April 28, 2015, 14:36

Childhood

♦ Akhmatova Anna Andreevna (real name - Gorenko) was born in the family of a marine engineer, retired captain of the 2nd rank at st. Big Fountain near Odessa. Mother, Inna Erazmovna, devoted herself to the children, of whom there were six in the family: Andrey, 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 rest of the children. Nevertheless, Anya felt what happened - and as she later said, this death lay like a shadow through her entire childhood.

♦ Akhmatova considered poets I. Annensky and A. S. Pushkin to be her teachers. From childhood, Anna strove to be faithful to the high Pushkin tradition. She saw a mystical meaning in one of her childhood finds: walking with the nanny along the alley of fragrant, immersed in the greenery of Tsarskoye Selo, she saw a pin in the form of a lyre in the grass. Little Anya was sure that Alexander Sergeevich, who wandered along these alleys about a century ago, dropped this pin. Pushkin and Akhmatova are a separate issue. Once, in the fortieth year, Pushkin dreamed of her friend Faina Ranevskaya. Ranevskaya called Akhmatova. Anna, pale with excitement, let out a short breath. : “I’m going immediately,” and added with envy: “How happy you are! I never dreamed about him." Akhmatova did not hide the fact that she could not stand Natalia Goncharova; looks 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 a thick volume of Nekrasov, which Anna was allowed to read during the holidays. Mother had a taste for poetry: she recited poems by Nekrasov and Derzhavin to 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 started to speak French quite early - she learned by watching the lessons of older children. At the age of ten she entered the gymnasium in Tsarskoye Selo.

♦ A few months later, the girl fell seriously ill: she lay unconscious for a week; thought she would not survive. When she came to, she remained deaf for some time. Later, one of the doctors suggested that this was smallpox - which, however, did not leave any visible traces. The trace remained in the soul: it was from then on that Anna began to write poetry.

Gumilyov

♦ On Christmas Eve 1903, Anna met Nikolai Gumilev. 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, an ugly 17-year-old boy realized that from now on and forever this girl would become his muse, his Beautiful Lady, for whom 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 was reminiscent of antique cameos. Anna stunned him with her complete dissimilarity to everything that surrounded them in Tsarskoye Selo.

The mermaid has sad eyes.
I love her, undine maiden,
Illuminated by the mystery of the night,
I love her glowing look
And rubies burning with bliss...
Because I myself am from the abyss,
From the bottomless abyss of the sea.
(N. Gumilyov "Mermaid")

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

♦ The coldish reception did not at all reduce 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 with passion rushed to win the heart of his Beautiful Lady. However, Anna was in love with another. 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 in the form of a disappointed tragic character. But here 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 the St. Petersburg tutor and separated Anya and Volodya from 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 a St. Petersburg tutor. In addition, Gumilyov's eternal talk about fatal love was not in vain - now Akhmatova herself is not averse to playing the role of a tragic figure. Soon she sends a letter to Gumilyov complaining about her uselessness and abandonment.

♦ Having received Akhmatova's letter, Gumilyov, full of hope, returns from Paris, visits Anya and makes her another marriage proposal. But the matter was spoiled ... by dolphins. Then Akhmatova was resting in Evpatoria. Walking along the beach with Gumilyov and listening to declarations of love, Anya stumbled upon two dead dolphins washed ashore. It is not known why this spectacle affected Akhmatova so much, but Gumilyov received another refusal. Moreover, Akhmatova cynically explained to the enamored Nikolai that her heart was forever occupied by Golenishchev-Kutuzov.

Double portrait: Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov. 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 Gumilyov's characteristic theatricality and pomposity. To settle accounts with life, the poet goes to the resort town of Tourville. 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 repeatedly told him that she loved to look at the waves of the sea. However, the tragedy was destined to turn into a farce. Vacationers mistook Gumilyov for a tramp, called the police, and instead of going on his last journey, Nikolai went to give explanations to the police station. Gumilyov 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 gets rejected again.

♦ Then Gumilyov again tries to commit suicide. 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 foresters.

♦ At the end of 1908 Gumilev returned to his homeland. With dreams to win the heart of Akhmatova, the young poet never parted. Therefore, he continues to besiege Anna, swearing eternal love to her and offering marriage. Either Akhmatova was touched by such almost dog-like devotion, or Gumilyov knocked her out of her consent with stories of 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 Gumilyov, she accepted him not as love - but as her Destiny.

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

♦ None of the groom's relatives showed up for the wedding; the Gumilyov family believed that this marriage would not last long.

After wedding

"Beautifully built women worth sculpting and painting always look clumsy in dresses."Amedeo Modigliani

♦ After the wedding, the Gumilyovs left for Paris. Here Anna meets Amedeo Modigliani- then an unknown artist who makes many portraits of her. Something similar to an affair 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, both of us did not understand one essential thing: everything that happened was for both of us the prehistory of our life: his - very short, mine - very long. The breath of art had not yet charred and transformed these two existences; it had to be a bright, light pre-dawn hour. But the future, which, as you know, casts its shadow long before entering, knocked on the window, hid behind the lanterns, crossed dreams and frightened with the terrible Baudelaire 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 not clear how he lived. As an artist, he did not have a shadow of recognition ". about Anna and Amadeo was already on Gossip, back in 2009. Therefore, I see no reason to cover this again. I will add only portraits of Akhmatova, works by Modigliani (1911)

Anna Akhmatova at the trepeze. 1911

♦ Regarding the portraits, Akhmatova said the following: “He didn’t draw me from life, but at home, he gave me these drawings. There were sixteen of them. He asked me to frame them and hang them in my room. They died in the Tsarskoe Selo house in the early years of the Revolution. which is less than in the others, its future "nudes" are foreseen..."

♦ For Nikolai Gumilyov, marriage to Anna Gorenko did not become a victory. As one of Akhmatova's friends of 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 did not raise an eyebrow when the husband in love, who had been seeking her for so many years, five months after the wedding, drove off to Africa in search of adventure. She hated the exotic and went into another room when he started talking about his travels in Abyssinia, about hunting tigers. And for Gumilyov, it turned out to be not at all easy to combine in the mind the image of the Beautiful Lady - an object for worship - with the image of a wife and mother. And therefore, two years after the marriage, Gumilyov starts a serious romance. 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 runs into 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 hopelessly in love. Anna was not struck by the news of this - she seemed to know in advance that this would be the case, and prepared revenge ahead of time. Returning home from Paris, Anna deliberately put a bundle of Modigliani's letters in a volume of Théophile Gautier's poems and slipped the book to her husband. They were quits and generously forgave each other.

♦ Akhmatova has a hard time - she has long been accustomed to being a goddess for Nikolai, and therefore it is hard for her to be overthrown from her pedestal and realize that her husband is capable of experiencing the same high feelings for another woman. Mashenka's health deteriorated rapidly, and soon after the beginning of their affair with Gumilyov, Kuzmina-Karavaeva died. True, her death did not return Akhmatova's former adoration of her husband. And then in 1912, Anna Andreevna decided on a desperate step and gave birth to Gumilyov's son Lev. Gumilyov took the birth of a child ambiguously. He immediately arranges a "demonstration of independence" and continues to have affairs on the side. He has a choir of lovers from among the students, one even bore him a child. Continuing to maintain marriage and friendship, Akhmatova and Gumilyov strike each other blow after blow. 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 Gumilvenok, as friends dubbed the baby, did not make a visible impression on the spouses. Both of them spent more time writing poems in honor of this event than fussing with a child. But mother-in-law Anna Ivanovna softened to her daughter-in-law and forgave her everything for her grandson. Little Levushka firmly settles in the arms of a happy grandmother.

