Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Official website of the State –
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January 14, 2026 marks the 135th anniversary of the birth of the famous 20th-century Russian poet Osip Mandelstam.
The future poet was born in 1891 in Warsaw to a wealthy Jewish family: his father was a glove maker, and his mother was a musician. In 1897, they moved to St. Petersburg, then the capital of our country.
From 1900 to 1907, Osip Mandelstam studied at one of the capital's best schools, the Tenishevsky Commercial School, where he became interested in creativity and wrote his first poems.
After graduating from school, Osip traveled abroad: he attended lectures at the Sorbonne, studied Romance philology at Heidelberg University in Germany, and traveled through Italy and Switzerland. He occasionally returned to St. Petersburg, where he attended literary lectures by Vyacheslav Ivanov, and in 1910, he published his first poems in the magazine Apollon.
In 1911, the young poet entered the Faculty of History and Philology at St. Petersburg University and joined Nikolai Gumilyov’s “Guild of Poets,” which included Sergei Gorodetsky, Anna Akhmatova, and Mikhail Kuzmin.
Osip Mandelstam's first collection of poems, Stone, was published in 1913.
After the 1917 Revolution, the poet found success, working for newspapers and the People's Commissariat of Education, traveling the country, publishing his poetry, and performing it. In 1919, he met his future wife, Nadezhda Khazina, who became his reliable support throughout his life.
In 1922, Osip Mandelstam's second book, "Tristiy," was published, reflecting on his experiences with the Revolution and World War I. From 1923 to 1926, the poet explored prose and children's poetry, writing several works. In 1928, his final book of poems, "Poems," and a collection of sketches, "On Poetry," were published.
Mandelstam's life changed dramatically in 1933, when he wrote and publicly read the poem "We Live, Not Feeling the Country Beneath Us," which later became known as "Epigram on Stalin." In 1934, the poet was arrested and sentenced to three years of exile in the Perm region. Thanks to the intercession of several poets, Mandelstam and his wife were able to move to Voronezh, where he worked for magazines, newspapers, and theaters, and wrote poetry.
In 1937, the period of exile ended, and the Mandelstams moved to Kalinin, but in 1938 the poet was arrested again, sentenced to five years in a camp for counter-revolutionary activity, and sent to the Far East.
Osip Mandelstam died in December 1938. He was rehabilitated after his death: in 1956 for the 1938 case, and in 1987 for the 1934 case.
The poet's poems, prose, and memoirs were preserved by his wife, Nadezhda Mandelstam. She carried some with her in a "handwritten suitcase," while others she kept only in her memory. In the 1970s and 1980s, Nadezhda Mandelstam published several memoirs about the poet.
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