"White Flock" - a sense of personal life as a national, historical life. “White Flock” - a feeling of personal life as a national, historical life I don’t need my legs anymore ...

With the outbreak of World War I, Akhmatova severely limited her public life. At this time, she suffers from tuberculosis, a disease that did not let her go for a long time. An in-depth reading of the classics (A. S. Pushkin, E. A. Baratynsky, Rasin, etc.) affects her poetic manner, the sharply paradoxical style of cursory psychological sketches gives way to neoclassical solemn intonations. Insightful criticism guesses in her collection The White Flock (1917) the growing "sense of personal life as a national, historical life." Inspiring in her early poems the atmosphere of "mystery", the aura of autobiographical context, Akhmatova introduces free "self-expression" as a stylistic principle into high poetry. The seeming fragmentation, dissonance, spontaneity of lyrical experience is more and more clearly subject to a strong integrating principle, which gave V.V.

The third book of poems by Akhmatova was published by the Hyperborey publishing house in September 1917 with a circulation of 2000 copies. Its volume is much larger than previous books - there were 83 poems in four sections of the collection; the fifth section was the poem "By the Sea". 65 poems of the book have been printed previously. Many critics noted the new features of Akhmatova's poetry, the strengthening of the Pushkin principle in it. O. Mandelstam wrote in an article in 1916: “The voice of renunciation is growing stronger and stronger in Akhmatova’s poems, and at present her poetry is approaching becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia.” The turning point in Akhmatov's work is connected with attention to reality, to the fate of Russia. Despite the revolutionary times, the first edition of the book "White Pack" sold out quickly. The second was published in 1918 by the Prometheus publishing house. Before 1923, two more editions of the book were published with minor changes and additions.

The epigraph is from I. Annensky's poem "Sweetheart".

Turning to the symbolism of the title, one can see that the words “white” and “flock” will be its fundamental components. Let's consider them in turn.

Everyone knows that colors affect our thinking and feelings. They become symbols, serve as warning signals, make us happy, sad, shape our mentality and influence our speech.

White is the color of innocence and purity. White color symbolizes purity of thoughts, sincerity, youth, innocence, inexperience. A white vest gives the look sophistication, a white dress of the bride means innocence.

A person who is attracted to the white color strives for perfection, he is constantly in search of himself. White color is a symbol of creative, life-loving nature.

In Rus', white is a favorite color, it is the color of the "Holy Spirit". (He descends to earth in the form of a white dove). White color is ubiquitous in national clothes and ornaments. It is also marginal, (that is, it symbolizes the transition from one state to another: death and birth again, for a new life). The symbol of this is the white dress of the bride, and the white shroud of the deceased, and white snow.

But the white color has, in addition to the joyful, its sad side of meanings. White is also the color of death. No wonder such a season as winter is associated with death in nature. The ground is covered with white snow, like a shroud. Whereas spring is the birth of a new life.

The symbol "white" finds its direct reflection in the verses of the book. Firstly, white is the color of love for Akhmatova, the personification of a quiet family life in the "white house". When love becomes obsolete, the heroine leaves "the white house and the quiet garden."

"White", as the personification of inspiration, creativity, is reflected in the following lines:

I wanted to give her a dove

The one that is whiter than everyone in the dovecote,

But the bird itself flew

For my slender guest.

(“Muse left on the way”, 1915, p. 77).

The white dove - a symbol of inspiration - flies after the Muse, devoting herself to creativity.

"White" is also the color of memories, memories:

Like a white stone in the depths of a well,

There is one memory in me.

(“Like a white stone in the depths of a well”, 1916, p. 116).

Salvation Day, paradise is also indicated in white by Akhmatova:

The gate dissolved into a white paradise,

Magdalena took her son.

(“Where, high, is your gypsy child”, 1914, p. 100).

The image of a bird (for example, a dove, a swallow, a cuckoo, a swan, a raven) is deeply symbolic. And this symbolism is used by Akhmatova. In her work, "bird" means a lot: poetry, state of mind, God's messenger. A bird is always the personification of a free life, in cages we see a miserable likeness of birds, without seeing them soaring in the sky. It is the same in the fate of the poet: the true inner world is reflected in the poems created by a free creator. But it is precisely this, freedom, that is always lacking in life.

Birds rarely live alone, mostly in flocks, and a flock is something united, united, many-sided and many-voiced.

Looking at the symbolism of the title of the third book of poetry by Akhmatova, we will see that here the temporal and spatial layers are not limited by anything. There is an exit from the circle, separation from the starting point and the intended line.

Thus, the “white flock” is an image that testifies to a change in spatial time, assessments, and views. He (the image) declares a position "above" everything and everyone, from a bird's eye view.

