This article for the first time shows, how close was A.B. Mariengof’s attention to the work of O.E. Mandelstam and how intense was the reading, including reading texts that went to samizdat. The reminiscences and allusions found in the previously unpublished play “Actor with a Sword” (1944), poetic lines by which the heroes of the play “Golden Hoop” declare their love (1945), and a number of verses from “Voronezh Notebooks”, that are quoted by A.B. Mariengof in the memoir book “This is for you, descendants!”.

The article is devoted to the consideration of the artistic principles of Mandelstam as a translator and their reflection in the revolutionary thematic line in the collection of the poems translations of the German proletarian poet Bartel “Let’s conquer the world!” In the 1920s, Mandelstam reflected on the issues of translation in theoretical articles and noted that the translator should act as an interpreter of the text, adapting it to his culture. Independently composig the book “Let’s conquer the world!” from different poems by Bartel, the Russian poet pays special attention to the thematic line of the rise and failure in revolutionary movement. Compositionally, the line is formed as the story of an attempt of the uprising. Conditionally it can be divided into two reflecting parts mirroring each other. They begin with an anticipation of the revolution and need for change, followed by calls for rebellion, and finally there are doubts that change is possible, and the groovy daily life of workers comes to the fore. A special place within the revolutionary line is occupied by biblical imagery, which Mandelstam multiplies and adapts to Russian culture in translation.

The paper focuses on the analysis of the first translations of poems by Paul Celan into Russian (1960–1970). The early-translated texts were often made in close proximity to some of Osip Mandelstam’s poems, which, especially in the translation of early works, is not appropriate at all. Celan did not become acquainted with Mandelstam’s work until 1957, when he was most intensively involved in the translation of Russian poetry, which had a special impact on his own poetics. However, not for his early cycles of “Mohn und Gedachtnis” and “Sprachgitter”. The first translations of the poems from these collections into Russian went through the domestication of the Celan’s lines acoustically and lexically bringing them closer to the works of Mandelstam, already known by the Russian-speaking reader. By examples of poems “In Memory of Paul Eluard”, “Eyes”, “Rain Fills the Mug” and “Slope” the author considers the biographically unsubstantiated imitation of phonetics and partially lexics of Mandelstam in the translation.

The article attempts to describe the place and role of the eight lines stanzas in Mandelstam’s work on the basis of quantitative analysis of the poet’s texts. Two main octastich forms are considered – poems of eight verses and strophes of eight verses. The use of different types of them in different periods of Mandelstam’s creative work, regularities of variation and tendencies of development of that poetic form are analyzed. Observations are made concerning rhyme, metre and strophic structure, as well as the possibilities of cycling single eight lines stanzas. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the variation of eight lines forms in the poet’s creative work during his creative biography implies both the presence of variants with formants of unity and variants in which the standard quatrain or other internal strophic structure is preserved. The two highlighted eight-lines forms (strophes of eight verses and poems of eight verses) vary widely in terms of meter. The most comprehensively presented are two-syllabic syllabic-accentual meters; the metric of the 8-strophes is more than that of the 8-form oriented to two-syllabic meters, and the number of the three-syllabics in the 8-forms is almost double their number in the 8-strophes. The latter can serve as an indirect confirmation of the fact that, by constantly and emphatically varying the meter, Mandelstam emphasizes a relative “firmness” of the very shape of the octastich. That primarily concerns, of course, the 8-forms, since in the 8-strophes, apparently, there is a greate influence of the classical tradition, which implied the predominant orientation of the 8-strophes to two-syllable meters. However the author sees the poet’s great interest in the development of the resources of the eight lines form as a modern poetic one, and not as a traditional form of reproduction of the previous rules of its construction.

This article examines the configuration of various genre strategies of lyric and its function in the artistic wholeness of metalyrical poetry. For this purpose the author analyses O. Mandelstam’s poem “I haven’t heard of the tales of Ossian” (1914) in terms of the concept “metalyric” by E. Muller-Zettelmann and the idea of Prof. V.I. Tyupa about the performative nature of lyrical poetry. In this regard, the attention is drawn to O. Mandelstam’s poem “I havn’t heard the tales of Ossian” (1914) because there the poet’s creative will is carried out in various performative strategies, each lyrical “I” actualizes itself in different ways. At the same time, a hybrid of genre-forming principles makes it possible to dynamically transform the lyrical “I” in the course of the poem. It is no less interesting that the combination of idyllic and elegiac strategies in this text leads to an increase in the alienation of the poet from world culture. In the lyrical strategy of volunte, in turn, the poet’s desire to overcome the dichotomy of the “alien” and “his own” is visible. When considering the last stanza of the poem, special attention is paid to the image of the “skald”, which highlights the crystallization of world poetic traditions. As a result of the study, the author of the article offers a definition of a performative strategy inherent to the Mandelstam’s metalyric, which is oriented at the history of poetics.

