Stalin Epigram
The Stalin epigram, also known as The Kremlin Highlander (Russian: Кремлёвский горец) is a satirical poem by the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, written in November 1933. The poem describes the climate of fear in the Soviet Union.[1]
Mandelstam read the poem only to a few friends, including Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova. The poem played a role in his own arrest and the arrests of Akhmatova's son and husband, Lev Gumilev and Nikolay Punin.[2]
The "Kremlin Caucasian" in line 4 refers to Stalin's Caucasus Mountains origin. The phrase "Ossetian torso" in the final line refers to the ethnicity of Stalin, whose father's (Besarion Jughashvili) paternal grandfather was an Ossetian.
|
|
References
- ↑ Translation by Dmitri Smirnov, can be reproduced if non-commercial
- ↑ Vengeance of Kremlin's Highlander (Russian) by Semion Kiperman, publication of Russian Jewish on-line Center