The problem of the relationship between the poet and the authorities is one of the most difficult issues in studying the biography of this or that artist of the word. On the one hand, his choice of a particular position determining the nature of communication with the power structures is subject to sociopolitical and psychological reasons; on the other hand, it inevitably leads to a transformation of the expressive means employed and to the development of a particular system of reticences, subtexts, allusions, etc. things. The novelty of this article lies in the fact that it examines the relationship between the poet and the authorities not in a synchronic, but in a diachronic perspective. 96 This involves comparing Mandelstam's model of behaviour to the similar reactions of the poets of antiquity to challenges provoked by the need to somehow fit into the existing political order and to make compromises between individual ethical preferences and the prevailing morality. In this approach, Mandelstam's forerunners in the forms of dialogue with power he chose were the ancient Greek lyric poets Stesychorus and Pindar, and the ancient Roman poets Publius Ovidius Nazon and Quintus Horatius Flaccus. The forerunners of Stalin, to whom O. E. Mandelstam addressed the famous ode, are the Syracusan tyrant Giron, the tyrant Falaris of Akraganta and the Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus. These comparisons enable us to conclude that O. E. Mandelstam's dialogue with the supreme power, which was embodied by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, is to a great extent governed by the same principles which were followed by Pindar and Horace in similar situations. In addition, the article substantiates the claim that Mandelstam's Ode to Stalin contains, in addition to elements of stylization, signs of parody.
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