Table Of ContentThe Noise ofT ime
The Prose of
Osip Mandelstam
Translated with Critical Essays
by Clarence Brown
North Point Press · San Francisco · 1986
Copyright© 1965 by Princeton U nivcrsity Press;
reprinted by arrangement
Fourth Pmse, Journey to Armenia, "Introduction to the
North Point Press Edition," and "A Note on Fourth Prose and
Journey to Armenia" copyright© 1986 by Clarence Brown
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 85-72981
ISBN: 0-86547-238-6
North Point Press
850 Talbot Avenue
Berkeley, California
94706
Contents
Acknowledgments 7
AN ate on the Illustrations 9
A Nate on the Transliteration I I
Introduction: The Prose of Mandelstam
Introduction to the North Point Press Edition
THE NOISE OF TIME
Music in Pavlovsk 69
Childish Imperialism 71
Riots and French Governesses 74
The Bookcase 77
Finland 81
The Judaic Chaos 83
The Concerts ofH ofmann and Kubelik 88
The Tenishev School 90
Sergey Ivanych 94
Yuly Matveich 97
The Erfurt Program 99
The Sinani Family IOI
Komissarzhevskaya 109
In a Fur Coat above One's Station 112
THEODOSIA
The Harbor Master 121
The Old Woman's Bird
124
The Royal Mantle oft he Law 126
Mazesa da Vinci 128
THE EGYPTIAN STAMP 131
A Nate on Fourth Prose and Journey to Armenia
165
FOURTH PROSE 175
JOURNEY TO ARMENIA
Sevan
Ashot Ovanesian
Zamoskvorechie
Sukhum
The French 211
About the Naturalists 213
Ashtarak 219
Alagez 221
Notes 227
Bibliography
243
Index of Names
245
Acknowledgments
All students of Osip Mandelstam owe their first debt of gratitude to Profes
sor G leb Struve and Mr. Boris Filippov, the editors of the Collected Works,
which appeared in Russian in New York in 1955. For their many unselfish
kindnesses to me, and for their interest and encouragement, I owe a fur
ther, entirely personal, debt. Professor Struve's scrutiny of certain parts
of the translation greatly improved it. For many delightful conversations
on the subject of his friend Osi p Emilievich I am indebted to Artur Lourie.
My colleagues Nina Berberova and Herman Ermolaev have patiently an
swered many questions, for which I am very grateful. The errors and
infelicities that remain are to be blamed solely on my own stubbornness or
ignorance. I thank Mrs. Mary Gutbrodt for her kindness in typing parts
of the manuscript. For my wife's help in typing the final draft and in read
ing the proof, and for her other assistance, I am much obliged. I have been
greatly aided by some who do not desire public acknowledgment.
Christmas 1964, Princeton, N .J.
C.B.
NOTE ON SECOND PRINTING
For many valuable suggestions incorporated in the second printing I am
obliged to Simon Karlinsky, Sir Isaiah Berlin, and Donald Fanger.
January 1967
C.B.
A Note on the Illustrations
The drawing of Mandelstam by P. V. Miturich on p. 22 is discussed there.
The drawing on p. 25, "Poets," is also by Miturich and also appeared in
Apollon No. 4-5 for 1916.
The portrait of Valentin Yakovlevich Parnakh on p. 132, discussed on
p. 49, is by Pablo Picasso. It appeared for the first time (and, if my search
of the Picasso catalogues has been sufficiently thorough, for the only time)
as the frontispiece to a book of Parnakh's poems (Karabkaetsja akrobat,
Paris: Franko-russkaja pecat', 1922).
The rare photographs of Osip Mandelstam and the portrait of him by
Lev Bruni have been kindly supplied by friends to whom I am very grate
ful. All of these appear here for the first time.
The map of St. Petersburg on pp. 18-19 is taken from Baedeker's La
Russie, 1 897.
A Note on the Transliteration
In the body of the text I have used the popular system of transliteration,
the most explicit description of which is to be found in J. Thomas Shaw,
711e Transliteratio11 of Jlodern Russian for English-Language Publica
tions (University of Wisconsin Press, 1967). In the notes I have used the
narrow transliteration now all but universally adopted for scholarly pub
lication; occasionally, in the text, Russian words cited as words are ren
dered in this narrow system. Exceptions are made for words and names
(moujik, Tchaikovsky) that have become familiar in other forms, and non
Russian names (Rubenstein, Hofmann) appear in their usual orthogra
phy. "l\Iandelstam" is the transliteration preferred by the writer himself.
