As a child, she was nicknamed “wild girl”, because she went barefoot, wandered without a hat, etc., threw herself from a boat into the open sea, swam during a storm, and sunbathed until her skin came off, and with all this she shocked the provincial Sevastopol young ladies.
The beauty, talent and intelligence of Anna Akhmatova have been admired in the past and present centuries. She was credited with an affair with Alexander Blok, Osip Mandelstam tried to look after her, but to no avail, and Boris Pasternak offered her his hand and heart seven times.
Do not trust beautiful courtship
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (real name - Gorenko) was born in the family of a marine engineer, retired captain of the 2nd rank, at the Bolshoi Fontan station near Odessa. Mother, Irina Erazmovna, devoted herself entirely to her children, of whom there were six. A year after Anya's birth, the family moved to Tsarskoye Selo. “My first impressions are those of Tsarskoye Selo,” she later wrote. - The green, damp splendor of the parks, the pasture where my nanny took me, the hippodrome, where small colorful horses galloped, the old railway station and something else that later became part of the Tsarskoye Selo Ode.
There were almost no books in the house, but my mother knew many poems and recited them by heart. Communicating with older children, Anna began to speak French quite early.
Anna met Nikolai Gumilyov, who became her husband, when she was only 14. 17-year-old Nikolai was struck by her mysterious, bewitching beauty: radiant gray eyes, thick long black hair, an antique profile made this girl unlike anyone else. For ten whole years, Anna became a source of inspiration for the young poet. He showered her with flowers and poems. One day, on her birthday, he gave Anna flowers, plucked under the windows of the imperial palace. In despair from unrequited love on Easter 1905, Gumilyov tried to commit suicide, which only frightened and disappointed the girl completely. She stopped seeing him. Soon Anna's parents divorced, and she moved with her mother to Evpatoria. At this time, she was already writing poetry, but did not give it special significance. Gumilyov, having heard something written by her, said: “Maybe you will dance better? You are flexible ... ”Nevertheless, he published one poem in a small literary almanac“ Sirius ”. Anna chose the surname of her great-grandmother, whose family descended from the Tatar Khan Akhmat.
Gumilyov continued to propose to her again and again and attempted three times on own life. In November 1909, Akhmatova unexpectedly agreed to marriage, accepting the chosen one not as love, but as fate. “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 unfortunate person will be happy with me, ”she writes to student Golenishchev-Kutuzov, who she liked much more than Nikolai. None of the bride's relatives came to the wedding, considering the marriage obviously doomed. Nevertheless, the wedding took place at the end of June 1910. Soon after the wedding, having achieved what he had been striving for for so long, Gumilyov lost interest in his young wife. He began to travel a lot and was rarely at home.
Therefore: when choosing a life partner, you should not focus on the quality of his courtship before marriage, the amount of money spent on flowers and gifts. Even the most beautiful words, said before the wedding, cannot be a guarantee of future happiness. Quite often, having reached the desired goal, such men begin to look at other women, continuing to assert themselves in their own eyes.
Don't sacrifice yourself
In the spring of 1912, Akhmatova's first collection of 300 copies was published. In the same year, Anna and Nikolai have a son, Leo. But the husband turned out to be completely unprepared to limit his own freedom: “He loved three things in the world: for evening singing, white peacocks and erased maps of America. He didn't like it when children cried. He did not like tea with raspberries and female hysteria ... And I was his wife. The mother-in-law took the son.
Anna continued to write and from an eccentric girl turned into a majestically regal woman. They began to imitate her, they painted her, admired her, she was surrounded by crowds of admirers. Gumilyov half-seriously, half-jokingly hinted: “Anya, more than five is indecent!”
When did the first World War, Gumilyov went to the front. In the spring of 1915, he was wounded, and Akhmatova constantly visited him in the hospital. For valor, Nikolai Gumilyov was awarded the St. George Cross. At the same time, he continued to engage in literature, lived in London, Paris, and returned to Russia in April 1918. Akhmatova, feeling like a widow with her husband alive, asked him for a divorce, saying that she was marrying Vladimir Shileiko.
