Celebrity biography - Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova (Anna Gorenko) is a Russian and Soviet poetess.

Childhood

Anna was born into a large family on June 23, 1889. She will take the creative pseudonym “Akhmatova” in memory of the legends about her Horde roots.

Anna spent her childhood in Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg, and every summer the family went to Sevastopol. At the age of five, the girl learned to speak French, but studying at the Mariinsky Gymnasium, where Anna entered in 1900, was difficult for her.

Akhmatova's parents divorced when she was sixteen years old. Mom, Inna Erasmovna, takes the children to Evpatoria. The family did not stay there long, and Anna finished her studies in Kyiv. In 1908, Anna began to become interested in jurisprudence and decided to study further at the Higher Women's Courses. The result of her studies was knowledge of Latin, which later allowed her to learn Italian.

Children's photographs of Anna Akhmatova

The beginning of a creative journey

Akhmatova’s passion for literature and poetry began in childhood. She composed her first poem at the age of 11.

Anna's works were first published in 1911 in newspapers and magazines, and a year later her first collection of poems, “Evening,” was published. The poems were written under the influence of the loss of two sisters who died of tuberculosis. Her husband Nikolai Gumilyov helps publish poetry.

Young poetess Anna Akhmatova

Career

In 1914, the collection “Rosary Beads” was published, which made the poetess famous. It is becoming fashionable to read Akhmatova’s poems; young Tsvetaeva and Pasternak admire them.

Anna continues to write, new collections “White Flock” and “Plantain” appear. The poems reflected Akhmatova’s experiences of the First World War, revolution, civil war. In 1917, Anna fell ill with tuberculosis and took a long time to recover.

Beginning in the twenties, Anna's poems began to be criticized and censored as inappropriate for the era. In 1923, her poems ceased to be published.

The thirties of the twentieth century became a difficult test for Akhmatova - her husband Nikolai Punin and son Lev were arrested. Anna spends a long time near the Kresty prison. During these years, she wrote the poem “Requiem”, dedicated to the victims of repression.

In 1939, the poetess was accepted into the Union of Soviet Writers.
During the Great Patriotic War, Akhmatova was evacuated from Leningrad to Tashkent. There she creates poems with military themes. After the blockade is lifted, he returns to his hometown. During the move, many of the poetess’s works were lost.

In 1946, Akhmatova was removed from the Writers' Union after sharp criticism of her work in a resolution of the organizing bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. At the same time as Anna, Zoshchenko is also criticized. Akhmatova was reinstated in the Writers' Union in 1951 at the instigation of Alexander Fadeev.

The poet reads a lot and writes articles. The time in which she worked left its mark on her work.

In 1964, Akhmatova was awarded the Etna-Taormina Prize in Rome for her contribution to world poetry.
The memory of the Russian poetess was immortalized in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Odessa, and Tashkent. There are streets named after her, monuments, memorial plaques. During the life of the poetess, her portraits were painted.

Portraits of Akhmatova: artists Nathan Altman and Olga Kardovskaya (1914)

Personal life

Akhmatova was married three times. Anna met her first husband Nikolai Gumilyov in 1903. They got married in 1910 and divorced in 1918. The marriage to her second husband, Vladimir Shileiko, lasted 3 years; the poetess’s last husband, Nikolai Punin, spent a long time in prison.

Lev Gumilyov spent almost 14 years in prisons and camps; in 1956 he was rehabilitated and found not guilty on all counts.

Among the interesting facts, one can note her friendship with the famous actress Faina Ranevskaya. On March 5, 1966, Akhmatova died in a sanatorium in the Moscow region, in Domodedovo. She was buried near Leningrad at the Komarovskoye cemetery.

Anna Akhmatova's grave

All educated people know Anna Akhmatova. This is an outstanding Russian poetess of the first half of the twentieth century. However, few people know how much this truly great woman had to endure.

We present to your attention short biography of Anna Akhmatova. We will try not only to dwell on the most important stages of the poetess’s life, but also to tell interesting facts from her.

Biography of Akhmatova

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova is a famous world-class poet, writer, translator, literary critic and critic. Born in 1889, Anna Gorenko (this is her real name), spent her childhood in hometown Odessa.

The future classicist studied in Tsarskoe Selo, and then in Kyiv, at the Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. When she published her first poem in 1911, her father forbade her to use her real surname, so Anna took the surname of her great-grandmother, Akhmatova. It was with this name that she entered Russian and world history.

There is one interesting fact associated with this episode, which we will present at the end of the article.

By the way, above you can see a photo of young Akhmatova, which differs sharply from her subsequent portraits.

Personal life of Akhmatova

In total, Anna had three husbands. Was she happy in at least one marriage? It's hard to say. In her works we find a lot of love poetry.

But this is rather some kind of idealistic image of unattainable love, passed through the prism of Akhmatova’s gift. But whether she had ordinary family happiness is unlikely.

Gumilev

The first husband in her biography was a famous poet, from whom she had her only son, Lev Gumilyov (author of the theory of ethnogenesis).

After living for 8 years, they divorced, and already in 1921 Nikolai was shot.

It is important to emphasize here that her first husband loved her passionately. She did not reciprocate his feelings, and he knew about this even before the wedding. In a word, their life together was extremely painful and painful from constant jealousy and internal suffering of both.

