The work of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova is not just the highest example of “female” poetry (“I taught women to speak...” - she wrote in 1958). It is exceptional, becoming possible only in the 20th century. a synthesis of femininity and masculinity, subtle feeling and deep thought, emotional expressiveness and figurativeness, rare for lyricism (visuality, representability of images).

Being from 1910 to 1918 the wife of N.S. Gumilyov, Akhmatova entered poetry as a representative of the direction of Acmeism, which he founded, which contrasted itself with symbolism with its mysticism, attempts to intuitively comprehend the unknowable, vagueness of images, and musicality of verse. Acmeism was very heterogeneous (the second largest figure in it was O.E. Mandelstam) and did not exist as such for long, from the end of 1912 until approximately the end of the 10s. But Akhmatova never renounced it, although her developing creative principles were more diverse and complex. Her first books of poetry, “Evening” (1912) and especially “The Rosary” (1914), brought her fame. In them and in the last pre-revolutionary book “The White Flock” (1917), Akhmatova’s poetic style was defined: a combination of understatement, which has nothing to do with symbolist vagueness, and a clear representability of the pictures drawn, in particular poses, gestures (the initial quatrain of “Song of the Last Meeting” 1911 “So helplessly my chest grew cold, / But my steps were light / I put on my right hand / The glove from my left hand” in the mass consciousness became, as it were, Akhmatova’s calling card), the expression of the inner world through the outer (often in contrast), reminiscent of psychological prose, a dotted plot, the presence of characters and their short dialogues, as in small scenes (criticism wrote about Akhmatova’s lyrical “short stories” and even about the “lyric novel”), primary attention not to stable states, but to changes, to the barely emerging , to shades under the strongest emotional stress, the desire for colloquial speech without its emphasized prosaization, the rejection of the melodiousness of the verse (although the “Songs” cycle will appear in later work), external fragmentation, for example, the beginning of a poem with a conjunction when its volume is small, the many-sidedness of the lyrical “ I” (the early Akhmatova had several heroines of different social status - from a society lady to a peasant woman) while maintaining signs of autobiography. Akhmatova’s poems are outwardly close to the classical ones, their innovation is not demonstrative, and is expressed in a complex of features. A poet - Akhmatova did not recognize the word “poetess” - always needs an addressee, a certain “you”, specific or generalized. Real people in her images are often unrecognizable; several people can cause the appearance of one lyrical character. Akhmatova’s early poetry is predominantly love, its intimacy (the form of a diary, a letter, a confession) is largely fictitious; in the lyrics, Akhmatova said, “you won’t give yourself away.” What was purely personal was creatively transformed into something understandable to many, experienced by many. This position allowed the subtle lyricist to subsequently become the spokesman for the destinies of a generation, people, country, era.

The First World War gave rise to thoughts about this, which was reflected in the poems of “The White Flock.” In this book, Akhmatova’s religiosity, which has always been important to her, although not orthodox in everything, sharply intensified. The motive of memory has acquired a new, largely transpersonal character. But love poems connect “The White Flock” with the 1921 collection “Plantain” (friends dissuaded me from the name “Hard Years”), two-thirds consisting of pre-revolutionary poems. 1921 was a terrible year for Akhmatova, the year of news of the suicide of her beloved brother, the year of A.A.’s death. Blok and execution of N.S. Gumilyov, accused of participating in a White Guard conspiracy, and 1922 were marked by a creative upsurge despite a difficult mood, personal and everyday troubles. The book “Anno Domini MCMXXI” (“The Summer of the Lord 1921”) is dated 1922. In 1923, the second, expanded edition of “Anno Domini...” was published in Berlin, where the civic position of the poet, who did not accept the new authorities and orders, was especially firmly stated already in the first poem “To Fellow Citizens,” which was cut out by censors from almost all of those submitted to the USSR copies of the book. In it, Akhmatova mourned the untimely departed and ruined, looked anxiously into the future and took on the cross - the obligation to steadfastly endure any hardships together with her homeland, remaining true to herself, national traditions, and high principles.

After 1923, Akhmatova barely published until 1940, when the ban on her poems was lifted at the whim of Stalin. But the collection “From Six Books” (1940), including from the “Reed” (the “Willow” cycle), which was not published separately, was precisely a collection of mostly old poems (in 1965 it was included in the largest lifetime collection “The Running of Time” will include the “Seventh Book” carefully sifted by the publishing house, also not published separately). In the fifth, “Northern Elegy” (1945), Akhmatova admitted: “And how many poems I have not written, / And their secret chorus wanders around me...” Many poems that were dangerous for the author were kept only in memory; excerpts from them were later remembered. “Requiem,” created mainly in the second half of the 30s, Akhmatova decided to record only in 1962, and it was published in the USSR a quarter of a century later (1987). Slightly less than half of Akhmatova's published poems date back to 1909-1922, the other half was created over a period of more than forty years. Some years were completely fruitless. But the impression of Akhmatova’s disappearance from poetry was deceptive. The main thing is that even in the most difficult times she created works of the highest level, in contrast to many Soviet poets and prose writers, whose talent was gradually fading away.

Patriotic poems 1941-1945. (“Oath”, “Courage”, “To the Winners”, poems that later formed the “Victory” cycle, etc.) strengthened Akhmatova’s position in literature, but in 1946 she, together with M.M. Zoshchenko became a victim of the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad””, which accused her poetry of lack of ideas, salonity, lack of educational value, and in the crudest form. Criticism has been vilifying it for a number of years. The poet endures the persecution with dignity. In 1958 and 1961 Small collections were published, and in 1965 the final “Running of Time” was published. At the end of her life, Akhmatova’s work received international recognition.

The late poems, collected by the author in several cycles, are thematically diverse: the aphoristic “String of Quatrains”, the philosophical and autobiographical “Northern Elegies”, “Wreath to the Dead” (mainly to fellow writers, often also with a difficult fate), poems about repression, “Ancient Page ”, “Secrets of the Craft”, poems about Tsarskoye Selo, intimate lyrics reminiscent of a former love affair, but carried through poetic memory, etc. The addressee of the late Akhmatova is usually some kind of generalized “you”, uniting the living and the dead, people dear to the author. But the lyrical “I” is no longer the many-faced heroine of the early books, it is a more autobiographical and autopsychological image. Often the poet speaks on behalf of the hard-won truth. The forms of the verse became closer to the classical ones, and the intonation became more solemn. There are no former “scenes”, the former “materiality” (carefully selected subject details), more “bookishness”, complex overflows of thought and feeling.

Akhmatova’s largest and most complex work, on which she worked from 1940 to 1965, creating four main editions, was “Poem without a Hero.” It emphasizes the unity of history, the unity of culture, the immortality of man, it contains encrypted memories of the last year before the global catastrophe - 1913 - and the First World War acts as a harbinger of the Second, as well as revolution, repression, and in general all the cataclysms of the era (“It was not a calendar year that was approaching - / The Real Twentieth Century”). At the same time, this work is deeply personal, full of hints and associations, explicit and hidden quotations from the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries.