She later called the second marriage "interim". Vladimir Shileiko was a famous scientist and poet. Ugly, insanely jealous, unadapted to life, he, of course, could not give her happiness. She was attracted by the opportunity to be useful to a great man. She believed that rivalry between them was excluded, which prevented marriage with Gumilyov. She spent hours writing translations of his texts from dictation, cooking and even chopping firewood. And he did not allow her to leave the house, burning all the letters unopened, did not allow her to write poetry. Anna was rescued by a friend, composer Arthur Lurie. Shileiko was taken to the hospital for treatment of sciatica. And Akhmatova during this time got a job in the library of the Agronomic Institute. There she was given a state-owned apartment and firewood. After the hospital, Shileiko was forced to move in with her. But in the apartment where Anna herself was the hostess, the domestic despot subsided. However, in the summer of 1921 they parted completely.
Therefore: never choose your life partner, guided by the desire to make him happy. After all, for this, first of all, you need to become happy yourself.
Don't forget the beauty of the soul
In August 1921, Anna's friend, the poet Alexander Blok, died. At his funeral, Akhmatova learned that Nikolai Gumilyov had been arrested. He was accused of not informing, knowing about the alleged plot being prepared. In Greece, almost at the same time, Anna Andreevna's brother, Andrei Gorenko, committed suicide.
Two weeks later, Gumilyov was shot, and Akhmatova turned out to be out of favor with new government: both noble roots and poetry outside of politics. Even the fact that People's Commissar Alexandra Kollontai once noted the attractiveness of Akhmatova's poems for young workers ("the author truthfully depicts how badly a man treats a woman") did not help to avoid the persecution of critics. She was left alone, and for a long 15 years she was not published. At this time, she was engaged in the study of Pushkin's work, and her poverty began to border on poverty. She wore an old felt hat and a light coat in any weather. One of the contemporaries was somehow amazed at her magnificent, luxurious outfit, which, upon closer examination, turned out to be a worn dressing gown. Money, things, even gifts from friends did not stay with her. Without her own home, she did not part with only two books: a volume of Shakespeare and the Bible. But even in poverty, according to the reviews of all who knew her, Akhmatova remained royally majestic and beautiful.
Therefore: in an effort to be beautiful, one should not forget that even the most expensive outfit will look like a cheap fake if our inner self does not match the created image. True greatness is not at all the number of diamonds available and not even fashionable branded items. It is something that is not measured in money.
Avoid love triangles
With the historian and critic Nikolai Punin, Anna Akhmatova was in a civil marriage. To the uninitiated, they looked like a happy couple. But in fact, their relationship has developed into a painful triangle. Akhmatova's civil husband continued to live in the same house with his daughter Irina and his first wife Anna Arens, who also suffered from this, remaining in the house as a close friend.
Akhmatova helped Punin a lot in his literary studies, translating for him from Italian, French, and English. Her son Leo moved to her, who by that time was 16 years old. Later, Akhmatova said that Punin could suddenly announce sharply at the table: “Only Irochka needs butter.” But her son Lyovushka was sitting nearby ... In this house, she had only a sofa and a small table at her disposal. If she wrote, it was only in bed, surrounded by notebooks. He was jealous of her poetry, fearing that he looked insufficiently significant against her background. Once, into the room where she was reading her new poems to friends, Punin flew in with a cry: “Anna Andreevna! Do not forget! You are a poet of local Tsarskoye Selo significance.
Therefore: even if your chosen one swears eternal love and says that he cannot live without you, but at the same time leaves for himself an “alternate airfield” without breaking off the previous relationship - run away from such a person as far as possible, because he creates the most comfortable conditions only for yourself, beloved.
There are no tests beyond strength
When a new wave of repressions began, on the denunciation of one of the fellow students, the son of Leo was arrested, and then Punin. Akhmatova rushed to Moscow, wrote a letter to Stalin. They were released, but only temporarily. In March 1938, the son was again arrested. Anna again "was lying at the feet of the executioner." The death sentence was replaced with exile.
To the Great Patriotic war Akhmatova, during the heaviest bombings, spoke on the radio with an appeal to the women of Leningrad. She was on duty on the roofs, digging trenches. She was evacuated to Tashkent, and after the war she was awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad". In 1945, his son returned - from exile he managed to get to the front.
