About
Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist, a leading figure of Acmeism. Born in Warsaw to a Jewish family, he studied in St. Petersburg, Paris, and Heidelberg. His collection Kamen (1913) brought him fame. He later published Tristia (1922) and prose works such as The Noise of Time (1925). Arrested in 1934 for a satirical epigram against Stalin, he was exiled to Voronezh, where he wrote the Voronezh Notebooks. Rearrested in 1938, he died in a transit camp near Vladivostok. His poems were preserved by his wife Nadezhda, who memorized them. Posthumously rehabilitated, he is regarded as one of the greatest Russian poets of the twentieth century.
* 1891-01-03 — † 1938-12-27
Major works
- Kamen (1913)poetry collection
- Tristia (1922)poetry collection
- Le Bruit du temps (1925)memoir
- Le Tampon égyptien (1928)novel
- Cahiers de Voronej (1935-1937)poetry collection
Key milestones
- 1913Publication of his first collection Kamen, establishing him among the foremost Russian poets.
- 1934Arrest for a satirical epigram about Stalin, followed by exile to Voronezh.
- 1938Death in a transit camp near Vladivostok during the Stalinist purges.
Themes
Memory and timeCulture and civilizationExile and persecutionPoetry and languageCity and architecture
Sources: britannica.com · poetryfoundation.org · poets.org