Akhmatova was very sorry for Nikolai, but she did not feel feelings for him. Two poets from God could not live under the same roof and separated. Even their son could not stop their disintegrating marriage.

Shileiko

During this difficult period for the country, the great writer lived extremely poorly.

Having an extremely meager income, she earned extra money by selling herring, which was given out as rations, and with the proceeds she bought tea and smokes, which her husband could not do without.

In her notes there is a phrase relating to this time: “I will soon be on all fours myself.”

Shileiko was terribly jealous of his brilliant wife of literally everything: men, guests, poetry and hobbies.

Punin

Akhmatova's biography developed rapidly. In 1922 she marries again. This time for Nikolai Punin, the art critic with whom she lived the longest - 16 years. They separated in 1938, when Anna's son Lev Gumilyov was arrested. By the way, Lev spent 10 years in the camps.

Difficult years of biography

When he was just imprisoned, Akhmatova spent 17 difficult months in prison lines, bringing parcels to her son. This period of her life is forever etched in her memory.

One day a woman recognized her and asked if she, as a poet, could describe all the horror that the mothers of the innocently convicted experienced. Anna answered in the affirmative and then began work on her most famous poem, “Requiem.” Here's a short excerpt from there:

I've been screaming for seventeen months,
I'm calling you home.
I threw myself at the feet of the executioner -
You are my son and my horror.

Everything's messed up forever
And I can't make it out
Now, who is the beast, who is the man,
And how long will it be to wait for execution?

First world war Akhmatova completely limited her public life. However, this was incomparable to what happened later in her difficult biography. After all, what was still waiting for her was the bloodiest in the history of mankind.

In the 1920s, a growing emigration movement began. All this had a very difficult impact on Akhmatova because almost all of her friends went abroad.

One conversation that took place between Anna and G.V. is noteworthy. Ivanov in 1922. Ivanov himself describes it as follows:

The day after tomorrow I'm leaving abroad. I’m going to Akhmatova to say goodbye.

Akhmatova extends her hand to me.

- Are you leaving? Take my bow to Paris.

- And you, Anna Andreevna, are not going to leave?

- No. I will not leave Russia.

- But life is getting more and more difficult!

- Yes, everything is more difficult.

- It can become completely unbearable.

- What should I do?

- Won't you leave?

- I won’t leave.

In the same year, she wrote a famous poem that drew a line between Akhmatova and the creative intelligentsia who emigrated:

I'm not with those who abandoned the earth
To be torn to pieces by enemies.
I don't listen to their rude flattery,
I won’t give them my songs.

But I always feel sorry for the exile,
Like a prisoner, like a patient,
Your road is dark, wanderer,
Someone else's bread smells like wormwood.

Since 1925, the NKVD has issued an unspoken ban so that no publishing house publishes any of Akhmatova’s works due to their “anti-nationality.”

It is impossible to convey in a short biography the burden of moral and social oppression that Akhmatova experienced during these years.

Having learned what fame and recognition were, she was forced to eke out a miserable, half-starved existence, in complete oblivion. At the same time, realizing that her friends abroad regularly publish and deny themselves little.

The voluntary decision not to leave, but to suffer with her people - this is the truly amazing fate of Anna Akhmatova. During these years, she made do with occasional translations of foreign poets and writers and, in general, lived extremely poorly.

Akhmatova's creativity

But let's go back to 1912, when the first collection of poems by the future great poetess was published. It was called "Evening". This was the beginning of the creative biography of the future star in the firmament of Russian poetry.

Three years later, a new collection “Rosary Beads” appears, which was printed in 1000 pieces.

Actually, from this moment the nationwide recognition of Akhmatova’s great talent begins.

In 1917, the world saw a new book with poems, “The White Flock.” It was published twice as large, through the previous collection.

Among Akhmatova’s most significant works we can mention “Requiem”, written in 1935-1940. Why is this particular poem considered one of the greatest?

The fact is that it reflects all the pain and horror of a woman who lost her loved ones due to human cruelty and repression. And this image was very similar to the fate of Russia itself.

In 1941, Akhmatova wandered hungry around Leningrad. According to some eyewitnesses, she looked so bad that a woman stopped next to her and handed her alms with the words: “Take it for Christ’s sake.” One can only imagine how Anna Andreevna felt at that time.

However, before the blockade began, she was evacuated to, where she met with Marina Tsvetaeva. This was their only meeting.

A short biography of Akhmatova does not allow us to show in all details the essence of her amazing poems. They seem to be alive talking to us, conveying and revealing many sides of the human soul.

It is important to emphasize that she wrote not only about the individual, as such, but considered the life of the country and its fate as the biography of an individual person, as a kind of living organism with its own merits and painful inclinations.

A subtle psychologist and a brilliant expert on the human soul, Akhmatova was able to depict in her poems many facets of fate, its happy and tragic vicissitudes.

Death and memory

On March 5, 1966, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova died in a sanatorium near Moscow. On the fourth day, the coffin with her body was delivered to Leningrad, where a funeral took place at the Komarovskoye cemetery.

Many streets in the former republics are named after the outstanding Russian poetess Soviet Union. In Italy, in Sicily, a monument was erected to Akhmatova.

