Mandelʹshtam, Osip, 1891-1938

Osip Mandelshtam was a Russian poet, novelist, essayist and critic. A member of the Guild of Poets, a radical faction of the acmeist movement in poetry, he criticized the literary conformity demanded by Russia's new communist government. In 1918, he narrowly escpaed execution after destroying a stack of death warrants belonging to a government official.

In 1934, Mandelshtam was arrested after reading an anti-Stalin poem to a group of friends, one of whom informed on him. He spent three years in exile. He obtained his release in 1937 with the help of Boris Pasternak and other artists who intervened on his behalf, but was rearrested in 1938. The date and place of his death are uncertain, but many biographers believe he died in 1938 in a prison camp near Vladivostok, Siberia.

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