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1891
Born in Warsaw to father who was a Latvian Jewish leather
merchant whose first language was German and a Russified
Latvian mother who taught piano
1907
Graduates Tenishev Commercial School in Saint Petersburg
(where Nabokov also attended), where he studied with Vladimir
Gippius and fell in love with both European and Hellenic
culture
1907-8
Travels to Paris and studies with Henri Bergson at the Sorbonne
1909-10
Studies Old French Literature at University of Heidelberg,
1910
Begins attending meetings at Vyacheslav
Ivanov's tower St. Petersburg Society of Philosophy
Writes
early Acmeist manifesto, the essay "Francois Villon," which
also creates a model of the poet as a victim of the state
First
poems appear in journal Apollon
1911
Baptized in Vyborg Methodist Church and enrolls in Dept.
of History and Philology at University of St. Petersburg
Joins Gumilev's Poet's Guild
and becomes active member of nascent Acmeist movement which
also includes Akhmatova and
Annensky
1913
Publishes Stone, a turn away from the ephemera of
Symbolist poetry and towards a more architectural, dense,
solid, and neo-classical poetic criteria
1916
Enlarged edition of Stone appears
1919
Meets Nadezhda Khazin (picture to the right) whom he marries
two years later; she would become the curator of his life's
work, memorizing and transcribing numerous works that would
otherwise have been lost
1919-22
Travels from Black Sea to Georgia three times over
1922
Publishes Tristia a collection of poems whose title
is taken from Ovid, reaffirming Mandelstam's classical leanings
and also displaying his facility in composing sensuous love
lyrics
Writes Nature of the Word
1922-23
Writes Noise of Time, a dense "anti-memoir"
1923
Tristia republished as The Second Book (Vtoraya
kniga)
1927
Writes the novella The Egyptian Stamp a semi-autobiographical,
dreamlike vision of revolution
1928
Unable to gain access to publishers in Petersburg, he is
forced to move to Moscow
1928-30
Writes Fourth Prose
1930
Travels to Armenia, a trip that his wife Nadezhda claims
renewed his poetry
1930-31
Writes First Moscow Notebook, the first of five unpublished
poetry cycles which establish Mandelstam as one of the greatest
poets of the century
1931-32
Publishes Journey to Armenia which reflects in it's
a language a more Asiatic influence
1932-34
Writes Second Moscow Notebook
1933
Writes Conversations about Dante
1934
Arrested for the first time and exiled to Voronezh; this
after a suicide attempt and his blisteringly satirical poem
about Stalin ("His fat fingers slimy as worms," "He forges
his decrees like horseshoes")
1935
Writes First Voronezh Notebook
1936-37
Writes Second Voronezh Notebook
1937
Writes Third Voronezh Notebook
Denounced
publicly as a Trotskyist as his exile came to an end
1938
May, arrested for the second time
December 27, dies in a prison transit camp in Siberia
1956
His rehabilitation begins
1973
First large Soviet edition of his collected poetry is published.
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Mandelshtam in 1912
Mandelshtam in 1919
Mandelshtam in 1930