In 1982, a small planet was discovered, which received its name in its honor - Akhmatova.

In the Netherlands, on the wall of one of the houses in the city of Leiden, the poem “Muse” is written in large letters.

Muse

When I wait for her to come at night,
Life seems to hang by a thread.
What honors, what youth, what freedom
In front of a lovely guest with a pipe in her hand.

And then she came in. Throwing back the covers,
She looked at me carefully.
I tell her: “Did you dictate to Dante?
Pages of Hell? Answers: “I am!”

Interesting facts from Akhmatova’s biography

Being a recognized classic, back in the 20s, Akhmatova was subject to colossal censorship and silence.

It was not published at all for decades, which left her without a livelihood.

However, despite this, abroad she was considered one of the greatest poets of our time and in different countries published even without her knowledge.

When Akhmatova’s father learned that his seventeen-year-old daughter had started writing poetry, he asked “not to disgrace his name.”

Her first husband, Gumilyov, says that they often quarreled over their son. When Levushka was about 4 years old, I taught him the phrase: “My dad is a poet, and my mom is hysterical.”

When a poetry company gathered in Tsarskoe Selo, Levushka entered the living room and shouted a memorized phrase in a loud voice.

Nikolai Gumilyov became very angry, and Akhmatova was delighted and began to kiss her son, saying: “Good girl, Leva, you’re right, your mother is hysterical!” At that time, Anna Andreevna did not yet know what kind of life awaited her ahead, and what age was coming to replace the Silver Age.

The poet kept a diary all her life, which became known only after her death. It is thanks to this that we know many facts from her biography.

Akhmatova was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965, but it was ultimately awarded to Mikhail Sholokhov. Not long ago it became known that the committee initially considered the option of dividing the award between them. But then they settled on Sholokhov.

Two of Akhmatova’s sisters died of tuberculosis, and Anna was sure that the same fate awaited her. However, she was able to overcome weak genetics and lived to be 76 years old.

When she went to the sanatorium, Akhmatova felt death approaching. In her notes she left a short phrase: “It’s a pity that there is no Bible there.”

We hope that this biography of Akhmatova answered all the questions you had about her life. We strongly recommend using an Internet search and reading at least selected poems by the poetic genius Anna Akhmatova.

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Anna Akhmatova is an outstanding Russian poetess, whose work belongs to the so-called Silver Age of Russian literature, as well as a translator and literary critic. In the sixties she was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her poems have been translated into many languages ​​of the world.

Three beloved people of the famous poetess were subjected to repression: her first and second husband, as well as her son, died or received long sentences. These tragic moments left an indelible imprint both on the personality of the great woman and on her work.

The life and work of Anna Akhmatova are undoubtedly of interest to the Russian public.

Biography

Akhmatova Anna Andreevna, real name Gorenko, was born in the resort town of Bolshoi Fontan (Odessa region). In addition to Anna, the family had six more children. When the great poetess was little, her family traveled a lot. This was due to the work of the father of the family.

Like her early biography, the girl’s personal life was quite eventful with a variety of events. In April 1910, Anna married the outstanding Russian poet Nikolai Gumilyov. Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilev were married in a legal church marriage, and in the early years their union was incredibly happy.

The young couple breathed the same air - the air of poetry. Nikolai suggested that his lifelong friend think about a literary career. She obeyed, and as a result, the young woman began publishing in 1911.

In 1918, Akhmatova divorced Gumilyov (but they maintained correspondence until his arrest and subsequent execution) and married a scientist, a specialist in Assyrian civilization. His name was Vladimir Shilenko. He was not only a scientist, but also a poet. She broke up with him in 1921. Already in 1922, Anna began living with art critic Nikolai Punin.

Anna was able to officially change her last name to “Akhmatova” only in the thirties. Before this, according to documents, she bore the surnames of her husbands, and used her well-known and sensational pseudonym only on the pages of literary magazines and in salons at poetry evenings.

A difficult period in the life of the poetess also began in the twenties and thirties, with the Bolsheviks coming to power. During this tragic period for the Russian intelligentsia, their close people were arrested one after another, not embarrassed by the fact that they were relatives or friends of a great man.

Also, in those years, the poems of this talented woman were practically not published or reprinted at all.

It would seem that she was forgotten - but not about her loved ones. The arrests of Akhmatova’s relatives and acquaintances followed one after another:

• In 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was captured by the Cheka and executed a few weeks later.
• In 1935, Nikolai Punin was arrested.
• In 1935, Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev, the love child of two great poets, was arrested and some time later sentenced to long imprisonment in one of the Soviet forced labor camps.

Anna Akhmatova cannot be called a bad wife and mother and cannot be accused of inattention to the fate of her arrested relatives. The famous poetess did everything possible to ease the fate of loved ones who fell into the millstones of the Stalinist punitive and repressive mechanism.

All her poems and all her work from that period, those truly terrible years, are imbued with sympathy for the plight of the people and political prisoners, as well as the fear of a simple Russian woman before the seemingly omnipotent and soulless Soviet leaders, dooming the citizens of their own country to death. It is impossible to read this sincere cry without tears. strong woman- a wife and mother who has lost her closest people...