During the writing of the first two books, the author was included in the events of the surrounding reality, being with them in the same spatial dimension. In The White Flock, Akhmatova rises above reality and, like a bird, tries to cover with her eyes a vast space and most of the history of her country, she breaks out from the powerful shackles of earthly experiences.

"The White Flock" is a collection of poems of various orientations: these are both civil lyrics and poems of love content; it also contains the theme of the poet and poetry.

The book opens with a poem on a civil theme, in which tragic notes are felt (an echo of the epigraph, but on a larger scale). (“Thought: we are poor, we have nothing”, 1915)

In The White Flock, it is polyphony, polyphony that becomes a characteristic feature of the poet's lyrical consciousness. The search for Akhmatova was of a religious nature. Save the soul, as it then seemed to her, is possible only by sharing the fate of many "beggars".

So, in the third book "The White Flock" Akhmatova uses the meanings of the words "white", "flock", "bird" both in the traditional sense, and adds meanings that are unique to her.

"The White Flock" is her poetry, her poems, feelings, moods, poured onto paper.

The white bird is a symbol of God, his messengers.

A bird is an indicator of the normal course of life on earth.

"White flock" is a sign of commonwealth, connection with others.

The “White Flock” is a height, a flight above the mortal earth, it is a craving for the Divine.

"WHITE PACK".