But after a short respite, a black streak begins again - at first she was expelled from the Writers' Union, deprived of ration cards, and the book that was in print was destroyed. Then they again arrested Nikolai Punin and Lev Gumilyov, whose only fault was that he was the son of his parents. The first died, the second spent seven years in camps.
The disgrace was removed from Akhmatova only in 1962. But until the last days, she retained her royal grandeur. She wrote about love and jokingly warned the young poets Yevgeny Rein, Anatoly Neiman, Joseph Brodsky, with whom she was friends: “Just don’t fall in love with me! I don't need it anymore!"
Therefore: no matter what trials you meet in life, remember that fate does not give them to us beyond our strength. The main thing at the same time is to withstand them with dignity. The way the great poet Anna Akhmatova could do it.
One of the brightest, original and talented poetess Silver Age Anna Gorenko, better known to her admirers as Akhmatova, lived a long and tragic life. This proud and at the same time fragile woman witnessed two revolutions and two world wars. Her soul was scorched by the repressions and deaths of the closest people. The biography of Anna Akhmatova is worthy of a novel or a film adaptation, which was repeatedly undertaken by both her contemporaries and a 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 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 Fountain area. She was the third oldest of six children.
As soon as the baby was a year old, her parents moved to St. Petersburg, where the head of the family received the rank of collegiate assessor and became an official of the State Control for special assignments. The family settled in Tsarskoye Selo, with which all childhood memories of Akhmatova are connected. The nanny took the girl for a walk in Tsarskoye Selo Park and other places that she still remembered. Children were taught secular etiquette. Anya learned to read from the alphabet, and French learned in early childhood, listening to how the teacher teaches 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 poetry for her was opened not by the works of Alexander Pushkin and, whom she fell in love with a little later, but by the majestic odes of Gabriel Derzhavin and the poem "Frost, Red Nose", which her mother recited.
Young Gorenko fell in love with Petersburg forever and considered it the main city of her life. She was very homesick for his streets, parks and the Neva when she had to leave with her mother to Evpatoria, and then to Kyiv. Parents divorced when the girl was 16 years old.
She finished her penultimate class at home, in Evpatoria, and finished the last class at the Kiev Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. After completing her studies, Gorenko becomes a student of the Higher Women's Courses, choosing the Faculty of Law for herself. 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 courses for women.
Poems
In the Gorenko family, no one was engaged in poetry, "as far as the eye sees around." Only on the line of Inna Stogova's mother was a distant relative Anna Bunina, a translator and poetess, found. The father did not approve of his daughter's passion for poetry and asked not to shame his last name. Therefore, Anna Akhmatova never signed her poems with her real name. In his family tree she found a Tatar great-grandmother, who allegedly descended from the Horde Khan Akhmat, and thus turned into Akhmatova.
AT early youth, when the girl studied at the Mariinsky Gymnasium, she met a talented young man, subsequently famous poet Nikolai Gumilyov. Both in Evpatoria and in Kyiv, the girl corresponded with him. In the spring of 1910, they got married in the St. Nicholas Church, which still stands today in the village of Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kyiv. At that time, Gumilyov was already an accomplished poet, known in literary circles.
The newlyweds went to celebrate their honeymoon in Paris. This was Akhmatova's first meeting with Europe. Upon his return, the husband introduced his talented wife to 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. Swarthy, with a distinct hump on her nose, the "Horde" appearance of Anna Akhmatova conquered the literary bohemia.
Anna Akhmatova and Amadeo Modigliani. Artist Natalia Tretyakova Soon, St. Petersburg writers find themselves captivated by the creativity of this original beauty. Anna Akhmatova writes poetry about love, namely this great feeling 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. Gumilyova-Akhmatova becomes famous as an acmeist.
1912 becomes the year of a breakthrough in her biography. In this memorable year, not only the only son of the poetess, Lev Gumilyov, was born, but also her first collection entitled “Evening” was 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 verses of the most empty girl." But then Akhmatova's poems found their first admirers and brought her fame.
After 2 years, the second collection, called "Rosary", is released. And it was already a real triumph. Admirers and critics enthusiastically speak of 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 the name of Gumilyov. In the revolutionary 1917, Anna published her third book, The White Flock. It comes out in an impressive circulation of 2,000 copies. The couple parted ways in the turbulent 1918.
