Creativity Akhmatova A.: a general overview. The creative path of Akhmatova A.A.

Anna Akhmatova is an outstanding poetess of the last century. She wrote many poems that many know and love, as well as the poem "Requiem" about Stalin's repressions. Her life was very difficult, full of dramatic events, like many of our compatriots, whose youth and maturity fell on the difficult years of the first half of the 20th century.

Anna Akhmatova (real name of the poetess - Anya Gorenko) was born on June 23, according to the new style of 1889. The birthplace of the future poetess is Odessa. In those days, this city was considered the Russian Empire. Akhmatova's biography began in a large family, her parents had six children in total, she was born the third. Her father is a nobleman, a naval engineer, and Ani's mother was distantly related to another future famous poet -

Anya received her primary education at home, and went to the gymnasium at the age of ten in Tsarskoe Selo. The family was forced to move here due to the promotion of the father. The girl spent her summer holidays in the Crimea. She loved to wander barefoot along the shore, throw herself into the sea directly from the boat, go without a hat. Her skin soon became swarthy, which shocked the local young ladies.

The impressions received at sea served as an impetus for the creative inspiration of the young poetess. The girl wrote her first poems at the age of eleven. In 1906, Anna moved to the Kyiv Gymnasium, after which she attended the Higher Women's Courses and the Literary and History Courses. The first poems were published in domestic magazines of that time in 1911. A year later, the first book "Evening" was released. These were lyrical poems about girlish feelings, about first love.

Subsequently, the poetess herself will call her first collection "poems of a stupid girl." Two years later, the second collection of poems, The Rosary, was published. It had a large circulation and brought popularity to the poetess.

Important! Anna replaced her real name with a pseudonym at the request of her father, who was against the fact that her daughter would dishonor their surname with her literary experiments (as he believed). The choice fell on the maiden name of the great-grandmother. According to legend, she came from the clan of the Tatar Khan Akhmat.

And it was for the best, because the real name lost in comparison with this mysterious pseudonym. All works by Akhmatova since 1910 were published only under this pseudonym. Her real name appeared only when the poetess's husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, published her poems in a domestic magazine in 1907. But since the magazine was unknown, few people paid attention to these verses at that time. However, her husband prophesied great fame for her, seeing her poetic talent.

A. Akhmatova

Rise of popularity

Biography by date great poetess detailed on the Wikipedia website. It contains a brief biography of Akhmatova from the day Anna was born until the moment of death, describes her life and work, as well as interesting facts from her life. This is very important, because for many the name of Akhmatova means little. And on this site you can see a list of works that you want to read.

Continuing the story of Akhmatova's life, one cannot help but talk about her trip to Italy, which changed her fate and significantly influenced her future work. The fact is that in this country she met with the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. Anna dedicated many poems to him, and he, in turn, painted her portraits.

In 1917, the third book, The White Flock, was published, its circulation surpassed all previous books. Its popularity grew every day. In 1921, two collections were published at once: Plantain and In the Year of the Lord 1921. After that, there is a long pause in the publishing house of her poems. The fact is that the new government considered Akhmatova's work "anti-Soviet" and imposed a ban on it.

Poems by A. Akhmatova

Hard times

From the 1920s, Akhmatova began to write her poems "on the table." Hard times came in her biography with the advent of Soviet power: the husband and son of the poetess were arrested. It is always hard for a mother to watch her children suffer. She worried a lot about her husband and son, and although they were soon released for a short time, but then her son was arrested again, and this time for a long time. The most important torment was yet to come.

Briefly, we can say that the unfortunate mother stood in line for a year and a half in order to see her son. Lev Gumilyov spent five years in prison, all this time his exhausted mother suffered with him. Once, in line, she met a woman who, recognizing a famous poetess in Akhmatova, asked her to describe all these horrors in her work. So the list of her creations was replenished with the poem "Requiem", which revealed the terrible truth about Stalin's policy.

Of course, the authorities could not like this, and the poetess was expelled from the Writers' Union of the USSR. During the war, Akhmatova was evacuated to Tashkent, where she was able to publish her new book. In 1949, her son was again arrested, and a black streak again set in in Akhmatova's biography. She asked a lot for the release of her son, most importantly, that Anna did not lose heart, did not lose hope. In order to appease the authorities, she even went on a betrayal of herself, her views: she wrote a book of poems “Glory to the world!”. Briefly, it can be described as an ode to Stalin.

Interesting! For such an act, the poetess was reinstated in the Writers' Union, but this had little effect on the outcome of the case: her son was released only after seven years. On leaving, he quarreled with his mother, believing that she had done little to secure his release. They had a strained relationship until the end of their lives.

Useful video: interesting facts of the biography of A. Akhmatova

last years of life

In the mid-50s, a brief white streak began in Akhmatova's biography.

Events of those years by dates:

• 1954 - participation in the Congress of the Writers' Union;
• 1958 - publication of the book "Poems";
• 1962 - "Poem without a Hero" was written;
• 1964 - Awarded in Italy;
• 1965 - publication of the book "The Run of Time";
• 1965 - Awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.

In 1966, Akhmatova's health deteriorated significantly, and her close friend, the famous actor Alexei Batalov, began to ask high-ranking officials to send her to a sanatorium near Moscow. She got there in March, but fell into a coma two days later. The life of the poetess was cut short on the morning of March 5, three days later her body was taken to Leningrad, where a funeral service was held in St. Nicholas Cathedral.

The great poetess was buried at the cemetery in Komarovo Leningrad region. A simple cross is erected on her grave, according to her will. Her memory is immortalized by descendants, Akhmatova's place of birth is marked with a commemorative plaque, the street in Odessa, where she was born, is named after her. A planet and a crater on Venus are named after the poetess. A monument was erected at the place of her death in a sanatorium near Moscow.

Personal life

Anna has been married many times. Her first husband was the famous Russian poet Nikolai Gumilyov. They met when she was still in high school, and corresponded for a long time.

Anna immediately liked Nikolai, but the girl saw in him only a friend, nothing more. He several times asked for her hand and was refused. Anna's mother even called him a "saint" for his patience.

Once, when Anna, suffering from unhappy love for one acquaintance, even wanted to commit suicide, Nikolai saved her. Then he received her consent to the marriage proposal for the hundredth time.

They got married in April 1910, Anna's maiden name, Gorenko, was kept in the marriage. The newlyweds went on a honeymoon trip to Paris, then to Italy. Here Anna met a man who changed her fate. It is clear that she did not marry for love, but rather out of pity. Her heart was not busy, when suddenly she met the talented Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani.

A handsome passionate young man captivated the heart of the poetess, Anna fell in love, and her feeling was reciprocal. Has begun new round creativity, she wrote him numerous poems. Several times she came to him in Italy, they spent a lot of time together. Whether her husband knew about this remains a mystery. Perhaps he knew, but was silent, afraid of losing her.

Important! The romance of two young talented people ended due to tragic circumstances: Amedeo found out that he had tuberculosis and insisted on breaking off relations. Soon he died.

Despite the fact that Akhmatova gave birth to a son from Gumilyov, in 1918 they divorced. In the same year, she became friends with Vladimir Shileiko, a scientist and poet. In 1918, they married, but three years later Anna broke up with him.

In the summer of 1921, it became known about the arrest and execution of Gumilyov. Akhmatova did not take the news well. It was this person who saw talent in her and helped her take the first steps in her work, even if very soon she overtook her husband in popularity.

In 1922, Anna entered into a civil marriage with art historian Nikolai Punin. She lived with him for a long time. When Nicholas was arrested, she was waiting for him, petitioning for his release. But this union was not destined to last forever - in 1938 they broke up.

Then the woman agreed with the pathologist Garshin. He wanted to marry her already, but just before the marriage he dreamed of his dead mother, begging him not to marry a sorceress. For the mystery of Anna, her unusual appearance, excellent intuition, many called her a "sorceress", even her first husband. There is a poem by Gumilyov dedicated to his wife, which is called “The Sorceress”.

The great poetess died alone, without a husband, without a son. But she was not alone at all, she was full of creativity. Before her death, her last words were "I'm going to the sun."

Useful video: biography and creativity of A. Akhmatova

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I see everything. I remember everything, Lovingly meekly in my heart I keep. A. A. Akhmatova Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

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Contents 1. Biography Brief biography. Childhood and youth. Love in the life of A. A. Akhmatova 2. The life and work of the poetess. First publications. First success. First World War; "White Flock". Post-revolutionary years Years of silence. "Requiem". Great Patriotic War. Evacuation. Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of 1946. Last years of life. "Running time" 3. Analysis of poems by A. A. Akhmatova. "White Night" "Twenty-first. Night. Monday…” “Native Land” 4. Anna Akhmatova in the memoirs of her contemporaries.

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Brief biography of A.A. Akhmatova Anna Andreevna Gorenko (Akhmatova) is one of the most famous Russian poets of the 20th century, literary critic and translator. She was born on June 11 (23), 1889 in a noble family in Odessa. When the girl was 1 year old, the family moved to Tsarskoe Selo, where Akhmatova was able to attend the Mariinsky Gymnasium. She was so talented that she managed to master French listening to how the teacher deals with older children. While living in St. Petersburg, Akhmatova caught a piece of the era in which Pushkin lived and this left an imprint on her work. Her first poem appeared in 1911. A year before, she married the famous acmeist poet N. S. Gumilyov. In 1912, the writer's couple had a son, Leo. In the same year, her first collection of poems entitled "Evening" was published. The next collection, The Rosary, appeared in 1914 and was sold out in an impressive number of copies. The main features of the poetess's work combined an excellent understanding of the psychology of feelings and personal experiences about the nationwide tragedies of the 20th century.

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Akhmatova had a rather tragic fate. Despite the fact that she herself was not imprisoned or exiled, many people close to her were subjected to severe repression. So, for example, the first husband of the writer, N. S. Gumilyov, was executed in 1921. The third civil husband N. N. Punin was arrested three times, died in the camp. And, finally, the son of the writer, Lev Gumilyov, spent more than 10 years in prison. All the pain and bitterness of loss was reflected in the "Requiem" (1935-1940) - one of the most famous works of the poetess. Being recognized by the classics of the 20th century, Akhmatova was silenced and persecuted for a long time. Many of her works were not published due to censorship and were banned for decades even after her death. Akhmatova's poems have been translated into many languages. The poetess went through difficult years during the blockade in St. Petersburg, after which she was forced to leave for Moscow, and then emigrate to Tashkent. Despite all the difficulties that occurred in the country, she did not leave it and even wrote a number of patriotic poems. In 1946, Akhmatov, along with Zoshchenko, was expelled from the Writers' Union on the orders of I.V. Stalin. After that, the poetess was mainly engaged in translations. At the same time, her son was serving a sentence as a political criminal. Soon, the writer's work gradually began to be accepted by fearful editors. In 1965, her final collection, The Run of Time, was published. Also, she was awarded the Italian Literary Prize and an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford. In the fall of that year, the poetess suffered a fourth heart attack. As a result, on March 5, 1966, A. A. Akhmatova died in a cardiological sanatorium in the Moscow region.

