Features of Akhmatova’s creativity briefly point by point. Features of Anna Akhmatova's creativity. The theme of people's suffering and sorrow in the poem "Requiem"

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 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 between the “king” and an ordinary woman, and now – between the royal daughter and 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 topic plot-wise and chronologically.

But the above is true only for anthropomorphic images. Within 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 four years in the text 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...<...>Like a gray squirrel I’ll jump onto the alder tree.../ 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 is subject to 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 intratextual 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 “gray-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 significant:

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.

1.2 Features of A. Akhmatova’s creativity

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.

Akhmatova's poetry is the poetry of strength, her 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.”

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

2. FEATURES OF ANNA AKHMATOVA’S POETIC WORD

2.1 Akhmatova’s love lyrics

Having already parted with Akhmatova, N. Gumilev wrote in November 1918: “Akhmatova captured almost the entire sphere of women’s experiences, and every modern poetess, in order to find herself, must go through her work.” Akhmatova perceives the world through the prism of love, and love in her poetry appears in many shades of feelings and moods. The definition of Akhmatova’s lyrics as an encyclopedia of love, “the fifth season of the year,” has become textbook.

Contemporaries, readers of the poetess's first collections of poetry, often (and wrongfully) identified Akhmatova the person with the lyrical heroine of her poems. Akhmatova’s lyrical heroine appears either as a rope dancer, or as a peasant woman, or as an unfaithful wife asserting her right to love, or as a hawkmoth and a harlot... According to the memoirs of I. Odoevtseva, Gumilyov more than once expressed his resentment that because of his wife’s early poems (for example, because of the poem “My husband whipped me with a patterned ...”) he got the reputation of almost a sadist and despot:

My husband whipped me with a patterned one,

Double folded belt.

For you in the casement window

I sit with the fire all night...

It's dawning. And above the forge

Smoke rises.

Oh, you couldn’t stay with me, the sad prisoner again...

How can I hide you, loud moans!

There is a dark, stuffy hop in the heart,

And the rays fall thin

On an unrumpled bed.

Akhmatova’s lyrical heroine is most often the heroine of unfulfilled, hopeless love. Love in Akhmatova’s lyrics appears as a “fatal duel”; it is almost never depicted as serene, idyllic, but, on the contrary, in dramatic moments: in moments of rupture, separation, loss of feeling and the first stormy blindness of passion. Usually her poems are the beginning of a drama or its culmination, which gave M. Tsvetaeva the basis to call Akhmatova’s muse the “Muse of Lamentation.” One of the frequently occurring motifs in Akhmatova’s poetry is the motif of death: funeral, grave, death of the gray-eyed king, dying of nature, etc. For example, in the poem “Song of the Last Meeting”:

And I knew - there are only three of them!

Autumn whispers between the maples

He asked: “Die with me!”

Confidence, intimacy, intimacy are the undoubted qualities of Akhmatova’s poetry. However, over time, Akhmatova’s love lyrics ceased to be perceived as chamber music and began to be perceived as universal, because the manifestations of love feelings were studied deeply and comprehensively by the poetess.

Nowadays, N. Korzhavin rightly asserts: “Today there are more and more people who recognize Akhmatova as a folk, philosophical and even civil poet... After all, in fact, she was an extraordinary figure... Still, women were not met at every step so educated, bright, intelligent and original, and even writing unprecedented women’s poems, that is, poems not generally about the “thirst for the ideal” or about the fact that “he never understood all the beauty of my soul,” but really expressing, and graceful and easy, feminine essence.”

This “feminine essence” and at the same time the significance of the human personality is presented with great artistic expressiveness in the poem “Don’t you love, don’t you want to look?” from the triptych “Confusion”:

Don't like it, don't want to watch?

Oh, how beautiful you are, damn you!

And I can't fly

And since childhood I was winged.

My eyes are filled with fog,

Things and faces merge,

And only a red tulip,

The tulip is in your buttonhole.

Careful reading of the poem, setting the logical emphasis, choosing the intonation of the upcoming reading aloud is the first and very important step towards understanding the content of the work. This poem cannot be read as a complaint from a woman who has fallen out of love - it feels hidden strength, energy, will, and it must be read with hidden, restrained drama. I. Severyanin was wrong when he called Akhmatova’s heroines “unfortunate”; in fact, they are proud, “winged”, like Akhmatova herself - proud and capricious (let’s look, for example, at the memoirs of memoirists about the founders of Acmeism, who claimed that N. Gumilyov was despotic , O. Mandelstam is hot-tempered, and A. Akhmatova is capricious).

