Poets and Poems: Osip Mandelstam and “Poems”

Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) is considered one of the most significant Russian poets of the 20^th century. We have his much of his poetry today only because his wife Nadezhda Khazina protected them the only way she could at the time – she memorized them. 

Mandelstam was born to a wealthy Polish-Jewish in Warsaw. He studied for short periods at the Sorbonne, the University of Heidelberg, and the University of St. Petersburg, which excluded Jew, forcing him to convert to Methodism. 

 

The pre-World War I period was a time of intense social, cultural, and political ferment in Russia and a time when poets were aligning themselves into “schools” and groups. Mandelstam was associated with the Poet’s Guild, a group that included Anna Ahkmatova. It was also known as the Acemists, and the group’s poets emphasized form and expression. This group was part of the Silver Age of Russian poetry, a period of intense creative activity from the 1890s to the 1920s.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Anna Akhmatova and the Poetry of Resilience

She was born to an upper class family in what is now the Ukraine in 1889. Her father called her poetry decadent, but more as a commentary on poetry than his daughter. She married and had a son; he was raised by her in-laws with her husband’s agreement. She and husband divorced, although that didn’t help her when he was arrested and executed by the Soviets in 1921.

She would marry twice more; her third husband would die in a Siberian labor camp in 1953. Her son was imprisoned from 1949 to 1956. She would see her poetry published and then banned, published and then publication halted. For a long time, she could not publish poetry, and turned to essays and other non-fiction.

Through enough tribulation to last several lifetimes, Anna Akhmatova continued to write poetry. She is now considered one of the icons of the Silver Age in Russian literature (roughly 1880 to 1920), associated with poets and writers like Alexander Blok and Boris Pasternak. In her own lifetime, she became a symbol of hope and survival to millions of Russians.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.