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The childhood and youth of the poetess Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (real name - Gorenko) was born on June 11 (23 new style) June 1889 in a dacha village at the Bolshoy Fontan station near Odessa in the family of Andrei Antonovich and Inna Erazmovna Gorenko. Her father was a naval engineer. Soon the family moved to Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg. “My first memories,” Akhmatova wrote in her autobiography, “are those of Tsarskoye Selo: the green, damp splendor of the parks, the pasture where the nanny took me, the hippodrome, where little motley horses galloped, the old railway station and something else that later became part of the Tsarskoye Selo Ode. In Tsarskoye Selo, she loved not only the huge wet parks, statues of ancient gods and heroes, palaces, the Camelon Gallery, the Pushkin Lyceum, but she knew, clearly remembered and stereoscopically convexly reproduced many years later its "inside out": barracks, petty-bourgeois houses, gray fences, dusty suburban streets ... ... There a soldier's joke Flows, bile does not melt ... Striped booth And shag jet. They thrashed their throats with songs And swore by their priests, They drank vodka until late, They ate kutya. The crow glorified this phantom world with a cry... And on the sledge the Giant-cuirassier ruled. Royal and rural ode. But the deity of Tsarskoe Selo, its sun was for the young schoolgirl Anya Gorenko, of course, Pushkin. They were then brought together even by the similarity of age: he was a lyceum student, she was a high school student, and it seemed to her that his shadow flickered on the far paths of the park.

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In one of her autobiographical notes, she wrote that Tsarskoye Selo, where the gymnasium school year was held, that is, autumn, winter and spring, alternated with fabulous summer months in the south - "near the blue sea", mainly near Streletskaya Bay near Sevastopol . And the year 1905 completely passed in Evpatoria; that winter she mastered the gymnasium course at home because of an illness: tuberculosis, this scourge of the whole family, became aggravated. But the beloved sea was noisy all the time nearby, it calmed, healed and inspired. She then especially closely learned and fell in love with ancient Chersonese, its white ruins. Love for poetry passed through Akhmatova's whole life. She began to write poetry, by her own admission, quite early, at the age of eleven: “At home, no one encouraged my first attempts, but rather everyone was perplexed why I needed this.” And yet, Petersburg, of course, occupied the most important and even decisive place in the life, work and fate of Akhmatova. In 1903, the young Anya Gorenko met the high school student Nikolai Gumilyov. A few years later she became his wife. In 1905, Anna Andreevna's parents divorced, and she and her mother moved south, to Evpatoria, then to Kyiv, where in 1907 she graduated from the Kiev-Fundukleevsky gymnasium. Then Anna Gorenko entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses, but she had no desire to study “dry” disciplines, so she left school two years later. Even then, poetry was more important to her. The first published poem - "There are many brilliant rings on his hand ..." - appeared in 1907 in the second issue of the Parisian magazine Sirius, which was published by Gumilyov. April 25, 1910 N.S. Gumilyov and A.A. Gorenko got married in the Nicholas Church in the village of Nikolskaya Slobidka and left for Paris a week later. In June they returned to Tsarskoe Selo, and then moved to St. Petersburg. The Workshop of Poets was organized here, and Akhmatova became its secretary.

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Love in the life of A. A. Akhmatova Marchenko unconditionally gives the central place in Akhmatova's “quite a rich personal life” to Nikolai Gumilyov. How, after all, they knew each other from their youth, he became her first husband and father of her only son, opened her way to poetry ... Kolya Gumilyov, only three years older than Ani, already then realized himself as a poet, was an ardent admirer of the French symbolists. He hid self-doubt behind arrogance, tried to compensate for external ugliness with mystery, did not like to yield to anyone in anything. Gumilyov asserted himself, consciously building his life according to a certain pattern, and fatal, unrequited love for an extraordinary, impregnable beauty was one of the necessary attributes of his chosen life scenario. He bombarded Anya with poems, tried to impress her imagination with various spectacular follies - for example, on her birthday he brought her a bouquet of flowers plucked under the windows imperial palace. On Easter 1905, he tried to commit suicide - and Anya was so shocked and frightened by this that she stopped seeing him. In Paris, Gumilyov took part in the publication of a small literary almanac "Sirius", where he published one poem by Anya. Her father, having learned about his daughter's poetic experiences, asked not to shame his name. “I don’t need your name,” she replied and took the name of her great-grandmother, Praskovya Fedoseevna, whose family descended from the Tatar Khan Akhmat. So the name of Anna Akhmatova appeared in Russian literature. Anya herself took her first publication completely lightly, believing that an eclipse had "found an eclipse" on Gumilyov. Gumilyov also did not take the poetry of his beloved seriously - he appreciated her poems only a few years later. When he heard her poems for the first time, Gumilyov said: “Maybe you would dance better? home to be closer to them.

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In April of the following year, Gumilev, having stopped in Kyiv on his way from Paris, again unsuccessfully makes her an offer. The next meeting was in the summer of 1908, when Anya arrived in Tsarskoe Selo, and then when Gumilyov, on his way to Egypt, stopped in Kyiv. In Cairo, in the garden of Ezbekiye, he made one more, last, suicide attempt. After this incident, the thought of suicide became hateful to him. In May 1909, Gumilyov came to Anya in Lustdorf, where she then lived, caring for her sick mother, and was again refused. But in November, she suddenly - unexpectedly - gave in to his persuasion. They met in Kyiv at the artistic evening "Island of Arts". Until the end of the evening, Gumilyov did not leave Ani for a single step - and she finally agreed to become his wife. Nevertheless, as Valeria Sreznevskaya notes in her memoirs, at that time Gumilyov was far from the first role in the heart of Akhmatova. Anya was still in love with that same tutor, St. Petersburg student Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov - although he had not made himself felt for a long time. But agreeing to marry Gumilyov, she accepted him not as love - but as her Destiny. They got married on April 25, 1910 in Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kyiv. Akhmatova's relatives considered the marriage obviously doomed to failure - and none of them came to the wedding, which deeply offended her. Returning to Paris, Gumilyov first goes to Normandy - he was even arrested for vagrancy, and in December he again tries to commit suicide. A day later, he was found unconscious in the Bois de Boulogne... In the autumn of 1907, Anna entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv - she was attracted by the history of law and Latin.

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After the wedding, the Gumilevs left for Paris. Here she meets Amedeo Modigliani, then an unknown artist who makes many portraits of her. Only one of them survived - the rest died in the blockade. Something similar to an affair even begins between them - but as Akhmatova herself recalls, they had too little time for anything serious to happen. At the end of June 1910, the Gumilyovs returned to Russia and settled in Tsarskoye Selo. Gumilyov introduced Anna to his poet friends. As one of them recalls, when it became known about Gumilev's marriage, at first no one knew who the bride was. Then they found out: an ordinary woman ... That is, not a black woman, not an Arab, not even a Frenchwoman, as one might expect, knowing Gumilyov's exotic preferences. Having met Anna, they realized that she was extraordinary ... No matter how strong the feelings were, no matter how stubborn the courtship was, but soon after the wedding, Gumilyov began to be weary of family ties. On September 25, he again leaves for Abyssinia. Akhmatova, left to herself, plunged headlong into poetry. When Gumilyov returned to Russia at the end of March 1911, he asked his wife, who met him at the station: "Did you write?" she nodded. "Then read!" - and Anya showed him what she had written. He said, "Good." And since that time began to treat her work with great respect. In the spring of 1911, the Gumilyovs again went to Paris, then spent the summer at the estate of Gumilyov's mother, Slepnevo, near Bezhetsk in the Tver province. In the spring of 1912, when the Gumilyovs went on a trip to Italy and Switzerland, Anna was already pregnant. She spends the summer with her mother, and Gumilyov in Slepnev. The son of Akhmatova and Gumilyov, Lev, was born on October 1, 1912. Almost immediately, Nikolai's mother, Anna Ivanovna, took him to her place, and Anya did not resist too much. As a result, Leva lived with his grandmother for almost sixteen years, seeing his parents only occasionally ... Already a few months after the birth of his son, in the early spring of 1913, Gumilyov went to his last trip in Africa - as the head of an expedition organized by the Academy of Sciences. One of the people closest to her then was Nikolai Nedobrovo, who wrote an article about her work in 1915, which Akhmatova herself considered the best of what had been written about her in her entire life. Nedobrovo was desperately in love with Akhmatova.

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In 1914, Nedobrovo introduced Akhmatova to his best friend, poet and artist Boris Anrep. Anrep, who lived and studied in Europe, returned to his homeland to participate in the war. A stormy romance began between them, and soon Boris ousted Nedobrovo both from her heart and from her poems. Nedobrovo took this very hard and broke up with Anrep forever. Although Anna and Boris rarely managed to meet, this love was one of the strongest in Akhmatova's life. Before the final departure to the front, Boris presented her with a throne cross, which he found in a destroyed church in Galicia. Most of the poems from the collection The White Flock, published in 1917, are dedicated to Boris Anrep. Meanwhile, Gumilyov, although he is at the front - for his valor he was awarded the St. George Cross - leads an active literary life. He publishes a lot, constantly delivers critical articles. In the summer of the 17th, he ended up in London, and then in Paris. Gumilyov returned to Russia in April 1918. The next day, Akhmatova asked him for a divorce, saying that she was marrying Vladimir Shileiko. Vladimir Kazimirovich Shileiko was a well-known Assyrologist and also a poet. The fact that Akhmatova would marry this ugly, completely unsuitable for life, insanely jealous person was a complete surprise to everyone who knew her. As she later said, she was attracted by the opportunity to be useful to a great man, and also by the fact that there would be no rivalry with Shileiko that she had with Gumilyov. Akhmatova, having moved to him in the Fountain House, completely subordinated herself to his will: for hours she wrote his translations of Assyrian texts under his dictation, cooked for him, chopped firewood, made translations for him. He literally kept her under lock and key, not allowing her to go anywhere, forced her to burn all the letters received unopened, and did not allow her to write poetry.

