Mandelstam

by Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam, born in 1891, was a Russian poet who like Pasternak and Akhmatova, bore witness to the plight of Russia under Stalin. He died in 1938 on his way to a Siberian labour camp. His poetry suppressed for 40 years, survived. Though his poems reflect his life, they are not all grim. In his introduction Clarence Brown desrcibes the delight which Mandelstam took in his art. His commitment to poetry was total and he felt that this gift imposed upon him was an obligation: the people, he believed, beed poetry no less than bread.