The third book that came out from the pen of Akhmatova was The White Flock.
"In 1916, on the eve of the release of The White Pack, Osip Mandelstam wrote in a review of the collection of poems" Almanac of Muses ":" In the last poems of Akhmatova, there was a turning point to hieratic importance, religious simplicity and solemnity: I would say, after the woman, it was the turn of the wife . Remember: "a humble, shabbyly dressed, but majestic wife." The voice of renunciation is growing stronger and stronger in Akhmatova's poetry, and at present her poetry is approaching becoming one of the symbols of Russia's greatness.
The White Flock was published in September 1917. In all the few, under the conditions of troubled times, reviews of the third book of the poet, its stylistic difference was noted from the first two.
A. L. Slonimsky saw in the poems that made up the "White Flock", "a new in-depth perception of the world", which, in his opinion, was associated with the predominance of the spiritual principle over the "sensual" in the third book, and, according to the critic, in " some kind of Pushkin's view from the side"45.
Another prominent critic, K. V. Mochulsky, believes that the "sharp turnaround in Akhmatov's work" is associated with the poet's close attention to the phenomena of Russian reality in 1914-1917: "The poet leaves far behind him a circle of intimate experiences, the comfort of a" dark blue room " , a ball of multi-colored silk of changeable moods, exquisite emotions and whimsical tunes. He becomes stricter, more severe and stronger. He goes out into the open sky - and from the salty wind and steppe air his voice grows and strengthens. Images of the Motherland appear in his poetic repertoire, it is given off the rumble of war, a quiet whisper of prayer is heard. Artistic generalization in this book is brought to typical significance.
Referring to the symbolism of the title, one can see that the words "white" and "flock" will be its fundamental components. Let's consider them in turn.
Everyone knows that colors affect our thinking and feelings. They become symbols, serve as warning signals, make us happy, sad, shape our mentality and influence our speech.
White is the color of innocence and purity. White color symbolizes purity of thoughts, sincerity, youth, innocence, inexperience. A white waistcoat gives sophistication to the look, a white dress of the bride means innocence, white spots on a geographical map - ignorance and uncertainty. In advertising, the concept of cleanliness is often embodied in sparkling snow-white tiles. Doctors wear white coats. A person who is attracted to the white color strives for perfection, he is constantly in search of himself. White color is a symbol of creative, life-loving nature.
In Rus', white is a favorite color, it is the color of the "Holy Spirit". (He descends to earth in the form of a white dove). White color is ubiquitous in national clothes and ornaments. It is also marginal, (that is, it symbolizes the transition from one state to another: death and birth again, for a new life). The symbol of this is the white dress of the bride, and the white shroud of the deceased, and white snow.
But the white color has, in addition to the joyful, its sad side of meanings. White is also the color of death. No wonder such a season as winter is associated with death in nature. The ground is covered with white snow, like a shroud. Whereas spring is the birth of a new life.
The symbol "white" finds its direct reflection in the verses of the book. Firstly, white is the color of love for Akhmatova, the personification of a quiet family life in the "white house". When love becomes obsolete, the heroine leaves "the white house and the quiet garden."
"White", as the personification of inspiration, creativity, is reflected in the following lines:
I wanted to give her a dove
The one that is whiter than everyone in the dovecote,
But the bird itself flew
For my slender guest.
("Muse left on the road", 1915, p. 77).
The white dove - a symbol of inspiration - flies after the Muse, devoting herself to creativity.
"White" is also the color of memories, memories:
Like a white stone in the depths of a well,
There is one memory in me.
("Like a white stone in the depths of a well", 1916, p. 116).
Or:
And walk to the cemetery on memorial day
Yes, look at the white lilac of God.
(“It would be better for me to call ditties provocatively”, 1914, p. 118).
Salvation Day, paradise is also indicated in white by Akhmatova:
The gate dissolved into a white paradise,
Magdalena took her son.
("Where, high, is your gypsy child", 1914, p. 100).
The image of a bird (for example, a dove, a swallow, a cuckoo, a swan, a raven) is deeply symbolic. And this symbolism is used by Akhmatova. In her work, "bird" means many things: poetry, state of mind, God's messenger. A bird is always the personification of a free life, in cages we see a miserable likeness of birds, without seeing them soaring in the sky. It is the same in the fate of the poet: the true inner world is reflected in the poems created by a free creator. But it is precisely this, freedom, that is always lacking in life.
Birds rarely live alone, mostly in flocks, and a flock is something united, united, many-sided and many-voiced. If we recall the first two books ("Evening", "Rosary"), then the main symbols will be: firstly, a dot (since "evening" is the personification of the beginning or, conversely, the end, a certain reference point), secondly, line (rosary in the form of a "ruler"), thirdly, a circle (rosary-beads) and, fourthly, a spiral (synthesis of a line and a circle). That is, these are symbols of something limited or given by the trajectory of movement, space, or time, or all at the same time.
Looking at the symbolism of the title of the third book of poetry by Akhmatova, we will see that here the temporal and spatial layers are not limited by anything. There is an exit from the circle, separation from the starting point and the intended line.
Thus, the "white flock" is an image that testifies to a change in the space-time continuum, assessments, and views. He (the image) declares a position "above" everything and everyone, from a bird's eye view.
During the writing of the first two books, the author was included in the events of the surrounding reality, being with them in the same spatial dimension. In The White Flock, Akhmatova rises above reality and, like a bird, tries to cover with her eyes a vast space and most of the history of her country, she breaks out from the powerful shackles of earthly experiences.
The analysis of the symbolism of the title of the book and the search for intratextual associations will begin with the epigraph. It is taken from I. Annensky's poem "Sweetheart":
I burn and the road is bright at night.
At the heart of this poem is a plot that tells about the criminal deliverance from the fruit of extramarital love.
The line, which has become an epigraph, acquires a different, generalizing meaning in the context of The White Pack. Annensky shows the personal tragedy of a person, the grief of a particular woman; Akhmatova, on the other hand, has the drama of a huge country, in which, it seems to her, the "voice of a man" will never sound, and "only the wind of the Stone Age knocks on black gates."
"White Flock" is a collection of poems of various orientations: these are civil lyrics, and poems of love content; it also contains the theme of the poet and poetry.
The book opens with a poem on a civil theme, in which tragic notes are felt (an echo of the epigraph, but on a larger scale):
We thought: we are poor, we have nothing,
And how they began to lose one after another,
So what happened every day
Memorial day -
Started making songs
About the great bounty of God
Yes, about our former wealth.
("We thought: we are poor, we have nothing", 1915, p. 73).
An important substantive aspect of The White Pack was, as mentioned above, the change in the aesthetic consciousness of the poet. In practice, it influenced the evolution of the character of the lyrical heroine Akhmatova. Individual existence in the third book merges with the life of the people, rises to its consciousness. I'm not alone, not we - you and me, but we are all, we are a flock. (Compare: "Evening" - "my prayer"; "Rosary" - "my and your name"; "White Flock" - "our voices").
In The White Flock, it is polyphony, polyphony that becomes a characteristic feature of the poet's lyrical consciousness. The search for Akhmatova was of a religious nature. Save the soul, as it then seemed to her, is possible only by sharing the fate of many "beggars".
The theme of beggars appeared in Akhmatova's poetry in the last years before the First World War. The outside world sounded with the voices of the beggars, and the heroine of her poems herself put on the mask of a beggar for a while.
The book "The White Pack" "opens with a choral opening, demonstrating the calm triumph of the novelty of the acquired experience"47. "Every day is the days of the war, taking away new and new victims. And Akhmatova perceived the war as the greatest national grief. And in the time of trials, the choir of the poor turned into a choir of the poet's contemporaries, all people, regardless of social affiliation. "For Akhmatova in a new book the most important thing is the spiritual unity of the people in the face of a terrible enemy. What wealth is the poet talking about here? Obviously, least of all about the material. Poverty is the flip side of spiritual wealth."48 The choral "we" in The White Flock expresses, as it were, the people's point of view on what is happening around. In the composition of the entire book, the choir acts as an active character.
In the first poem there is also the motive of death, the theme of memory sounds.
The image of death is even brighter, with even greater force, in the poem "May Snow", which gives rise to the third section of the book; here the sounds of sobs are heard, the mood of sadness is felt:
A transparent veil falls
On fresh turf and imperceptibly melts.
Cruel, cold spring
Poured kidneys kills.
And the sight of early death is so terrible,
That I cannot look at God's world.
I have the sadness that King David
Royally bestowed millenniums.
("May Snow", 1916, p. 95).
The last lines of the poem, as well as the epigraph to it, refer us to the Holy Scriptures. There is an image of King David, famous for his chants to the Glory of God. The epigraph to the poem "May Snow" points to the following lines from the Psalter: "I am tired of my sighs: every night I wash my bed, with my tears I wet my bed" (Psalm. Psalm VI, 7). Here we meet the word "night" (as in the epigraph to the whole book).
Night is the time of the day, at which, usually, he is left to himself, he is given time to think, if he is alone, to cry over his troubles, to rejoice in his successes. The night is also the time of committing secret atrocities.
In the context of Akhmatova's book, as already mentioned, grief takes on enormous proportions. But this grief is sacred, as it is predetermined by God as a punishment for sins. And, perhaps, at Akhmatova's night - that dark, terrible path that both the country and the heroine must go through, having received a blessing for that.
We see that the mood of the two epigraphs determines the main tone of the mood of the heroine and the book as a whole: sadness, grief, doom and predestination.
In the poem "May Snow" we meet one of the traditional interpretations of the meaning of white - this is the color of death. May is the time when nature is full of life, and suddenly and untimely falling white "transparent veil" dooms it to death.
White as a symbol of light, beauty, we meet in poems dedicated to love, memories of a loved one:
I will leave your white house and quiet garden.
May life be empty and bright.
I will glorify you, you in my poems,
As a woman could not glorify.
("I will leave your white house and quiet garden", 1913, p. 73).
Simultaneously with the love theme in this poem, the theme of the poet and poetry is heard.
But sometimes love comes into conflict with creativity. For Akhmatova, poetry, her poems are "white bird", "jolly bird", "white flock". Everything is for the beloved:
All to you: and a daily prayer,
And insomnia melting heat,
And my white flock of poems,
And my eyes are blue fire.
("I don't know if you're alive or dead", 1915, p. 110).
But the beloved does not share the interests of the heroine. He puts her before a choice: either love or creativity:
He was jealous, anxious and tender,
How God's sun loved me
And so that she does not sing about the former,
He killed my white bird.

