Mandelstam's poem "We live without feeling the country under us" was written in 1933. This is not just poetry, but an act of civic courage. Pasternak, to whom Mandelstam read the poem, called it an act of suicide rather than a fact of poetry. Mandelstam really experienced depression at that time, and during his first arrest in 1934, he tried to commit suicide. After writing a poem, he kept a safety razor blade in his heel.
Pasternak advised no one to read the poem and warned that he had not heard the text. Mandelstam, as if approaching death, read it to many, among them were both friends and random people. Perhaps one of them denounced the poet. And Mandelstam, in turn, named many during interrogations as having heard poetry. In 1934, Mandelstam told Akhmatova that he was ready for death.
For this poem, Mandelstam was exiled to Cherdyn, at the request of Pasternak, the link was replaced by Voronezh. The punishment is not too severe. Stalin issues a verdict: "Isolate, but preserve." Such an “act of mercy” (Stalin liked to do unexpected things) aroused in Mandelstam a semblance of gratitude: “I must live, breathe and grow bigger” (1935).
The attitude of contemporaries to the poem was different. Mostly acknowledging his civic value, many considered him to be poetically weak. To appreciate the poem, you need to consider the methods of creating an artistic image.
Literary direction and genre
“We live without feeling the country under us” is a poem not characteristic of Mandelstam, therefore it is wrong to talk about his belonging to a certain direction. We can only say that the work remains modernist. The poem is least of all realistic. This is a caricatured, exaggerated image of Stalin, quite in the spirit of the realist Gogol, because writers use satire as a device for depicting the comic.
The genre of the poem is defined as a frontal epigram, poetic invective. During interrogation, the investigator called the poem a counter-revolutionary libel.
Theme, main idea and composition
The poem consists of 8 couplets and is divided into two equal parts. The first 4 lines describe the state of the people. The next 4 lines are the appearance of the "Kremlin mountaineer". The first octave is static.
The second octagon is dynamic. This is a story about the deeds of the leader and his entourage. In the third quatrain, Stalin is opposed to his entourage. Not that he was cute, but the comparison is in his favor. The last quatrain brings the reader back to the first. It becomes clear why the country lives in fear. Executions and punishments are described. Unexpected and as if artificial is the end, which reduces the pathos of the last quatrain.
The theme of the poem is a description of Stalin as the sole owner of the whole country.
Main idea: Stalin is strong, inspires fear and awe, but hatred for him is stronger than fear. In the poem, he is devoid of everything human, looks like a popular image of the devil, is the embodiment of absolute evil. In the subtext lies the hope for the victory of good over evil.
According to one version, Mandelstam was not shot because Stalin liked his own portrait: a leader endowed with absolute power. Most researchers believe that Stalin did not read the poem. There is an opinion that Stalin wanted to get laudatory verses from Mandelstam.
Paths and images
Unlike most of her contemporaries, Akhmatova highly appreciated the artistic value of the poem. She noted the methods of depicting Stalin, naming among the qualities of the poem monumental popular print and carving. A caricature appears before my eyes. The satire seems to have been drawn by a primitive artist. There is an association with the painting of the Last Judgment, painted by folk artists.
The first stanza is still quite Mandelstam's. The initial metaphor “not feeling the country under him” speaks of the disunity of the country and a person who cannot understand what is happening and is afraid. The sounds in the first stanza are very quiet or absent at all: speeches are not heard for 10 steps, people speak in a semi-colloquial way (the poet uses litots). The people whom Mandelstam calls "we" in the first stanza, referring to them and himself, are deaf and almost dumb. In the fourth line appears the image of the one who intimidated people.
Mandelstam does not call Stalin by name. He uses the paraphrases "Kremlin mountaineer", "Ossetian". They characterize Stalin only from the point of view of his origin and do not carry a negative connotation.
In the second stanza, a portrait of Stalin is given. Mandelstam compares his fat, fat fingers to worms, and his true words to heavy weights. Perhaps, fat fingers seemed to Mandelstam leafing through his poems ... With the help of metaphors and metaphorical epithets, Mandelstam draws the face of the leader, on which there are no eyes, but only laughing cockroach mustaches (there are editions where the eyes laugh). In this image disgust and fear are combined.
The image of shining tops is not only realistic (Stalin wore boots), but also refers to John the Theologian's description of Jesus, whose legs shone like copper heated in a furnace.
Neither the protagonist of the poem, nor his entourage, the rabble of thin-necked leaders (a metaphorical epithet and metaphor), are no longer the people described in the first stanza. It is the opposite of "we". But the dictator is also opposed to the environment, which is called "half-humans." Many of Stalin's contemporaries noted his tendency to play on people's weaknesses. Thin-necked leaders are the use of the image of a thin neck that turns after the head (Stalin).