Anna Akhmatova owns a cycle of poems that is extremely interesting for historians and literary scholars, having an important historical significance. This cycle is called “Glory to the World!”, and in fact it praises Soviet power in all its creative manifestations.

According to some historians and biographers, Anna, an inconsolable mother, wrote this cycle with the sole purpose of showing her love for and loyalty to the Stalinist regime, in order to thereby achieve for her son the leniency of his torturers. Akhmatova and Gumilyov (the younger) were once a truly happy family... Alas, only until the moment when a merciless fate trampled their fragile family idyll.

During the Great Patriotic War, the famous poetess was evacuated from Leningrad to Tashkent along with others famous people art. In honor of the Great Victory, she wrote her most wonderful poems (years of writing - approximately 1945-1946).

Anna Akhmatova died in 1966 in the Moscow region. She was buried near Leningrad, the funeral was modest. The poetess's son Lev, who had already been released from the camp by that time, together with his friends, built a monument on her grave. Subsequently, caring people made a bas-relief for the monument depicting the face of this most interesting and talented woman.

To this day, the poetess’s grave is a place of constant pilgrimage for young writers and poets, as well as countless admirers of the talent of this amazing woman. Admirers of her poetic gift come from different cities of Russia, as well as CIS countries, near and far abroad.

Contribution to culture

Undoubtedly, Anna Akhmatova's contribution to Russian literature and, in particular, to poetry cannot be overestimated. For many people, the name of this poetess, no less, is associated with the Silver Age of Russian literature (along with the Golden Age, the most famous, bright names of which are, without a doubt, Pushkin and Lermontov).

Anna Akhmatova's author includes famous collections of poems, among which are probably the most popular, published during the lifetime of the great Russian poetess. These collections are united by content, as well as by the time of writing. Here are some of these collections (briefly):

• "Favorites".
• "Requiem".
• "The Running of Time".
• "Glory to the World!"
• "White Flock"

All the poems of this wonderful creative person, including those not included in the above collections, have enormous artistic value.

Anna Akhmatova also created poems that are exceptional in their poeticism and height of syllables - such as, for example, the poem “Alkonost”. Alkonost in ancient Russian mythology is a mythical creature, an amazing magical bird that sings of bright sadness. It is not difficult to draw parallels between this wonderful creature and the poetess herself, all of whose poems from her early youth were imbued with the beautiful, bright and pure sadness of existence...

During her lifetime, many of the poems of this great personality in the history of Russian culture were nominated for a wide variety of prestigious literary awards, including the most famous among writers and scientists of all stripes, the Nobel Prize (in this case, for literature).

In the sad and, in general, tragic fate of the great poetess, there are many funny, interesting moments in their own way. We invite the reader to learn about at least some of them:

• Anna took a pseudonym because her father, a nobleman and scientist, having learned about the literary experiments of his young daughter, asked her not to disgrace his family name.
• The surname “Akhmatova” was borne by a distant relative of the poetess, but Anna created a whole poetic legend around this surname. The girl wrote that she was descended from the khan of the Golden Horde, Akhmat. Mysterious interesting origin seemed to her an indispensable attribute of a great man and guaranteed success with the public.
• As a child, the poetess preferred playing with boys to ordinary girl activities, which made her parents blush.
• Her mentors at the gymnasium were future outstanding scientists and philosophers.
• Anna was among the first young girls to enroll in the Higher Women's Courses at a time when this was not encouraged, since society saw women only as mothers and homemakers.
• In 1956, the poetess was awarded the Certificate of Honor of Armenia.
• Anna is buried under an unusual tombstone. The tombstone for his mother - a small copy of the prison wall, near which Anna spent many hours and cried many tears, and also repeatedly described it in poems and poems - Lev Gumilev designed himself and built with the help of his students (he taught at the university).

Unfortunately, some funny and interesting facts from the life of the great poetess, as well as her short biography, undeservedly forgotten by descendants.

Anna Akhmatova was a person of art, the owner of amazing talent, amazing willpower. But that's not all. The poetess was a woman of amazing spiritual power, a beloved wife, and a sincerely loving mother. She showed great courage in trying to free those close to her heart from prison...

The name of Anna Akhmatova deservedly ranks with the outstanding classics of Russian poetry - Derzhavin, Lermontov, Pushkin...

We can only hope that this woman with a difficult fate will be remembered for centuries, and even our descendants will be able to enjoy her truly extraordinary, melodic and sweet-sounding poems. Author: Irina Shumilova

It is difficult to imagine the period of the Silver Age in Russian poetry without such a big name as Anna Akhmatova. The biography of this outstanding man is not at all easy. Akhmatova's personality is shrouded in an aura of mystery. In her personal life there was glory, love, but also great sorrow. This will be discussed in the article.

Biography of Akhmatova: complete

Anna Akhmatova (Gorenko) was born on June 23, new style, 1889 into a noble family. Her biography began in Odessa. Her father worked as a mechanical engineer, her mother belonged to the creative intelligentsia.

A year later, the Gorenko family moved to St. Petersburg, where his father received a higher position. All Anna's childhood memories were connected with this wonderful city on the Neva. The girl's upbringing and education was, of course, at the highest level. She and her nanny often walked in Tsarskoye Selo Park and enjoyed the beautiful creations of talented sculpture masters.