He said, entering the room at sunset:
"Love me, laugh, write poetry!"
And I buried a merry bird
Behind a round well near an old alder tree.
("He was jealous, anxious and tender", 1914, p. 75).
In this poem, the motive of prohibition through permission sounds. Having buried the "merry bird" Akhmatova, most likely, hides for some time in the bowels of her soul the thirst to create, to write poetry.
She tests the hero (gives him freedom from the shackles of passion). He leaves, but comes back again:
I chose my share
To the friend of my heart:
I let loose
In his Annunciation.
Yes, the gray dove returned,
Beats its wings against the glass.
As from the brilliance of a wondrous riza
It became light in the upper room.
("I chose my share", 1915, p. 107).
The poet dresses his beloved in the plumage of a gray dove, an ordinary bird - Akhmatova does not idealize her beloved, he is an ordinary person.
In everyday life, the presence of birds in nature suggests that nothing disturbs its normal course. Birds sing - it means everything is fine, there is no trouble. When they fall silent, therefore, something has either already happened or will happen soon: trouble, tragedy. In this case, birds are an indicator of normal
flow of life. Akhmatova says:
Smells like burning. four weeks
Dry peat burns in swamps.
Even the birds didn't sing today
And the aspen no longer trembles.
("July 1914", 1914, p. 96).
Akhmatova's teacher in the brevity, simplicity and authenticity of the poetic word was A. S. Pushkin throughout her life. It was he who suggested to her the image of the Muse, which would be the embodiment of Akhmatov's consciousness. Through all her work passes the image of the Muse - a friend, sister, teacher and comforter. In Akhmatova's poems, the Muse is realistic, she often takes on a human form - "slender guest", "swarthy".
The image of a bird depends on the state of the poet's soul, on her desires and aspirations. But sometimes not always fair reality, discord with a loved one leaves an imprint on him. For example:
Am I talking to you
In the sharp cry of birds of prey,
I'm not looking into your eyes
From white matte pages.
("I see, I see a moonbow", 1914, p. 101).
Or:
So wounded crane
Others are calling: kurly, kurly!
When the spring fields
Both loose and warm...
("So wounded crane", 1915. p. 103).
Or:
That's why it's dark in the light,
That's why my friends
Like evening, sad birds,
About the never-before love is sung.
("I was born neither late nor early", 1913, p. 117).
Akhmatova's bird is also an indicator of the mood of the heroine, the state of her soul.
Akhmatova in this book does not deviate from the traditional interpretation of the image of a white bird as God's messenger, an angel with white wings:
The rays of dawn burn until midnight.
How good it is in my tight lock!
About the most tender, about always wonderful
God's birds are talking to me.
("The immortelle is dry and pink. Clouds", 1916, p. 94).
Or:
We don't remember where we got married
But this church sparkled
With that fierce radiance
What only angels can do
Bring in white wings.
("Let's be together, dear, together", 1915, p. 105).
Or:
The sky sows a fine rain
To the blooming lilac.
Outside the window the wings are blowing
White, White Spirits day.
("The sky sows a fine rain", 1916, p. 113).
For Akhmatova, God is the highest essence, an immovable hypostasis, to which everything is subject. And in the last verse of the book, soaring high above the earth, she proclaims this:
A. There are unique words,
Whoever said them - spent too much.
Only blue is inexhaustible
Heavenly, and the mercy of God.
("Oh, there are unique words." 1916. p. 120).
This is a philosophical poem. Having become one of the voices of the choir at the beginning of the book, by the end of her lyrical heroine Akhmatova unites with the whole universe.