The verbs “babachit and pokes”, denoting forceful actions, opposed to the actions of “semi-humans” “meows and whimpers”, cause discussions among researchers. pokes- from poke, and here babachit- the author's neologism, which can mean "mumbling, commanding, knocking on the head." Some associate the verb with a babak (steppe marmot), fat and clumsy.
Stalin's decrees are compared to horseshoes that injure others, falling into the groin, eyebrow, eye. Here Mandelstam plays with the stable expression "not in the eyebrow, but in the eye." In the case of Stalin, both in the eyebrow and in the eye. The execution of the tyrant Mandelstam defines the word thieves jargon "raspberry", neglecting its meaning. So the poet emphasizes Stalin's connection with the underworld.
In the last line, Mandelstam uses Gogol's favorite trick, making the dictator's execution and his broad chest homogeneous members.
Mandelstam was so strongly associated in the Soviet mind with the opposition to Stalin that the artist Vladimir Galba in the mid-70s, drawing the Cockroach and Sparrow, meant Stalin and Mandelstam, although the uninitiated would not have guessed this.
Size and rhyme
The poem is written in multi-foot anapaest (every 2 lines, the four-foot is replaced by the three-foot one). Rhyming in the poem is a steam room, male rhymes alternate with female ones. The rhymes are deliberately simple, banal, primitive. Only the first and last rhymes can be considered rich.
The autograph of the poem "We live without feeling the country under us ..." recorded by Mandelstam in the NKVD during interrogation.
And where is enough for half a conversation,
They will remember the Kremlin mountaineer there.
And the words, like pood weights, are true,
Cockroaches laughing eyes
And his bootlegs shine.
He only babachet and pokes.
Like a horseshoe, gives a decree for a decree -
Whatever his punishment is raspberry
And the broad chest of an Ossetian.
November 1933
Option:
We live, not feeling the country under us,
Our speeches are not heard for ten steps,
And where is enough for half a conversation, -
They will remember the Kremlin mountaineer there.
His thick fingers, like worms, are fat,
BUT
cockroaches laugh mustache,
And his bootlegs shine.
And around him is a rabble of thin-necked leaders,
He plays with the services of demihumans.
Who whistles, who meows, who whimpers,
He alone babachet and pokes,
Like a horseshoe forges by decree decree -
Who in the groin, who in the forehead, who in the eyebrow, who in the eye.
Whatever his execution, then raspberries
And the broad chest of an Ossetian.
November 1933
Variations:
1. We live, not under ourselves knowing countries,
2. Our speeches are not heard for ten steps,
3. And where is enough for half a conversation, -
4.There will remember Kremlin mountaineer.
[3. Only hear the Kremlin mountaineer -]
[4. A murderer and a muzhik-fighter.]
5. His thick fingers, like worms, are fat,
6. BUT words, like pood weights, are true -
6. Cockroaches laugh mustache,
7. And his tops shine.
8. And around him the rabble pachyderms leaders
9. He plays with the services of demihumans.
10. Who squeaks who meows, who whimpers,
11. He alone babachet and pokes,
12. How horseshoes, forges a decree after a decree -
13. Someone in the forehead, someone in the eyebrow, someone in the groin, someone in the eye.
14. Whatever his execution, then raspberries
15. And the wide chest of an Ossetian.
Yesterday I read in a friendly blog that December 27, 1938 is the day of the death of Osip Mandelstam. 70 years have passed ... I could not pass by this bitter anniversary. One of my favorite poets...
For the explosive valor of the coming centuries,
For the high tribe of people
I lost the cup at the feast of the fathers,
And fun, and his honor.
A wolfhound age throws itself on my shoulders,
But I'm not a wolf by my blood,
Stuff me better, like a hat, in a sleeve
Hot fur coat of the Siberian steppes.
So as not to see a coward or a flimsy filth,
No bloody blood in the wheel
So that blue foxes shine all night
Me in my primeval beauty,
Take me to the night where the Yenisei flows
And the pine reaches the star
Because I am not a wolf by my blood,
And only an equal will kill me.
