[Carl Copeland]

John, one of my guilty pleasures is old British sitcoms like “Are You Being Served?” so I’m more familiar with “blowing a raspberry” than I am with a Bronx cheer. I don’t think that’s what’s going on in Mandelstam, though. I’ve found two suggestions. One is that “raspberry” is criminal slang referring to an underworld hangout. The other is an idiom I’ve never heard, “Not life, but raspberries,” meaning something like “This isn’t life, it’s heaven!” On this view, Stalin is savoring the executions, like rolling raspberries on his tongue.

Various associations have been suggested for the neologism babachit’ (go bang), and the translator went for what seems like the strongest of these. The verb does sound like it’s made from the interjection babakh, which essentially means “bang” and is used to imitate loud noises like the firing of a gun.

The last line of the poem, “And the broad chest of an Ossetian” is the most controversial. Scholars generally agree that the Ossetian is Stalin himself. There were rumors that Stalin had Ossetian blood, which explained his barbarism, and critics have felt that such a false and even racist slur were unworthy of Mandelstam. Pasternak reportedly said, “How could he write that verse? He’s a Jew!” The article I found suggests that Mandelstam was also associating Stalin with the Ossetian villain of a popular Georgian novel. The parallels with Stalin were close enough that the book’s author and translator were later executed. In fact, the villain headed a band of cutthroats, which might lend credence to the criminal interpretation of “raspberry.” In short, as you say, it’s a bit of a mystery.

I don’t think I’m going to get much more traffic in this thread, so I’ll give you the answer: the Brooklyn Bridge spans the East River, not the Hudson.