So, in the third book "The White Flock" Akhmatova uses the meanings of the words "white", "flock", "bird" both in the traditional sense, and adds meanings that are unique to her.
"The White Flock" is her poetry, her poems, feelings, moods, poured onto paper.
The white bird is a symbol of God, his messengers.
A bird is an indicator of the normal course of life on earth.
"White flock" is a sign of commonwealth, connection with others.
The "White Flock" is a height, a flight above the mortal earth, it is a craving for the Divine.

Poetic originality

A.A. Akhmatova (on the example of two collections "Rosary" and "White flock

Introduction. 3

1. Features of the style and composition of Akhmatova's early collections. 5

2. Folklore traditions in the early collections of Anna Akhmatova. 12

Conclusion. 21

List of used literature.. 23

Introduction

"The poetry of Anna Akhmatova gives the impression of sharp and fragile because her perceptions are such<... >". With these words of M. Kuzmin from the preface to the book of poems "Evening", literary attempts to comprehend the "secrets of the craft" of Anna Akhmatova began. Two books of her poems "Evening" (1912) and "Rosary" were published one after another (1914), and a little later the third - The White Flock (1917) not only made people talk about the appearance of special, "female" poetry at the beginning of the century, but also made the decade itself Akhmatova's time. Rich multicolored newspaper and magazine reviews and several serious research works of the next decade: this is a sign of keen interest in the work of Anna Akhmatova, which preceded the period of official denigration or suppression of her writings.

With the beginning of the "thaw" of the late 50s - early 60s, after the "second birth" of the poet Anna Akhmatova, her early lyrics quietly faded into the background, being in the shadow of later masterpieces, primarily "Poems without a Hero". Perhaps Akhmatova's own early lyrics, voiced during these years, played a certain role in this turn: "These poor verses of the most empty girl ...". However, these words of Anna Andreevna should not be considered as determining the attitude towards her first books. In this way, she wanted to prevent the critics' "desire to permanently wall up<ее>in the 10s". Being an extremely strict and exacting judge towards herself, Akhmatova sought to emphasize the profound changes in her attitude and poetic manner that occurred in the subsequent "terrible years" - "The harsh era turned me like a river" .

Meanwhile, it is impossible not to notice that many of the artistic achievements of Anna Akhmatova in the 30s and early 60s became a natural development of her creative searches of the early period, so the study of Akhmatova’s early lyrics is very important for a deeper understanding of her later works. Only by realizing the unique originality of everything created in the 1910s, one can correctly interpret the amazing integrity and depth of the artist's heritage, and in the first steps to see the origins of a mature master.

The purpose of this work is to consider two of the early collections ("Rosary" and "White Flock"), to explore their poetic originality.

In connection with this goal, the following tasks can be formulated:

to consider the features of the style of Akhmatova's early lyrics;

to study the originality of the composition of the poem, to trace the change in the nature of the lyrical heroine, the expansion of the subject matter;

highlight folklore motifs in the early lyrical works of Akhmatova.

The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the appearance in Russian literature of two female names, next to which the word "poetess" seems inappropriate, for Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva are poets in the highest sense of the word. It was they who proved that "women's poetry" is not only "poems in an album", but also a prophetic, great word that can contain the whole world. It was in Akhmatova's poetry that a woman became taller, purer, wiser. Her poems taught women to be worthy of love, equal in love, to be generous and sacrificial. They teach men to listen not to "baby in love", but to words as hot as they are proud.

Akhmatova's poetry attracts me with the depth of feelings and at the same time with content. Such a phenomenon in Russian poetry requires special, close attention. The study of the early poetic works of Akhmatova is relevant, since it was during this period that her unique poetic style was formed. In addition, since these poems were written by a young girl (Akhmatova was 22-25 at the time of writing these collections), I am interested in understanding the way of thinking and the peculiarities of the feelings of a woman of another century.