And in the summer of 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot. Akhmatova was very upset by the death of her son's father and the man who introduced her to the world of poetry.
Anna Akhmatova reads her poems to students Since the mid-1920s, hard times have come for the poetess. She is under the close attention of the NKVD. It is not printed. Akhmatova's poems are written "on the table." Many of them have been lost in transit. Latest compilation came out in 1924. "Provocative", "decadent", "anti-communist" poems - such a stigma on creativity cost Anna Andreevna dearly.
The new stage of her work is closely connected with soul-exhausting experiences for her loved ones. First of all, for my son Lyovushka. In the late autumn of 1935, the first wake-up call sounded for a 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 that moment on, she will feel the ring of persecution tightening around her.
After 3 years, the son was arrested. He was sentenced to 5 years in labor camps. In the same terrible year, the marriage of Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Punin ended. The emaciated mother carries the transfers to her son in the Crosses. In the same years, the famous "Requiem" by Anna Akhmatova was published.
In order to make life easier for her son and pull him out of the camps, the poetess, just before the war, in 1940 publishes the collection “From Six Books”. Here are collected old censored poems and new ones, "correct" from the point of view of the ruling ideology.
Anna Andreevna spent the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in evacuation, in Tashkent. Immediately after the victory, she returned to the liberated and destroyed Leningrad. From there he soon moved to Moscow.
But the clouds that barely parted overhead - the son was released from the camps - are gathering again. In 1946, her work was destroyed at the next meeting of the Writers' Union, and in 1949, Lev Gumilyov was arrested again. This time he was sentenced to 10 years. The unfortunate woman is broken. She writes requests and letters of repentance to the Politburo, but no one hears her.
Elderly Anna Akhmatova After leaving the next imprisonment, the relationship between mother and son remained tense for many years: Leo believed that his mother put creativity in the first place, which she loved more than him. He moves away from her.
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 being published. In the mid-1960s, Anna Andreevna received a prestigious Italian award and released a new collection, The Run of Time. And the well-known poetess Oxford University awards a doctoral degree.
Akhmatova "booth" in Komarovo At the end of years, the world-famous poet and writer finally got his own home. The Leningrad Literary Fund allocated her a modest wooden dacha in Komarovo. It was a tiny house, which consisted of a veranda, a corridor and one room.
All the “furnishings” are a hard bed, where bricks were stacked as a leg, a table built from a door, a drawing by Modigliani on the wall and an old icon that once belonged to the first husband.
Personal life
This regal woman had amazing power over men. In her youth, Anna was fantastically flexible. They say that she could easily bend back, reaching the floor with her head. Even the ballerinas of the Mariinsky Theater were amazed by this incredible natural plasticity. 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 on a nail. Luckily, he slipped out of the clay wall.
Anna Akhmatova with her husband and son It seems that the daughter inherited her mother's failures. Marriage with none of the three official husbands did not bring happiness to the poetess. The personal life of Anna Akhmatova was chaotic and somewhat disheveled. They cheated on her, she cheated. The first husband carried his love for Anna through all his life. short life, but at the same time he had an illegitimate child, which everyone knew about. In addition, Nikolai Gumilyov did not understand why his beloved wife, in his opinion, was not at all a brilliant poetess, causes such delight and even exaltation among young people. Anna Akhmatova's poems about love seemed to him too long and pompous.
In the end, they parted.
After parting, Anna Andreevna had no end to her fans. Count Valentin Zubov gave her armfuls of expensive roses and trembled at her mere presence, but the beauty gave preference to Nikolai Nedobrovo. However, Boris Anrepa soon replaced him.
The second marriage with Vladimir Shileiko tormented Anna so much that she dropped: “Divorce ... What a pleasant feeling it is!”
A year after the death of her first husband, she parted ways with her second. Six months later, she marries for the third time. Nikolai Punin is an art historian. But the personal life of Anna Akhmatova did not work out with him either.
Punin, Deputy Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, who sheltered the homeless Akhmatova after a divorce, did not make her happy either. The new wife lived in an apartment with Punin's ex-wife and his daughter, donating money to a common cauldron for food. The son Leo, who came from his grandmother, was placed at night in a cold corridor and felt like an orphan, forever deprived of attention.
