28 April 2015, 14:36

Childhood

♦ Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (real name Gorenko) was born into the family of a marine engineer, retired captain of the 2nd rank at the station. Big Fountain near Odessa. The mother, Inna Erasmovna, devoted herself to the children, of whom there were six in the family: Andrei, Inna, Anna, Iya, Irina (Rika) and Victor. Rika died of tuberculosis when Anya was five years old. Rika lived with her aunt, and her death was kept secret from the other children. Nevertheless, Anya felt what had happened - and as she later said, this death cast a shadow throughout her entire childhood.

♦ Akhmatova considered the poets I. Annensky and A. S. Pushkin to be her teachers. Since childhood, Anna strove to be faithful to the high Pushkin tradition. She saw a mystical meaning in one of her childhood finds: while walking with her nanny along the alley of fragrant Tsarskoe Selo, surrounded by greenery, she saw a pin in the shape of a lyre in the grass. Little Anya was sure: this pin was dropped by Alexander Sergeevich, who wandered along these alleys about a century ago. Pushkin and Akhmatova are a separate topic. One day, around 1940, Pushkin dreamed about her friend Faina Ranevskaya. Ranevskaya called Akhmatova. Anna, turning pale with excitement, exhaled briefly. : “I’m going immediately,” and added with envy: “How happy you are!” I never dreamed of Him.” Akhmatova did not hide the fact that she could not stand Natalya Goncharova; it looked like she was jealous. When talking about Pushkin, Anna Andreevna became airy, unearthly. Her friends and admirers, with whom this lonely woman was always surrounded, got the impression that she loved only Alexander Sergeevich and no one else.

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

♦ Anna began to speak French quite early - she learned it by watching her older children’s classes. At the age of ten she entered the gymnasium in Tsarskoe Selo.

♦ A few months later, the girl became seriously ill: she lay unconscious for a week; They thought she wouldn't survive. When she came to, she remained deaf for some time. One of the doctors later suggested that it was smallpox - which, however, left no visible traces. The mark remained in her soul: it was from then on that Anna began writing poetry.

Gumilev

♦ On Christmas Eve 1903, Anna met Nikolai Gumilyov. Then 14-year-old Anya Gorenko was a slender girl with huge gray eyes that stood out sharply against the background of a pale face and straight black hair. Seeing her chiseled profile, the ugly 17-year-old boy realized that from now on and forever this girl would become his muse, his Beautiful Lady, for whose sake he would live, write poetry and perform feats.

♦ She struck him not only with her extraordinary appearance - Anna was beautiful with a very unusual, mysterious, bewitching beauty that immediately attracted attention: tall, slender, with long thick black hair, beautiful white hands, with radiant gray eyes on an almost white face, her profile resembled antique cameos. Anna stunned him and was completely different from everything that surrounded them in Tsarskoe Selo.

The mermaid has sad eyes.
I love her, the maiden undine,
Illuminated by the secret of the night,
I love her glow look
And burning rubies...
Because I myself am from the abyss,
From the bottomless depths of the sea.
(N. Gumilyov “Mermaid”)

♦ At that time, the ardent young man tried his best to imitate his idol Oscar Wilde. He wore a top hat, curled his hair, and even wore a little lipstick. However, in order to complete the image of a tragic, mysterious, slightly broken character, Gumilev was missing one detail. All such heroes were certainly consumed by fatal passion, tormented by unrequited or forbidden love - in general, they were extremely unhappy in their personal lives. Anya Gorenko was ideal for the role of a beautiful but cruel lover. Her unusual appearance attracted fans, and it soon became clear that Anna did not have any reciprocal feelings for Nikolai.

♦ The cold reception did not in the least diminish the ardor of the poet in love - here it is, that same fatal and unrequited love that will bring him the desired suffering! And Nikolai eagerly rushed to win the heart of his Beautiful Lady. However, Anna was in love with someone else. Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a tutor from St. Petersburg, was the main character in her girlish dreams.

♦ In 1906, Gumilev left for Paris. There he hopes to forget his fatal love and return as a disappointed tragic character. But then Anya Gorenko suddenly realizes that she lacks the blind adoration of the young poet (Akhmatova’s parents found out about their daughter’s love for a St. Petersburg tutor and separated Anya and Volodya out of harm’s way). Nikolai's courtship flattered Akhmatova's pride so much that she was even going to marry him, despite the fact that she was still in love with the St. Petersburg tutor. In addition, Gumilyov’s eternal conversations about fatal love were not in vain - now Akhmatova herself is not averse to playing the role of a tragic figure. Soon she sends Gumilyov a letter complaining about her uselessness and abandonment.

♦ Having received Akhmatova’s letter, Gumilev, full of hope, returns from Paris, visits Anya and makes her another marriage proposal. But the matter was ruined... by dolphins. Then Akhmatova was vacationing in Yevpatoria. While walking along the beach with Gumilyov and listening to declarations of love, Anya came across two dead dolphins washed ashore. It is unknown why this spectacle influenced Akhmatova so much, but Gumilyov received another refusal. Moreover, Akhmatova cynically explained to the loving Nikolai that her heart was forever occupied by Golenishchev-Kutuzov.

Double portrait: Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev. T. M. Skvorikova. 1926

♦ The rejected poet leaves for Paris again, believing that the only acceptable way out of the situation is suicide. The suicide attempt was staged with the theatricality and pomposity characteristic of Gumilyov. The poet goes to the resort town of Tourville to commit suicide. The dirty water of the Seine seemed to Gumilyov an unsuitable haven for the tormented soul of a young man in love, but the sea was just right, especially since Akhmatova had told him more than once that she loved looking at the sea waves. However, the tragedy was destined to turn into a farce. The vacationers mistook Gumilev for a tramp, called the police, and, instead of going on his final journey, Nikolai went to the police station to give an explanation. Gumilev regarded his failure as a sign of fate and decided to try his luck in love again. Nikolai writes a letter to Akhmatova, where he again proposes to her. And again he is refused.

♦ Then Gumilev tries to commit suicide again. This attempt was even more theatrical than the previous one. Gumilyov took poison and went to await death in the Bois de Boulogne. Where he was picked up in an unconscious state by vigilant forest rangers.

♦ At the end of 1908, Gumilyov returned to his homeland. The young poet never gave up his dreams of winning Akhmatova’s heart. And therefore he continues to besiege Anna, swearing eternal love to her and proposing marriage. Either Akhmatova was touched by such almost dog-like devotion, or Gumilev beat her consent with stories about unsuccessful suicide attempts, or the image of the St. Petersburg tutor faded somewhat, but one way or another Anna gave her consent to the marriage. But, agreeing to marry Gumilev, she accepted him not as love - but as her Fate.

“Gumilyov is my destiny, and I humbly surrender to it.
Don't judge me if you can.
I swear to you, everything that is sacred to me, that this
an unhappy person will be happy with me" (A. Akhmatova)

♦ None of the groom’s relatives came to the wedding; the Gumilev family believed that this marriage would not last long.

After the wedding

“Beautifully proportioned women, worth sculpting and painting, always seem clumsy in dresses.”Amedeo Modigliani

♦ After the wedding, the Gumilevs left for Paris. Here Anna meets Amedeo Modigliani- then an unknown artist who makes many of her portraits. Something similar to a romance even begins between them - but as Akhmatova herself recalls, they had too little time for anything serious to happen. “Anna and Amedeo” is not so much a love story as just an episode from the life of two people charred by the breath of art. ♦ Akhmatova later noted: “Probably, we both did not understand one essential thing: everything that happened was for both of us the prehistory of our lives: his - very short, mine - very long. The breath of art had not yet charred or transformed these two existences; it should have been a bright, light pre-dawn hour. But the future, which, as we know, casts its shadow long before entering, knocked on the window, hid behind the lanterns, crossed dreams and frightened us with the terrible Baudelairean Paris that lurked somewhere nearby. And everything divine in Modigliani only sparkled through some kind of darkness. He was completely unlike anyone else in the world. His voice somehow remained forever in my memory. I knew him as a beggar, and it was unclear how he lived. As an artist he did not have even a shadow of recognition.". about Anna and Amadeo was already on Gossip, back in 2009. Therefore, I see no point in covering it again. I will only add portraits of Akhmatova, works by Modigliani (1911)

Anna Akhmatova on the trapeze. 1911

♦ Regarding the portraits, Akhmatova said the following: “He did not draw me from life, but at his home - he gave these drawings to me. There were sixteen of them. He asked me to frame them and hang them in my room. They perished in a Tsarskoye Selo house in the first years of the Revolution. The one who survived was in which his future “nudes” are less foreshadowed than in the others..."

