"You couldn't take away the moving lips"

Osip Mandelstam was born on the night of January 14–15, 1891—according to Vladimir Nabokov, "the only poet of Stalinist Russia." He studied literary history, translated European classics, and published research articles and prose.

In 1933, he wrote sixteen lines that became his death sentence. He was exiled for his anti-Stalin poem "We Live, Not Feeling the Country Beneath Us." He returned in 1937, but was arrested again in 1938. He died in a transit camp in the Far East. The cause of his death and the place of his burial are unknown.

Mandelstam's legacy was preserved by his wife Nadezhda. She memorized thousands of lines, copied them out at night, and hid them in kitchen pots and old boots.

In 1987, Osip Mandelstam was fully rehabilitated. The state acknowledged that the poet's actions did not constitute a crime.

On Mandelstam's birthday, we recall his most poignant, piercing, and still relevant lines.