russian whose office is in the Newberry Library. Printing: River Street Press, Aurora, IL his speech was tongue-tied and languageless- authors. In his own fragmented memoir, he later ness....a completely abstract,counterfeit lan- remembered the family bookcase with his

The Caxton Club • 60 W Walton St, Chicago, IL 60610 3305 • ph 312 255 3710 • [email protected] • www.caxtonclub.org mother’s books—Pushkin, Lermontov, conversation and literary readings, till 17 Turgenev and Dostoevsky. Book collectors eight or nine on Thursday morning. might be pleased to know that he appreci- In April 1909, back in Petersburg from ated the splendor of the editions, the ele- his travels, Osip began attending Ivanov’s gance of the type, and the bindings in lectures and discussion groups.18 Anna boards covered with thin leather. He wrote Akhmatova later remembered that she first that,“The bookcase of early childhood is a met him at Ivanov’s Tower.“He was a wiry man’s companion for life,” and his wife boy then, with a lily of the valley in his would later write that as an adult he kept lapel, his head thrown way back, with fiery the books he had in “his childhood days.”11 eyes and lashes that reached almost halfway Like many other educated Russians, down his cheeks.”19 By mid-May 1909, Osip read Marx but found him boring. An Osip was persuaded to read some of his acquaintance later remembered that at the poems to those in attendance.20 age of 16, he associated with a group of From the spring of 1909 to 1911— Socialist Revolutionaries. He may even young Osip (then 18-20) composed a series have worked on some kind of propaganda of respectful if not worshipful letters to materials. And Osip later admitted to Ivanov. From the deeply personal tone of Cheka interrogators that he had been his letters—addressed, for example, to friendly with the son of Boris Sinani, a “Very respected and dear Vyacheslav well-known SR leader. Osip later wrote Ivanovich”—it is evident that Osip and that,“My religious experiences date from Mandelstam in 1914 Ivanov were well acquainted, even friends, the period of my childish attraction to received his introduction to the French allowing for generational differences. Osip Marxist dogma and cannot be separated Modernists.16 Osip spent much of the next at that time was much affected by the pre- from that attraction.”12 three years studying, writing and traveling vailing literary currents, and would proba- Vladimir Gippius, one of Osip’s teachers in France, Germany (Heidelberg), then bly have regarded himself as a “Symbolist.” at the Tenishev school, taught Osip Russian Switzerland. His wife later reported that he He wrote to Ivanov:“Your seeds have literature and made a large impact on the visited Italy twice. lodged deep in my soul and it frightens me young student. Perhaps more important In Russia the prevailing “school” of poetry when I look at the enormous shoots than the classes were the visits to Gippius’ during the last part of the 19th Century coming out.”21 The following fall, Osip apartment, where Osip “would come to him and the first decade of the 20th was the wrote a perceptive criticism of Ivanov’s to wake up the beast of literature. To listen Symbolist group,“led” in a loose way by recent book of poetry, Po Zvesdam (“By the to him growl, to watch him toss and Vyacheslav Ivanov and Alexander Blok. Stars”), saying,“Your book is splendid with turn.... Even now it is difficult for me to The Symbolist movement was partly aes- the beauty of great architectural creations free myself from the notion that I was then thetic and partly metaphysical. At one and astronomical systems.... Only it at literature’s own house.”13 extreme, its protagonists believed (or seemed to me that the book is too round, as The Tenishev school published two liter- asserted) that symbols were the only reality. it were, without angles. There’s no direction ary journals for students; faculty and stu- Ivanov was the principal theorist of the from which one can get at it to smash it, or dents frequently gathered for discussions Symbolists. He held weekly gatherings of smash oneself against it.”22 and poetry readings. Osip was apparently writers on Wednesday evenings in his Along with his letters, Osip sent Ivanov an infrequent participant, but on at least Petersburg apartment, called “the Tower,” at some 15 of his own early draft poems and one occasion shortly after his graduation, which leading writers—including but not asked his advice about what might be done he presented a poem—“Chariot.”A student limited to leading Symbolists—read and with them. Researchers have found no evi- journal reports that his reading “called forth discussed their most recent work. dence that Ivanov ever responded to these a storm of applause,” and that his poem The leading early work in English on youthfully exuberant letters. “greatly exceeds in artistic quality the Russian literature prior to the Soviet period By 1911 Osip was studying in Petersburg majority of our school belles letters and was written by Prince D.S. Mirsky and at the University in the Faculty of History perhaps of modern belles letters generally.”14 published in London in 1926. Mirsky and Philology. How he got in—with his One of his poems appeared under a pseu- devoted many pages to Ivanov, referring to reportedly-weak grades—is not known. donym in one of the Tenishev journals in him during the period 1905 to 1911 as “the Also, he faced the problem that the Univer- 1907.15 uncrowned king of Petersburg poets”: sity had a “quota” on the number of Jewish At the age of 16, Osip finished his school Ivanov’s flat on the sixth floor of a house students it would accept. What is known is work at the Tenishev School in the spring overlooking the Duma building and the that Osip was baptised in May 1911 in a of 1907. Perhaps because of his brief flirta- Taurida Park was known as “the Tower.” Methodist Episcopal church; and Osip’s tion with the radical SR political group, his Every Wednesday all poetic and modern brother later wrote in his memoirs that parents sent him off to Paris, where he Petersburg met there, and the more inti- See MANDELSTAM, page 4 mate adepts stayed there, in mystical CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 3 Apollon, 1909-1917

MANDELSTAM, from page 3 is left not only with a sense of the richness Osip had joined the church to avoid the of cultural life in Petersburg, which was Jewish “quota.” Osip evidently attached no then the capitol of Russia and home of the other significance to his baptism. His Czars, but also a fuller understanding of mother likewise didn’t mind, though for his the enormity of the injury suffered by the father, it was reportedly a matter of serious Russian people as a result of the War and concern.23 the Revolution. (ABOVE) Apollon, 1910, bound volume; (BELOW) Apollon, August 1910, title page Osip was not an exemplary University The work of most of Russia’s great poets student. Among other subjects, he studied appeared in the pages of Apollon.So it is classical languages and literature but was perhaps not surprising that in the summer flummoxed by Greek grammar. One of his of 1909, Mandelstam’s mother took her son contemporaries recalled a classroom experi- to see the editor, a man named Makovsky. ence where Osip was called upon to discuss Osip’s mother explained that young Osip Aeschylus: wanted to become a poet but his parents Again after a long silence, Mandelstam preferred that he go into the family leather answered: He wrote Orestes. Excellent, goods business. She wanted to know if he said [the professor]. Actually, he did had any talent as a poet, and handed the write Orestes. But perhaps, Sir, you will editor a number of Osip’s poems, asking be so good as to tell us what Orestes that he read them on the spot and give her consists of. Is it a separate composition his judgment. Osip’s feelings of embarrass- or is it part of a cycle consisting of ment and fear can only be imagined. His several tragedies? future was on the line. Makovsky read A long silence ensued. Proudly raising several of the poems. He later wrote that his head, Mandelstam silently looked at they did “not captivate” him—but knowing the professor. He said nothing more. [The professor] lowered his, and with the importance of the occasion, and sensing an independent demeanor, looking Osip’s anxiety, the editor “went over to his straight in front of him, Mandelstam left side: for poetry, against the leather business. away—along with the Russian monarchy. If the hall.24 With an air of conviction, even rather Makovsky’s answer had been more critical, Though he continued on at the Univer- solemnly, I said,‘Yes Madame, your son has would Osip have been pressured by his sity until the spring of 1917, Osip did not talent.’”25 Osip was of course delighted, and family to become a leather goods merchant? finish his coursework and never received a his mother was “amazed.” But she recovered Perhaps not, but his career as a poet—the degree. quickly enough to respond that if the opportunities to publish, the people he poems were that good, then they should be came to know, the experiences he had— pollon was the greatest Russian literary printed in Apollon. Ivanov apparently would almost certainly have been different. Aand arts journal of the pre-War era. deserves credit for helping arrange these Art—like life—proceeds dialectically Published in Petersburg, it first appeared in early appearances of Osip’s verse.26 (except when it doesn’t); and by 1910 Sym- October 1909 and continued until the eco- Osip Mandelstam’s first published poems bolist theory and practice had called forth nomic and cultural devastation caused by were the five that appeared in Apollon in opposing schools or tendencies, principally the Great War brought it to a whimpering August 1910. His work continued to (in Russia), the Futurists. In April 1910, close in 1917. Turning its pages today, one appear in this journal until it withered shortly before Mandelstam’s first poems 4 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 (LEFT) Cover of Mandelstam’s first book, Kamen’. First edition, published in Petersburg, 1913. Kamen’ means “Stone.” (ABOVE)Title page of same, with Mandelstam’s presentation to his friend Vyacheslav Ivanov “with deep respect and genuine love. 2 October, 1913.”

