The Wives: The Women Behind Russia's Literary Giants (21 page)

During this turning point of their relationship Mandelstam stopped treating Nadezhda as a “prize” and became her protector and friend. They became a real couple and “from then on, our dialogue never ceased and I always knew what was in his mind.”
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To support her in the Crimea for a year, he sought hackwork and worked at a furious pace to send her money for treatment and nutritious food. Throughout that year, Mandelstam wrote eighteen reviews, published translations in ten anthologies, and produced two books for children. In February 1926, planning to visit Nadezhda in Yalta, he wrote splendid poetic letters: “Nadik, we call to one another like birds—I can’t live, I can’t live without you! Without you my whole life is dreary—I’m a useless stranger to myself. The day before yesterday I put your telegram under my pillow.…”
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(Frail and elegant, Mandelstam resembled a small bird, many observed, particularly when he read poetry—he was almost singing it, his head thrown back.)

Upon Nadezhda’s return to Leningrad in 1926, the couple settled in Tsarskoe Selo, where they lived in abject poverty. Akhmatova describes their apartment: “There was absolutely no furniture in their rooms and there were gaping holes in the rotted floors.”
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Mandelstam was overwhelmed with translations and Nadezhda handled editing jobs for a publishing house. Their hackwork paid little and gave no satisfaction: Mandelstam “translated absolute rubbish”
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to help make ends meet. Such a life, of course, did not agree with either of them: Mandelstam was by nature an epicurean. He “loved large rooms with plenty of light, a bottle of dry wine for dinner, a well-made suit … and most of all, he loved well-baked rolls, something we always particularly longed for.…”
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Nadezhda, spoiled by comfort in her youth, was surprised at how calmly she accepted her fate:

We were not ascetics by nature, and neither of us practiced self-denial for its own sake; we were simply forced into it by circumstances, because the price demanded in return for an increase of one’s rations was just too high. But we did not want to be poor any more than M. wanted to die in a camp.
415

Their generation of genuine writers and poets, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Pasternak, Marina Tsvetaeva, Andrei Bely, and Mikhail Bulgakov, succeeded to the mantle occupied by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in the previous century. But they were outside the mainstream of Soviet literature and found themselves isolated, whereas their predecessors were worshiped like near-deities. Mandelstam was unwilling and unable to adjust his talents to the new demands set forth by the party requiring writers to glorify socialist construction. At best, his books were produced with a circulation of 2,000 copies, but even getting published was becoming increasingly difficult. Describing their circle of writers who embraced artistic integrity, Nadezhda remarked, “Everybody here is a beggar, apart from our rulers and their lackeys, and I prefer to be with the majority, rather
than pick up crumbs from the master’s table.”
416
In contrast, writers subservient to the ruling party and the state were widely published and well paid, but their literary output survived only to the end of the Soviet era.

As ideological control tightened, Mandelstam found himself more isolated and “constantly relegated to a lower and lower category.”
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Among the best poets before the Revolution, he was now treated as a second-class writer and a second-class citizen. His intellectual themes were irrelevant to the new state and, unlike Mayakovsky, the poet of Revolution, he did not write in the brave language of the time. Mandelstam was told he must wake up and realize where and when he was living. Approximately at this time, Nadezhda tells, Mandelstam underwent a medical checkup and was sent to a psychiatrist. “His diagnosis was that M. had the illusion of being a poet and of writing verse.” When Nadezhda came to explain that her husband
was
a poet, the psychiatrist advised her not to succumb to the same psychosis.
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Under such circumstances, when his vocation appeared nonexistent to others, it was Nadezhda’s understanding of his role and his talent that became the chief thing the poet himself could rely on.

