Moscow Memoirs: MEMORIES OF ANNA AKHMATOVA, OSIP MANDELSTAM, AND LITERARY RUSSIA UNDER STALIN [Hardcover]

Emma Gerstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2004

In the early 1960s Anna Akhmatova encouraged Emma Gerstein to record her own memories of the renowned Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam. But Gerstein's vivid and uncompromising account was not at all what she had expected. When first published in Moscow in 1998 Gerstein's memoirs provoked responses from condemnation to rapturous praise amongst Russian readers. A shrewd observer, a close member of the Mandelstam and Akhmatova family circles, and a serious literary specialist in her own right, Gerstein is uniquely qualified to remove both poets from their pedestals without diminishing them, or their work, and to bring back to life the Soviet 1930s. Part biography, part autobiography, this book radically alters our view of Russia's two greatest 20th century poets, providing memorable glimpses of numerous other figures from that partly forgotten and misunderstood world, and offers several unforgettable vignettes of Boris Pasternak. Gerstein's integrity and perceptive comment make her account compulsively readable and enables us to re-examine that extraordinary epoch.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Born to a man who became a high-ranking Soviet physician, Gerstein (1903–2002) rebelled against her father’s political affiliations early on. After a string of unsatisfying jobs, she followed a desire to write, establishing herself as a literary scholar and ensconcing herself among the literati of Soviet Russia. Her life changed dramatically in 1928, when she met Mandelstam and his wife, Nadezhda; Gerstein now had access to a quite famous living poet and his circle of friends, eventually including Akhmatova. The group suffered through the political woes of the time but also reveled in its literary excitement. Weaving biographical threads with autobiographical filaments, as well as selections from the poetry and letters of these two Soviet literary giants, Gerstein offers insightful glimpses into their world. She recalls how, when in transit, Akhmatova would paste an inoffensive poem over a more offensive one (the poem on Stalin that got Mandelstam repeatedly exiled was too hot to write down), as well as the way Akhmatova aged before Gerstein’s eyes when she learned of her son’s imprisonment. While the standard first-person account of Mandelstam is his wife’s Hope Against Hope, Gerstein’s portraits provide angles absent in that great work, despite a flat translation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (September 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585675954
• ISBN-13: 978-1585675951
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #468,539 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening reading experience!, March 25, 2006

By 

A. A. Chatelain (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moscow Memoirs: MEMORIES OF ANNA AKHMATOVA, OSIP MANDELSTAM, AND LITERARY RUSSIA UNDER STALIN (Hardcover)

This is a revealing book; most books about Akhmatova, Mandelstam and Nadezhda Mandelstam, concentrate on the intellectual aspects of their work, as well as their creative process. What makes this book different is that it gets into their daily lives and personalities and surrounds that with the politics (artistic as well as governmental) of the time in which they lived. Gerstein's depictions are graphically detailed and get into the nugget of each personality. These are real, living, breathing human beings. I highly recommend it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Emma Gerstein's Moscow Memoirs, July 23, 2009

By 

Svidrigailov - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moscow Memoirs: MEMORIES OF ANNA AKHMATOVA, OSIP MANDELSTAM, AND LITERARY RUSSIA UNDER STALIN (Hardcover)

As a Mandelstam fanatic who has read Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelstam's classic two volumes of memoirs numerous times, I found this memoir enormously rewarding, as a complementary source. Ever since reading Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya's first volume of her Akhmatova memoirs (which for me are unparalleled in conveying a picture of the 'real' Akhmatova), I have looked for precisely this type of memoir--the more details, the more quirky, subjective touches, the better. I applaud Emma Gerstein for balancing the focus perfectly between self-revelation versus descriptions of Mandelstam, Akhmatova, and other creative geniuses of Soviet Russia. I would not want to read a memoir that contained nothing of the author's viewpoint, history, etc., but neither would I want something too self-absorbed. I unreservedly recommend this book for anyone interested in either Mandelstam or Akhmatova. The writing is excellent, the sensibility so engaging and prepossessing as to make me sorry that I never had the privilege of knowing the author.

7 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars very disappointing, October 9, 2004

By 

Jay Alex "jalex66" (St. Louis, MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moscow Memoirs: MEMORIES OF ANNA AKHMATOVA, OSIP MANDELSTAM, AND LITERARY RUSSIA UNDER STALIN (Hardcover)

This is a very weak book when compared to Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs of the same period and personalities. Gerstein is not a gifted writer, so one must wade through a great deal of boring material to find something of interest.