Already the first line “You don’t like, don’t want to watch?”, consisting of only verbs with a negative particle “not”, is full of strength and expression. Here the action expressed by the verb opens the line (and the poem as a whole) and ends it, doubling its energy. The repetition of “not” twice: “you don’t love, you don’t want” strengthens negation, and thereby contributes to the creation of an increased expressive background. In the first line of the poem, the heroine’s demands and indignation break through. This is not the usual female complaint, lamentation, but amazement: how can this happen to me? And we perceive this surprise as legitimate, because such sincerity and such strength of “confusion” cannot be trusted.

Second line: “Oh, how beautiful you are, damned!” - speaks of the confusion, confusion of a rejected woman, of her subordination to a man; she is aware of her helplessness, impotence, exhaustion.

And then follow two lines, absolutely remarkable in this lyrical masterpiece: “And I cannot fly, // But since childhood I have been winged.” Only a “winged”, freely floating, proud woman can experience “confusion” of such force. She had not felt her wings, that is, freedom and lightness (remember the story “Easy Breathing” by I. Bunin), she felt them only now - she felt their heaviness, helplessness, impossibility (short-term!) to serve her.

This is the only way to feel them... The word “winged” is in a strong position (at the end of the line), and the stress in it is the vowel sound [a], about which M.V. Lomonosov said that it could contribute to "the image of splendor, great space, depth and magnitude, as well as fear." The feminine rhyme (that is, the stress on the second syllable from the end of the line) in the line “And since childhood I was winged” does not create a feeling of sharpness, isolation, but, on the contrary, creates a feeling of flight and openness of the heroine’s space. It is no coincidence that “wingedness” becomes representative of Akhmatova (Akhmatova!), and it is no coincidence that Akhmatova argued that a poet who cannot choose a pseudonym for himself has no right to be called a poet.

2.2 “Things and persons” in Akhmatova’s poetry

Psychologism is a distinctive feature of Akhmatova’s poetry. O. Mandelstam argued that “Akhmatova brought into Russian lyric poetry all the enormous complexity and psychological richness of the Russian novel of the nineteenth century... She developed her poetic form, sharp and original, with an eye on psychological prose” (“Letters on Russian Poetry”).

But psychology and feelings in the poetess’s poems are conveyed not through direct descriptions, but through a specific, psychologized detail. In Akhmatova’s poetic world, artistic detail, material details, and household items are very significant. M. Kuzmin, in the preface to “Evening,” noted “Akhmatova’s ability to understand and love things precisely in their incomprehensible connection with the moments they experience.”

N. Gumilyov in 1914 in his “Letter on Russian Poetry” noted: “I turn to the most significant thing in Akhmatova’s poetry, to her style: she almost never explains, she shows.” By showing, rather than explaining, using the technique of telling details, Akhmatova achieves authenticity of description and the highest psychological persuasiveness. These can be details of clothing (fur, glove, ring, hat, etc.), household items, seasons, natural phenomena, flowers, etc., as, for example, in the famous poem “Song of the Last Meeting”:

My chest was so helplessly cold,

But my steps were light.

I put it on my right hand

Glove from the left hand.

It seemed like there were a lot of steps,

And I knew - there are only three of them!

Autumn whispers between the maples

He asked: “Die with me!”

I'm deceived by my sadness,

Changeable, evil fate."

I replied: “Darling, darling!

Me too. I will die with you..."

This is the song of the last meeting.

I looked at the dark house.

Only candles were burning in the bedroom

Indifferent yellow fire.

Putting on a glove is a gesture that has become automatic; it is done without thinking. And the “confusion” here testifies to the state of the heroine, to the depth of the shock she experiences.

Akhmatova's lyrical poems are characterized by narrative composition. Poems outwardly almost always represent a simple narrative - a poetic story about a specific love date with the inclusion of everyday details:

The last time we met was then

On the embankment, where we always met.

There was high water in the Neva,

And they were afraid of floods in the city.

He talked about summer and how

That being a poet for a woman is absurd.

How I remember the tall royal house

And the Peter and Paul Fortress! –

Because the air was not ours at all,

And as a gift from God, it is so wonderful.

And at that hour it was given to me

The last of all the crazy songs.