♦ For Nikolai Gumilev, marrying Anna Gorenko was not a victory. As one of Akhmatova’s friends from that period put it, she had her own complex “life of the heart,” in which her husband was given a more than modest place. She didn’t even raise an eyebrow when her loving husband, who had been wooing her for so many years, left for Africa in search of adventure five months after the wedding. She hated exotic things and went into the other room when he started talking about his travels in Abyssinia and hunting tigers. And for Gumilev it turned out to be not at all easy to combine in his mind the image of a Beautiful Lady - an object of worship - with the image of a wife and mother. Therefore, just two years after his marriage, Gumilyov starts a serious affair. Gumilyov had light hobbies before, but in 1912 Gumilyov fell in love for real. Immediately after returning from Africa, Gumilyov visits his mother’s estate, where he encounters his niece, the young beauty Masha Kuzmina-Karavaeva. The feeling flares up quickly, and it does not go unanswered. However, this love also has a touch of tragedy - Masha is mortally ill with tuberculosis, and Gumilyov again enters the image of a hopeless lover. Anna was not surprised by the news of this - it was as if she knew in advance that this would be exactly the case, and had prepared revenge ahead of time. Returning home from Paris, Anna deliberately inserted a bundle of Modigliani’s letters into a volume of poems by Théophile Gautier and slipped the book to her husband. They were even and generously forgave each other.

♦ Akhmatova has a hard time - she has long been accustomed to the fact that she is a goddess for Nikolai, and therefore it is difficult for her to be overthrown from the pedestal and realize that her husband is capable of experiencing the same high feelings for another woman. Mashenka's health quickly deteriorated, and shortly after the start of their affair with Gumilyov, Kuzmina-Karavaeva died. True, her death did not return Akhmatova to her husband’s former adoration. And then, in 1912, Anna Andreevna decided to take a desperate step and gave birth to Gumilyov’s son, Lev. Gumilyov perceived the birth of the child ambiguously. He immediately organizes a “demonstration of independence” and continues to have affairs on the side. He has a choir of lovers from among his students, one even gave birth to a child for him. Continuing to maintain their marriage and friendship, Akhmatova and Gumilyov deal blow after blow to each other. However, Anna has absolutely no time to seriously suffer from her husband’s infidelity. She has long called Nikolai Stepanovich a friend and brother. Subsequently, Akhmatova will say: “Nikolai Stepanovich has always been single. I can’t imagine him being married.”

Sorin S. Akhmatova. 1914

♦ It’s amazing how these two managed to produce a son. The birth of Gumilvenka, as the baby’s friends christened it, did not make a visible impression on the couple. Both of them spent more time writing poems in honor of this event than fussing with the child. But mother-in-law Anna Ivanovna softened towards her daughter-in-law and forgave her everything for her grandson. Little Levushka settles firmly in the arms of a happy grandmother.

♦ In 1914, Gumilev leaves for the front, and Akhmatova begins a whirlwind romance with the poet Boris Anrep. And only Anrep’s emigration to England put an end to their relationship. However, Anrep was not the only one close to Akhmatova.

Anna with her son Leo

♦ In September 1921, schoolchildren decided not to give textbooks to nine-year-old Leva Gumilyov. Simply because on August 25 his father was shot on charges of involvement in a White Guard conspiracy. The last thing the poet wrote was:

I laughed at myself

And I deceived myself

When I could have thought that in the world

Is there anything other than you.

Other marriages

♦ Subsequently, Akhmatova married three more times, but all her marriages ended in divorce. Maybe, great poetess was not adapted to the role of a wife. However, for all her husbands, and first of all for Gumilyov, Akhmatova became an ideal widow. She renounced him alive, revered by everyone, but dead, shot by the Bolsheviks, she remained faithful to the end. She kept his poems, took care of their publication, helped enthusiasts collect information for his biography, and dedicated her works to him.

Anna Akhmatova. L.A. Bruni. 1922

♦ When Gumilev finally returned to Russia (after the war he spent some time in London and Paris), Akhmatova tells him the stunning news: she loves another, and therefore they will have to part forever. Despite the cool relationship between the spouses, the divorce was a real blow for Gumilyov - he still loved his Beautiful Lady Anya Gorenko After her divorce from Gumilyov in 1918, Anna Andreevna wandered among acquaintances until she was sheltered in the service apartment of the Marble Palace by the orientalist Voldemar Shileiko. ♦ He translated masterfully from Akkadian and was superbly educated. And at the same time, he is capricious, contentious, sarcastic and rude, which for some reason Akhmatova steadfastly endured, believing that her new husband was a little crazy. Their relationship amazed those around them.

“I learned French by ear, in the lessons of my older brother and sister,” said Akhmatova.

- If a dog had been trained as much as you, it would have become a circus director long ago! - responded Shileiko.

1924
Shileiko tore her manuscripts and threw them into the stove and used them to melt the samovar. For three years Anna Andreevna dutifully chopped wood because Shileiko had sciatica. When she thought that her husband was healed, she simply left him. And she said with a satisfied sigh: “Divorce... What a pleasant feeling!”

Submissive to you? Are you crazy?
I am submissive to the Lord's will alone.
I don't want any thrill or pain
My husband is an executioner, and his house is a prison.
1921

But after their breakup, he did not hesitate to compare the poetess to a dog. So he said: “... in my house there was a place for all the stray dogs, so there was one for Anya.” Akhmatova herself composed the following poems:

From your mysterious love,

As if in pain, I scream.

Became yellow and fitful,

I can barely drag my feet.

Afterwards, in 1922, the poetess married art critic Nikolai Punin ♦ Nikolai Punin had long been in love with Anna and, when she was again left homeless, proposed to her. Akhmatova and Punin had to live together with his ex-wife Anna Evgenievna and daughter Ira. Anna Andreevna donated monthly “feed” money to the common pot. The second half of her meager income, leaving only for cigarettes and the tram, she sent her mother-in-law’s son to Bezhetsk to raise. Anna Akhmatova and N. Punin in the courtyard of the Fountain House, 1920

♦ We lived strangely. “It’s always like this with me,” Akhmatova explained briefly. In public, Punin pretended that nothing connected them with her. When one of Anna Andreevna’s acquaintances came to see her, Nikolai Nikolaevich, an art critic and a brilliantly educated person, did not even greet the guest, he read the newspaper as if he had not seen anyone. With Anna they were invariably on first-name terms. Punin in later years

♦ When Akhmatova made attempts to leave this absurd life, Punin lay at his feet and said that he could not live without her, and if he did not live and receive a salary, the whole family would die. Finally (to the great jealousy of Leva’s son) maternal tenderness has awakened in her: she is busy with Punin’s daughter. Punin pointedly does not notice Leva, who, upon arrival from Bezhetsk, gets an unheated corridor to spend the night. Anna with her son Leo

“Living in the Punins’ apartment was bad... Mom paid attention to me only to teach me French. But given her anti-pedagogical abilities, it was very difficult for me to perceive this,”- the no longer young Lev Nikolaevich did not forget the insults.

After breaking up with Akhmatova, Punin was arrested and died during his imprisonment in Vorkuta.

Akhmatova’s last love was a pathologist Garshin(the writer's nephew). They were supposed to get married, but at the last moment the groom abandoned the bride. The day before, he dreamed of his late wife, who begged: “Don’t take this witch into your house!”

Out of favor with the authorities

Excerpts from the Report “On the need to arrest the poetess Akhmatova” No. 6826/A dated June 14, 1950 was handed over to Stalin by the USSR Minister of State Security Abakumov.