1. Features of the style and composition of Akhmatova's early collections

The main feature of Akhmatova's early collections is their lyrical orientation. Their main theme is love, their heroine is a lyrical heroine whose life is focused on her feelings. This distinguishes Akhmatov's early collections from her later lyrics, and this allows them to be somewhat "overshadowed" in comparison with poems. Nevertheless, Akhmatova's early collections are filled with the charm and strength of the first feeling, and the pain of disappointment, and the agony of reflection on the duality of human nature.

In the collection "Rosary" (1914), the lyrical heroine is a restrained, tender, proud woman - this is the difference from the heroine of the collection "Evening", impulsive, passionate, especially striking. Love for a grown-up girl is a dense network that haunts. The state of mind of the heroine is conveyed through expressively painted artistic details: "golden dust", "colorless ice".

In the verses of this period, the heroine protests ("Ah! It's you again"):

You ask what I did to you

Given to me forever by love and fate.

I betrayed you!

Majesty and dominance are manifested in her character. The lyrical heroine declares her chosenness. In Akhmatova's poems, new motives appear for her - authoritativeness, and even worldly wisdom, which makes it possible to convict a hypocrite:

... And in vain the words are submissive

You talk about first love.

How do I know these stubborn

Your unsatisfied glances!

However, Lermontov's "insult" sounds in this collection: "I do not ask for your love ..." - "I will not humiliate myself before you ..." (Lermontov). The lyrical heroine of Akhmatova is growing up - now she blames herself for the tragedy of love, looking for the reason for the break in herself. Now Akhmatova thinks that "hearts are hopelessly decrepit from happiness and glory." There is no complaint in the verses, but there is amazement: how can this happen to me? Love, according to Akhmatova, is purgatory, because it shows the subtlest shades of feelings.

The poems of this period are close to folk songwriting, aphoristic: "How many requests a loved one always has, / A lovesick does not have requests ..."; "And the one that is dancing now // Will certainly be in hell"; "Abandoned! Made up word // Am I a flower or a letter?".

The collection "The White Flock" (1917) was created in a difficult time - both for the poetess and for Russia. Akhmatova herself says about him: "Readers and criticism are unfair to this book." The heroine of Akhmatova grows up, becomes mature, acquires new values in life: "Let me give the world // That which is imperishable to love." She is already wiser, appreciates the newfound freedom of feeling and creativity. Now the lyrical heroine breaks out of the world of chamber, closed love to true, great love. The inner world of a loving woman expands to a global, universal scale, and therefore love for people, for her native land, for the Motherland enters the world of Akhmatova's poems. Patriotic motives sound more and more clearly:

Victory over silence.

In me still, like a song or grief,

The last winter before the war.

Whiter than the arches of the Smolny Cathedral,

More mysterious than the lush Summer Garden,

She was. We didn't know that soon

Let's look back in sadness.

Akhmatova's visual skill in these poems is emphasized by the dramatic juxtaposition of disparate concepts (like a song or grief), a comparison of the season with infinitely beloved Petersburg, as a leitmotif there is the idea of the irreversibility of the past, longing for the past. The poems of this period are characterized by psychologism. The poetess conveys her feelings through a specific psychological detail: “The silence of love is unbearably painful for the soul…” The pain of loss has not subsided, but now it is like a song. For Akhmatova, love is "the fifth season of the year."

And in the poem "Muse left on the road ..." the motive of death is clearly heard:

I asked her for a long time

Wait for winter with me

But she said: "After all, here is the grave,

How can you still breathe? "

The lyrical works of Anna Akhmatova, with apparent clarity and simplicity, are often distinguished by the complexity and uncertainty of the composition. There are several communicative plans in Akhmatov's texts - this is an unaddressed lyrical description, and a dialogue, and an appeal to an absent, unnamed character in the work, and an appeal of the lyrical heroine to her own "I". V. Vinogradov found that A. Akhmatova more often uses two plans: one is "an emotional background, or a sequence of external sensually perceived phenomena", the other is "expression of emotions in the form of direct appeals to the interlocutor" . This is noticeable, for example, in a poem dedicated to N. Gumilyov:

I was returning home from school.

These lindens, it is true, have not forgotten

Our meeting, my merry boy.

Only, having become an arrogant swan,

The gray swan has changed.

And on my life with an imperishable ray

In these verses, there is also a quiet sadness about the past, the departure of which is here marked by the sudden transformation of a loved one (a swan - a swan), with a sad allusion to a well-known fairy tale, only with a different ending.

Anna Akhmatova

My white flock of poems ...

Foreword

Sadness is the strongest thing on earth.