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When the war began, Akhmatova felt a new surge of strength. In September, during the heaviest bombings, she speaks on the radio with an appeal to the women of Leningrad. Together with everyone, she is on duty on the roofs, digging trenches around the city. At the end of September, by decision of the city committee of the party, she was evacuated from Leningrad by plane - ironically, now she was recognized as an important enough person to save ... Through Moscow, Kazan and Chistopol, Akhmatova ended up in Tashkent. In Tashkent, she settled with Nadezhda Mandelstam, constantly communicated with Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya, made friends with Faina Ranevskaya, who lived nearby - they carried this friendship through their whole lives. Almost all Tashkent poems were about Leningrad - Akhmatova was very worried about her city, for everyone who stayed there. It was especially hard for her without her friend, Vladimir Georgievich Garshin. After parting with Punin, he began to play a big role in the life of Akhmatova. By profession, a pathologist, Garshin was very concerned about her health, which Akhmatova, according to him, criminally neglected. In 1945, to the great joy of Akhmatova, Lev Gumilyov returned. From the exile, which he had been serving since 1939, he managed to get to the front. Mother and son lived together. It seemed that life was getting better. In the autumn of 1945, Akhmatova was introduced to the literary critic Isaiah Berlin, then an employee of the British Embassy. During their conversation, Berlin was horrified to hear someone in the courtyard calling his name. As it turned out, it was Randolph Churchill, son of Winston Churchill, a journalist. The moment was a nightmare for both Berlin and Akhmatova. Contacts with foreigners at that time, to put it mildly, were not welcome. A face-to-face meeting might not yet be seen - but when the prime minister's son yells in the yard, it is unlikely to go unnoticed. Nevertheless, Berlin visited Akhmatova several more times. Berlin was the last of those who left a mark on Akhmatova's heart. When Berlin himself was asked about whether they had something with Akhmatova, he said: “I can’t decide how best to answer ...”

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First publications. First success. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova - Russian poetess, writer, literary critic, literary critic, translator; one of the largest representatives of Russian poetry of the XX century. Born near Odessa. Her father A. A. Gorenko was a hereditary nobleman and retired naval engineer-mechanic. On the maternal side (I. S. Stogova), Anna Akhmatova was a distant relative of Anna Bunina, the first Russian poetess. She formed her pseudonym on behalf of the Horde Khan Akhmat, whom she considered her ancestor on her mother's side. In 1912, "Evening" was released - the first collection of Anna Akhmatova, which was immediately noticed by critics. The name itself is associated with the end of life before the eternal "night". It includes several "Tsarskoye Selo" poems. Among them is "Horses are being led along the alley ...", which was included in the cycle "In Tsarskoye Selo" in 1911. In this poem, Akhmatova recalls her childhood, associates the experience with the present state - pain, sadness, longing ... In the same year she became a mother, naming her son Leo. The second collection of Anna Akhmatova, entitled "Rosary", was published before the start of the First World War, in 1914, which the poetess herself considered a turning point in the fate of Russia. In the period from 1914 to 1923, this collection of works was reprinted as many as 9 times, which was a huge success for the "beginning author".

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World War I; "White Flock". With the outbreak of the First World War, Anna Akhmatova sharply limited her public life. At this time, she suffered from tuberculosis, a disease that did not let her go for a long time. An in-depth reading of the classics (A. S. Pushkin, E. A. Baratynsky, Jean Racine, etc.) affects her poetic manner, the sharply paradoxical style of cursory psychological sketches gives way to neoclassical solemn intonations. Insightful criticism guesses in her collection The White Flock (1917) the growing "sense of personal life as a national, historical life" (Boris Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum). Inspiring in her early poems the atmosphere of a “mystery”, the aura of an autobiographical context, Anna Andreevna introduced free “self-expression” as a stylistic principle into high poetry. The apparent fragmentation, spontaneity of lyrical experience is more and more clearly subject to a strong integrating principle, which gave rise to Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky to remark: “Akhmatova’s poems are monolithic and will withstand the pressure of any voice without cracking.

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post-revolutionary years. The first post-revolutionary years in the life of Anna Akhmatova were marked by hardships and complete estrangement from the literary environment, but in the fall of 1921, after the death of Blok, the execution of Gumilev, she, having parted with Shileiko, returned to active work - she participated in literary evenings, in the work of writers' organizations, published in periodicals. In the same year, two of her collections were released - "Plantain" and "Anno Domini. MCMXXI". In 1922, for a decade and a half, Akhmatova joined her fate with the art historian Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin (Since 1918, one of the organizers of the system of art education and museum work in the USSR. Works on the history of Russian art, on the work of contemporary artists. Repressed; rehabilitated posthumously). Unfortunately, the Soviet authorities did not leave him alone: ​​Punin was arrested in the 1930s, but after the war they were still repressed, and he died in Vorkuta. At the same time, her son Leo was imprisoned for 10 years - but, fortunately, he managed to survive the imprisonment, later Leo was rehabilitated.

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Years of silence. "Requiem". In 1924, Akhmatova's new poems were published for the last time before a long break, after which an unspoken ban was imposed on her name. Only translations appeared in the press (letters from Peter Paul Rubens, Armenian poetry), as well as an article about Pushkin's "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel". In 1935, her son L. Gumilyov and Punin were arrested, but after Akhmatova's written appeal to Stalin, they were released. In 1937, the NKVD prepared materials to accuse her of counter-revolutionary activities; in 1938 Anna Andreevna's son was again arrested. The experiences of these painful years clothed in verses made up the Requiem cycle, which the poetess did not dare to fix on paper for two decades. In 1939, after a half-interested remark by Stalin, publishing authorities offered Anna a number of publications. Her collection "From Six Books" (1940) was published, which included, along with the old poems that had undergone strict censorship selection, and new works that arose after many years of silence. Soon, however, the collection was subjected to ideological scrutiny and withdrawn from libraries.

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The Great Patriotic War. Evacuation. The war found Akhmatova in Leningrad. Together with her neighbors, she dug cracks in the Sheremetyevsky Garden, was on duty at the gates of the Fountain House, painted beams in the attic of the palace with refractory lime, and saw the “burial” of statues in the Summer Garden. The impressions of the first days of the war and the blockade were reflected in the poems The first long-range in Leningrad, Birds of death at the zenith standing ... At the end of September 1941, by order of Stalin Akhmatov, she was evacuated outside the blockade ring. Turning in fateful days to the people tortured by him with the words "Brothers and sisters ...", the tyrant understood that patriotism, deep spirituality and courage of Akhmatova would be useful to Russia in the war against fascism. Akhmatova's poem Courage was published in Pravda and then reprinted many times, becoming a symbol of resistance and fearlessness. In 1943 Akhmatova received the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". Akhmatova's poems of the war period are devoid of pictures of front-line heroism, written on behalf of a woman who remained in the rear. Compassion, great sorrow were combined in them with a call for courage, a civic note: pain was melted into strength. “It would be strange to call Akhmatova a military poet,” B. Pasternak wrote. “But the predominance of thunderstorms in the atmosphere of the century gave her work a touch of civic significance.” During the war years, a collection of poems by Akhmatova was published in Tashkent, the lyric-philosophical tragedy Enuma Elish (When at the top ...), which tells about the faint-hearted and mediocre arbiters of human destinies, the beginning and end of the world, was written.

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Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of 1946. In 1945-1946, Anna Andreevna incurred the wrath of Stalin, who learned about the visit of the English historian Isaiah Berlin to her. The Kremlin authorities made her, along with Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko, the main object of party criticism, the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks directed against them “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad” (1946) tightened the ideological dictate and control over the Soviet intelligentsia, misled by the liberating spirit national unity during the war. Again there was a ban on publications; an exception was made in 1950, when Akhmatova feigned loyal feelings in her poems, written for the anniversary of Stalin in a desperate attempt to alleviate the fate of her son, once again subjected to imprisonment. And the Leader, with eagle eyes, Saw from the height of the Kremlin, How magnificently the Transformed earth is flooded with rays. And from the very middle of the age, To which he gave the name, He sees the heart of man, What became bright, like a crystal. His labors, his deeds He sees the ripe fruit, Masses of majestic buildings, Bridges, factories and gardens. He breathed his spirit into this city, He averted misfortune from us, - That is why the irresistible spirit of Moscow is so firm and young. And the leader of the grateful people hears the voice: "We came to say - where Stalin is, there is freedom, Peace and greatness of the earth!" December 1949

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Last years of life. "The Run of Time". In the later works of A. Akhmatova, those motifs that have always been characteristic of her poetry have been preserved. Thinking about the collection "The Run of Time", the last poem in it, she wanted to see the poem of 1945 "Whom people once called ..." - about Christ and those who executed him. (During the life of Akhmatova, only his final quatrain was published (in 1963).) This quatrain was indeed the final and very important for understanding her poetry: Gold rusts, and steel decays, Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death. Sorrow is the strongest thing on earth, And the royal Word is the most durable. In the last years of Akhmatova's life, international interest in her poetry began to appear more and more often. At the Sorbonne, S. Laffite begins to read a special course on the study of her work. In 1964, in Italy, A. Akhmatova was awarded the prestigious international prize "Etia-Taormina": "... for the fiftieth anniversary of poetic activity and in connection with the recent publication of a collection of ... poems." In her 1965 autobiography, she noted: “Last spring, on the eve of the Dante year, I again heard the sounds of Italian speech - I visited Rome and Sicily. In the spring of 1965, I went to Shakespeare's homeland, saw the British sky and the Atlantic, saw old friends and made new ones, visited Paris again. In June 1965, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in philology from the University of Oxford. March 5, 1966 Anna Andreevna Akhmatova died in Domodedovo, near Moscow. She was buried in Komarov, near St. Petersburg, where she lived in recent years. Akhmatova ended her autobiography, written shortly before her death, with the words: “I did not stop writing poetry. For me, they are my connection with time, with new life my people. When I wrote them, I lived by those rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived in these years and saw events that had no equal.