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

Early years

Young years were not cloudless for Anna Andreevna. Her parents separated in 1905. The mother took her daughters, sick with tuberculosis, to Evpatoria. Here, for the first time, the “wild girl” encountered the life of rough strangers and dirty cities. She also experienced a love drama and attempted to commit suicide.

Education at 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 this, the future poetess studied jurisprudence in Kyiv, as well as philology in St. Petersburg, at the Higher Women's Courses. In Kyiv, she learned Latin, which later allowed her to become fluent in Italian and read Dante in the original. However, Akhmatova soon lost interest in legal disciplines, so she went to St. Petersburg, continuing her studies in historical and literary courses.

First poems and publications

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

In the 1910s, from the very beginning, Akhmatova regularly began to publish in Moscow and St. Petersburg publications. After the “Workshop of Poets” (in 1911), a literary association, was created, she served as its secretary.

Marriage, trip to Europe

Anna Andreevna was married to N.S. from 1910 to 1918. Gumilev, also a famous Russian poet. She met him while studying at the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium. After which Akhmatova committed 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 into the literary and artistic environment, where her name acquired early significance. Not only Anna Andreevna’s poetic style became popular, but also her appearance. Akhmatova amazed her contemporaries with her majesty and royalty. She was shown attention 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 (the work of Petrov-Vodkin is presented below) .

The first collection of poems and the birth of a son

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

The poems included in the first collection are flexible in the images used in them and 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. Gumilev, the poetess at the beginning of 1910 formed the core of this new movement in poetry that appeared at that time.

The next two collections, the decision to stay in Russia

The first collection was followed by a second book entitled “The Rosary” (in 1914), and three years later, in September 1917, the collection “The White Flock” was published, the third in her work. The October Revolution did not force the poetess to emigrate, although mass emigration began at that time. People close to Akhmatova left Russia one after another: A. Lurie, B. Antrep, as well as O. Glebova-Studeikina, her friend from 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 dialogue with those who decided to leave her. For many years, those who left Russia continued to justify their emigration to Akhmatova. In particular, R. Gul argues with her, V. Frank and G. Adamovich turn to Anna Andreevna.

Difficult time for Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

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

Visit to Optina Pustyn

Akhmatova associated the change in her “voice” and “handwriting” with the mid-1920s, with a visit in May 1922 to Optina Pustyn and a conversation with Elder Nektariy. Probably this conversation greatly influenced the poetess. Akhmatova was related on her mother’s side to A. Motovilov, who was a lay novice of Seraphim of Sarov. She accepted through generations the idea of ​​redemption and sacrifice.

Second marriage

The turning point in Akhmatova’s fate 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. Her personal life with this helpless and despotic man did not work out, but the poetess attributed to his influence the increase in philosophical, restrained notes in her work.

Life and work in the 1940s

A collection entitled "From Six Books" appeared in 1940. He returned for a short time such a poetess as Anna Akhmatova to the modern literature of that time. Her life and work at this time were 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 poetess’s work was marked only by the fact that at that time Anna Akhmatova was engaged in literary translation. The Soviet authorities were not interested in her creativity. L.N. Gumilyov, her son, was serving his sentence in forced labor camps at that time as a political criminal. The return of Akhmatova’s poems to Russian literature took place only in the second half of the 1950s. Since 1958, collections of this poetess's poetry begin to be published again. “Poem Without a Hero” was completed in 1962, having been created over the course of 22 years. Anna Akhmatova died in 1966, on March 5th. The poetess was buried near St. Petersburg, in Komarov. Her grave is shown below.

Acmeism in the works of Akhmatova

Akhmatova, whose work today is one of the pinnacles of Russian poetry, later treated her first book of poetry 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 real. In many ways, the poetics of "Evening" predetermined the theoretical program of Acmeism - a new movement in literature, to which such a poet as Anna Akhmatova is often attributed. Her work reflects many of the characteristic features of this direction.

The photo below was taken in 1925.

Acmeism arose as a reaction to the extremes of the Symbolist style. For example, an article by V. M. Zhirmunsky, a famous literary scholar and critic, about the work of representatives of this movement was called as follows: “Overcoming Symbolism.” They contrasted the mystical distances and “purple worlds” with life in this world, “here and now.” Moral relativism and various forms of new Christianity were replaced by "values ​​as an immutable rock."

The theme of love in the poetess’s work

Akhmatova came to the literature of the 20th century, its first quarter, with the most traditional theme for world poetry - the theme of love. However, its solution in the work of this poetess is fundamentally new. Akhmatova’s poems are far from the sentimental female lyrics represented in the 19th century by such names as Karolina Pavlova, Yulia Zhadovskaya, Mirra Lokhvitskaya. They are also far from the “ideal”, abstract lyricism 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 by Akhmatov. Her work was innovative. O. E. Mandelstam, for example, wrote that Akhmatova brought the complexity of the 19th century Russian novel to the lyrics. An essay on her work could begin with this thesis.

In “Evening,” love feelings were presented in different guises, but the heroine invariably appeared rejected, deceived, and suffering. K. Chukovsky wrote about her that the first to discover that being unloved is poetic was Akhmatova (an essay 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. The three parts of the collection are named respectively “Love”, “Deception” and “Muse”. Fragile femininity and grace were combined in Akhmatova’s lyrics with a courageous acceptance of her suffering. Of the 46 poems included in this collection, almost half were dedicated to separation and death. This is no coincidence. In the period from 1910 to 1912, the poetess was possessed by a feeling of short life, she had a presentiment of 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 connect 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 this poetess’ style emerged in the collection “Evening” and were finally formed, first in “The Rosary” and 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 “fateful minutes” that marked our country’s history (the First World War, which began in 1914) coincided with a difficult period in the poetess’s life. She developed tuberculosis in 1915, a hereditary disease in her family.

"Pushkinism" by Akhmatova

The motives of conscience and memory in “The White Flock” become even stronger, after which they become dominant in her work. The poetess's poetic style evolved in 1915-1917. Akhmatova’s peculiar “Pushkinism” is increasingly mentioned in criticism. Its essence is artistic completeness, precision of expression. The presence of a “quotation layer” with numerous echoes and allusions to both contemporaries and predecessors is also noted: O. E. Mandelstam, B. L. Pasternak, A. A. Blok. All the spiritual wealth of the culture of our country stood behind Akhmatova, and she rightly felt like its heir.

The theme of the homeland in Akhmatova’s work, attitude to the revolution

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

However, for Akhmatova, the revolution is also 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 a common guilt, so Anna Andreevna is ready to share the difficult share of her people. The homeland in Akhmatova’s work is obliged to atone for its guilt.

