Mandelstam: “We live without feeling the country beneath us.” Mandelstam “The Kremlin Highlander” (“We live, under ourselves...”) – read the text

17.02.2024 | State

The poem-epigram “We live without feeling the country beneath us” played a fatal role in the fate of Osip Mandelstam; it was not without reason that the poet’s friend Pasternak called it suicide. Of course, in 1933 there was no talk of publishing the epigram, but it was enough to lament poems to a dozen friends and not give up authorship.

Several interesting facts about the fate of the poem. Pasternak not only called the poems suicide, but also criticized them:

What you read to me has nothing to do with literature or poetry. This is not a literary fact, but a fact of suicide, which I do not approve of and in which I do not want to take part.

It is unlikely that this was a fear of becoming involved in Mandelstam’s work; rather, it was a warning to a comrade and his opinion about the epigram. There really is no literary depth in the lines, but there is a boldness that no one else has dared to take. I note that this was not courage for the sake of courage, but a vision of the situation in the country through the eyes of a poet and the strength to say it on paper.

Whatever the courage of the poet, his relatives forced him to immediately destroy the manuscript of the poem, so it was kept in only a few heads at once. It remains unknown who from this circle of close friends wrote the denunciation.

The shadows began to thicken quickly. At first there were mystical omens. In January 1934, at the funeral of the poet Andrei Bely, the coffin lid accidentally fell on Mandelstam. Osip just smiled:

I'm ready to die.

Next came the turn of real events. Mandelstam was arrested in May 1934, and during interrogation he confessed everything and indicated the circle of people to whom he read “The Highlander.” For some unknown reason, Pasternak is not on the list, although he was one of the first to hear the epigram. Somewhat later, the poet told his wife that he was terribly scared. In the cell he even tried to open the veins, but it didn’t work.

Things were heading towards inevitable execution, but Bukharin, who sympathized with Mandelstam, intervened. By the way, except Bukharin, no one came to the poet’s defense. Demyan Bedny and Pasternak remained on the sidelines. It’s not surprising, because execution threatened not only the author of the lines, but also everyone who heard them, but did not report them (one is excluded, since someone reported them).

It is unknown what influenced Stalin’s decision, but Mandelstam was not shot; moreover, he was sent immediately not to a camp, but to exile. Stalin had a long patience. Only three years later, after the exile expired, Mandelstam returned and was arrested again. The story is short, the poet is sent to the Far East, where he dies of typhus. This is the official version of the death of the author of “The Kremlin Highlander.” The creator was buried by the courage of his creation.

Fate Mandelstam confirmed his own lines:

No matter what his punishment is, it’s a raspberry.

Indeed, Stalin played with the poet for a long time, first sending him into exile, and after a grandmaster’s pause into a camp.

This is the story of this poem, and I don’t see the point in doing a deep analysis of the lines. There are no undercurrents or hidden text in the epigram. In poetry, Mandelstam describes how he sees our country and its leader.

We live without feeling the country beneath us,
Our speeches are not heard ten steps away,
And where is enough for half a conversation,
The Kremlin highlander will be remembered there.

His thick fingers are like worms, fat
And the words, like pound weights, are true,
The cockroaches are laughing,
And his boots shine.

And around him is a rabble of thin-necked leaders,
He plays with the services of demihumans.
Who whistles, who meows, who whines,
He's the only one who babbles and pokes,

Yesterday I read in a friendly blog that December 27, 1938 is the day of Osip Mandelstam’s death. 70 years have passed... I couldn’t pass by this bitter anniversary. One of my favorite poets...

For the explosive valor of the coming centuries,
For the high tribe of people
I lost even the cup at the feast of my fathers,
And fun, and your honor.

The wolfhound century rushes onto my shoulders,
But I am not a wolf by blood,
You better stuff me like a hat into your sleeve
Hot fur coats of the Siberian steppes.