B. Eikhenbaum wrote in 1923: “Akhmatova’s poetry is a complex lyrical novel.” Akhmatova’s poems do not exist separately, not as independent lyrical plays, but as mosaic particles that interlock and form something similar to a large novel. Climax moments are selected for the story: a meeting (often the last one), and even more often, farewell, parting. Many of Akhmatova’s poems can be called short stories or short stories.

Akhmatova's lyrical poems, as a rule, are small in volume: she loves small lyrical forms, usually from two to four quatrains. She is characterized by laconicism and energy of expression, epigrammatic conciseness: “Laconism and energy of expression are the main features of Akhmatova’s poetry... This manner... is motivated... by the intensity of emotion,” - B. Eikhenbaum. Akhmatova’s poetry is characterized by aphorism and refined formulations (for example: “The beloved always has so many requests! A woman who has fallen out of love has no tears”), and is characterized by Pushkin’s clarity, especially in her later poetry. In Akhmatova’s poems we do not find prefaces; she immediately begins the narrative, as if snatched from life. Its plot principle is “it doesn’t matter where to start.”

Akhmatova’s poetry is characterized by internal tension, but outwardly it is restrained and strict. Akhmatova's poems leave an impression of spiritual rigor. Akhmatova sparingly uses means of artistic expression. In her poetry, for example, a restrained, matte coloring prevails. She introduces gray and pale yellow tones into her palette, uses white, often contrasting with black (a graying cloud, a white curtain on a white window, a white bird, fog, frost, the pale face of the sun and pale candles, darkness, etc. ).

The dull-pale coloring of Akhmatova’s objective world corresponds to the described time of day (evening, early morning, twilight), seasons (autumn, winter, early spring), and frequent mentions of wind, cold, and chills. The matte coloring sets off the tragic character and tragic situations in which the lyrical heroine finds herself.

The landscape is also unique: a hallmark of Akhmatova’s poems is the urban landscape. Usually, all love dramas in Akhmatova’s poems are played out against the backdrop of a specific, detailed urban landscape. Most often this is St. Petersburg, with which the personal and creative destiny of the poetess is connected.

He walks “merrily,” “laughing” at adversity, resting “in a joyful garden.” The poem talks about the discovery of new poetic continents, about courage in mastering new themes, forms, and aesthetic principles. For Gumilyov during this period, the only reality is the world of dreams. And with it he colors his early romantic poem, full of gothic. The collection was noticed by the most prominent symbolist poet...

... "Fifth Rose". Based on the author's logic of plot development, we can assume that the image of Rose is most fully revealed in this work. He will be considered as the Last (very last) Rose of Anna Akhmatova. Fifth rose Dm. B-wu 1 You were called Soleil or Tea and what else could you be, But you became so extraordinary that I can’t forget you. 2 You shone with a ghostly light...

Anna Akhmatova's life is no less interesting and eventful than her work. The woman survived the revolution, civil war, political persecution and repression. She stood at the origins of modernism in Russia, becoming a representative of the innovative movement “Acmeism”. That is why the story of this poetess is so important for understanding her poems.

The future poetess was born in Odessa in 1889. Anna Andreevna's real surname is Gorenko, and later, after her first marriage, she changed it. Anna Akhmatova's mother, Inna Stogova, was a hereditary noblewoman and had a large fortune. It was from her mother that Anna inherited her willful and strong character. Akhmatova received her first education at the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium in Tsarskoe Selo. Then the future poetess studied at the Kyiv gymnasium and graduated from the Kyiv Higher Education Courses.

Akhmatova's parents were intelligent people, but not without prejudices. It is known that the poetess’s father forbade her to sign poems with her last name. He believed that her hobby would bring shame on their family. The gap between generations was very noticeable, because new trends came to Russia from abroad, where the era of reformation began in art, culture, and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, Anna believed that writing poetry was normal, and Akhmatova’s family categorically did not accept their daughter’s occupation.

Success story

Anna Akhmatova lived a long and difficult life and went through a thorny creative path. Many close and dear people around her became victims of the Soviet regime, and because of this, of course, the poetess herself suffered. At various times, her works were banned from publication, which could not but affect the author’s condition. The years of her creativity occurred during a period when poets were divided into several movements. The direction “Acmeism” () suited her. The uniqueness of this movement lay in the fact that Akhmatova’s poetic world was structured simply and clearly, without abstract and abstract images and symbols inherent in symbolism. She did not saturate her poems with philosophy and mysticism; there was no place for pomp and arrogance in them. Thanks to this, she was understood and loved by readers who were tired of puzzling over the content of the poems. She wrote about feelings, events and people in a feminine way, softly and emotionally, openly and weightily.