Even the title of the book, translated as “In the Year of the Lord,” suggests that the poetess perceives her era as God’s will. The use of historical parallels and biblical motifs is becoming one of the ways to comprehend artistically what is happening in Russia. Akhmatova increasingly resorts to them (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 of the era of this poetess’ life. She is often compared to another - Marina Tsvetaeva. Both of them are today the canons of women's lyrics. However, the work of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva not only has much in common, but also differs in many ways. Schoolchildren are often asked to write essays on this topic. 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, this is another topic...

Akhmatova’s work is usually divided into only two periods - early (1910 - 1930s) and late (1940 - 1960s). There is no impassable border between them, and the watershed is a forced “pause”: after the publication of her collection “Anno Domini MCMXXI” in 1922, Akhmatova was not published until the end of the 30s. The difference between the “early” and “late” Akhmatova is visible both at the content level (the early Akhmatova is a chamber poet, the later one is increasingly drawn to socio-historical themes) and at the stylistic level: the first period is characterized by objectivity, the word is not restructured by metaphor, but dramatically transformed by the context. In Akhmatova’s later poems, figurative meanings dominate, the word in them becomes emphasized symbolic. But, of course, these changes did not destroy the integrity of her style.

Once upon a time, Schopenhauer was indignant at women’s talkativeness and even proposed extending the ancient saying to other areas of life: “taceat mulier in ecclesia.” What would Schopenhauer say if he read Akhmatova's poems? They say that Anna Akhmatova is one of the most silent poets, and this is true, despite her femininity. Her words are stingy, restrained, chastely strict, and it seems that they are only conventional signs inscribed at the entrance to the sanctuary...

Akhmatova’s strict poetry amazes the “zealot of the artistic word”, to whom multi-colored modernity gives such generously euphonious verbosity. The flexible and subtle rhythm in Akhmatova’s poems is like a stretched bow from which an arrow flies. An intense and concentrated feeling is contained in a simple, precise and harmonious form.

Akhmatova's poetry is the poetry of strength, its dominant intonation is strong-willed intonation.

It is common for everyone to want to be with their own people, but between wanting and being there was an abyss. And she was no stranger to:

“Over how many abysses she sang....”

She was a born ruler, and her “I want” actually meant: “I can”, “I will make it happen.”

Akhmatova was an artist of love incomparable in her poetic originality. Her innovation initially manifested itself precisely in this traditionally eternal theme. Everyone noted the “mystery” of her lyrics; Despite the fact that her poems seemed like pages of letters or torn diary entries, the extreme laconicism and sparingness of speech left the impression of muteness or interception of the voice. “Akhmatova does not recite in her poems. She simply speaks, barely audible, without any gestures or postures. Or he prays almost to himself. In this radiantly clear atmosphere that her books create, any declamation would seem unnaturally false,” wrote her close friend K.I. Chukovsky.

But the new criticism subjected them to persecution: for pessimism, for religiosity, for individualism, and so on. Since the mid-20s, it has almost ceased to be printed. A difficult time came when she herself almost stopped writing poetry, doing only translations, as well as “Pushkin studies,” which resulted in several literary works about the great Russian poet.

Let us consider the features of Anna Akhmatova's lyrics in more detail.

Flowers

Along with the general, “generic” ones, each person, thanks to certain realities of life, develops “specific”, individual color perceptions. Certain emotional states are associated with them, the repeated experience of which resurrects the previous color background in the mind. The “artist of words,” narrating about past events, involuntarily “paints” the depicted objects in the color that is most meaningful to him. Therefore, from a set of similarly colored objects, it is possible, to a certain extent, to restore the original situation and determine the author’s “meaning” of the color designation used (outline the circle of the author’s experiences associated with it). The purpose of our work: to identify the semantics of gray in the works of A. Akhmatova. The sample size is limited to works included in the first academic edition.

This edition contains 655 works, and gray-colored items are mentioned in only 13 of them. Considering that almost every work contains at least one of the primary colors of the spectrum (including white and black), gray cannot be considered a widespread color in Akhmatova’s lyrics. In addition, its use is limited to a certain time interval: 1909-1917. Beyond this eight-year period, we did not find a single mention of this color. But within this interval, in some years there are two, three or even four works in which there is a gray object. What causes this “spectral feature”?

The list of objects painted in gray allows us to notice that approximately half of them are not “things”, but “people” (“the gray-eyed king”, “the gray-eyed groom”, “there was a tall boy with gray eyes”, etc.), and the rest - objects directly or indirectly associated with them (“gray dress”, “gray logs”, “gray ash”, etc.). At first glance, it may seem that the answer lies on the surface: during the indicated period, Akhmatova was carried away by someone “gray-eyed.” There is a temptation to find out, by comparing the dates of life and creativity, by whom exactly. But delving deeper into the intratextual context shows that the development of an artistic situation is subject to its own logic, without taking into account which direct comparisons are not so much risky as meaningless. What logic does the coloring of objects from A. Akhmatova’s poetic world in gray obey?

Akhmatova's poetic world is characterized by reverse chronology.

As a rule, the work that depicts the final situation is published first, and a few years later texts appear that present variants of the previous stages of its development. Akhmatova poetess creativity poetic

The final situation, in our case, is the situation described in the work “The Gray-Eyed King”. It opens a chronological series of gray objects (finished in 1909 and published in the first book of poems, “Evening”). It talks about the death of the main character: “Glory to you, hopeless pain! / The gray-eyed king died yesterday...”. As you might guess, this “king” was the secret lover of the lyrical heroine and the father of her child: - “I’ll wake up my daughter now, / I’ll look into her gray eyes...”. Let us highlight the following motives that characterize this situation.

Firstly, the lyrical heroes are united by a secret love affair, and it is far from platonic: the “gray-eyed daughter” serves as living proof. This connection, one might say, is “illegal” and even “criminal,” since each of them has his own “legitimate” family. A royal daughter born in a “secret marriage” inevitably becomes an “illegitimate queen,” which cannot bring joy to anyone around her. Therefore, we will define the first of the manifested meanings as follows: the crime of extramarital physical love and the associated need to “shroud” it in a “veil of secrecy.”

Secondly, the secret connecting the lyrical heroes dates back to the past. By the time of the events depicted, one of them is already dead, which draws a dividing line between the past and the present. The past turns into the irrevocably past. And since the second one is still alive, the flow of time continues for him, carrying him further and further “along the river of life.” This movement “from source to mouth” only increases, over the years, the width of the dividing line beyond which happy times remain. The second of the manifested meanings: the irrevocability of happiness, youth and love left in the past and the growing hopelessness of the present over the years.

Thirdly, the title “king” indicates the “height of position” of the beloved (his high social status). He retains this “height of position” even after death. The expression “Your king is not on earth...” testifies: he moved “to heaven” (“social vertical” was transformed into “spatial”). The stability of the “position” of the lyrical hero reveals a third meaning: the beloved is a higher being who temporarily descended from heaven to earth. The fourth meaning is connected with this: the division of the lyrical heroine’s world into two - “this” and “that”, which can only be overcome in a love union.

