One of the brightest, most original and talented poets of the Silver Age, Anna Gorenko, better known to her admirers as Akhmatova, lived a long life full of tragic events. This proud and at the same time fragile woman witnessed two revolutions and two world wars. Her soul was seared by repression and the death of her closest people. The biography of Anna Akhmatova is worthy of a novel or film adaptation, which was repeatedly undertaken by both her contemporaries and the later generation of playwrights, directors and writers.
Anna Gorenko was born in the summer of 1889 in the family of a hereditary nobleman and retired naval mechanical engineer Andrei Andreevich Gorenko and Inna Erazmovna Stogova, who belonged to the creative elite of Odessa. The girl was born in the southern part of the city, in a house located in the Bolshoi Fontan area. She turned out to be the third oldest of six children.
As soon as the baby was one year old, the parents moved to St. Petersburg, where the head of the family received the rank of collegiate assessor and became a State Control official for special assignments. The family settled in Tsarskoe Selo, with which all Akhmatova’s childhood memories are connected. The nanny took the girl for a walk to Tsarskoye Selo Park and other places that were still remembered. Children were taught social etiquette. Anya learned to read from the alphabet, and learned French back in early childhood, listening to the teacher teach it to the older children.
The future poetess received her education at the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium. Anna Akhmatova began writing poetry, according to her, at the age of 11. It is noteworthy that she discovered poetry not with the works of Alexander Pushkin and, whom she fell in love with a little later, but with the majestic odes of Gabriel Derzhavin and the poem “Frost, Red Nose,” which her mother recited.
Young Gorenko fell in love with St. Petersburg forever and considered it the main city of her life. She really missed its streets, parks and Neva when she had to leave with her mother for Evpatoria, and then for Kyiv. Her parents divorced when the girl turned 16.
She completed her penultimate grade at home, in Evpatoria, and finished her last grade at the Kyiv Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. After completing her studies, Gorenko becomes a student at the Higher Courses for Women, choosing the Faculty of Law. But if Latin and the history of law aroused a keen interest in her, then jurisprudence seemed boring to the point of yawning, so the girl continued her education in her beloved St. Petersburg, at N.P. Raev’s historical and literary women’s courses.
Poetry
No one in the Gorenko family studied poetry, “as far as the eye can see.” Only on the side of Inna Stogova’s mother was a distant relative, Anna Bunina, a translator and poetess. The father did not approve of his daughter’s passion for poetry and asked her not to disgrace his family name. Therefore, Anna Akhmatova never signed her poems with her real name. In his family tree she found her Tatar great-grandmother, who allegedly descended from the Horde Khan Akhmat, and thus turned into Akhmatova.
In her early youth, when the girl was studying at the Mariinsky Gymnasium, she met a talented young man, later the famous poet Nikolai Gumilyov. Both in Evpatoria and in Kyiv, the girl corresponded with him. In the spring of 1910, they got married in the St. Nicholas Church, which still stands today in the village of Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kiev. At that time, Gumilyov was already an accomplished poet, famous in literary circles.
The newlyweds went to Paris to celebrate their honeymoon. This was Akhmatova's first meeting with Europe. Upon his return, the husband introduced his talented wife into the literary and artistic circles of St. Petersburg, and she was immediately noticed. At first everyone was struck by her unusual, majestic beauty and regal posture. Dark-skinned, with a distinct hump on her nose, the “Horde” appearance of Anna Akhmatova captivated literary bohemia.
Anna Akhmatova and Amadeo Modigliani. Artist Natalia Tretyakova Soon, St. Petersburg writers find themselves captivated by the creativity of this original beauty. Anna Akhmatova wrote poems about love, and it was this great feeling that she sang all her life, during the crisis of symbolism. Young poets try themselves in other trends that have come into fashion - futurism and acmeism. Gumileva-Akhmatova gains fame as an Acmeist.
1912 becomes the year of a breakthrough in her biography. In this memorable year, not only was the poetess’s only son, Lev Gumilyov, born, but her first collection, entitled “Evening,” was also published in a small edition. In her declining years, a woman who has gone through all the hardships of the time in which she had to be born and create will call these first creations “the poor poems of an empty girl.” But then Akhmatova’s poems found their first admirers and brought her fame.
After 2 years, a second collection called “Rosary” was published. And this was already a real triumph. Fans and critics speak enthusiastically about her work, elevating her to the rank of the most fashionable poetess of her time. Akhmatova no longer needs her husband's protection. Her name sounds even louder than Gumilyov’s name. In the revolutionary year of 1917, Anna published her third book, “The White Flock.” It is published in an impressive circulation of 2 thousand copies. The couple separates in the turbulent year of 1918.
And in the summer of 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot. Akhmatova was grieving the death of her son’s father and the man who introduced her to the world of poetry.
Anna Akhmatova reads her poems to students Since the mid-1920s, difficult times have come for the poetess. She is under close surveillance of the NKVD. It is not printed. Akhmatova’s poems are written “on the table.” Many of them were lost during travel. The last collection was published in 1924. “Provocative”, “decadent”, “anti-communist” poems - such a stigma on creativity cost Anna Andreevna dearly.
The new stage of her creativity is closely connected with soul-debilitating worries for her loved ones. First of all, for my son Lyovushka. Late autumn In 1935, the first alarm bell rang for the woman: her second husband Nikolai Punin and son were arrested at the same time. They are released in a few days, but there will be no more peace in the life of the poetess. From now on, she will feel the ring of persecution around her tightening.
