Word: mandelstams
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HOPE AGAINST HOPE by Nadezhda Mandelstam. 431 pages. Afheneum...
...Osip Mandelstam, one of modern Russia's best poets, was touched with such divine madness. Born in 1891, he became an Acmeist, one of a group of poets who reacted against the excess vagaries of the Symbolists by celebrating the palpability of things in clear, earthy language. Although the son of a Jewish leather merchant, Mandelstam was most at home in classical Christian humanism. A rose was a rose because of its petals and perfume, not because it stood for something else...
...butcher was a butcher. In 1933, when Stalin began preparing for his first Great Purge, Mandelstam did a wild and unheard-of thing. He wrote a poem about Stalin, and even read it to a group of literary friends. It began...
Some poem. Some razzberry. In those days-and for a decade to come-people disappeared forever behind the walls of Moscow's Lubianka Prison for much less. Inevitably, Stalin heard about Mandelstam's poem. Yet it was not until 1934 that he had the poet arrested. Even then, it was difficult to do away with a man as acclaimed as Mandelstam. In addition, influential friends put in the good word for him. The result was that Mandelstam was released and exiled with his wife to live as best he could in the provinces. For three years...
Hope Against Hope is Nadezhda Mandelstam's recollection of the four years during which she and her husband wandered as nonpersons through the small cities and towns of Russia. They were harassed by officials, plagued by spies, kept from steady work and forced to borrow, beg and live in the corners of cold rooms. Their constant companion was the realization that they could be arrested at any time for any reason. "Give us a man and we will make a case" was a big office joke among the secret police...