The appearance of two gray-eyed characters at once (the king and his daughter) outlines two lines of subsequent ("preceding") development of the situation. Let us call them, conventionally, male and female lines and trace their distribution through the text, guided by the highlighted gray markers.

It is logical to expect that the marriage of the lyrical heroine is preceded by a meeting with the groom. And indeed, four years later, the “gray-eyed groom” appears: “It doesn’t matter that you are arrogant and angry, / It doesn’t matter that you love others. / There’s a golden lectern in front of me, / And there’s a gray-eyed groom with me” (I have one smile ..., 1913). His appearance reveals the third and fourth meanings - the otherworldliness of the beloved, the conditioned division of the world into “this” (where “you are arrogant and evil”) and “that” (where there is a “golden lectern”).

In the same year, the work “Imagination Submissive to Me / In the Image of Gray Eyes” appears, repeating, in an abbreviated and weakened version, the final situation. The main character, although not a “king,” is a famous person with a high social status: “My famous contemporary...”. Like the “king,” he is married or, in any case, belongs to another woman: “Beautiful hands, happy captive...”. The reason for separation, as last time, is “murder,” but not of a hero, but of “love”: “You, who ordered me: enough, / Go, kill your love! / And now I am melting...”.

And a year later, an even younger character appears - just a “boy”, in love with the lyrical heroine: “Grey-Eye was a tall boy, / Six months younger than me. / He brought me white roses...<...>I asked. - What are you, a prince?<...>“I want to marry you,” He said, “I’ll soon become an adult and I’ll go north with you...”<...>“Think, I will be a queen, / What do I need such a husband for?” (Near the sea, 1914).

This “gray-eyed boy” has not yet reached the required “height of social status”, and therefore cannot hope for reciprocity. But already now he is distinguished by some characteristic features - tall growth and “geographical height of aspirations”: he is going “to the north” (to high latitudes). This "grey-eyed boy" is even closer to the "beginning" of the men's line of gray items.

The female line, on the contrary, appears as a kind of “line of fate” for the gray-eyed daughter. Three years later, we see her as an adult, who by the time she met her “darling” had managed to change three roles and put on the “gray dress” again: “Don’t look like that, don’t frown angrily, / I am your beloved, I am yours. / Not a shepherdess, not a princess / And I’m no longer a nun - // In this gray everyday dress, / On worn-out heels..." (You are my letter, dear, don’t crumple it. 1912).

During this time, much more time passed in the poetic world. The “illegitimate” royal daughter spent her childhood as a “shepherdess”; then, probably, the widow of the “gray-eyed king” recognized her rights as a “royal princess”; then, for an unknown reason, followed by leaving or imprisonment in a monastery - becoming a “nun”.

And so, returning to her beloved in the hope of continuing the relationship, she experiences “the same fear”: “But, as before, a burning embrace, / The same fear in the huge eyes.” This, apparently, is the fear of exposure, which she had previously experienced during secret meetings with her lover. Before this, her parents experienced “the same fear,” but in a mirror-symmetrical situation. Previously, these were meetings of the “king” with an ordinary woman, and now - of the royal daughter with the “poor man”.

Three years later, the gray-eyed lyrical heroine moves to another world, to “God’s garden of rays”: “I walked for a long time through fields and villages, / Walked and asked people: “Where is she, where is the cheerful light / Of the gray stars - her eyes?”<...>. And above the dark gold of the throne / God’s garden of rays flared up: “Here she is, here is the cheerful light / Of the gray stars - her eyes.” (Walked for a long time through fields and villages..., 1915). The daughter repeats the fate of her father, since “from birth” she occupies the highest position in this world - she is a descendant of the “supreme being” who descended to earth in the form of a “gray-eyed king.” Thus, the male and female lines are closed in one circle, exhausting the theme plot-wise and chronologically.

But the above is true only for anthropomorphic images. Inside this circle there are still zoomorphic characters and inanimate objects. Studying this set allows us to make some clarifications and additions.

The first inanimate object mentioned is a gray Cloud, similar to a squirrel skin: “High in the sky, a cloud turned gray, / Like a spread squirrel skin” (1911). It is natural to ask the question: where is the Squirrel from whom this “skin” was torn off? Following the law of reverse chronology, we go down the text four years and discover that the “gray squirrel” is one of the forms of posthumous existence of the lyrical heroine herself: “Yesterday I entered the green paradise, / Where there is peace for body and soul...<...>I’ll jump onto the alder tree like a gray squirrel.../ So that the groom won’t be afraid.../ To wait for the dead bride” (Milomu, 1915).

The second, in the same year, 1911, mentions a gray domestic cat: “Murka, gray, don’t purr...”, the childhood companion of the lyrical heroine. And a year later - the “gray swan,” her school friend: “These linden trees probably haven’t forgotten / Our meeting, my cheerful boy. // Only after becoming an arrogant swan, / The gray swan changed.” (The straps contained a pencil case and books..., 1912).

The last example is especially noteworthy - it shows that not only the lyrical heroine, but also her companions are capable of zoomorphic transformations. In passing, we note that if the transformation of the “swan” into the Swan had taken place a little earlier, then we would have observed the classic scene “Leda and the Swan”.

If you line up all the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images in one row, then at one end there will be a little girl and her favorite - the gray Cat, and at the other - an adult married woman and her lover - the gray-eyed King. The gap between the Cat and the King will be filled sequentially (“by age”) by three pairs: a schoolgirl and a “gray swan” (aka “cheerful boy”), a teenage girl and a “gray-eyed boy” (no longer “cheerful”, but "tall"), "dead bride" (gray Squirrel) and "gray-eyed groom".

In light of the above, the conclusion suggests itself that the coloring of objects in the poetic world in gray follows the same logic as the natural flow of life in extra-textual reality - from beginning to end, only it is realized in reverse chronological order. Therefore, each character, along with an extra-textual prototype, necessarily has an intra-textual “original image”. We do not know what kind of extra-textual stimulus induced the appearance of the image of the gray-eyed king, but its intra-textual prototype is quite obvious - this is Murka.

This is supported, firstly, by the similarity of the “mechanism” of zoomorphic transformations. The lyrical heroine “entered the green paradise yesterday,” and today she is already jumping like a “gray squirrel” through the winter forest (that is, in about six months). And the “grey-eyed king” “died yesterday...”, so it is not surprising that today (two years later) he turned into a gray cat.

Secondly, this is also indicated by the presence of two “centers of attraction” of gray color, one of which is the eyes of a person, and the other is the soft and fluffy “clothing” of an animal (the “skin” of a squirrel or the plumage of a bird). The presence of these centers is felt even when inanimate objects are mentioned.

For example, in the work “The Eyes Unwillingly Ask for Mercy...” (1912) their color is not formally mentioned, and then, in the second quatrain, it talks about “gray logs”: “I’m walking along the path into the field, / Along the gray stacked logs. ..". But in fact, this is the color of the “eyes”. The canonical connection of the images of the Log and one’s Eye is all too well known, and in addition, when approaching a lying log, it is easy to see its end – the same “gray eye”.