Anna Akhmatova's personal life was supposed to change after meeting with the pathologist Garshin, but just before the wedding, he allegedly dreamed of the late mother, who begged not to take the sorceress into the house. The marriage 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. Yes, and she was sick for a long time and hard. The poetess died in a sanatorium near Moscow in Domodedovo. On the eve of her death, she asked to bring her a New Testament, the texts of which she wanted to compare with the texts of the Qumran manuscripts.
The body of Akhmatova from Moscow hastened to be transported to Leningrad: the authorities did not want dissident unrest. She was buried at the Komarovsky cemetery. Before his death, the son and mother could not reconcile: they did not communicate for several years.
On the grave of his mother, 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, a wooden cross stood on the grave, as Anna Andreevna asked for. But in 1969 the cross appeared.
Monument to Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva in Odessa The Anna Akhmatova Museum is located in St. Petersburg on Avtovskaya Street. Another one was opened in the Fountain House, where she lived for 30 years. Later, museums, memorial plaques and bas-reliefs appeared in Moscow, Tashkent, Kyiv, Odessa and many other cities where the muse lived.
Poems
- 1912 - "Evening"
- 1914 - "Rosary"
- 1922 - The White Pack
- 1921 - "Plantain"
- 1923 - "Anno Domini MCMXXI"
- 1940 - "From six books"
- 1943 - “Anna Akhmatova. Favorites»
- 1958 - Anna Akhmatova. Poems»
- 1963 - "Requiem"
- 1965 - The Run of Time
Recognized classic of Russian poetry of the 20th century, " North Star", as she was called, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova lived a long and in many ways tragic life. There was everything in her life: wars, terrible losses, love and very little simple female happiness. First husband of Anna Akhmatova Nikolai Gumilyov is a Russian poet, translator and traveler. Their meeting took place in 1903, and Gumilyov fell in love with Anna - at first sight, passionately, deeply and for a long time. But Kolya Gumilyov did not impress the future star of Russian poetry. But Gumilyov decided not to back down: he wrote poetry to Anna, gave flowers and even tried to commit suicide when she once again refused him. Six years after they met, Anna Akhmatova suddenly succumbed to the onslaught of an ardent lover and agreed to marriage. In the spring of 1910, Akhmatova and Gumilyov got married.
In the photo: The first husband of Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov.
The marriage of Akhmatova and Gumilyov lasted a little over eight years. The official reason for the divorce was the long absence of Gumilyov (he participated in the First World War), however, the relationship of the poets no longer developed. In this marriage, the only child of Anna Akhmatova, Lev Gumilyov, was born. Soon after her divorce from Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova's husband becomes Vladimir Shileiko, a famous scientist, who also has a poetic gift. For three years, Anna Akhmatova lived a quiet life. family life: she devoted herself completely to her husband, forgetting about her own talent. In 1921 they separated.
In the photo: The second husband of Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Shileiko.
The third husband of Anna Akhmatova is art historian Nikolai Punin. These relationships turned out to be the longest in Akhmatova's life - sixteen years. After parting with Akhmatova, Punin was arrested and died during his imprisonment in Vorkuta. By the way, the first husband of Anna Akhmatova, Nikolai Gumilyov, was also arrested and shot. The second husband of Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Shileiko, died of tuberculosis in 1930, before reaching the age of forty.
All Anna Andreevna's husbands were special.
The first and third cheated on her with might and main, and the second was an egocentric assyrologist;
he did not cheat on her, he was a virgin before marriage with her, like Pnin Nabokova ..
And he was a little crazy, and she felt sorry for him.
According to Akhmatova, she was attracted by the opportunity to be useful to a great man.
Having moved to him in the Fountain House, AAA completely subordinated itself to his will: for hours she wrote his translations of Assyrian texts under his dictation, cooked for him, chopped firewood, made translations for him.
He kept her literally under lock and key, not allowing her to go anywhere, forced her to burn
unopened all received letters, did not allow to write poetry.
Here are excerpts from the diary of a family friend, Luknitsky, part-time CheKa informant
AA chopped firewood for three years in a row - Shileiko had sciatica, and he saved
yourself from this job...