Beginning in 1924, Akhmatova, together with Punin, grouped hostile literary workers around her and organized anti-Soviet gatherings in her apartment. Arrested on this occasion Punin showed: “Due to anti-Soviet sentiments, Akhmatova and I, talking with each other, more than once expressed our hatred of the Soviet system, slandered the leaders of the party and the Soviet government and expressed dissatisfaction with various measures of the Soviet government... Anti-Soviet gatherings were held in our apartment , which were attended by literary workers from among those dissatisfied and offended by the Soviet regime... These persons, together with Akhmatova and me, discussed events in the country from enemy positions... Akhmatova, in particular, expressed slanderous fabrications about the allegedly cruel attitude of the Soviet government towards the peasants, was outraged by the closure of churches and expressed her anti-Soviet views on a number of other issues.”

Self-portrait of A. Akhmatova with charcoal from December 30, 1926

As the investigation established, in these enemy gatherings in 1932–1935. Akhmatova’s son, Lev Gumilyov, at that time a student at Leningradsky, took an active part state university. About this the arrested Gumilev showed: “In the presence of Akhmatova, we at gatherings without hesitation expressed our hostile sentiments... Punin made terrorist attacks against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government... In May 1934, Punin, in the presence of Akhmatova, figuratively showed how he would commit a terrorist act against leader of the Soviet people." Similar testimony was given by the arrested Punin, who admitted that he harbored terrorist sentiments against Comrade Stalin, and testified that these sentiments were shared by Akhmatova: “In conversations, I made all sorts of false accusations against the Head of the Soviet State and tried to “prove” that the existing situation in the Soviet Union can be changed in the direction we desire only through the forcible removal of Stalin... In frank conversations with meAkhmatovashared my terrorist sentiments and supported malicious attacks against the Head of the Soviet State. Thus, in December 1934, she sought to justify the villainous murder of S.M. Kirov, regarding this terrorist act as a response to the excessive, in her opinion, repressions of the Soviet government against Trotskyist-Bukharin and other hostile groups.”

It should be noted that in October 1935, Punin and Lev Gumilyov were arrested by the NKVD Directorate Leningrad region as members of an anti-Soviet group. However, soon, at the request of Akhmatova, they were released from custody.

Speaking about his subsequent criminal connection with Akhmatova, the arrested Punin testified that Akhmatova continued to conduct hostile conversations with him, during which she expressed malicious slander against the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government.

In 1935, Akhmatova managed to rescue her arrested son and husband after a personal meeting with Stalin. But before this happened, both were interrogated “with partiality” and were forced to sign false testimony against Akhmatova - about her “complicity” in their “crimes” and about her “enemy activities.” The security officers manipulated the facts masterfully. Numerous intelligence denunciations and eavesdropping materials were also constantly collected against Akhmatova. The “operational development case” was opened against Akhmatova in 1939. The special equipment in her apartment had been working since 1945. That is, the case has long been concocted, all that remains is to bring it to its logical conclusion - arrest. All that is required is Stalin's go-ahead.

Portrait of the poetess Anna Akhmatova. White night. Leningrad. A. A. Osmerkin. 1939-1940

♦ Akhmatova quickly mastered the science of being the mother of a prisoner. Akhmatova spent seventeen months in prison queues, the “three hundredth, with the transfer” stood under the Crosses. One day, while climbing the stairs, I noticed that not a single woman looked in the large mirror on the wall - the amalgam reflected only strict and clean female profiles. Then the feeling of loneliness that had tormented her since childhood suddenly melted away: “I was not alone, but together with my country, lined up in one big prison line.” For some reason, Anna Andreevna herself was not touched for another ten years. And only in August 1946 the fateful hour struck. “What should we do now?” - Mikhail Zoshchenko, who happened to meet on the street, asked Akhmatova. He looked completely devastated. “Probably personal troubles again,” she decided and spoke comforting words to the nervous Misha. A few days later, in a random newspaper in which the fish was wrapped, she read a formidable Resolution of the Central Committee, in which Zoshchenko was called a literary hooligan, and she herself - a literary harlot.

“The range of her poetry is limited to the point of misery,” he hammered the words like nails. Andrey Alexandrovich Zhdanov at a meeting of Leningrad writers in Smolny, - the poetry of an enraged lady, rushing between the boudoir and the chapel! The writers, frightened to death, obediently excluded Akhmatova from their professional union. And then they suffered without sleep, not knowing whether to say hello to Anna Andreevna tomorrow or pretend that they did not know each other. Zoshchenko’s famous Resolution was trampled and literally killed. Akhmatova, as usual, survived. She just shrugged: “Why does a great country need to walk tanks through the chest of one sick old woman?”

Martiros Saryan 1946The portrait of A. A. Akhmatova was painted in 1946, immediately after the resolution of the Central Committee and Zhdanov’s report on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”. And if the endlessly tired and offended woman agreed to pose for the artist, then, apparently, only because she recognized the civic courage of his action. Akhmatova posed in Saryan's Moscow studio. Saryan worked on the portrait for four days; Akhmatova, having fallen ill, did not come to the fifth session. The portrait remained unfinished - the model's hands were not worked out.

♦ In 1949, Nikolai Punin and Lev Gumilyov were once again arrested. And the head of the MGB, Abakumov, was already rubbing his hands, but for some reason Stalin did not give permission for Akhmatova’s arrest. The point here is the behavior of Akhmatova herself. No, she knew nothing about Abakumov’s report and was least worried about herself. But she desperately wanted to save her son. Therefore, she wrote and published a cycle of loyal poems “Glory to the World,” including an anniversary ode to Stalin. And at the same time she sent a letter to Joseph Vissarionovich with a prayer for a son. In fact, for the sake of saving her son, Akhmatova threw the last victim at the feet of the supreme executioner - her poetic name. The executioner accepted the victim. And that settled everything. Lev Gumilyov, however, was still not released, but Akhmatova was not arrested either. 16 painful years of loneliness awaited her ahead.

Anna Akhmatova

♦ When the leader died, the long darkness dissipated. On April 15, 1956, the birthday of Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, Lev returned from hard labor. This outcast of outcasts had no chance of remaining free, little chance of surviving and even less of becoming a global celebrity. But Lev Nikolaevich became a brilliant historian, refuting the opinion that nature rests on children. He blamed Anna Andreevna for all his troubles. And especially in the fact that she did not take him abroad while it was possible. He could not forgive either his childhood, or the cold corridor in Punin’s apartment, or her mother’s, as it seemed to him, coldness .
Akhmatova with her son Lev Gumilev

♦ IN recent years Akhmatova finally found her own home - someone in the Leningrad Literary Fund became ashamed, and she was given a dacha in Komarovo. She called this home a booth. There was a corridor, a porch, a veranda and one room. Akhmatova slept on a sunbed with a mattress, instead of one leg there were bricks. There was also a table made from a former door. There was a drawing by Modigliani and an icon that belonged to Gumilyov.

Moses Volfovich Langleben 1964

Other facts

♦ First publication. In 1905, after the divorce of her parents, Akhmatova and her mother moved to Evpatoria. In the spring of 1906, Anna entered the Kyiv Fundukleevsky Gymnasium. For the summer she returned to Evpatoria, where Gumilyov stopped by to see her on his way to Paris. They reconciled and corresponded all winter while Anna was studying in Kiev. In Paris, Gumilyov took part in the publication of a small literary almanac “Sirius”, where he published one poem by Anna. Her father, having learned about his daughter’s poetic experiments, asked not to disgrace his name. "I don't need your name"- she answered and took the surname of her great-grandmother, Praskovya Fedoseevna, whose family went back to the Tatar Khan Akhmat. This is how the name of Anna Akhmatova appeared in Russian literature. Anna herself took her first publication completely lightly, believing that Gumilyov had “been hit by an eclipse.” Gumilyov also did not take his beloved’s poetry seriously - he appreciated her poems only a few years later. When he first heard her poetry, Gumilyov said: “Or maybe you’d rather dance? You are flexible..."– from a standing position, she could bend so that her head could easily reach her heels. Later, the ballerinas of the Mariinsky Theater envied her.

