1. From On Guard (Na Postu), the journal of RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers). A militantly proletarian tendency in pre-1934 Soviet literary life.
2. Reference is probably to Pushkin’s Mazepa (Poltava) rather than Byron’s. I use Byron’s spelling, assuming it more familiar to the English reader.
3. Khlysty: a religious sect. The meaning is literally “flagellants,” but they were not known for their dour ascetic self-scourging as much as for their ritualized joyous responses to the divine; they were “ecstatics.”
4. Another religious sect. Literally means “milk-drinker.”
5. “Official” language. The charge was often leveled against Mandelstam.
6. Nikolai Iakovlevich Marr (1864–1934). Gifted linguist; Marxist. Persuaded Stalin of the truth or at least the usefulness of his theory of the class origins of language. For a time, he occupied a place in linguistics almost equivalent to that of Lysenko in genetics. After his death, he and his work were denounced by Stalin himself, in Stalin’s last major theoretical pronouncement, in 1952, his essay on linguistics.
7. That part of Moscow beyond the Moscow River from the main city, associated with the playwright Ostrovsky and with Apollon Grigoriev, a place inhabited by merchants and artisans, and redolent of the spirit of old, traditional Russia.
8. Paul Signac, D’Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionisme (Paris, 1911).
9. The Russian word obyvateli, which means literally “the inhabitants, those who live there,” also carries the connotation of “philistines.”
10. Boris Godunov, regent during the reign of Tsar Fedor I (1584–1598), Fedor’s brother-in-law, and one of the last close companions of Fedor’s father, Ivan the Terrible. Later himself elected Tsar (1598–1605) by the Zemsky Sobor. His reign inaugurated the Time of Troubles. Godunov was the descendant of a minor boyar family that was Tatar in origin, and it was sometimes said that the Tatar shone through.
11. To my query, Clarence Brown responded: “The termenvox is the well-known musical instrument named after its inventor, the immortal Lev Termen (b. 1896),” to which he added, “of course.”
12. Alexander Ilyich Bezymensky (b. 1898). Poet, member of the Party since 1916. During the period 1923–1936, he had been an active member of RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) and one of the basic contributors to its journal On Guard (Na Postu).
13. The Russian says literally “shoe tree.” It did not strike me as correct to stretch a glove on a shoe tree. However, the play of words in Russian justifies the usage: na kolodku, “on a shoe tree”; okolodok, “neighborhood.”
14. In Russian, fruits ripen and eyes become bloodshot by means of the same verb: nalivaiushchikhsia plodov, “ripening fruits”; glaza nalivaiutsia krov’iu, “eyes become bloodshot.”
15. Lipovyi means “deceptive,” but also suggests lipa, a linden or lime tree; i.e., “linden-lined.”
16. Nedotroga may mean either the flower or an especially touchy person.
17. One of the oldest settlements in Armenia, at one time an important cultural center. It is about twenty miles from Erevan and contains a number of ancient ruins, some going back as far as the fifth century.
18. A suburb of Erevan, on the way to Ashtarak.
19. King of the Arshakide dynasty, which ruled Armenia from 63 to 428 A.D. In the fourth century the kingdom was divided into Roman and Iranian spheres of influence.
20. Shapur, or Sapores (Greek), or Pahlavi Shahpur II (310–379), defeated the Romans in 363 (death of Julian), and overran Armenia; made some attempt to impose Zoroastrianism on Christian Armenia. Shapur imprisoned the Parthian King Arshak (Arsaces III) in a fortress, where the latter committed suicide. In spite of the political unrest that characterized it, the fifth century that followed these events was the Golden Age of Armenian culture.
