On Some Features of Osip Mandelstam’s Representation in the Memories by Anna Akhmatova Cover Image

О некоторых особенностях репрезентации Осипа Мандельштама в воспоминаниях Анны Ахматовой
On Some Features of Osip Mandelstam’s Representation in the Memories by Anna Akhmatova

Author(s): Galina Mikhailova
Subject(s): Poetry, Short Story, Russian Literature
Published by: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla
Keywords: Osip Mandelstam; Pages from a diary; actualization of memory; mythologization; short story; Verlaine;

Summary/Abstract: The article presents some considerations on the motives for the creation and text strategies of Akhmatova’s memories of Mandelstam. The Pages from a Diary are viewed from two points of view: first, as a fragment of Akhmatova‘s memoir prose of a certain historical time, as an actualization of personal memory in order to correct collective cultural memory; secondly, as a supertext formed by numerous drafts, lists and variations. Within the framework of this genre, it is possible to single out a number of principles that Akhmatova is guided by when creating a memoir text: for example, a dialogical mode of a “conversation” with existing memories, documents, oral evidence; intention of myth-fighting, etc. A look at the Pages from a Diary as a work of narrative prose (based on Akhmatova’s definition of memories as a “short story”), called “The Death’s Way,” allows us to add the hero of her memoir to a number of “damned poets” that are not alien to Mandelstam.

  • Issue Year: 62/2020
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 138-153
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Russian