Osip Emilevich Mandelstam was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a wealthy merchant family. He spent most of his early life in St. Petersburg, Moscow, where he attended the prestigious Tenishev School (1900-1907). From 1907 to 1910, he traveled to France and Germany, studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Heidelberg. He studied Philosophy at the University of St. Petersburg for six years (1911-1917). He did not graduate from any of the universities he attended. …showed first 75 words of 401 total…

…showed last 75 words of 401 total…that was much less than flattering. As a result, Mandelstam was exiled to Cherdyn, which is east of Kazan and Samarra, somewhere near Perm. He attempted to kill himself, and was sent to Voronezh, near Ukraine. He was arrested for counterrevolutionary activities in the spring of 1938. After confessing to writing "counter-revolutionary" poetry, he was sent to the Gulag Archipelago. He died there, presumably of fatigue and malnutrition. His body was thrown into a mass grave.