8th Line V.O., 31, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 199004
On the 8th line of Vasilievsky Island lived Mandelstam’s brother, Yevgeny. Osip, returning from a business trip to the Caucasus, came to Leningrad in December 1930 with his wife hoping to settle there for a long time, but Nikolai Tikhonov, who then headed the Leningrad branch of the Writers' Union, refused them support. Then he was denied a room, and if we are to believe his wife, Nadezhda Mandelstam, the decision was made by the head of the Union, the writer Nikolai Tikhonov, who said: “Mandelstam will not live in Leningrad. We will not give him a room.” In fact, this meant the poet’s expulsion, since he once again had neither shelter nor work. Other troubles joined this. Nadezhda was ill, tormented by the consequences of tuberculosis not fully cured. The Mandelstams had to separate: for a little over two months Nadezhda Yakovlevna lived with her sister, and Osip Emilievich was taken in for a month by his younger brother. Osip Mandelstam settled in a small room separated from the apartment, intended for drying laundry. In this little cell he wrote a lot and intensely: “Help me, Lord, to survive this night…”, “How terribly it is for us with you…”, “We will sit with you in the kitchen…”. It was here, in the house on the 8th line, that the famous poem “Leningrad” was written.
I returned to my city, familiar to tears,
Down to the veins, down to the childhood swollen glands.
You returned here — so swallow quickly
The fish oil of Leningrad’s river lamps.
Recognize quickly the December day,
Where to sinister tar is mixed the yolk.
Petersburg, I do not want to die yet:
You still have the numbers of my telephones.
Petersburg, I still have addresses,
By which I will find the voices of the dead.
I live on a black staircase, and in my temple
A bell torn out with flesh strikes me.
And all night long I wait for dear guests,
Stirring the shackles of door chains.
Truly, the time has come to say goodbye to Petersburg-Leningrad. The house at 31 on the 8th line of Vasilievsky Island is Osip Mandelstam’s penultimate Leningrad address. Due to someone’s oversight, the last poem was published in the “Literary Gazette.” Someone then said to Mandelstam: “Do you know what happens after such poems? Three men come in uniform…”
Only three years remained to wait for this.
In 1991, a memorial plaque appeared on the building’s facade.
Sources:
Kristina Minyazeva, Eight Secrets of Osip Mandelstam’s Death
https://www.fontanka.ru/longreads/rentflat/
Zagorodny Prospekt, 70, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 190013
Zagorodny Prospekt, 70, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 190013
Mokhovaya St., 33, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191028
Zagorodny Prospekt, 17, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191002
Nevsky Ave., 15, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191186
Fontanka River Embankment, 2, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191187
Griboedov Canal Embankment, 9, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191186
Griboedov Canal Embankment, 9, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191186
pl. Iskusstv, 5, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191186
Botkinskaya St., 17, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 194044
Universitetskaya Embankment, 7/9, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 199034
Nadezjda Mandelstam Street 16, 1102 JK Amsterdam, Netherlands