♦ In 1914, Gumilyov left for the front, and Akhmatova began a stormy romance with the poet Boris Anrep. And only Anrep's emigration to England put an end to their relationship. However, Anrep was by no means the only close associate of Akhmatova.

Anna with her son Leo

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

I laughed at myself

And I deceived myself

When could I think that in the world

Is there anything but you.

1920

Other marriages

♦ Subsequently, Akhmatova married three more times, but all her marriages ended in divorce. Probably, the 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 all, 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 Gumilyov 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 wife. beautiful lady Anya Gorenko After her divorce from Gumilyov in 1918, Anna Andreevna wandered around friends until she was sheltered in the service apartment of the Marble Palace by orientalist Voldemar Shileiko. ♦ He masterfully translated from the Akkadian language, was superbly educated. And at the same time, he is capricious, absurd, caustic and rude, which for some reason Akhmatova endured steadfastly, believing that her new husband was a little crazy. Their relationship amazed others.

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

- If the dog was taught as much as you, she would have become the director of the circus long ago! - responded Shileiko.
1924
Shileiko tore and threw her manuscripts into the stove, melting the samovar with them. For three years Anna Andreevna dutifully chopped wood, because Shileiko had sciatica. When she considered that her husband was healed, she simply left him. And she said with a satisfied sigh: “Divorce… What a nice feeling!”

Submissive to you? You are crazy!
I am obedient to the will of the Lord alone.
I don't want the thrill or the 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 with a dog. So he said: “... in my house there was a place for all stray dogs, so there was a place for Anya.” Akhmatova herself composed the following poems:

From your mysterious love

As if in pain, I scream out loud.

Became yellow and fit,

I can barely drag my feet.

After that, in 1922, the poetess marries art critic Nikolai Punin ♦ Nikolai Punin was in love with Anna for a long time and, when she was again left without a roof over her head, he proposed to her. Akhmatova and Punin had to live with his ex-wife Anna Evgenievna and daughter Ira. Anna Andreevna handed over monthly “feed” money to the common cauldron. The second half of her miserable income, leaving only for cigarettes and for a tram, she sent her mother-in-law to raise her son in Bezhetsk. Anna Akhmatova and N. Punin in the courtyard of the Fountain House, 1920

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

♦ When Akhmatova made attempts to leave this ridiculous life, Punin rolled 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 woke up in her: she is busy with Punin's daughter. Punin, on the other hand, defiantly does not notice Lyova, who, upon arrival from Bezhetsk, gets an unheated corridor for spending the night. Anna with her son Leo

“It was bad to live in the Punins' apartment ... Mom paid attention to me only in order to study French with me. But with her anti-pedagogical abilities, it was very difficult for me to perceive this, ”- the already middle-aged Lev Nikolaevich did not forget the insults.

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

The last love of Akhmatova was a pathologist Garshin(nephew of the writer). They were supposed to get married, but at the last moment the groom refused the bride. The day before, he dreamed of his dead wife, who begged: "Do not take this witch into the house!"

Out of favor with the authorities

Excerpts from the Report "On the Necessity of the Arrest of the Poetess Akhmatova" No. 6826 / A of June 14, 1950 was handed over to Stalin by the Minister of State Security of the USSR Abakumov.

Starting in 1924, Akhmatova, together with Punin, grouped hostile literary workers around her and organized anti-Soviet gatherings in her apartment. On this occasion, arrested Punin showed: “Due to anti-Soviet sentiments, Akhmatova and I, talking to each other, more than once expressed our hatred for the Soviet system, slandered the leaders of the party and Soviet government and expressed dissatisfaction with various events Soviet power... 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 me and Akhmatova, discussed the events in the country from enemy positions ... Akhmatova, in particular, expressed slanderous allegations about cruel attitude Soviet authorities to the peasants, was indignant at the closing of churches and expressed her anti-Soviet views on a number of other issues.

Self-portrait by A. Akhmatova in charcoal, December 30, 1926

As established by the investigation, in these enemy gatherings in 1932-1935. took an active part in the son of Akhmatova - Lev Gumilyov, at that time a student of the Leningrad state university. About this arrested Gumilyov showed: “In the presence of Akhmatova, at gatherings, we did not hesitate to express our hostile sentiments ... Punin allowed terrorist attacks against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government ... In May 1934, in the presence of Akhmatova, Punin figuratively showed how he would commit a terrorist act against leader of the Soviet people. Similar testimony was given by the arrested Punin, who confessed that he harbored terrorist sentiments against Comrade Stalin, and testified that these sentiments were shared by Akhmatova: “In conversations, I built all kinds of false accusations against the Head Soviet state and tried to “prove” that the situation existing in the Soviet Union could be changed in the direction we wished for only by forcibly removing Stalin... In frank conversations with meAkhmatovashared my terrorist sentiments and supported vicious attacks against the Head of the Soviet State. So, 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 the Trotskyist-Bukharin and other hostile groups.

It should be noted that in October 1935 Punin and Lev Gumilyov were arrested by the NKVD 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 have hostile conversations with him, during which she expressed vicious 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 prejudice" and forced to sign false statements against Akhmatova - about her "complicity" in their "crimes" and about her "enemy activities." Chekists juggled the facts masterfully. Numerous undercover denunciations and eavesdropping materials were also constantly collected against Akhmatova. The “operational development case” was initiated against Akhmatova in 1939. Special equipment in her apartment has been working since 1945. That is, the case has long been concocted, it remains only to bring it to its logical conclusion - the 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 mastered the science of being the mother of a prisoner quickly. Akhmatova spent seventeen months in prison queues, "three hundredth, with a transfer" stood under the Crosses. Once, going up the stairs, I noticed that not a single woman was looking in a 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 to do now?" - Mikhail Zoshchenko, who happened to meet on the street, asked Akhmatova. He looked completely dead. “Probably, again, personal troubles,” she decided, and uttered comforting words to the nervous Misha. A few days later, in a random newspaper in which the fish was wrapped, she read the formidable Decree of the Central Committee, in which Zoshchenko was called a literary hooligan, and she herself was a literary harlot.

“The range of her poetry is limited to squalor,” he drove in 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! Frightened to death, the writers obediently expelled Akhmatova from their trade union. And then they suffered without sleep, not knowing whether to greet Anna Andreevna tomorrow or to pretend that they did not know each other. Zoshchenko was trampled on by the famous Decree and literally killed. Akhmatova, as usual, survived. She just shrugged her shoulders. “Why does a great country need to pass tanks through the chest of one sick old woman?”