Akhmatova’s fate led her to the Acmeist circle, where she met her first husband, N.S. Gumilyov. He was the founder of a new movement, a noble and authoritative man. His work inspired the poetess to create Acmeism in the female dialect. It was within the framework of the St. Petersburg circle “Sluchevsky’s Evening” that her debuts took place, and the public, who reacted coolly to Gumilev’s work, enthusiastically received his lady love. She was “spontaneously talented,” as critics of those years wrote.

Anna Andreevna was a member of the “Workshop of Poets,” the poetry workshop of N. S. Gumilyov. There she met the most famous representatives of the literary elite and became a member of it.

Creation

In the work of Anna Akhmatova, two periods can be distinguished, the border between which was the Great Patriotic War. Thus, in the love poem “Unprecedented Autumn” (1913), she writes about the peace and tenderness of meeting a loved one. This work reflects a milestone of calm and wisdom in Akhmatova’s poetry. In 1935-1940 she worked on a poem consisting of 14 poems - “Requiem”. This cycle became a kind of reaction of the poetess to family upheavals - the departure of her husband and beloved son from home. Already in the second half of his creative work, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, such strong civil poems as “Courage” and “Oath” were written. The peculiarities of Akhmatova’s lyricism lie in the fact that the poetess tells a story in her poems; in them one can always notice a certain narrative.

The themes and motives of Akhmatova's lyrics also vary. Starting his creative path, the author talks about love, the theme of the poet and poetry, recognition in society, interpersonal relationships between the sexes and generations. She subtly feels the nature and world of things; in her descriptions, each object or phenomenon acquires individual characteristics. Later, Anna Andreevna faces unprecedented difficulties: the revolution sweeps away everything in its path. New images appear in her poems: time, revolution, new power, war. She breaks up with her husband, he was later sentenced to death, and their common son spends his entire life wandering around prisons because of his origin. Then the author begins to write about maternal and female grief. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, Akhmatova’s poetry acquired civic spirit and patriotic intensity.

The lyrical heroine herself does not change over the years. Of course, grief and loss left scars on her soul; over time, the woman writes even more piercingly and harshly. First feelings and impressions give way to mature thoughts about the fate of the fatherland in difficult times.

First poems

Like many great poets, Anna Akhmatova wrote her first poem at the age of 11. Over time, the poetess developed her own unique poetic style. One of Akhmatova’s most famous details, appearing in the poem “Song of the Last Meeting,” is the right and left hand and a tangled glove. Akhmatova wrote this poem in 1911, at the age of 22. In this poem, the work of detail is clearly visible.

Akhmatova's early lyrics are part of the golden fund of Russian classics dedicated to the relationship between men and women. It is especially valuable that the reader finally saw a woman’s view of love; until the end of the 19th century there were no poets in Russia. For the first time, conflicts between a woman's vocation and her social role in family and marriage are raised.

Collections of poems and cycles

In 1912, Akhmatova’s first collection of poems, “Evening,” was published. Almost all the poems included in this collection were written by the author at the age of twenty. Then the books “Rosary”, “White Flock”, “Plantain”, “ANNO DOMINI” are published, each of which has a certain general focus, main theme and compositional connection. After the events of 1917, she can no longer publish her works so freely; the revolution and civil war lead to the formation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, where the hereditary noblewoman is attacked by critics and completely forgotten in the press. The last books, The Reed and The Seventh Book, were not printed separately.

Akhmatova's books were not published until perestroika. This was largely due to the poem "Requiem", which was leaked to foreign media and published abroad. The poetess was hanging by a thread from arrest, and she was saved only by admitting that she knew nothing about the publication of the work. Of course, her poems could not be published for a long time after this scandal.

Personal life

Family

Anna Akhmatova was married three times. Married to Nikolai Gumilyov, her first husband, she gave birth to her only child, Leo. Together the couple made two trips to Paris and also traveled around Italy. The relationship with her first husband was not easy, and the couple decided to separate. However, despite this, after the separation, when N. Gumilev went to war, Akhmatova dedicated several lines to him in her poems. A spiritual connection continued to exist between them.

