Disputes about the literary heritage of the Russian teacher, writer, linguist and memoirist Nadezhda Mandelstam continue to this day. She managed to cause such a resonance in the intellectual circles of Russia and the West that former friends were on opposite sides of the barricades. Much of the work of her husband, the poet Osip Mandelstam, has been preserved by the powers of an amazing woman.
Nadezhda Yakovlevna carried her loyalty to the legacy of Osip Mandelstam through her creative life. The controversy about the work of the writer herself does not subside to this day.
The beginning of the path to the vocation
The biography of the future celebrity began in 1899. The child was born on October 18 (30) in Saratov. Her father worked as an attorney, her mother was a doctor. Nadia was the youngest in a large family.
Parents changed Saratov to Kiev. In a new place, Nadya began her studies at a girls' gymnasium. The talented girl loved history more than other subjects. She decided to continue her education at the law faculty of a local university. However, the girl did not finish her studies, as she became interested in painting.
She got a job in an art workshop for Alexandra Exter. In the local poetic cellar "CHLAM" (Artists, Writers, Artists, Musicians) the first meeting with the future chosen one took place. The romance began on the first day of acquaintance. The charming artist captivated the poet so much that he immediately confessed his feelings to her.
The lovers had to part for a year and a half. Osip promised before leaving that he would definitely find Nadia, and they would no longer part. The poet returned to Kiev for his chosen one in March 1921. Soon the young people officially became husband and wife.
Family and reality
Nadia, long before Marlene Dietrich, introduced a man's suit into her wardrobe. She had a short haircut and was contemptuous of fashion, which shocked the society of St. Petersburg, where the young family lived. The wife was engaged in editing, the husband translated. In 1932, the Mandelstams settled in Moscow.
Together they did not stay long. In 1934 Osip was arrested. According to the sentence, he went into exile in the Kama city of Chernyn. Nadezhda was allowed to go with her husband. The sentence was later softened, and the young people were able to move to Voronezh. But living in other large cities of the country was prohibited for them.
This situation had a strong effect on the fine mental organization of the writer. The poet suffered, he began hallucinations, prolonged depression. They managed to get permission to return to Moscow only in 1937. Osip was arrested again in 1938. He never returned home.
For a long time she did not know about her husband's departure from life. The news shocked her. Because of fears for the safety of the poet's manuscripts, the widow memorized both Mandelstam's poems and his prose. I often had to move. In the city of Kalinin, the writer learned about the beginning of the war.
Since 1942, Mandelstam lived in evacuation. As an external student in Tashkent, she graduated from the university and took up teaching activities, becoming an English teacher. After the end of the war, Nadezhda moved to Ulyanovsk, Chita replaced him. Since 1955, the writer headed the Department of English at the Chuvash Pedagogical Institute. The teacher defended her Ph. D. thesis. After retirement in 1958, Mandelstam moved to Tarusa near Moscow.
Literary creativity
In a place that has become a favorite place for many creative personalities, the writer began work on her memories. The first publications of her work appeared under a pseudonym. In the late fifties, Nadezhda Yakovlevna launched her late unpublished poems of her husband into samizdat.
In the West, they came out in the sixties. The writer got a job again at the Pedagogical Institute of Pskov. In 1965 she moved to Moscow, where she opened a literary salon. It was visited by both representatives of the Russian intelligentsia and the Western. The author prepared the publication of her book in New York and Paris.
Mandelstam's works were published in the West in 1970 in New York. In addition to Memoirs, two years later, the author's Second Book was published in Paris. The works of the poet's widow caused ambiguous responses. The works of Nadezhda Mandelstam have been translated into many languages. The writer herself admitted that she met the end of October 1974, her birthday, with a sense of accomplishment.
A new work called "The Third Book" was published in 1978. Her books analyze the time in which the couple lived separately and together. Readers were amazed by the author's reflections on the fate and mutations in literature, on poetry, and the assessment of the poet's contemporaries. The work has become an excellent example of Russian prose.
Summarizing
In August 1979, she left the Princeton University administration with a specific order. According to it, scientific editions of the works of Osip Mandelstam, collections dedicated to him were to be released, conferences were to be held. The main requirement is the general availability of the transferred materials. The writer passed away in 1980, on December 29.
The writer dreamed of creating a house-museum for her husband. The Mandelstam Society and the Center of the Higher School of Economics, together with the State Museum of the History of Russian Literature named after V. I. IN AND. Dahl. The opening is scheduled for mid-January 2021, the 130th anniversary of the poet's birth.
Nadezhda Yakovlevna has become an integral part of the spouse associated with time and image, creativity. This will be reflected both in the museum exposition and in the structure of the publication of the Mandelstam Encyclopedia. It will be opened by materials about the life and work of the writer. The second will contain similar information about his spouse.
Almost all the texts created by the writer were included in a two-volume edition, released in 2013. In 2015, the collection “Let's see who will overrule whom …” appeared with epistolary, testimonies and memoirs of the poet's widow. In October 2019, work was completed on a separate edition of the letters of the poet's widow.
In the centenary of the meeting of Osip and Nadezhda, the International Scientific Conference "Language and Culture" was held. The event was organized by the Dmitry Barago Publishing House, the Kennan Institute and the Mandelstam Society. A calendar has been released for this date.
In some countries, a reader's inversion appeared: not Nadezhda Yakovlevna, the wife of the famous poet, but Osip Emilievich, the husband of Nadezhda Yakovlevna, who wrote about him, his work and the era, the wonderful prose.