When place names contain an adjectival form of a name familiar in English
I have used the English form ( the Nicholas Station). A foolish consistency
in this matter, however, would have produced the "Marie" Theater instead
of the familiar l\lariinsky. In quotations from other sources, except where
noted, the original transliteration has been changed to conform to the style
of this book.
Introduction:
The Prose ofMandelstam
I
The prose which is here offered to the English-speaking reader for the first
time is that of a Russian poet. 1 Like the prose of certain other Russian poets
who were his contemporaries-Andrey Bely, Velimir Khlebnikov, Boris
Pasternak-it is wholly untypical of ordinary Russian prose and it is re
markably interesting. For reasons that have nothing to do with literature,
it is also virtually unknown even, or especially, in Russia itself.
Osip Emilievich Mandelstam, a Jew, was born in Warsaw on the 15th of
January, 1891, and died a political prisoner in a camp near Vladivostok in
1938. For years the end of his life was so obscured by rumor, conjecture,
and deliberate falsehood that one could be sure only of the fact that he had
perished. The date now officially given is 27 December and it is accepted
by those close to the event, but there is one rumor left to haunt his biogra
pher and to make it seem the part of prudence to precede the date of 27
December with the bleakly official formula "on or about." Except for de
tails, however, we do seem now to have a large measure of truth about how
Mandelstam spent his last days.
His troubles began in 1934. At that time, probably in the apartment of
Boris Pasternak, Mandelstam read an epigram which he had written on
Stalin. Whether the following excerpt, given here in the English version
of George Stuckow, is from the actual poem itself or from another like it is
not known, but its authenticity is asserted on good authority, and under
the circumstances it is clearly actionable.
We live unconscious of the country beneath us,
Our talk cannot be heard ten paces away,
And whenever there is enough for half-a-conversation,
The Kremlin highlander is mentioned.
His thick fingers are fat like worms,
INTRODUCTION
His words hit hard like heavy weights,
His cockroach's huge moustaches laugh,
And the tops of his boots shine brightly. 2
It is unlikely that there were more than five of Mandelstam's close
friends within earshot of these verses. One of them reported the incident
to the appropriate authority, and that was the beginning of the end. Our
natural tendency toward revulsion at this act must be tempered by certain
circumstances. The man who did it was himself in trouble and was proba
bly terrified that one of his associates would show greater and prompter
zeal than he, which would certainly have added to his difficulties. Besides,
in a recent work of reference his short biography concludes with an official
cliche which has lately begun to serve as the laconic epitaph for numerous
writers ("Illegally suppressed. Rehabilitated posthumously"), and he
perished even earlier than lVIandelstam. Requiescat in pace.
The quarter of a century since Mandelstam's death has not seen him
restored to the canon of the elect, though there have been various signs
that his work would be published again. An announcement in Voprosy
literatury (Problems of Literature) for November 1958 (p. 256) declared
that his collected poetry would be published in one of the large volumes of
the distinguished series "Biblioteka poeta" (Poet's Library), and there
were other indications, some of them very encouraging, that his work
would be reissued, but little has yet come of it. So far as I have been able to
determine, the four poems printed in the almanac Den' poezii (Day of
Poetry) for 1962 constitute, with the exception of isolated quotations, the
whole extent of his rehabilitation. The bulletin Novye knigi (New Books),
No. 22 ( 1964), a prospectus of forthcoming books for the use of librarians
and the book trade, carried the announcement of an anthologycalledPoety
nacha/a XX ·veka (Poets of the Beginning of the Twentieth Century),
scheduled for publication in an edition of 50,000 copies in the fourth quar
ter of 1964. Mandelstam is listed along with Balmont, Sologub, Annen
sky, Bely, Kuzmin, Voloshin, Khodasevich, and other poets for inclusion
in this work, which is to be one of the small-format volumes of the Poet's
Library. The announcement names V. N. Orlov, the editor-in-chief of the
entire series, as the editor of the anthology and since that same Orlov's
statement in Literaturnaja gazeta (Literary Gazette) for 27 June 1964
concerning proposed one-volume editions of Russian poets omits the
name of Mandelstam, it is to be presumed that the long-promised separate