The magazine that The Poet.31 printed the largest Mandelstam’s brother remembered that number of Osip’s he and Osip picked up two packages of the poems in 1913 was booklets at the print shop. Booksellers in Giperborei. It had a Petersburg at the time would not buy for short life—only 10 resale volumes of new poetry, except those issues from 1912 to of well-known poets such as Blok. For 1913. Three of unknowns like Mandelstam, they would Osip’s poems only take the books on commission. Man- appeared in the Feb- delstam decided to entrust the entire lot of ruary 1913 issue, and his books (other than those he gave to another three friends) to a large book store at the corner appeared in October of the Nevsky and Fontanka. From time to 1913. The last issue time he would check on how sales were appeared in Apollon, a handful of the avant- of Giperborei—in December 1913—carried doing, and when he learned that 42 copies garde poets and artists who would later his short poetic tribute to his friend Anna had been sold, the family celebrated.32 became known as “Futurists” published Akhmatova (five of whose poems also Several years ago, when I was first start- their first collection—Sadok Sudei.27 appeared in the same issue). ing to collect Russian books, an American Another group opposing or contrasting But the main event in the life of the 22- book dealer offered me the copy of the first with the Symbolists were the writers with year old poet in 1913 was the appearance of edition of Kamen’ that Mandelstam pre- whom Mandelstam would soon be his first book—Kamen’ (“Stone”). It was a sented in October 1913 to his friend identified—the “Acmeists”—including 33-page booklet containing 23 poems. Ivanov, the Symbolist poet who presided Akhmatova and her husband, Lev Gumilev. Osip’s father provided the money for the over the literary gatherings at “the Tower” The Acmeists generally rejected the meta- printer, and, according to Osip’s Russian and to whom Osip had sent his own youth- physics of the Symbolists and advocated a biographer, 600 copies were printed.29 The ful poems a few years earlier. I gulped two return to “classical” clarity of the hard and simple, green paper wrapper was decorated or three times and decided to buy it. It is fast things of the real world, rather than the with the drawing of a lion and a cupid with now one of the two anchors of my collec- intellectual and linguistic haze of Symbol- lyre (a reference to the Acmeists’ classical tion of Mandelstam. The presentation to ism. By the end of 1911, Osip was meeting leanings), and displayed the word “Akme.” Ivanov reads: with Gumilev and a group of similarly- Many of the poems had previously “Vyacheslavy Ivanovichy Ivanovy c minded poets (Tsek Poetov—“Poets’ appeared in journals. Akhmatova later glubokoi priznatel’nostiyu i nastoyaschei Guild”) to share readings and criticism.28 wrote that Mandelstam liked to remember lyubov’yu. Avtor. 2 oktyabrya 1913. Though Mandelstam’s poems had first ironically how,“an old Jew, the owner of the Peterburg.” begun to appear in 1910, his biographer print shop where Stone was printed, con- Or: “To Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov Brown believed that the real start to his gratulated him on the book’s publication, with deep respect and genuine love. The career was in 1913, when several of his shook his hand, and said:‘Your writing will author. 2nd October 1913. Petersburg.” poems were published in Apollon and other only get better and better young man.’”30 This inscription has been published.33 monthly journals. Osip’s first critical prose Akhmatova may have been confused; Man- Kamen’ received a handful of reviews— also appeared in 1913, in Apollon.Gumilev delstam remembered the remark as has all friendly.34 Readers were struck by the and Sergei Gorodetsky issued their having been made by one Goldberg,“a fat hard realities reflected in both the title of “Acmeist manifesto” in the pages of Apollon bourgeois,” who printed the verses of his the book and the subjects of the poems, as that same year. clients gratis in his little magazine, called See MANDELSTAM, page 6 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 5 MANDELSTAM, from page 5 of its termination. It set in motion changes wrote,“In a cold Stockholm bed”; and in contrasted with the Symbolist haze of hints that would radically transform life and another—“If you wish, I’ll take off my felt and metaphors, and also by the precision of culture in Russia; its consequences continue boots.” His wife Nadezhda later made sure the images and language, as well as the met- today to ripple through the lives of civilized that these dedications—like the earlier ones rical inventiveness of Mandelstam’s verse. people throughout the world. The Revolu- to Tsvetaeva—did not appear in his pub- Gumilev wrote that Mandelstam had tion brought first excitement and upheaval, lished volumes.40 “opened up the doors of his poetry to all of then loss of property and work, grinding Finally, Mandelstam—uncertain whether life’s phenomena that exist in time, not poverty, fear, sickness, homelessness, or not he should stay with Tsvetaeva—left merely in eternity or the instant: to the hunger, and (in the case of many writers of for the Crimea. Tsvetaeva did not encour- casino on the dunes, the parade in Tsarskoe integrity) censorship and surveillance, an age him to stay.41 She wrote to a friend that Selo, the crowd in a restaurant, a Lutheran’s end to publication, repression, arrest, Osip had been so upset he spoke of enter- funeral.”35 torture, and ultimately death. Many saw it ing a monastery and growing potatoes.42 Pasternak, one of the greatest poets of coming and escaped to the West. Most the 20th Century (as well as the author of probably didn’t see it coming. A few saw n the spring of 1919 Mandelstam Dr. Zhivago), later wrote Mandelstam a but choose not to leave. Akhmatova and I“married” Nadezhda Yakovlevna Khazina letter responding to a complimentary Mandelstam were among these. in Kiev. He had gone south to the Ukraine review:“What did you find that is good in One who saw and escaped—at least for a in March 1919 in part because of food me?... What was that flattery for? For you while—was the great poet Marina Tsve- shortages in Moscow and Petersburg. Their know I shall never in my life write a book taeva (1892-1941). She got out in 1922, courtship could not have been long because like Kamen’!”36 but returned in 1939 and hanged herself Nadezhda later wrote that they “first met A second and enlarged edition of there two years later. Experts rank her as on May Day in 1919.”43 The marriage was Kamen’, at 86 pages, nearly three times the one of the greatest Russian poets. “formalized” three years later.44 size of the first edition, appeared in Peters- Mandelstam had met Tsvetaeva and her Osip’s marriage to Nadezhda turned out burg in late 1915 (though the title page husband, S.Ya. Efron, in the Crimea in to be fortunate both for him and for lovers shows the year as 1916).37 A third edition, 1915. In the spring of 1916 Tsvetaeva was of Russian poetry, because it was largely enlarged to 95 pages and displaying a more staying with her sister in Aleksandrovo, not due to Nadezhda that most of Mandel- colorful and modernist front cover, was far from Moscow, when Mandelstam came stam’s later great work survived. She was published by the State Publishing House for visits over a four-month period. They also the author of two volumes of memoirs (Gosizdat) in 1923. A fourth appeared in walked in the countryside and talked of lit- about Mandelstam—Hope Against Hope, Petersburg in 1926. erature and life. Mandelstam wrote one of and Hope Abandoned. his finest poems,“Not Believing The Mandelstam’s life thereafter seems to he years immediately after the first Miracle of Resurrection,” to Tsvetaeva. It have been one of wandering from city to Tappearance of Kamen’ were enor- includes these lines: city, and apartment to apartment. In late mously eventful for Mandelstam. The War I kiss your sunburned elbow 1919 he was driven out of Kiev by began for Russia in July 1914. The Rus- and a waxen bit of forehead. Denikin’s White Army, whose leaders may sians did not conscript soldiers, relying I know it has stayed white have regarded him as a Bolshevik. He went largely on peasants for their Army; and beneath the strand of dark gold. first to Feodosia, then to Odessa, then back though Gumilev enlisted, most writers and I kiss your hand where there is still to Moscow. In October 1920 he returned to intellectuals did not. In contrast to the situ- a white band from your bracelet. Petersburg—now called “Petrograd.” He The flaming summer of Taurida ation in England, literate, upper-class Rus- continued to write poems, and gave occa- performs such miracles. sians rarely wound up in the front lines— sional readings.45 either as soldiers or officers—which helps They wrote several poems to each other. The center of Acmeism after the War explain why so few of their poets wrote By the time Mandelstam’s were later pub- was the Guild of Poets in Petersburg, “war poems” of the kind composed by lished, he had married; and because of the headed by Akhmatova’s husband, the poet Graves, Sassoon, Thomas and Owen. It understandable feelings of his wife, and critic Nikolay Gumilev. Bolshevism did also explains why so few Russian poets Nadezhda, the dedications to Tsvetaeva not wait long to show its fangs. In August were killed in the War. were removed.39 1921 Gumilev was arrested by the Cheka Mandelstam did not enlist, probably for Akhmatova wrote in her memoir that for complicity in an alleged plot to over- health reasons, though he evidently volun- Osip was later in love several times—once throw the new government. He was shot by teered for service as a hospital orderly. with Akhmatova herself. She had to tell a firing squad about three weeks later. Sixty There is an unsubstantiated report that him they could not continue to meet so fre- others were executed at the same time, about this time he tried to kill himself.38 It quently without giving people the wrong including wives of the so-called conspira- would not be the last time. impression. Osip wrote several of his best tors. The Revolution of 1917 was both a con- poems to or about the women who were In 1922 Mandelstam arranged for the sequence of the War and one of the causes the objects of his affections. In one he publication of the poems he had accumu- 6 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 When Tristia was republished in Moscow, Mandelstam gave it a new name—Vtoraya Kniga—“Second Book.” This edition deleted 16 poems and added 14 new ones.