Three years later, the son was arrested. He was sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps. In the same terrible year, the marriage of Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Punin ended. An exhausted mother carries parcels for her son to Kresty. During these same years, the famous “Requiem” by Anna Akhmatova was published.
To make life easier for her son and get him out of the camps, the poetess, just before the war, in 1940, published the collection “From Six Books.” Here are collected old censored poems and new ones, “correct” from the point of view of the ruling ideology.
Anna Andreevna spent the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in evacuation in Tashkent. Immediately after the victory she returned to the liberated and destroyed Leningrad. From there he soon moves to Moscow.
But the clouds that had barely parted overhead—the son was released from the camps—condensed again. In 1946, her work was destroyed at the next meeting of the Writers' Union, and in 1949, Lev Gumilyov was arrested again. This time he was sentenced to 10 years. The unfortunate woman is broken. She writes requests and letters of repentance to the Politburo, but no one hears her.
Elderly Anna Akhmatova After leaving another prison, the relationship between mother and son long years remained tense: Leo believed that his mother put creativity in first place, which she loved more than him. He moves away from her.
The black clouds over the head of this famous but deeply unhappy woman disperse only at the end of her life. In 1951, she was reinstated in the Writers' Union. Akhmatova's poems are published. In the mid-1960s, Anna Andreevna received a prestigious Italian prize and released a new collection, “The Running of Time.” The University of Oxford also awards a doctorate to the famous poetess.
Akhmatova "booth" in Komarovo At the end of his years, the world-famous poet and writer finally had his own home. The Leningrad "Literary Fund" allocated her a modest wooden dacha in Komarovo. It was a tiny house that consisted of a veranda, a corridor and one room.
All the “furniture” is a hard bed with bricks as a leg, a table made from a door, a Modigliani drawing on the wall and an old icon that once belonged to the first husband.
Personal life
This royal woman had amazing power over men. In her youth, Anna was fantastically flexible. They say she could easily bend over backwards, her head touching the floor. Even the Mariinsky ballerinas were amazed at this incredible natural movement. She also had amazing eyes that changed color. Some said that Akhmatova’s eyes were gray, others claimed that they were green, and still others claimed that they were sky blue.
Nikolai Gumilyov fell in love with Anna Gorenko at first sight. But the girl was crazy about Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a student who did not pay any attention to her. The young schoolgirl suffered and even tried to hang herself with a nail. Luckily, he slipped out of the clay wall.
Anna Akhmatova with her husband and son It seems that the daughter inherited her mother’s failures. Marriage to any of the three official husbands did not bring happiness to the poetess. Anna Akhmatova's personal life was chaotic and somewhat disheveled. They cheated on her, she cheated. The first husband carried his love for Anna throughout his entire life. short life, but at the same time he had an illegitimate child, which everyone knew about. In addition, Nikolai Gumilyov did not understand why his beloved wife, in his opinion, not a genius poetess at all, evokes such delight and even exaltation among young people. Anna Akhmatova's poems about love seemed too long and pompous to him.
In the end they broke up.
After the breakup, Anna Andreevna had no end to her fans. Count Valentin Zubov gave her armfuls of expensive roses and was in awe of her mere presence, but the beauty gave preference to Nikolai Nedobrovo. However, he was soon replaced by Boris Anrepa.
Her second marriage to Vladimir Shileiko exhausted Anna so much that she said: “Divorce... What a pleasant feeling this is!”
A year after the death of her first husband, she breaks up with her second. And six months later she gets married for the third time. Nikolai Punin is an art critic. But Anna Akhmatova’s personal life did not work out with him either.
Deputy People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky Punin, who sheltered the homeless Akhmatova after a divorce, also did not make her happy. New wife lived in an apartment with Punin’s ex-wife and his daughter, donating money to a common pot for food. Son Lev, who came from his grandmother, was placed in a cold corridor at night and felt like an orphan, always deprived of attention.
Anna Akhmatova’s personal life was supposed to change after a meeting with pathologist Garshin, but just before the wedding, he allegedly dreamed of his late mother, who begged him not to take a witch into the house. The wedding was cancelled.
Death
The death of Anna Akhmatova on March 5, 1966 seems to have shocked everyone. Although she was already 76 years old at that time. And she had been ill for a long time and seriously. The poetess died in a sanatorium near Moscow in Domodedovo. On the eve of her death, she asked to bring her the New Testament, the texts of which she wanted to compare with the texts of the Qumran manuscripts.
They rushed to transport Akhmatova’s body from Moscow to Leningrad: the authorities did not want dissident unrest. She was buried at the Komarovskoye cemetery. Before their death, the son and mother were never able to reconcile: they did not communicate for several years.
At his mother’s grave, Lev Gumilyov laid out a stone wall with a window, which was supposed to symbolize the wall in the Crosses, where she carried messages to him. At first there was a wooden cross on the grave, as Anna Andreevna requested. But in 1969 a cross appeared.
Monument to Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva in Odessa The Anna Akhmatova Museum is located in St. Petersburg on Avtovskaya Street. Another one was opened in the Fountain House, where she lived for 30 years. Later, museums, memorial plaques and bas-reliefs appeared in Moscow, Tashkent, Kyiv, Odessa and many other cities where the muse lived.