Martiros Saryan 1946The portrait of A. A. Akhmatova was painted in 1946, immediately after the decision of the Central Committee and Zhdanov's report on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad. And if the infinitely tired and offended woman agreed to pose for the artist, then, apparently, only because she was aware of the civil courage of his act. Akhmatova posed in Saryan's Moscow workshop. Saryan worked on the portrait for four days; Akhmatova fell ill and 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 authorization for the arrest of Akhmatova. The point here is the behavior of Akhmatova herself. No, she didn't know anything about Abakumov's memorandum and was least of all worried about herself. But she desperately wanted to save her son. Therefore, she wrote and published a series of loyal poems “Glory to the World”, among which is a jubilee 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 - her poetic name - at the feet of the supreme executioner. The executioner accepted the sacrifice. And that settled everything. True, Lev Gumilyov was not released anyway, but Akhmatova was not arrested either. Ahead of her were 16 painful years of loneliness.

Anna Akhmatova

♦ When the leader died, the long haze 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 at large, little chance of survival, and even less chance of becoming a world-famous celebrity. But Lev Nikolayevich 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 maternal, as it seemed to him, coldness. .
Akhmatova with her son Lev Gumilyov

♦ In recent years, Akhmatova finally found her own house - someone in the Leningrad Literary Fund became ashamed, and she was given a dacha in Komarovo. She called this dwelling a booth. There was a corridor, a porch, a veranda and one room. Akhmatova slept on a sunbed with a mattress, bricks were placed instead of one leg. 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 Lyangleben 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 Kiev Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. For the summer, she returned to Evpatoria, where Gumilev called on her - on the 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 experiences, asked not to shame his name. "I don't need your name"- she answered and took the name of her great-grandmother, Praskovya Fedoseevna, whose family descended from the Tatar Khan Akhmat. So the name of Anna Akhmatova appeared in Russian literature. Anna herself took her first publication completely lightly, believing that Gumilyov "had an eclipse." Gumilyov also did not take the poetry of his beloved seriously - he appreciated her poems only a few years later. When he first heard her poems, Gumilyov said: “Maybe you’d better dance? You are flexible…- from a “standing” position, she could bend so that she calmly reached her head to her heels. Later, the ballerinas of the Mariinsky Theater envied her.

Anna Akhmatova. Caricature. Altman N. I. 1915

♦ When Akhmatova's son, Lev Gumilyov, was arrested, she, along with other mothers, went to the Kresty prison. One of the women asked if she could describe IT. After that, Akhmatova began to write "Requiem".

♦ Throughout her conscious 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 premonition that the thread of her earthly life was about to break.

♦ The last collection of poems by Akhmatova was published in 1925. After that, the NKVD did not miss any work of this poetess 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 actually dooming herself to living 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 soon Akhmatova was expelled from the SSP. Soon another blow falls on Anna Andreevna: the second arrest of Lev Gumilyov. For the second time, the son of the poetess was sentenced to ten years in the camps. All this time, Akhmatova tried to pull him out, scribbled requests to the Politburo, but no one listened to them. Lev Gumilyov himself, not knowing anything about the efforts of his mother, 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 Soviet writers and she gradually returns to active creative work. In 1964, she was awarded the prestigious Italian literary prize "Etna-Torina" and she is allowed to receive it, since the times of total repression have passed, and Akhmatova has ceased to be considered an anti-communist poetess. In 1958, the collection "Poems" was published, in 1965 - "The Run of Time". Then, in 1965, a year before her death, Akhmatova received her doctorate from Oxford University.

1960

♦ Before her death, Akhmatova nevertheless became close to her son Leo, who for many years harbored an undeserved grudge against her. After the death of the poetess, Lev Nikolayevich took part in the construction of the monument together with his students (Lev Gumilyov was a doctor of 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 are standing by the poetic word Joseph Brodsky (covered the lower part of his face with his hand), Evgeny Rein (left)

The outstanding poetess Anna Akhmatova had a chance to experience the oppression of Soviet repression beyond measure. She and her family were constantly out of favor with the authorities.

Her first husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, was shot without trial or investigation, her son Lev spent many years in the camps, and her second husband, Nikolai Punin, was arrested twice. The apartment in the Fountain House was continuously tapped and monitored. Akhmatova was persecuted and, having been expelled from the Writers' Union, she was practically outlawed. In addition, as it is already known today, the final, physical reprisal was also prepared for the poetess. The report “On the need to arrest the poetess Akhmatova” No. 6826 / A dated June 14, 1950 was handed over to Stalin by the Minister of State Security of the USSR Abakumov. “To Comrade STALIN I.V. I report that the Ministry of State Security of the USSR received intelligence and investigative materials in relation to the poetess A. A. Akhmatova, indicating that she is an active enemy of the Soviet regime. AKHMATOVA Anna Andreevna, born in 1892 (in fact, she was born in 1889), Russian, comes from the nobility, non-partisan, lives in Leningrad. Her first husband, the poet-monarchist GUMILEV, as a participant in the White Guard conspiracy in Leningrad in 1921, was shot by the Cheka. Akhmatova is convicted of hostile activity by the testimony of her son GUMILEV L. N. arrested at the end of 1949, who was the senior researcher State Ethnographic Museum of the Peoples of the USSR, and her ex-husband PUNIN N.N., professor at Leningrad State University. During interrogation at the Ministry of State Security of the USSR, the arrested Punin testified that Akhmatova, being a native of a landowner's family, was hostile to the establishment of Soviet power in the country and until recently carried out enemy work against the Soviet state. As Punin showed, even in the first years after October revolution Akhmatova spoke with her anti-Soviet poems, in which she called the Bolsheviks "enemies that torment the earth", and stated that "she is not on the path with the Soviet regime."
Beginning in 1924, Akhmatova, together with PUNIN, who became her husband, grouped hostile literary workers around her and organized anti-Soviet gatherings in her apartment. On this occasion, the arrested Punin testified: “Due to anti-Soviet sentiments, I and Akhmatova, talking to each other, more than once expressed my hatred for 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 me and Akhmatova, discussed the events in the country from enemy positions ... Akhmatova, in particular, expressed slanderous fabrications about supposedly cruel attitude of the Soviet authorities towards the peasants, was indignant at the closing of churches and expressed her anti-Soviet views on a number of other issues.
As established by the investigation, in these enemy gatherings in 1932-1935. took an active part in the son of Akhmatova - Gumilev, at that time a student at Leningrad State University. The arrested GUMILEV testified about this: “In the presence of AKHMATOVA, we did not hesitate to express our hostile moods at gatherings ... PUNIN allowed terrorist attacks against the leaders of the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government ... In May 1934, in the presence of AKHMATOVA, PUNIN figuratively showed how he would have committed a terrorist act against the leader of the Soviet people. Similar testimony was given by the arrested PUNIN, who confessed that he harbored terrorist sentiments against Comrade Stalin, and testified that Akhmatova shared these sentiments of his: “In conversations, I built all kinds of false accusations against the Head of the Soviet State and tried the situation existing in the Soviet Union can be changed in the direction we desire only by forcibly removing Stalin... In frank conversations with me, Akhmatova shared my terrorist sentiments and supported the vicious attacks against the Head of the Soviet State. So, 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 Trotsky-Bukharin and other hostile groups. It should be noted that in October 1935, PUNIN and GUMILEV were arrested by the NKVD Directorate of the 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 have hostile conversations with him, during which she expressed vicious slander against the CPSU (b) and the Soviet government. Punin also testified that Akhmatova was hostile to the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad”, in which her ideologically harmful work was justly criticized. This is also confirmed by the available intelligence materials. Thus, a source of the UMGB of the Leningrad Region reported that Akhmatova, in connection with the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad”, stated: “Poor, they don’t know anything or have forgotten. After all, all this has already happened, all these words have been said and retold and repeated from year to year ... Nothing new has been said now, all this is already known to everyone. For Zoshchenko, this is a blow, but for me it is only a repetition of moralizing and curses that I once heard. The Ministry of State Security of the USSR considers it necessary to arrest Akhmatov. I ask for your permission. ABAKUMOV"
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 prejudice" and forced to sign false statements against Akhmatova - about her "complicity" in their "crimes" and about her "enemy activities." Chekists juggled the facts masterfully. Numerous undercover denunciations and eavesdropping materials were also constantly collected against Akhmatova. The “operational development case” was initiated against Akhmatova in 1939. Special equipment in her apartment has been working since 1945. That is, the case has long been concocted, it remains only to bring it to its logical conclusion - the arrest. All that is required is the go-ahead from the Kremlin Master. 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 authorization for the arrest of Akhmatova. On Abakumov's memorandum, his own resolution appears: "Continue to develop" ... Why didn't the well-established mechanism work? The point here is the behavior of Akhmatova herself. No, she didn't know anything about Abakumov's memorandum and was least of all worried about herself. But she desperately wanted to save her son. Therefore, she wrote and published a series of loyal poems “Glory to the World”, among which is an jubilee ode to Stalin (No. 14 of the Ogonyok magazine for 1950). And at the same time she sent a letter to Joseph Vissarionovich with a plea for a son (“Motherland”, 1993, No. 2, p. 51). In fact, for the sake of saving her son, Akhmatova threw the last victim - her poetic name - at the feet of the supreme executioner. The executioner accepted the sacrifice. And that settled everything. True, Lev Gumilyov was not released anyway, but Akhmatova was not arrested either. Ahead of her were 16 painful years of loneliness.