been put together by ungrammatical people without his knowledge and against his will.49 He soon arranged for a second edition of the collection—in November 1922—this time in Moscow. Again, the wrong year appeared on the cover. He renamed this new edition Vtoraya Kniga— “Second Book”—and dedicated it to Nadezhda. In it Mandelstam deleted 16 poems, added 14 new ones, and presented the poems in the order in which he had written them. Cover of Tristia, Mandelstam’s second collection. It was published in August 1922, though the The order was important to him, accord- wrong year—1921—appears on the cover. ing to Nadezhda, because he wrote inter- lated since 1916 (which had not earlier 3000 copies. It appeared in August 1922, linked poems in chronological sequence— appeared in the second edition of Kamen’). though the wrong year—1921—appeared his poems “came in groups, or in a single These newer poems, as described by on the cover.“Petropolis” is identified on the flow, until the initial impulse was spent.” So Nadezhda, were about “the war, his presen- cover as the place of publication, though the in arranging them for book publication, he timent of revolution and the Revolution Futuristic title page says “Petersburg- basically used the order in which the poems itself.” In Petersburg he entrusted his Berlin.” were written.50 “jumbled-up manuscripts”46 to a man There were fewer reviews this time, but In this book’s final edition of 1928, the named Blokh (not the great poet) without they were uniformly positive.47 Professor last one Mandelstam saw through the press resolving such matters as the title, the order Brown, writing much later, concluded that himself, he reverted to the first title— of the poems, and other details. Blokh Tristia was Mandelstam’s most classical Tristia. The order was slightly modified, asked Mikhail Kuzmin, a prominent poet, book:“It differs from the ‘Roman’ Stone, and six of the poems were deleted— to come up with a title. He settled on however, in referring almost exclusively to perhaps because of government Tristia, after one of the 46 poems in the col- the classical world of Greece—a fact which censorship.51 lection. Blokh himself apparently decided should not be obscured by the slight irony on the order of the appearance of the of its bearing a Latin title.”48 poems, which turned out to be chaotic. The Mandelstam was unhappy with the rown believed that Mandelstam’s “fall book was printed in Berlin, to gain interna- Berlin edition of Tristia. He gave copies to Bfrom grace” started about 1923. It was tional copyright protection, in an edition of friends with notes to the effect that it had See MANDELSTAM, page 8 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 7 MANDELSTAM, from page 7 during that year that the influential Sym- bolist poet Briusov reviewed Second Book critically, attacking it as not sufficiently Marxist or “modern.”52 Nadezhda wrote later that, In 1923 M.’s name was removed from all the lists of con- tributors to the lit- erary magazines. Since it happened in all of them (ABOVE) Mandelstam in 1922. (BELOW) The simultaneously, 20 poems Mandelstam wrote between 1921 this can scarcely and 1925 were published in the collection have been a coinci- Stikhotvoreniia (“Poems”) in 1928. dence. That summer there Mandelstam’s book for children—Primus (“Stove”), with draw- must have been ings by Dobuzhinsky. some kind of ideo- logical conference illustrated books of have four of the French works: two by Jules at which the poems for children Romains (Cromedeyre-le-Vieil, 1925; Les process of dividing writers into friend that are now quite Copains, 1925), one by Georges Imann (Le and foe had scarce—for the Fils Chebre, 1925) and one by Daudet (Ta r - begun.53 same reason that tarin de Tarascon, 1927). The two by Imann popular children’s and Daudet were not even known to the Political considera- books frequently editors of Mandelstam’s Collected Works.56 tions governed who fail to survive in Except for a copy of the Imann book (at the was permitted to good condition in University of Wisconsin), none of these is publish, and what got the West. I’m lucky located in any of OCLC, RLIN, or the published. They also to have a very British Library catalogue. began to affect who charming one— Mandelstam also wrote a number of was permitted to Primus (“Stove”), prose pieces that appeared in provincial work, housing alloca- with drawings by newspapers. Nadezhda later wrote that, tions, and the attitudes Dobuzhinsky. “[F]rom the second half of the twenties it of writers and others sensitive to prevailing During the mid-20’s, Osip was also able became much harder to obtain translating political winds. to make a little money translating works work, so that his right to a livelihood was The constraints seem to have applied to from other languages. His biographer always being contested. Nothing came of journals but not, at least not initially, to reports that Mandelstam was “heavily... his books for children either.”57 books. In the autumn of 1923, Osip involved in the labor of turning French, No doubt the closing down of literary worked on a book of autobiographical German, even English works into outlets affected Mandelstam’s enthusiasm sketches and portraits entitled Shum Russian.”55 Some of these pieces appeared for writing poetry. From 1921 to 1925, he Vremeni—“The Noise of Time.”The in literary magazines. Several were pub- wrote (or retained) only 20 poems. From Editor of Rossiia turned it down, but it was lished in book form during the period 1926 to 1930 he wrote none at all.58 The 20 published as a thin book in 1925, to mixed 1923-1928. Most were translated from poems from 1921-25 were gathered reviews.54 This autobiographical work is the French, but a few were from English (a lan- together as the last section of the last col- source of many of the details of Mandel- guage Mandelstam did not know well)— lection published during his lifetime, in stam’s childhood. Upton Sinclair’s play Machine, and a few 1928, entitled Stikhotvoreniia ( “Poems”). It Osip was permitted to write children’s novels of Walter Scott. These translations took a letter from Osip’s friend and sup- books. In 1925-26 he published four small have also become scarce. I am fortunate to porter Nikolai Bukharin, a top-ranking 8 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 Cover of Mandelstam’s surrealist novella, “Egyptian Stamp.” poems in 1930. Those from the period 1930-34 were kept in two notebooks, and are today published as his “Moscow Note- books.” Once cycle in this group—the “Armenia” poems—was deemed publish- Mandelstam’s translations of four French works, issued in 1925 and 1927 able, and appeared in the literary magazine Novy Mir, March 1931. A prose piece, member of the Communist hierarchy, to virtually unemployable. He did a little “Journey to Armenia” containing a thinly- clear the way for publication by the govern- translation work (which led to a bitter veiled attack on tyranny in its closing pas- ment printing office in Petersburg.59 This quarrel involving charges of plagiarism), sages, appeared in the journal Zvezda in collection, published in an edition of 2000 and wrote a few articles for a Moscow 1933. As a result, the editor of the journal copies, contained selections from the earlier newspaper. But he and Nadezhda lost their was fired; and no other work by Mandel- two books plus the 20 poems from the apartment at Tsarskoe Selo, and they stam ever again appeared in Russia during 1921-25 period. My copy of the 1928 col- moved into a small flat with Osip’s brother his lifetime.63 lection contains four lines inscribed by in Moscow. Osip’s biographer says he was On returning from Armenia, Osip tried Mandelstam. physically and mentally exhausted, and sick to find a place to live and work in Peters- In 1928 Mandelstam also published a of literature and the constraints of Soviet burg, but the writers’ organization would collection of articles, O Poezii (“About repression. not have him there. He and Nadezhda were Poetry”), and the short Egyptian Stamp,a In 1930 his friend Bukharin arranged for forced to go back to Moscow, where they novella, which Professor Brown (who them to take a trip to Armenia. During this eventually found space in a wing of the edited it in 1965) called “one of the few trip he witnessed some of the horrors of House of Herzen, then controlled by the examples of surrealist fiction to be found in collectivization and soured even more on Writers’ Union. all of Russian literature.”60 The narrative the violence of the Soviet regime. At the The clouds of suspicion over Mandel- covers one day in the life of the hero, end of his stay, Osip wrote Chetvertaia stam were darkening. He and Nadezhda Parnok, who spends it wandering through Proza (“Fourth Prose”), reflecting angrily on were under constant surveillance, which Petersburg. One episode in the story— the events of the prior two years. Osip eventually led to a tussle in 1932 with one involving Parnok’s attempt to save a name- included passages that he must have known of their neighbors, a complaint, and an less victim from a lynch mob—may reflect rendered it unpublishable in the USSR. administrative hearing. After the hearing in a fragmentary way an actual episode (“As for writers who write things with prior and an unsatisfactory outcome, Osip con- from the early 1920’s when Mandelstam permission, I want to spit in their faces, fronted and slapped the president of the tri- himself saved certain nameless victims by beat them over the head with a stick... I bunal—a writer, Alexey Tolstoy (a distant tearing up signed death warrants being would forbid these writers to marry and relative of the great novelist, Leo Tolstoy). processed by a Cheka (future KGB) func- have children.”)62 See MANDELSTAM, page 10 tionary.61 After a decade of writing very little During the period 1928-1930, Osip was poetry, Mandelstam resumed writing CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 9 MANDELSTAM, from page 9 Like horseshoes at the head, the eye or kill him. He was kept in a cell with a com- the groin. panion who was evidently a government And every killing is a treat n May 16-27, 1934, while Akhmatova 66 stool-pigeon, who tried to scare Osip into Owas visiting the Mandelstams in For the broad-chested Ossete. believing that his wife was already in Moscow, three Cheka operatives entered As Ossetia is a state near Georgia in the prison. He was worn out by lack of sleep, the Mandelstams’ small apartment, pre- Caucasus, the reference to Stalin, a Geor- and the bright lights hurt his eyes. He was sented warrants, searched the place, rum- gian, was unmistakable. given salty food to eat and nothing to drink; maged through Osip’s papers—and then The Cheka agents were clearly looking and he was made to wear a straitjacket for hauled him off to jail. Nadezhda later told for something in particular. They sorted at least part of the time. At some point he the story of what she witnessed, and what through Mandelstam’s manuscripts— became so desperate that he slashed his Osip told her, in Hope Against Hope.We putting some (the more recent poems) on a wrists with a razor blade he had kept now also have access to the Cheka files in pile to be confiscated, and the earlier work hidden in the sole of his shoe. Nadezhda Vitaly Shentalinsky, Arrested Voices,New on the floor to be left behind. They did not wrote later,“Bleeding to death is not the York, 1993. find a copy of the Stalin poem because worst way of getting out of this life of Nadezhda later speculated that the Osip and Nadezhda had never written it ours....”69 Tolstoy incident might have been the cause down. It existed only in their memory, and On May 26, 1934, a special board of the of what happened: that of their listeners, one of whom had OGPU (formerly the Cheka) handed down Another puzzle is: when did the poem passed it on to the authorities. Osip’s sentence. Nadezhda was called and about Stalin become known to the The morning after Mandelstam was told that if she wanted to accompany him police? It was written in the autumn of hauled off to jail, Nadezhda and their into internal exile, she should come and 1933, and the arrest took place in May friend Anna Akhmatova did what they meet him. Akhmatova went with her to the 1934. Perhaps after he had slapped could. They asked Pasternak for help, and Lubyanka to get him, and Nadezhda met Tolstoy in the face, the authorities had he in turn went to Bukharin. Perhaps with Osip’s interrogators. Osip was then stepped up their surveillance of M. and learned about the poem only in the Bukharin’s intervention helped save Osip’s brought in. He was in a numbed state; his 67 course of making inquiries among their life. eyes were glassy and inflamed, and his arm agents? Or had they kept it for six The Cheka records—including tran- was in a sling. Akhmatova wrote that,“He months without taking any action? This scripts of “testimony” extracted from pris- was in such bad shape that even they seems inconceivable.64 oners—have become available since the col- couldn’t get him to sit in the prison cart.”70 “The poem” Nadezhda referred to was lapse of the Soviet regime. The record of The condition of his eyes was probably due one Osip had written about Stalin in Mandelstam’s interrogation and confession to non-stop interrogation and sleep depri- November 1933. He had read his Stalin is reproduced in Shentalinsky’s book. The vation. Osip apparently never gave his wife poem to about ten of his acquaintances. Cheka interrogators quickly and easily a detailed description of what was done to Nedezhda wrote they were “horrified” and extracted from Osip the full text of the him during that two-week period. begged him to forget it.65 He must have Stalin poem. He was not the kind of person The interrogators told them that the known the danger—the certainty, really— who would falsely deny his authorship. Stalin poem was counter-revolutionary and that someone would report him. The risk They demanded that Osip identify the criminal. In these circumstances, it was to any listener was that some other listener people who had heard him read the poem, miraculous that Osip was only to be exiled would report it first, and then all other non- and he did so. One was Akhmatova. They for three years—and then not to Siberia, reporting listeners would be endangered. asked him what she thought of it. He told but to the town of Cherdyn in the Urals, far Here is the poem: them, according to the deposition he later southeast of Moscow. Moreover, Nadezhda We live, deaf to the land beneath us, signed: was permitted to go with him. Nadezhda Two steps away no one hears our With her customary laconicism and remembered hearing the words,“isolate but speeches, poetic acuity, Anna Akhmatova pointed preserve”—the apparent instructions from All we hear is the Kremlin mountaineer, out the “monumental, rough-hewed, on high—no doubt from Stalin himself.71 The murderer and peasant-slayer, broad-sheet character of the piece.”This Not long after arriving at Cherdyn and His fingers are fat as grubs was a correct assessment. For while an bordering on insanity, Osip again tried to And the words, final as lead weights, fall enormous force of social poison, politi- commit suicide by throwing himself from a from his lips, cal hatred and even contempt for the His cockroach whiskers leer hospital window. He succeeded only in dis- person depicted has been concentrated locating his shoulder.72 And his boot tops gleam. in this foul, counter-revolutionary, Around him a rabble of thin-necked libelous lampoon, she recognized its Then a second “miracle” happened— leaders— great power and that it possesses the perhaps because the authorities, remember- Fawning half-men for him to play with. qualities of a propaganda poster of great ing the instructions “isolate but preserve,” They whinny, purr or whine effective force... 68 feared that Osip might die and that they As he prates and points a finger, might then be blamed for his death. Or it One by one forging his laws, to be flung Mandelstam believed they were going to may have happened because of Bukharin’s 10 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 intervention.73 rupted him:“But he’s a genius, he’s a into immortality.”79 Bukharin was later tried and executed by genius, isn’t he?” To this Pasternak The story of how these later poems were Stalin, along with most of the rest of the replied:“But that’s not the point.”