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"White Night" Incredibly emotional, sincere, not ashamed of tears and late repentance - a truly "Akhmatov" poem, saturated with the spirit of the author, which cannot be confused with any other - "White Night". These 12 lines were written on February 6, 1911 in Tsarskoye Selo, during one of the numerous, small and large, disagreements between the spouses: Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Stepanovich (Gumilyov, her first husband). Having married in 1910, they separated in 1918, having a common son, Leo (born 1912). Interestingly, the vast majority of A.A. Akhmatova, starting from the very first, published just in 1911 in the Sirius magazine, which was not successful with the public, is filled with pain and bitterness of loss. It is as if this young woman, barely in her twenties, has already experienced an endless series of breakups, breakups and losses. Was no exception to the general "Akhmatov" rule and "White Night". Although there is absolutely nothing "white" and light in the text. The action takes place outside of time, outside of space. In tsarist Russia - and with the same success - in the USSR, in the Moscow region - and in Paris, for example. After all, pine trees also grow there, and the sun sets in the "sunset darkness of needles." The life of the lyrical heroine "hell" can be everywhere. And always. Because the beloved left her and did not come "back". The relationship of the characters can be clearly traced if we connect this particular poem with others, at least the most famous, those that every schoolchild hears: “A prisoner of a stranger, I don’t need a stranger”, “Heart to heart is not riveted”, dark veil”,“ I’m having fun with you drunk ... The lyrical heroine is emotional, eccentric, proud and mocking. She is passionately and recklessly in love, faithful and ready to be submissive, but she cannot show this to a man, for fear of his dominance, contempt, loss of interest in her (the moment is controversial and discussed). Therefore, in the heat of a quarrel, she insults him, unwittingly, brings him to a break - temporary or

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final - she herself does not know this at the time of writing the poem (outpouring momentary emotions). An attentive reader can also guess about the hero, who is invisibly present in every line of the text, with which every word is full, like the soul of the heroine. He may not be too confident in himself, overly emotional and touchy, he probably cannot stand criticism. Most likely, he is not as strong in spirit and will as our heroine requires ... Once he left and does not return. Or does he not love her enough? Or fell out of love at all? Fortunately, poetic texts cannot have an unambiguous straightforward interpretation, if this is not a children's rhyme. Verse size: iambic tetrameter. The rhyme is masculine (the emphasis falls on the last syllable of the line), according to the arrangement of the rhyming lines - cross (abab). All 3 verses rhyme the same way - there are no failures and intra-text conflicts. Genre of work: love lyrics. If we consider the emotional component, this is, to some extent, a message. And even an appeal, the call of a woman in love. Recognition of mistakes, repentance and a promise ... But - what? Change? Apologize? Be in love? A few words about trails. There are few epithets, there is no excess of definitions: the darkness of the needles is sunset, hell is damned. And that's it. Expressiveness and emotional intensity are achieved in this text by other means. The only comparison: "life is a damned hell." Or is it hyperbole? And is it possible to call “intoxication” coming from “the sound of a voice” a hyperbole? The question is moot. A.A. Akhmatova did not try at all to “flower” her poems with allegories and personifications, metaphors and euphemisms. She was rather stingy with the use of floridity and coquettish affectation. If the texts were accused of some kind of "aristocratism", "old regime" and "artificiality", then in vain. Her poems can be understood by the "ordinary people". It is enough to be sincere and be able to love.

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"Twenty first. Night. Monday…” Poem “Twenty-first. Night. Monday ”was written by Anna Akhmatova in 1917, a year that was turbulent for all of Russia. And the personal life of the poetess was also shaken: more and more difficulties arose in relations with her husband, and, despite the success of the first collections, there were doubts about her own talent. The poem begins with short, chopped phrases, like a telegram. Just a statement of time and place. And then - a long and softer line: "the outlines of the capital in the mist." It was as if Akhmatova, in a conversation with someone (or at the beginning of a letter), named the date, caught the poetic rhythm with her sensitive ear, went to the window - and further words began to splash out by themselves. It is this impression that arises after reading the first quatrain, and even a vague reflection of the poetess in the dark window glass. "Something slacker wrote, That there is love on earth." This is a woman's conversation with herself, still young (Anna Andreevna was only twenty-eight), but already faced with drama. And the second stanza is full of disappointment. To the idler who invented love, "everyone believed, and they live like that." And this faith, and the actions associated with it, are a meaningless fairy tale, according to the lyrical heroine. Like the one that people believed in several centuries ago, about three whales and a turtle. And so the next stanza, in addition to sadness, is also imbued with triumph. “But the secret is revealed to others, And silence rests on them” - the word “other” could well have been originally “chosen”, if the size allowed. At least that is the meaning. “And silence will rest on them” - as a blessing,

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as freedom from illusions. At this point, the voice of the lyrical heroine sounds most firmly and confidently. But the last two lines give rise to a different feeling: as if they are spoken by a very young girl who has lost some kind of landmark, having forgotten something important. "I stumbled upon this by accident, and since then everything seems to be sick." What is this if not regret? If not the understanding that the lost illusion, that very revealed "secret" took away the main joy of life? It is not for nothing that these last words are separated from the calm, confident lines by ellipsis. And the triumphant righteousness is replaced by quiet sadness. The poem is written in three-foot anapaest - the size most suitable for reflection and lyrics. The whole work is permeated with lyricism, despite the emphasized absence of visual and expressive means. The grandiloquent metaphor “and silence rests on them” seems to be an alien element, words belonging not to the lyrical heroine, but to the cold and disappointed woman she appears to be. But the true, soft and sad voice that sounds in the last words at once overturns bulky constructions to the glory of disappointment and leaves the reader with the impression of loss and thirst for love.

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"Native Land" A. Akhmatova's poem "Native Land" reflects the theme of the Motherland, which very keenly worried the poetess. In this work, she created the image of her native land not as an exalted, holy concept, but as something ordinary, self-evident, something that is used as a kind of object for life. The poem is philosophical. The name goes against the content, and only the ending calls for thinking about what the word "native" means. "We lie down in it and become it," the author writes. "Becoming" means to merge with her into one whole, as people were, not yet born, one with their own mother in her womb. But until this merging with the earth comes, humanity does not see itself as a part of it. A person lives without noticing what should be dear to the heart. And Akhmatova does not judge a person for this. She writes "we", she does not elevate herself above everyone, as if the thought of her native land for the first time made her write a poem, call on everyone else to stop the course of her everyday thoughts and think that the Motherland is the same as her mother . And if so, then why “We don’t wear it on our chests in treasured amulets”, i.e. land is not accepted as sacred, valuable? With pain in her heart, A. Akhmatova describes human relation to the ground: "for us it is dirt on galoshes." How is it considered mud that with which humanity will merge at the end of life? Does that mean that a person will also become dirt? The earth is not only dirt underfoot, the earth is something that should be dear, and everyone should find a place for it in their hearts!

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Sculptor Vasily Astapov, who created the bronze bust of Akhmatova in the 1960s, notes: “The more significant the personality of a person, the more difficult and responsible is the creation of his portrait - whether on canvas, in bronze or marble, or in words on paper. The artist needs to be worthy of his model. Indeed, for a true creator, a portrait of a person is always somewhat more than a documentary fixation of appearance - it is also a transfer inner peace. Let's try to look a little into this world, comparing picturesque portraits and photographs of Akhmatova, and also providing all this with vivid memories of the poet. The beginning of the 1910s was especially full of important events in the life of Akhmatova: at this time she marries the poet Nikolai Gumilyov, is friends with the artist Amedeo Modigliani, publishes her first collection of poems "Evening", in the preface to which the critic Mikhail Kuzmin writes: " Suppose she does not belong to the poets who are especially cheerful, but always stinging. This collection brought her instant fame, followed by The Rosary (1914) and The White Flock (1917). Akhmatova found herself at the very epicenter of the then raging St. Petersburg "silver" culture, becoming not only a famous poet, but also a real muse for many other poets and artists. In 1912, Nikolai Gumilev said of her: Inaudible and unhurried, Her step is so strangely smooth, You can’t call her beautiful, But all my happiness is in her.

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It is surprising that different poets sing almost the same feature of Akhmatova's behavior: her unhurried, smooth and even slightly lazy movements, and the shawl, in general, becomes the most striking and recognizable attribute of Anna Andreevna. Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin, who for some time was Akhmatova’s friend and then lover, back in 1914, says in his diary about her most expressive features: “... She is strange and slender, thin, pale, immortal and mystical. ... She has strongly developed cheekbones and a special nose with a hump, as if broken, like Michelangelo's ... She is smart, she has gone through a deep poetic culture, she is stable in her worldview, she is magnificent ... ". Nevertheless, after 1914, life begins to take on a real tragic shade, not only for the poet, but for the whole country ... Literary critic A.A. Gozenpud, in his memoirs of the 1980s, shares some of his discoveries regarding the personality of Akhmatova and her perception of time: “I realized that for Anna Andreevna there is no distance of time, the past is transformed into reality by the power of ingenious intuition and imagination. She simultaneously lived in two time dimensions - the present and the past. For her, Pushkin, Dante, Shakespeare were contemporaries. She had an unceasing conversation with them... But she did not forget (could not forget!) about those who, having spilled someone else's blood, tried in vain to wash its splashes from their palms... Anna Andreevna knew that people would not forget the name of the executioner, because they reverently remember the name of his victim. Irina Malyarova's poems, written in March 1966, speak of the same ability to feel the era and live in parallel in various time dimensions: There are happy hearts on earth, Drop by drop, by spark, by breath Into themselves they moved the era, Faithful to it to the very end . When such a person leaves, the clocks that live by him are compared. And time for a second freezes And only then levels the run.

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Having survived several heart attacks and being on the verge of her death, Akhmatova continues to count down the time in each of her lines as steadily, measuredly and slowly: The disease torments - three months in bed. And I don't seem to be afraid of death. As an accidental guest in this terrible body, I, as if through a dream, seem to myself. We, in turn, are left with a very important, but not at all difficult mission: to remember, preserve and pass on the poetic work of Akhmatova. Just as it was done by people who knew her and recorded their living testimonies about the poet for posterity. And then, perhaps, in the soul modern man there is a small place for real and sincere lyrics, at all times making the palette of our feelings much richer.

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Anna Akhmatova, whose life and work we will present to you, is a literary pseudonym with which she signed her poems. This poetess was born in 1889, on June 11 (23), near Odessa. Her family soon moved to Tsarskoye Selo, where Akhmatova lived until the age of 16. Creativity (briefly) of this poetess will be presented after her biography. Let's get acquainted first with the life of Anna Gorenko.

Young years

The young years were not cloudless for Anna Andreevna. Her parents separated in 1905. The mother took her daughters with tuberculosis to Evpatoria. Here, for the first time, the "wild girl" encountered the life of rude foreign and dirty cities. She also experienced a love drama, made an attempt to commit suicide.

Education in Kyiv and Tsarskoye Selo gymnasiums

The early youth of this poetess was marked by her studies at the Kyiv and Tsarskoye Selo gymnasiums. She took her last class in Kyiv. After that, the future poetess studied law in Kyiv, as well as philology in St. Petersburg, at the Higher Women's Courses. In Kyiv, she learned Latin, which subsequently allowed her to become fluent in Italian, to read Dante in the original. However, Akhmatova soon lost interest in legal disciplines, so she went to St. Petersburg, continuing her studies at historical and literary courses.

First poems and publications

The first poems, in which the influence of Derzhavin is still noticeable, were written by the young schoolgirl Gorenko when she was only 11 years old. In 1907, the first publications appeared.

In the 1910s, from the very beginning, Akhmatova began to publish regularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg publications. After the "Shop of Poets" (in 1911), a literary association, is created, she acts as secretary in it.

Marriage, trip to Europe

Anna Andreevna in the period from 1910 to 1918 was married to N.S. Gumilyov, also a famous Russian poet. She met him while studying at the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium. After that, Akhmatova did in 1910-1912, where she became friends with the Italian artist who created her portrait. Also at the same time she visited Italy.

