(click to enlarge)
Anna Akhmatova. (credit: Novosti Press Agency)
Anna Akhmatova. (credit: Novosti Press Agency)
For more information on Anna Akhmatova, visit Britannica.com.
Anna Akhmatova
| Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Anna Akhmatova |
| 5min Related Video: Anna Akhmatova |
| Biography: Anna Akhmatova |
The Soviet poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) is the best-known member of the Acmeist movement. Her work is characterized by subtle understatement,careful variations in rhythm, and spontaneous recording of everyday emotions.
Anna Akhmatova, the pen name of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, was born on June 23, 1889, near the Black Sea port of Odessa. Her father, a retired naval officer, moved the family to St. Petersburg when Anna was a young girl. She attended the Tsarskoe Selo Women's Gymnasium near St. Petersburg, where she met Nikolai Gumilev, whom she married in 1910. He was also a poet of the Acmeist movement, which proclaimed a return to precise, direct expression of poetic emotion.
Anna Akhmatova lived mainly in St. Petersburg and at her nearby country home, Komarovo, but traveled abroad several times: in 1910-1911 to Paris; in 1912 to northern Italy; and in 1965 to Oxford, England, where she was awarded an honorary degree. Throughout her life St. Petersburg played an important thematic role in her poetry. It was the city of such great writers as Fyodor Dostoevsky, Nikolai Gogol, and Aleksandr Pushkin, and it represented Anna Akhmatova's affinity to the 19th-century Russian prose tradition.
Her early life was marked by immediate success in poetry and the anguishing failure of her marriage to Gumilev, whom she divorced in 1918. Her first books, Evening (1912), Rosary (1914), and Anno Domini MCMXXI (1921), testify to the trials of her marriage. Gumilev was executed in 1921 as a counterrevolutionary, and their only son, a historian, spent most of the years from 1939 to 1956 in a Soviet prison camp. These events compounded Anna Akhmatova's misfortune and led to the book of poems Requiem (1963), which is a testament to the suffering not only of the poet but of all Russians during the horrifying days of Stalin's purges. In 1946 Anna Akhmatova was hounded by Stalin's minister of culture, Andrei Zhadanov, called "a mixture of nun and harlot," and expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers. She had been reduced to silence before, from 1925 to 1940; she did not emerge from this final rebuke until after the death of Stalin. During the late 1950s and the 1960s she devoted herself to translations and to her own poetry.
Anna Akhmatova's poetic diction and her predominantly psychological themes were drawn from the humanistic tradition of 19th-century Russian prose. Her poetry imitates the rhythm and structure of conversational speech. Her work, like that of Boris Pasternak, whom she admired, was a sincere response to the inhuman cruelties of the age.
Anna Akhmatova was at work on her book The Death of Pushkin, a tribute to the perishing of genius at the hands of an insensitive society, when she died of a heart attack on March 6, 1966. She was accorded a Russian Orthodox funeral and was buried near Komarovo.
Further Reading
There is no adequate biography of Anna Akhmatova. Personal reminiscences about her are in the moving account by Osip Mandelstam's widow, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hope against Hope: A Memoir (trans. 1970). Helen Muchnic, Russian Writers: Notes and Essays (1971), has an interesting discussion of Anna Akhmatova and her contemporaries. The definitive critical book on her poetry is in Russian: Boris M. Eikhenbaum, Anna Akhmatova (1923). A useful study is Leonid Strakhovsky, Craftsmen of the Word: Three Poets of Modern Russia (1949). The broadest selection of her poetry in English is Forty-seven Love Poems, translated by Natalie Duddington (1927).
Additional Sources
Anna Akhmatova and her circle, Fayetteville, Ark.: University of Arkansas Press, 1994.
Davies, J. (Jessie), Anna of all the Russias: the life of Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), Liverpool: Lincoln Davies, 1988.
Haight, Amanda., Anna Akhmatova: a poetic pilgrimage, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Reeder, Roberta., Anna Akhmatova: poet and prophet, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.
| Russian History Encyclopedia: Anna Andreyevna Akhmatova |
(1889 - 1966), leading Russian poet of the twentieth century; member of the Acmeist group.
Anna Akhmatova (Anna Andreyevna Gorenko) was born on June 23, 1889, near Odessa, and grew up in Tsarskoye Selo, the imperial summer residence, where Pushkin had attended the Lyceum. She studied law in Kiev, then literature in St. Petersburg. She married poet Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev in 1910, and the couple visited western Europe on their honeymoon. She made a return visit to Paris in 1911, and Amedeo Modigliani, still an unknown artist at the time, painted sixteen portraits of her.
In 1912, Akhmatova published her first collection of poetry, Vecher (Evening), and gave birth to her son Lev. The clarity, simplicity, and vivid details of her poetry amazed her contemporaries. For instance, in 1934, Marina Tsvetaeva praised Akhmato's "Poem of the Last Meeting," extolling the lines "I slipped my left-hand glove/Onto my right hand" as "unique, unrepeatable, inimitable."
Also in 1912, Gumilev founded the Poets' Guild, a group whose opposition to the Symbolists led to the name "Acmeist," from the Greek akme, "perfection." The Acmeists, including Gumilev, Akhmatova, and Osip Mandelshtam, advocated simplicity, clarity, and precision over the vagueness and otherworldliness of the Symbolists.
Akhmatova's marriage with Gumilev was unhappy and ended in divorce. Her second collection, Chetki (Rosary), published in 1914, revolves around the decline of the relationship, her sense of repentance, and her identity as a poet. In her following collections, Belaya Staya (White Flock, 1917), Podorozhnik (Plantain, 1921), and Anno Domini (1922), Akhmatova assumed the role of poetic witness, responding to the chaos, poverty, and oppression surrounding the Revolution and civil war.
