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Biography of Osip Emilyevich MandelstamName: Osip Emilyevich MandelstamBirth Date: January 15, 1891 Death Date: 1938 Place of Birth: Warsaw, Poland Nationality: Russian Gender: Male Occupations: poet Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam The Russian poet Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (1891-1938) began as a member of the Acmeist movement and then evolved a style notable for its clarity, diction, concern for form, and classical allusions. His poetry is highly erudite and complex.Osip Mandelstam was born on Jan. 15, 1891, in Warsaw, the son of a Jewish leather merchant. The family soon moved to St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Mandelstam finished secondary school at the age of 16 and immediately went to Paris. In 1910 he studied at Heidelberg and visited Switzerland. The next year he entered St. Petersburg University to study Old French.Mandelstam's university years were also the years of his debut as a poet. The classical grace and erudition of his poetry made him an immediate success. His first book of poetry, Stone (1913), was well received. During the years prior to World War I, Mandelstam worked in the Guild of Poets, the Acmeist workshop that stressed artistic craftsmanship. …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…in the Far East. This hardship soon drove him insane, and he died in the severe winter of 1938. Further Reading The best translations of Mandelstam's poetry are those in Olga Carlisle, ed., Poets on Street Corners: Portraits of Fifteen Russian Poets (1968). The preferred discussion of Mandelstam's life is in the moving account by his widow, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope against Hope: A Memoir (trans. 1970). Interesting views of his life and work are in Helen Muchnic, Russian Writers: Notes and Essays (1971). His life and creative method are explored in Clarence Brown's introduction to The Prose of Osip Mandelstam (trans. 1965). An informative book on Mandelstam and his place in modern poetry is Leonid I. Strakhovsky, Craftsmen of the Word: Three Poets of Modern Russia (1949).Mandelshtam, Nadezhda, Hope abandoned, New York: Atheneum, 1981, 1974.Mandelshtam, Nadezhda, Hope against hope: a memoir, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum, 1987, 1970.Mandelshtam, Osip, Journey to Armenia, San Francisco: G. F. Ritchie, 1979. |