21. Mandelstam works in the “stolen air” theme, central to “Fourth Prose.”
Index of Names
Abraham, 42, 201
Adalis (Adelina Efron), 134, 230
Adam, 27, 42, 73, 77, 199; and Eve, 200
Aeschylus, 149
Aikhenvald, Iuly, 89, 225
Akhmatova, Anna, xiii, 54, 77, 81, 148, 150, 220, 230
Aksenov, I. A., 133
Alighieri, Dante, xiii, xiv, xv, xvi, xviii, 3–34, 93, 107, 188, 197, 212, 213, 214, 237
Andreev, Leonid, 139, 231
Annensky, Innokenty, 73, 74, 75, 146, 147, 148, 222
Apukhtin, Aleksei, 148, 232
Archilochus, 97
Aristophanes, xx
Aristotle, 7, 26
Arrowsmith, William, 211
Arshak, 206, 207, 239
Aseev, Nikolai, 54, 135, 136, 152, 219
Averbakh, Leopold, 234
Averroës, Ibn Rushd, 7, 213
Bach, Johann Sebastian, 12, 23, 129, 131, 183, 223
Bachelard, Gaston, xvi, 210
Balmont, Konstantin, xiii, xxii, 60, 61, 63, 73, 92, 145, 146, 221
Balzac, Honoré de, 86, 138
Baratynsky, Evgeny. See Boratynski, Evgeny
Batiushkov, Konstantin, 44, 81, 153, 218
Baudelaire, Charles, 21, 51, 94, 145, 226
Beatrice (B. Portinari), 16, 21, 29, 39
Beethoven, Ludwig van, xviii, 125, 126, 223
Berberova, Nina, 220, 231
Bergson, Henri, 66
Bezymensky, Alexander I., 192, 239
Biely, Andrei (Boris N. Bugaev), xiii, xix, xxiv, 69, 92, 134, 138, 139, 140, 141, 145, 147, 212–213, 222, 225
Bizet, Georges, 91
Blagoi, Dmitry D., 163, 236
Blok, Alexander, xix, 16, 89–93, 136, 146, 150, 151, 215, 225, 226
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 12
Böhme, Jakob, xvii
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 86, 198, 218
Boratynsky, Evgeny (also spelled Baratynsky), 59, 60, 61, 149, 220
Bosio, Angelina, 165, 236, 237
Brahms, Johannes, 31
Briusov, Valery, 78, 92, 145, 147, 148, 220
Brodsky, Joseph, xx
Brown, Clarence, xxi, 209, 210, 213, 229, 230, 236, 237, 239
Bruno, Giordano, 37
Buckle, Henry Thomas, 78, 223
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de, 196
Bugaev, Boris N. See Biely, Andrei
Bukharin, Nikolai I., xxiii, 164, 234, 236
Bulgakov, Mikhail, 235
Bürger, Gottfried August, 32
Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 110, 238
Caesar, Gaius Julius, 7
Catullus, Gaius Valerius, xxii, 50, 51, 219
Cavalcanti, Guido, 10
Cézanne, Paul, 193
Chaadaev, Peter, xii, xvii, 70, 71, 101–107, 222, 227
Chateaubriand, François-René, Vicomte de, 110
Chénier, André, xxii, 78, 108–113, 166, 227, 228, 237
Chénier, Marie-Joseph, 166, 237
Chopin, Frédéric F., 7, 190
Christ, Jesus, xvii, xviii, 124, 125
Cimabue, Giovanni, 18, 215
Cohen, Arthur, xxiii, 209, 211, 212
Columbus, Christopher, 25, 199
Confucius, xiv
Coppée, François, 152, 233
Cyril, 80, 224
Dal, Vladimir, 73
Dante. See Alighieri, Dante
D’Anthès, Georges, 163, 236
Darwin, Charles, 196
David, Jacques Louis, xxi, 50, 218
Delacroix, Eugène, 181, 239
Democritus, 7
Demosthenes, 24
Derzhavin, Gavrila, 55, 65, 67, 94, 149, 219, 221
Dickens, Charles, 197
Dionysus, 125, 126, 220, 229
Dolidze, Fedor I., 133, 230
Doré, Gustave, 215
Dostoevsky, Fedor, 10, 138, 226
Dürer, Albrecht, 35
Dymshits, Alexander, xiii, 209, 210
Efron, Adelina. See Adalis
Eikhenbaum, Boris M., 89, 134, 225, 230
Einstein,
Albert, 134, 151
Eliot, T. S., xiv, xv, xviii, 210
Erlich, Victor, 230
Esenin, Sergei, 152, 163, 233, 236
Euclid, 67
Euripides, 74, 123
Eve, 200
Fadeev, Alexander, 234
Farinata degli Uberti, 9, 10, 24, 25
Fedin, Konstantin, 141, 232
Fet, Afanasy A., 83, 92, 224
Filipoff, Boris, 209, 210, 218, 221, 228, 229, 230, 235, 237
Firdousi, 200
Flaubert, Gustave, 85, 98, 211
Foucault, Léon, 36