“What saved is itself worth telling. Before his first top leadership of the Party. But in 1934 he is it, then?” Pasternak then said that he arrest in 1934, Osip had kept his poetry in still had influence. Bukharin “was as impul- would like to meet him and have a talk. his memory, on scraps of paper, and in sive as M.... [H]e sat down and wrote a “About what?”“About life and death,” notebooks. Two of these notebooks had Pasternak replied. Stalin hung up. letter to Stalin. This was an act completely Pasternak tried to get him back, but been kept in a trunk that served as Osip’s 80 at variance with our normal code of behav- could only reach a secretary.”76 archive. During the arrest in 1934, the ior, and by that time there were very few originals of many of these poems were people left in the country who were capable The net effect of Stalin’s intervention was confiscated by the police. They were later ofsuch impulsiveness....”74 According to that Osip was permitted to live in internal reconstructed by memory and written one report, Stalin read Bukharin’s letter and exile somewhere other than Cherdyn. He down in Voronezh. But the police failed to wrote a note:“Who gave them the right to chose Voronezh, 250 miles south of find copies of some poems that Nadezhda arrest Mandelstam?”75 Moscow. had hidden in cushions or clothing.81 Stalin was evidently not entirely immune After 1934, Osip and Nadezhda were to the views of his colleagues, or to how he oronezh, though not as dreadful as naturally far more conscious of the risk that was perceived in the literary community. VCherdyn, was far from a resort. Man- his work would be seized by the police and Bukharin had told Stalin that Pasternak delstam suffered from angina and had either destroyed or used as evidence to was upset at Mandelstam’s arrest. Pasternak difficulty breathing. He could not get support further punitive proceedings. was a great and famous poet—one admired work—with the exception of occasional Accordingly, they saved his work by either by Stalin in part because he had translated jobs composing radio scripts. Nadezhda memorizing it or by scattering copies Georgian verse. wrote that during this exile,“there could be among relatives or close friends who could Whatever the causes, on June 10, 1934, no question at all of his publishing any be trusted to keep them hidden. Nadezhda the authorities lightened Mandelstam’s sen- original work, and neither was he given later described how she saved Osip’s poems: tence and permitted him to live in less translations any more. Even his name was As to M.’s manuscripts, we rescued a harsh surroundings, though he was not per- no longer mentionable—during all those small number of drafts from various mitted to live in any of the twelve major years it cropped up only once or twice in years. After this [1934 arrest] we never Soviet cities. denunciatory articles.”77 The Mandelstams kept them in the apartment again. I Stalin called Pasternak directly sometime lived on hand-outs from virtually-impover- took some of them out to Voronezh in around the end of July 1934. By that time, ished friends such as Akhmatova and small batches in order to establish the texts in final form and to compile lists of Mandelstam’s sentence had already been Pasternak. the unpublished items. I gradually got commuted—so Stalin’s motive was less one During the first year in Voronezh, Osip this done together with M. himself, who of seeking character references than of wrote no poetry. But in early April 1935, had now changed his attitude toward making sure he would get “credit” in literary after attending the concert of a young visit- manuscripts and drafts. Previously he circles for his generous clemency. ing violinist, he began to write poems. A had no time at all for them and was Pasternak later told Nadezhda about his young friend, Sergei Rudakov, wrote about always angry when, instead of destroy- telephone conversation with Stalin: it to his wife: ing them, I threw them into the old yellow trunk that had belonged to my Pasternak was called to the phone, Yesterday we went to a concert by the mother. But after the search of our having been told beforehand who violinist Barinova... She has the most apartment and his arrest, he understood wished to speak with him.... Stalin extraordinary Tsvetayeva-like tempera- that it was easier to save a manuscript began by telling Pasternak that Mandel- ment.... (When I said so,Mandelstam than a man, and he no longer relied on stam’s case had been reviewed, and that was surprised: how could I have spotted his memory, which, as he knew, would everything would be all right. This was a genuine resemblance to Tsvetayeva perish with him. Some of these manu- followed by a strange reproach: why when I had never seen her? But the scripts have survived to the present day, hadn’t Pasternak approached the rhythms of her verse?!) And see what I but the bulk of them disappeared at the writers’ organizations, or him (Stalin), achieved. After a year or more Mandel- time ofhis two arrests.... It is a miracle and why hadn’t he tried to do something stam wrote his first four lines of poetry. that a few witnesses and a handful of for Mandelstam:“If I were a poet and a About her, Barinova, after the things I manuscripts have survived from those poet friend of mine were in trouble, I 78 said.... times.82 would do anything to help him.” Rudakov would have had no way of Pasternak’s reply to this was:“The knowing that Mandelstam had once been During the next two years while living in writers’ organizations haven’t bothered in love with Tsvetaeva. Voronezh, Mandelstam wrote some 90 with cases like this since 1927, and if I hadn’t tried to do something, you proba- The poems Mandelstam wrote while he poems, filling three more school exercise bly would never have heard about it.” was in internal exile in Voronezh are among books—or “notebooks.”The first group Pasternak went on to say something his greatest and most difficult. To use (“First Voronezh Notebook”) consists of 22 about the word “friend”....Stalin inter- Akhmatova’s phrase, they are his “passport See MANDELSTAM, page 12

CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 11 MANDELSTAM, from page 11 time does not interest poems written from April to me”).“The Birth of a August 1935. The “Second Smile,” referred to in the Voronezh Notebook” consists of letter, is included in Man- about 40 “written down” in the delstam’s published works fall of 1936 and beginning of as part of the “Second 1937. The final,“Third Voronezh Notebook,” Voronezh Notebook” consists of which contains a note that 22 poems and covers the period it was written between March to May 16, 1937, when December 9, 1936, and the Voronezh exile came to an January 17, 1937. His end. Nadezhda said that, as letter to the editor on with some earlier poems, he January 13, 1937, referred wrote these in groups—with to it as “only just now com- the entire group having a single pleted.” “flow.”The poems in the “Third Osip’s letter to Tikhonov Voronezh Notebook” were thus was passed on to a well “a new departure” from those in known specialist in 20th the second.83 Century Russian literature, During that last year in S. Poliakova, who in turn Voronezh, Mandelstam’s “isola- sold it to a book dealer. It tion was really complete.” then passed through other Nadezhda’s brother provided hands on its way to mine. their rent money—they could The letter—along with not earn anything.“People four others to Tikhonov turned away from us in the from the same period— street and pretended not to rec- was published in Glagol,a ognize us.”