Anna Akhmatova. Cartoon. Altman N. I. 1915

♦ When Akhmatova's son, Lev Gumilyov, was arrested, she and other mothers went to the Kresty prison. One of the women asked if she could describe THIS. After this, Akhmatova began writing "Requiem".

♦ 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.

♦ Akhmatova's last collection of poems was published in 1925. After this, the NKVD did not allow any work of this poetess to pass through and called it “provocative and anti-communist.” According to historians, Stalin spoke positively about Akhmatova. However, this did not stop him from punishing the poetess after her meeting with the English philosopher and poet Berlin. Akhmatova was expelled from the Writers' Union, thereby effectively dooming her to vegetating in poverty. The talented poetess was forced to translate for many years.

Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak

♦ Akhmatova spent the entire Second World War 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.

Portrait of Akhmatova. Altman, Nathan, 1914 (my favorite portrait)

♦ 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.

♦ 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, along with the students, wandered the streets in search of stones. Funeral of Anna Akhmatova. Students standing in poetry Joseph Brodsky (covering the lower part of his face with his hand), Evgeny Rein (left)

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...

Biography

Anna Andreeva 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.

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, Gumilyov 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.

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 reviews 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 Gumilyov, would already be dead by that time: he would be shot in August 1921.

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.

Akhmatova spent the entire Second World War 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.

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

• June 11 (23), 1889 – birth of A.A Akhmatova.
• 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”.
• September 18, 1913 - birth of son Lev.
• 1914 – publication of the second collection “Rosary Beads”.
• 1918 – divorce from N. Gumilyov, 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”.
• October 28, 1941 – evacuation to Tashkent.
• May 1943 – publication of a collection of poems in Tashkent.
• May 15, 1945 – return to Moscow.
• Summer 1945 – move to Leningrad.
• September 1, 1946 – exclusion of A.A. Akhmatova from the Writers' Union.
• November 1949 – re-arrest of Lev Gumilyov.
• May 1951 - reinstatement in the Writers' Union.
• December 1964 – received the Etna-Torina Prize
• March 5, 1966 – death.

• 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, along with the students, wandered the streets in search of stones.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (real name Gorenko) was born on June 23 (June 11, old style) 1889 near Odessa in the family of retired naval mechanical engineer Andrei Gorenko.

On the side of her mother Inna Stogova, Anna was distantly related to Anna Bunina, a Russian poetess. Akhmatova considered the legendary Horde Khan Akhmat to be her maternal ancestor, on whose behalf she later formed her pseudonym.

She spent her childhood and youth in Pavlovsk, Tsarskoe Selo, Yevpatoria and Kyiv. In May 1907 she graduated from the Kyiv Fundukleevsky gymnasium.

In 1910, Anna married the poet Nikolai Gumilyov (1886-1921), in 1912 she had a son, Lev Gumilyov (1912-1992), who later became a famous historian and ethnographer.

Akhmatova's first known poems date back to 1904; from 1911 she began to be published regularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg publications.

In 1911, she joined the creative group "The Workshop of Poets", from which in the spring of 1912 a group of Acmeists emerged, preaching a return to the naturalness of the material world, to primordial feelings.

In 1912, her first collection “Evening” was published, the poems of which served as one of the foundations for the creation of the theory of Acmeism. One of the most memorable poems in the collection is “The Gray-Eyed King” (1910).

Separation from a loved one, the happiness of "love torture", the transience of bright moments - the main theme of the poetess's subsequent collections - "The Rosary" (1914) and "The White Flock" (1917).

The February Revolution of 1917 by Akhmatov, the October Revolution - as bloody unrest and the death of culture.

In August 1918, the poetess's divorce from Gumilyov was officially formalized; in December she married the orientalist, poet and translator Vladimir Shileiko (1891-1930).

In 1920, Akhmatova became a member of the Petrograd branch of the All-Russian Union of Poets, and since 1921 she was a translator at the World Literature publishing house.

At the end of 1921, when the work of private publishing houses was allowed, three books by Akhmatova were published in Alkonost and Petropolis: the collections “Podorozhnik” and “Anno Domini MCMXXI”, the poem “Near the Sea”. In 1923, five books of poems were published as a three-volume set.

In 1924, in the first issue of the magazine “Russian Contemporary”, Akhmatova’s poems “And the righteous man followed the messenger of God...” and “And the month, bored in the cloudy darkness...” were published, which served as one of the reasons for the closure of the magazine. The poetess's books were removed from public libraries, and her poems almost ceased to be published. Collections of poems prepared by Akhmatova in 1924-1926 and in the mid-1930s were not published.

In 1929, Akhmatova left the All-Russian Writers' Union in protest against the persecution of writers Yevgeny Zamyatin and Boris Pilnyak.

In 1934, she did not join the Union of Writers of the USSR and found herself outside the boundaries of official Soviet literature. In 1924-1939, when her poems were not published, Akhmatova earned her livelihood by selling her personal archive and translations, and was engaged in researching the work of Alexander Pushkin. In 1933, her translation of “Letters” by the artist Peter Paul Rubens was published, and her name was named among the participants in the publication “Manuscripts of A. S. Pushkin” (1939).

In 1935, Lev Gumilyov and Akhmatova’s third husband, art historian and art critic Nikolai Punin (1888-1953), were arrested and released shortly after the poetess petitioned Joseph Stalin.

In 1938, Lev Gumilev was arrested again, and in 1939, the Leningrad NKVD opened an “Operational Investigation Case against Anna Akhmatova,” where the poetess’s political position was characterized as “hidden Trotskyism and hostile anti-Soviet sentiments.” In the late 1930s, Akhmatova, fearing surveillance and searches, did not write down poetry and led a secluded life. At the same time, the poem “Requiem” was created, which became a monument to the victims of Stalin’s repressions and was published only in 1988.

By the end of 1939, the attitude of the state authorities towards Akhmatova changed - she was offered to prepare books for publication for two publishing houses. In January 1940, the poetess was accepted into the Writers' Union, in the same year the magazines "Leningrad", "Zvezda" and "Literary Contemporary" published her poems, the publishing house "Soviet Writer" published a collection of her poems "From Six Books", nominated for Stalin's bonus. In September 1940, the book was condemned by a special resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on the basis of a memorandum by the head of the Central Committee about the lack of connection in the book with Soviet reality and the preaching of religion in it. Subsequently, all of Akhmatova’s books published in the USSR were published with censorship removals and corrections related to religious themes and images.

During the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945), Akhmatova was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Moscow, then, together with the family of Lydia Chukovskaya, she lived in evacuation in Tashkent (1941-1944), where she wrote many patriotic poems - “Courage”, “Enemy Banner... ", "Oath", etc.

In 1943, Akhmatova’s book “Favorites: Poems” was published in Tashkent. The poetess's poems were published in the magazines Znamya, Zvezda, Leningrad, and Krasnoarmeyets.

In August 1946, a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was adopted “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”, directed against Anna Akhmatova. She was accused of having poetry “imbued with the spirit of pessimism and decadence”, “bourgeois-aristocratic aesthetics” and decadence, harms the education of young people and cannot be tolerated in Soviet literature. Akhmatova’s works were stopped being published, the circulations of her books “Poems (1909-1945)” and “Selected Poems” were destroyed.

In 1949, Lev Gumilyov and Punin, with whom Akhmatova broke up before the war, were again arrested. To soften the fate of her loved ones, the poetess wrote several poems in 1949-1952 glorifying Stalin and the Soviet state.

The son was released in 1956, and Punin died in the camp.

Since the early 1950s, she has worked on translations of poems by Rabindranath Tagore, Kosta Khetagurov, Jan Rainis and other poets.

After Stalin's death, Akhmatova's poems began to appear in print. Her books of poetry were published in 1958 and 1961, and the collection “The Running of Time” was published in 1965. Outside the USSR, the poem "Requiem" (1963) and "Works" in three volumes (1965) were published.

The final work of the poetess was “Poem without a Hero,” published in 1989.

In the 2000s, the name of Anna Akhmatova was given to a passenger ship.

