Hope Against Hope

Nadezhda's memoir recounts her husband Osip Mandelstam's arrest, imprisonment, interrogation, exile to the Urals, release, and return to Moscow, as well as her efforts to secure his release and save his manuscripts. It is a story of courage in adversity and even humor finds a place. It was published in 1970 and has since achieved the status of a classic.

Format: Hardback
Length: 584 pages
Publication date: 05 October 2023
Publisher: Everyman

A harrowing yet uplifting account of Stalin's persecution of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1930s, and of one man, Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938), whose poetry, in spite of the unfolding tragedy of his life, preserved its unique creative gaiety. Nadezhda and Osip Mandelstam married in 1922. Nadezhda's memoir covers their last four years together. She begins in Moscow in May 1934 with the knock on the door at one o'clock in the morning, and her husband's arrest by the secret police for composing a satire of Stalin. She tells of his imprisonment, interrogation, and exile to the Urals, where she accompanied him, and where he wrote his last great poems; his release and return to Moscow, only to be entrapped, rearrested, and sentenced to hard labor in Siberia; of her own efforts to secure his release and to save his manuscripts (and to memorize all his poems in case she could not); of her discovery of the truth about his death in a transit camp near Vladivostock. For all its grim subject matter, it is a story of courage in adversity, and even humor finds a place.

Nadezhda means hope in Russian, and Hope against Hope is one of the greatest testaments to the value of literature and imaginative freedom ever written. It is also a love story that relates the daily struggle to keep both love and art alive in the most desperate circumstances. After years of circulating secretly in the Soviet Union, it was published in the West in 1970, and has since achieved the status of a classic.

Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet and writer who lived in the 20th century. He was born in 1891 in St. Petersburg and died in 1938 in Moscow. Mandelstam was a member of the Russian intelligentsia, a group of intellectuals who were persecuted by Stalin's regime.

Mandelstam's poetry was known for its unique creative gaiety and its ability to capture the essence of the human experience. Despite the tragic circumstances of his life, Mandelstam continued to write and publish his poetry. He was arrested by the secret police in 1934 for composing a satire of Stalin, and he was imprisoned and interrogated for several months.

Mandelstam was exiled to the Urals, where he continued to write and publish his poetry. He wrote his last great poems in exile, and his work was widely celebrated by his fellow artists and intellectuals.

Mandelstam's wife, Nadezhda, was a prominent figure in the Russian literary scene. She was a writer and a translator, and she played a key role in securing her husband's release from prison. Nadezhda's memoir, Hope against Hope, is a harrowing exile that covers their last four years together.

The memoir begins in Moscow in May 1934, with the knock on the door at one o'clock in the morning, and her husband's arrest by the secret police. Nadezhda describes the harrowing.

Weight: 620g
Dimension: 208 x 128 x 34 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781841594125