This is by the way (you may already know) a reference to her son the philosopher of history Lev Gumiliev, who spent 20 years in various Gulag camps.
I'm kind of surprised she was never locked up. Montefiore (sorry, I'm obsessed) argues Stalin prefered to "contain" rather than destroy poets because he had been one himself. (Though there are obvious exceptions like Bebel -- maybe the fact that Red Cavalry had pissed off Budyonny was a factor there. Maybe.)
Montefiore also points out sometimes that I never realized but should have been obvious -- when Mandelstam refers to Stalin as the "Ossete" he's making something of an ethnic slur: "you're not a real Georgian." Ossetes and Georgians don't get along very well. Actually, Georgians don't get along with anybody particularly well except Armenians, but in Georgian popular consciousnes Ossetes are supposed to be savage barbarians, and (until the early 1800s) pagans. Djugashvili does seem to be a Georgianized Ossetian name.
--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote: Not awful eyes of my dear son – The endless suffering and patience – Not that black day when thunder gunned, Not that jail’s hour of visitation,
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