Poetry
- 1912 – “Evening”
- 1914 – “Rosary”
- 1922 – “White Flock”
- 1921 – “Plantain”
- 1923 – “Anno Domini MCMXXI”
- 1940 – “From six books”
- 1943 – “Anna Akhmatova. Favorites"
- 1958 – “Anna Akhmatova. Poems"
- 1963 – “Requiem”
- 1965 – “The Running of Time”
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (pseudonym; real name Gorenko, married to Gumilev) was born June 11 (23), 1889 at the station Big Fountain, near Odessa.
His father is a naval mechanical engineer, his mother is from an old noble family. Akhmatova spent her childhood in Tsarskoye Selo and graduated from high school in Kyiv. in 1907, there she studied at the law department of the Higher Women's Courses ( 1908-1910 ). In 1910-1918 married to N. Gumilev. IN 1910 and 1911 I was in Paris (where I became closely acquainted with the artist A. Modigliani), in 1912- in Italy. In 1912 Akhmatova gave birth to a son, L.N. Gumilev. In 1918-1921 married to Assyriologist and poet V.K. Shileiko.
I have been writing poetry since childhood; in the surviving early experiments one can feel the influence of new Russian (especially A. Blok, V. Bryusov) and French (from C. Baudelaire to J. Laforgue) poetry. First publication in Sirius magazine ( 1907 ), published by N.S. Gumilev in Paris. Since 1910 was part of V.I.’s circle Ivanova, since 1911 published in Apollo magazine. She was the secretary of the “Workshop of Poets” from its inception until its dissolution. Participated in a group of acmeists. Poetry 1910-1911 compiled the book “Evening” ( 1912 ). The image of a modern woman that emerged in these poems was received by readers and critics with deep interest. At the same time, it received high praise poetic originality her lyrics: a combination of the finest psychologism with a song harmony, diarism, freely turning into philosophical reflections, transferring into poetry the techniques of classical prose of the 19th century, impeccable mastery of all the possibilities of Russian verse.
Second book of poems, "Rosary" ( 1913 ), gave rise to talk about the transformation of the image of the lyrical heroine, endowed with extraordinary strength of spirit, a willingness to overcome all the trials that befall her, and a sense of the special historical destiny of her country. In the next three books of poems (“White Flock”, 1917 ; "Plantain", 1921 ; "Anno Domini MCMXXI" (Latin: "In the Lord's Summer 1921"), 1921 ) the historicism of artistic thinking, an organic connection with the traditions of Russian poetry, especially the Pushkin era, is affirmed. The open citizenship of Akhmatova’s poetry, as well as the deliberate mystery of many poems, in which contemporaries saw opposition to the horrors of modernity, led the poetess to clashes with the authorities. For 1925-1939 her poems were not published; she wrote little, focusing mainly on studying Pushkin’s works.
Akhmatova's literary studies, while maintaining full scientific correctness, were associated with reflections on the tragedy of poetry of the 20th century. Arrests of the third ( since 1922) husband, art critic N.N. Punina, and L. Gumilyov became the impetus for the creation of the cycle of poems “Requiem”, which Akhmatova for a long time I was afraid to trust paper ( 1935-1940 ; published abroad in 1963 , in Russia in 1987 ). Approximately since 1936 a new upsurge in Akhmatova’s work began: the unfinished book of poems “Reed” is being compiled, in 1940 the first version of “Poem without a Hero” was created, recreating the atmosphere of the Silver Age (work on the poem continued until Akhmatova’s death). In 1940-1946 Poems are often published, and the collection “From Six Books” is published ( 1940 ), patriotic poems from the Great Period Patriotic War cause an approving reaction from modern critics. However, the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”” ( 1946 ) was the beginning of the persecution of Akhmatova. She was expelled from the Writers' Union, she was under surveillance, and only a few friends dared to support Akhmatova. After my son's arrest in 1949, trying to save his life, was forced to write and publish official glorifications of I.V. Stalin and Bolshevism. At the same time, Akhmatova wrote tragic poems, published in her homeland only after her death. Akhmatova’s return to literature became possible only in the late 1950s In 1958 and 1961 two collections of selected poems are published, in 1965 – book of poems “The Running of Time.” Akhmatova's autobiographical prose, which remained largely unfinished, was published (like her memoirs about Blok, Modigliani, etc.) only posthumously. In 1964 Akhmatova received the Italian literary prize "Etna-Taormina", in 1965 Elected honorary doctor of the University of Oxford. IN last years During her life, she was surrounded by the attention of younger poets (among whom she especially singled out I. Brodsky) and researchers.
Intense lyrical experience, inscribed in the broad epic picture of not only Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries, but throughout human history, is inextricably linked in the late Akhmatova with the awareness of her own poetry as an integral part of world culture. At the same time, her poetry carries within itself the naturalness of human feeling, not overshadowed by the tragedy of life in which it is immersed.
Anna Akhmatova died March 5, 1966 in Domodedovo, near Moscow; buried in the village Komarovo, Leningrad region.
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (Gorenko)
(1889 - 1966)
One of the most talented poets of the Silver Age, Anna Akhmatova, lived a long life, full of both bright moments and tragic events. She was married three times, but did not experience happiness in any marriage. She witnessed two world wars, during each of which she experienced an unprecedented creative surge. She had a difficult relationship with her son, who became a political repressant, and until the end of the poetess’s life he believed that she chose creativity over love for him...
