The nature of Osip Mandelstam's work is determined by the difficult times in which he lived. Revolution, Stalinist repressions, bitterness and fear for the fate of the Motherland and one's own. His poetry was not widely known. However, by the strength of its sound, the author can be safely put along with such famous personalities as Akhmatova, Mayakovsky, Yesenin ...

Mandelstam called his first collection "Stone". And this is no coincidence, because the words of poetry are stones, solid, solid, which lie in the masonry of spirituality. Gumilyov once noted that the main inspiration for Osip Emilievich was the Russian language. And this is all the more surprising that Mandelstam did not have Russian roots. Nevertheless, in his poems, the poet makes extensive use of melodiousness and extraordinary richness of speech, as, for example, in the poetry "Pilgrim":

Dressed too lightly in a cloak,

I repeat my vows.

The wind ruffles the edges of the clothes -

Can't we give up hope?

Some kind of unusual melancholy, a dull mood live in the collection "Stone". Perhaps time has left its mark on the worldview of a literary hero. "Sorrow" is the key word for him. “I am sadness, like a gray bird, I slowly carry in my heart,” he admits. But along with this, youthful surprise and bright joy live in the perception of the world.

I was given a body - what should I do with it,

So single and so mine?..

... On the glass of eternity has already fallen

My breath, my warmth.

The chanting of the cultural values ​​of different peoples is inherent in all poets of the early 20th century. Osip Mandelstam developed this most fully, because, returning to the property of different historical eras and peoples, the lyricist comes to the conclusion that spiritual values ​​​​have no nationality, they belong to everyone.

In the poem “We live without feeling the country under us”, Osip Mandelstam condemns the processes taking place in the state. The poet condemns the stupid obedience of the crowd, which is afraid to express its opinion. The lyrical hero acts as a citizen - experiencing, thinking.

However, Mandelstam's line of condemnation of the "leader of all peoples" is inconsistent. Over time, he suddenly begins to admire the "father", feeling guilty for the former harshness. He asks all talented individuals to keep up with the times, and therefore the leader:

Artist, help the one who is with you,

O. E. Mandelstam is not a universally known lyricist, but without him not only the poetry of the “Silver Age”, but all Russian poetry is already unimaginable. It is only recently that this has been possible. Mandelstam did not publish for many years, was banned and practically fell into complete oblivion. All these years the confrontation between the poet and the state lasted, which ended with the victory of the poet. But even now, many people are more familiar with the diaries of Mandelstam's wife than with his lyrics.
Mandelstam belonged to the acmeist poets (from the Greek "akme" - "top"), for him this belonging was "longing for world harmony." In the understanding of the poet, the basis of acmeism is a meaningful word. Hence the pathos of architecture, so characteristic of Mandelstam's first collection Stone. For a poet, every word is a stone that he lays in the building of his poetry. Being engaged in poetic architecture, Mandelstam absorbed the culture of various authors. In one of the poems, he directly named two of his sources:

In the ease of creative exchange
The severity of Tyutchev - with the childishness of Verlaine.
Tell me - who could skillfully combine,
By giving your seal to the connection?