(V.K. Sh[ileiko] - a virgin! -.....
Virginity is an occasion for accusations of jealousy. .... AA only lived because insane
sick;;;.
Shileiko. Lies, lies and lies - streams of lies. First lived
unregistered. (Certificate that husband and wife, AA is registered as
Shileiko.)
In the afternoon, the mother of Vladimir Kazimirovich Shileiko came to AA with me -
I thought to catch him, and was very upset. Vladimir Kazimirovich for three months
stay - never went to his mother, did not go before leaving. Wild
Human.
**
An example showing the difficult character of V. K. Shileiko.
I was with him this morning. When I was leaving, he asked me to drop the letter to Vera
Konstantinovna Shileiko ......
In the evening Shileiko came to AA. From there called me and learned from me that the letter I
dropped into a simple box.
An hour later I came to AA. She didn't have a shileika anymore, and AA was upset and told me,
that Shileiko, having learned that I had thrown the letter into a simple box,
terribly angry, upset and attacked her (what does AA have to do with it?).
He pouted and told her for a long time that "here, he wanted to study tonight, and now the evening is ruined, he cannot work, etc.",
at the same time, he turned all his displeasure on AA and, having upset her,
gone.
It is only necessary to add that the letter was by no means hasty, not important -
the most common letter to his wife.
*****
AA about today's attacks on her by Shileiko (for nothing, besides
having nothing to do with her) spoke about Shileiko, about the severity of his
character, about his manner of puffing up and harassing her with unfair and
lengthy reproaches for all sorts of significant, insignificant and completely
minor reasons.
When Shileiko falls into displeasure, it is unthinkable to continue the conversation with him,
it is unthinkable to reach an agreement.
He puffs up and harasses AA very badly. Extremely quarrelsome and difficult to communicate.
.
While she saw that Shileiko was insane - she did not leave him - she could not leave.
On the very first day, when she saw that he could be without her, she left him.
After leaving him, she lived with him for another year from the same room - on Sergievskaya,
7, where she let him go, because he was homeless.
And this year - I have never been close to him.
It was a very hard life.
The presentation of the book "The Golden Cuneiform of Lanterns in the Fontanka" took place on April 3 at the Anna Akhmatova Museum especially for journalists.
The results of ten years of work: the history of the relationship between Anna Akhmatova and her second husband, the outstanding orientalist Vladimir Shileiko, three years of living together in the Fountain House and the study of the mysterious work of Akhmatova - the drama Enuma Elish. The Prologue, or Dream in a Dream” fit on a hundred pages, and there was even room for photographs and documents from the museum's collection. The authors of the book answered the journalists' questions: director of the Anna Akhmatova Museum Nina Ivanovna Popova and senior researcher of the Museum Tatyana Sergeevna Pozdnyakova.
The meeting with the authors began in the garden of the Fountain House, near the Northern Wing of the Sheremetev Palace, where Akhmatova and Shileiko lived during the years of the Revolution. " I slept in a king bed, / Starved, carried firewood ...”, Akhmatova wrote about this time.
« We tried to understand where they lived and compared different memories. We found Shileiko’s profile in the archives, where he writes: Fontanka 37, apartment 5, but we still can’t say for sure, because everything has been rebuilt and there are no plans left anywhere. However, we believe that at first Shileiko lived in the northern part of the palace: this room was always intended for teachers, and he was the teacher of Sheremetyev's children. When the palace came under the jurisdiction of the Archaeological Institute and became a museum, they were relocated. Comparing the memories, we believe that through all sorts of labyrinths, passages, stairs, corridors, they went from the Fontanka to the former stable wing. Probably on the second floor"- said Tatyana Pozdnyakova.
All the events of the drama take place in the space of the Fountain House. Akhmatova herself claimed that she began writing Enuma Elish in the Fountain House and burned her work there. However, the authors of the book believe that this is a hoax: “ For Akhmatova, this is the place of Elysium of shadows! And ancient Syria is here too!»
The discussion of the book took place in the main exposition of the museum. The journalists were shown items from the museum funds related to the life and work of Vladimir Shileiko.
