The Voronezh Notebooks: Poems 1935-1937Osip Mandelstam was one of the great poets of the twentieth century, with a prophetic understanding of its suffering, which he transformed into luminous poetry. Childish and wise, joyous and angry, at once complex and simple, he was sustained for 20 years by his wife and memoirist Nadezhda Mandelstam, who became, with Anna Akhmatova, the saviour of his poetry.In May 1934, after years of persecution, Mandelstam was arrested for writing an unflattering poem about Stalin, and subjected to gruelling interrogations and torture. He attempted suicide twice, slashing his wrists in prison, and jumping from a hospital window in Cherdyn. Exiled to Voronezh, he seemed crushed. A friend described him then as 'in a state of numbness. His eyes were glassy. His eyelids were inflamed, and this condition never went away. His eyelashes had fallen out. His arm was in a sling.'But it was to be four more years before Mandelstam was completely beaten. In Voronezh he broke a silence of 18 months after a concert by the young violinist Galina Baranova. Her music released him into the most fertile phase of his writing, his last two years in exile, when he wrote the ninety poems of the three Voronezh Notebooks. Nadezhda's memoir Hope Against Hope includes a moving account of their time in Voronezh, and Anna Akhmatova's poem 'Voronezh' describes her visit there in 1936, when 'in the room of the exiled poet / fear and the Muse stand duty in turn / and the night is endless / and knows no dawn.'This edition is now out of print but the whole book is reprinted as part of The Moscow and Voronezh Notebooks. |
Contents
Translators Preface by RICHARD McKANE | 11 |
Introduction by VICTOR KRIVULIN | 15 |
FIRST VORONEZH NOTEBOOK | 20 |
Copyright | |
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Akhmatova Angry Lamb Anna Akhmatova April arrest Black Earth Bloodaxe Books blue Bolshevik breath camp Chapayev Cherdyn Collins Harvill composed context darkness death December exile eyes February Filipoff flute forest goldfinch Hermitage Hope Abandoned January Jennifer Baines Kama river Khudozhestvennaya Literatura Khudozhestvennaya Literatura edition Leningrad light lips live look Mandel Mandelstam in Voronezh Mandelstam Society Mandelstam writes Mandelstam's poems March Marina Tsvetayeva McKane Meilakh Moscow Notebooks Mount Elbrus Nadezhda Mandelstam Natasha Shtempel Nerler night Ode to Stalin Olga Vaksel Osip Mandelstam Petersburg play poet published Pushkin radio raven realised Red Square remember ring river Rudakov rushed Russian Sadko sense silver burns sings sledge smile snow Song of Igor sound Soviet speech stam Stanzas stars steppe street Struve Third Book THIRD VORONEZH NOTEBOOK town translated Unknown Soldier Urals variant Victor Krivulin voice Voronezh poems whisper whistle word written young Zadonsk