Anna Andreevna Gorenko (this is the real name of the poetess) was born on June 11 (June 23, old style) 1889 in Odessa. Her father, Andrei Antonovich Gorenko, was a retired captain of the second rank, who, after finishing his naval service, received the rank of collegiate assessor. The poetess's mother, Inna Stogova, was an intelligent, well-read woman who made friends with representatives of the creative elite of Odessa. However, Akhmatova will have no childhood memories of the “pearl by the sea” - when she was one year old, the Gorenko family moved to Tsarskoe Selo near St. Petersburg.Here Akhmatova became a student at the Mariinsky Gymnasium, but spent every summer near Sevastopol. “My first impressions are Tsarskoye Selo,” she wrote in a later autobiographical note, “the green, damp splendor of the parks, the pasture where my nanny took me, the hippodrome where small motley horses galloped, the old train station and something else that was later included in the “Ode to Tsarskoye Selo” "".
Since childhood, Anna was taught French and social etiquette, which was familiar to any girl from an intelligent family. Anna received her education at the Tsarskoye Selo women's gymnasium, where she met her first husband Nikolai Gumilyov and wrote her first poems. Having met Anna at one of the gala evenings at the gymnasium, Gumilev was fascinated by her and since then the fragile dark-haired girl has become a constant muse of his work.
Akhmatova composed her first poem at the age of 11 and after that she began to actively improve in the art of versification. The poetess’s father considered this activity frivolous, so he forbade her to sign her creations with the surname Gorenko. Then Anna took her great-grandmother’s maiden name – Akhmatova. However, very soon her father completely ceased to influence her work - her parents divorced, and Anna and her mother moved first to Yevpatoria, then to Kyiv, where from 1908 to 1910 the poetess studied at the Kyiv Women's Gymnasium. In 1910, Akhmatova married her longtime admirer Gumilyov. Nikolai Stepanovich, who was already quite famous person in poetic circles, contributed to the publication of his wife’s poetic works. The style of Akhmatova’s early poetic experiments was significantly influenced by her acquaintance with the prose of K. Hamsun, the poetry of V. Ya. Bryusov and A. A. Blok. Akhmatova spent her honeymoon in Paris, then moved to St. Petersburg and from 1910 to 1916 lived mainly in Tsarskoye Selo. She studied at the Higher Historical and Literary Courses of N.P. Raev.
Akhmatova’s first poems began to be published in various publications in 1911, and in 1912 her first full-fledged collection of poetry, “Evening,” was published. In 1912, Anna gave birth to a son, Lev, and in 1914 fame came to her - the collection “Rosary Beads” received good feedback critics, Akhmatova began to be considered a fashionable poetess. By that time, Gumilyov’s patronage ceases to be necessary, and discord sets in between the spouses. In 1918, Akhmatova divorced Gumilev and married the poet and scientist Vladimir Shileiko. However, this marriage was short-lived - in 1922, the poetess divorced him, so that six months later she would marry art critic Nikolai Punin. Paradox: Punin will subsequently be arrested almost at the same time as Akhmatova’s son, Lev, but Punin will be released, and Lev will go to prison. Akhmatova’s first husband, Nikolai Gumilev, would already be dead by that time: he would be shot in August 1921.
Her lyrics turned out to be close not only to “schoolgirls in love,” as Akhmatova ironically noted. Among her enthusiastic fans were poets who were just entering literature - M. I. Tsvetaeva, B. L. Pasternak. A. A. Blok and V. Ya. Bryusov reacted more reservedly, but still approved of Akhmatova. During these years, Akhmatova became a favorite model for many artists and the recipient of numerous poetic dedications. Her image is gradually turning into an integral symbol of St. Petersburg poetry of the Acmeism era. During the First World War, Akhmatova did not add her voice to the voices of poets who shared the official patriotic pathos, but she responded with pain to the wartime tragedies (“July 1914”, “Prayer”, etc.). The collection "The White Flock", published in September 1917, was not as resoundingly successful as the previous books. But the new intonations of mournful solemnity, prayerfulness, and a super personal beginning destroyed the usual stereotype of Akhmatova’s poetry that had formed among the reader of her early poems. These changes were caught by O. E. Mandelstam, noting: “The voice of renunciation is becoming stronger and stronger in Akhmatova’s poems, and at present her poetry is close to becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia.” After the October Revolution, Akhmatova did not leave her homeland, remaining in “her deaf and sinful land.” In the poems of these years (the collections "Plantain" and "Anno Domini MCMXXI", both from 1921), grief about the fate of the native country merges with the theme of detachment from the vanity of the world, the motives of "great earthly love" are colored by the mood of the mystical expectation of the "groom", and understanding creativity as divine grace spiritualizes reflections on the poetic word and the poet’s calling and transfers them to the “eternal” plane.
Anna Andreevna's last published collection dates back to 1924. After this, her poetry came to the attention of the NKVD as “provocative and anti-communist.” The poetess is having a hard time with the inability to publish, she writes a lot “on the table”, the motives of her poetry change from romantic to social. After the arrest of her husband and son, Akhmatova begins work on the poem “Requiem”. The “fuel” for creative frenzy was soul-exhausting worries about loved ones. The poetess understood perfectly well that under the current government this creation would never see the light of day, and in order to somehow remind readers of herself, Akhmatova writes a number of “sterile” poems from the point of view of ideology, which, together with censored old poems, make up the collection “Out of Six books", published in 1940.