Anna Akhmatova - world famous poetess, laureate Nobel Prize, translator, critic and literary critic. She bathed in glory and greatness, she knew the bitterness of loss and persecution. For many years it was not published, and the name was banned. The Silver Age nurtured freedom in her, Stalin's sentenced her to disgrace.

Strong in spirit, she survived poverty, persecution, hardships ordinary person, standing in prison lines for many months. Her "Requiem" became an epic monument to the time of repression, women's resilience and faith in justice. The bitter fate affected her health: she received several heart attacks. By a strange coincidence, she died on the anniversary of Stalin's birth, in 1966.

Her gracefulness, unusual profile with a hump inspired many artists. Modigliani himself painted hundreds of her portraits, but she cherished only one, donated by him in 1911 in Paris.

The archive of Anna Akhmatova was sold after her death government agencies for 11.6 thousand rubles.

purpose

Akhmatova did not hide her noble origin, she was even proud of him. The third child in the family of Andrey Antonovich Gorenko, a hereditary nobleman and military naval officer from Odessa, she was weak and sickly.

At the age of 37, he married a second marriage to 30-year-old Inna Erazmovna Stogova.

For eleven years, the couple had six children. We moved to Tsarskoye Selo in 1890, when Anya was one year old.

Read and communicate fluently French she started early. In the gymnasium, by her own admission, she studied well, but not willingly. Her father often took her with him to Petrograd, he was an avid theatergoer, and they did not miss the premiere performances. And in the summer the family spent in their own house in Sevastopol. Tuberculosis was a hereditary curse; three daughters of Gorenko subsequently died from it - the last after the revolution in 1922. Anna herself, in her youth, also had consumption, but was able to recover.

At the age of 25, Anna will dedicate her life in the Crimea to the poem "By the Sea", this theme will not leave the poetess's work even after.

Writing from childhood was characteristic of Anya Gorenko. She kept a diary for as long as she could remember and until her last days. She composed her first poem at the turn of the times - at the age of 11. But her parents did not approve of her hobby, she received praise for her flexibility. Tall and fragile, Anya easily turned her body into a ring and could, without getting up from her chair, get a handkerchief from the floor with her teeth. She was promised a ballet career, but she categorically refused.

The pseudonym that glorified her, she took because of her father, who forbade the use of his last name. She liked Akhmatova - the names of her great-grandmother, who somehow reminded her of the Crimean conqueror Khan Akhmat.

From the age of 17, she began to sign her poems, periodically published in various magazines under a pseudonym. The parents separated: the father safely squandered the dowry and left the family in a difficult position.

The mother and children left for Kyiv. Here, in Last year While studying at the gymnasium, Anna composes a lot, and these poems of hers will be published in the book "Evening". The debut of the 23-year-old poetess turned out to be successful.

Her husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, helped her in many ways. They got married when she was 21 years old.

He sought her for several years, was already an accomplished poet, older than Anna for three years: a military beauty, a historian, passionate about travel and dreams.

He takes his beloved to Paris, and after returning they are preparing to move to Petrograd. She will come to Kyiv, where she has relatives.

A year later, in the northern capital, the literary society gets acquainted with the new trend and its creators - acmeists. Gumilyov, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, Severyanin and others consider themselves to be members of the community. The Silver Age was rich in poetic talents, evenings were held, discussions were held, poems were read and printed.

Anna has been abroad several times in the two years since her marriage. There she met the young Italian Amedeo Modigliani. They talked a lot, he drew her. At that time he was an unknown artist, fame came to him much later. He liked Anna for her unusual appearance. For two years he transferred her image to paper. Several of his drawings have been preserved, which, after his early death, became recognized masterpieces. Already in her declining years, Akhmatova said that the main asset of her legacy was "Modi's drawing."

In 1912, Gumilyov became a student at the university in Petrograd and immersed himself in the study of French poetry. His collection "Alien Sky" is published. Anna is expecting her first child.

The couple travels to Tsarskoye Selo, where a son is born in autumn.

Gumilyov's parents were very much looking forward to the boy: he turned out to be the only heir. It is not surprising that Gumilyov's mother invited the family to live in her wooden two-story house. The family would live in this house in Tsarskoye Selo until 1916. Gumilyov only visits, Anna - briefly absent in Petrograd, in a sanatorium for treatment for tuberculosis and for the funeral of her father. It is known that friends came to this house: Struve, Yesenin, Klyuev and others. Anna was friends with Blok and Pasternak, who were also among her admirers. From a wild girl with skin burned from the sun, she turned into a mannered society lady.

Lev Nikolaevich will be raised by his grandmother until the age of 17. With little Leva, she will go to live in the Tver region in the village of Slepnevo, where the Gumilevs' estate was. Anna and Nikolai visit them and help financially.

Their marriage is bursting at the seams: they rarely see each other, but often write to each other. He has an affair abroad, and Anna finds out about it.

She herself has many admirers. Among them is Nikolai Nedobrovo. He introduced Anna to his friend Boris Anrep. This connection will destroy their friendship and give rise to the love of a poetess and an artist.

