Mandelstam did not immediately accept the revolution of 1917. “I perceive the October Revolution very negatively. About a month later, I make a sharp turn towards Soviet affairs and people, which is expressed in my involvement in the work of the People's Commissariat for Education in creating a new school.” He worked in newspapers, traveled around the country, published in newspapers, performed his poems, and gained success.

In 1919, in Kiev, he met his future wife, Nadezhda Yakovlevna Khazina. According to Akhmatova, he loved her “incredibly, unbelievably.” He called her in letters “Nadichka,” “little bird,” “little beast.” He signed as “Your nanny.” He said he wanted to see her until he was dizzy. He promised to “truly cherish and delight.” From a letter of that time: “You have become so dear to me that I am always talking to you, calling you, complaining to you. About everything, about everything I can only tell you. My poor joy! I rejoice and thank God for giving me you. With you, nothing will be scary or hard for me.”

During the Civil War, he wandered with his wife through Russia, Ukraine, Georgia; he was arrested by the White Guards in Crimea. In the interrogation protocol of Osip Mandelstam on May 25, 1934, it is recorded: “From the end of 1918, a political depression sets in, caused by the harsh methods of implementing the dictatorship of the proletariat. By this time, I move to Kiev, and after it was taken by the Whites, I move to Feodosia. Here, in 1920, after my arrest by the Whites, I face the problem of choice: emigration or Soviet Russia…” Mandelstam chose Soviet Russia. Did he regret it? Later he would say to his wife: “Why do you complain, poetry is respected only here — for it they kill. After all, nowhere else do they kill for poetry.” In Georgia, he was arrested by the Menshevik government as a White Guard, released by the personal order of Benia Chkhikvishvili, a member of the Georgian Constituent Assembly and mayor of Tiflis. From Crimea, he came to Moscow. There would still be much hardship and terror. Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote that he “somehow boyishly ran away from any contact with power.” According to her, in 1918 he spent a few days in the Kremlin and ran out of the dining room upon learning that Lev Trotsky was coming there for breakfast. He could only explain it with the words: “Forget it... I don’t want to have breakfast with him...”

In the “Memoirs” of Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam, there is an episode about a conflict with Yakov Blumkin and how, unknowingly, the great poet saved a life — a story recalled by other contemporaries of Mandelstam as well. In early July 1918, in one of the literary cafes in Moscow, an incredible incident occurred. Yakov Blumkin, head of the department for combating international espionage of the Cheka, heavily intoxicated, began showing his interlocutors lists of arrested people and execution orders, boasting that he could decide who to “dispose of” and who to spare. Poet Osip Mandelstam, who at that time worked in the People's Commissariat for Education under Lunacharsky, was present during Blumkin’s outbursts; he snatched the papers from Blumkin’s hands and began tearing them up. It is possible that these were not just lists but an execution order for a specific person, as Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam recalled. She wrote that Blumkin spoke of some art historian, a Hungarian or Polish count unknown to Osip Mandelstam. After Mandelstam rushed at Blumkin and tore the papers, the Chekist threatened to shoot him. Soon the Socialist Revolutionary rebellion would begin, in which Blumkin played an active role, so it is surprising that the paths of Osip Mandelstam and Yakov Blumkin would cross again. In 1919, Blumkin would be in Kiev and come with repentance to the chief Chekist Martin Latsis, be forgiven, and again hold a high position. In 1920, after the defeat of Wrangel’s army in Crimea, he, along with Bela Kun and Rosalia Zemlyachka, led a bloody massacre of thousands of officers of that army, their family members, and all those casually accused of “counterrevolution.” Once, when Mandelstam was walking through Kiev with his then-girlfriend (not yet his wife) Nadezhda Khazina, riders in black burkas galloped towards them; one stopped, drew a revolver, and aimed it at the poet, who responded by waving his hand. Frightened, Nadezhda Yakovlevna asked what that meant. Mandelstam told her it was his acquaintance, Yakov Blumkin; he put the revolver back into his burka and rode past. A few years later, they met on a train, and again Blumkin, as usual, aimed a revolver at the poet, then lowered it, and they “talked about poetry.” At that time, he claimed to be an “indispensable specialist in the OGPU in the field of sabotage.” Later, newspapers reported Blumkin’s execution for connections with Trotsky. Mandelstam, who learned about this in Armenia, was shocked because he hated it when anyone’s life was taken.

From Moscow, Mandelstam returned to Petersburg. There he settled in the House of Arts, a kind of commune that became a refuge for many writers during that hungry time. The poet himself described those years in his essay “The Coat” as follows: “It was a harsh and beautiful winter of 1920-21. The last suffering winter of Soviet Russia, and I regret it, remember it with tenderness...” The first years after the revolution were perhaps the only time Mandelstam experienced relative success with a wide readership. He was published quite a lot, and his second poetry collection, Tristia, finally confirmed: another grand poet had appeared in Russia. At the same time, Mandelstam’s poetics became more complex; his favorite tools — associations and paradoxes — made his poems often seem unfinished. N. Chukovsky, who knew him well, left the following memories of this period: “Mandelstam was a short man, lean, well-built, with a delicate face and kind eyes. He was noticeably balding, which apparently bothered him...” On March 9, 1922, Nadezhda Khazina and Osip Mandelstam registered their marriage (in 2019, the corresponding record was found in the Kiev city archive). The poems of the time of World War I and the revolution made up the second book, Tristia, published in 1922 in Berlin. In 1923, the “Second Book” was published with a general dedication “To N. Kh.” — his wife. In 1922, an article “On the Nature of the Word” was published as a separate brochure in Kharkov. From May 1925 to October 1930, there was a pause in his poetic work. During this time, he wrote prose; to the 1923 work “The Noise of Time,” which plays on Blok’s metaphor of the “music of time,” was added a novella “The Egyptian Stamp,” varying Gogol motifs. He earned a living by translating poetry. In 1928, his last lifetime poetry collection “Poems” was published, as well as a book of his selected essays “On Poetry.”

Sources:

https://polit.ru/article/2020/06/04/mandelshtam/

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мандельштам,_Осип_Эмильевич

https://culture.pl/ru/article/osip-mandelshtam-i-chudesnoe-spasenie-ksaveriya-puslovskogo