She began to be taught lessons in social etiquette early on. In addition to Anya, the family had five more children. She listened to the governess teach French older children, and independently learned this language in this way. The girl also learned to read and write on her own by reading Leo Tolstoy’s books.

When Anna was ten years old, she was sent to the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium. She studied reluctantly. But she loved the summer holidays that the family spent near Sevastopol. There, according to her own recollections, the girl shocked the local young ladies by walking without a hat, barefoot, sunbathing to such an extent that her skin began to peel off. From that time on, Anna fell in love with the sea, once and for all.

Perhaps this love for the beauty of nature gave rise to poetic inspiration in her. Anna wrote her first poem at the age of eleven. The poetry of Pushkin, Lermontov, Derzhavin, Nekrasov served as role models for her.

After Anna's parents divorced, she moved with her mother and other children to Evpatoria, and then to Kyiv. I had to finish my last year at the gymnasium there. Then she entered the Higher Women's Courses at the Faculty of Law. But, as it turned out, jurisprudence is not her calling. Therefore, Anna chose Women's literary and historical courses in St. Petersburg.

The beginning of a creative journey

No one in the Gorenko family ever wrote poetry. The father forbade the young poetess to sign the name Gorenko, so as not to disgrace their family. He considered her passion for poetry to be something unacceptable and frivolous. Anna had to come up with a pseudonym.

It turned out that in their family there was once upon a time the Horde Khan Akhmat. The aspiring poetess began to be called after him.

When Anna was still studying at the gymnasium, a young man named Nikolai Gumilyov met her. He also wrote poetry, even published his own magazine, Sirius. The young people began to meet, and after Anna moved they corresponded. Nikolai highly appreciated the girl’s poetic talent. He was the first to publish her poems in his magazine under the signature of Anna G. This was in 1907.

In 1910-1912, Anna Akhmatova traveled through European countries. She was in Paris, Italy. There there was a meeting with the Italian impressionist artist Amadeo Modigliani. This acquaintance, which turned into a whirlwind romance, left a noticeable mark on her creative biography.

But, unfortunately, the lovers could not be together. They separated in 1911 and never met again. Soon the young artist died of tuberculosis. Love for him and worry about his untimely death were reflected in the work of the young poetess.

Akhmatova's first poems are lyrical. They reflect the poetess’s personal life, her love, her experiences. They are passionate and tender, full of feelings, a little naive, as if written in an album. The poetess herself called the poems of that time “the poor poems of an empty girl.” They are a little similar to the early work of another outstanding poetess of that time - Marina Tsvetaeva.

In 1911, Anna Akhmatova, for the first time in her creative biography, decided to independently send her poems to the judgment of professionals in the then popular Moscow monthly magazine “Russian Thought”.

She asked if she should have continued writing poetry. The answer was positive. Her poems were published.

Then the poetess was published in other famous magazines: Apollo, General Journal and others.

Popular recognition of the poetess' talent

Soon Akhmatova becomes famous in literary circles. Many famous writers and poets of that time noticed and appreciated her talent. Everyone is also amazed by the extraordinary beauty of the poetess. Her oriental nose with a pronounced hump, half-closed eyes with large clouds, which sometimes had the ability to change color. Some said that her eyes were gray, others said they were green, and others said they were sky blue.

Also, her sedateness and royal bearing spoke for themselves. Despite the fact that Anna was quite tall, she never hunched over and always stood very straight. Her manners were refined. Mystery and uniqueness reigned throughout the appearance.

They say that in her youth Anna was very flexible. Even ballerinas were jealous of her extraordinary plasticity. Her thin hands, aquiline nose, and misty, cloudy eyes were sung by many poets, including, of course, Nikolai Gumilyov.

In 1912, Anna Akhmatova’s first book, entitled “Evening,” was published. These poems were exclusively lyrical, touching and melodious. The collection immediately found its admirers. It was a burst of fame in the life of the young poetess. She is invited to perform her poems, many artists paint her portraits, poets dedicate poems to her, composers write musical works to her.

In bohemian circles, Anna met the poet Alexander Blok. He was delighted with her talent and beauty. And of course, he dedicated his poems to her. Many have already talked about the secret romance of these outstanding people. But whether this was true, no one knows anymore. She was also friends with the composer Lurie and the critic N. Nedobrovo. She also had affairs with them, according to rumors at the time.

Two years later, the poetess’s second book, called “The Rosary,” was published. This was already poetry of the highest professional level, compared to her first book. The established “Akhmatovian” style can already be felt here.

In the same year, Anna Akhmatova wrote her first poem, “Near the Sea.” In it, the poetess reflected her impressions of her youth, memories of the sea, and love for it.

At the beginning of the First World War, Akhmatova reduced her public speaking. Then she fell ill with a terrible disease - tuberculosis.

But there was no break in her personal poetic life. She continued to write her poetry. But then the poetess was more fascinated by her love of reading classics. And this affected her work of that period.

In 1717, the poetess’s new book, “The White Flock,” was published. The book was published in a huge circulation - 2 thousand copies. Her name became louder than the name of Nikolai Gumilyov. By that time, Akhmatova’s own style was clearly visible in her poems, free, individual, integral. Another famous poet Mayakovsky called it “a monolith that cannot be broken by any blows.” And this was the true truth.

