1. Alexander Nikolaevich Scriabin (1872–1915). Russian modernist composer. Pasternak worshipped him and was an ardent disciple in his youth. Experimented with synesthetic effects of light and sound.
2. Having died from wounds received in a duel with a foreigner, Pushkin, in the winter of 1837, was buried secretly at night—his body was secretly removed from St. Petersburg to a monastery graveyard near Pskov, because the government of Nicholas I feared “nationalist” demonstrations.
3. The motif of the black sun, or nighttime sun, recurs many times in Mandelstam’s work. George Ivask has traced it to Gérard de Nerval’s poem “El Desdichado,” where the poet writes of the “soleil noir de la Mélancolie” (“black sun of Melancholy”). The image has, in fact, a number of origins: The Tale of Igor’s Men (image of the solar eclipse), Racine, Viacheslav Ivanov, the Talmud. The pun in Russian on “sun-heart” (solntse-serdtse), lost in English, refers to Pushkin. For a discussion of the image see the Struve-Filipoff edition (Mandel’shtam, 3: 404–411). See also George Ivask’s essay in that same volume, “Ditia Evropy” [Child of Europe], especially pp. x–xi; Taranovsky, “Pchely i osy v poezii Mandel’shtama”; and Brown, Mandelstam, pp. 231–237.
THE MORNING OF ACMEISM
First published in 1919. But probably written much earlier, in 1912 or 1913, as a third “manifesto” of Acmeism, following those of Gumilev and Gorodetsky. For discussions of Acmeism as a movement, see my introductions to Selected Works of Nikolai S. Gumilev and Complete Poetry of Osip Emilevich Mandelstam, both trans. Raffel and Burago. The striking similarity between the tenets of Imagism (before it became, as Ezra Pound put it, “Amygism,” referring to the coarse but indubitable energies of Amy Lowell) and Acmeism have been pointed out several times, most recently, and with great acumen, by Brown, Mandelstam. In his literary essays, Mandelstam tends to minimize the importance of “Adamism,” associated with Gorodetsky. Nevertheless, he continues to emphasize the biological metaphor, the notion of the image as an “organ.” It might perhaps be added that among the many meanings of Acme or Akme—peak, pinnacle, height—is that of climax, including the notion of sexual climax.
LITERARY MOSCOW
First published, 1922.
1. Fedor Iaseevich Dolidze (b. 1883), used to organize poetry readings both in Petrograd and Moscow and in the provinces. On one particular evening, according to the notes in the Struve-Filipoff edition (Mandel’shtam, 2: 647), he arranged for the election of a “King of Poetry,” and Igor Severianin’s followers, who packed the hall, got their favorite elected. This was in February, 1918, in Moscow. Mayakovsky, apparently, wasn’t too happy about it. On another occasion, an evening of “feminine poetry” was arranged, at which Marina Tsvetaeva read.
2. Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892–1941). A great and splendid poet. Mandelstam is most unfair to her here. In fact they were close at one time, and three of his poems are dedicated to her. Her fate was a tragic one. She emigrated and lived in Czechoslovakia for many years, isolated from the “emigration” as such. She returned to the Soviet Union after the disillusionment of Munich. Her husband was killed; her daughter was arrested, but survived. She herself committed suicide in Elabuga, not far from Kazan. She has been posthumously “rehabilitated.”
3. Anna Dmitrievna Radlova, born Darmolatova (1891–1949). Poet, translator of Shakespeare and Marlowe.
4. Alexander Afanasievich Potebnia (1835–1891). Literary scholar, professor at the University of Kharkov; along with A. N. Veselovsky, one of the main proponents of Neo-Kantianism in literary and linguistic theory. In attacking him, as they did, the Formalist critics could scarcely conceal their great debt to him and Veselovsky. See Victor Erlich, Russian Formalism, 2d. ed. (The Hague: Mouton, 1965.)
5. Victor Borisovich Shklovsky (b. 1893). The youngest, most brilliant, and possibly also the most erratic of the Formalists. He founded the group called Opoyaz. Later, he showed great courage in honoring his friendship with the Mandelstams. See his volumes, recently translated by Richard Sheldon and published by Cornell University Press, A Sentimental Journey (Ithaca, 1970) and Zoo (Ithaca, 1971).
For Eikhenbaum and Zhirmunsky, see “Badger’s Burrow,” note 3.
6. Pseudonym for Adelina Efron (b. 1900). She later converted to a standard, cheery Socialist Realist style in the 1930’s.
7. Sophie Iakovlevna Parnok (1885–1933). Poet and translator. Mandelstam is, apparently, as unfair to her as to Tsvetaeva. She published some poems under the name of Andrei Polianin, but the bulk of her work remained unpublished. I have been told by scholars who are familiar with her Nachlass and whose judgment I trust that she is an unrecognized poet of the magnitude of Tsvetaeva or Akhmatova. The family name was originally Parnakh, and her brother, who emigrated to Paris, was known as a poet and a critic of the dance. See Brown, ed., The Prose of Osip Mandelstam, p. 47.
8. See “Attack,” note 1.
9. MAF: Moscow Association of Futurists. The Lyrical Circle: a circle of poets whose one published Miscellany included poems by Mandelstam.
10. Aleksei Eliseevich Kruchenykh (1888–1973). Futurist poet who attempted to create an entirely new language. See his Izbrannoe [Selected works], introduced by V. Markov (Munich: Fink, 1973).
11. See “Attack,” note 1.
LITERARY MOSCOW: BIRTH OF THE Fabula
First published, 1922.
1. Leonid Nikolaevich Andreev, or Andreyev (1871–1919). Author of The Seven Who Were Hanged and the play He Who Gets Slapped. He often moved from a Realist-Naturalist style to something approaching Surrealism. A prolific and well-known writer in his time, he has since fallen from fashion.
Maxim Gorky, pseudonym of Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov (1868–1936). Very well known; a gifted, if extremely uneven writer. He was, between quarrels, a friend of Lenin’s. Having supported the Bolsheviks for a long time by means of his royalties, he became a prominent and important political figure at the time of the Revolution, when he criticized the Bolsheviks severely and finally, after a quarrel with Lenin, left Russia in 1921, only to return again in the late 1920’s, at Stalin’s urging, to become the official idol of Soviet literature and the patron saint of Socialist Realism. During the time of the Civil War, he did more than any other single man to keep writers and the literary intelligentsia alive. See the very interesting observations about him in Berberova, The Italics Are Mine, pp. 174–197 and passim.
Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev (1875–1950). Prerevolutionary Russian Realist writer of the Znanie school (from the publishing house Znanie, or “Knowledge,” under Gorky’s tutelage). Emigrated in the early 1920’s.