In the work “My voice is weak, but my will does not weaken, / It even became easier for me without love...” (1912) further, also in the second quatrain, “gray ash” is mentioned: “I do not languish over gray ash...” . The canonical combination of the concepts of Love and blazing Fire leaves almost no doubt that this “gray ash” is a trace of the former “love fire”. But the main quality of ash, in our case, is its softness and fluffiness, as well as the ability to take off, at the slightest breath, like a gray cloud.

Probably, the appearance of these centers reflects the ability to perceive objects with both vision and touch. Zoomorphic transformation, in this case, is an artistically transformed version of the revival of tactile images in the mind after the visual ones. The sense of touch evolutionarily precedes vision and is associated with it, so children’s tactile and visual sensations from gray animal “skins” and bird feathers could well be resurrected in memory when looking at any emotionally exciting gray object, especially such as the gray eyes of a loved one.

Thirdly, the preservation of the structure of the relationship attracts attention: one of the members of the pair He and She is always tall or high at the top, and this scheme is usually duplicated. The last work in this series, written eight years later (1917), is especially revealing:

And into a secret friendship with the tall one,

Like a young eagle with dark eyes,

I’m like in a pre-autumn flower garden,

She walked in with a light gait.

There were the last roses

And the transparent month swayed

On gray, thick clouds...

It contains the same motifs as in "The Gray-Eyed King", retold in almost the same words. The action takes place somewhat earlier (“pre-autumn flower garden,” and not “Autumn evening...”), but the same “color” is reproduced: “there were the last roses.” We can say that now the eye is attracted by “scarlet spots”, because previously the entire “evening” was painted in this color (“...it was stuffy and scarlet”). And then it was the “last” color perception before the approaching darkness.

The main character is not only “tall”, but also looks like an eagle (a bird known for “flying high”). In this “young” it is difficult not to recognize the almost adult “gray-eyed boy”.

And even higher up you can see the “transparent” Moon (i.e. “gray”, if you imagine that the black night sky is shining through it). The moon swaying on “gray, thick (like fur?) clouds” is more than an overt symbol. The “secret friendship” of the lyrical heroine with the “dark-eyed” is no different from her previous love relationship with the “gray-eyed” one.

So, the “gray-eyed king” turns, after death (1909), first into a gray Cat (1911), and then into an Eagle (1917). The lyrical heroine undergoes the same series of posthumous zoomorphic transformations. Along with turning into a gray Squirrel, she also intends to become a “weasel” (almost a Swallow) and, finally, a Swan: “I’ll jump onto an alder tree like a gray squirrel, / I’ll run like a timid little weasel, / I’ll start calling you Swan...” (Milomu, 1915 ).

The complete parallelism of the transformation of images in the male and female lines of gray allows us to suggest that the image of the “gray-eyed king” had two intratextual prototypes. One of them is the aforementioned Murka, and the second is his mistress, who has felt like a “queen” since childhood.

Semantics of gray color - semantics of gray ermine mantle.

Born near Odessa (Bolshoi Fontan). Daughter of mechanical engineer Andrei Antonovich Gorenko and Inna Erasmovna, née Stogova. As a poetic pseudonym, Anna Andreevna took the surname of her great-grandmother Tatar Akhmatova.

In 1890, the Gorenko family moved to Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg, where Anna lived until she was 16 years old. She studied at the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium, in one of the classes of which her future husband Nikolai Gumilyov studied. In 1905, the family moved to Evpatoria, and then to Kyiv, where Anna graduated from the gymnasium course at the Fundukleevskaya gymnasium.

Akhmatova's first poem was published in Paris in 1907 in the magazine Sirius, published in Russian. In 1912, her first book of poems, Evening, was published. By this time she was already signing with the pseudonym Akhmatova.

In the 1910s Akhmatova’s work was closely connected with the poetic group of Acmeists, which took shape in the fall of 1912. The founders of Acmeism were Sergei Gorodetsky and Nikolai Gumilyov, who in 1910 became Akhmatova’s husband.

Thanks to her bright appearance, talent, and sharp mind, Anna Andreevna attracted the attention of poets who dedicated poems to her, artists who painted her portraits (N. Altman, K. Petrov-Vodkin, Yu. Annenkov, M. Saryan, etc.) . Composers created music based on her works (S. Prokofiev, A. Lurie, A. Vertinsky, etc.).

In 1910 she visited Paris, where she met the artist A. Modigliani, who painted several of her portraits.

Along with great fame, she had to experience many personal tragedies: in 1921, her husband Gumilyov was shot, in the spring of 1924, a decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued, which actually prohibited Akhmatova from publishing. In the 1930s repression fell on almost all of her friends and like-minded people. They also affected the people closest to her: first, her son Lev Gumilyov was arrested and exiled, then her second husband, art critic Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin.

In the last years of her life, living in Leningrad, Akhmatova worked a lot and intensively: in addition to poetic works, she was engaged in translations, wrote memoirs, essays, and prepared a book about A.S. Pushkin. In recognition of the poet's great services to world culture, she was awarded the international poetry prize "Etna Taormina" in 1964, and her scientific works were awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature by Oxford University.

Akhmatova died in a sanatorium in the Moscow region. She was buried in the village of Komarovo near Leningrad.

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I see everything. I remember everything, I cherish it lovingly and meekly in my heart. 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. 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. Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of 1946. Last years of life. “The Running of Time” 3. Analysis of poems by A. A. Akhmatova. “White Night” “Twenty-one. 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. Born on June 11 (23), 1889 into 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 by listening to her teacher teaching older children. While living in St. Petersburg, Akhmatova saw 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 couple had a son, Lev. In the same year, her first collection of poems entitled “Evening” was published. The next collection, “Rosary Beads,” appeared in 1914 and was sold 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 national 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 brutal repression. For example, the writer’s first husband, N.S. Gumilyov, was executed in 1921. The third common-law husband, N.N. Punin, was arrested three times and died in the camp. And finally, the writer’s son, Lev Gumilyov, spent more than 10 years in prison. All the pain and bitterness of loss was reflected in “Requiem” (1935-1940) - one of the most famous works of the poetess. Although recognized by the classics of the 20th century, Akhmatova was subjected to silence and persecution for a long time. Many of her works were unpublished 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 occurring 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 by order of I.V. Stalin. After this, the poetess was mainly engaged in translations. At the same time, her son was serving his sentence as a political criminal. Soon, the writer's work gradually began to be accepted by fearful editors. In 1965, her final collection “The Running of Time” was published. She was also awarded the Italian Literary Prize and an honorary doctorate from Oxford University. In the fall of the same year, the poetess had a fourth heart attack. As a result of this, on March 5, 1966, A. A. Akhmatova died in a cardiological sanatorium in the Moscow region.