A. Akhmatova

The creative fate of Anna Akhmatova developed in such a way that only five of her poetic books - "Evening" (1912), "Rosary" (1914), "White Flock" (1917), "Plantain" (1921) and "Anno Domini" (in two editions of 1921 and 1922-1923) were compiled by herself. Over the next two years, Akhmatov's poems occasionally still appeared in periodicals, but in 1925, after the next Ideological Conference, at which, in the words of Anna Andreevna herself, she was sentenced to "civil death", they stopped publishing her. Only fifteen years later, in 1940, almost miraculously, a volume of selected works broke through to readers, and it was no longer Akhmatova who chose, but the compiler. True, Anna Andreevna still managed to include in this edition, as one of the sections, fragments from the handwritten "Reed", the sixth book of hers, which she compiled with her own hand in the late 30s. And yet, on the whole, the collection of 1940 with the impersonal title "From Six Books", like all the other lifetime favorites, including the famous "Running Time" (1965), did not express the author's will. According to legend, the initiator of this miracle was Stalin himself. Seeing that his daughter Svetlana was copying Akhmatova's poems into a notebook, he allegedly asked one of the people in his retinue why Akhmatova was not being published. Indeed, in the last pre-war year in the creative life of Akhmatova, there was a certain turning point for the better: in addition to the collection "From Six Books", there were also several publications in the Leningrad magazine. Anna Andreevna believed in this legend, she even believed that she also owed Stalin her salvation, the fact that she was taken out of the besieged city in the fall of 1941 on a military plane. In fact, the decision to evacuate Akhmatova and Zoshchenko was signed by Alexander Fadeev and, apparently, at the insistent request of Alexei Tolstoy: the red count was a burned-out cynic, but he knew and loved Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Gumilyov from his youth and never forgot about it ... Tolstoy, it seems , contributed to the release of the Tashkent collection of Akhmatova in 1943, which, however, was not at all difficult for him, since this happened after the publication of her poem “Courage” in Pravda ... The fact that it was the author of “Peter the Great”, albeit not too much, but slightly defended Akhmatova, and this fact confirms: after his death in 1944, no one could help her, neither Nikolai Tikhonov, nor Konstantin Fedin, nor Alexei Surkov, despite all his considerable literary ranks ...

This edition includes the texts of the first five books of Anna Akhmatova, in the edition and in the order in which they first saw the light.

The first four collections - "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock" and "Plantain" are published according to the first edition, "Anno Domini" - according to the second, more complete, Berlin one, printed in October 1922, but published with the note: 1923. All other texts follow in chronological order, without taking into account those subtle connections and links in which they exist in the author's "samizdat" plans: until her death, Anna Akhmatova continued to write poetry and put them into cycles and books, still hoping that will be able to reach its reader not only with the main poems, which invariably got stuck in the viscous mud of Soviet censorship, but also with books of poetry. Like many poets of the Silver Age, she was convinced that between lyrical plays, united only by the time of their writing, and the author's book of poems, there was a "devilish difference."

The first collection of Anna Akhmatova "Evening" was published at the very beginning of March 1912, in St. Petersburg, in the acmeist publishing house "Poets' Workshop". To publish 300 copies of this thin little book, Anna Akhmatova's husband, who is also the head of the publishing house, poet and critic Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev laid out one hundred rubles from his own pocket. The success of Vecher was preceded by the “triumphs” of young Akhmatova on the tiny stage of the literary cabaret Stray Dog, the opening of which was timed by the founders to coincide with the farewell of 1911. The artist Yuri Annenkov, the author of several portraits of the young Akhmatova, recalling in his declining years the appearance of his model and her performance on the stage of the Intimate Theater (the official name of the Stray Dog: The Art Society of the Intimate Theater), wrote: “Anna Akhmatova, shy and an elegantly careless beauty, with her “uncurled bangs” that covered her forehead, and with a rare grace of half-movements and half-gestures, read, almost singing, her early poems. I do not remember anyone else who would have possessed such a skill and such musical delicacy of reading ... ".

Exactly two years after the publication of the first edition, namely in March 1914, Rosary appeared on the shelves of bookstores in St. Petersburg, Akhmatova no longer had to publish this book at her own expense ... She withstood many reprints, including several pirated." One of these collections is dated 1919. Anna Andreevna valued this edition very much. Hunger, cold, devastation, but people still need poetry. Her poetry! Gumilyov, as it turned out, was right when he said, after reading the proofreading of the Rosary: “Maybe it will have to be sold in every small shop.” Marina Tsvetaeva rather calmly met the first Akhmatova collection, because her own first book was published two years earlier, except that she was surprised at the coincidence of the names: she has “Evening Album”, and Anna has “Evening”, but “Rosary” delighted her. She fell in love! And in poetry, and, in absentia, in Akhmatova, although I felt in her a strong rival:

You make me freeze the sun in the sky,
All the stars are in your hand.