Appearance of Akhmatova

Nikolai Gumilyov introduced his wife to the literary and artistic environment, where her name acquired early significance. Not only the poetic manner of Anna Andreevna became popular, but also her appearance. Akhmatova impressed her contemporaries with her majesty and royalty. She was treated like a queen. The appearance of this poetess inspired not only A. Modigliani, but also such artists as K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Altman, Z. Serebryakova, A. Tyshler, N. Tyrsa, A. Danko (below is the work of Petrov-Vodkin) .

The first collection of poems and the birth of a son

In 1912, a significant year for the poetess, two important events took place in her life. The first collection of Anna Andreevna's poems is published under the title "Evening", which marked her work. Akhmatova also gave birth to a son, a future historian, Nikolaevich - significant event in personal life.

The poems included in the first collection are plastic in terms of the images used in them, clear in composition. They forced Russian criticism to say that a new talent had arisen in poetry. Although Akhmatova's "teachers" are such symbolist masters as A. A. Blok and I. F. Annensky, her poetry was perceived from the very beginning as acmeistic. In fact, together with O. E. Mandelstam and N. S. Gumilyov, the poetess in the early 1910s formed the core of this new trend in poetry that appeared at that time.

The next two compilations, the decision to stay in Russia

The first collection was followed by the second book entitled "Rosary" (in 1914), and three years later, in September 1917, the collection "White Flock" was published, the third in a row in her work. The October Revolution did not force the poetess to emigrate, although at that time the mass emigration. Russia was left one by one by people close to Akhmatova: A. Lurie, B. Antrep, as well as O. Glebova-Studeikina, her friend of her youth. However, the poetess decided to stay in "sinful" and "deaf" Russia. A sense of responsibility to her country, connection with the Russian land and language prompted Anna Andreevna to enter into a dialogue with those who decided to leave her. For many years, those who left Russia continued to justify their emigration to Akhmatova. R. Gul argues with her, in particular, V. Frank and G. Adamovich turn to Anna Andreevna.

Difficult times for Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

At this time, her life changed dramatically, which reflected her work. Akhmatova worked in the library at the Agronomic Institute, in the early 1920s she managed to publish two more poetry collections. These were "Plantain", released in 1921, as well as "Anno Domini" (in translation - "In the summer of the Lord", released in 1922). For 18 years after that, her works did not appear in print. There were various reasons for this: on the one hand, it was the execution of N.S. Gumilyov, ex-husband, who was accused of participating in a conspiracy against the revolution; on the other - the rejection of the work of the poetess by Soviet criticism. During the years of this forced silence, Anna Andreevna was engaged in the work of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin for a long time.

Visit to Optina Hermitage

Akhmatova associated the change in her "voice" and "handwriting" with the mid-1920s, with a visit in 1922, in May, to Optina Pustyn and a conversation with Elder Nektary. Probably, this conversation had a strong influence on the poetess. Akhmatova was maternally related to A. Motovilov, who was a lay novice of Seraphim of Sarov. She took over the generations of the idea of ​​redemption, sacrifice.

Second marriage

In the fate of Akhmatova, the turning point was also associated with the personality of V. Shileiko, who became her second husband. He was an orientalist who studied the culture of such ancient countries as Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt. Personal life with this helpless and despotic person did not work out, however, the poetess attributed the increase in philosophical restrained notes to his influence in her work.

Life and work in the 1940s

A collection entitled "From Six Books" appears in 1940. He returned for a short time to the modern literature of that time such a poetess as Anna Akhmatova. Her life and work at this time are quite dramatic. Akhmatova was caught in Leningrad by the Great Patriotic War. She was evacuated from there to Tashkent. However, in 1944 the poetess returned to Leningrad. In 1946, subjected to unfair and cruel criticism, she was expelled from the Writers' Union.

Return to Russian literature

After this event, the next decade in the work of the poetess was marked only by the fact that at that time Anna Akhmatova was engaged in literary translation. Creativity of her Soviet power was not interested. LN Gumilyov, her son, was at that time serving his sentence in labor camps as a political criminal. Akhmatova's poetry returned to Russian literature only in the second half of the 1950s. Since 1958, collections of lyrics by this poetess have begun to be published again. Was completed in 1962 "Poem without a hero", created for as many as 22 years. Anna Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966. The poetess was buried near St. Petersburg, in Komarov. Her grave is shown below.

Acmeism in the work of Akhmatova

Akhmatova, whose work today is one of the pinnacles of Russian poetry, later treated her first book of poems rather coolly, highlighting only a single line in it: "... drunk with the sound of a voice similar to yours." Mikhail Kuzmin, however, ended his preface to this collection with the words that a young, new poet is coming to us, who has all the data to become a real one. In many ways, the poetics of "Evening" predetermined the theoretical program of acmeism - a new trend in literature, to which such a poetess as Anna Akhmatova is often attributed. Her work reflects many of the characteristic features of this trend.

The photo below was taken in 1925.

Acmeism arose as a reaction to the extremes of the Symbolist style. So, for example, an article by V. M. Zhirmunsky, a well-known literary critic and critic, about the work of representatives of this trend was called as follows: "Overcoming symbolism." Mystical distances and "lilac worlds" were opposed to life in this world, "here and now." Moral relativism and various forms of the new Christianity were replaced by "an unshakable rock of values".

The theme of love in the work of the poetess

Akhmatova came to the literature of the 20th century, its first quarter, from the very traditional theme for world lyrics - the theme of love. However, its solution in the work of this poetess is fundamentally new. Akhmatova's poems are far from sentimental female lyrics, presented in the 19th century by such names as Karolina Pavlova, Yulia Zhadovskaya, Mirra Lokhvitskaya. They are also far from the "ideal", abstract lyrics characteristic of the love poetry of the Symbolists. In this sense, she relied mainly not on Russian lyrics, but on the prose of the 19th century Akhmatov. Her work was innovative. O. E. Mandelstam, for example, wrote that the complexity of the Russian novel of the 19th century Akhmatova brought to the lyrics. An essay on her work could begin with this thesis.

In "Evening" appeared in different guises love feelings, however, the heroine was invariably rejected, deceived, suffering. K. Chukovsky wrote about her that it was Akhmatova who was the first to discover that being unloved is poetic (an essay based on her work, "Akhmatova and Mayakovsky", created by the same author, largely contributed to her persecution, when the poems of this poetess not published). Unhappy love was seen as a source of creativity, not a curse. Three parts of the collection are named respectively "Love", "Deceit" and "Muse". Fragile femininity and grace were combined in Akhmatova's lyrics with the courageous acceptance of her suffering. Of the 46 poems included in this collection, almost half was devoted to parting and death. This is no coincidence. In the period from 1910 to 1912, the poetess was possessed by a sense of shortness of the day, she foresaw death. By 1912, two of her sisters had died of tuberculosis, so Anna Gorenko (Akhmatova, whose life and work we are considering) believed that the same fate would befall her. However, unlike the Symbolists, she did not associate separation and death with feelings of hopelessness and melancholy. These moods gave rise to the experience of the beauty of the world.

The distinctive features of the style of this poetess were outlined in the collection "Evening" and finally took shape, first in "The Rosary", then in the "White Flock".

Motives of conscience and memory

Anna Andreevna's intimate lyrics are deeply historical. Already in The Rosary and Evening, along with the theme of love, two other main motives arise - conscience and memory.

The "fatal minutes" that marked the national history (the First World War that began in 1914) coincided with a difficult period in the life of the poetess. In 1915, tuberculosis was discovered in her, her hereditary disease in the family.

"Pushkinism" Akhmatova

The motives of conscience and memory are even more intensified in the White Pack, after which they become dominant in her work. The poetic style of this poetess evolved in 1915-1917. Increasingly, Akhmatova's peculiar "Pushkinism" is mentioned in criticism. Its essence is artistic completeness, accuracy of expression. The presence of a "quotation layer" is also noted with numerous roll calls and allusions both with contemporaries and predecessors: O. E. Mandelstam, B. L. Pasternak, A. A. Blok. All the spiritual richness of the culture of our country stood behind Akhmatova, and she rightly felt herself his heir.

The theme of the motherland in the work of Akhmatova, attitude to the revolution

The dramatic events of the lifetime of the poetess could not but be reflected in her work. Akhmatova, whose life and work took place in a difficult period for our country, perceived the years as a disaster. The former country, in her opinion, is no more. The theme of the motherland in the work of Akhmatova is presented, for example, in the collection "Anno Domini". The section that opens this collection, published in 1922, is called "After Everything." The line "in those fabulous years ..." by F. I. Tyutchev was taken as an epigraph to the entire book. There is no more homeland for the poetess...

However, for Akhmatova, the revolution is also a retribution for the sinful life of the past, retribution. Even though the lyrical heroine did not do evil herself, she feels that she is involved in the common guilt, so Anna Andreevna is ready to share the difficult lot of her people. The homeland in the work of Akhmatova is obliged to atone for its guilt.

Even the title of the book, which in translation means "In the summer of the Lord," suggests that the poetess perceives her era as God's will. Using historical parallels and biblical motifs becomes one of the ways to comprehend artistically what is happening in Russia. Akhmatova resorts to them more often (for example, the poems "Cleopatra", "Dante", "Bible verses").

In the lyrics of this great poetess, "I" at this time turns into "we". Anna Andreevna speaks on behalf of "many". Every hour, not only of this poetess, but also of her contemporaries, will be justified precisely by the word of the poet.

These are the main themes of Akhmatova's work, both eternal and characteristic precisely for the era of the life of this poetess. She is often compared with another - with Marina Tsvetaeva. Both of them are today the canons of women's lyrics. However, it has not only much in common, but also the work of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva differs in many respects. An essay on this topic is often asked to write to schoolchildren. In fact, it is interesting to speculate about why it is almost impossible to confuse a poem written by Akhmatova with a work created by Tsvetaeva. However, that's another topic...

She was called the "Northern Star", although she was born on the Black Sea. She lived a long and very busy life in which there were wars, revolutions, losses and very little simple happiness. All of Russia knew her, but there were times when even her name was forbidden to be mentioned. great poet with a Russian soul and a Tatar surname - Anna Akhmatova.

The one whom all of Russia later recognizes under the name of Anna Akhmatova was born on June 11 (24), 1889 in the suburbs of Odessa, Bolshoi Fontan. Her father, Andrei Antonovich Gorenko, was a marine engineer, her mother, Inna Erazmovna, devoted herself to her children, of whom there were six in the family: Andrei, Inna, Anna, Iya, Irina (Rika) and Victor. Rika died of tuberculosis when Anya was five years old. Rika lived with her aunt, and her death was kept secret from the rest of the children. Nevertheless, Anya felt what happened - and as she later said, this death lay like a shadow through her entire childhood.