“Everything sug- Russian-language literary gested that the end was near, Mandelstam’s letter to the Editor of Zvesda, Tikhonov, January 13, 1937, telling magazine published in and M. was trying to take full him about his new Voronezh poems. Ann Arbor in 1981.87 advantage of his remaining One of Osip’s other days.... He drove himselfso hard during of a larger collection, is one of the hand- letters to Tikhonov underscores the desper- the whole of that year that he became even written letters Mandelstam sent from ate condition in which Mandelstam found more painfully short of breath: his pulse Voronezh to Tikhonov at Zvesda.He wrote himself. He wrote on March 6, 1937 (my was irregular and his lips were blue. He this particular letter on January 13, 1937 translation): generally had his attacks of angina on the (my translation): To keep secret from you my position 84 would be bad and unnatural. All of my street...” I write to tell you about the continua- attempts and those of my wife to Mandelstam had not given up hope of tion of my work on a new book of arrange the means of living without publication in one of Russia’s literary maga- poetry, which I am writing in Voronezh. private support have led to nothing. I attach a control list of poetry from zines. Nadezhda took the group of poems Neither I nor my wife can receive any December to January. My preceding gathered in the “First Voronezh Notebook” kind of work. In addition, I, as before, work (written in Voronezh) although I to Fadeyev, editor of Krasnaya Nov;but the am sick and have no ability to work. include it in the book—at the present editor just scanned them and handed them When I wrote you about the extreme time does not interest me. Drafts are in 85 undesirability of private support, I back. Osip also mailed copies of some of “Kr[asnaya] Nov.”[a literary magazine.] hoped to put the matter on another his poems to literary magazines in Moscow. The remainder are with me. The poem plane. I haven’t ceased to hope this up to During late 1936 and early 1937 he wrote “Birth of a Smile” is only now just com- now. several letters to Nikolai Tikhonov, an pleted. The old text I will send for you There is no reason to live. I even have to consider as a variant. O. Mandelstam. editor of the Leningrad journal Zvesda almost no simple acquaintances here in (“Star”). His letters were almost always Osip’s letter refers to the poems in the so- Voronezh. Absolute need forces me to ignored, though in one case he received an called “Second Voronezh Notebook”— turn to people I do not know, which is answer—a “stilted reply” disapproving which included those written in late 1936 completely intolerable and useless. All pacifism.86 and early 1937—and confirms Nadezhda’s local institutions are closed to me, I have very few literary letters or manu- judgment that these were separate and dis- except the hospital—but only from the scripts in my “book collection,” but one of tinct from those written earlier (the group moment when I finally collapse. That moment hasn’t yet arrived: I continue on the few exceptions, which I acquired as part which Mandelstam wrote “at the present 12 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 my feet, and from time to time I write poetry and live on the fortuitous help of friends.... This time I ask you personally to help me with money. With great joy I will repay you this debt if sometime my new book of poems will be accepted for pub- lication.88

Unfortunately, the editor either could not Title page of Kamen’, with Mandelstam’s presentation to his friend Sergei Rudakov. or would not help. If he had published Mandelstam wrote that, “This little book caused great distress to my deceased mother Osip’s poems, it might have meant his own when she read [the] Lerner...Review of it.” life. The Voronezh poems—Mandelstam’s in exile with us in Voronezh, where we tress to my deceased mother when she read “passport into immortality”—did not shared every scrap of bread with him N.O. Lerner’s review of it in Rech. O.M. 13 appear in a book until the two-volume col- because he had no way of earning a living [June or July] ’36.”98 lection of his works, edited by Professors there.”93 Rudakov hoped to write a book on Rech (“Speech”) was a Petersburg news- Struve and Filipoff, appeared in the United Mandelstam;94 and Osip evidently thought paper published during the 1910’s. Lerner States in 1965. (The collection was later that Rudakov might be a possible editor for was a well-known literary critic—the expanded to four volumes.) a future edition of his collected works. researcher of the life and works of Pushkin. How did Mandelstam’s poems in the Together they filled several notebooks of The review Mandelstam referred to was three Voronezh Notebooks manage to materials including Mandelstam’s own actually Lerner’s review of the second survive? Nadezhda wrote that, explanations (the “key”) to his poems. edition of Kamen’.It has been reprinted in During the whole of our three years in Nadezhda wrote that they became so close an academic edition of Kamen’. L e r n e r ’s Voronezh, I made copies of everything that,“I gave him original copies of all M.’s review says of Mandelstam’s work:“He and distributed them to such people as I most important work, and Akhmatova let writes the same way—it seems to us, that could find, but apart from my brother him have the whole of Gumilev’s young authors write—hundreds of young Evgeni (who in any case kept nothing at archive....”95 men and women, whose names and pseu- his own home) I had nobody I could Later, Nadezhda and Akhmatova turned donyms leap out and fall without a trace, rely on to take them. Not, that is, until against Rudakov—partly because his letters like bubbles in the rain, in countless jour- Sergei Borisovich Rudakov turned up.89 revealed an over-developed ego, and partly nals, newspapers and almanacs. His mood ergei Rudakov was a young poet and because of their inability to recover the is weak,accidental,disorganized.Nowhere Sthe son of a Tsarist general. His father papers they had entrusted to him. The does he rise to real inspiration, and every- and elder brother had been shot in the early Mandelstams’ friend Emma Gerstein thing he says is the fruit of ‘irritation of 1920’s, and he had been expelled from agreed that Rudakov was arrogant but gave captive thoughts’...” It is not surprising that Leningrad. Rudakov and Mandelstam had him more credit:“It was Rudakov with his Osip’s mother was distressed at the time, or met in Voronezh in early April 1935, and ‘crazy talk,’ his ‘resounding nonsense,’ and that Lerner’s review stuck in Mandelstam’s Rudakov had gone with Mandelstam to the his excessive self-regard who stimulated memory all those years. violin recital that prompted him to start Mandelstam to start writing poetry Rudakov was later arrested and sent to writing poems again.90 Nadezhda wrote again”—in April 1935, after his long silence the camps. Upon his release, he was sent to that Rudakov came to them for his meals. and shortly after Rudakov joined them in the front and died in January 1944. After- He helped them copy poems they wanted Voronezh.96 It is thus entirely possible—no wards, Rudakov’s widow told both to save into a notebook. Nadezhda was not one can say for sure—that if it had not Nadezhda and Akhmatova that their fond of him. She thought he was too arro- been for Rudakov, the great poems of the archives were safe and in order.99 But when gant, was put off by his constant grumbling, “Voronezh Notebooks” would not have Nadezhda tried to recover the manuscripts and did not like his habit of trying to tell been written. from Rudakov’s widow,“she did not return Osip how to improve his poems. Before Rudakov went back to Petersburg them to us.”Akhmatova had the same But Osip liked Rudakov. He read poems in early July 1936, Mandelstam gave him a unhappy experience.100 Nadezhda had not to him, and he even dedicated one to him— copy of the first edition of his first book— given Rudakov everything, because she “Black Earth” (the second poem among Kamen’.It was likely Osip’s personal copy— believed that the papers should be dis- those published in the First Voronezh Note- the only copy of the first edition Mandel- persed. But she had “lost several poems book).91 (Akhmatova also liked him enough stam retained, because no other copies were altogether—nearly all the Voronezh rough to dedicate a poem to him in 1945—“To later found in the remains of his library.97 drafts and many copies of Tristia in M.’s the Memory of a Friend.”92 ) Nadezhda In the copy of Kamen’ Mandelstam gave own hand.”101 referred to him as “the young Rudakov, who to Rudakov, he wrote as follows (my trans- On the other hand, it is not clear how in his devotion to us spent a year and a half lation):“This little book caused great dis- See MANDELSTAM, page 14 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 13 MANDELSTAM, from page 13 Voronezh, Osip—in a last attempt to save clothing;“Osip took off the sweater he was many—if any—final texts of Mandelstam’s their lives—composed an ode of adulation wearing