France, Anatole, 157
Frye, Northrop, 213
Gershenzon, Mikhail, 71
Ginzburg, Lidia, 209
Giotto di Bondone, 18
Gippius, V. V., xi
Gluck, Christoph Willibald von, 82, 196, 224
Godunov, Boris, 67, 106, 186, 239
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 87, 99, 187
Gogol, Nikolai, 142, 237
Goldoni, Carlo, 148
Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Arseny, 148, 232
Goncourt, Edmond and Jules de, 85, 98, 211
Gorky, Maxim (Aleksei M. Peshkov), 139, 231
Gornfeld, Arkady G., 161, 163, 164, 167, 233, 235
Gorodetsky, Sergei M., 77, 222, 229
Griboedov, Alexander S., 235
Grigoriev, Apollon A., xxiv, 90, 225
Grimm, Jacob, 30
Grin, Alexander (Grinevsky, Alexander S.), 161, 235
Gumilev, Nikolai S., xii, 54, 65, 74, 77, 220, 229
Handel, George Frederick, 224
Harte, Bret, 139
Haydn, Franz Joseph, 196
Heidegger, Martin, xvii
Heine, Heinrich, 91
Hemingway, Ernest, xii
Heredia, José Maria de, 21
Herzen, Alexander I., 84, 165, 211, 224, 225, 227
Hesiod, 90
Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Wilhelm, 78, 223, 232
Hokusai, 98
Homer, 41, 51, 73
Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), 42
Hughes, Robert, 213
Hugo, Victor, 12, 203
Iazykov, Nikolai M., 80, 81, 102, 223
Ibsen, Henrik, 176
Ivanov, Viacheslav I., 54, 55, 74, 78, 145, 147, 211, 219, 229
Ivanov, Vsevolod, 142, 232
Ivanov-Razumnik, Razumnik Vasilevich, 89, 225
Ivask, Iurii (George), 210, 229
Joshua, xviii, 52
Kagan, Benjamin Fedorovich, 157, 235
Kant, Immanuel, 130
Kariakin, V. N., 167, 233
Kataev, Valentin, 234
Khlebnikov, Velemir, 54, 68, 70, 81, 82, 83, 133, 141, 145, 147, 151, 152, 213, 219
Khodasevich, Vladislav, 54, 135, 148, 149, 220, 232
Kipling, Rudyard, 190
Kliuchevsky, Vasily O., xiii, xvii, 90, 226
Kliuev, Nikolai, 152, 233
Korolenko, Vladimir G., 164, 236
Kostomarov, Nikolai I., 90, 226
Kozyrev, Mikhail, 141, 142, 232
Kruchenykh, Aleksei, xiii, 135, 231
Krylov, I. A., 169, 198, 220, 237
Kuzin, B. S., xxiv, 183, 185, 189, 232
Kuzmin, Mikhail A., 54, 81, 148, 149, 219, 221, 232
La Fontaine, Jean de, 198
Lamarck, J.-B. Pierre-Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de, xxiv, xxv, 196, 197, 198
Lamartine, Alphonse de, 110
Latini, Brunetto, 7
Leconte de Lisle, Charles Marie, 21, 74
Lenin (Vladimir I. Ulyanov), 169, 231, 236
Leonardo da Vinci, 18
Leontiev, Konstantin, 71
Leskov, Nikolai, 142, 232
Lidin, Vadim G., 141, 232
Linnaeus, Carolus, 196, 199
Liszt, Franz von, 223
Lobachevsky, Nikolai I., 67
Lomonosov, Mikhail V., 24, 81, 95, 216
Lucan (M. Annaeus Lucanus), 42
Luther, Martin, xix, 72, 82
Mallarmé, Stéphane, 74, 145
Mandelstam, Isaiah B., 157, 158, 235
Mandelstam, Nadezhda Iakovlevna, xxiii, xxv, 209, 210, 212, 223, 228, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237
Manet, Edouard, 189
Markov, Vladimir, 221
Marot, Clément, 110, 227, 228
Marr, Nikolai I., 174, 179, 202, 238
Marx, Karl, 191
Matisse, Henri, 193
Mayakovsky, Vladimir, xiii, 54, 133, 135, 152, 219, 230
Mérimée, Prosper, 91, 139
Methodius, 80, 224
Mommsen, Theodor, 74, 219
Monet, Claude, 189, 194
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, Baron de, 112
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 79, 188, 196, 223
Mravian, Askanaz A., 162, 236
Musset, Alfred de, 112, 149
Nadson, Semen, 63, 148, 221
Napoleon, 86, 198, 218
Narbut, Vladimir, 77, 223
Nekrasov, Nikolai, 65, 71, 90, 92, 147, 221, 226, 236, 237
Nerval, Gérard de, 229
Newton, Sir Isaac, 157
Nikitin, Nikolai N., 141, 142, 232
