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Picture of Osip Mandelshtam

Osip Mandelshtam

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam (15 January 1891 – 27 December 1938) was a Russian poet and essayist. He was the husband of Nadezhda Mandelstam and one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets. He was arrested by Joseph Stalin's government during the repression of the 1930s and sent into internal exile with his wife Nadezhda. Given a reprieve of sorts, they moved to Voronezh in southwestern Russia. In 1938 Mandelstam was arrested again and sentenced to a camp in Siberia. He died that year at a transit camp.

NEW YEAR’S GREETING

1 Limping, unwillingly half-faltering across the empty ground, with light, uneven steps, she barely overtakes her friends whose lighter, youthful steps she steps beyond. A crippled freedom leads her, enlivening her step, and, as she steps, she clarifies the readiness I feel: spring weather is the grandmother of coffins. What

‘ODE TO STALIN’

1 Were I to work in charcoal that would draw the highest praise –my ode to joy – its silent oscillation –I’d draw in cunning angles –anxiously, uneasily –the present in the lines would answer,and art border on audacityto picture him who honours cultures of one hundredforty nations while he