The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources

“was reflected in one of Akhmatova’s most significant works - the poem “Requiem”.

Recognized as a classic of Russian poetry back in the 1920s, Akhmatova was subjected to silence, censorship and persecution (including the 1946 resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which was not repealed during her lifetime); many works were not published in her homeland not only during the author’s lifetime, but and for more than two decades after her death. At the same time, Akhmatova’s name, even during her lifetime, was surrounded by fame among poetry admirers both in the USSR and in exile.

Biography

Anna Gorenko was born in the Odessa district of Bolshoi Fontan in the family of a hereditary nobleman, retired naval mechanical engineer A. A. Gorenko (1848-1915), who, after moving to the capital, became a collegiate assessor, an official for special assignments of the State Control. She was the third of six children. Her mother, Inna Erasmovna Stogova (1856-1930), was distantly related to Anna Bunina: in one of her draft notes, Anna Akhmatova wrote: “... In the family, no one, as far as the eye can see, wrote poetry, only the first Russian poetess Anna Bunina was the aunt of my grandfather Erasmus Ivanovich Stogov...” Grandfather's wife was Anna Egorovna Motovilova - the daughter of Yegor Nikolaevich Motovilov, married to Praskovya Fedoseevna Akhmatova; Anna Gorenko chose her maiden name as a literary pseudonym, creating the image of a “Tatar grandmother” who allegedly descended from the Horde Khan Akhmat. Anna's father was involved in this choice: having learned about the poetic experiments of his seventeen-year-old daughter, he asked not to disgrace his name.

In 1890, the family moved first to Pavlovsk and then to Tsarskoe Selo, where in 1899 Anna Gorenko became a student at the Mariinsk Women's Gymnasium. She spent the summer near Sevastopol, where, in her own words:

Remembering her childhood, the poetess wrote:

Akhmatova recalled that she learned to read from Leo Tolstoy's alphabet. At the age of five, listening to a teacher teach older children, she learned to speak French. In St. Petersburg, the future poetess found the “edge of the era” in which Pushkin lived; At the same time, she also remembered St. Petersburg “pre-tram, horse-drawn, horse-drawn, horse-drawn, horse-drawn, rumbling and grinding, covered from head to toe with signs.” As N. Struve wrote, “The last great representative of the great Russian noble culture, Akhmatova absorbed all this culture and transformed it into music.”

She published her first poems in 1911 (“ New life", "Gaudeamus", "Apollo", "Russian thought"). In her youth she joined the Acmeists (collections “Evening”, 1912, “Rosary”, 1914). Characteristic features of Akhmatova’s work include fidelity to the moral foundations of existence, a subtle understanding of the psychology of feeling, comprehension of the national tragedies of the 20th century, coupled with personal experiences, and an affinity for the classical style of poetic language.

Addresses

Odessa

• 1889 - born at 11 ½ station of the Bolshoi Fontan in a dacha rented by her family. Current address: Fontanskaya road, 78.

Sevastopol

• 1896-1916 - visited her grandfather (Lenin St., 8)

St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

A. A. Akhmatova’s whole life was connected with St. Petersburg. She began writing poetry in her gymnasium years, at the Tsarskoye Selo Mariinsky Gymnasium, where she studied. The building has survived (2005), this is house 17 on Leontyevskaya Street.

...I am quiet, cheerful, lived On a low island that's like a raft Stayed in the lush Neva Delta Oh, mysterious winter days, And sweet work, and slight fatigue, And roses in the wash jug! The lane was snowy and short, And opposite the door to us is the altar wall The Church of St. Catherine was erected.

Gumilyov and Akhmatova affectionately called their small cozy home “Tuchka”. They then lived in apartment 29 of building No. 17. It was one room with windows overlooking the alley. The lane overlooked the Malaya Neva... This was Gumilyov’s first independent address in St. Petersburg; before that he lived with his parents. In 1912, when they settled on Tuchka, Anna Andreevna published her first book of poems, Evening. Having already declared herself a poetess, she went to sessions at Altman’s workshop, which was located nearby, on Tuchkova Embankment.

Anna Andreevna will leave here. And in the fall of 1913, leaving his son in the care of Gumilyov’s mother, he returned here to “Tuchka” to continue creating on the “snowy and short lane.” From “Tuchka” she escorts Nikolai Stepanovich to the theater of military operations of the First World War. He will come on vacation and stop not at Tuchka, but at 10, Fifth Line, in Shileiko’s apartment.

• 1914-1917 - Tuchkova embankment, 20, apt. 29;
• 1915 - Bolshaya Pushkarskaya, no. 3. In April - May 1915, she rented a room in this house; her notes mention that she called this house "The Pagoda".
• 1917-1918 - apartment of Vyacheslav and Valeria Sreznevsky - Botkinskaya street, 9;
• 1918 - Shileiko's apartment - northern wing of house No. 34 on the Fontanka embankment (aka Sheremetyev's Palace or "Fountain House");
• 1919-1920 - Khalturin street, 5; two-room apartment on the second floor of a service building on the corner of Millionnaya Street and Suvorovskaya Square;
• spring 1921 - E. N. Naryshkina's mansion - Sergievskaya street, 7, apt. 12; and then house number 18 on the Fontanka embankment, the apartment of friend O. A. Glebova-Sudeikina;
• 1921 - sanatorium - Detskoe Selo, Kolpinskaya street, 1;
• 1922-1923 - apartment building - Kazanskaya street, 4;
• end of 1923 - beginning of 1924 - Kazanskaya street, 3;
• summer - autumn 1924-1925 - embankment of the Fontanka River, 2; the house stands opposite the Summer Garden at the source of the Fontanka, flowing from the Neva;
• autumn 1924 - February 1952 - southern courtyard wing of the palace of D. N. Sheremetev (N. N. Punin's apartment) - embankment of the Fontanka River, 34, apt. 44 (“Fountain House”). Akhmatova’s guests had to receive passes at the checkpoint, which at that time was located there; Akhmatova herself had a permanent pass with the seal of the “Northern Sea Route”, where “tenant” is indicated in the “position” column;
• summer 1944 - Kutuzov embankment, fourth floor of building No. 12, Rybakovs’ apartment, during renovation of the apartment in the Fountain House;
• February 1952-1961 - apartment building - Red Cavalry Street, 4, apt. 3;
• The last years of his life, house No. 34 on Lenin Street, where apartments were provided to many poets, writers, literary scholars, and critics;

Moscow

Coming to Moscow in 1938-1966, Anna Akhmatova stayed with the writer Viktor Ardov, whose apartment was located at Bolshaya Ordynka, 17, building 1. Here she lived and worked for a long time, and here in June 1941 her only meeting took place with Marina Tsvetaeva.

Tashkent

Komarovo

While the “booth” was being set up in 1955, Anna Andreevna lived with her friends the Gitovichs at 36, 2nd Dachnaya Street.

There is a well-known picturesque portrait of Anna Akhmatova, painted by K.S. Petrov-Vodkin in 1922.

Petersburg

In St. Petersburg, monuments to Akhmatova were erected in the courtyard of the philological faculty of the state university and in the garden in front of the school on Vosstaniya Street.

On March 5, 2006, on the 40th anniversary of the poet’s death, the third monument to Anna Akhmatova by St. Petersburg sculptor Vyacheslav Bukhaev (a gift to the Nikolai Nagorsky Museum) was unveiled in the garden of the Fountain House and the “Informer Bench” (Vyacheslav Bukhaev) was installed - in memory of surveillance of Akhmatova in the fall of 1946. On the bench there is a sign with the quote:

Someone came to me and offered me 1 month<яц>do not leave the house, but go to the window so that you can see me from the garden. A bench was placed in the garden under my window, and agents were on duty around the clock.

She lived in the Fountain House, where the Akhmatova Literary and Memorial Museum is located, for 30 years, and called the garden near the house “magical.” According to her, “The shadows of St. Petersburg history come here”.