This question turns out to be rhetorical, because no one better than Mandelstam himself combines the seriousness and depth of topics with the ease and immediacy of their presentation. Another parallel with Tyutchev: a heightened sense of borrowing, learning words. All the words with which the poem is built have already been said before by other poets. But for Mandelstam, this is even beneficial in some way: remembering the source of each word, he can evoke associations in the reader associated with this source, as, for example, in the poem “Why the soul is so melodious” Akvilon recalls Pushkin’s poem of the same name. But still, a limited set of words, a narrow circle of images must sooner or later lead to a dead end, because they begin to shuffle and repeat more and more often.
It is possible that a narrow range of images helps Mandelstam find an early answer to a question that worries him: the conflict between eternity and man. Man overcomes his death by creating eternal art. This motive begins to sound already in the first poems (“On pale blue enamel”, “Given me a body ...”). Man is an instantaneous being “in the dungeon of the world”, but his breath falls “on the glass of eternity” and it is already impossible to cross out the imprinted pattern by any forces. The interpretation is very simple: creativity makes us immortal. This axiom was perfectly confirmed by the fate of Mandelstam himself. They tried to erase his name from Russian literature and history, but this turned out to be absolutely impossible.
So, Mandelstam sees his vocation in creativity, and these reflections are periodically intertwined with the inescapable architectural theme: “... out of unkind gravity, I will create something beautiful someday.” This is from a poem dedicated to Notre Dame Cathedral. The belief that he can create beauty and be able to leave his mark on literature does not leave the poet.
Poetry, in the understanding of Mandelstam, is called upon to revive culture (the eternal “longing for world culture”). In one of his later poems, he compared poetry to a plow that turns time over: antiquity turns into modernity. The revolution in art inevitably leads to classicism - the poetry of the eternal.
With age, Mandelstam re-evaluates the purpose of the word. If earlier it was a stone for him, now it is flesh and soul at the same time, almost a living being with inner freedom. The word should not be associated with the subject that denotes, it chooses “for housing” one or another subject area. Gradually, Mandelstam comes to the idea of ​​an organic word and its singer - "Verlaine of Culture". As you can see, Verlaine appears again, one of the landmarks of the poet's youth.
The cult of the creative impulse runs through all of Mandelstam's later lyrics. In the end, it even takes shape in a kind of “teaching” associated with the name of Dante, with his poetics. By the way, if we talk about creative impulses, it should be noted that Mandelstam never focused on the topic of poetic inspiration, he treated other types of creativity with equal respect. Suffice it to recall his numerous dedications to various composers, musicians (Bach, Beethoven, Paganini), appeals to artists (Rembrandt, Raphael). Whether it's music, paintings or poetry - everything is equally the fruit of creativity, an integral part of culture.
The psychology of creativity according to Mandelstam: the poem lives even before its incarnation on paper, lives in its own inner image, which hears the poet's ear. It remains only to write. The conclusion suggests itself: it is impossible not to write, because the poem is already alive. Mandelstam wrote and was persecuted for his creations, survived arrests, exiles, camps: He shared the fate of many of his compatriots. In the camp his earthly journey ended; posthumous existence began - the life of his poems, that is, that immortality in which the poet saw the highest meaning of creativity.

O. E. Mandelstam is not a universally known lyricist, but without him not only the poetry of the Silver Age, but all Russian poetry is already unimaginable. It is only recently that this has been possible. Mandelstam did not publish for many years, was banned and practically fell into complete oblivion. All these years the confrontation between the poet and the state lasted, which ended with the victory of the poet. But even now, many people are more familiar with the diaries of Mandelstam's wife than with his lyrics.
Mandelstam belonged to the acmeist poets (from the Greek "acme" - "top"), for him this belonging was "longing for world harmony." In the understanding of the poet, the basis of acmeism is a meaningful word. Hence the pathos of architecture, so characteristic of Mandelstam's first collection Stone. For a poet, every word is a stone that he lays in the building of his poetry. Being engaged in poetic architecture, Mandelstam absorbed the culture of various authors. In one of the poems, he directly named two of his sources:
In the ease of creative exchange
The severity of Tyutchev - with the childishness of Verlaine.
Tell me - who could skillfully combine,
By giving your seal to the connection?
This question turns out to be rhetorical, because no one better than Mandelstam himself combines the seriousness and depth of topics with the ease and immediacy of their presentation. Another parallel with Tyutchev: a heightened sense of borrowing, learning words. All the words with which the poem is built have already been said before by other poets. But for Mandelstam, this is even beneficial in some way: remembering the source of each word, he can evoke associations in the reader associated with this source, as, for example, in the poem “Why the soul is so melodious” Akvilon recalls Pushkin’s poem of the same name. But still, a limited set of words, a narrow circle of images must sooner or later lead to a dead end, because they begin to shuffle and repeat more and more often.
It is possible that a narrow range of images helps Mandelstam find an early answer to a question that worries him: the conflict between eternity and man. Man overcomes his death by creating eternal art. This motive begins to sound already in the first poems (“On pale blue enamel”, “Given me a body ... “). Man is an instantaneous being “in the dungeon of the world”, but his breath falls “on the glass of eternity” and it is already impossible to cross out the imprinted pattern by any forces. The interpretation is very simple: creativity makes us immortal. This axiom was perfectly confirmed by the fate of Mandelstam himself. They tried to erase his name from Russian literature and history, but this turned out to be absolutely impossible.
So, Mandelstam sees his vocation in creativity, and these reflections are periodically intertwined with the inescapable architectural theme: “... out of unkind gravity, I will create something beautiful someday.” This is from a poem dedicated to Notre Dame Cathedral. The belief that he can create beauty and be able to leave his mark on literature does not leave the poet.
Poetry, in the understanding of Mandelstam, is called upon to revive culture (the eternal “longing for world culture”). In one of his later poems, he compared poetry to a plow that turns time over: antiquity turns into modernity. The revolution in art inevitably leads to classicism - the poetry of the eternal.
With age, Mandelstam re-evaluates the purpose of the word. If earlier it was a stone for him, now it is flesh and soul at the same time, almost a living being with inner freedom. The word should not be associated with the subject that denotes, it chooses “for housing” one or another subject area. Gradually, Mandelstam comes to the idea of ​​an organic word and its singer - "Verlaine of Culture". As you can see, Verlaine appears again, one of the landmarks of the poet's youth.
The cult of the creative impulse runs through all of Mandelstam's later lyrics. In the end, it even takes shape in a kind of “teaching” associated with the name of Dante, with his poetics. By the way, if we talk about creative impulses, it should be noted that Mandelstam never focused on the topic of poetic inspiration, he treated other types of creativity with equal respect. Suffice it to recall his numerous dedications to various composers, musicians (Bach, Beethoven, Paganini), appeals to artists (Rembrandt, Raphael). Whether it's music, paintings or poetry - everything is equally the fruit of creativity, an integral part of culture.
The psychology of creativity according to Mandelstam: the poem lives even before its incarnation on paper, lives in its own inner image, which hears the poet's ear. It remains only to write. The conclusion suggests itself: it is impossible not to write, because the poem is already alive. Mandelstam wrote and was persecuted for his creations, survived arrests, exiles, camps: He shared the fate of many of his compatriots. In the camp his earthly journey ended; posthumous existence began - the life of his poems, that is, that immortality in which the poet saw the highest meaning of creativity.