So as not to see a coward or a flimsy filth,
No bloody blood in the wheel,
So that the blue foxes shine all night
To me in its primeval beauty,

Take me into the night where the Yenisei flows,
And the pine tree reaches the star,
Because I am not a wolf by blood,
And only my equal will kill me.

The future poet was born in 1891 in Warsaw, but since 1897 he lived in St. Petersburg. There, in 1910, his literary debut took place. He was fond of symbolism and acmeism. He wrote poetry and published articles on literary topics. Since 1918 he lived in Moscow, then in St. Petersburg, then in Tiflis. Nikolai Chukovsky wrote: “... he never had not only any property, but also a permanent settlement - he led a wandering lifestyle, ... I understood his most striking feature - nonexistence. This was a man who did not create any kind of life around himself. everyday life and living outside of any structure." In the 1920s, Mandelstam published collections of poetry and did a lot of translations. He was fluent in French, German and English. When open persecution of the poet began in the 1930s and it became increasingly difficult to publish, translation remained the outlet where he could preserve himself.

In the fall of 1933, Mandelstam wrote the poem “We live without feeling the country beneath us...”, for which he was arrested in May 1934.

We live without feeling the country beneath us,
Our speeches are not heard ten steps away,
And where is enough for half a conversation,
The Kremlin highlander will be remembered there.
His thick fingers are like worms, fat
And the words, like pound weights, are true,
Cockroaches laughing eyes
And his boots shine.

And around him is a rabble of thin-necked leaders,
He plays with the services of demihumans.
Who whistles, who meows, who whines,
He's the only one who babbles and pokes.
Like a horseshoe, he gives a decree after a decree -
Some in the groin, some in the forehead, some in the eyebrow, some in the eye.
No matter what his punishment is, it’s raspberries
And a broad Ossetian chest.
November 1933

Only Bukharin’s defense commuted the sentence - they sent him to Cherdyn-on-Kama, where the poet stayed for two weeks, fell ill, and was hospitalized. He was sent to Voronezh, where he worked in newspapers and magazines, and on the radio. After the end of his exile, he lived in Kalinin. Then another arrest. Sentence: 5 years in camps for counter-revolutionary activities. He was sent by stage to the Far East. In the transit camp on the Second River (now within the boundaries of Vladivostok) on December 27, 1938, Osip Mandelstam died in a hospital barracks.

V. Shklovsky wrote about Mandelstam: “He was a man... strange... difficult... touching... and brilliant!”

The poet Alexander Galich wrote beautifully about the arrest...

"... in the apartment where he lived, there were he, Nadezhda Yakovlevna (wife) and Anna Andreevna Akhmatova, who came to visit him from Leningrad. And so they all sat together while the search lasted, until the morning, and while this search was going on , behind the wall, also until the morning, at their neighbor, Kirsanov, who knew nothing about the search, they played records with the then fashionable ukulele..."

"And only light,
What is in the starry, prickly untruth,
And life will flash by
Theater bonnet with foam,
And there's no one to tell
From the camp of a dark street..."

Mandelstam

All night long the guitar cooed behind the wall,
The rogue neighbor was celebrating his anniversary,

And two witnesses, like two orderlies,
Yawning, they languished at the black doors.
And fat fingers, with unhurried care,
They were busy with their work,
And the two queens looked in silence,
Like fingers digging into the paper washcloth,
How boldly they leafed through the book,
And the king himself is all sideways and skipping,
So as not to give away with a glance whether it’s the right page,
So as not to see eyeless faces nearby!
And the fingers were looking for sedition, sedition...
And there, behind the wall, everyone was chasing “Ramona”:
"Ramona, look at how much space there is around,
Ramona, we are alone in the whole world."
"...And life will flash by
Theater bonnet with foam..."
And watching your fingers rustle in the upholstery,
You were free, he thought, free!