They rarely saw each other, and in 1916 the beloved left Russia. She will dedicate more than thirty poems to him: in a year they will be published in the collection The White Flock and in five years in the Plantain. Their meeting will take place half a century later in Paris, where Akhmatova will arrive at the invitation of Oxford University: for her research on Pushkin's work, she was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature.

Eight years later, the star couple divorced. We would like to do it earlier, but it turned out to be difficult to do this in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Almost immediately after the divorce, she will agree to become the wife of Vladimir Shileiko, which will surprise her friends very much. After all, she was no longer that enthusiastic and tender Russian Sappho, as she was called. Changes in the country inspired fear and sadness in her.

And Gumilyov marries another Anna, the daughter of the poet Engelhardt. She will quickly become a widow - in 1921, Gumilyov was shot on charges of plotting against the Soviet regime, along with 96 other suspects. He was only 35 years old. She learns about the arrest of her ex-husband at the funeral of Alexander Blok. On the 106th anniversary of his birth, Nikolai Gumilyov will be fully rehabilitated.

Anna Andreevna, having lost her first husband, leaves her second. The orientalist Shileiko was extremely jealous, they lived from hand to mouth, poems were not written or printed. The book "Plantain", consisting mainly of past poems, was published a few months before the execution of Gumilyov.

In 1922, she was able to release the fifth collection in her creative life -

Anno Domini. The author proposed seven new poems, as well as those related to different years. Therefore, it was easy for readers to compare her rhythm, images, excitement. Criticism wrote about the "different quality" of her poems, anxiety, but not brokenness.

She could have left the country, her friends from France persistently invited her to their place, but Akhmatova refused. Her life in dilapidated Petrograd did not bode well, she knew about it. But she could not imagine that years of oblivion and persecution awaited her ahead - an unspoken ban would be imposed on her publications.

Repression and "Requiem"

The communal apartment on the Fontanka in Leningrad would become her home from October 1922. Akhmatova will live here for 16 years. As biographers say - unhappy.

With her third husband: an art critic, critic and a little poet Nikolai Punin, she did not register a marriage. He was married, and what was most strange in this communal apartment, divided into two by a partition, was his wife who ran the whole household. By coincidence, also Anna.

The couple had a one-year-old daughter, Irina, who would later become very friendly with Akhmatova and become one of the heirs of the poetess.

They had known each other for ten years: Nikolai Punin visited the Gumilyovs together with other poets. But he was criticized by his namesake and held a grudge. But he was glad that Akhmatova left her husband, he idolized her. Punin persistently looked after Akhmatova, came to her sanatorium when she was once again treated for her tuberculosis, and persuaded her to move to him.

Anna Andreevna agreed, but found herself in even more cramped conditions, although she was used to living and writing on a sofa. By nature, she did not know how to manage, maintain a house. Punin's wife worked as a doctor, and at that difficult time she always had a regular income, on which they lived. Punin worked in the Russian Museum, sympathized with the Soviet government, but did not want to join the party.

She helped him in his research, he used her translations of scientific articles from French, English and Italian.

In the summer of 1928, her 16-year-old son came to visit her. Due to the disgrace of the parents, the guy was not taken to study. Punin had to intervene, and he was hardly assigned to the school. Then he entered the history department at the university.

Attempts to break the tangled relationship with Punin, who did not let her write poetry (after all, he is better), was jealous of her, cared little, used her work, Akhmatova made more than once. But he persuaded her, little Irina whimpered, accustomed to Anna, so she stayed. Sometimes she went to Moscow.

Engaged in the study of Pushkin's work. The articles were published after Stalin's death. Criticism wrote that no one had done such a deep analysis of the works of the great poet before. For example, she sorted out The Tale of the Golden Cockerel: she showed the techniques that the author used to turn an oriental story into a Russian fairy tale.

When Akhmatova turned 45, Mandelstam was arrested. She was just visiting them. A wave of arrests swept the country after the assassination of Kirov.

Nikolai Punin and student Gumilyov could not escape arrest. But soon they were released, but not for long.

Relations completely went wrong: Punin blamed all the household members, including Anna, for his troubles. And she fussed for her son, who in the spring of 1938 was accused of conspiracy. The death sentence was replaced by a five-year exile in Norilsk.

Anna Akhmatova moves to another room in the same communal apartment. She can no longer be in the same space with Punin.

Soon Irina gets married, the couple has a daughter, who was also named Anna. She will become the second heiress of Akhmatova, considering them her family.

Her son will give more than fifteen years to the camps. Convicted Nikolai Punin will die in Vorkuta. But even after that, she will not move from the communal apartment, stay with his family, and write the legendary Requiem.

During the war years, Leningraders were evacuated to Tashkent. Anna will also go with them. Her son will sign up as a volunteer in the army.

After the war, Akhmatova will be engaged in translations in order to somehow feed herself. In five years, she will translate more than a hundred authors from seventy languages ​​of the world. In 1948, my son graduated from the history faculty and defended his dissertation as an external student. And next year he will be arrested again. The accusations are the same: a conspiracy against the Soviet regime. This time they gave ten years of exile. He will meet his fortieth birthday because of heart pains in a hospital bed, the consequences of torture have affected. He is recognized as an invalid, he will be very frightened and even write a will. During his exile, he will be hospitalized several times, he will undergo two operations. He will correspond with his mother. She will bother for him: she will write a letter to Stalin, even compose the correct verse in his glory, which will immediately be published by the Pravda newspaper. But nothing will help.

Lev Nikolaevich will be released in 1956 and rehabilitated.

By this time, his mother was given back the opportunity to publish, membership in the Writers' Union and was given a house in Komarov.

The son helped her with translations for some time, which made it possible to somehow exist until the autumn of 1961. Then they finally quarreled and did not communicate anymore. They gave him a room, he left. Akhmatova had a second heart attack, but her son did not visit her. What caused the conflict remains unknown, there are several versions, but not a single Akhmatova.

She will publish another of her epic works - "A Poem without a Hero". By her own admission, she wrote it for two decades.

She will again be at the center of literary bohemia, get acquainted with the aspiring poet Brodsky and others.

Two years before her death, she will again travel abroad: she will go to Italy, where she will be enthusiastically received and awarded the prize. The next year - to England, where she was honored as a doctor of literature. In Paris, she met with her acquaintances, friends and former lovers. They remembered the past, and Anna Andreevna said that in the distant 24th year she was walking through her beloved city and suddenly thought that she would certainly meet Mayakovsky. At that time he should be in another capital, but his plans changed, he went to meet her and thought about her.

Such coincidences often happened to her, some moments she could foresee. Her last unfinished poem is about death.

Anna Akhmatova was buried in Komarovo. The last orders were given by the son. He did not allow official filming, but amateur footage was still filmed. They entered documentary dedicated to the poetess.

Lev Gumilyov marries the artist Natalya Simanovskaya three years after his mother's death. She is 46 years old, he is 55. They will live together for twenty-four years in harmony, but they will not have children. Doctor historical sciences Lev Nikolaevich will leave behind scientific works and a good memory among scientists.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova - the great Russian poet, queen of the Silver Age, translator, literary critic.

