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.
Mandelstam's career as a poet began in 1910 when his first poems were published in the literary journal Apollon. …