The article shows that in “Football” the motif of dissection is not restricted by the plot about Judith and Holofernes. It is a key leit-motif that is realized at different levels of the text. This concerns the structure of single words, “chopping off” the plot, correlation of images, etc. The football game is used by Mandelstam as an object with a structural dualism, primordially inherent to it. This includes the division into two teams, double word “football” and the significancy of two languages at once (in connection with English origin of the game and its title). The author finds a series of Russian-English bilingual puns including those that realize the motif of chopping off. The relevant phenomena are traced in “The Second Football”. There the text through its length is dominated by wholeness of the double elements, but it ends with a hint of decapitation.

The article is devoted to the image of Osip Mandelstam in the poetry of the Thaw on the example of the most prominent poets of that period (B. Akhmadulina, Evg. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, I. Brodsky). In the works of poets of the sixties Mandelstam appears as a “poet of the Thaw”, which is a moral antithesis of the Stalin era, the denial of its ideological and aesthetic principles and a symbol of freedom. Each author had “his” Mandelstam:for Akhmadulina he is in equal measure the fragile and strong man who feels both as his selectness and the inability to confront his tragic fate, Yevtushenko admires his work as a model of the highest art and its “inscribtion” in the world cultural context. For Voznesensky, Mandelstam is a symbol of creative immortality, at the same time a victim of the tragic time and its winner. Brodsky calls Mandelstam “the greatest Russian poet of our time” and argues that his gift, like any genuine gift, is not tied to any particular historical era. But for all these authors, the name of Mandelstam is not only the pinnacle of literary creativity that one needs to strive for, but also the declarative desire to put his name in one poetic a series of precisely with this poet.

The article is devoted to the correlation of the O. Mandelstam reflections about the theater and the nature of the theatrical word, including those embodied in his poetic images, with the so-called “inner plastic theater” of the text in the poetry of the leaders of Russian metarealism – I. Zhdanov, S. Solovyov, A. Parschikov. The author analyzes the metaphors of the theater, acting, sounding words, images of the actor, spectator and author of the play, presented in the text-manifestos of metarealists, projecting them into the images of the art-drama, lifestyle and inspirational theater of O. Mandelstam. In the first part of the article author examines the intertextual relations of “Before the word” of I. Zhdanov, with “Hamlet” of B. Pasternak and “Swallow” of O. Mandelstam, analyzes the “houshold theater” and “booth”, their mediator role in the interaction of an author with a reader/spectator. The author discusses an image of the “ideal actor” moving and acting in empty space, which is not the scene, but the word, inhabiting this emptiness with images and the playing reader. He shows that the Hamlet question sounds for I. Zhdanov as “to be (everyday life) or (not)being(not existing)”. Special attention is paid to images of heaven and the theatrical “gods” and related Biblical and Evangelical motives. The second part of the article is devoted to the analysis of “Typewriter Amphitheater...” of S. Solovyov and his correlations with “January 1, 1924” and “Where is the bound and nailed moan?” of O. Mandelstam. The focus is an idea of the unity of the acting and genuine dying, the roots of which Solovyev is looking for in Antiquity, bringing to the fore images of Apollo, Dionysus, Dionysian games, and in Christian mythology, presenting the text as “Godborn child”, the offspring of the original Word. The third part of the article analyzes “Introduction...” of A. Parschikov, where ancient and Biblical and Evangelical motifs are also strong and the text appears in the image of Heavenly Jerusalem. The author sees the difference in the fact that A. Parschikov focuses not on the theatricality of poetic creativity, but on the game itself. His theatre, as Mandelstam would say, is “rational and transparent”.

Part of the contemporaries treated Osip Mandelstam’s poetics either as an example of the archaic trend or as a unique, significant phenomenon but with no place in the immediate cultural landscape. One thing that contributed to a special perception of Mandelstam was the development of a posthumous myth of the poet. This myth is still relatively active in contemporary Russian poetry and can generate some most unexpected forms of reception. At the same time, certain parts of Mandelstam’s poetic universe remain very productive, as well as his poetics as a whole (that was canonized as quintessential for contemporary poetry). Many active poets view Mandelstam as a figure pivotal for recreating the world of contemporary poetry or even the whole culture.