In 1927, Mandelstam started a new book of prose,
Egyptian Stamp
, which became a complex literary text. And yet it was published in a literary magazine and also appeared as a separate volume, which would not have happened without the support of an influential and intelligent friend, Nikolai Bukharin. A prominent theoretician of Bolshevism and an economist, Bukharin was a member of the Party Central Committee and the editor-in-chief of
Pravda
. He often used his influence in the Party to help Mandelstam. They first had met in 1922 when Mandelstam’s brother, Evgeny, was arrested and Mandelstam came to Bukharin to ask for help. He promptly arranged for Mandelstam to meet the head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky. After Lenin’s death, Bukharin became a full member of the Politburo, a position he still held in 1928, the most successful year for Mandelstam, who published a volume of poems, a collection of criticism, and a book of prose. When helping
place one of his books with Gosizdat, the State Publishing House, Bukharin assured the editorial board that Mandelstam was the best of contemporary writers and “should have his own significant place in our literature.”
419

The atmosphere in the country became more frightening with the beginning of Stalin’s mass trials. But while others were trying to ignore this reality, Mandelstam, who read accounts of all the trials, refused to remain silent. Once, he overheard a conversation about five elderly bank clerks, sentenced to be shot, and, without knowing these people, rushed to Bukharin to intercede on their behalf. As a final argument, he sent Bukharin a copy of his poems with an inscription that every line in the book argued against what they were planning to do. Bukharin was apparently able to influence the case and informed Mandelstam in a telegram that the sentences had been commuted.

The year also brought trouble for Mandelstam. In 1928, he was accused of plagiarism after his name appeared exclusively on a title page of a book translated by someone else and which Mandelstam had only edited. Although he immediately protested the mistake, demanding that the publisher print a correction, the press attacked him, denouncing him as a petty thief. He was subjected to interrogations and, in addition, his foes strangled him financially, withholding payments for various small jobs. Because of anti-Semitic undertones, the Mandelstams referred to this affair as their “Dreyfus Case.” The campaign dragged on for over a year until Bukharin ordered the press to stop the harassment.

In summer, the couple was in Kiev, where Nadezhda underwent an appendectomy while still suffering from her tuberculosis. Mandelstam visited her daily in hospital, tending to her, like a nurse. The couple’s desperation was complete when they lost their apartment in Tsarskoe Selo. They moved to Moscow, where Mandelstam’s brother was living and where Mandelstam found employment editing the poetry section in the Komsomol newspaper. He was paid so little that his monthly salary went in a few days. While most Soviet employees then received meager wages, the state had other
means for compensation, such as special food rations, to which the Mandelstams were not entitled. The following year, Mandelstam quit this job, after the editorial board gave him a humiliating performance review implying political untrustworthiness: “Can be used as a specialist, but under supervision.”
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By 1930, Bukharin had been stripped of his leadership positions for proposing liberal economic policies, although remaining a nominal member of the Central Committee with a shadow of his former influence. He used his connections to dispatch the Mandelstams on a much-needed vacation to Armenia. In addition, he arranged a stipend for Mandelstam through Vyacheslav Molotov, Stalin’s protégé and former secretary who rose to some of the highest government positions. The stipend was allotted to Mandelstam “for services to Russian literature and in view of the impossibility of finding employment for the writer in Soviet literature.”
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The phrasing, which likely came from Bukharin, accurately described Mandelstam’s situation.

Their trip to the Caucasus gave them breathing space and restored Mandelstam’s ability to write poetry. The couple first celebrated their eleventh anniversary on May 1 in the beautiful Georgian countryside, then traveled on to Armenia, where they would remain until November.

For Mandelstam, Armenia and the Caucasus represented the historical world, the birthplace of European civilization and Christianity. Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark is believed to have landed, symbolized the Bible and old culture, rejected by the new Soviet state. The Bible connected Mandelstam with the culture of his Jewish ancestors, and so he called Armenia his “Sabbath Land.”
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Soon after arriving, he began to study the Armenian language, telling Nadezhda that he was turning in his mouth the ancient Indo-European roots. Both felt they were more than tourists. Experiencing Armenia’s old culture was liberating for both: they enjoyed conversations with Armenian artists, architects, writers, and scholars. While intellectual and artistic freedom was being asphyxiated in Moscow, in Armenia it was still possible to see new
and interesting exhibitions and have those genuine arguments that perennially concern artists. For decades to come, Nadezhda fondly remembered the paintings of the blue period by Armenian artist Martiros Saryan, such as
Fairy Tale: Love
, which they saw in his studio where they visited him.

