Poetry in a dead loop. Mandelstam and aviation

The book of Yuri Leving contains a detailed analysis of the poem of Osip Mandelstam “Not the powdery butterfly white ...” (1935–1936) Based on the material of archival documents, biographical evidence and publications in Soviet periodicals, the author scrupulously restores the historical context and numerous poetic reminiscences of this opaque poem of the late Mandelstam. The author, being an expert on the poetics of Russian urbanism, places Mandelstam"s poem about the death of test pilots in a wide historical, cultural and biographical context. In the second part of the book, the aviation theme in poetry is considered by the examples of contemporaries of the poet: the erotic subtexts of two Soviet aviation anthologies - “Slut” (1923) and “Stalinist falcons” (1939) were analyzed. The publication is illustrated.
The book is dedicated to the 130th anniversary of O. E. Mandelstam