Origin

Father - Andrei Antonovich Gorenko (January 13, 1848 - August 15, 1915), a native of the city of Sevastopol. Nobleman, officer of the Black Sea navy(engineer), traveled abroad. Subsequently, being in the rank of midshipman, he was transferred to, where he served as a teacher in Maritime School. Then he served in the civilian sector, where he reached the position of State Councilor. Andrei Antonovich was a socially active person. He loved life in all its manifestations. According to the memoirs of his relatives, who quite clearly characterized Andrei Antonovich, he was a terrible wast, always ran after women and enjoyed great success with them, had an unusually tall stature, was very handsome and personable, with a great sense of humor, domineering, loving life. An inveterate theatergoer, he did not shy away from politics, and even for some time was considered unreliable. Anna was born already when her father left the service. There is evidence that the poetic talent of his daughter did not arouse due admiration from Andrei Antonovich, but already in her childhood he called Anna "a decadent poetess."

Anna's mother is Inna Erazmovna, nee Stogova (1856? - 1930), of noble origin. We know very little about Akhmatova's mother: only fragmentary information from her biography remains. It is known for certain that she was the daughter of the Podolsk landowner Stogov and that Andrei Antonovich was her second husband. Also, several sources mentioned her involvement in the Narodnaya Volya movement. In addition, it was said about her soft and kind nature.

There was and still exists a legend about the origin of Akhmatova from an ancient Tatar princely family. Sort, allegedly ascending with its roots to the great Genghis Khan himself. But at the same time, the myth about the Greek roots of the poetess is very widespread. Alas, we are forced to dispel these fantasies. There is no documentary evidence for this.

The actual creator of myths about her origin was the great poetess herself. The story is like this. One of Anna's great-grandmothers bore the surname Akhmatova, and this sonorous surname somehow impressed the young poetess. After inventing something for herself, she decided to take it as a literary pseudonym. However, let's not judge strictly. Let's better evaluate the fabulous organics of the mysterious image created by Anna Akhmatova. Moreover, all the historical motifs inspired by her fantasy so perfectly suited the appearance of the poetess. Akhmatova created a poetic silhouette wrapped in an inimitable romantic flair.

Tsarskoye Selo

In 1893-1894. Akhmatova's family moves to permanent residence in Tsarskoe Selo (city). They lived not far from the station, on the corner of Shirokaya Street and Bezymyanny Lane. Not far away, on Leontyevskaya Street, there was the Tsarskoye Selo Women's Gymnasium, to which little Anna was sent. Akhmatova studied well, but without much zeal. In the gymnasium, Anna meets Vera Sergeevna Sreznevskaya, who later becomes one of her closest friends. It is possible that already in these years she could see the young one, who studied at the Tsarskoye Selo men's gymnasium. However, their official acquaintance took place much later.

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov (April 3, 1886 - August 24, 1921) - a famous poet, creator of the sensational acmeism, passionate traveler, translator, cavalry officer. In 1902 mutual friends introduced the two future spouses. At that time, Anna was 13 years old, Gumilyov was only three years older. But he was already a poet preparing his first poetry collection for publication. Nicholas unrequitedly fell in love with the young Anna. What could be sadder than unrequited love? With a bit of imagination, it is possible to imagine how these wonderfully gifted young people walked through the delightful Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk parks, how they listened to the music of autumn leaves, how they inhaled the heady aromas of the first spring flowers. The meeting in Tsarskoe Selo was the beginning of the formation of an amazing family, creative union in the future. The union of two brilliant people, who also gave birth to a brilliant son - Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov.

Tsarskoye Selo and Pavlovsk have not changed much to this day, they are still beautiful with their sad, slender beauty. If you wish, even today you can see the same buildings, the same parks and the same trees that were admired and that inspired the great poets.

Akhmatova and Gumilyov

In 1905, the marriage of Akhmatova's parents actually broke up. My father stayed in St. Petersburg, and my mother moved to Evpatoria with the children. Anna had two brothers - Andrei and Victor, as well as a sister, Iya. In 1906, Akhmatova, with the aim of completing her studies, was sent to Kyiv to live with her relatives, where she graduated from the last gymnasium class. In Kyiv, Akhmatova became seriously interested in theater. Her favorite haven was the Solovtsov Theater, in which Anna did not miss a single performance. The sophisticated girl admired the brilliant direction and acting. Starting from a very young age, Anna lived several times and visited Kyiv many times and loved this city very much. Its magnificent architecture, the majestic St. Sophia Cathedral, Kiev parks, the legendary Dnieper. The enchantment that never passes ancient city forever left an indelible mark on her sublime soul. A very interesting entry by Akhmatova about historical event, which happened during her next visit to Kyiv. Anna wrote that on the day she was killed (1911), she was driving a cab. She had to let the royal train pass by for more than half an hour, and then the Kiev nobility, on the way to the theater.

May 28, 1907 Akhmatova received a certificate of graduation from the gymnasium. After graduating from the gymnasium, Anna and her family leave for Sevastopol, where she will live for almost a year. In the autumn of 1907, Nikolai Gumilyov came and made another marriage proposal to Akhmatova. Anna refused. Upon returning from Sevastopol, in the fall of 1908, Akhmatova entered the Higher Women's Courses at Kiev University. To continue her education, she chose Faculty of Law: such a choice was due to the desire of Akhmatova to obtain an early financial independence. Mastering the same legal specialty promised the possibility of getting a job in a notary's office, and hence a guaranteed income. Regarding her studies, Akhmatova wrote that while they were studying the history of law, and especially Latin, she was satisfied, but when purely legal disciplines began, she lost interest in the courses.

Nikolai Gumilyov, by that time a well-known poet, repeatedly made proposals to Anna Akhmatova, but was always refused. Because of unrequited love, he tried to commit suicide three times. In 1909, Gumilyov again offered his hand and heart to Akhmatova, and this time Akhmatova agreed.

In a letter to her older sister's husband S. V. von Stein, Anna writes: “Gumilyov is my destiny, and I dutifully surrender to her. I swear to you everything that is holy to me, that this unfortunate person will be happy with me.

On April 25, 1910, in a small town near Kiev, Gumilyov and Akhmatova got married. None of the relatives came to their wedding. Relatives on both sides were against this marriage, as they did not believe in the strength of their union. The young people spent their honeymoon in Paris. There, 20-year-old Anna met Amedeo Modigliani - at that time an unknown, impoverished artist. Seeing Anna, Modigliani asked permission to paint her portrait. So this extraordinary acquaintance took place. Modigliani was carried away by Akhmatova. Upon returning to Russia, Anna received heartfelt letters from Modi, he wrote to her: "You are in me like an obsession." In 1911 they met again. Modigliani charmed the young poetess. His childish naivety and originality resonated in the soul of Akhmatova. With her, he was gentle and caring. According to Akhmatova, Modigliani saw our world in a completely different way than other people. For example, he saw a deliberately ugly person beautiful and vice versa. Modigliani gave her a real Paris. He took her for a walk - at night under the moon. That summer in Paris turned out to be very rainy, but this did not frighten the lovers. Modi had an old-fashioned black umbrella they often sat under in the Luxembourg Gardens. There, young people read Verlaine's poems in two voices and, like children, rejoiced that they remembered the same lines. Modigliani was obsessed with art ancient egypt. He madly liked to draw Anna in the guise of Egyptian queens and dancers. In total, Modigliani painted sixteen portraits of her, but, alas, all of them, except for one, perished in the predatory fire of revolutions.

