Osip Mandel’štams Gedicht ‚Чернозем‘ als Prozess der dichterischen Selbstfindung research-article Stefan Grießl Wiener Slavistisches Jahrbuch. Neue Folge, Jahrgang 8 (2020), Ausgabe 1, Seite 185 - 202 Osip Mandelstam's poem ‘Чернозем’ as a process of poetic self-reassurance. - The poem ‘Chernozem’ marks the beginning of a new period of poetic creativity in Mandelstam's Voronezh exile. Drawing on the notion of an ‘impulse’ that impacted Mandelstam's poetic activity in his late work, this paper discusses the difference between ‘Chernozem’ and his seemingly similar architectural poems of the Acmeistic period as well as its relation to Mandelstam's essay ‘Slovo i kultura’. It interprets the poem as a process through which the poet finds new confidence in his poetic vocation.