under his jacket, so that it would were irretrievably lost. Nadezhda had to Stalin. (Akhmatova did the same thing be given to his father.”112 managed to memorize virtually everything: in 1950 in an attempt to protect her son, In the spring of 1938, during the height “Until 1956 I could remember everything Lev, who was in effect being held hostage in of the “Terror,” the head of the government- by heart—both prose and verse. In order a Soviet prison camp.) Nadezhda later controlled Literary Fund, Vladimir Stavsky, not to forget it, I had to repeat a little to described how Osip composed his “Ode”— permitted Osip and Nadezhda to take a myself each day. I did this while I thought I how he changed his writing habits and two-month vacation in a rest home at still had a good while to go on living. But composed it with paper and pencil, rather Samatikha, not far from Moscow. On the time is getting on now.”102 Also, Nadezhda than in his head. Osip’s effort was an artis- surface, it seemed a small blessing. In fact it later told her friend Anna Gerstein that tic failure. He told Akhmatova that he “was was one of the last steps toward extermina- Nadezhda had not given anything of value ill when I wrote it.”108 But Nadezhda tion. Because of the opening of the to Rudakov—that “I’ve got them all...”103 thought the “Ode” had the practical effect of Kremlin’s previously-secret files, we now Whether or not any poems were irre- saving her life:“it was counted in a widow’s know that a couple of months earlier trievably lost, Nadezhda was understand- favor if her husband had made his submis- Stavsky had written to Yezhov, the new ably bitter. She referred to Rudakov’s sion even though it wasn’t accepted. M. head of the secret police: widow (known as Rudakova-Finkelstein) knew this. By surviving I was able to save Part of the literary world is very nerv- as having “stolen” her papers, and suspected his poetry, which would otherwise have ously discussing the problem of Osip her of having sold some of Gumilev’s come down only in the garbled copies circu- Mandelstam. papers through middlemen.104 She even lating in 1937.”109 As everyone knows, Osip Mandelstam was exiled to Voronezh 3-4 years ago for suspected that the widow was simply carry- When they later left Voronezh, Osip obscene libelous verse and anti-Soviet ing out Rudakov’s own intentions. She was asked a friend to destroy the “Ode.” But agitation. Now his term of exile has probably right about the sale of papers. But Nadezhda opposed it—so the poem sur- ended.... Gerstein thought Nadezhda and Akhma- vived. Indeed, after his return from It is not simply, or even primarily, a tova overdid it in believing Rudakov guilty Voronezh, Osip gave readings of it fre- problem of the author himself, a writer of theft.105 quently—no doubt to curry favor. The of obscene, libelous verse about the Apart from sales of papers, it appears “Ode” was first published in a journal in leadership of the Party and of all the that many of Mandelstam’s papers were 1975, and now appears in Vol. IV of the Soviet people. It is a question of the atti- 110 tude of a group of notable Soviet writers simply lost or thrown away. Rudakov’s Collected Works. to Mandelstam. I am writing to you, widow was arrested after the war in con- At about the same time as he struggled Nikolay Ivanovich,to seek your help.... nection with the “Doctors’ plot” against with his “Ode” to Stalin, Mandelstam wrote Once again let me request you to help Stalin; during the arrest some of the papers one of his great works—“Poem On an resolve the problem of Osip Mandel- may have been confiscated by the authori- Unknown Soldier.” It confirms that the stam.113 ties.106 Also, the widow probably burned a problem with the Stalin ode was the subject In other words,“You decide...but give us significant chunk of the archive.107 After the matter, not the artistic talent of the author. clearance to get rid of him.” Stavsky widow died, at least one Russian book attached a critical “review” of Mandelstam’s dealer contacted her family to ask about n May 1937 Osip’s term of internal exile recent poetry. The reviewer found accept- buying any remaining books or literary Iat Voronezh came to an end, and he was able only the “Ode to Stalin,” which had papers. He was told that the family threw permitted to go back to Moscow. One of “some good lines” and “strong feeling”—but away the “papers” after her death. The “key” his acquaintances gave him a ride around which, overall, was worse than its individual to Mandelstam’s poems is among the items Moscow in a new motor car111 and Osip lines.114 that were lost. fretted about where they would live. But it Yezhov received Stavsky’s letter in mid Rudakov’s widow’s daughter did keep the turned out they could not get a residence April 1938. He “evidently discussed it with letters Rudakov wrote from Voronezh, and permit for Moscow because Osip was a Stalin and then handed the matter on to his transferred them to the Pushkin House “convicted person.” Officials would not meet subordinates.”115 His subordinates put manuscript collection in Petersburg. These with him—an ominous sign. He was under together a report to “paper” the conclusion cast a light on the Mandelstam’s last years close surveillance. Finally his health broke. that had already been reached: of life there. The letters were published by The authorities allowed him to leave After he had completed his term of exile the Russian Academy of Science, Institute Moscow. He and Nadezhda lived for a Mandelstam turned up in Moscow and of Russian Literature, in 1997. Annual of while in a village called Savelovo on the tried to play on public opinion by a Manuscript Department of Pushkin House Volga. They managed to take the train to demonstrative display of his “impover- for 1993, at 7 et seq. Large sections of the Petersburg for what turned out to be a last ished position” and ill health. letters appear in English translation in Ger- visit with family and friends there. Osip, Anti-Soviet elements among writers and critics, used Mandelstam for their stein’s Moscow Memoirs. who was sick and had almost nothing, was hostile agitation, making of him a figure In mid-January 1937 while he was still in told that his aging father had no warm of suffering and organizing collections of 14 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 money for him among writers. Mandel- stam himself goes begging around tok where the old transit camp used to be, a writers’ flats. According to available information, street was renamed “Mandelstam Street.” Mandelstam has kept his anti-Soviet Maybe the name was taken from one of the views to the present. As a result of his poems he wrote in Voronezh; psychological imbalance he is capable of What street is this? aggressive acts. Mandelstam Street. The arrest warrant was signed on April What a devil of a name! 28, 1938. Bukharin could no longer help; However you turn it he had been executed during the “Terror” It sounds crooked, not straight. less than two months earlier. There was little of the straight line in him, On May 2 two uniformed agents and a His morals were not lily-white doctor came to the rest home and took And so this street, Osip away.There was no search. The agents Or rather this pit, simply dumped the contents of his suitcase Is named after into a bag. By now, Osip’s papers had ceased This Mandelstam. to have any relevance to the authorities. §§ Nadezhda hurried back to Moscow to retrieve “the basket full of manuscripts” they All photographs are of books in the author’s had left with a friend.“If I had delayed for a collection, photographed by Robert McCamant or the author. few more days, the contents of the basket Mandelstam in the late 1930’s would have been thrown into a sack...and I NOTES myself would have been taken away in a along with those of the others.118 Black Maria... But then what would have Two decades later, after Stalin’s death and 1 Akhmatova, My Half Century, p. 107. happened to M.’s poetry?”116 Khrushchev’s ascendancy, Mandelstam was 2 Berlin,“A Note On Literature and the Osip was again taken to the Lubyanka. cleared of the 1938 charges. Nadezhda was Arts in the Russian Soviet Federated Two weeks later, a single deposition was given 5000 rubles, which she divided Socialist Republic in the Closing Months taken to conclude the formalities. Osip was among the people who had helped them in of 1945.” 