Стихотворение Осипа Мандельштама «Телефон»: суицидальный и любовный сюжет

ABSTRACT This paper offers an analysis of Osip Mandel'štam’s comparatively understudied poem “Telephone” (June 1918). The author considers in detail Mandel'štam’s four poems to Anna Achmatova, which are quoted in the “Telephone”, and analyzes Achmatova’s memoirs, in which the entire text of the poem is recited immediately after the story of her break-up with the poet. On the basis of the motif analysis of the poem, the analysis of autoreminiscences, and the biographical context of the poem, the author arrives at the conclusion that Mandel'štam describes in the “Telephone” his own suicidal impulse that occurred after a telephone call from Achmatova, whom he had been courting in the winter of 1917–1918 and with whom there was a break-up in March.