Akhmatova's son was often separated from his mother. As a child, he lived with his paternal grandmother, saw his mother very rarely, and in the conflict between his parents, he firmly took the position of his father. He did not respect his mother, he spoke to her abruptly and harshly. As an adult, because of his background, he was considered an unreliable citizen in his new country. He received prison sentences 4 times and always undeservedly. Therefore, his relationship with his mother could not be called close. In addition, she remarried, and her son took this change hard.

Other novels

Akhmatova was also married to Vladimir Shileiko and Nikolai Punin. Anna Akhmatova remained married to V. Shileiko for 5 years, but they continued to communicate by letters until Vladimir’s death.

The third husband, Nikolai Punin, was a representative of the reactionary intelligentsia, in connection with which he was arrested several times. Thanks to Akhmatova's efforts, Punin was released after his second arrest. A few years later, Nikolai and Anna separated.

Characteristics of Akhmatova

Even during her lifetime, Akhmatova was called the “Lady's decadent poetess.” That is, her lyrics were characterized by extreme individualism. Speaking about personal qualities, it is worth saying that Anna Andreevna had a caustic, unfeminine humor. For example, when meeting with Tsvetaeva, a fan of her work, she spoke very coldly and bitterly with the impressionable Marina Ivanovna, which greatly offended her interlocutor. Anna Andreevna also had difficulty finding mutual understanding with men, and her relationship with her son did not work out. The woman was also very suspicious, she saw a dirty trick everywhere. It seemed to her that her daughter-in-law was an agent sent by the authorities who was called upon to keep an eye on her.

Despite the fact that the years of Akhmatova’s life occurred during such terrible events as the Revolution of 1917, the First and Second World Wars, she did not leave her homeland. Only during the Great Patriotic War was the poetess evacuated to Tashkent. Akhmatova had a negative and angry attitude towards emigration. She clearly demonstrated her civic position, declaring that she would never live or work abroad. The poetess believed that her place was where her people were. She expressed her love for her homeland in poems that were included in the collection “The White Flock”. Thus, Akhmatova’s personality was multifaceted and rich in both good and dubious qualities.

Anna Andreevna did not sign her poems with her maiden name Gorenko, since her father forbade her. He was afraid that his daughter’s freedom-loving writings would bring the wrath of the authorities upon the family. That's why she took her great-grandmother's surname.
It is also interesting that Akhmatova professionally studied the works of Shakespeare and Dante and always admired their talents, translating foreign literature. It was they who became her only income in the USSR.
In 1946, party leader Zhdanov sharply criticized Akhmatova’s work at a writers’ congress. The features of the author’s lyrics were described as “the poetry of an enraged lady rushing between the boudoir and the prayer room.”
Mother and son did not understand each other. Anna Andreevna herself repented that she was a “bad mother.” Her only son spent his entire childhood with his grandmother, and saw his mother only occasionally, because she did not spoil him with her attention. She did not want to be distracted from creativity and hated everyday life. The interesting life in the capital completely captured her.
It must be remembered that N.S. Gumilyov starved the lady of his heart, because due to her numerous refusals, he attempted suicide and actually forced her to agree to go down the aisle with him. But after marriage, it turned out that the spouses were not suitable for each other. Both husband and wife began to cheat, be jealous and quarrel, forgetting about all their vows. Their relationship was full of mutual reproaches and resentments.
Akhmatova’s son hated the work “Requiem”, because he believed that he, who survived all the trials, should not receive funeral lines addressed to him from his mother.
Akhmatova died alone; five years before her death, she broke all ties with her son and his family.

Life in the USSR

In 1946, the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) issued a decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”. This resolution was primarily directed against Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova. She could no longer publish, and it was also dangerous to communicate with her. Even his own son blamed the poetess for his arrests.

Akhmatova earned money from translations and odd jobs in magazines. In the USSR, her work was recognized as “far from the people” and, therefore, unnecessary. But new talents gathered around her literary figure, the doors of her house were open to them. For example, it is known about her close friendship with I. Brodsky, who recalled their communication in exile with warmth and gratitude.

Death

Anna Akhmatova died in 1966 in a sanatorium near Moscow. The cause of death of the poetess was serious heart problems. She lived a long life, in which, however, there was no room for a strong family. She left this world alone, and after her death, the inheritance left to her son was sold in favor of the state. He, an exile, was not entitled to anything according to Soviet laws.