3 Joseph Brodsky, Less Than One, Selected charged with anti-Soviet agitation, and sen- 1937 in Voronezh. Essays, New York, 1986, p. 123, 145. tenced in early August to five years in a During the years after 1938, Nadezhda 4 Id., p. 130. 117 labor camp. It was, in effect, a death sen- occasionally heard from people who had 5 Id., p. 134. tence. been in the Vladistock transit camp. One of 6 For details on Mandelstam’s life, I rely Mandelstam was sent to Kolyma in the ex-prisoners told of having been invited primarily on his autobiographical Siberia. From the time of his arrest in May to a small loft in the barracks to hear poetry sketches, The Noise of Time,Princeton, until December, nothing was heard of him. read: 1965 (ed. Clarence Brown) and the Then in mid-December 1938 his brother memoirs of his wife, Nadezhda The loft was lit by a candle. In the Mandelstam, Hope Against Hope received his last letter, written in Vladivos- middle stood a barrel on which there (London, 1971) and Hope Abandoned tok. He wrote,“My health is very poor. I am was an opened can of food and some (London, 1974). No complete biography emaciated in the extreme, I’ve become very white bread. For the starving camp this of Mandelstam has yet appeared in the thin, almost unrecognizable, but send was an unheard-of luxury. People lived West. An early biography is Clarence clothes, food and money—though I don’t on thin soup of which there was never Brown’s Mandelstam, Cambridge, 1973. enough—what they got for their know if there’s any point.” Brown did more than any other Western morning meal would not have filled a scholar to establish Mandelstam’s Nadezhda sent him food parcels and glass. money she scraped together. But on Febru- reputation. A fine shorter but more Sitting with the criminals was a man recent sketch of Mandelstam was ary 5, 1939, the money was returned, with a gray stubble of beard, wearing a contributed by Prof. Omry Ronen to “Because of the death of the addressee.” yellow leather coat. He was reciting European Writers, The Twentieth Century, The NKVD file contains a note that Osip verse which L. recognized. It was Man- ed. Stade, Vol 10, NY, 1990, 1619-1651. had died December 27, 1938 at a place near delstam. The criminals offered him Anna Akhmatova wrote a brief memoir Vladivostok. His death certificate said he bread and the canned stuff, and he of Mandelstam, which appears in calmly helped himself and ate. Evidently died of “heart failure.” Nadezhda observed Akhmatova, My Half Century, Evanston, he was only afraid to eat food given him 1992, p. 84 et seq. And I have struggled dryly:“This is as much as to say that he by his jailers. He was listened to in com- died because he died: what is death but through one Russian biography, by Oleg plete silence and sometimes asked to Lekmanov, Zhisn’ Osipa Mandel’shtama, 119 heart failure?” The location of his burial, if repeat a poem. (“Life of Osip Mandelstam”) Petersburg, he had one, is not known. His body was See NOTES TO MANDELSTAM, page 16 probably thrown into a common grave Years later, on the outskirts of Vladivos- CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006 15 NOTES TO MANDELSTAM, from page 15 Dedication; City of Alexandrov. 95 Id., p. 273. See Gerstein, Moscow 2003. The best collection of 42 Lekmanov,p.73. Memoirs, p. 94, 117, et seq. Mandelstam’s work, Sobranie Sochinenii 43 Hope Against Hope, p. 362. 96 Gerstein, p. 111. (“Collected Works”), edited by Professors 44 Lekmanov, p. 86, 99. 97 Jurij Frejdin,“Ostatok Knig: Biblioteka Struve and Filipoff, published by the 45 Id., p. 93. O.E. Mandel’stama”—Slovo i Syd’ba: Osip Inter-Language Literary Associates from 46 Hope Against Hope,p.192 Mandelstam: Issledovaniya I Materiali, 1964 to 1969, likewise contains 47 Lekmanov, p. 100. Moskva: Nayka, 1991, c. 231-239. correspondence and much other 48 Brown, p. 220. Professor Thomas Langerak, who kindly information of biographical and 49 Lekmanov, p. 102. referred me to this article, points out that bibliographic value. Emma Gerstein’s 50 Hope Against Hope, p. 190. “The first edition of Stone is not Moscow Memoirs, Memories of Anna 51 Brown, p. 220; Lekmanov, p. 102. mentioned, so Mandelstam probably gave Akhmatova, Osip Mandelstam, and 52 Brown, p. 111. Rudakov his last copy.”(This is from a Literary Russia under Russia,New York, 53 Hope Against Hope, p. 138. letter to the author, May 3, 2005.) If so, 2004, is also well worth reading, though 54 Lekmanov, p. 108, 116. the copy has special interest because it it is critical of Mandelstam and 55 Brown, p. 90. would have been one Mandelstam kept Akhmatova, and also of Nadezhda 56 See Vol. III, 1969 at 426-427 during the more than two decades since it Mandelstam and her memoirs. 57 Hope Against Hope, p. 138. first appeared in 1913. 58 98 7 Lekmanov,p.13. Id., p. 162. The text of the inscription was published 59 8 Quoted in Brown, p. 21. Lekmanov, p. 123. in the “Literaturnye Pamiatniki” edition 60 9 Brown, p. 21. Mandelstam, The Noise of Time,ed. of Kamen’, Leningrad: Nauka, 1990, note 10 Id., p. 46. Brown, 1965, p. 37. on p.354. Again, my thanks to Professor 61 11 Mandelstam, Noise of Time,Penguin, Id., p. 50-51. Omri Ronen for the reference. 1993, p. 78-9; see Hope Against Hope,p. 62 Reprinted in Noise of Time,Penguin,p. 99 Gerstein, p. 96. 243. 181. 100 Hope Against Hope, p. 273. 63 101 12 Quoted in Brown, p. 25; see also Mandelstam, The Moscow Notebooks,ed. Id., p. 275. Lekmanov,p.24. McKane, 1991, p. 10-11. 102 Id., p. 276. 64 103 13 Mandelstam, Noise of Time, p. 115. Hope Against Hope,p.92. Gerstein, p. 103. 65 104 14 Brown, p. 30. Id., p. 160. Id. at 9, 274. 66 105 15 Lekmanov,p.23. Id., 13. Id., p. 99-100, 115. 67 106 16 Id., p. 25. Lekmanov, p. 176. Id., p. 101. 68 107 17 Mirsky, Contemporary Russian Literature, Shentalinsky, p. 180. Id., p. 117; Pushkin House Annual,p.11. London, 1926, p. 206. 69 Hope Against Hope, at 76-77. 108 My Half-Century, p. 101. 70 109 18 Lekmanov, p. 29-30. My Half Century, p. 103. Hope Against Hope, p. 198-203. 71 110 19 Akhmatova. My Half Century,p.85. Shentalinsky, p. 183; Hope Against Hope, YMCA Press, 1981, p. 23. 111 20 Lekmanov,p.30. p. 32. Hope Against Hope, p. 277. 72 112 21 June 20, 1909. Shentalinsky, p. 182; Hope Against Hope, My Half Century, p. 108. 113 22 Brown, p. 37. p. 59. Shentalinsky, p. 186. 73 114 23 Lekmanov,p.39. My Half Century, p. 102. See Lekmanov, p. 209. 74 115 24 Id., p. 64. Hope Against Hope., p. 112. Id., p. 188. 75 116 25 Brown, p. 44. Lekmanov, p. 180. Hope Against Hope, p. 361-363. 76 117 26 Lekmanov, p. 30-31. Hope Against Hope, p. 146. Lekmanov, p. 211-212. 77 118 27 “A Trap for Judges” Id., p. 139. Hope Against Hope, p. 377, 383. 78 119 28 Lekmanov, p. 42, 45. Quoted in Gerstein, p. 121. Id., p. 393. 79 29 Id., p. 51. Mandelstam, The Voronezh Notebooks, 30 Akhmatova, My Half Century,p.86. ed. McKane, quoted in introduction, p. 31 Mandelstam, Noise of Time, p. 107. 12. CORRECTION 80 32 Lekmanov,p.51. Hope Against Hope, p. 270. We regret that the October article on 81 33 A.A. Morozov,“Pic’ma O.E. Id., p. 271. “One Book, Many Interpretations” at the 82 Id., p. 20-21. Mandel’stama V.I. Ivanovu,”in Zapiski Chicago Public Library omitted a sixth Otdela Rukopicei, Izdatel’stvo Kniga, 83 Id., p. 191. 84 Club member: Sam Ellenport of Moskva, 1973, p. 261. Morozov points Id., p. 182-183. 85 Belmont, MA exhibited a full morocco out that Mandelstam gave Ivanov a Id., p. 152. second copy of his book, and that 86 Id., p. 183-84. binding of In the Time of Butterflies. relations between the two continued to 87 No. 3, p. 292. I am indebted to Prof. be warm and mutually respectful. Omri Ronen of the University of 34 Lekmanov,p.53. Michigan for referring me to this journal. 88 35 Quoted in Brown, p. 58. Glagol No. 3, p. 293-294. John B. Goetz ’66 89 36 Quoted in Brown, p. 58. Hope Against Hope, p. 271. died October 5, 2006 90 37 Lekmanov,p.67. Supra, footnote 78. 91 38 Id., p. 60. P.101 92 39 Brown, p. 67. My Half-Century, p. 376. A remembrance will appear in a 93 40 Lekmanov, p. 80; Akhmatova, p. 90. Hope Against Hope,p.9. future issue of the Caxtonian. 94 41 Tsvetaeva Memoir—Story of One Lekmanov, p. 185. 16 CAXTONIAN, NOVEMBER 2006