All Second world war Akhmatova spent time in the rear, in Tashkent. Almost immediately after the fall of Berlin, the poetess returned to Moscow. However, there she was no longer considered a “fashionable” poetess: in 1946, her work was criticized at a meeting of the Writers’ Union, and Akhmatova was soon expelled from the Union of Writers. Soon another blow falls on Anna Andreevna: the second arrest of Lev Gumilyov. For the second time, the poetess’s son was sentenced to ten years in the camps. All this time, Akhmatova tried to get him out, wrote requests to the Politburo, but no one listened to them. Lev Gumilyov himself, knowing nothing about his mother’s efforts, decided that she had not made enough efforts to help him, so after his release he moved away from her.
In 1951, Akhmatova was reinstated in the Union of Soviet Writers and she gradually returned to active creative work. In 1964, she was awarded the prestigious Italian literary prize "Etna-Torina" and she is allowed to receive it because the times of total repression have passed, and Akhmatova is no longer considered an anti-communist poet. In 1958 the collection “Poems” was published, in 1965 – “The Running of Time”. Then, in 1965, a year before her death, Akhmatova received a doctorate from Oxford University.
The pinnacle of Akhmatova’s creativity is the large lyrical-epic “Poem without a Hero” (1940-62). The tragic plot of the young poet's suicide echoes the theme of the impending collapse of the old world; The poem is distinguished by its richness of figurative content, refinement of words, rhythm, and sound.
Speaking about Anna Andreevna, one cannot fail to mention the memories of people who knew her. In these stories you feel Akhmatova’s entire inner world. We invite you to plunge into the world of K.I.’s memories. Chukovsky:
“I knew Anna Andreevna Akhmatova since 1912. Thin, slender, looking like a timid fifteen-year-old girl, she never left her husband, the young poet N.S. Gumilyov, who then, at the first meeting, called her his student.
That was the time of her first poems and extraordinary, unexpectedly noisy triumphs. Two or three years passed, and in her eyes, in her posture, and in her behavior with people, one of the most important features of her personality emerged: majesty. Not arrogance, not arrogance, not arrogance, but rather “royal” majesty, a monumentally important step, an indestructible sense of respect for oneself, for one’s high mission as a writer.
Every year she became more majestic. She didn’t care about it at all; it came naturally to her. In the entire half century that we knew each other, I don’t remember a single pleading, ingratiating, petty or pitiful smile on her face. When I looked at her, I always remembered something from Nekrasov:
There are women in Russian villages
With calm importance of faces,
With beautiful strength in movements,
With the gait, with the look of queens...
She was completely devoid of any sense of ownership. She did not love or keep things, and parted with them surprisingly easily. She was a homeless nomad and did not value property to such an extent that she willingly freed herself from it as from a burden. Her close friends knew that if they gave her some kind of, say, rare engraving or brooch, in a day or two she would give these gifts to others. Even in her youth, during the years of her brief “prosperity,” she lived without bulky wardrobes and chests of drawers, often even without a desk.
There was no comfort around her, and I don’t remember a period in her life when the environment around her could be called cozy.
These very words “ambiance”, “coziness”, “comfort” were organically alien to her - both in life and in the poetry she created. Both in life and in poetry, Akhmatova was most often homeless... It was habitual poverty, which she did not even try to get rid of.
Even books, with the exception of her favorite ones, she gave to others after reading them. Only Pushkin, the Bible, Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky were her constant interlocutors. And she often took these books - first one or the other - on the road. The rest of the books, having been with her, disappeared...
She was one of the most well-read poets of her era. I hated wasting time reading sensational fashionable things that magazine and newspaper critics were screaming about. But she read and re-read each of her favorite books several times, returning to it again and again.
When you leaf through Akhmatova’s book, suddenly, among the mournful pages about separation, about orphanhood, about homelessness, you come across poems that convince us that in the life and poetry of this “homeless wanderer” there was a Home that served her at all times as faithful and saving refuge.
This House is the homeland, the native Russian land. From a young age, she gave all her brightest feelings to this House, which were fully revealed when it was subjected to an inhumane attack by the Nazis. Her menacing lines, deeply in tune with popular courage and popular anger, began to appear in the press.
Anna Akhmatova is a master of historical painting. The definition is strange, extremely far from previous assessments of her skill. This definition has hardly appeared even once in books, articles and reviews dedicated to her - in all the vast literature about her.
Her images never lived their own life, but always served to reveal the poet’s lyrical experiences, his joys, sorrows and anxieties. She expressed all these feelings in few words and with restraint. Some barely noticeable microscopic image was saturated with such great emotions that it alone replaced dozens of pathetic lines.
Whatever she wrote about in recent years, her poems always conveyed a persistent thought about the historical destinies of the country with which she is connected with all the roots of her being.
When Anna Andreevna was Gumilyov’s wife, they were both fond of Nekrasov, whom they had loved since childhood. They applied Nekrasov’s poems to all occasions in their lives. This became their favorite literary game. One day, when Gumilyov was sitting at the table in the morning and working diligently early in the morning, Anna Andreevna was still lying in bed. He reproachfully told her in the words of Nekrasov:
White day has fallen over the capital,
The young wife sleeps sweetly,
Only a hard worker, a pale-faced husband
He doesn’t go to bed, he doesn’t have time to sleep.