After the honeymoon, returning to, the Gumilyovs began to live in Tsarskoe Selo, at 57 Malaya Street, just opposite the men's gymnasium. It was the house of Gumilyov's mother, where they lived from 1911 to 1916. The couple spent the summer season in the Gumilyov estate, the village of Slepnevo, Bezhetsky district, Tver province. In the village, Akhmatova saw the life of the simple Russian people. There, in the ancient Tver region, she fell in love with the strict, discreet beauty of the hearty Russian provinces. In Slepnevo, Akhmatova wrote many amazing poems.

In 1911, Nikolai Gumilyov and the famous poet Gorodetsky organized the "Workshop of Poets". The organization was a community of poets who preached poetry as a craft accessible to the master, as a subject that could be learned. The "Workshop of Poets" included: Gumilyov, Gorodetsky, Akhmatova, Narbut, Kuzmina-Karavaeva and others. In the same year, Gumilyov fulfills his old dream: he goes on a trip to Africa. In total, he made four African expeditions. The impressions received during the wanderings will become the leitmotif for many poetic works: "Giraffe", "Lake Chad", "Egypt", "Sahara", "Sudan", "Pilgrim" and others.

In 1912, Gumilyov proclaimed the foundation of a new literary movement - Acmeism. The adherents of the new trend are the creators, who were members of the "Workshop of Poets" association. The main concept of acmeism is opposition to symbolism. In contrast to the symbolists, the acmeists cared for the materiality of images, for the subjective accuracy of words. The new direction immediately found many serious opponents, for example,.

The newly appeared direction had its own publishing house, its head was Nikolai Gumilyov. With his direct participation, with a circulation of only 300 copies, the first collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova "Evening" was published. The book received the most favorable reviews. Akhmatova, who had already shone on the stage of the legendary Stray Dog, became famous. The artist Yuri Annenkov, the author of several portraits of the poetess, recalled: “Anna Akhmatova, a shy and elegantly careless beauty, with her “uncurled bangs” covering her forehead, and with a rare grace of half-movements and half-gestures, read, almost singing, his early poems. I do not remember anyone else who would have possessed such a skill and such musical delicacy of reading ... ".

In fairness, it should be noted that Akhmatova was not beautiful, but she was insanely spectacular. The embodied power of charm in an inimitable way. Akhmatova was the queen of the most refined Petersburg salons. The Stray Dog is an intimate art theater (December 31, 1911 - March 3, 1915), founded by Boris Pronin with the lively participation of the count. Unfortunately, "Stray Dog" lasted only three years. But even this short period was enough for this amazing place to forever become the brightest symbol of the Silver Age. Acmeists and their friends set the tone for the entire institution. Usually the poets arrived after midnight and departed in the morning. "Stray Dog" was the undeniable cultural center of St. Petersburg in those years. Cafe visitors, the best poets, artists, actors represented the quintessence of art at the beginning of the 20th century. In The Stray Dog we saw a brilliant scattering of names: Akhmatova, Gumilyov, Chukovsky, Mandelstam, Balmont, Khlebnikov, Karsavina, Gnesin, Meyerhold, Averchenko, Vakhtangov, and many others.

Gumilyov and Akhmatova were the real star couple of the Silver Age. It is worth noting that, unlike many modern "star couples", they really deserve such an epithet by the magnitude of their talent.

In 1912, a son was born to the Gumilyovs - the future famous scientist Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov. An interesting detail, the parents called their son Gumilvenok. Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov (September 18, 1912 - June 15, 1992) - historian-ethnologist, geographer, orientalist, outstanding thinker, founder of the theory of ethnogenesis.

In 1914, Akhmatova's new collection, Rosary, was published. The publication was a resounding success. After the publication of the "Rosary", the famous one called Akhmatova "Anna of All Russia", she also owned such flattering epithets as: "Muse of Lamentation", "Tsarskoye Selo Muse". Marina Tsvetaeva appreciated the brightness of the new star of the Russian poetic Olympus.

The first World War. As part of the marching squadron of the Life Guards, Nikolai Gumilyov went to the front. After the outbreak of hostilities, the literary cafe "Stray Dog" was closed. Official version: illegal trade in alcohol. The next time the cafe will open its doors only back in 2001.

1917 was marked by the appearance of the collection of poems "The White Flock", Akhmatova's fame is growing. However, completely disoriented. family life. In August 1918, Gumilyov and Akhmatova officially divorced. Akhmatova said: “We lived with Nikolai Stepanovich for seven years. We were friendly and internally owed a lot to each other. But I told him that we should break up. He did not object to me, but I saw that he was very offended ... ". Shortly thereafter, Anna married the scientist Vladimir Shileiko.

The first blow of fate

On August 24, 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot on charges of counter-revolutionary activities. Akhmatova, who considered Gumilyov her "brother", was crushed with grief, there were even rumors of her suicide. Gumilyov's death was for her the first heavy blow of fate in a series of many future trials.

The poet Akhmatova continued to publish. New collections "Plantain" and "Anno Domini" have been published. Korney Chukovsky published the sensational article "Akhmatova and Mayakovsky", in which he treated the work of both poets with great reverence. He believed that they reflected two faces of post-revolutionary Russia: and if Mayakovsky “in each of his lines, in each letter there is a product of the current era, it contains its beliefs, cries, failures, ecstasies”, Akhmatova, on the contrary, “is the thrifty heiress of all the most precious pre-revolutionary wealth of Russian verbal culture. The ill-wishers, however, hastened to denigrate the poetess, speaking about the religious component, unacceptable for the poetry of the revolutionary time. Well, it's true. Anna Akhmatova from a young age was a deeply religious person. Faith in God throughout her life helped her with amazing courage to face the terrible blows of fate.

In 1922, there was a break with her second husband, Vladimir Shumeiko. An official divorce followed only in 1926, after which the poetess for the first time, according to documents, began to bear the surname Akhmatova (until that time she bore the surnames of her husbands). In 1924, Akhmatova moved into the apartment of art historian Nikolai Punin, her future third husband. Anna began to study creativity, as well as the history of the architecture of St. Petersburg.

Silence

1925 - the year of the "civil death" of the poetess. In 1925, the well-known resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was adopted and published. "On the policy of the party in the field fiction". Akhmatova testifies: “Between 1925-1939 they stopped publishing me completely. Then for the first time I was present at my civilian death. I was 35." In her diaries, Anna wrote: “After my evenings in (spring 1924), a decision was made to terminate my literary activity. They stopped publishing me in magazines and almanacs, and they stopped inviting me to literary evenings. I met M. Shaginyan on the Nevsky. She said: “Here you are, what an important person: there was a decision of the Central Committee about you: do not arrest, but do not print either.”

For a poet of this level, such a decision was indeed tantamount to death. Fifteen endless years of enforced silence, a terrible sentence of stupid ideologists. Only in 1940 were Akhmatov's poems reprinted. A collection called “From Six Books” was published, alas, the poems for the collection were chosen not by the poetess herself, but by the editor-compiler. As contemporaries recalled, Anna Akhmatova had a negative attitude towards translation activities. However, in order to live, she was forced to do this. Her translations were very good, Anna Andreevna translated the works of 150 poets from 78 languages ​​of the world.

