Hope Against Hope - Nadezhda Mandelstam alone on the mysteriously deserted

alone on the mysteriously deserted Daphne

except for harried undertakers

their places in a changing ecosystem

Adelaida resists and is beaten up

Hope Against Hope - Nadezhda Mandelstam alone on the mysteriously desertedIn 1933 the poet Osip Mandelstam friend to Boris Pasternak and Anna Akhmatova wrote a spirited satire denouncing Josef Stalin. It proved to be a sixteen line death sentence. For his one act of defiance he was arrested by the Cheka, the secret police, interrogated, exiled and eventually re arrested. He died en route to one of Stalin's labour camps. His wife, Nadezhda, was with him on both occasions when he was arrested, and she loyally accompanied him