Osip Mandelstam Analysis

Russia had amazing poets, writers, and artists however “in the early Soviet years a poem could be a death sentence” as stated by the poet Osip Mandelstam. Literature in the second half of the twentieth century reflects on Russian history. During the Soviet Union, Stalin’s Terror reigned over all of Russia as he held total control over everything. Works of great writers, poets and artists were banned if not approved by Stalin and the creators themselves either prisoned or killed. Stalin himself personally took interest in controlling the cultural affairs, he would tell directors, composers, and authors how they should be doing their jobs. The poems by Dombrovsky, Elagin, Yevtushenko, Okudzhava, and Solzhenitsyn reflects on the Russian history during the Soviet Union. Dombrovsky’s poem, They Wanted Me Dead and Elagin’s poem, I know That A Gangster

Solzhenitsyn's view of Russia is mostly negative he states that Russia was once great and full of many history and people. But Russia is now in ruins going through a high volume of a spiritual, physical, and economic destruction and degradation. The people are helpless as the regime ignores the pain of its people and instead shows them hardship through enslavement in Communist rule. On the other hand Solzhenitsyn see’s the positivity in the people, where only they can rebuild their country, and the future of Russia is the children where only they can improve and help Russia become great again.

. Then when Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and ended Communism the Russian people felt cultural freedom, “a free-for-all exploded in the vacuum left by the hastily departed censors.” But this doesn’t seem to be lasting too long. Putin is trying to take control of literature similar to Stalin, Putin has proposed to make it mandatory to read one hundred books that he suggests according to Alexander Nazaryan from the Daily News “Social engineering through state-mandated