Muzej Akhmatovoj Fontannyj Dom.jpg

Anna Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House (entrance
from Liteiny Prospekt)

Muzej Akhmatovoj v Fontanogom Dome.jpg

Anna Akhmatova Museum in the Fountain House

Sad Fontannogo Doma 01.jpg

Garden of the Fountain House

Sad Fontannogo Doma 02.jpg

Garden of the Fountain House

Dver Punina Fontannyj Dom.jpg

Door of apartment No. 44
in the Fountain House,
where N. Punin and
A. Akhmatova

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The informers' bench in the garden of the Fountain House. Architect V. B. Bukhaev. 2006

Moscow

There is a memorial plaque on the wall of the house where Anna Akhmatova stayed when she came to Moscow (Bolshaya Ordynka Street, 17, building 1, Viktor Ardov’s apartment); In the courtyard there is a monument made according to a drawing by Amadeo Modigliani. In 2011, an initiative group of Muscovites, led by Alexei Batalov and Mikhail Ardov, came up with a proposal to open an apartment-museum of Anna Akhmatova here.

Bezhetsk

Tashkent

Cinema

On March 10, 1966, unauthorized filming of the funeral service, civil memorial service and funeral of Anna Akhmatova was carried out in Leningrad. The organizer of this filming is director S. D. Aranovich. He was assisted by cameraman A.D. Shafran, assistant cameraman V.A. Petrov and others. In 1989, the footage was used by S. D. Aranovich in the documentary film “The Personal File of Anna Akhmatova”

In 2007, the biographical series “The Moon at its Zenith” was filmed based on Akhmatova’s unfinished play “Prologue, or a Dream within a Dream.” Starring Svetlana Kryuchkova. The role of Akhmatova in dreams is played by Svetlana Svirko.

In 2012, the series “Anna German. The Mystery of the White Angel." In an episode of the series depicting the life of the singer’s family in Tashkent, a meeting between Anna’s mother and the poetess was shown. In the role of Anna Akhmatova - Yulia Rutberg.

Other

The Akhmatova crater on Venus and the double-deck passenger ship Project 305 “Danube”, built in 1959 in Hungary (formerly “Vladimir Monomakh”), are named after Anna Akhmatova.

Bibliography

Lifetime editions

Major posthumous publications

• Akhmatova A. Selected / Comp. and entry Art. N. Bannikova. - M.: Fiction, 1974.
• Akhmatova A. Poems and prose. / Comp. B. G. Druyan; entry article by D. T. Khrenkov; prepared texts by E. G. Gershtein and B. G. Druyan. - L.: Lenizdat, 1977. - 616 p.
• Akhmatova A. Poems and poems. / Compiled, prepared text and notes by V. M. Zhirmunsky. - L.: Sov writer, 1976. - 558 p. Circulation 40,000 copies. (Poet's Library. Large series. Second edition)
• Akhmatova A. Poems / Comp. and entry Art. N. Bannikova. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1977. - 528 p. (Poetic Russia)
• Akhmatova A. Poems and poems / Comp., intro. Art., note. A. S. Kryukova. - Voronezh: Central-Chernozem. book publishing house, 1990. - 543 p.
• Akhmatova A. Works: In 2 vols. / Comp. and preparation of the text by M. M. Kralin. - M.: Pravda, 1990. - 448 + 432 p.
• Akhmatova A. Collected works: In 6 vols. / Comp. and preparation of the text by N.V. Koroleva. - M.: Ellis Luck, 1998-2002..
• Akhmatova A. - M. - Torino: Einaudi, 1996.

Musical works

• Opera "Akhmatova", premiere in Paris at the Opéra Bastille on March 28, 2011. Music by Bruno Mantovani, libretto by Christophe Ghristi
• “Rosary”: vocal cycle by A. Lurie, 1914
• “Five Poems by A. Akhmatova”, vocal cycle by S. S. Prokofiev, op. 27, 1916 (No. 1 “The sun filled the room”; No. 2 “True tenderness...”; No. 3 “Memory of the sun...”; No. 4 “Hello!”; No. 5 “The Gray-Eyed King”)
• “Venice” is a song from the album Masquerade by the band Caprice, dedicated to the poets of the Silver Age. 2010
• “Anna”: ballet-mono-opera in two acts (music and libretto - Elena Poplyanova. 2012)
• “White Stone” - vocal cycle by M. M. Chistova. 2003
• “The Witch” (“No, Tsarevich, I’m not the same ...”) (music - Zlata Razdolina), performer - Nina Shatskaya ()
• “Confusion” (music - David Tukhmanov, performer - Lyudmila Barykina, album “In the Wave of My Memory”, 1976)
• “I Stopped Smiling” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “My heart is beating”, poem “I see, I see a moonbow” (music - Vladimir Evzerov, performer - Aziza)
• “Instead of wisdom - experience, insipid” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “The Culprit”, poem “And in August the jasmine bloomed” (music - Vladimir Evzerov, performer - Valery Leontyev)
• “Dear traveler”, poem “Dear traveler, you are far away” (performer - “Surganova and Orchestra”)
• “Oh, I didn’t lock the door” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “Loneliness” (music -?, performer - trio “Meridian”)
• “The Gray-Eyed King” (music and performer - Alexander Vertinsky)
• “It would be better for me to cheerfully call out ditties” (music and performer - Alexander Vertinsky)
• “Confusion” (music - David Tukhmanov, performer - Irina Allegrova)
• “As simple courtesy commands” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “I’ve gone crazy, oh strange boy” (music - Vladimir Davydenko, performer - Karina Gabriel, song from the television series “Captain’s Children”)
• “The Gray-Eyed King” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “That night” (music - V. Evzerov, performer - Valery Leontyev)
• “Confusion” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “The Shepherd Boy”, poem “Over the Water” (music - N. Andrianov, performer - Russian folk metal group “Kalevala”)
• “I didn’t cover the window” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “Over the Water”, “Garden” (music and performer - Andrey Vinogradov)
• “You are my letter, dear, don’t crumple it up” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “Oh, life without tomorrow” (music - Alexey Rybnikov, performer - Diana Polentova)
• “Love conquers deceitfully” (music and performer - Alexander Matyukhin)
• “Can’t Return” (music - David Tukhmanov, performer - Lyudmila Gurchenko)
• “Requiem” (music by Zlata Razdolin, performer Nina Shatskaya)
• “Requiem” (music - Vladimir Dashkevich, performer - Elena Kamburova)
• “The Gray-Eyed King” (music and performer - Lola Tatlyan)
• “Pipe”, poem “Over the Water” (music - V. Malezhik, performer - Russian ethno-pop singer Varvara)
• “Come see me” (music by V. Bibergan, performer - Elena Kamburova)

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Literature

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• Vinogradov, V. V. About the poetry of Anna Akhmatova (stylistic sketches). - L., 1925.
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• Eikhenbaum, B. Articles about poetry. - L., 1969.
• Zhirmunsky, V. M. The work of Anna Akhmatova. - L., 1973.
• Chukovskaya, L. K. Notes about Anna Akhmatova. in 3 volumes - Paris: YMCA-Press, 1976.
• About Anna Akhmatova: Poems, essays, memoirs, letters. L.: Lenizdat, 1990. - 576 pp., ill. ISBN 5-289-00618-4
• Memories of Anna Akhmatova. - M., Sov. writer, 1991. - 720 pp., 100,000 copies. ISBN 5-265-01227-3
• Babaev E. G.// Secrets of the craft. Akhmatov readings. Vol. 2. - M.: Heritage, 1992. - P. 198-228. - ISBN 5-201-13180-8.