More and more philosophy appears in her poems, less and less naive youthful expressions. Before us is a wise, mature woman. Her life experience, deep intelligence and at the same time simplicity are clearly visible in the lines. The theme of faith in God and Orthodoxy is also an integral part of her work. The words: “prayer”, “God”, “faith” can often be found in her poems. The poetess is not shy about her faith, but speaks openly about it.

Terrible years

After the October revolution in the country, terrible times began not only for Russia, but also for Akhmatova herself. She did not even imagine what torment and suffering she would have to endure. Although in his youth, during a visit to the elder’s cell, he predicted a martyr’s crown for her and called her “Christ’s Bride,” promising a Heavenly crown for her patience with suffering. Akhmatova wrote about this visit in her poem.

Of course, the new government could not like Akhmatova’s poems, which were immediately called “anti-proletarian”, “bourgeois”, etc. In the 20s, the poetess was under constant supervision of the NKVD. She writes her poems “on the table” and is forced to give up public speaking.

In 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was arrested for “anti-Soviet propaganda” and sentenced to death. Akhmatova is having a hard time with his death.

Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov

In 1921, Alexander Blok died. She is divorcing her second husband. This whole series of tragic events did not break this woman, strong in spirit. She resumes work in literary societies, publishes again and speaks before the public. A new book of her poems, “Plantain,” is being published.

Then, six months later, Akhmatova’s fifth book, AnnoDomini MCMXXI, was published. This name is translated from Latin - in the summer of the Lord 1921. After that, it was not published for several years. Many of her poems from that time were lost during travel.

At the height of the repressions in 1935, two people close to her were arrested: her husband (Nikolai Punin) and son. She wrote to the government about their release. A week later they were released.

But the troubles didn't end there. Three years later, Lev Gumilyov's son was arrested again and sentenced to five years of hard labor at hard labor. The unfortunate mother often visited her son in prison and gave him parcels. All these events and bitter experiences were reflected in her poem “Requiem”.

In 1939, Akhmatova was admitted to the Union of Soviet Writers. In 1940, “Requiem” was written. Then the collection “From Six Books” was published.

At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Akhmatova lived in Leningrad. Her health condition deteriorated sharply. On the advice of doctors, she left for Tashkent. A new collection of her poems was published there. In 1944, the poetess decided to return to Leningrad.

After the war in 1946, her work was heavily criticized along with the work of M. Zoshchenko in the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”. They were expelled in disgrace from the Writers' Union.

In 1949, Akhmatova’s son was arrested again. She asked for her son, wrote to the government, but she was refused. Then the poetess decides to take a desperate step. She wrote an ode to Stalin. The cycle of poems was called “Glory to the World!”

In 1951, Fadeev proposed reinstating the poetess in the Writers' Union, which was carried out. In 1954, she took part in the second congress of the Writers' Union.

In 1956, her son was released. He was angry with his mother because, as it seemed to him, she did not seek his release.

In 1958, her new collection of poems was published. In 1964 she received the Italian Etna-Taormina Prize. The following year, in England, the poetess was awarded a doctorate from Oxford University. In 1966, the last collection of her poems was published. On March 5 of the same year, while in a sanatorium, she died.

On March 10, Akhmatova’s funeral service was held in an Orthodox church in Leningrad. She was buried in a cemetery in Komarovo, Leningrad region.

Personal life of Akhmatova

The personal life of Anna Akhmatova interests many. She was officially married twice.

The first husband was Nikolai Gumilyov. They met and corresponded for a long time. Nikolai had been in love with Anna for a long time, and proposed marriage to her many times. But she refused. Then Anya was in love with her classmate. But he didn't pay any attention to her. Anna, in despair, tried to commit suicide.

Anna's mother, seeing Gumilyov's persistent courtship and endless marriage proposals, called him a saint. Finally, Anna broke down. She agreed to the marriage. The young people got married in 1910. They went on their honeymoon to Paris.

But, since Anna could not reciprocate her husband in any way and agreed to the marriage solely out of pity, very soon the young artist Amadeo Modigliani took a place in her heart. She met the ardent Italian in Paris. Then Anna came to him again.

He painted her portraits, she wrote poems for him. The stormy, beautiful romance was forced to end in the midst of it, since it would not have led to anything good.

Soon Anna and Gumilyov broke up. Anna Akhmatova's personal life changed in 1818: she married the scientist Vladimir Shileiko for the second time. But she divorced him three years later.

Changes in Anna Akhmatova’s personal life occurred in ’22. She became the common-law wife of N. Punin. I broke up with him in 1938. Then she had an intimate relationship with Garshin.

One of the brightest, most original and talented poets of the Silver Age, Anna Gorenko, better known to her admirers as Akhmatova, lived a long life full of tragic events. This proud and at the same time fragile woman witnessed two revolutions and two world wars. Her soul was seared by repression and the death of her closest people. The biography of Anna Akhmatova is worthy of a novel or film adaptation, which was repeatedly undertaken by both her contemporaries and the later generation of playwrights, directors and writers.