Then, after the "Rosary", Tsvetaeva called Akhmatova "Anna of All Rus'", she also owns two more poetic characteristics: "Muse of Lamentation", "Tsarskoye Selo Muse". And what is most surprising, Marina Ivanovna guessed that fate had written out for them, so different, one road trip:

And alone in the emptiness of the prison
We were given a travel guide.

"The Rosary" is the most famous book of Anna Akhmatova, it was she who brought her fame, not just fame in a narrow circle of lovers of fine literature, but real fame. Meanwhile, Akhmatova herself, from her early books, loved The White Flock and Plantain much more than The Rosary ... And let the person to whom The White Flock and Plantain are dedicated - Boris Vasilyevich Anrep, as it turned out many, many years later, turned out to be unworthy of this great earthly love and the poem of the fate of Anna of All Russia was left without the main Hero, so what? Wars and tsars have passed, but the poems about the hopeless love of the most charming woman of "silver Petersburg" for the "dashing Yaroslavl", who exchanged his native copses for the velvet greens of English lawns, did not pass, did not lose their original freshness ... In 1945, on the eve of another catastrophe, when In August of the following 1946, Anna Akhmatova was once again sentenced to “civil death” by the well-known decision of the Central Committee on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad, after reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita in the manuscript, she wrote the following visionary verses:

Witnesses of Christ have tasted death,
And old gossips, and soldiers,
And the procurator of Rome - all passed
Where the arch once stood
Where the sea beat, where the cliff blackened, -
They were drunk in wine, inhaled with hot dust
And with the smell of sacred roses.

Gold rusts and steel rots,
Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death.
Sadness is the strongest thing on earth
And more durable is the royal Word.

In the situation of 1945, when, after several spring months of the national Victory Day, the authorities again and abruptly began to “tighten the screws”, it was dangerous not only to read such poems aloud, but also to store them in the drawers of the desk, and Anna Andreevna, who never forgot anything, forgot or rather, she hid them so deeply in the basement of her memory that she could not find them for a whole decade, but after the 20th Congress she immediately remembered ... Friends called her a seer for a reason, she foresaw a lot in advance, in advance, and she sensed the approach of trouble long before her arrival, not one from the blows of fate did not take her by surprise; constantly living "on the edge of death", she was always ready for the worst. But her main books were lucky, by some miracle they managed to jump out from under the printing press on the eve of the next sharp turn - either in her own life or in the fate of the country.

"Evening" appeared on the eve of the birth of the first and only son.

"Rosary" - on the eve of the First World War.

The "White Flock" - on the eve of the revolution, and literally on the eve: in mid-September 1917.

"Plantain" (April 1921) - on the eve of great grief: in the summer of 1921, Akhmatova learned about the suicide of her elder beloved brother Andrei, in August, first Blok and then Gumilyov passed away. Mikhail Zenkevich, who sought out Anna Andreevna that tragic winter in some strange frozen dwelling, was amazed at the change that had happened to her. That Anna, with whom he parted, leaving Petrograd in 1918, the one who lived and sang love in "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock" and "Plantain", was no more; the book she wrote after the terrible August 1921 - Anno Domini - was a book of Sorrow. (In the first edition - St. Petersburg: "Petropolis", 1921 - the year of the end of the former and the beginning of a new life is indicated in Roman numerals already in the title of the collection: "Anno Domini MCMXXI" ("From the Nativity of Christ 1921.") Having read several new poems to a friend of his poetic youth and noticing that Zenkevich was amazed, she explained: "The last months I lived among deaths. Kolya died, my brother died and ... Blok. I don't know how I could survive all this."

Sadness is the strongest thing on earth.

A. Akhmatova

This edition includes the texts of the first five books of Anna Akhmatova, in the edition and in the order in which they first saw the light.

You make me freeze the sun in the sky,

All the stars are in your hand.

And alone in the emptiness of the prison

We were given a travel guide.

"The Rosary" is the most famous book of Anna Akhmatova, it was she who brought her fame, not just fame in a narrow circle of lovers of fine literature, but real fame. Meanwhile, Akhmatova herself, from her early books, loved The White Flock and Plantain much more than The Rosary ... And let the person to whom The White Flock and Plantain are dedicated - Boris Vasilyevich Anrep, as it turned out many, many years later, turned out to be unworthy of this great earthly love and the poem of the fate of Anna of All Russia was left without the main Hero, so what? Wars and tsars have passed, but the poems about the hopeless love of the most charming woman of "silver Petersburg" for the "dashing Yaroslavl", who exchanged his native copses for the velvet greens of English lawns, did not pass, did not lose their original freshness ... In 1945, on the eve of another catastrophe, when in August of the following 1946, Anna Akhmatova was once again sentenced to “civil death” by the well-known decision of the Central Committee on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”, after reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” in the manuscript, she wrote such visionary verses.