• Losievsky, I. Ya. Anna of All Rus': Biography of Anna Akhmatova. - Kharkov: Eye, 1996.
• Kazak V. Lexicon of Russian literature of the 20th century = Lexikon der russischen Literatur ab 1917 / [trans. with German]. - M. : RIC "Culture", 1996. - XVIII, 491, p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-8334-0019-8.
• Zholkovsky, A. K.// Star. - . - No. 9. - P. 211-227.
• Kikhney, L. G. Poetry of Anna Akhmatova. Secrets of the craft. - M.: “Dialogue MSU”, 1997. - 145 p. ISBN 5-89209-092-2
• Katz, B., Timenchik, R .
• Cultural monuments. New discoveries. 1979. - L., 1980 (yearbook).
• Goncharova, N.“Veils of Libels” by Anna Akhmatova. - M.-St. Petersburg: Summer Garden; Russian State Library, 2000. - 680 p.
• Trotsyk, O. A. The Bible in the artistic world of Anna Akhmatova. - Poltava: POIPPO, 2001.
• Timenchik, R. D. Anna Akhmatova in the 1960s. - M.: Aquarius Publishers; Toronto: University of Toronto (Toronto Slavic Library. Volume 2), 2005. - 784 p.
• Mandelstam, N. About Akhmatova. - M.: New publishing house, 2007.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (real name Gorenko) was born into the family of a marine engineer, retired captain of the 2nd rank, at the Bolshoi Fontan station near Odessa.

Mother, Irina Erasmovna, devoted herself entirely to her children, of whom there were six.

A year after Anya’s birth, the family moved to Tsarskoe Selo.

“My first impressions are those of Tsarskoye Selo,” she later wrote. - The green, damp splendor of the parks, the pasture where my nanny took me, the hippodrome where little motley horses galloped, the old train station and something else that was later included in the “Ode to Tsarskoye Selo.” There were almost no books in the house, but my mother knew many poems and recited them by heart. Communicating with older children, Anna began to speak French quite early.

WITH Nikolai GumilyovAnna met the man who became her husband when she was only 14. 17-year-old Nikolai was struck by her mysterious, bewitching beauty: radiant gray eyes, thick long black hair, and an antique profile made this girl unlike anyone else.

For ten whole years, Anna became a source of inspiration for the young poet. He showered her with flowers and poems. Once, on her birthday, he gave Anna flowers picked under the windows of the imperial palace. In desperation from unrequited love, on Easter 1905, Gumilyov tried to commit suicide, which only frightened and completely disappointed the girl. She stopped seeing him.

Soon Anna's parents divorced, and she moved with her mother to Evpatoria. At this time she was already writing poetry, but did not attach importance to it special significance. Gumilev, having heard something she wrote, said: “Or maybe you’d rather dance? You are flexible...” Nevertheless, he published one poem in the small literary almanac Sirius. Anna chose the surname of her great-grandmother, whose family went back to the Tatar Khan Akhmat.

Gumilyov continued to propose to her again and again and made attempts on his own life three times. In November 1909, Akhmatova unexpectedly agreed to the marriage, accepting her chosen one not as love, but as fate.

“Gumilyov is my destiny, and I humbly surrender to it. Don't judge me if you can. “I swear to you, everything that is sacred to me, that this unfortunate man will be happy with me,” she writes to student Golenishchev-Kutuzov, whom she liked much more than Nikolai.

None of the bride's relatives came to the wedding, considering the marriage obviously doomed. Nevertheless, the wedding took place at the end of June 1910. Soon after the wedding, having achieved what he had been striving for for so long, Gumilyov lost interest in his young wife. He began to travel a lot and rarely visit home.

In the spring of 1912, Akhmatova’s first collection was published in a circulation of 300 copies. In the same year, Anna and Nikolai’s son Lev is born. But the husband turned out to be completely unprepared for the limitation of his own freedom: “He loved three things in the world: evening singing, white peacocks and erased maps of America. I didn't like it when children cried. He didn’t like tea with raspberries and women’s hysterics... And I was his wife.” My son was taken in by my mother-in-law.

Anna continued to write and turned from an eccentric girl into a majestic and regal woman. They began to imitate her, they painted her, they admired her, she was surrounded by crowds of admirers. Gumilev half-seriously, half-jokingly hinted: “Anya, more than five is indecent!”

When did the first one begin? world war, Gumilyov went to the front. In the spring of 1915, he was wounded, and Akhmatova constantly visited him in the hospital. Nikolai Gumilyov was awarded for valor St. George's Cross. At the same time, he continued to study literature, lived in London, Paris and returned to Russia in April 1918.

Akhmatova, feeling like a widow while her husband was alive, asked him for a divorce, saying that she was marryingVladimir Shileiko. She later called the second marriage “intermediate.”

Vladimir Shileiko was a famous scientist and poet.

Ugly, insanely jealous, unadapted to life, he, of course, could not give her happiness. She was attracted by the opportunity to be useful to a great man. She believed that there was no rivalry between them, which prevented her marriage to Gumilyov. She spent hours dictating translations of his texts, cooking and even chopping wood. But he did not allow her to leave the house, burning all her letters unopened, and did not allow her to write poetry.

Anna was helped out by her friend, composer Arthur Lurie. Shileiko was taken to the hospital for treatment of radiculitis. During this time, Akhmatova got a job in the library of the Agronomic Institute. There she was given a government apartment and firewood. After the hospital, Shileiko was forced to move in with her. But in the apartment where Anna herself was the mistress, the domestic despot subsided. However, in the summer of 1921 they broke up completely.

In August 1921, Anna's friend, poet Alexander Blok, died. At his funeral, Akhmatova learned that Nikolai Gumilyov had been arrested. He was accused of not informing, knowing about the allegedly impending conspiracy.

In Greece, almost at the same time, Anna Andreevna’s brother, Andrei Gorenko, committed suicide. Two weeks later, Gumilyov was shot, and Akhmatova was not honored by the new government: both her roots were noble and her poetry was outside of politics. Even the fact that People's Commissar Alexandra Kollontai once noted the attractiveness of Akhmatova's poems for young working women (“the author truthfully portrays how badly a man treats a woman”) did not help to avoid the persecution of critics. She was left alone and was not published for 15 long years.

At this time, she was researching Pushkin’s work, and her poverty began to border on poverty. She wore an old felt hat and a light coat in any weather. One of her contemporaries was once amazed by her magnificent, luxurious outfit, which, upon closer examination, turned out to be a worn robe. Money, things, even gifts from friends did not last long with her. Having no home of her own, she carried only two books: a volume of Shakespeare and the Bible. But even in poverty, according to the reviews of everyone who knew her, Akhmatova remained regal, majestic and beautiful.

With a historian and criticNikolai PuninAnna Akhmatova was in a civil marriage.

To the uninitiated, they looked like a happy couple. But in fact, their relationship developed into a painful triangle.

Akhmatova’s common-law husband continued to live in the same house with his daughter Irina and his first wife Anna Arens, who also suffered from this, remaining in the house as a close friend.

Akhmatova helped Punin a lot in his literary research, translating for him from Italian, French, and English. Her son Lev, who by that time was 16 years old, moved in with her. Later, Akhmatova said that Punin could suddenly announce sharply at the table: “Butter only for Irochka.” But her son Levushka was sitting next to her...

In this house she had only a sofa and a small table at her disposal. If she wrote, it was only in bed, surrounded by notebooks. He was jealous of her poetry, fearing that he looked insufficiently significant against her background. Once, Punin burst into the room where she was reading her new poems to friends, shouting: “Anna Andreevna! Don't forget! You are a poet of local Tsarskoye Selo significance.”

When a new wave of repression began, based on a denunciation from one of his fellow students, Lev’s son was arrested, then Punin. Akhmatova rushed to Moscow and wrote a letter to Stalin. They were released, but only temporarily. In March 1938, the son was arrested again. Anna was again “lying at the feet of the executioner.” The death sentence was replaced by exile.

To the Great Patriotic War During the heaviest bombings, Akhmatova spoke on the radio with an appeal to the women of Leningrad. She was on duty on the roofs, digging trenches. She was evacuated to Tashkent, and after the war she was awarded the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad.” In 1945, the son returned - he managed to get to the front from exile.

But after a short respite, a bad streak begins again - first she was expelled from the Writers' Union, deprived of food cards, and the book that was in print was destroyed. Then Nikolai Punin and Lev Gumilev were arrested again, whose only guilt was that he was the son of his parents. The first died, the second spent seven years in camps.

Akhmatova's disgrace was lifted only in 1962. But until her last days she retained her royal grandeur. She wrote about love and jokingly warned the young poets Evgeniy Rein, Anatoly Neiman, Joseph Brodsky, with whom she was friends: “Just don’t fall in love with me! I don’t need this anymore!”

