Analysis Of The Poem The Starlin Epigram - 1222 Words

Osip Mandelstam was one of the most complex and mysterious Russian poets who wrote symbolic poems in the totalitarian time. The Stalin Epigram is the example of such texts, after which the poet was deported to Siberia. It seems different than his previous poems since it has simple and concise style, which directly express Mandelstam’s criticism of the Stalinist regime. However, the poem contains many conceptual and intertextual citations, therefore, it is the encrypted message that should be decoded by the intelligent reader. Also the images of mountaineer and prison embody the despotic and anti-human regime, where human life means nothing, so it could be sacrificed for the totalitarian goals. The Poem â€Å"The Starlin Epigram† used imagery†¦show more content†¦The central image of the poem is the figure of mountaineer, who embodies Stalin as the unattainable and, at the same time, abstract person. For Mandelstam, Kremlin refers to a mountain fortress of Stali n, which is one of the most accurate image in the poem. Due to this association, he enhances the overall atmosphere of hopelessness and depression that â€Å"the Leader† created. At some point, the poet associates Stalin/mountaineer with a mythical monster: â€Å"The ten thick worms his fingers/ His words like measures of weight† (Mandelstam 5-6). Consequently, the poet refers to the ambivalent situation that was directly related with the totalitarian regime of Stalin: he was always near and far at the same time. On the one hand, everyone is afraid to say a suspicious word, because the â€Å"half men† control every move. On the other hand, Stalin is in his castle, and no one knows if he ever exists. It allows the poet to create a vivid image of Stalin, who has thick fingers and â€Å"the huge laughing cockroaches† (Mandelstam 7), which transform the real person into something archaic and distant, but still awful. Generally, the poem represents Stalin as a terrible person, who had the criminal past, and, therefore, cannot be a leader of any country. There is one significant image that indicates the past of Stalin: â€Å"He rolls the executions of his tongue like berries† (Mandelstam 15). The image of barriers refers to a