Anna Gorenko was born in the summer of 1889 in the family of a hereditary nobleman and retired naval mechanical engineer Andrei Andreevich Gorenko and Inna Erazmovna Stogova, who belonged to the creative elite of Odessa. The girl was born in the southern part of the city, in a house located in the Bolshoi Fontan area. She turned out to be the third oldest of six children.

As soon as the baby was one year old, the parents moved to St. Petersburg, where the head of the family received the rank of collegiate assessor and became a State Control official for special assignments. The family settled in Tsarskoe Selo, with which all Akhmatova’s childhood memories are connected. The nanny took the girl for a walk to Tsarskoye Selo Park and other places that were still remembered. Children were taught social etiquette. Anya learned to read using the alphabet, and she learned French in early childhood, listening to a teacher teach it to older children.

The future poetess received her education at the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium. Anna Akhmatova began writing poetry, according to her, at the age of 11. It is noteworthy that she discovered poetry not with the works of Alexander Pushkin and, whom she fell in love with a little later, but with the majestic odes of Gabriel Derzhavin and the poem “Frost, Red Nose,” which her mother recited.

Young Gorenko fell in love with St. Petersburg forever and considered it the main city of her life. She really missed its streets, parks and Neva when she had to leave with her mother for Evpatoria, and then for Kyiv. Her parents divorced when the girl turned 16.

She completed her penultimate grade at home, in Evpatoria, and finished her last grade at the Kyiv Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. After completing her studies, Gorenko becomes a student at the Higher Courses for Women, choosing the Faculty of Law. But if Latin and the history of law aroused a keen interest in her, then jurisprudence seemed boring to the point of yawning, so the girl continued her education in her beloved St. Petersburg, at N.P. Raev’s historical and literary women’s courses.

Poetry

No one in the Gorenko family studied poetry, “as far as the eye can see.” Only on the side of Inna Stogova’s mother was a distant relative, Anna Bunina, a translator and poetess. The father did not approve of his daughter’s passion for poetry and asked not to disgrace his family name. Therefore, Anna Akhmatova never signed her poems with her real name. In his family tree she found her Tatar great-grandmother, who allegedly descended from the Horde Khan Akhmat, and thus turned into Akhmatova.

In her early youth, when the girl was studying at the Mariinsky Gymnasium, she met a talented young man, who later famous poet Nikolai Gumilev. Both in Evpatoria and in Kyiv, the girl corresponded with him. In the spring of 1910, they got married in the St. Nicholas Church, which still stands today in the village of Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kiev. At that time, Gumilyov was already an accomplished poet, famous in literary circles.

The newlyweds went to Paris to celebrate their honeymoon. This was Akhmatova's first meeting with Europe. Upon his return, the husband introduced his talented wife into the literary and artistic circles of St. Petersburg, and she was immediately noticed. At first everyone was struck by her unusual, majestic beauty and regal posture. Dark-skinned, with a distinct hump on her nose, Anna Akhmatova’s “Horde” appearance captivated literary bohemia.

Soon, St. Petersburg writers find themselves captivated by the creativity of this original beauty. Anna Akhmatova wrote poems about love, and it was this great feeling that she sang all her life, during the crisis of symbolism. Young poets try themselves in other trends that have come into fashion - futurism and acmeism. Gumileva-Akhmatova gains fame as an Acmeist.

1912 becomes the year of a breakthrough in her biography. In this memorable year, not only was the poetess’s only son, Lev Gumilyov, born, but her first collection, entitled “Evening,” was also published in a small edition. In her declining years, a woman who has gone through all the hardships of the time in which she had to be born and create will call these first creations “the poor poems of an empty girl.” But then Akhmatova’s poems found their first admirers and brought her fame.

After 2 years, a second collection called “Rosary” was published. And this was already a real triumph. Fans and critics speak enthusiastically about her work, elevating her to the rank of the most fashionable poetess of her time. Akhmatova no longer needs her husband's protection. Her name sounds even louder than Gumilyov’s name. In the revolutionary year of 1917, Anna published her third book, “The White Flock.” It is published in an impressive circulation of 2 thousand copies. The couple separates in the turbulent year of 1918.

And in the summer of 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot. Akhmatova was grieving the death of her son’s father and the man who introduced her to the world of poetry.

Since the mid-1920s, the poetess experienced hard times. She is under close surveillance of the NKVD. It is not printed. Akhmatova’s poems are written “on the table.” Many of them were lost during travel. The last collection was published in 1924. “Provocative”, “decadent”, “anti-communist” poems - such a stigma on creativity cost Anna Andreevna dearly.

The new stage of her creativity is closely connected with soul-debilitating worries for her loved ones. First of all, for my son Lyovushka. In the late autumn of 1935, the first alarm bell rang for the woman: her second husband Nikolai Punin and son were arrested at the same time. They are released in a few days, but there will be no more peace in the life of the poetess. From now on, she will feel the ring of persecution around her tightening.

Three years later, the son was arrested. He was sentenced to 5 years in forced labor camps. In the same terrible year, the marriage of Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Punin ended. An exhausted mother carries parcels for her son to Kresty. During these same years, the famous “Requiem” by Anna Akhmatova was published.