And here is information about other men of the great poetess:

Boris Anrep -Russian muralist, writer of the Silver Age, lived the majority of his life in Great Britain.

They met in 1915. Akhmatova was introduced to Boris Anrep by his closest friend, poet and verse theorist N.V. Nedobrovo. This is how Akhmatova herself recalls her first meeting with Anrep: “1915. Palm Sub. A friend (Nedobrovo in Ts.S.) has an officer B.V.A. Improvisation of poetry, evening, then two more days, on the third he left. I saw you off to the station."

Later, he came from the front on business trips and on vacation, met, the acquaintance grew into a strong feeling on her part and passionate interest on his part. How ordinary and prosaic “I saw you off to the station” and how many poems about love were born after that!

Akhmatova’s muse, after meeting Antrep, spoke immediately. About forty poems are dedicated to him, including Akhmatova’s happiest and brightest poems about love from “The White Flock.” They met on the eve of B. Anrep’s departure for the army. At the time of their meeting, he was 31 years old, she was 25.

Anrep recalls: "When I met her, I was captivated: her exciting personality, her subtle, witty remarks, and most importantly, her beautiful, painfully touching poems... We rode on a sleigh; dined in restaurants; and all this time I asked her to read poetry to me; she smiled and hummed in a quiet voice".

According to B. Anrep, Anna Andreevna always wore a black ring (gold, wide, covered with black enamel, with a tiny diamond) and attributed mysterious powers to it. The treasured “black ring” was presented to Anrep in 1916. "I closed my eyes. He rested his hand on the seat of the sofa. Suddenly something fell into my hand: it was a black ring. “Take it,” she whispered, “to you.” I wanted to say something. The heart was beating. I looked questioningly at her face. She silently looked into the distance".

Like an angel stirring the waters

Then you looked into my face,

He returned both strength and freedom,

And he took the ring as a souvenir of the miracle.

The last time they saw each other was in 1917, on the eve of B. Anrep’s final departure to London.

Arthur Lurie -Russian-American composer and music writer, theorist, critic, one of the largest figures in musical futurism and the Russian musical avant-garde of the 20th century.

Arthur was a charming man, a dandy in whom women unmistakably identified an attractive and strong sexuality. The acquaintance of Arthur and Anna occurred during one of the many debates in 1913, where they sat at the same table. She was 25, he was 21, and he was married.

What follows is known from the words of Irina Graham, a close friend of Akhmatova at that time and later Lurie’s friend in America. “After the meeting, everyone went to the Stray Dog. Lurie again found himself at the same table with Akhmatova. They started talking and the conversation continued all night; Gumilyov approached several times and reminded: “Anna, it’s time to go home,” but Akhmatova did not pay attention to this and continued the conversation. Gumilev left alone.

In the morning, Akhmatova and Lurie left the Stray Dog for the islands. It was like Blok’s: “And the crunch of sand, and the snoring of a horse.” The whirlwind romance lasted one year. In the poems of this period, the image of King David, the Hebrew king-musician, is associated with Lurie.

In 1919, relations resumed. Her husband Shileiko kept Akhmatova locked up; the entrance to the house through the gateway was locked. Anna, as Graham writes, being herself thin woman in St. Petersburg, she lay down on the ground and crawled out of the gateway, and Arthur and her beautiful friend, actress Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, were waiting for her on the street, laughing.

Amadeo Modigliani - Italian artist and sculptor, one of the most famous artists of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, representative of expressionism.

Amadeo Modigliani moved to Paris in 1906 in order to establish himself as a young, talented artist. Modigliani at that time was unknown to anyone and very poor, but his face radiated such amazing carefreeness and calmness that to the young Akhmatova he seemed like a man from a strange world unknown to her. The girl recalled that at their first meeting Modigliani was dressed very brightly and clumsily, in yellow corduroy trousers and a bright jacket of the same color. He looked rather ridiculous, but the artist was able to present himself so gracefully that he seemed to her an elegant handsome man, dressed in the latest Parisian fashion.

That year, too, the then young Modigliani barely turned twenty-six. Twenty-year-old Anna got engaged to the poet Nikolai Gumilev a month before this meeting, and the lovers went on their honeymoon to Paris. The poetess at that young time was so beautiful that on the streets of Paris everyone looked at her, and unfamiliar men aloud admired her feminine charm.

The aspiring artist timidly asked Akhmatova for permission to paint her portrait, and she agreed. Thus began the story of a very passionate, but very short love. Anna and her husband returned to St. Petersburg, where she continued to write poetry and enrolled in historical and literary courses, and her husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, went to Africa for more than six months. The young wife, who was now increasingly called the “straw widow,” was very lonely in the big city. And at this time, as if reading her thoughts, the handsome Parisian artist sends Anna a very passionate letter, in which he confesses to her that he has never been able to forget the girl and dreams of meeting her again.

Modigliani continued to write letters to Akhmatova one after another, and in each of them he passionately confessed his love to her. From friends who were in Paris at that time, Anna knew that Amadeo had become addicted... to wine and drugs during this time. The artist could not stand poverty and hopelessness; moreover, the Russian girl he adored still remained far away in a foreign country, incomprehensible to him.

Six months later, Gumilyov returned from Africa and immediately the couple had a big quarrel. Because of this quarrel, the offended Akhmatova, remembering the tearful pleas of her Parisian admirer to come to Paris, suddenly left for France. This time she saw her lover completely different - thin, pale, haggard from drunkenness and sleepless nights. It seemed that Amadeo had aged many years at once. However, to Akhmatova in love, the passionate Italian still seemed the most handsome man in the world, burning her, as before, with a mysterious and piercing gaze.

They spent an unforgettable three months together. Many years later, she told those closest to her that the young man was so poor that he could not invite her anywhere and simply took her for a walk around the city. In the artist’s tiny room, Akhmatova posed for him. That season, Amadeo painted more than ten portraits of her, which allegedly burned in a fire. However, many art historians still claim that Akhmatova simply hid them, not wanting to show them to the world, since the portraits could tell the whole truth about their passionate relationship... Only many years later, among the drawings of an Italian artist, two portraits of a naked woman were found, in which the similarity of the model with the famous Russian poetess was clearly discerned.

Isaiah Berlin-English philosopher, historian and diplomat.

The first meeting of Isaiah Berlin with Akhmatova took place in the Fountain House on November 16, 1945. The second meeting the next day lasted until dawn and was full of stories about mutual emigrant friends, about life in general, about literary life. Akhmatova read “Requiem” and excerpts from “Poem without a Hero” to Isaiah Berlin.

He also visited Akhmatova on January 4 and 5, 1946 to say goodbye. Then she gave him her poetry collection. Andronnikova notes Berlin’s special talent as a “charmer” of women. In him, Akhmatova found not just a listener, but a person who occupied her soul.

During their second visit in 1956, Berlin and Akhmatova did not meet. From a telephone conversation, Isaiah Berlin concluded that Akhmatova was banned.

Another meeting took place in 1965 in Oxford. The topic of the conversation was the campaign raised against her by the authorities and Stalin personally, but also the state of modern Russian literature, Akhmatova’s passions in it.

If their first meeting occurred when Akhmatova was 56 years old and he was 36, then last meeting happened when Berlin was already 56 years old, and Akhmatova was 76. A year later she was gone.

Berlin outlived Akhmatova by 31 years.

Isaiah Berlin, this mysterious person to whom Anna Akhmatova dedicated a cycle of poems - the famous “Cinque” (Five). In Akhmatova’s poetic perception, there are five meetings with Isaiah Berlin. Five is not only five poems in the “Cingue” cycle, but perhaps this is the number of meetings with the hero. This is a cycle of love poems.

Many are surprised by such a sudden, and, judging by the poems, tragic love for Berlin. Akhmatova called Berlin “Guest from the Future” in “Poem without a Hero” and perhaps the poems from the cycle “The Rosehip Blossoms” (from a burnt notebook) and “Midnight Poems” (seven poems) are dedicated to him. Isaiah Berlin translated Russian literature into English language. Thanks to Berlin's efforts, Akhmatova received an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.