Anna Akhmatova (June 23 [O.S. June 11] 1889 — March 5, 1966) was the pen name of Anna Andreevna Gorenko, the leader and the heart and soul of St Petersburg tradition of Russian poetry in the course of half a century.
Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to universalized, ingeniously structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935-40), her tragic masterpiece on the Stalinist terror. Her work addresses a variety of themes including time and memory, the fate of creative women, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism.
Early life
Akhmatova was born in Bolshoy Fontan near Odessa. Her childhood does not appear to have been happy; her parents separated in 1905. She was educated in Kiev, Tsarskoe Selo, and the Smolny Institute of St Petersburg. Anna started writing poetry at the age of 11, inspired by her favourite poets: Racine, Pushkin, and Baratynsky. As her father did not want to see any verses printed under his "respectable" name, she had to adopt the surname of one of her Tatar ancestors as a pseudonym.
Grey-Eyed King (1910)
Hail to thee, o, inconsolate pain!
The young grey-eyed king has been yesterday slain.
That autumnal evening was stuffy and red.
My husband, returning, had quietly said,
"He'd left for his hunting; they carried him home;
They found him under the old oak's dome.
I pity his queen. He, so young, passed away!...
During one night her black hair turned to grey."
He picked up his pipe from the fireplace shelf,
And went off to work for the night by himself.
Now my daughter I will wake up and rise --
And I will look in her little grey eyes...
And murmuring poplars outside can be heard:
Your king is no longer here on this earth.
In 1910, she married the boyish poet Nikolay Gumilyov, who very soon left her for hunting lions in Africa, the battlefields of the World War I, and the society of Parisian grisettes. Her husband didn't take her poems seriously and was shocked when Alexander Blok declared to him that he preferred her poems to his. Their son, Lev, born in 1912, was to become a famous Neo-Eurasianist historian.
Silver Age
Anna Akhmatova by Amedeo Modigliani, 1911
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Anna Akhmatova by Amedeo Modigliani, 1911
In 1912, she published her first collection, entitled Evening. It contained brief, psychologically taut pieces which English readers may find distantly reminiscent of Robert Browning and Thomas Hardy. They were acclaimed for their classical diction, telling details, and the skilful use of colour.
By the time her second collection, the Rosary, appeared in 1914, there were thousands of women composing their poems "after Akhmatova". Her early poems usually picture a man and a woman involved in the most poignant, ambiguous moment of their relationship. Such pieces were much imitated and later parodied by Nabokov and others. Akhmatova was prompted to exclaim: "I taught our women how to speak but don't know how to make them silent".
Together with her husband, Akhmatova enjoyed a high reputation in the circle of Acmeist poets. Her aristocratic manners and artistic integrity won her the titles of the "Queen of the Neva" and the "soul of the Silver Age", as the period came to be known in the history of Russian poetry. Many decades later, she would recall this blessed time of her life in the longest of her works, the "Poem Without Hero" (1940–65), inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
The accursed years
Nikolay Gumilyov was executed in 1921 for activities considered anti-Soviet; Akhmatova presently remarried a prominent Assyriologist Vladimir Shilejko, and then another scholar, Nikolay Punin, who died in the Stalinist camps. After that, she spurned several proposals from the married poet Boris Pasternak
Книга — это величайший учитель всего человечества. Это друг, сопровождающий нас от ясельной колыбели до глубокой старости.
Оказавшаяся в наших руках книга дать нам очень многое. Но при условии, что и мы отдадим ей часть своего внимания и времени. Во взаимоотношениях с книгой действует вселенский закон взаимообмена и сохранения энергии. Не всякая книга может быть полезна, но и не всякий чтец сумеет извлечь пользу из ценной книги. Как правило, по мере нашего воспитания, зрелости, меняются и наши литературные предпочтения, а вместе с ними и их носители — вечные друзья — книги.
В сравнении с устной речью, театральными и телевизионными постановками, звуковыми записями, кинематографическими и анимационными фильмами, книга, безусловно, занимает лидирующую позицию. Связано это со передачи нужной для нас информации. Книга работает напрямую с нашим внутренним миром, притом достаточно деликатно, если можно так выразиться. Читая текст самостоятельно, а не прослушивая содержание книги в чьём-то исполнении, мы соприкасаемся с идеей автора лично. Любой продукт, созданный на основе первоисточника — вторичен. Даже когда родители читают книгу детям, нужно понимать, что ребёнок воспринимает в этот момент не книгу, а её интерпретацию.
Как и во всех занятиях, связанных с воспитанием морально-этических норм поведения, в выборе книги, как и в выборе друга — нужно быть очень щепетильным педантом. Контакт с книгой можно сравнить со свиданием двух влюблённых и как вы сами понимаете, пара должна быть достойной друг друга, тогда из этого наверняка получится что-то хорошее.
Чтение книги— это таинство! Читающий погружается в свой неповторимый, индивидуальный мир, соединяясь внутри своего сознания с более тонкими ментальными мирами всего человечества. Это потрясающее явление.