Anna Andreevna answered him with the same quote:
On a red pillow
First degree Anna is lying.
There were a few people with whom she had a particularly “good laugh,” as she liked to put it. These were Osip Mandelstam and Mikhail Leonidovich Lozinsky - her comrades, her closest ones...
Akhmatova’s character contained many diverse qualities that did not fit into one or another simplified scheme. Her rich, complex personality was replete with traits that are rarely combined in one person.
Akhmatova's "mournful and modest greatness" was her inalienable quality. She remained majestic always and everywhere, in all cases of life - and in small talk, and in intimate conversations with friends, and under the blows of a fierce fate - “at least now for bronze, on a pedestal, for a medal”!
Before Akhmatova, history knew many female poets, but only she managed to become the female voice of her time, a female poet of eternal, universal significance.
She, like no one else, managed to reveal the most cherished depths of the feminine inner world, experiences, states and moods. To achieve stunning psychological persuasiveness, she uses succinct and concise artistic device a telling detail that becomes for the reader a “sign of trouble.” Akhmatova finds such “signs” in the everyday world, which is unexpected for traditional poetry. These can be parts of clothing (hat, veil, glove, ring, etc.), furniture (table, bed, etc.), furs, candles, seasons, natural phenomena (sky, sea, sand, rain, flood, etc.) etc.), smells and sounds of the environment, recognizable world. Akhmatova established the “civil rights” of “non-poetic” everyday realities in the high poetry of feelings. The use of such details does not reduce, “ground” or trivialize traditionally high themes. On the contrary, the depth of feelings and thoughts of the lyrical heroine receives additional artistic persuasiveness and almost visible authenticity. Many laconic details of Akhmatova the artist not only concentrated a whole range of experiences, but became generally accepted formulas and aphorisms expressing the state of a person’s soul. This is also worn on left hand"glove with right hand", and which became a proverb: "How many requests does your beloved always have! // A woman who has fallen out of love has no requests,” and much more. Reflecting on the craft of a poet, Akhmatova introduced another brilliant formula into poetic culture.
Akhmatova pays tribute to the high universal role of love, its ability to inspire those who love. When people fall under the power of this feeling, they are delighted by the smallest everyday details seen with the eyes of lovers: linden trees, flower beds, dark alleys, streets, etc. Even such constant “signs of trouble” in world culture as “the sharp cry of a crow” change their emotional coloring. the black sky, // And in the depths of the alley, the arch of the crypt,” they also become contrasting signs of love in Akhmatov’s context. Love sharpens the sense of touch:
After all, the stars were larger.
After all, the herbs smelled different,
Autumn herbs.
(Love conquers deceitfully...)
And yet Akhmatova’s love poetry is, first of all, the lyrics of a breakup, the end of a relationship or the loss of feelings. Almost always, her poem about love is a story about the last meeting (“Song of the Last Meeting”) or about a farewell explanation, a kind of lyrical fifth act of the drama." Even in poems based on images and plots of world culture, Akhmatova prefers to address the situation of denouement, as, for example, in poems about Dido and Cleopatra, But her states of separation are surprisingly varied and comprehensive: this is a cooled feeling (for her, for him, for both), and misunderstanding, and temptation, and mistake, and the tragic love of the poet In a word, all the psychological facets of separation were embodied in Akhmatov’s lyrics.
It is no coincidence that Mandelstam traced the origins of her work not to poetry, but to the psychological prose of the 19th century. “Akhmatova brought into Russian lyric poetry all the enormous complexity and psychological richness of the Russian novel of the nineteenth century. There would be no Akhmatova if it weren’t for Tolstoy and Anna Korenena, Turgenev and “A Noble Nest,” all of Dostoevsky and partly even Leskov... She developed her poetic form, sharp and martial, with an eye on psychotic prose.”
It was Akhmatova who managed to give love the right female voice" (“I taught women to speak,” she grins in the epigram “Could Biche...”) and embody in the lyrics women’s ideas about the ideal of masculinity, present, according to contemporaries, a rich palette of “male charms” - objects and addressees of women’s feelings.
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966 in Domodedovo near Moscow.
Akhmatova's main achievements
1912 – collection of poems “Evening”
1914-1923 – a series of poetry collections “Rosary”, consisting of 9 editions.
1917 – collection “White Flock”.
1922 – collection “Anno Domini MCMXXI”.
1935-1940 – writing the poem “Requiem”; first publication – 1963, Tel Aviv.
1940 – collection “From Six Books”.
1961 – collection of selected poems, 1909-1960.
1965 – the last lifetime collection, “The Running of Time.”
Main dates of Akhmatova’s biography
1900-1905 – studying at the Tsarskoye Selo girls’ gymnasium.
1906 – move to Kyiv.
1910 – marriage with N. Gumilyov.
March 1912 – release of the first collection “Evening”.
1914 – publication of the second collection “Rosary Beads”.
1918 – divorce from N. Gumilev, marriage to V. Shileiko.
1922 – marriage with N. Punin.
1935 – moved to Moscow due to the arrest of his son.
1940 – publication of the collection “From Six Books”.
May 1943 – publication of a collection of poems in Tashkent.
Summer 1945 – move to Leningrad.
November 1949 – re-arrest of Lev Gumilyov.
May 1951 - reinstatement in the Writers' Union.
