Petrograd, 1920s: on Shadow Characters in Yuri Kamensky’s Memoirs

Abstract

The memoirs of Yuri Kamensky, O.E. Mandelstam’s classmate at the Tenishev School, convey a life picture of the memoirist’s kindred-friendly circle in post-revolutionary Petrograd. Many people in this circle were closely connected with the world of art and literature, making up the cultural environment that was destroyed or adapted with great difficulty to the realities of a new life. Based on research in various St. Petersburg archives, the article provides biographical data on three previously uncommented characters in the memoirs – Polina Uflyand, the poet Nikolai Otsup’s first wife, Tamara Vreden and her husband Joseph Kobetsky, a journalist and publisher. The data of personal files, questionnaires, applications to various authorities, materials of personal correspondence were used.