Monument to Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam "Monument to Love"

In the courtyard of the Twelve Collegia building of St. Petersburg State University, a monument to Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam has been unveiled. The composition, created by Dutch sculptor Hanneke de Munck, is called the "Monument to Love." It is a bronze allegorical bowl about three meters high, from which a tree rises upwards. The poet Osip Mandelstam and his wife, Nadezhda, from whom he was often separated, are reunited as if floating above this bowl in the air: angel wings are behind their backs, and the poet holds sheets of manuscripts in his hands. The pedestal for the Mandelstam couple was made by St. Petersburg sculptor Khachatur Bely.

"Why was the sculpture given this name? Because only thanks to the love of Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam does the great poet’s work remain alive," says Hanneke de Munck. According to her, air is the natural environment of poetry for Mandelstam, which is why the sculpture received such a plastic solution. "Mandelstam’s poetry fills one with love for life and love for culture; he wanted this love to continue," says the sculptor.

As noted by the Consul General of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg, Anthony M. Van der Togt, Mandelstam’s poetry is known in the Netherlands, and the story of Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam is "part not only of Russian but also of world culture." Hanneke de Munck and her husband, graphic artist Sytse H. Bakker, who uses lines from Mandelstam’s works in his creations, plan to install a second monument to Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam in the Netherlands, thus completing the "Monument to Love" project.

"I want students who pass by this monument to remember their history, to know that Mandelstam’s fate was monstrous, and only Nadezhda was able to prolong his creative life," said Professor Tatiana Yuryeva, director of the "Diaghilev Center," at the monument’s unveiling ceremony. Nadezhda Mandelstam lived until 1980 and devoted herself to preserving her husband’s legacy. Her memoirs are considered not only an indispensable source for studying Osip Mandelstam’s work but also a literary monument and a significant historical testimony of the Soviet era.

Sources:

https://spbu.ru/news-events/novosti/v-spbgu-otkryli-pamyatnik-osipu-i-nadezhde-mandelshtam

https://www.newsru.com/cinema/28sep2015/osip.html
"Diaghilev Center" Tatiana Yuryeva