December 1964 – received the Etna-Torina Prize
Interesting facts from the life of Akhmatova
Throughout her adult life, Akhmatova kept a diary, excerpts from which were published in 1973. On the eve of her death, going to bed, the poetess wrote that she was sorry that her Bible was not here, in the cardiological sanatorium. Apparently, Anna Andreevna had a presentiment that the thread of her earthly life was about to break.
In Akhmatova’s “Poem without a Hero” there are the lines: “clear voice: I am ready for death.” These words sounded in life: they were spoken by Akhmatova’s friend and comrade-in-arms in the Silver Age, Osip Mandelstam, when he and the poetess were walking along Tverskoy Boulevard.
After the arrest of Lev Gumilyov, Akhmatova, along with hundreds of other mothers, went to the notorious Kresty prison. One day, one of the women, exhausted by anticipation, seeing the poetess and recognizing her, asked, “Can you describe THIS?” Akhmatova answered in the affirmative and it was after this incident that she began working on Requiem.
Before her death, Akhmatova nevertheless became close to her son Lev, who for many years harbored an undeserved grudge against her. After the death of the poetess, Lev Nikolaevich took part in the construction of the monument together with his students (Lev Gumilev was a doctor at Leningrad University). There was not enough material, and the gray-haired doctor, together with the students, wandered the streets in search of stones.
Literature:
Vilenkin. V. "In the one hundred and first mirror." M. 1987.
Zhimursky. V. "The Work of Anna Akhmatova." L. 1973.
Malyukova. L.N. "A. Akhmatova: Epoch, Personality, Creativity." ed. "Tagaronskaya Pravda". 1996.
Ministry of Education of the RSFSR. Vladimir State Pedagogical Institute named after. P.I. Lebedev - Polyansky. "Ways and forms of analysis work of art". Vladimir. 1991.
Pavlovsky. A.I. "Anna Akhmatova, life and work." Moscow, "Enlightenment" 1991.
Textbook for general education institutions "Russian literature of the 20th century" for grade 11, edited by V. V. Agenosov, part 1, M: "Drofa", 1997.
Ekhenbaum. B. "Anna Akhmatova. Experience of analysis." L. 1960.
Application
Anna Akhmatova is an outstanding Russian poetess, whose work belongs to the so-called Silver Age of Russian literature, as well as a translator and literary critic. In the sixties she was nominated for Nobel Prize on literature. Her poems have been translated into many languages of the world.
Three beloved people of the famous poetess were subjected to repression: her first and second husband, as well as her son, died or received long terms. These tragic moments left an indelible imprint both on the personality of the great woman and on her work.
The life and work of Anna Akhmatova are undoubtedly of interest to the Russian public.
Biography
Akhmatova Anna Andreevna, real name Gorenko, was born in the resort town of Bolshoi Fontan (Odessa region). In addition to Anna, the family had six more children. When the great poetess was little, her family traveled a lot. This was due to the work of the father of the family.
Like early biography, the girl’s personal life was quite eventful with a variety of events. In April 1910, Anna married the outstanding Russian poet Nikolai Gumilyov. Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov were married in a legal church marriage, and in the early years their union was incredibly happy.
In 1918, Akhmatova divorced Gumilyov (but they maintained correspondence until his arrest and subsequent execution) and married a scientist, a specialist in Assyrian civilization. His name was Vladimir Shilenko. He was not only a scientist, but also a poet. She broke up with him in 1921. Already in 1922, Anna began living with art critic Nikolai Punin.
Anna was able to officially change her last name to “Akhmatova” only in the thirties. Before this, according to documents, she bore the surnames of her husbands, and used her well-known and sensational pseudonym only on the pages of literary magazines and in salons at poetry evenings.
Also, in those years, the poems of this talented woman were practically not published or reprinted at all.
It would seem that she was forgotten - but not about her loved ones. The arrests of Akhmatova’s relatives and acquaintances followed one after another:
- In 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was captured by the Cheka and executed a few weeks later.
- In 1935, Nikolai Punin was arrested.
- In 1935, Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov, the love child of two great poets, was arrested and some time later sentenced to long imprisonment in one of the Soviet forced labor camps.
Anna Akhmatova cannot be called a bad wife and mother and cannot be accused of inattention to the fate of her arrested relatives. The famous poetess did everything possible to ease the fate of loved ones who fell into the millstones of the Stalinist punitive and repressive mechanism.
Anna Akhmatova owns a cycle of poems that is extremely interesting for historians and literary scholars and has important historical significance. This cycle is called “Glory to the World!”, and in fact it praises Soviet power in all its creative manifestations.
According to some historians and biographers, Anna, an inconsolable mother, wrote this cycle with the sole purpose of showing her love for and loyalty to the Stalinist regime, in order to thereby achieve for her son the leniency of his torturers. Akhmatova and Gumilyov (junior) were once really happy family... Alas, only until the moment when a ruthless fate trampled their fragile family idyll.
During the Great Patriotic War, the famous poetess was evacuated from Leningrad to Tashkent along with others famous people art. In honor of Great Victory she wrote her most wonderful poems (years of writing - approximately 1945-1946).
To this day, the poetess’s grave is a place of constant pilgrimage for young writers and poets, as well as countless admirers of the talent of this amazing woman. Admirers of her poetic gift come from different cities of Russia, as well as CIS countries, near and far abroad.
