The ‘Epigram’ was the most famous poem never to be seen by anyone in the Soviet Union. It became a legend in the writers’ circles of St Petersburg – surviving for decades only in memories and shut away in police files. One version survives in published form:
Gerstein remembers Nadezhda cautioning her after repeating the poem: ‘Lyova especially should not know about it.’ She apparently realized that Lev’s provocative nature could get the better of him, and it would land both him and Mandelstam in trouble. However, Mandelstam, so proud of his creation, immediately began reciting it ‘to anyone who would listen’. ‘The poet could not restrain himself within the limits of common sense and entrusted the seditious verse to the “for ever” disgraced Akhmatova and the unformed young man.’7 And sadly, Lev, it seems, was indeed unable to keep the verse to himself. On one occasion, he invited a student friend – ‘a not entirely familiar guest’ – to dinner. The poem was recited and, ‘staggered by what he had heard, the young man immediately informed the “organs”.’8 Gerstein may be wrong – it is still not clear how the NKVD learned of the poem – whether it was the unfamiliar student or another of the dozens of people to whom Mandelstam had recited it. But it was clear that the NKVD investigators knew about the poem, and a copy of the ‘Stalin Epigram’, written out in Mandelstam’s own handwriting, was to be found later in the NKVD file on the case (sitting in Lev’s file is a version of the poem as well, written by Lev at the request of an interrogator in 1935).
During his interrogation – at which his NKVD investigators pretended to be executing friends of Mandelstam, including Gerstein, in the next room – the poet told them everything, including the names of those to whom he had recited the poem. And in the confession was found the following: ‘Lev Gumilev approved the work with some vague and emotional expression such as “wonderful”, but his view agreed with that of his mother, in whose presence the work was read aloud to him.’9 ‘I was angry he had not denied everything, as a good conspirator might have done’, remembered Nadezhda. ‘He was too straightforward to be capable of any kind of guile.’10
This testimony was to alter Gumilev’s life. When he was finally rehabilitated in 1956, it became clear that a file on him had been opened in 1934, when Mandelstam was first interrogated.11 The name Mandelstam would continuously appear in case notes, interrogations and appeal rejections up until 1956.
In October 1935, Gerstein remembered a conversation she had while out walking with Lev at Kolomenskoe, in the hills outside Moscow.
‘When I return to Leningrad I will be arrested. In the summer an acquaintance of mine was interrogated. She was let go. But she told them everything.’
‘What did she say?’
‘There were some conversations in our house in front of her.’12
What had happened was that Borin, his university friend and NKVD informer, had come over to Punin’s apartment on 25 May 1935, and had witnessed a conversation during which Punin had ‘condoned terrorist acts against Stalin’ (according to the denunciation he wrote the next day at NKVD headquarters and which was placed in Punin’s file). Apparently, Punin had said something along the lines of ‘shwak! [mimicking a bullet] No more Joseph!’13 The ‘woman’ Lev had spoken of was Vera Anikeeva, an artist, who was called in and, under interrogation, confirmed that such a conversation had taken place.
As he predicted to Gerstein, that same month both Lev and Punin were suddenly arrested. Lev was charged with violating article 58, sections 8 and 10 of the criminal code, which concerned counter-revolutionary offences. He was further charged with belonging to an anti-Soviet group, having terrorist intentions and conducting anti-Soviet agitation. Mandelstam’s poem, according to Gerstein, played a key role in the charges and, like Mandelstam, Lev was made to copy down a version of the poem by hand – a document which remained in the case file. Another charge related to his authorship of a poem parodying the popular reaction to the death of Sergey Kirov, which he had in fact written.14
‘We all wound up in the “Big House”’, recalled Lev, using the nickname for the NKVD headquarters on Liteyny Street.15 According to him, the treatment was relatively decent; they were interrogated for eight days, but again no harsh methods were used. ‘True, at that time no one was beaten, no one tortured, only questioned.’ According to a transcript of the interrogation, Punin was forced to admit: ‘At my home, on more than one occasion, there were readings of Mandelstam’s creations, for example, against Stalin.’16 He also named Lev as an ‘anti-Soviet person’:
He made anti-Soviet statements constantly. The general content of his counter-revolutionary statements was on the necessity of toppling the Soviet regime and putting monarchy in its place… He also said, for example, that Mandelstam’s poems against Stalin were very appropriate and reflect the actual truth.
Lev denied everything at first. ‘I always had the opinion that under the circumstances, fighting against the Soviet regime is impossible.’ ‘And with whom did you have this conversation?’ asked the investigator, Shtukaturov. ‘With Borin and Punin, and with my mother.’ Shtukaturov then retrieved the transcript of Punin’s statement and showed it to Lev. Lev knew the battle was lost: ‘Yes, those conversations indeed took place.’17
That episode was fraught, but mercy was forthcoming. A distraught Akhmatova personally wrote to Stalin seeking clemency, and her friend Boris Pasternak did so as well.18 Amazingly, their interventions seem to have worked: Akhmatova’s letter was later found in an archive, with a note in Stalin’s handwriting: ‘Comrade Yagoda [chief of the NKVD]. Release both Punin and Gumilev and report to me on implementation. J. Stalin.’
Considering that the case file on Lev contained his transcription of Mandelstam’s ‘Stalin Epigram’, and Stalin would have seen the file before his decision to dismiss the case (and would almost certainly have read the poem), Gerstein believes the dictator ‘showed unheard of leniency in dismissing the case’.19 The two were duly released on 3 November, ten days after their arrest. They walked home together in silence, Lev knowing that Punin had implicated him. Until then he had tolerated Punin, but now came the final split. Lev moved out of the Fountain House, moving in with a group of students who would soon become his cellmates.
Perhaps the most insidious aspect of the terror was the psychological impact it would have on ordinary citizens, anxious to make sense of the random disappearance of their neighbours and acquaintances. They coped by blaming the victims, including Akhmatova and Lev. As Gerstein tells it:
Each person thought he alone was afraid. But everyone was scared. People tried to convince themselves that their arrested comrade, relation, or acquaintance was indeed a very bad person: they had always been aware of it actually. This defensive reaction explains the voluntary spreading of malicious rumors about the latest victim.20