When Anya was eleven months old, the family moved north: first to Pavlovsk, then to Tsarskoye Selo. But every summer was invariably spent on the Black Sea coast. Anya was an excellent swimmer - according to her brother, she swam like a bird.

Anya grew up in an atmosphere rather unusual for a future poet: there were almost no books in the house, except for the thick volume of Nekrasov, which Anya was allowed to read during the holidays. Mother had a taste for poetry: she recited poems by Nekrasov and Derzhavin to children by heart, she knew a lot of them. But for some reason, everyone was sure that Anya would become a poetess - even before she wrote the first line of poetry.

Anya began to speak French quite early - she learned by watching the classes of older children. At the age of ten she entered the gymnasium in Tsarskoye Selo. A few months later, Anya fell seriously ill: she lay unconscious for a week; thought she would not survive. When she came to, she remained deaf for some time. Later, one of the doctors suggested that this was smallpox - which, however, left no visible traces. The trace remained in the soul: it was from then that Anya began to write poetry.

Anya's closest friend in Tsarskoe Selo was Valeria Tyulpanova (married Sreznevskaya), whose family lived in the same house as Gorenko. On Christmas Eve 1903, Anya and Valya met Sergey's acquaintances, Valya's brother, Mitya and Kolya Gumilev, who shared a music teacher with Sergey. The Gumilyovs took the girls home, and if this meeting did not make any impression on Valya and Anya, then for Nikolai Gumilyov that day began his very first - and most passionate, deep and long feeling. He fell in love with Anya at first sight.

She struck him not only with her extraordinary appearance - but Anya was beautiful with a very unusual, mysterious, bewitching beauty that immediately attracted attention: tall, slender, with long thick black hair, beautiful white hands, with radiant gray eyes on an almost white face, her profile was reminiscent of antique cameos.

Anya stunned him with her complete dissimilarity to everything that surrounded them in Tsarskoye Selo. For ten whole years, she occupied the main place in the life of Gumilyov and in his work.

Kolya Gumilyov, only three years older than Anya, already then realized himself as a poet, was an ardent admirer of the French Symbolists. He hid self-doubt behind arrogance, tried to compensate for external ugliness with mystery, did not like to yield to anyone in anything. Gumilyov asserted himself, consciously building his life according to a certain pattern, and fatal, unrequited love for an extraordinary, impregnable beauty was one of the necessary attributes of his chosen life scenario.

He bombarded Anya with poems, tried to strike her imagination with various spectacular follies - for example, on her birthday he brought her a bouquet of flowers plucked under the windows of the imperial palace. On Easter 1905, he tried to commit suicide - and Anya was so shocked and frightened by this that she stopped seeing him.

In the same year, Anya's parents broke up. The father, having retired, settled in St. Petersburg, and the mother and children left for Evpatoria. Anya had to urgently prepare for admission to the last class of the gymnasium - due to moving, she was far behind. Classes were brightened up by the fact that a romance broke out between her and the tutor - the first in her life, passionate, tragic - as soon as everything became known, the teachers immediately calculated - and far from the last.

In 1906, Anya entered the Kyiv gymnasium. For the summer, she returned to Evpatoria, where Gumilev called on her - on the way to Paris. They reconciled and corresponded all winter while Anya was studying in Kyiv.

In Paris, Gumilyov took part in the publication of a small literary almanac "Sirius", where he published one poem by Anya. Her father, having learned about his daughter's poetic experiences, asked not to shame his name. “I don’t need your name,” she replied and took the name of her great-grandmother, Praskovya Fedoseevna, whose family descended from the Tatar Khan Akhmat. So the name of Anna Akhmatova appeared in Russian literature.

Anya herself took her first publication completely lightly, believing that Gumilyov "had an eclipse." Gumilyov also did not take the poetry of his beloved seriously - he appreciated her poems only a few years later. When he first heard her poems, Gumilyov said: “Maybe you'd better dance? You are flexible...

Gumilyov constantly came from Paris to visit her, and in the summer, when Anya and her mother lived in Sevastopol, he settled in a neighboring house in order to be closer to them.

In Paris, Gumilyov first goes to Normandy - he was even arrested for vagrancy, and in December he again tries to commit suicide. A day later, he was found unconscious in the Bois de Boulogne...

In the autumn of 1907, Anna entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv - she was attracted by the history of law and Latin. In April of the following year, Gumilev, having stopped in Kyiv on his way from Paris, again unsuccessfully makes her an offer. The next meeting was in the summer of 1908, when Anya arrived in Tsarskoe Selo, and then - when Gumilyov, on his way to Egypt, stopped in Kyiv. In Cairo, in the garden of Ezbekiye, he made one more, last, suicide attempt. After this incident, the thought of suicide became hateful to him.

In May 1909, Gumilyov came to Anya in Lustdorf, where she then lived, caring for her sick mother, and was again refused. But in November, she suddenly - unexpectedly - gave in to his persuasion. They met in Kyiv at the artistic evening "Art Island". Until the end of the evening, Gumilyov did not leave Ani for a single step - and she finally agreed to become his wife.

Nevertheless, as Valeria Sreznevskaya notes in her memoirs, at that time Gumilyov was far from the first role in the heart of Akhmatova. Anya was still in love with that same tutor, St. Petersburg student Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov - although he had not made himself felt for a long time. But, agreeing to marry Gumilyov, she accepted him not as love - but as her Destiny.

They got married on April 25, 1910 in Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kyiv. Akhmatova's relatives considered the marriage obviously doomed to failure - and none of them came to the wedding, which deeply offended her.

After the wedding, the Gumilevs left for Paris. Here she meets Amedeo Modigliani, then an unknown artist who makes many portraits of her. Only one of them survived - the rest died in the blockade. Something similar to an affair even begins between them - but as Akhmatova herself recalls, they had too little time for anything serious to happen.

At the end of June 1910, the Gumilyovs returned to Russia and settled in Tsarskoye Selo. Gumilyov introduced Anna to his poet friends. As one of them recalls, when it became known about Gumilev's marriage, at first no one knew who the bride was. Then they found out: an ordinary woman ... That is, not a black woman, not an Arab, not even a Frenchwoman, as one might expect, knowing Gumilyov's exotic predilections. Having met Anna, we realized - an extraordinary ...

No matter how strong the feelings were, no matter how stubborn the courtship was, but soon after the wedding, Gumilyov began to be burdened by family ties. On September 25, he again leaves for Abyssinia. Akhmatova, left to herself, plunged headlong into poetry. When Gumilyov returned to Russia at the end of March 1911, he asked his wife, who met him at the station: “Did you write?” she nodded. "Then read!" - and Anya showed him what she had written. He said, "Good." And since that time began to treat her work with great respect.

In the spring of 1911, the Gumilyovs again went to Paris, then spent the summer at the estate of Gumilyov's mother, Slepnevo, near Bezhetsk in the Tver province.

In the fall, when the couple returned to Tsarskoye Selo, Gumilyov and his comrades decided to organize an association of young poets, calling it the “Poets' Workshop”. Soon Gumilyov, on the basis of the Workshop, founded the movement of acmeism, opposed to symbolism. There were six followers of acmeism: Gumilyov, Osip Mandelstam, Sergei Gorodetsky, Anna Akhmatova, Mikhail Zenkevich and Vladimir Narbut.

The term "acmeism" comes from the Greek "acme" - the peak, the highest degree of perfection. But many noted the consonance of the name of the new movement with the name of Akhmatova.

In the spring of 1912, the first collection of Akhmatova's "Evening" was published, with a circulation of only 300 copies. Criticism met him very favorably. Many of the poems in this collection were written during Gumilyov's travels in Africa. The young poetess became very famous. Glory literally fell upon her. They tried to imitate her - many poetesses appeared who wrote poems "under Akhmatova" - they began to be called "podakhmatovki". In a short time, Akhmatova from a simple, eccentric, laughing girl became that majestic, proud, regal Akhmatova, who was remembered by everyone who knew her. And after her portraits began to be published in magazines - and they painted her a lot, and many - they began to imitate her appearance: the famous bangs and the “false-classic” shawl appeared in every second woman.

In 1912, when the Gumilyovs went on a trip to Italy and Switzerland, Anna was already pregnant. She spends the summer with her mother, and Gumilev - in Slepnev.

The son of Akhmatova and Gumilyov, Lev, was born on October 1, 1912. Almost immediately, Nikolai's mother, Anna Ivanovna, took him to her place, and Anya did not resist too much. As a result, Leva lived with his grandmother for almost sixteen years, seeing his parents only occasionally ...

Already a few months after the birth of his son, in the early spring of 1913, Gumilyov set off on his last trip to Africa - as head of an expedition organized by the Academy of Sciences.

In his absence, Anna leads an active social life. A recognized beauty, an adored poet, she literally bathes in glory. Artists draw her, her fellow poets dedicate poems to her, she is overwhelmed by fans...

At the beginning of 1914, the second collection of Akhmatova's Rosary was published. Although critics took it somewhat cool - Akhmatova was blamed for the fact that she repeats herself - the collection was a resounding success. Even despite the wartime, it was reprinted four times.

Akhmatova was universally recognized as one of the greatest poets of that time. She was constantly surrounded by crowds of admirers. Gumilyov even told her: “Anya, more than five is indecent!”. She was worshiped for talent, and for intelligence, and for beauty. She was friends with Blok, an affair with which she was stubbornly attributed (the reason for this was the exchange of poems that were published), with Mandelstam (who was not only one of her closest friends, but in those years tried to court her - however, unsuccessfully) , Pasternak (according to her, Pasternak proposed to her seven times, although he was not truly in love). One of the people closest to her then was Nikolai Nedobrovo, who wrote an article about her work in 1915, which Akhmatova herself considered the best of what had been written about her in her entire life. Nedobrovo was desperately in love with Akhmatova.

In 1914, Nedobrovo introduced Akhmatova to his best friend, poet and artist Boris Anrep. Anrep, who lived and studied in Europe, returned to his homeland to participate in the war. A stormy romance began between them, and soon Boris ousted Nedobrovo both from her heart and from her poems. Nedobrovo took this very hard and broke up with Anrep forever. Although Anna and Boris rarely managed to meet, this love was one of the strongest in Akhmatova's life. Before the final departure to the front, Boris presented her with a throne cross, which he found in a destroyed church in Galicia.

Gumilyov also left for the front. In the spring of 1915, he was wounded, and Akhmatova constantly visited him in the hospital. She spent the summer, as usual, in Slepnev - there she wrote most of the poems for the next collection. Her father died in August. By this time, she herself was seriously ill - tuberculosis. Doctors advised her to immediately leave for the south. She lives in Sevastopol for some time, visits Nedobrovo in Bakhchisarai - as it turned out, this was their last meeting; in 1919 he died. In December, doctors allowed Akhmatova to return to St. Petersburg, where she again continues to meet with Anrep. Meetings were rare, but Anna in love waited all the more for them.