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"Silver Age", and all Russian poetry is already unimaginable. It is only recently that this has been possible. Mandelstam did not publish for many years, was banned and practically fell into complete oblivion. All these years the confrontation between the poet and the state lasted, which ended with the victory of the poet. But even now, many people are more familiar with the diaries of Mandelstam's wife than with his lyrics.

Mandelstam belonged to the acmeist poets (from the Greek "akme" - "top"), for him this belonging was "longing for world harmony." In the understanding of the poet, the basis of acmeism is a meaningful word. Hence the pathos of architecture, so characteristic of Mandelstam's first collection Stone. For a poet, every word is a stone that he lays in the building of his poetry. Being engaged in poetic architecture, Mandelstam absorbed the culture of various authors. In one of the poems, he directly named two of his sources:

In the ease of creative exchange

The severity of Tyutchev - with the childishness of Verlaine.

Tell me - who could skillfully combine,

By giving your seal to the connection?

This question turns out to be rhetorical, because no one better than Mandelstam himself combines the seriousness and depth of topics with the ease and immediacy of their presentation. Another parallel with Tyutchev: a heightened sense of borrowing, learning words. All the words with which it is built have already been said before by other poets. But for Mandelstam, this is even beneficial in some way: remembering the source of each word, he can evoke associations in the reader associated with this source, as, for example, in the poem “Why the soul is so melodious” Akvilon recalls Pushkin’s poem of the same name. But still, a limited set of words, a narrow circle of images must sooner or later lead to a dead end, because they begin to shuffle and repeat more and more often.

It is possible that a narrow range of images helps Mandelstam find an early answer to a question that worries him: the conflict between eternity and man. overcomes his death by creating eternal art. This motive begins to sound already in the first poems (“On pale blue enamel”, “Given me a body ...”). Man is an instantaneous being “in the dungeon of the world”, but his breath falls “on the glass of eternity” and it is already impossible to cross out the imprinted pattern by any forces. The interpretation is very simple: makes us immortal. This axiom was perfectly confirmed by the fate of Mandelstam himself. They tried to erase his name from Russian literature and history, but this turned out to be absolutely impossible.

So, Mandelstam sees his vocation in, and these reflections are periodically intertwined with the inescapable architectural theme: “... out of unkind gravity, I will create something beautiful someday.” This is from a poem dedicated to Notre Dame Cathedral. The belief that he can create beauty and be able to leave his mark on does not leave the poet.

Poetry, in the understanding of Mandelstam, is called upon to revive culture (the eternal “longing for world culture”). In one of his later poems, he compared poetry to a plow that turns time over: antiquity turns into modernity. The revolution in art inevitably leads to classicism - the poetry of the eternal.

