Thanks so much -- you've outdone yourself! What a wonderful explanation. So it seems that this burial of the sun, or the black sun, represents not only the death of specific people (Pushkin, Scriabin, M.'s mother) but becomes a symbol of Russia itself? or even more generally, of the death of what M. prizes most? Did Akhmatova ever use this image herself? I seem to remember something similar but can't remember anyting specific.

What a lovely, lovely entry. I love Mandelshtam. Thank you so much for writing about him in such a gorgeous post. (And Nadheza was quite something herself, as well!)

Might Nerval’s poem El Desdichado also have an influence?:

Ma seule Etoile est morte, - et mon luth constellé
Porte le Soleil noir de la Mélancolie.

of course the Black Sun as an alchemical image goes back hundreds of years; i'd be quite surprised if M. wasn't at least aware of this.

I was just reading Blake's "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and found, in the passage (the fourth "memorable fancy") in which an angel takes him deep beneath a church vault to "a void boundless as a nether sky" where they sit in "the twisted root of an oak" and get used to the darkness, the following description:
"By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke of a burning city; beneath us at an immense distance was the sun, black but shining..."
Nothing to do with Mandelshtam, I suppose, but striking in its own right.

How stupendous (a word I don't use often) to search Google for the Mandelshtam/Pushkin midnight sun/black sun connection that I only vaguely remembered and to immediately find this wonderful exchange. Even moreso to see the appreciation of Mandelshtam. I look forward to visiting this site again. P.S. I used to own a hardcopy of the second volume of Nadezhda M's memoirs,_Hope Abandoned_, loaned it to someone and never got it back. If any of you know how I could find this again without selling my soul at the pawnbroker's, that would be wonderful.
Shiralunacy aka Sonia

Hi, Sonia! I'm glad you like this entry; I put a lot of work into it, and it's one of my favorites (as Mandelshtam is one of my favorite poets). As for the book (don't you hate it when people don't return books?), I just checked Best Book Buys and found the cheapest available copy is for $22 from Amazon -- and that's the paperback! Remind me never to lend out my copy. (I'll keep my eye out for it when I go to used bookstores, though -- are you only interested in the hardcover, or will you take a paperback if it's available at a decent price?)

The black sun, as a symbol, sounds quite medieval/occult/cabalistic and seems, indeed, to have long been in currency in certain circles. If it refers to the eclipse, then there is no way to avoid its Biblical roots. Note that the black sun should be better known to Russian audiences from another literary work created in the 1920s and the 1930s, Sholokhov's (or someone else's) Quiet Flows the Don. In the next-to-last chapter, Grigory, having buried Aksinya, "raised his head and saw above him a black sky and a blindingly shining black disk of the sun."

Thanks for the excellent additional reference. I'm afraid I still haven't read Tikhii Don.

How glad am I this post came up in the recently commented on so I could read it again? This glad.

Biblical roots:

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood.

Revelation 6:12.

6:11 is also interesting, in this context:

And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

Also:

Vril was supposedly one of the languages spoken by the Atlanteans. It was composed of sounds and clicks.

Sounds and clicks! You don't say - how unusual, for a language!

During this ten-year period, the Thule Society members were supposedly the first group to attempt the back-engineering of an extraterrestrial spacecraft...German aircraft historian Henry Stevens says Haunebu 1 was supposedly the first large flying saucer developed in Germany.