To make life easier for her son and get him out of the camps, the poetess, just before the war, in 1940, published the collection “From Six Books.” Here are collected old censored poems and new ones, “correct” from the point of view of the ruling ideology.

The Great Eruption Patriotic War Anna Andreevna spent time in evacuation in Tashkent. Immediately after the victory she returned to the liberated and destroyed Leningrad. From there he soon moved to Moscow.

But the clouds that had barely parted overhead—the son was released from the camps—condensed again. In 1946, her work was destroyed at the next meeting of the Writers' Union, and in 1949, Lev Gumilyov was arrested again. This time he was sentenced to 10 years. The unfortunate woman is broken. She writes requests and letters of repentance to the Politburo, but no one hears her.

After being released from yet another imprisonment, the relationship between mother and son remained tense for many years: Lev believed that his mother put creativity first, which she loved more than him. He moves away from her.

The black clouds over the head of this famous but deeply unhappy woman disperse only at the end of her life. In 1951, she was reinstated in the Writers' Union. Akhmatova's poems are published. In the mid-1960s, Anna Andreevna received a prestigious Italian prize and released a new collection, “The Running of Time.” And also famous poetess The University of Oxford awards the Ph.D.

At the end of his years, the world-famous poet and writer finally had his own home. The Leningrad Literary Fund gave her a modest wooden dacha in Komarovo. It was a tiny house that consisted of a veranda, a corridor and one room.

All the “furniture” is a hard bed with bricks as a leg, a table made from a door, a Modigliani drawing on the wall and an old icon that once belonged to the first husband.

Personal life

This royal woman had amazing power over men. In her youth, Anna was fantastically flexible. They say she could easily bend over backwards, her head touching the floor. Even the Mariinsky ballerinas were amazed at this incredible natural movement. She also had amazing eyes that changed color. Some said that Akhmatova’s eyes were gray, others claimed that they were green, and still others claimed that they were sky blue.

Nikolai Gumilyov fell in love with Anna Gorenko at first sight. But the girl was crazy about Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a student who did not pay any attention to her. The young schoolgirl suffered and even tried to hang herself with a nail. Luckily, he slipped out of the clay wall.

It seems that the daughter inherited her mother’s failures. Marriage to any of the three official husbands did not bring happiness to the poetess. Anna Akhmatova's personal life was chaotic and somewhat disheveled. They cheated on her, she cheated. The first husband carried his love for Anna throughout his short life, but at the same time he had illegitimate child, which everyone knew about. In addition, Nikolai Gumilyov did not understand why his beloved wife, in his opinion, not a genius poetess at all, evokes such delight and even exaltation among young people. Anna Akhmatova's poems about love seemed too long and pompous to him.

In the end they broke up.

After the breakup, Anna Andreevna had no end to her fans. Count Valentin Zubov gave her armfuls of expensive roses and was in awe of her mere presence, but the beauty gave preference to Nikolai Nedobrovo. However, he was soon replaced by Boris Anrepa.

Her second marriage to Vladimir Shileiko exhausted Anna so much that she said: “Divorce... What a pleasant feeling this is!”

A year after the death of her first husband, she breaks up with her second. And six months later she gets married for the third time. Nikolai Punin is an art critic. But Anna Akhmatova’s personal life did not work out with him either.

Deputy People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky Punin, who sheltered the homeless Akhmatova after a divorce, also did not make her happy. The new wife lived in an apartment with Punin’s ex-wife and his daughter, donating money to a common pot for food. Son Lev, who came from his grandmother, was placed in a cold corridor at night and felt like an orphan, always deprived of attention.

Anna Akhmatova’s personal life was supposed to change after a meeting with the pathologist Garshin, but just before the wedding, he allegedly dreamed of his late mother, who begged him not to take a witch into the house. The wedding was cancelled.

Death

The death of Anna Akhmatova on March 5, 1966 seems to have shocked everyone. Although she was already 76 years old at that time. And she had been ill for a long time and seriously. The poetess died in a sanatorium near Moscow in Domodedovo. On the eve of her death, she asked to bring her the New Testament, the texts of which she wanted to compare with the texts of the Qumran manuscripts.

They rushed to transport Akhmatova’s body from Moscow to Leningrad: the authorities did not want dissident unrest. She was buried at the Komarovskoye cemetery. Before their death, the son and mother were never able to reconcile: they did not communicate for several years.

At his mother’s grave, Lev Gumilyov laid out a stone wall with a window, which was supposed to symbolize the wall in the Crosses, where she carried messages to him. At first there was a wooden cross on the grave, as Anna Andreevna requested. But in 1969 a cross appeared.

The Anna Akhmatova Museum is located in St. Petersburg on Avtovskaya Street. Another one was opened in the Fountain House, where she lived for 30 years. Later, museums, memorial plaques and bas-reliefs appeared in Moscow, Tashkent, Kyiv, Odessa and many other cities where the muse lived.

Poetry

• 1912 – “Evening”
• 1914 – “Rosary”
• 1922 – “White Flock”
• 1921 – “Plantain”
• 1923 – “Anno Domini MCMXXI”
• 1940 – “From six books”
• 1943 – “Anna Akhmatova. Favorites"
• 1958 – “Anna Akhmatova. Poems"
• 1963 – “Requiem”
• 1965 – “Running Time”