Contribution to culture
Anna Akhmatova's author includes famous collections of poems, among which are probably the most popular, published during the lifetime of the great Russian poetess. These collections are united by content, as well as by the time of writing. Here are some of these collections (briefly):
- "Favorites".
- "Requiem".
- "The Running of Time".
- "Glory to the World!"
- "White Flock"
All the poems of this wonderful creative person, including those not included in the above collections, have enormous artistic value.
Many of the poems of this great personality in the history of Russian culture, even during her lifetime, were nominated for a wide variety of prestigious literary awards, including the most famous among writers and scientists of all stripes, the Nobel Prize (in in this case- on literature).
In the sad and, in general, tragic fate of the great poetess, there are many funny, interesting moments in their own way. We invite the reader to learn about at least some of them:
- Anna took a pseudonym because her father, a nobleman and scientist, having learned about the literary experiences of his young daughter, asked her not to disgrace his family name.
- The surname “Akhmatova” was borne by a distant relative of the poetess, but Anna created a whole poetic legend around this surname. The girl wrote that she was descended from the khan of the Golden Horde, Akhmat. Mysterious interesting origin seemed to her an indispensable attribute of a great man and guaranteed success with the public.
- As a child, the poetess preferred playing with boys to ordinary girl activities, which made her parents blush.
- Her mentors at the gymnasium were future outstanding scientists and philosophers.
- Anna was among the first young girls to enroll in the Higher Women's Courses at a time when this was not encouraged, since society saw women only as mothers and homemakers.
- In 1956, the poetess was awarded the Certificate of Honor of Armenia.
- Anna is buried under an unusual tombstone. The tombstone for his mother - a small copy of the prison wall, near which Anna spent many hours and cried many tears, and also repeatedly described it in poems and poems - Lev Gumilev designed himself and built with the help of his students (he taught at the university).
Unfortunately, some are funny and Interesting Facts from the life of the great poetess, as well as her short biography, undeservedly forgotten by descendants.
The name of Anna Akhmatova deservedly ranks with the outstanding classics of Russian poetry - Derzhavin, Lermontov, Pushkin...
We can only hope that this woman with a difficult fate will be remembered for centuries, and even our descendants will be able to enjoy her truly extraordinary, melodic and sweet-sounding poems. Author: Irina Shumilova
A short biography and exciting facts from the life of Anna Akhmatova: connection with the great poet Nikolai Gumilyov, unshakable spirit and gothic beauty.
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova: short biography
Anna Akhmatova– Russian poetess, critic, literary critic – born June 11(June 23 according to the old calendar) 1889 near Odessa, in the Russian Empire (now the territory of Ukraine). Akhmatova is a pseudonym. Real name poetess Gorenko, but considering her simple-minded, borrowed my great-grandmother's surname Tatar origin. Father, Andrei Gorenko, was a marine mechanical engineer. Mother - Inna Stogovaya.
Anna Akhmatova spent her childhood in Tsarskoye Selo, near St. Petersburg., where she received her first education and discovered a passion for poetry. In 1907 she graduated from the Fundukleevskaya gymnasium in Kyiv. Then she entered higher historical and literary courses in St. Petersburg, where she remained to live.
The beginning of a creative journey and tragic love
The young poetess published her first poem in 1911. Having received positive reviews, she continued to write, and a year later it was published. first collection of poems Anna Akhmatova called "Evening". It was followed by "Rosary Beads", which brought popularity. In 1915, the “White Flock” appeared and covered the territory of the Russian Empire in double circulation and European countries. From 1910 to 1912 she traveled through Italy, Germany and France, but was unable to erase rigid patriotism from her Russian soul.
In 1910, she joined a group of Acmeists, among whom was Nikolai Gumilyov, a famous revolutionary poet, with whom she married in the same year, and two years later gave birth to a son, Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov, a famous conscientious writer, ethnologist and archaeologist. In 1918, she divorced Nikolai Gumilev. in 1921 the famous poet was shot. In 1922, a relationship began with art critic Nikolai Punin. . In 1924, by decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the publication of poetry was prohibited. Anna Akhmatova, and then her son and second husband were arrested.
Akhmatova - muse, Akhmatova - sorrow
The voice of Anna Akhmatova is the cry of the pre-revolutionary generation. An alarming atmosphere can be read in every verse. The poetess mentioned that her spirit is forever connected with Russia, at least with the tsarist era in which she grew up as a person and personality. Every year, Akhmatova’s poems became more complex, tragic, and therefore beautiful.
In 1910, Anna Akhmatova, while traveling, meet the famous Parisian artist A. Modigliani, who created several portraits of the poetess. Intensive creative work took place in Leningrad (formerly St. Petersburg). In 1941, in Moscow, he met Marina Tsvetaeva. And although two beautiful poetesses are often put on a par, this was the only meeting. During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), she refused to leave and spent 4 years in the siege of Leningrad, without getting tired of writing about love for the homeland. In 1964, she was awarded the international Etna Taormina Prize, and her work was noted by Oxford University, which awarded Anna Akhmatova the degree of Doctor of Literature.
The latest collections of poetry and works are being born - the sound of a strong female voice - “Poem without a Hero”, “Plantain”, “Requiem”, “From Six Books”, “The Running of Time”. Anna Akhmatova also created a series of sketches about Pushkin, whom the poetess admired since the times of Tsarskoye Selo, as well as translations of ancient Korean poetry and the Serbian era.
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