Osip Mandelstam – one of the greatest poets of Russian and Soviet times. And, like many other famous writers of those years, his life was not easy and not always happy. Probably, it’s so initiated – those who donate literature to others are not able to live happily for themselves … At least, the life of this poet has been difficult.
At birth, the future poet was named Joseph, which was later changed to Osip. The Mandelstam family was not in distress, which gave them the opportunity to circumvent some of the restrictions that the Jews were subjected to at that time. Young Mandelstam entered one of the St. Petersburg universities as a free listener, but he suddenly changed his mind and went to study in Paris. Subsequently, he also studied in Germany.
The first collection of his poems, which included 23 short works, the poet published with the money of his parents, having printed 600 copies. Once Mandelstam slapped Alexey Tolstoy’s slap. The reason for the conflict was that, according to Mandelstam, Tolstoy did not fulfill his duties as chairman of the writer’s comrades’ court well enough. The poet learned Italian to read Dante in the original language.
For the poem denouncing Stalin, the poet was sentenced to exile. Since he was allowed to choose his place of residence, he went to Voronezh. In exile, Mandelstam tried to commit suicide by throwing himself out of a window. The poet was sentenced to 5 years of camp settlement because of the denunciation of the secretary of the Union of Writers, who described his poems as “slanderous” and “obscene”. Being exiled to the Far East, Osip Mandelstam did not endure such a life and soon died from exhaustion. However, the official