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Childhood and youth of the poetess Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (real name Gorenko) was born on June 11 (23 NS), 1889 in a holiday village at the Bolshoi Fontan station near Odessa in the family of Andrei Antonovich and Inna Erasmovna Gorenko. Her father was a marine 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 my nanny took me, the hippodrome where little colorful horses galloped, the old train station and something else that was later included in the “Ode of Tsarskoye Selo.” In Tsarskoe Selo, she loved not only the huge wet parks, statues of ancient gods and heroes, palaces, the Camelon Gallery, Pushkin’s Lyceum, but she knew, clearly remembered and stereoscopically reproduced its “wrong side” many years later: barracks, petty bourgeois houses, gray fences, dusty outlying streets... ...There a soldier's joke flows, the bile does not melt... A striped booth and a stream of shag. They tore their throats with songs and swore by the priest, drank vodka until late, ate kutya. The raven shouted glorified this ghostly world... And the Giant Cuirassier ruled on the sledge. Tsarsko-Selo Ode. But for the young schoolgirl Anya Gorenko, the deity of Tsarskoe Selo, its sun, was, of course, Pushkin. They were brought together then 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 was flickering on the distant paths of the park.

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In one of her autobiographical notes, she wrote that Tsarskoye Selo, where the gymnasium school year took place, that is, autumn, winter and spring, alternated with fabulous summer months in the south - “near the very blue sea,” mainly near Streletskaya Bay near Sevastopol . And 1905 passed entirely in Yevpatoria; I studied the gymnasium course that winter at home due to illness: tuberculosis, this scourge of the whole family, worsened. But the beloved sea was noisy nearby all the time, it calmed, healed and inspired. She then became especially familiar and fell in love with ancient Chersonesos and its white ruins. The love for poetry lasted throughout Akhmatova’s life. She began writing poetry, by her own admission, quite early, at the age of eleven: “At home no one encouraged my first attempts, but rather everyone was wondering why I needed it.” And yet, the most important and even decisive place in Akhmatova’s life, work and destiny was, of course, occupied by St. Petersburg. In 1903, young Anya Gorenko met high school student Nikolai Gumilev. 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-Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. Then Anna Gorenko entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses, but had no desire to study “dry” disciplines, so she left her studies after two years. Even then, poetry was more important to her. The first published poem - “There are many shiny 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. Gumilev and A.A. Gorenko got married in the St. Nicholas Church in the village of Nikolskaya Slobodka and a week later they left for Paris. In June they returned to Tsarskoe Selo and then moved to St. Petersburg. A 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 rich personal life” to Nikolai Gumilyov. Why, after all, they knew each other from their youth, he became her first husband and the father of her only son, opened her path to poetry... Kolya Gumilyov, only three years older than Anya, even then recognized himself as a poet, was an ardent admirer of the French symbolists. He hid his self-doubt behind arrogance, tried to compensate for external ugliness with mystery, and did not like to concede to anyone in anything. Gumilyov asserted himself, consciously building his life according to a certain model, and fatal, unrequited love for an extraordinary, unapproachable beauty was one of the necessary attributes of his chosen life scenario. He bombarded Anya with poems, tried to captivate her imagination with various spectacular follies - for example, on her birthday he brought her a bouquet of flowers picked 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 Paris, Gumilyov took part in the publication of a small literary almanac "Sirius", where he published one poem by Ani. Her father, having learned about his daughter’s poetic experiments, asked not to disgrace his name. “I don’t need your name,” she answered and took the surname of her great-grandmother, Praskovya Fedoseevna, whose family went back to the Tatar Khan Akhmat. This is how the name of Anna Akhmatova appeared in Russian literature. Anya herself took her first publication completely lightly, believing that Gumilyov had “been hit by an eclipse.” Gumilyov also did not take his beloved’s poetry seriously - he appreciated her poems only a few years later. When he first heard her poems, Gumilev said: “Or maybe you’d rather dance? You’re flexible...” Gumilev constantly came from Paris to visit her, and in the summer, when Anya and her mother lived in Sevastopol, he settled in neighboring home to be closer to them.

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In April of the following year, Gumilyov, stopping in Kyiv on the way from Paris, again unsuccessfully proposed to her. The next meeting was in the summer of 1908, when Anya arrived in Tsarskoe Selo, and then when Gumilev, on the way to Egypt, stopped in Kyiv. In Cairo, in the Ezbekiye garden, he made another, final attempt at suicide. After this incident, the thought of suicide became hateful to him. In May 1909, Gumilev came to see Anya in Lustdorf, where she was then living, 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 Anya’s side - and she finally agreed to become his wife. Nevertheless, as Valeria Sreznevskaya notes in her memoirs, at that time Gumilyov was not the first role in Akhmatova’s heart. Anya was still in love with that same tutor, St. Petersburg student Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov - although he had not made himself known for a long time. But agreeing to marry Gumilev, she accepted him not as love - but as her Destiny. They got married on April 25, 1910 in Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kiev. 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 went to Normandy - he was even arrested for vagrancy, and in December he again tried to commit suicide. A day later, he was found unconscious in the Bois de Boulogne... In the fall of 1907, Anna entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv - she was attracted by legal history and Latin.

