Mandelstam. Rom. Pasolini

In 1972 a small volume presented for the first time a varied choice of poems by the Russian poet Osip Mandel'štam to the Italian public, translated by Serena Vitale. One of the book's first and most enthusiastic readers was the poet, film director and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini, who immediately reviewed it for the Italian newspaper Il Tempo. This review shows the great significance that Mandel'štam's poetry acquired for Pasolini in the very last years of his life. So much so, that the first verse of Mandel'štam's late poem, With the world of the powerful , became the motto of Pasolini's last, unfinished novel Petrolio. While offering a reading of this poem by Mandel'štam, the present article investigates the reasons for Pasolini's passionate interest in the Russian poet, and sheds light on the political dimension of both Mandel'štam's and Pasolini's oeuvre.