From her notes it became clear that during her life she was a deeply unhappy, persecuted person. To make sure that no one read her manuscripts, she left a hair in them, which she always found displaced. The repressive regime was slowly and surely driving her crazy.

Places of Anna Akhmatova

Akhmatova was buried near St. Petersburg. Then, in 1966, the Soviet authorities were afraid of the growth of the dissident movement, and the body of the poetess was quickly transported from Moscow to Leningrad. At the grave of L.N.’s mother Gumilyov erected a stone wall, which became a symbol of the inextricable connection between son and mother, especially during the period that L. Gumilyov was in prison. Despite the fact that a wall of misunderstanding separated them all their lives, the son repented of having contributed to its erection and buried her with his mother.

Museums of A. A. Akhmatova:

Saint Petersburg. Anna Akhmatova's memorial apartment is located in the Fountain House, in the apartment of her third husband, Nikolai Punin, where she lived for almost 30 years.
Moscow. In the house of antique books “In Nikitsky,” where the poetess often stayed when coming to Moscow, a museum dedicated to Anna Akhmatova was recently opened. It was here that she, for example, wrote “Poem without a Hero.”

Interesting? Save it on your wall!

“All my life I did everything that was fashionable with myself,” said Akhmatova. In the 1900s, fancy-shaped hats came into fashion, which sometimes resembled dishes from the royal table. They were decorated with artificial flowers, ostrich feathers and even stuffed birds: hawks, partridges, colorful pheasants and decadent ravens. A dark element on the hat of young Anna Gorenko, dressed in a simple blouse in the style of “reforms” Reform- a style in women's clothing that appeared at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The rigid corset was replaced by antique-style belts that supported the chest, and clothing no longer hampered movement: the reformed dress fell freely to the feet, and a simple spacious blouse allowed free movement of the arms. By the mid-1900s, the fashion, which had already taken root in England and Germany, reached Russia. The magazine “Fashionable Courier” (No. 2, 1908) wrote: “Clothing should be so spacious that it does not restrict breathing, so that the arms can be raised up. Corsets and tight belts should be completely banned from use. For summer, canvas is the best material. In winter you should wear wool.”, resembles this fashionable extravagant decoration.

Thayer suit

A tayer suit, or tailor suit (from the French costume tailleur), is an urban suit consisting of a woolen skirt and jacket. Thayer became popular in the early 20th century as business attire for women. This is what Akhmatova is wearing in the photo with her family, and her tayer stands out for the more sophisticated cut of the light-colored jacket. Akhmatova generally loved to be different in clothes - not just to follow fashion, but to wear what suited her. Thus, Akhmatova’s classmate at the gymnasium, Vera Beer, recalled in the late 1900s:

“Even in small things, Gorenko was different from us. All of us, high school students, wore the same uniform - a brown dress and a black apron of a certain style. All of them have the designation of class and department embroidered on the left side of the wide breast of their apron in standard size red crosses. But Gorenko’s material is somehow special, soft, pleasant chocolate color. And the dress fits her like a glove, and she never has patches on her elbows. And the ugliness of the uniform “pie” hat is not noticeable on her.”

Parisian dress

Anna Akhmatova (right) with Olga Kuzmina-Karavaeva in Italy. 1912 RGALI

Elegant Parisian dress. Illustration from the magazine “Fashionable Light”. 1912

Akhmatova recalled:

“In 1911, I came to Slepnevo directly from Paris, and the hunchbacked servant in the ladies’ room at the station in Bezhetsk, who had known everyone in Slepnevo for centuries, refused to recognize me as a lady and said to someone: “A guardian has come to the Slepnevo gentlemen.”

It was not difficult to mistake the poetess for a “guardian” dressed in European fashion: this is confirmed by surviving photographs. Akhmatova’s elegant Parisian dress in a photograph from 1912 “is the latest innovation in fashion,” as reported by the main Russian fashion publication of those years, the magazine “Fashionable Light” (No. 1, 1912):

“The dress in Fig. 6 is especially recommended for slender people, for whom a wide round collar will give advantageous width. The dress is made from light silk fabrics - crepe de chine, sisilien, poplin, etc. The kimono blouse is cut very wide and gathers in a circle at the top at the collar in the same way as at the waist. The round collar, also gathered at the top, is made of chiffon.<…>The sleeve is the most fashionable - the width is gathered at the bottom, cuffs are sewn on and end with a flounce.”