With age, Mandelstam re-evaluates the purpose of the word. If earlier it was a stone for him, now it is flesh and soul at the same time, almost a living being with inner freedom. The word should not be associated with the subject that denotes, it chooses “for housing” one or another subject area. Gradually, Mandelstam comes to the idea of ​​an organic word and its singer - "Verlaine of Culture". As you can see, Verlaine appears again, one of the landmarks of the poet's youth.

The cult of the creative impulse runs through all of Mandelstam's later lyrics. In the end, it even takes shape in a kind of “teaching” associated with the name of Dante, with his poetics. By the way, if we talk about creative impulses, it should be noted that Mandelstam never focused on the topic of poetic inspiration, he treated other types of creativity with equal respect. Suffice it to recall his numerous dedications to various composers, musicians (Bach, Beethoven, Paganini), appeals to artists (Rembrandt, Raphael). Whether it's music, paintings or poetry - everything is equally the fruit of creativity, an integral part of culture.

The psychology of creativity according to Mandelstam: the poem lives even before its incarnation on paper, lives in its own inner image, which hears the poet's ear. It remains only to write. The conclusion suggests itself: it is impossible not to write, because the poem is already alive. Mandelstam wrote and was persecuted for his creations, survived arrests, exiles, camps: He shared the fate of many of his compatriots. In the camp his earthly journey ended; posthumous existence began - his poems, that is, that immortality, in which he saw the highest meaning of creativity.

Mandelstam’s letter to Tynyanov contains the words: “For a quarter of a century, as I, interfering with the important with the trifles, float on Russian poetry, but soon my poems will merge with it, changing something in its structure and composition.”

You will not say anything - everything was fulfilled, everything came true. Like a diamond on glass, like a stone cutter, Mandelstam's word overcame the matter of time and became culture. About himself, Mandelstam said this: “We are semantics.” His poems are dense and viscous, and vision loses its footing among crazy images. I want to read, not understand. I would like to believe in the purity of poetic thinking and the meaninglessness of the word.

Golden honey flowed from a bottle

So viscous and long that the hostess managed to say:

Here, in sad Taurida, where fate has brought us,

We do not miss at all, - and looked over her shoulder.

Bacchus services are everywhere, as if there were only Watchmen and dogs in the world - you go, you won’t notice anyone. Like heavy barrels, calm days roll by. Far away in the hut there are voices - you won’t understand, you won’t answer.

But after reading it one, two, three times, you suddenly realize that you have been deceived. That everything is in verse: “the blessed words: Lenore, Straw, Ligeia, Seraphite”, and the transparent spring of Petropolis, and the blue-eyed punch of winter, and a thousand barrels of the rest of Mandelyntamm's tinsel - everything is connected and permeated through the thoughts of the poet. He just thinks so. That's the way his head is. He is such a person. He is often offensively cultured. And then his poems have to be read in Russian with a dictionary. This is how the world is known. The poet opens the windows, and the view from them delights. Any object from the inventory of being gives him a reason to reason, to build endless chains of associations. So Theodosia reminds him of Venice, where the poet, however, has never been, a swallow about Psyche-life, and "power is disgusting, like the hands of a barber."

Mandelstam feels and thinks the unthinkable and insensible, namely the unity and density of the world in its history. Everything is reachable, everything is close - open your soul and reach out your hand.

Oh, if I could return the sighted fingers of shame,

And the convex joy of recognition.

I'm so afraid of the sobs of Aonides,

Fog, ringing and gaping.

And to mortals the power is given to love and to know,

For them, and the sound will spill into the fingers,

But I forgot what I want to say

And the ethereal thought will return to the hall of shadows.

The Poet's preoccupation with the purpose of culture and history leads him to think about the transparency of their meanings. Any event located in history or culture is available. Mandelstam freely uses objects and images from various eras and civilizations to frame his own ideas. Sometimes it seems to him that he is not free in his work, that he is other people's poems:

And more than one treasure, perhaps

Bypassing the grandchildren, he will go to the great-grandchildren,

And again the skald will lay down someone else's song

And how to pronounce it.

Mandelstam's poetry resembles a magic lantern, through which the images of history come to life, begin to move and breathe. He is the true singer of civilization. Even nature in his poems takes on urbanized forms, while acquiring some additional, imperial grandeur:

Nature - the same Rome and reflected in it.