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After the wedding, the Gumilevs left for Paris. Here she meets Amedeo Modigliani, a then unknown artist who makes many of her portraits. Only one of them survived - the rest died during the siege. Something similar to a romance 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 Gumilevs 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 Gumilyov’s marriage, no one at first 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 persistent the courtship was, soon after the wedding Gumilyov began to be burdened by family ties. On September 25 he again leaves for Abyssinia. Akhmatova, left to her own devices, plunged headlong into poetry. When Gumilev 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 it!" – and Anya showed him what she had written. He said, "Okay." And from that time on I began to treat her work with great respect. In the spring of 1911, the Gumilyovs again went to Paris, then spent the summer on the estate of Gumilyov’s mother Slepnevo, near Bezhetsk in the Tver province. In the spring of 1912, when the Gumilevs went on a trip to Italy and Switzerland, Anna was already pregnant. She spends the summer with her mother, and Gumilyov spends the summer in Slepnev. The son of Akhmatova and Gumilyov, Lev, was born on October 1, 1912. Almost immediately, Nikolai’s mother, Anna Ivanovna, took him in - and Anya did not resist too much. As a result, Leva lived with his grandmother for almost sixteen years, seeing his parents only occasionally... 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 the head of an expedition organized by the Academy of Sciences. One of the people closest to her at that time 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 whirlwind romance began between them, and soon Boris ousted Nedobrovo both from her heart and from her poetry. Nedobrovo took this very hard and parted ways with Anrep forever. Although Anna and Boris managed to meet infrequently, this love was one of the strongest in Akhmatova’s life. Before the final departure to the front, Boris gave her 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 active at the front - he was awarded the St. George Cross for valor - leads an active literary life. He publishes a lot and constantly writes critical articles. In the summer of 17th he ended up in London and then in Paris. Gumilev 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 famous Assyrian scientist, as well as a poet. The fact that Akhmatova would marry this ugly, completely unadapted to life, insanely jealous man came as 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 with Shileiko there would not be the same rivalry that she had with Gumilyov. Akhmatova, having moved to his Fountain House, completely subordinated herself to his will: she spent hours writing his translations of Assyrian texts under his dictation, cooking for him, chopping wood, making translations for him. He literally kept her under lock and key, not allowing her to go anywhere, forced her to burn all the letters she 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 spoke on the radio with an appeal to the women of Leningrad. Together with everyone else, she is on duty on the roofs, digging trenches around the city. At the end of September, by decision of the city party committee, she was evacuated from Leningrad by plane - ironically, she was now recognized as an important enough person to be saved... Through Moscow, Kazan and Chistopol, Akhmatova ended up in Tashkent. She settled in Tashkent with Nadezhda Mandelstam, constantly communicated with Lydia Korneevna Chukovskaya, and became friends with Faina Ranevskaya, who lived nearby - they carried this friendship throughout their lives. Almost all Tashkent poems were about Leningrad - Akhmatova was very worried about her city, about everyone who remained there. It was especially difficult for her without her friend, Vladimir Georgievich Garshin. After breaking up with Punin, he began to play a big role in Akhmatova’s life. A pathologist by profession, Garshin was very concerned about her health, which Akhmatova, according to him, criminally neglected. In 1945, Lev Gumilev returned to Akhmatova’s great joy. From exile, which he served since 1939, he managed to get to the front. Mother and son lived together. It seemed that life was getting better. In the fall 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 yard calling his name. As it turned out, it was Randolph Churchill, the son of Winston Churchill, a journalist. The moment was terrible for both Berlin and Akhmatova. Contacts with foreigners at that time were, to put it mildly, not welcome. A personal meeting might still not be seen - but when the prime minister's son is yelling 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 whether he 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 20th century. Born near Odessa. Her father A. A. Gorenko was a hereditary nobleman and a retired naval mechanical engineer. On her mother's 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 published, Anna Akhmatova’s first collection, which was immediately noticed by critics. The name itself is associated with the end of life before the eternal “night”. It included several “Tsarskoye Selo” poems. Among them is “Horses are led along the alley...”, included in the cycle “In Tsarskoe Selo” in 1911. In this poem, Akhmatova recalls her childhood, associates what she experienced with her present state - pain, sadness, melancholy... In the same year, she became a mother, naming her son Leo. Anna Akhmatova’s second collection, entitled “The Rosary,” was published before the outbreak 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 republished as many as 9 times, which was a huge success for the “beginning author.”

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First World War; "White Flock" With the outbreak of World War I, 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. In-depth reading of the classics (A. S. Pushkin, E. A. Baratynsky, Jean Racine, etc.) affects her poetic manner; the acutely paradoxical style of cursory psychological sketches gives way to neoclassical solemn intonations. Insightful criticism discerns in her collection “The White Flock” (1917) a growing “sense of personal life as a national, historical life” (Boris Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum). Inspiring an atmosphere of “mystery” and an aura of autobiographical context in her early poems, Anna Andreevna introduced free “self-expression” into high poetry as a stylistic principle. The apparent fragmentation and spontaneity of lyrical experience is more and more clearly subordinated to a strong integrating principle, which gave Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky a reason to note: “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 Anna Akhmatova’s life were marked by hardships and complete separation from the literary environment, but in the fall of 1921, after the death of Blok and the execution of Gumilyov, she, having parted with Shileiko, returned to active work - participated in literary evenings, in the work of writers’ organizations, and published in periodicals . In the same year, two of her collections were published - “Plantain” and “Anno Domini. MCMXXI". In 1922, for a decade and a half, Akhmatova united her fate with art critic Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin (since 1918, one of the organizers of the system of art education and museum affairs in the USSR. Works on the history of Russian art, on the work of contemporary artists. Repressed; rehabilitated posthumously). Unfortunately, the Soviet government did not leave him alone: ​​Punin was arrested in the 1930s, but after the war he was repressed, and he died in Vorkuta. At the same time, her son Lev was imprisoned for 10 years - but, fortunately, he managed to survive the imprisonment; Lev was later rehabilitated.

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Years of silence. "Requiem". In 1924, Akhmatova’s new poems were published for the last time before a multi-year break, after which an unspoken ban was imposed on her name. Only translations appeared in print (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 arrested again. The experiences of these painful years, expressed in poetry, made up the “Requiem” cycle, which the poetess did not dare to record on paper for two decades. In 1939, after a semi-interested remark from Stalin, publishing authorities offered Anna a number of publications. Her collection “From Six Books” (1940) was published, which included, along with old poems that had passed strict censorship selection, new works that arose after many years of silence. Soon, however, the collection was subjected to ideological criticism and removed from libraries.

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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 fireproof lime, and saw the “funeral” 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, Akhmatova was evacuated outside the blockade ring. Having turned on those fateful days to the people he tortured with the words “Brothers and sisters...”, the tyrant understood that Akhmatova’s patriotism, deep spirituality and courage 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 during the war period are devoid of images of front-line heroism, written from the perspective of a woman who remained in the rear. Compassion and great sorrow were combined in them with a call to courage, a civic note: pain was melted into strength. “It would be strange to call Akhmatova a war poet,” wrote B. Pasternak. “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 Akhmatova’s poems was published in Tashkent, and the lyrical and philosophical tragedy Enuma Elish (When Above...) was written, telling about the cowardly and mediocre arbiters of human destinies, the beginning and end of the world.

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Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (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 resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (1946), directed against them, tightened the ideological dictate and control over the Soviet intelligentsia, misled by the emancipating spirit national unity during the war. There was a publication ban again; an exception was made in 1950, when Akhmatova imitated loyal feelings in her poems written for Stalin's anniversary in a desperate attempt to soften the fate of her son, who was once again imprisoned. And the Leader, with eagle eyes, saw from the heights of the Kremlin how magnificently the Transformed Earth was flooded with rays. And from the very middle of the century, to which he gave a name, He sees the heart of man, Which has become as bright as crystal. Of His labors, of His deeds, He sees ripe fruits, Masses of majestic buildings, Bridges, factories and gardens. He breathed his spirit into this city, He averted trouble from us - That is why Moscow’s invincible spirit is so strong and young. And the Leader of the grateful people hears a voice: “We came to say - where Stalin is, there is freedom, Peace and the greatness of the earth!” December 1949

