A Sociological Analysis of the Role of Intellectuals in the Fight against Tyranny in Osip Mandelstam's Works

The current research is an interdisciplinary study on the role of literature and intellectuals against the authoritarian government in the former Soviet Union. The October Revolution caused fundamental changes in the political and social structure of Russia. These changes and developments happened while the society and especially the intellectuals hoped that, with the establishment of the Bolshevik government, the state of civil liberties in the country would improve. However, with the emergence of Stalin's tyrannical policies, the possibility for any criticism against the mainstream policies became very bounded. Osip Mandelstam can be called as one of the boldest opposition intellectuals in the Stalin era who, despite being aware of the consequences of opposing and protesting against Stalin's policies, used his artistic medium, poetry, to criticize the existing situation in order to inform people. In his works, issues such as freedom of expression, the right to protest, and the rejection of public inaction are emphasized. To answer the main question of the research about Mandelstam's role and position taking against tyranny and autocracy and to investigate his campaigning performance and relationship with the government and the society and as a prominent representative of intellectuals opposed to the government of the given era, the essay draws on the method of qualitative content analysis to examine the content of Mandelstam’s works, some of which have been translated from Russian to Persian for the first time. The main focus of this interdisciplinary research is the relationship between literature and politics and the theoretical framework is based on the theories of Said and Gramsci. The findings indicate that Mandelstam, through his works, played an important and informative social role against the authoritarian regime of his time.