We see images of his civic power

In transparent air, as in a blue circus,

At the forum of the fields and in the colonnade of the grove.

One complements and enhances the other. Nature, dissolving in history, creates new ornaments and symbols in it. And a person reads them, scrolls through them, forgets and remembers, plays with them, like a child with his toys. “It is not the city of Rome that lives among the ages, / But the place of man in the universe.” Rome for the poet is the pinnacle and center of civilization. He is the habitat, place and meaning of man. He is one of the central symbols in Mandelstam's poetry. Petersburg-Petropol, Feodosia, and Moscow have its features. He is a special state of mind, not the world itself, but only a look at it, painted with gloomy and majestic tones. Mandelstam never stooped to pathos in his poetry. His muse sounds solemn and precise, and never snobbish. The singer's instinct did not allow him to falsify in any poem.

Sisters of heaviness and tenderness, your signs are the same.

Lungwort and wasps suck heavy roses.

The person is dying. The sand cools warm

And yesterday's sun is carried on a black stretcher.

What really distinguishes Mandelstam from the universal

Osip Emilievich Mandelstam was born in Warsaw into a petty-bourgeois family. He spent his childhood and youth in St. Petersburg and Pavlovsk. Graduated from the Tenishev School. In 1907 he went abroad - to Paris, Rome, Berlin, listened to university lectures at the Sorbonne and Heidelberg University. As a poet, he made his debut in the Apollo magazine in 1909, and three years later the first book of his poems, entitled Stone, was published, announcing the birth of another talented Russian poet to the world.

Mandelstam is a philosophical poet with a heightened interest in history. In love with Ancient Hellas, he strongly felt the connections of Russian culture with Hellenism, believing that thanks to this continuity, "the Russian language became a neat-sounding and burning flesh."
In Mandelstam's poems, a solemn, slightly archaic, full-fledged word sounds. This is a poet of great figurative accuracy; his verse is short, distinct and clear, refined in rhythm; He is very expressive and beautiful in sound. Saturated with literary and historical associations, strict in art. hitectonics, it requires close and careful reading.

The mood of "Stone" is melancholy. The refrain of most of the poems was the word "sadness" - "where sadness has huddled, hypocrite." Having once made a reservation: “I am mortally tired of life, I will not accept anything from it,” Mandelstam will further firmly declare the acceptance of the world with all its vicissitudes: “I see a lifeless month and a sky deader than a canvas; Your world is painful and strange, I accept, emptiness !" Both in "Stone" and in the collection "Tristia" the theme of Rome, its palaces and squares occupies a large place. "Tristia" contains a cycle of love poems. Some of them are dedicated to Marina Tsvetaeva, with whom, according to some contemporaries, the poet had a "stormy romance".

Love lyrics are light and chaste, devoid of tragic gravity. Falling in love is an almost constant feeling of Mandelstam, but it is interpreted widely: as falling in love with life. Love for a poet is like poetry. In 1920, before finally joining his life with Nadezhda Yakovlevna, Mandelstam experienced a deep feeling for the actress of the Alexandria Theater. Several poems are dedicated to her. The poet dedicated several poems to A. Akhmatova. Nadezhda Yakovlevna, a missus and friend of the poet, writes: "Poems to Akhmatova ... cannot be classified as love. These are poems of high friendship and misfortune. They have a feeling of a common lot and catastrophe." Nadezhda Yakovlevna spoke in detail about the love of Osip Mandelstam for the beautiful Olga Vaksel, about the family strife caused by this in her memoirs. What can you do, Mandelstam actually fell in love quite often, bringing grief to his Nadenka, and Russian poetry was enriched with the most beautiful verses on the eternal theme of love. Mandelstam fell in love, perhaps, until the last years of his life, admiring life and beauty.

Mandelstam was one of the first to write poetry on civil topics. The revolution was a huge event for him, and it is not by chance that the word "people" appears in his poems.

In 1933, Mandelstam wrote anti-Stalinist poems and read them mainly to his acquaintances - poets, writers, who, upon hearing them, were horrified and said: "I did not hear this, you did not read this to me ..."

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.

On the night of May 13-14, 1934, Mandelstam was arrested. He was seriously threatened with execution. But his friends and missus stood up for him. This played its part; he was sent to Voronezh. After the end of the three-year exile, the Mandelstams returned to Moscow.

On May 2, 1938, Mandelstam was still arrested and sentenced to five years in labor camps on charges of counter-revolutionary activities. Then Taganka, Butyrka, following the stage to Vladivostok. From there is the only letter sent in October 1938.