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Last years of life. "The Running of Time". In the later works of A. Akhmatova, those motifs that were always characteristic of her poetry were preserved. Conceiving the collection “The Running of Time,” the last poem in it she wanted to see was the 1945 poem “Whom People Once Called...” - about Christ and those who executed him. (During Akhmatova’s lifetime, only his final quatrain was published (in 1963).) This quatrain was indeed final and very important for understanding her poetry: Gold rusts and steel decays, Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death. The most lasting thing on earth is sadness And the most lasting is the royal Word. In the last years of Akhmatova’s life, international interest in her poetry began to increasingly manifest itself. At the Sorbonne, S. Laffitte begins to teach a special course on the study of her work. In 1964, in Italy, A. Akhmatova was awarded the prestigious international prize “Etia-Taormina”: “... for fifty years 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 Dante’s 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 met new ones, and visited Paris again.” In June 1965 she was awarded an honorary doctorate in philology from the University of Oxford. On 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 never stopped writing poetry. For me, they represent my connection with time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by the rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived during 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, imbued 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 (Gumilev, her first husband). Having gotten married in 1910, they separated in 1918, having a common son, Lev (born 1912). It is interesting that the vast majority of poems by A.A. Akhmatova, starting with the very first, published just in 1911 in the magazine “Sirius”, which was not successful with the public, is filled with pain and bitterness of loss. It’s as if this young woman, who has barely crossed the threshold of her twenties, has already experienced an endless series of separations, breakups and losses. White Night was no exception to the general “Akhmatovian” rule. 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 the pine needles.” The life of the lyrical heroine can be “hell” anywhere. And always. Because her beloved left her and did not come “back”. The relationships between the characters can be clearly traced if we connect this particular poem with others, at least the most famous ones, those that are heard by every schoolchild: “The prisoner is a stranger, I don’t need someone else’s”, “Heart to heart is not chained”, “Hands clenched under the dark veil”, “I have 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 point is controversial and discussed). Therefore, in the heat of a quarrel, she insults him, without meaning to, leading to a breakup - temporary or

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

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“Twenty-one. Night. Monday..." Poem "Twenty-one. Night. Monday" was written by Anna Akhmatova in 1917, a turbulent year for all of Russia. And the poetess’s personal life was also shaken: more and more difficulties arose in her relationship with her husband, and, despite the success of her first collections, she began to have 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 outline of the capital in the darkness.” It was as if Akhmatova, in a conversation with someone (or at the beginning of a letter), named the date, with her sensitive ear caught the poetic rhythm, went to the window - and further words began to spill out by themselves. This is exactly the impression that arises after reading the first quatrain, and one even glimpses the vague reflection of the poetess in the dark window glass. “Some slacker wrote that there is love on earth.” This is a conversation between a woman and herself, still young (Anna Andreevna was only twenty-eight), but already faced with drama. And the second stanza is all permeated with disappointment. “Everyone believed the slacker who invented love, and that’s how they live.” Both 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 therefore, the next stanza, in addition to sadness, is also imbued with triumph. “But to others the secret is revealed, And silence rests upon them” - the word “to others” could well have been originally “chosen”, if the size had allowed. At least that's the meaning. “And silence will rest upon them” - as a blessing,

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like freedom from illusions. In this place, the voice of the lyrical heroine sounds the most firm and confident. But the last two lines give rise to a different feeling: as if they are being uttered by a very young girl who has lost some direction, forgotten something important. “I came across this by accident, and since then it’s been like I’ve been sick.” What is this if not regret? If not the understanding that the lost illusion, that same 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 ellipses. And triumphant righteousness gives way to quiet sadness. The poem is written in three-foot anapest - a meter most suitable for reflection and lyricism. The entire work is imbued with lyricism, despite the emphasized absence of visual and expressive means. The pompous metaphor “and silence will fall upon them” seems like an alien element, words that belong 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 the cumbersome structures in praise 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 a sublime, holy concept, but as something ordinary, self-evident, something that is used as a certain object for life. The poem is philosophical. The title goes against the content, and only the ending encourages you to think about what the word “native” means. “We lie down in it and become it,” writes the author. “Becoming” means merging with her into one whole, just as people were, not yet born, one with their own mother in her womb. But until this merger with the earth comes, humanity does not see itself as 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 else, as if the thought of her native land for the first time forced her to write a poem, to call on everyone else to stop the course of their everyday thoughts and think that the Motherland is the same as one’s own mother . And if so, then why “We don’t carry them on our chests in treasured amulet”, i.e. is the earth not accepted as sacred and valuable? With pain in her heart, A. Akhmatova describes the human attitude towards the earth: “for us it is dirt on our galoshes.” How is that considered dirt with which humanity will merge at the end of life? Does this mean that a person will also become dirt? The earth is not just dirt underfoot, the earth is something that should be dear, and everyone should find a place for it in their heart!

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Sculptor Vasily Astapov, who created a bronze bust of Akhmatova in the 1960s, notes: “The more significant a person’s personality, the more difficult and responsible the creation of his portrait - be it on canvas, in bronze or marble, or in words on paper. An artist needs to be worthy of his model.” Indeed, for a true creator, a portrait of a person is always a little more than a documentary recording of appearance - it is also a transfer of the inner world. Let's try to look a little into this world by comparing picturesque portraits and photographs of Akhmatova, and also providing all this with living memories of the poet. The beginning of the 1910s was especially full of important events in Akhmatova’s life: at this time she married the poet Nikolai Gumilev, became friends with the artist Amedeo Modigliani, published her first collection of poems “Evening”, in the preface to which the critic Mikhail Kuzmin wrote: “ Let’s assume she doesn’t belong to the particularly cheerful, but always stinging poets.” This collection brought her instant fame, and was followed by “The Rosary” (1914) and “The White Flock” (1917). Akhmatova found herself at the very epicenter of the then seething 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 says about her: Silent 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 glorify almost the same feature of Akhmatova’s behavior: her unhurried, smooth and even slightly lazy movements, and the shawl, in general, becomes Anna Andreevna’s most striking and recognizable attribute. Nikolai Nikolaevich Punin, who for some time was Akhmatova’s friend and then her lover, back in 1914, speaks 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 undergone a deep poetic culture, she is stable in her worldview, she is magnificent...” However, after 1914, life begins to take on a truly tragic shade, not only for the poet, but for the entire country... Literary critic A.A. Gozenpud, in his memoirs of the 1980s, shares some of his discoveries regarding Akhmatova’s personality 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 brilliant intuition and imagination. She simultaneously lived in two time dimensions - the present and the past. For her, Pushkin, Dante, and Shakespeare were contemporaries. She had an incessant conversation with them... But she did not forget (she could not forget!) about those who, having shed someone else's blood, tried in vain to wash away 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 about the same ability to feel the era and live in parallel in the most different time dimensions: There are happy hearts on earth, Drop by drop, by spark, by sigh, they have moved the era within themselves, Faithful to it until the very end . When such a person leaves, the living clocks are synchronized by him. And time freezes for a second and only then the run evens out.

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Having survived several heart attacks and being on the verge of her death, Akhmatova continues to steadily, measuredly and slowly count down the time in each of her lines: The illness languishes - three months in bed. And I don’t seem to be afraid of death. As if in a dream, I seem to myself to be a random guest in this terrible body. We, in turn, are left with a very important, but not at all difficult mission: to remember, preserve and pass on the poetic creativity of Akhmatova. Just as the people who knew her did and wrote down their living testimonies about the poet for posterity. And then, perhaps, in the soul of a modern person there will be a small place for real and sincere lyrics, which at all times makes the palette of our feelings much richer.

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