The future poet was born in 1891 in Warsaw, but since 1897 he lived in St. Petersburg. There, in 1910, he made his literary debut. He was fond of symbolism, acmeism. He wrote poetry, published articles on literary topics. From 1918 he lived in Moscow, then in St. Petersburg, then in Tiflis. Nikolai Chukovsky wrote: "... he never had not only no property, but also a permanent settled place - he led a wandering lifestyle, ... I understood his most striking feature - lifelessness. He was a man who did not create any life and living outside of any way. In the 1920s, Mandelstam published poetry collections and did a lot of translations. He was fluent in French, German and English. When the open persecution of the poet began in the 1930s and it became more and more difficult to print, translation remained the outlet where he could save himself.
In the autumn of 1933, Mandelstam wrote the poem "We live without feeling the country under us ...", for which he was arrested in May 1934.
We live, not feeling the country under us,
Our speeches are not heard for ten steps,
And where is enough for half a conversation,
They will remember the Kremlin mountaineer there.
His thick fingers, like worms, are fat,
And the words, like pood weights, are true,
Cockroaches laughing eyes
And his bootlegs shine.
And around him is a rabble of thin-necked leaders,
He plays with the services of demihumans.
Who whistles, who meows, who whimpers,
He only babachet and pokes.
Like a horseshoe, gives a decree for a decree -
Who in the groin, who in the forehead, who in the eyebrow, who in the eye.
Whatever his punishment is raspberry
And the broad chest of an Ossetian.
November 1933
Only Bukharin's defense softened the sentence - they sent him to Cherdyn-on-Kama, where the poet stayed for two weeks, fell ill, and ended up in the hospital. He was sent to Voronezh, where he worked in newspapers and magazines, on the radio. After the end of the exile, he lived in Kalinin. Then another arrest. Sentence - 5 years in camps for counter-revolutionary activities. Stage was sent to the Far East. In a transit camp on the Second River (now within the boundaries of Vladivostok), on December 27, 1938, Osip Mandelstam died in a hospital barracks.
V. Shklovsky wrote about Mandelstam: "He was a man ... strange ... difficult ... touching ... and brilliant!"
The poet Alexander Galich wrote beautifully about the arrest ...
"... in the apartment where he lived, there were he, Nadezhda Yakovlevna (wife) and Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, who came to visit him from Leningrad. And so they all sat together until the morning, and while this search was going on , behind the wall, also until morning, at their neighbor, Kirsanov, who knew nothing about the search, they played records with the ukulele that was fashionable at that time ... "
"And only light,
What's in the starry, prickly lie,
And life will flicker
Theatrical hood with foam,
And no one to speak
From the camp of the dark street ... "
Mandelstam
All night long a guitar cooed behind the wall,
Neighbor-rogue twisted the anniversary,
And two witnesses, like two orderlies,
Yawning, they languished at the black doors.
And fat fingers, with unhurried care,
They were busy with their work,
And the two queens watched in silence,
As fingers dug in paper bast,
How boldly they leafed through a book after a book,
And the king himself - all sideways, but skipping,
So as not to give out with a glance - is it not the right page,
So as not to see eyeless faces nearby!
And the fingers were looking for sedition, sedition ...
And there, behind the wall, everyone was chasing Ramona:
"Ramona, what a space around, look,
Ramona, and in the whole world we are alone."
"... And life will flash
Theatrical hood with foam ... "
And watching the fingers rummage in the upholstery,
Well you were at ease, he thought, at ease!
Swallow your Jacobin booze!
Not vinegar yet, but no longer wine.
Nutcracker-starling, simpleton-Emelya,
Why did you get involved in someone else's hangover?!
What did you spend your gold on?!
And witnesses watched him bored...
And two queens mediocre smoked
And they also executed themselves and reproached -
For laziness, for a careless nod at the station,
For everything that he was not told in a hurry ...
And the fingers dug, and the paper was torn ...
And sang behind the wall tenor-poor guy:
"Ramona, my love, my dreams,
Ramona, everywhere and everywhere only you..."
"... And only light,
What is in the stellar, prickly lie ... "
Along the black street, behind the black raven,
Behind this carriage, where the windows are crossed,
I will rush about in honorary patrol,
Until, exhausted, I collapse in a layer!
But the word remains, the word remains!
Not by the word, but fatigue comes to the heart,
And if you want, if you don't want, get off the carousel,
And like it or not - the end of the odyssey!
But we will not be rushed by sails to Ithaca:
In our century, they are transported to Ithaca by stage,
They carry Odysseus in a calf carriage,
Where there is only happiness, that there is no chase!
Where, after drinking "prudence", for the amusement of the carriage,
Blatar-Odessa sings "Ramon":
"Ramona, do you hear the gentle call of the wind,
Ramona, it's a song of love without words..."
"... And there is no one, no one,
No one to say
From the camp of the dark street ... "
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| Volume | Title | Status |
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