There is no grave of Osip Mandelstam on earth. There is only a pit somewhere, where the bodies of tortured people are dumped in disorder; among them, apparently, lies the Poet - that was his name in the camp.

In Mandelstam's most bitter poems, the ecstasy before life does not weaken, in the most tragic ones, such as "Save my speech forever for the taste of misfortune and smoke ...", the same ecstasy sounds, embodied in phrases striking in novelty and strength: "If only those vile scaffolds loved me, As, aiming at death, the towns pound in the garden ... And the more difficult the circumstances, the more tangible the linguistic fortress, the more poignant and surprising the details. It was then that such marvelous details appeared as "an oceanic string of pearls and meek baskets of Tahitian women." It seems that Monet, Gauguin, Saryan shine through Mandelstam's poems...

My time is not yet limited,

And I accompanied the universal ecstasy,

Accompanying the sound of a lady's...

This was said on February 12, 1937. Happiness arose at the time of the creation of the poem, perhaps in the most difficult situation, and the miracle of its occurrence is most striking.

Do not separate me from life -

She dreams

Kill and caress at the moment ...

It seems that a person walking on water would inspire us with less awe. It is not clear what miracles we still need if every year in May lilacs bloom in a wasteland, if on the basis of poverty, obscurity or innate oblivion, wars and epidemics, the music of Bach and Mozart was written, if the words of the Decembrist Lunin came down to us from the "hard labor hole" that only fools and animals are unhappy in this world if we have Mandelstam's Voronezh poems at hand. The experience of poetry as happiness - this is happiness. Still more absurd are the complaints that it does not exist in life, that it can only exist in poetry. "There is no happiness in life" - this is not a human, but a criminal formulation. On the confrontation of happiness and misfortune, love of life and fear of it, all poetry rests, and especially Mandelstam's, which has withstood the most difficult test in the history of Russian poetry.

"Little and dying" he called the butterfly. He could say the same about his soul. "Sighted fingers shame and convex joy of recognition" led his pen. Even for the depiction of death, Mandelstam draws on the most vivid and tangible details:

Pouring for the affectionate, freshly removed mask,

For plaster fingers that do not hold a pen,

For enlarged lips, for strengthened caress

Coarse-grained peace and goodness...

What is the expression of love for the depicted subject? In affectionate, selfless attention to him. "Water on pins and air is softer than the frogskin of balloons." Such close sensitivity, ready to change places with the depicted thing, to get into its "skin", to feel for it, and leads and warms this poetry, makes it possible to feel the ins and outs of the world and our consciousness.

"We sleep standing up in the dense night under a warm sheep's hat ...", "Quietly stroke the wool and stir up the straw, like an apple tree in winter, starve in a mat", "My ear chills with a clarinet in the morning", "As if I sagged on my own eyelashes..."

Of course, this ability to “stick into life” is wonderfully combined in Mandelstam with high intellectualism, but he has nothing to do with abstractions, rationality, he is immersed in life, nature, history, culture, is linked to the world and instantly responds to its call.

Poetry inspires happiness and courage, it is our ally in the fight against the "spirit of despondency."

The people need a mysteriously native verse,

So that he always wakes up from him.

And flaxen chestnut wave -

Washed by his sound.

Even today, no one can name the date of his death and the place of burial with final accuracy. Most of the evidence confirms the "official" date of the poet's death - December 27, 1938, but some eyewitnesses "extend" his days for several months, and sometimes even years ...

Back in 1915, in the article "Pushkin and Scriabin," Mandelstam wrote that the death of an artist is his last and natural creative act. In "Poems of the Unknown Soldier" he said prophetically:

The aorta bleeds

And whispers through the rows:

I was born in ninety-four

• I was born in ninety-two...
• And in a fist clutching a frayed

Year of birth - with a crowd and a herd,

I whisper with a bloodless mouth:

I was born on the night from the second to the third

January ninety one

Unreliable year - and centuries

Surround me with fire.

The death of Mandelstam - "with a crowd and a herd", with his people - added the immortality of fate to the immortality of his poetry. Mandelstam the poet became a myth, and his creative biography became one of the central historical and cultural symbols of the 20th century, the embodiment of art that opposed tyranny, was physically mortified, but won spiritually, resurrecting in spite of everything in miraculously preserved poems, novels, paintings, symphonies.