In 1916, Boris left for England - he was going for a month and a half, stayed for a year and a half. Before leaving, he visited Nedobrovo with his wife, who then had Akhmatova. They said goodbye and he left. In parting, they exchanged rings. He returned on the eve of the February Revolution. A month later, Boris, at the risk of his life, under bullets, crossed the Neva ice - to tell Anna that he was leaving for England forever.

Over the following years, she received only a few letters from him. In England, Anrep became known as a mosaic artist. On one of his mosaics, he depicted Anna - he chose her as a model for the figure of compassion. The next time - and the last - they saw each other only in 1965, in Paris.

Most of the poems from the collection The White Flock, published in 1917, are dedicated to Boris Anrep.

Meanwhile, Gumilyov, although he is at the front - for his valor he was awarded the St. George Cross - leads an active literary life. He publishes a lot, constantly delivers critical articles. In the summer of the 17th, he ended up in London, and then in Paris. Gumilyov returned to Russia in April 1918.

The next day, Akhmatova asked him for a divorce, saying that she was marrying Vladimir Shileiko.

Vladimir Kazimirovich Shileiko was a well-known Assyrologist and also a poet. The fact that Akhmatova would marry this ugly, completely unsuitable for life, insanely jealous person was a complete surprise to everyone who knew her. As she later said, she was attracted by the opportunity to be useful to a great man, and also by the fact that there would be no rivalry with Shileiko that she had with Gumilyov. Akhmatova, having moved to him in the Fountain House, completely subordinated herself to his will: for hours she wrote his translations of Assyrian texts under his dictation, cooked for him, chopped firewood, made translations for him. He literally kept her under lock and key, not allowing her to go anywhere, forced her to burn all the letters received unopened, and did not allow her to write poetry.

Her friend, composer Arthur Lurie, with whom she became friends back in 1914, helped her. Under his leadership, Shileiko, as if to treat sciatica, was taken to the hospital, where they were kept for a month. During this time, Akhmatova entered the service in the library of the Agronomic Institute - they gave firewood and a government apartment. When Shileiko was released from the hospital, Akhmatova invited him to move in with her. There, Akhmatova herself was already the mistress, and Shileiko calmed down. They finally parted in the summer of 1921.

Then one funny circumstance was discovered: when Akhmatova moved in with him, Shileiko promised to formalize their marriage himself - good, then you just had to make an entry in the house book. And when they got divorced, Lurie, at the request of Akhmatova, went to the house committee to cancel the record - and it turned out that she never happened.

Many years later, she, laughing, explained the reasons for this ridiculous union: “It's all Gumilyov and Lozinsky, they repeated in one voice - an Assyrian, an Egyptian! Well, I agreed."

Akhmatova moved from Shileiko to her old friend, dancer Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, the ex-wife of the artist Sergei Sudeikin, one of the founders of the famous Stray Dog, whose star was the beautiful Olga. Lurie, whom Akhmatova resigned for being frivolous, became friends with Olga, and soon they left for Paris.

In August 1921, Alexander Blok died. At his funeral, Akhmatova learned terrible news - Gumilyov was arrested in the so-called Tagantsev case. Two weeks later he was shot. His only fault was that he knew about the impending conspiracy, but did not inform.

In the same August, Anna's brother Andrei Gorenko committed suicide in Greece.

The impressions of these deaths resulted in Akhmatova's collection of poems "Plantain", which then, supplemented, became known as "Anno Domini MCMXXI".

After this collection, Akhmatova did not release collections for many years, only individual poems. The new regime did not favor her work - for intimacy, apoliticality and "noble roots". Even the opinion of Alexandra Kollontai - in one of her articles she said that Akhmatova's poetry is attractive to young workers in that it truthfully depicts how badly a man treats a woman - did not save Akhmatova from critical persecution. A series of articles branded Akhmatova's poetry as harmful because she writes nothing about work, the team and the struggle for a brighter future.

At this time, she was left practically alone - all her friends either died or emigrated. Akhmatova herself considered emigration completely unacceptable for herself.

It got harder and harder. In 1925, an unofficial ban was placed on her name. It has not been published for 15 years.

In the early spring of 1925, Akhmatova again had an exacerbation of tuberculosis. When she was in a sanatorium in Tsarskoye Selo - together with Mandelstam's wife Nadezhda Yakovlevna - Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin, a historian and art critic, constantly visited her. About a year later, Akhmatova agreed to move in with him at the Fountain House.

Punin was very handsome - everyone said that he looked like a young Tyutchev. He worked in the Hermitage, was engaged in modern graphics. He loved Akhmatova very much - although in his own way.

Punin officially remained married. He shared an apartment with his ex-wife Anna Arens and their daughter Irina. Although Punin and Akhmatova had a separate room, they all dined together, and when Arens left for work, Akhmatova looked after Irina. The situation was extremely tense.

Unable to print poetry, Akhmatova delved into scientific work. She took up the study of Pushkin, became interested in the architecture and history of St. Petersburg. She helped Punin a lot in his studies, translating French, English and Italian scientific works. In the summer of 1928, her son Leva moved to Akhmatova, who by that time was already 16 years old. The circumstances of his father's death prevented him from continuing his studies. It was hardly possible to attach him to a school where Nikolai Punin's brother Alexander was the director. Then Leo entered the Faculty of History of Leningrad University.

In 1930, Akhmatova tried to leave Punin, but he managed to convince her to stay by threatening suicide. Akhmatova remained to live in the Fountain House, leaving it only briefly.

By this time, the extreme poverty of Akhmatova's life and clothes were already so conspicuous that they could not go unnoticed. Many found Akhmatova's special elegance in this. In any weather, she wore an old felt hat and a light coat. Only when one of her old friends died did Akhmatova put on the old fur coat bequeathed to her by the deceased and did not take it off until the war itself. Very thin, still with the same famous bangs, she knew how to impress, no matter how poor her clothes were, and walked around the house in bright red pajamas in a time when it was not yet accustomed to see a woman in trousers.

Everyone who knew her noted her unsuitability for everyday life. She didn't know how to cook and never cleaned up after herself. Money, things, even gifts from friends never stayed with her - almost immediately she distributed everything to those who, in her opinion, needed them more. She herself managed the bare minimum for many years - but even in poverty she remained a queen.

In 1934, Osip Mandelstam was arrested - Akhmatova at that moment was visiting him. A year later, after the murder of Kirov, Lev Gumilyov and Nikolai Punin were arrested. Akhmatova rushed to Moscow to work, she managed to send a letter to the Kremlin. They were soon released, but that was only the beginning.

Punin began to be clearly weary of his marriage to Akhmatova, who now, as it turned out, was also dangerous for him. He showed her his infidelity in every possible way, said that he was bored with her - and yet he did not let her leave. In addition, there was nowhere to go - Akhmatova did not have her own house.

In March 1938, Lev Gumilyov was again arrested, and this time he spent seventeen months under investigation and was sentenced to death. But at this time, his judges were themselves repressed, and his sentence was replaced with exile.

In November of the same year, Akhmatova finally managed to break with Punin - but Akhmatova only moved to another room in the same apartment. She lived in extreme poverty, often making do with only tea and black bread. Every day she stood in endless queues to give her son a package. It was then, in line, that she began writing the Requiem cycle. The poems of the cycle were not written down for a very long time - they were kept in the memory of Akhmatova herself and several of her closest friends.

Quite unexpectedly, in 1940, Akhmatova was allowed to publish. First, several separate poems were published, then he allowed the release of a whole collection of "From Six Books", which, however, mainly included selected poems from previous collections. Nevertheless, the book caused a stir: it was swept off the shelves for several hours, people fought for the right to read it.

However, after a few months, the publication of the book was considered a mistake, it began to be withdrawn from libraries.

When the war began, Akhmatova felt a new surge of strength. In September, during the heaviest bombings, she speaks on the radio with an appeal to the women of Leningrad. Together with everyone, she is on duty on the roofs, digging trenches around the city. At the end of September, by decision of the city committee of the party, she was evacuated by plane from Leningrad - ironically, now she was recognized as an important enough person to save ... Through Moscow, Kazan and Chistopol, Akhmatova ended up in Tashkent.

In Tashkent, she settled with Nadezhda Mandelstam, constantly communicated with Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya, made friends with Faina Ranevskaya, who lived nearby - they carried this friendship through their whole lives. Almost all Tashkent poems were about Leningrad - Akhmatova was very worried about her city, for everyone who stayed there. It was especially hard for her without her friend, Vladimir Georgievich Garshin. After parting with Punin, he began to play a big role in the life of Akhmatova. By profession, a pathologist, Garshin was very concerned about her health, which Akhmatova, according to him, criminally neglected. Garshin was also married, his wife, a seriously ill woman, demanded his constant attention. But he was a very intelligent, educated, interesting interlocutor, and Akhmatova became very attached to him. In Tashkent, she received a letter from Garshin about the death of his wife. In another letter, Garshin asked her to marry him, and she accepted his proposal. She even agreed to take his last name.

In April 1942, Punin and his family were evacuated through Tashkent to Samarkand. And although the relationship between Punin and Akhmatova after parting was very bad, Akhmatova came to see him. Punin wrote to her from Samarkand that she was the main thing in his life. Akhmatova kept this letter as a shrine.

In early 1944, Akhmatova left Tashkent. First, she came to Moscow, where she performed at an evening arranged in the hall of the Polytechnic Museum. The reception was so stormy that she was even frightened. When she appeared, the hall stood up. They say that when Stalin found out about this, he asked: "Who organized the rise?"

She told all her friends that she was going to Leningrad to her husband, she dreamed of how she would live with him ... And the more terrible was the blow that awaited her there.

Garshin, who met her on the platform, asked: “And where to take you?” Akhmatova was dumbfounded. As it turned out, he, without saying a word to anyone, married a nurse. Garshin destroyed all her hopes of finding a home that she had not had for a long time. She never forgave him for this. Subsequently, Akhmatova said that, apparently, Garshin went crazy from hunger and the horrors of the blockade. Garshin died in 1956. On the day of his death, the brooch he once gave to Akhmatova split in half.

anna akhmatova lyrics requiem

This was the tragedy of Akhmatova: next to her, a strong woman, there were almost always weak men who tried to shift their problems onto her, and there was never a person who could help her cope with her own troubles.