They spent a month by Lake Sevan and on the Island, famed for its 9th century monastery. (The largest lake in Armenia, Sevan is situated four thousand feet above sea level, making it one of the largest high-altitude lakes in the world.) For Mandelstam, seeing the monuments was particularly meaningful because of his love of fixed forms, sculpture, and architecture, revealed in his first collection,
Stone
. Absorbed with Armenian culture, he relished its architecture, literature, and choral music; his spiritual life was so intense that Nadezhda had a hard time keeping up. In Armenia, she began to see the world through Mandelstam’s eyes “and hence saw things that others did not see.”
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She had a key to all his poetic metaphors, which he discussed with her while composing, before his poems were ready to be committed to paper. She felt their vacation in Armenia gave Mandelstam a “second breath,” a supply of creative energy to last until the end of his life.
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It was during this excursion that Mandelstam at last made her “a complete partner in his life.”
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She felt that their bond, strengthened by his poetry and their dialog, became unbreakable.
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Their communication was so complete that it felt like “a prayer … said by two people together.” From then on, Mandelstam’s sense of “we” included Nadezhda.
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When on their return from Armenia her brother Evgeny remarked that Nadezhda no longer existed, that she had become her husband’s echo, Mandelstam replied: “That’s how
we
like it.”
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They could not dream of stability and children: being homeless, they could not have either. Mandelstam did not expect happiness in a traditional sense and taught Nadezhda not to expect it. But both adored children and enjoyed the company of the local dark-eyed Armenian children during their stay.

Three years later, the couple met starving Ukrainian children when staying in the writers’ sanatorium in the Crimea. Mandelstam brought to their room a boy who had been begging for food nearby. They gave him some milk, and next day the boy returned with his siblings and their father, a young Ukrainian, who told them they fled from famine in their native village. By 1933, this part of the Crimea had become crowded with people fleeing the Ukraine and the North Caucasus, areas most afflicted by the famine during Stalin’s forced collectivization. The grain seized from the peasants was sold to Western Europe to buy machinery.

The Soviet press was forbidden to report the consequences—the starvation of several million people.
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But the Mandelstams traveled through the Ukraine and the Kuban, near the Black Sea, and saw “wraith-like peasants,”
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swollen by starvation and dying in the train stations and by the roadsides. Although the couple did not know the scale of the disaster, they had a surprisingly clear picture of the price paid for Stalin’s policies. Nadezhda writes, “I cannot believe that even Tamerlane and the Tartar invasion had an aftermath anything like that of collectivization.”
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Mandelstam made his first critique of socialism in
Fourth Prose
, dictating it to Nadezhda in winter 1929–30. He described the kind of socialism that required sacrifice on the part of a family where a son denounces his father to help the authorities. The dictations took place at night and lasted into the morning hours. Out of precaution, Nadezhda carried the manuscript of
Fourth Prose
in her handbag, even though the authorities were then unlikely to search their apartment.

In 1931, Nadezhda received her first job in the newspaper
For a Communist Education
. Though her salary was small, the couple had a stable income and vouchers to buy books. In the morning, when Nadezhda left for work, Mandelstam called on their acquaintances. Nadezhda forbade him to visit her at the newspaper. She enjoyed her short-lived employment, a welcome change in their isolation.

That same year, Mandelstam began to write his “dangerous poems” filled with images of chain locks rattling on the doors,
suggesting nightly arrests; images of executions and death around them. “Living in Petersburg is like sleeping in a coffin.” His own isolation was expressed in “The Wolf” cycle of poems, which suggest his place as an outcast of Soviet literature, rejected by the tribe of his fellow writers. He wrote these poems with a sense of doom, realizing he was taking a path to self-destruction. “We are ruined,” he would tell Nadezhda in the 1930s, while throwing his newly written poem into a suitcase, which served as his archive.
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In winter 1932–33, when Mandelstam read his poems in Moscow, in the building of the
Literary Gazette
, an acquaintance told him, “You are taking yourself by the hand and leading yourself to your execution.”
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