Novalis (Georg Friedrich Philipp von Hardenberg), xv, 41, 78, 91, 218
Odoevsky, Vladimir F., 78
Odysseus, 23, 24, 25
Ogarev, Nikolai P., 84, 225
Orpheus, 124
Ostrovsky, Alexander N., xxiv, 239
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), xxi, xxii, 42, 50, 51, 74, 218, 219, 227
Ovsianiko-Kulikovsky, Dmitry, 55, 220
Pallas, 196
Paracelsus (Philipp Theofrast von Hohenheim), 25
Parnok, Sophie I., 134, 230
Pasternak, Boris, xviii, 54, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 136, 148, 153, 210, 220, 229, 234
Perovsky, Sophie, 90, 226
Peshkov, Aleksei M. See Gorky, Maxim
Peter I, 106, 177
Phaedra, 123, 126
Picasso, Pablo, 194
Pilniak (Boris A. Vogau), 139, 140, 141, 142, 231
Pissarro, Camille, 194
Poe, Edgar Allan, 73, 145
Polotsky, Simeon, 65, 221
Pound, Ezra, xii, xiv, 229
Prishvin, Mikhail M., 141, 142, 232
Prometheus, 100, 126
Propper, Stanislav M., 164, 236
Psyche, xx, xxii, 49, 52
Ptolemy, 37
Punin, Nikolai, 220
Pushkin, Alexander, xxiii, 50, 51, 55, 56, 58, 62, 65, 78, 81, 92, 102, 110, 111, 123–127, 139, 149, 151, 153, 190, 209, 210, 211, 214, 215, 218, 220, 223, 228, 229, 233, 236, 238
Rabelais, François, 78, 110, 139
Racine, Jean, xxii, 76, 78, 110, 229
Radlova, Anna, 134, 230
Renoir, Pierre Auguste, 194
Rimbaud, Arthur, 21, 39
Ripellino, A., 210
Robespierre, Maximilien F. I. de, 50
Rolland, Romain, 87, 99
Rostopchina, Evdokia P., 149, 232
Rozanov, Vasily, xx, 70, 71, 72, 73, 222
Salieri, Antonio, 79, 223
Schelling, Friedrich, xvii, 78
Schubert, Franz, 223
Schwitters, Kurt, 213
Scriabin, Alexander, xvi, 123–127, 210, 211, 228, 229
Serapion Brothers, 139, 140, 141, 142, 231, 232
Sergeev-Tsensky (Sergei Nikolaevich Sergeev), 139, 231
Shakespeare, William, 30, 78, 230
Shapukh (Shapur or Sapores or Pahlavi Shahpur II), 207, 239
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 73, 145
Shklovsky, Victor, 134, 222, 230
Shmelev, Ivan S., 139, 231
Signac, Paul, 181, 239
Singleton, Charles S., 215
Smirnov, E. S., 188
Sologub, Fedor (Fedor K. Teternikov), 54, 61, 63, 146, 147, 148, 220
Soloviev, Sergei M., 90, 226
Soloviev, Vladimir S., 92, 129, 226
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander
, 238
Sorgenfrei, Wilhelm A., 89, 225
Spengler, Oswald, 16, 26
Spohr, Ludwig, 30
Stalin (Joseph V. Djugashvil), 231, 232, 235, 236, 238
Steiner, Rudolf, 222
Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), 86
Stevens, Wallace, xiv
Struve, Gleb, 209, 210, 218, 221, 228, 229, 230, 235, 237
Sumarokov, Alexander, 148
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 145
Tager, Elena, 211
Taranovsky, Kirill, 211, 229
Terras, Victor, xxi, 211
Teternikov, Fedor K. See Sologub, Fedor
Tiutchev, Fedor I., 26, 70, 129, 149, 222
Tolstoy, Leo, 30, 67, 105
Trediakovsky, Vasily, 81
Trotsky, Leon, 169
Tsvetaeva, Marina, xiii, 25, 134, 217, 230
Tzara, Tristan, 213
Van Gogh, Vincent, 193
Venetsianov, Aleksei G., 158
Vergil (Publius Vergilius Maro), 11, 17, 18, 21, 38, 41, 42
Verhaeren, Emile, 52
Verlaine, Paul, xv, xviii, 21, 53, 110, 114, 118, 219, 228
Veselovsky, A. N., 230
Viazemsky, Peter A., 149, 223
Vigna, Pier della, 188
Villon, François (François de Montcorbier de Loges), xiii, xviii, xxi, xxii, 59, 62, 110, 114–120, 227, 228
Villon, Guillaume de, 115
Vogau, Boris A. See Pilniak
Wagner, Richard, 16
Whitman, Walt, 73
Zamiatin, Evgeny, 139, 142, 231
Zenkevich, Mikhail A., 77, 223
Zhirmunsky, Victor M., 89, 134, 225, 230
Zola, Emile, 86
Zoshchenko, Mikhail, 162, 169, 234, 237