Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938) - photo 1

Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938)

Lot 134
15.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 13 860
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1108933
Lot 134 | Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938)
Estimate value
£ 12 000 – 18 000
Osip Mandelstam (1891-1938)
Autograph manuscript signed ('O. Mandelstam'), heavily revised draft of an attack on the official Soviet writers' organisation, n.d. [c.1930]
In Russian. In pencil, a heavily-corrected draft, 20 lines on one page, 213 x 149mm. Provenance: Sotheby's London, 20 November 1990, lot 461.

A furious invective against the official Soviet writers' organisation: possibly a draft for the Fourth Prose.

Thank you for your obscene present. This had been breeding within you for years. I am curious, though – how many lackeys were involved in this ... What? Was it difficult to 'edit'? ... Who received the honorarium? How much? I have long since removed myself from the writer's clique and there is no power on earth that would make me sit at the same table as you. / I spit on your shameless, lifeless academic vision. And there is no possible measure of filth emanating from you that would surprise me ... Get away from me!' (translation)

Mandelstam's Fourth Prose is a furious defence of a writer's freedom and a howl of outrage at the campaign waged against him by the official writers' organisations in Soviet Russia, beginning in 1928 when his name was inaccurately printed as the translator of an edition of Till Eulenspiegel which he had in fact only edited. Composed in 1930, the Fourth Prose was not published until 1966.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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