A poignant collection of Osip Mandelshtam’s poetry, full of a piercing nostalgia for a better world and bearing bitter witness to the cruelty of Stalin’s Russia.
“Probably the greatest Russian poet of this century.” – The New York Times
Osip Mandelshtam, arguably the greatest Russian poet of the 20th century, died in a Stalinist prison camp at the age of 47. It was not his first arrest – he had already been imprisoned multiple times, as well as tortured, exiled, and blacklisted for the criticism of the Soviet state implicit in his verse. And yet many of his poems survived attempted purges – often hidden in the unlikeliest places, and protected at great risk by his friends and admirers.
This volume collects the best of his work, including poems he was unable to publish in his lifetime. Offering selections from his major collections Stone and Tristia, it also collects many of the poems that his widow and friends hid among their possessions until it was safe to publish. Drawn from across his working life, these works show his development and major themes: the beauty of human creation, the agony of exile and the courage it takes to stand still and quietly speak the truth.
Dense and sonorous, his poetry magnificently merges the European past at its best with Russian experience at its worst. Full of light and beauty, bitterness and desolation, Mandelshtam’s verse is a powerful expression of the struggle to bear injustice and the poignant dream of a better world.
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