There is a legend about involvement in the return of Akhmatova to legal literature. Allegedly, the leader of the peoples, seeing that his daughter Svetlana was copying Anna Akhmatova’s poems into a notebook, asked those close to him: “Why is Akhmatova not being published?” Indeed, before the war, Akhmatova's literary career began to show some positive progress; in addition to the collection, she managed to make several publications in the journal Leningrad. Akhmatova was accepted into the Union of Soviet Writers.

In 1935, her husband, Nikolai Punin, and son, Lev Gumilyov, were arrested on false charges. Akhmatova wrote a letter to Stalin and they were released a week later. In those terrible days, Anna Akhmatova, heartbroken, exhausted in prison lines, began to write her famous poem "Requiem".

In 1938, Lev Gumilyov was re-arrested and sentenced to 5 years in the camps. For that time, the accusation was standard - "anti-Soviet activities." Gumilyov was released from prison in 1943, and in 1944 he volunteered for the front. He fought in the artillery, on the 1st Belorussian Front, participated in the storming of Berlin, and was nominated for military awards. In the same year, Akhmatova broke up with her third husband, Nikolai Punin.

In June 1941, at Ardov's apartment, Akhmatova had the only meeting with her beloved confidante, rival, poet Marina Tsvetaeva. Back in 1921, Tsvetaeva wrote to Akhmatova: “You are my favorite poet, I once, a long time ago - six years ago - saw you in a dream, - your future book: dark green, morocco, with silver, - “Golden words”, - some ancient witchcraft, like a prayer (or rather, the opposite!) - and when I woke up, I knew that you would write it. Impressed by a magical dream, Tsvetaeva wrote the first poem to Anna Akhmatova. Akhmatova also repeatedly turned to Tsvetaeva in her work, she called her her constant companion. The poets followed different poetic paths, wrote in different styles, but there was one thing in common that united them. Both great authors spoke openly about their feelings, they were both feminine and masculine. On August 31, 1941, Marina Tsvetaeva committed suicide, the exact reason for her suicide is still unknown.

War, evacuation

Leningrad, autumn 1941. The steel ring of the blockade was inevitably shrinking. Under the patronage of the "red count" Alexei Tolstoy, a decision was made at the top to evacuate Akhmatova and. They were taken out on a military plane. So Akhmatova, by the will of military fate, ended up in Tashkent. In this city, on February 23, 1942, Akhmatova will write her famous military poem "Courage". In Tashkent, the poetess was able to release her new collection, which consisted of selected poems. Assistance in the publication of the collection was again provided by Alexei Tolstoy, the brilliant author of Peter the Great. The writer loved, remembered and honored the friends of his youth - Gumilyov and Akhmatova. He helped Akhmatova until his death in 1945.

In 1944 Akhmatova returned to Leningrad. Her named husband Vladimir Garshin lived in Leningrad. Their romance began in 1937. Vladimir Garshin was a pathologist. Their acquaintance took place when Akhmatova was in the Mariinsky hospital, where she underwent an examination of the thyroid gland. After Anna left the hospital, they began to meet. According to contemporaries, in those days Akhmatova looked very happy. At the beginning of the war, she was forced to evacuate, while Garshin remained in Leningrad for the entire blockade. Akhmatova considered Garshin her husband. For his part, he supported her in every possible way in the evacuation, wrote letters, sent money. Akhmatova returned to Leningrad in the hope of joint happiness, but her dreams were not destined to come true. After her arrival, they were followed by a break, which Akhmatova was very upset about. A poet, a person who exists in his own special, subtle world, experiences any grief ten times more painfully.

In 1945, Anna Andreevna's son, Lev Gumilyov, returned from the front. Just three years later, the young scientist defended his dissertation. In the year of victory in the life of Anna Andreevna, another amazing event took place. She fell in love with the English diplomat Isaiah Berlin. Akhmatova was 56 years old, and Berlin was 36 years old. The poet dedicated 20 poems to him.

New bullying

In 1946, the literary persecution of Akhmatova began again. Her work was subjected to a flurry of deadly criticism. Her poetry was declared alien to the Soviet people. Her colleague Mikhail Zoshchenko fell under the same hammer. They were both expelled from the Writers' Union. The poetess was left without a livelihood. The already published edition of her selected poems was ruthlessly destroyed.

In 1949, new terrible tests. First, Anna's ex-husband, Nikolai Punin, was arrested, and a little later, her son, Lev Gumilev. Punin died in the camp in 1953, Gumilev was sentenced to 10 years in the camps. Akhmatova did her best to help her son. She knocked on the thresholds of offices, wrote letters to the highest authorities, but all in vain, the terror machine triumphed. For the sake of her son, she wrote and published a deliberately opportunistic work - a cycle of poems "Glory to the World." Akhmatova hoped in vain that this would help her son. In the future, the poetess never included this cycle in her collections. Lev Gumilyov was released from prison only in 1956.

official recognition

On January 19, 1951, at the request of A. Fadeev, Akhmatova was reinstated in the Writers' Union of the USSR, and a few years later, in 1955, the Literary Fund allocated Akhmatova a dacha in the village of Komarovo. It was a very small house, consisting of only two rooms. Akhmatova jokingly called him "The Booth". There, in the "Budka" Akhmatova received friends: Lidia Chukovskaya, Lidia Ginzburg, Faina Ranevskaya, Joseph Brodsky and many other wonderful people were frequent guests of the Komarovo dacha. It was in Komarovo that Akhmatova wrote lyrical philosophical poems, amazing in their meaning. It is worth noting that Anna Andreevna was completely helpless in Everyday life. She was afraid of technology and did not even know how to turn on the gas, so some kind woman always lived with her to help with the housework.

In 1962, the poem "Requiem" appeared on paper - poetic work about the terrible times of the Gulag executioners, about the pain of the long-suffering Russian people. The poem was first published abroad in 1963. In Russia, this happened only in 1987, after the death of the poetess.

In 1964, Anna Akhmatova received worldwide recognition: she became the laureate of the Italian literary prize Etna-Taormina. A little later, in 1965, the famous Oxford University awarded Akhmatova with an honorary doctorate. During the ceremony, when Akhmatova appeared, dressed in a "doctor's toga", the hall exploded with thunderous applause. The last poetry collection, published during the life of Anna Akhmatova, was called "The Run of Time".

On March 5, 1966, Anna Akhmatova, the great poet, the woman symbol of the Silver Age, passed away. The cause of death was the fourth heart attack. Akhmatova was buried in Komarovo, among the pines and silence. At her request, a wooden cross was erected on the grave. Later, her son Lev Gumilyov, together with his students, built a monument in the form of a wall. The monument symbolized the wall of the Kresty prison, under which Akhmatova once stood in the hope of giving a package for her arrested son.

Her poems will forever remain with us, her refined image will always serve as a measure of sensual sincere spirituality. An honest civic position, patriotism, sacrifice in the name of love - all this is Anna Akhmatova.

Akhmatova's poems penetrate the very soul, they make us understand and realize the main value of life - Love ...

Dmitry Sytov