« Creativity Akhmatova amazingly contains paganism: she prophesies, tells fortunes in earnest. It exists in some kind of pagan worldview, without denying the Christian principle. To some extent, paganism opposes Christianity, although Christianity grew on it. A Christian stands before God, he prays to God, and the pagans, in particular, primarily the pagan culture of Babylon, are people who, gathered together, performed a ritual that helped to interfere with divine deeds. It was possible, by performing a ritual, to bring back the dead. Moreover, it was possible to maintain harmony, because people live in a world that is on the verge of death: river floods, hurricanes, epidemics. But it seemed that by creating a ritual, interfering with the divine will, one could help the gods restore harmony. And, in general, the poet is also a priest. And Akhmatova, if we say that she took from there, as Toporov wrote about it, creates her own ritual.
In Assyro-Babylonian antiquity, each New Year's holiday was accompanied by a ritual: this is a holiday of meeting with the dead, the judgment of the past year and building a table of fate for the future. And in fact, this is how the poet does Akhmatova. In our book, there are excerpts from the Assyrian-Babylonian epic in the margins, which in some amazing way are connected with what is being discussed. The first part of the book is called “The Sumerian coffee house”, and the second “A mighty rumble in the quiet rustle of the pages” is a line by Shileiko. For example, Akhmatova:
« You alone will figure it all out...
When sleepless darkness bubbles around,
That sunny, that lily-of-the-valley wedge
Breaks into the darkness of the December night.
And along the path I go to you.
And you laugh a carefree laugh.
But coniferous forest and reeds in the pond
They respond with some strange echo ...»
In memory of Boris Pilnyak
It seems to go there, into the depths, where the man who was killed is lost, and his grave is unknown. Tries to call him from there. And here, please, the lines of the Assyrian epic:
« He speaks to his friend
Gilgamesh speaking to Eabani:
<…>
And did you see the one who was killed in battle? —
"Saw! Mother and father his head
They are holding him, his wife bent over him. -
And the one whose body is thrown
In the field, did you see? - "Saw!
His shadow does not find rest in the earth«
From the Epic of Gilgamesh. Translation by Nikolai Gumilyov
And in fact, a poem in Pilnyak's memory, this is how the shadow does not find rest in the earth, and I am obliged to call this shadow. And if some kind of mournful, serious, “high” ritual is going on there, then the play “Enuma Elish” is, to some extent, a parody of the ritual. Because it turns out that today the ritual is helpless.
In general, Akhmatova is a person of catastrophic consciousness. If in the Assyro-Babylonian epic the gods created the world out of chaos, then in the play "Enuma Elish" the world is heading towards chaos. And Akhmatova's "Last Trouble" is the destruction of the world, and she speaks about it with some bitter, tragic irony.
When we talk about the play "Enuma Elish", we, of course, do not exhaust it only with an appeal to the Assyro-Babylonian epic. This play has a million different comments: here you can talk about everyday life, namely the life of Akhmatova, and about the boyar Morozova, from whose life she also takes material, and about Joan of Arc ... We do not know the sequence of the Enuma Elish text, we do not we know the compositions, or maybe Akhmatova didn’t need this composition, maybe like scattered tablets, lost tablets with gaps, and she deliberately creates another hoax, especially since she talks about a bottle with a blurry letter - this is also one of her tricks. This play in many ways anticipates Beckett, Ionesco, and Kafka. said Tatyana Sergeevna.
Nina Ivanovna Popova pointed out that, while working on the book, the authors wanted to draw the attention of readers to the Assyro-Babylonian culture, which is much less known than, for example, Greek, and also to tell about the undeservedly forgotten Vladimir Shileiko: “ We want to return to history the scale of the personality of Vladimir Kazemirovich Shileiko. What do we know about him? We don't know anything. A collection of poems by Vladimir Kazemirovich came out, in my opinion, in the publishing house of Ivan Limbakh at the end of the 90s. Two thin collections of his poems - that's all we know about him. We have a few sheets of letters in the museum: we had a really amazingly gifted person in front of us! What is this Hecuba called XXVI century to him (*BC e. - the approximate period of the creation of the Epic of Gilgamesh )? What is he to live with? After all, he died when he was a little over thirty, knowing this darkness of languages \u200b\u200b- and this is the greatest phenomenon!»
Text and photo: Alexander Shek