"Limping" skirt

The famous lines “I put on a tight skirt / To appear even slimmer” have a biographical basis. Vera Nevedomskaya, the Gumilevs’ neighbor on the estate, recalled: “He either wears a dark cotton dress like a sundress or extravagant Parisian toilets (then they wore narrow skirts with a slit).” These “limping” skirts by Paul Poiret, in which you could only move in small steps, were at the height of fashion in the early 1910s:

“A brilliant success befell the narrow skirt, which, despite the protest of the Puritans, won general sympathy. And we must confess that we personally also find some special charm in these narrow fashionable skirts; Of course, we exclude the ugly exaggerations in which the skirt measured only 1.5 arshins at the hem, and the unfortunate fashionistas could not get into the carriage without outside help.”

"Fashionable Light", No. 1, 1912

Toque and cloche

Current. Illustration from the magazine “Fashionable Light”. 1912

Cloche. Illustration from Women's Magazine. 1928

The extravagant designs of feathers and flowers of the first decade of the 20th century were replaced by simple felt hats: the tok - a round hat without a brim, and the cloche - a bell hat with small, down-turned brims. Akhmatova was a big fan of such styles and spoke of the 1910s: “That was when I ordered hats for myself,” designating one of her favorite accessories as a symbol of the era.

Floral print

Fashionable dresses. Illustration from Women's Magazine. 1925

After the revolution, Parisian toilets disappeared from Soviet streets. In 1920, Akhmatova wondered: “What if in Europe during this time, skirts are long or flounces are worn. We stopped in 1916 - on the fashion of 1916.” And although the poetess wrote that during these years she walked “in some of her rags,” in photographs she appears in a flowered dress of a fashionable style and modern, laconic shoes. Akhmatova knew how and wanted to be different, as she herself said, “beauty or ugly,” she was seen “in old thin shoes and a worn dress, and in a luxurious outfit, with a precious shawl on her shoulders” (according to the memoirs of N. G. Chulkova) .

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) worked for Russian literature for almost six decades. During all this time, her creative style was reborn and evolved, without changing the aesthetic principles that Akhmatova formed at the beginning of her creative career.

Akhmatova entered the literature of the “Silver Age” as a participant in the Acmeist movement. Critics immediately paid attention to the first two collections of poems by the young poetess - “Evening” (1912) and “Rosary” (1914). Already here, Akhmatova’s formed voice was heard, the features that distinguish her poems were visible: depth of emotions, psychologism, emphasized restraint, clarity of images.

Akhmatova's early lyrics are painted in sad, lyrical tones. The main theme of the poems is love, often mixed with suffering and sadness. The poetess conveys the whole world of feelings with the help of small but significant details, fleeting sketches that can convey the versatility of the lyrical hero’s experiences.

Anna Akhmatova can hardly be called an Acmeist “to the core.” Her work organically intertwined modernist views with the best poetic traditions of Russian literature. Akhmatova’s lyrics did not glorify “Adamism,” the unbridled natural principle of man. Her poems were more psychological, focused on man and his inner world, than the poetry of other Acmeists.

The fate of Anna Akhmatova was very difficult. In the post-October years, new books of her poems “Plantain” (1921) and “Anno Domini” (1922) were published, in which she expanded the themes of her poetry, without succumbing, unlike many other writers of that chaotic time, to the hypnosis of the cult of power. As a result, the poetess is rejected from society several times during her life and is prohibited from publishing.

However, even having the opportunity to travel outside of Soviet Russia, Anna Akhmatova does not do this, but remains in her homeland, supporting her during the most difficult war years with her creativity, and during the forced silence she is engaged in translations and studying the work of A. Pushkin.

Akhmatova's poems during the war period are special. They are not full of slogans and praises of heroism, like the poems of other poets. Akhmatova writes on behalf of women living in the rear, who suffer, wait, mourn. Among Anna Akhmatova’s anti-totalitarian works, a special place is occupied by the poem “Requiem”, in the center of which is pain, maternal fear for her son, inconsolable crying for the innocent who died in the “paws Yezhovshchina.” Among the poetic elite of the “Silver Age,” Anna Akhmatova won enormous respect and popularity thanks to her talent, spiritual sophistication, and integrity of character. It’s not for nothing that literary scholars still call Akhmatova “the soul of the Silver Age,” “the Queen of the Neva.”