After returning from Tashkent, her demeanor changed - it became simpler, calmer, and at the same time more distant. Akhmatova abandoned her famous bangs, after suffering typhus in Tashkent, she began to gain weight. It seemed that Akhmatova was reborn from the ashes for a new life. In addition, it was again recognized by the authorities. For her patriotic poems, she was awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". Her research on Pushkin, a large selection of poems, were being prepared for publication. In 1945, to the great joy of Akhmatova, Lev Gumilyov returned. From the exile, which he had been serving since 1939, he managed to get to the front. Mother and son lived together. It seemed that life was getting better.

In the autumn of 1945, Akhmatova was introduced to the literary critic Isaiah Berlin, then an employee of the British Embassy. During their conversation, Berlin was horrified to hear someone in the courtyard calling his name. As it turned out, it was Randolph Churchill, son of Winston Churchill, a journalist. The moment was a nightmare for both Berlin and Akhmatova. Contacts with foreigners - especially employees of embassies - at that time, to put it mildly, were not welcome. A face-to-face meeting might not yet be seen - but when the prime minister's son yells in the yard, it is unlikely to go unnoticed. Nevertheless, Berlin visited Akhmatova several more times.

Berlin was the last of those who left a mark on Akhmatova's heart. When Berlin himself was asked if they had something with Akhmatova, he said: “I can’t decide how best to answer ...”

On August 14, 1946, the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad” was issued. The magazines were stigmatized for lending their pages to two ideologically harmful writers, Zoshchenko and Akhmatova. Less than a month later, Akhmatova was expelled from the Writers' Union, deprived of ration cards, her book, which was in print, was destroyed.

According to Akhmatova, many writers who wanted to return to Russia after the war changed their minds after the decision. Thus, she considered this decision the beginning of the Cold War. She was as absolutely convinced of this as that she herself cold war was caused by her meeting with Isaiah Berlin, which she found fatal, of cosmic significance. She was firmly convinced that all further troubles were caused by her.

In 1956, when he was again in Russia, she refused to meet with him - she did not want to again incur the wrath of the authorities.

After the decision, she found herself in complete isolation - with those who did not turn away from her, she herself tried not to meet, so as not to harm. Nevertheless, people continued to come to her, bring food, and food cards were constantly sent to her by mail. Criticism took up arms against her - but for her it was much less terrible than complete oblivion. She called any event only a new fact in her biography, and she was not going to refuse her biography. At this time, she is working on her central work, "A Poem without a Hero."

In 1949, Nikolai Punin was again arrested, and then Lev Gumilyov. Lev, whose only crime was that he was the son of his parents, was to spend seven years in the camp, and Punin was destined to die there.

In 1950, Akhmatova, breaking herself, in the name of saving her son, wrote a cycle of poems "Glory to the World", glorifying Stalin. However, Leo returned only in 1956 - and then, it took a long time to get him released ... He left the camp with the conviction that his mother did nothing to alleviate his plight - after all, she, so famous, could not be refused! While they lived together, their relationship was very strained, then, when Leo began to live separately, they almost completely stopped.

He became a famous orientalist. He became interested in the history of the East while in exile in those parts. His works are still considered among the most important in historical science. Akhmatova was very proud of her son.

Since 1949, Akhmatova began to translate - Korean poets, Victor Hugo, Rabindranath Tagore, Rubens' letters ... Previously, she refused to do translations, believing that they take time from her own poems. Now I had to - it gave both earnings and a relatively official status.

In 1954, Akhmatova accidentally earned herself forgiveness. The delegation from Oxford wished to meet the disgraced Zoshchenko and Akhmatova. She was asked what she thought about the decision - and she, sincerely believing that it was not the business of foreigners who did not understand the true state of affairs to ask such questions, answered simply that she agreed with the decision. No more questions were asked of her. Zoshchenko, on the other hand, began to explain something at length - and by this he hurt himself even more.

The ban on the name of Akhmatova was again lifted. She was even allocated from the Writers' Union - although Akhmatova was expelled from it, as a translator she could be considered a "writer" - a summer house in the writers' village of Komarovo near Leningrad; she called this house the Booth. And in 1956 - largely due to the efforts of Alexander Fadeev - Lev Gumilyov was released.

The last ten years of Akhmatova's life were completely different from previous years. Her son was free, she finally got the opportunity to publish. She continued to write - and wrote a lot, as if in a hurry to express everything that she was not allowed to say before. Now only illnesses interfered: there were serious problems with the heart, because of her fullness it was difficult for her to walk. Before recent years Akhmatova was regal and stately, wrote love poems and warned young people who came to her: “Just don’t fall in love with me! I don't need it anymore." She was surrounded by young people - the children of her old friends, admirers of her poetry, students. She especially became friends with young Leningrad poets: Yevgeny Rein, Anatoly Naiman, Dmitry Bobyshev, Gleb Gorbovsky and Joseph Brodsky.

Akhmatova got the opportunity to travel abroad. In 1964, she was awarded the international poetic prize "Etna-Taormina" in Italy, and in 1965 for her scientific work in Pushkin Studies, Oxford University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Literature degree. In London and Paris, where she stopped by on her way back, she was able to meet again with the friends of her youth - Salome Galpern, Yuri Annenkov, who once painted her, Isaiah Berlin, Boris Anrep ... She said goodbye to her youth, to her life.

Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966 - ironically, on the anniversary of Stalin's death, which she loved to celebrate. Before being sent to Leningrad, her body lay in the Moscow morgue at the hospital, located in the building of the old Sheremetev Palace, on which, like on the Fountain House, there was a coat of arms with the motto sounded in the “Poem Without a Hero”: “Deus conservat omnia” - “ God saves everything."

After the funeral service in St. Nicholas Cathedral in Leningrad, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova was buried in Komarovo - not far from her only real home for many years. Crowds of people accompanied her on her last journey.

Anna Akhmatova 1 was born in the village of Bolshoi Fontan near Odessa on June 11, 1889. Father is a mechanical engineer in the Navy. Soon her family moved to Tsarskoe Selo, where the future poetess lived until she was 16 years old. She studied at Tsarskoye Selo and Kyiv gymnasiums. Then she studied law in Kyiv and philology at the Higher Courses for Women in St. Petersburg. The first publications of poems appeared in 1907. She was a member of the literary association "Workshop of Poets" (since 1911, she was elected secretary). In 1912, together with N. Gumilyov and O. Mandelstam, she formed the core of a new - acmeist movement. From 1910 to 1918 she was married to the poet N. Gumilyov, whom she met back in the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium in 1903. In 1910-1912 she made a trip to Paris (where she met the Italian artist Modigliani) and to Italy. In 1912, the son Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov was born and the first collection of poems "Evening" was published.

After the revolution, Akhmatova did not emigrate, she remained in her country, with her people, probably knowing that the future would not be serene. Subsequently, in one of her poems, she says:

Her creative destiny in the post-revolutionary period was dramatic. Everything in Akhmatova irritated the authorities: the fact that she was the wife of the executed N. Gumilyov, and the fact that she behaved independently, and the fact that she was part of the old aristocratic culture, and the fact that she did not write propaganda poems, the rough language of the poster was organically alien And I must say that the contemporary poetess critics were very insightful, timely warning the authorities about the "danger" that "lurked" in Akhmatov's poems.

One of the clearest examples of this is Akhmatova's 1924 poem "Lot's Wife" from the cycle "Bible Verses":

The righteous Lot, Lot's wife and his two daughters were taken out by an angel from Sodom, which was mired in sins. However, Lot's wife, frightened by the noise, forgot about the prohibition of the angel, fell into curiosity and looked back at her native city, for which she was punished the same hour. "Her crime ... was not so much a view of Sodom as a disobedience to God's commandment and addiction to a dwelling of debauchery," comments this event of biblical history " bible encyclopedia"2. The parable nature of this biblical episode is transparent: the parable is addressed to those who, having embarked on the path of piety, out of weakness, turn their eyes to the former life they have left behind.

Akhmatova rethinks the well-known story: Lot's wife looked back not out of simple curiosity, and even more so not out of commitment to a sinful life, but driven by a feeling of love and anxiety for her home, hearth. According to Akhmatova, Lot's wife was punished for her natural feeling of attachment to the House.

How could the official criticism of the 1920s have interpreted this poem by Akhmatova? One of the critics - G. Lelevich - wrote: "Can one wish for even more clear evidence of Akhmatova's profound anti-revolutionary nature?" 3, because "Lot's wife, as you know, paid dearly for this attachment to a rotten world." Even Akhmatova cannot refrain from looking into the past dear to her, and this seems unforgivable to critics.

In the second half of the 1920s and in the 1930s, practically nothing was published by the poetess. The era of silence has come. Akhmatova worked in the library of the Agronomic Institute. She was engaged in the work of A.S. Pushkin ("The Word about Pushkin", "Pushkin's Stone Guest").

In 1939, Stalin's daughter Svetlana, after reading some of Akhmatov's poems of past years, awakened the wayward leader's curiosity for her. Suddenly, Akhmatova began to be published again in magazines. In the summer of 1940, the collection "From Six Books" was published. During the war years, Akhmatova was evacuated from Leningrad to Tashkent and returned at the end of the war.

The year 1946 became memorable for Akhmatova and for all Soviet literature: it was then that the infamous resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the journals Zvezda and Leningrad” was adopted, in which A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko were subjected to harsh and unfair criticism. An expulsion from the Writers' Union followed.

In the next decade, the poetess was mainly engaged in translations. Son, L.N. Gumilyov, served his sentence as a political criminal in forced labor camps, in 1949 he was arrested for the third time.

In the second half of the 1950s, Akhmatova began to return to literature. In 1962, "Poem Without a Hero" was completed, which had been in the making for 22 years. In the early 1960s, the poem "Requiem" was completed and published abroad in 1963 (published in the USSR in 1988). In 1964, Akhmatova was awarded the international prize "Etna-Taormina" in Italy "for the 50th anniversary of her poetic activity and in connection with the recent publication of a collection of poems in Italy." In 1965 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Oxford.

A. Akhmatova died in 1966 on May 5 in Domodedovo near Moscow. She was buried in Komarov near St. Petersburg.

In the early 1910s, Akhmatova came to Russian poetry with a theme that is traditional in world lyrics - the theme of love. After the release of the first collections, contemporaries called her Russian Sappho. The poetess became so famous that even critics sympathized with her: "Poor woman, crushed by fame," K.I. wrote about her. Chukovsky. Her "Song of the Last Meeting", "Don't you love, don't you want to watch?", "The Gray-eyed King", "The last time we met then..." But we cannot imagine Akhmatova without civil, patriotic poems (" I had a voice...", "Courage", "Native Land", "Requiem") and poems in which she reflects on the fate of the poetic word, the fate of the poet ("A dark-skinned youth wandered along the alleys..." cycle " Secrets of the Craft", "Seaside Sonnet", "Who was once jokingly called by people..."). These three themes are the leading ones in her poetry.