Swallow the sawdust of your Jacobinism!
Not vinegar yet, but no longer wine.
Nutcracker-starling, simpleton-Emelya,
Why did you get involved in someone else's hangover?!
What did you spend your gold on?!
And the witnesses watched him boredly...
And the two queens smoked mediocrely
And they also executed themselves and reproached themselves -
For laziness, for a careless nod at the station,
For everything that was not told to him in a hurry...
And the fingers dug and the paper tore...
And the poor fellow tenor singer sang behind the wall:
"Ramona, my love, my dreams,
Ramona, everywhere and everywhere only you..."
"...And only light,
What is in the starry, prickly untruth..."
Along the black street, behind the black raven,
Behind this carriage, where the windows are cross-shaped,

I will rush about on honorary watch,
Until, exhausted, I collapse!
But the word will remain, the word will remain!
Fatigue comes not to the word, but to the heart,
And whether you want it or not, get off the carousel,
And like it or not - the end of the odyssey!
But the sails will not carry us to Ithaca:
In our age, they are transported to Ithaca in stages,
Odysseus is being transported in a calf carriage,
Where is the happiness that there is no chase!
Where, having drunk "hypocrites" for the amusement of the carriage,
The Odessa blatar sings “Ramona”:
"Ramona, do you hear the gentle call of the wind,
Ramona, this is a song of love without words..."
"...And there is no one, no one,
No one to tell
From the camp of a dark street..."

At that time, most Soviet writers praised the ruler of the USSR to the skies.
During this period of time, the hand of Osip Mandelstam created a very bold poem, which he wrote after Osip Emilievich became an eyewitness to the terrible Crimean famine.

We live without feeling the country beneath us..

And around him is a rabble of thin-necked leaders,
He plays with the services of demihumans.
Who whistles, who meows, who whines,
He's the only one who babbles and pokes,
Like a horseshoe, he gives a decree after a decree:
Some in the groin, some in the forehead, some in the eyebrow, some in the eye.
No matter what his punishment is, it’s a raspberry,
And a broad Ossetian chest.

Osip Mandelstam. November, 1933.

The meaning of the words in the poem:

Highlander - Stalin.
Malina is a word in criminal slang in memory of the fact that Stalin was part of the criminal world in his youth, when he bore the pseudonym “Koba”.
Ossetian - Stalin. Stalin was from the city of Gori near South Ossetia.

The poem was recorded a second time, but only by the hand of the detective of the 4th Branch of the Secret Political Department of the OGPU N.Kh. Shivarov, who interrogated the poet in prison.

Mandelstam and Pasternak:

“Once, while walking along the streets, they wandered onto some deserted outskirts of the city in the Tverskoye-Yamskiye area; Pasternak remembered the creaking of dray carts as the background sound. Here Mandelstam read to him about the Kremlin highlander. After listening, Pasternak said: “That you read to me has nothing to do with literature, poetry. This is not a literary fact, but an act of suicide, which I do not approve of and in which I do not want to take part. You have not read anything to me, I have not heard anything, and I ask you not to read them to no one else."

Osip Mandelstam did not hide his authorship and after his arrest he prepared to be shot. The author was sent into exile in Cherdyn, and then allowed to settle in Voronezh. On the night of May 1-2, 1938, he was arrested again and sent to the Dallag camp, died on the way in December in the Vladperpunkt transit camp, and the Soviet government left Mandelstam’s body to lie unburied until spring.

Mandelstam’s poetry in the case materials is called a “counter-revolutionary libel against the leader of the Communist Party and the Soviet country,” which was the main point of the charge; Mandelstam was convicted under Article 58.10

A copy of the poem, written down in prison in the hand of Osip Mandelstam, was kept in the archives of the KGB of the USSR until the spring of 1989. In connection with perestroika, the autograph was transferred to the Commission of the USSR Writers' Union on the literary heritage of Osip Mandelstam. In April 1989, the chairman of the commission, Robert Rozhdestvensky, gave the document to RGALI; the protocol of Mandelstam’s interrogation by detective Shivarov is now stored in the Central Archive of the FSB of the Russian Federation, as part of Investigative Case R-33487.

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