In 1921, Gumilev was charged with conspiracy and executed. None of Akhmatova's work was published in the Soviet Union between 1923 and 1940. Yet, unlike many of her contemporaries, Akhmatova refused to emigrate. Her view of emigration is reflected in her 1922 poem from Anno Domini, "I am not one of those who left the land."
Between 1935 and 1940 Akhmatova wrote the long poem Requiem, a lyrical masterpiece. Dedicated to the victims of Josef Stalin's terror, and largely a maternal response to her son Lev's arrest and imprisonment in 1937, it recalls the Symbolists in its use of religious allegory, but maintains directness and simplicity. Akhmatova's next long poem, the complex, dense, polyphonic Poema bez geroya (Poem without a Hero, 1943) interprets the suicide of poet and officer Vsevolod Knyazev as a sign of the times. Some critics place it alongside Requiem as her finest work; others see it as the beginning of Akhmatova's poetic decline.
At the outbreak of World War II, Stalin briefly relaxed his stance toward writers, and Akhmatova was published selectively. In 1946, however, Andrei Zhdanov, secretary of the Central Committee, denounced her and expelled her from the Writers' Union. In 1949, her son Lev was arrested again and exiled to Siberia. In a desperate and futile effort to secure his release, Akhmatova wrote a number of poems in praise of Stalin. She later requested the exclusion of these poems from her collected work.
After Stalin's death, Akhmatova was slowly "rehabilitated." Publication of her work, including her essays and translations, resumed. She received international recognition, including an honorary degree from Oxford in 1965. She died on March 5, 1966, and is remembered as one of Russia's most revered poets.
Bibliography
Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna. (1973). Poems of Akhmatova: Izbrannye Stikhi, ed. and tr. Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward. Boston: Little, Brown.
Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna. (1990). The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, tr. Judith Hemschemeyer, ed. Roberta Reeder. Somerville, MA: Zephyr.
Amert, Susan. (1992). In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Akhmatova. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ketchian, Sonia. (1985). "Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna." In Handbook of Russian Literature, ed. Victor Terras. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Leiter, Sharon. (1983). Akhmatova's Petersburg. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
—DIANA SENECHAL
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Anna Akhmatova |
Akhmatova, Anna (än'nə əkhmä'təvə), pseud. of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (əndrā'əvnə gôryĕng'kô), 1888-1966, Russian poet of the Acmeist school. Her brief lyrics, simply and musically written in the tradition of Pushkin, attained great popularity. Her themes were personal, emotional, and often ironic. Among her most popular volumes are Chiotki [the rosary] (1914) and Iva [the willow tree] (1940). She was married to the Acmeist poet Gumilev until 1918. Akhmatova remained silent for two decades. She began publishing again at the outbreak of World War II, after which her writings regained popularity. A courageous critic of Stalinism with a large underground following, she was harshly denounced by the Soviet regime in 1946 and 1957 for "bourgeois decadence."
Bibliography
See her Selected Poems (tr. 1969), Poems of Akhmatova (tr. 1973), and The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1990, in Russian and English translation); her autobiographical writings in My Half Century: Selected Prose (1992), ed. by R. Meyer; biographies by A. Haight (1976, repr. 1990), R. Reeder (1995) and E. Feinstein (2006); study by S. N. Driver (1972).
| Wikipedia: Anna Akhmatova |
| Anna Akhmatova | |
|---|---|
 Akhmatova in 1922 (Portrait by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin) |
|
| Born | Anna Andreevna Gorenko June 23, 1889 Odessa, Russian Empire (now Odessa Oblast, Ukraine) |
| Died | March 5, 1966 (aged 76) Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian/Soviet |
| Ethnicity | Ukrainian, Russian, Tatar |
| Genres | Poetry |
| Literary movement | Acmeism |
| Spouse(s) | Nikolay Gumilyov Vladimir Shilejko Nikolai Punin |
| Children | Lev Gumilyov |
Anna Akhmatova (Russian and Ukrainian: А́нна Ахма́това; June 23 [O.S. June 11] 1889 – March 5, 1966) was the pen name of Anna Andreëvna Gorenko (Russian: А́нна Андре́евна Горе́нко; Ukrainian: Га́нна Андрі́ївна Горе́нко), a Russian/Soviet poet credited with a large influence on Russian poetry.
Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to intricately structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935-40), her tragic masterpiece about 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. She has been widely translated into many languages and is one of the best-known Russian poets of 20th century.
Contents |
Early Life
Anna Akhmatova in 1914
Akhmatova was born at Bolshoy Fontan in Odessa to Andrey Antonovich Gorenko and Inna Erazmovna Stogova. Her childhood does not appear to have been happy; her parents separated in 1905. She was educated in Tsarskoe Selo (where she first met her future husband, Nikolay Gumilyov) and in Kiev. 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 chose to adopt the surname of her Tatar grandmother as a pseudonym.[1] Many of the male Russian poets of the time declared their love for Akhmatova; she reciprocated the attentions of Osip Mandelstam, whose wife, Nadezhda Mandelstam, would eventually forgive Akhmatova in her autobiography, Hope Against Hope.[2]
In 1910, she married the poet, Nikolay Gumilyov, who very soon left her for lion hunting in Africa, the battlefields of World War I, and the society of Parisian grisettes. Her husband did not 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
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 poems "in honour of 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 "Queen of the Neva" and "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, "Poem Without a Hero" (1940–65), inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.
Mosaics in Ireland and England
Following the breakup of her marriage, Akhmatova had an affair with the mosaic artist and poet Boris Anrep (1883 - 1969) during World War I; at least 34 of her poems are about him. He in turn created mosaics in which she features. In the Cathedral of Christ the King Mullingar, Anrep’s mosaic of Saint Anne is spelt Anna. Additionally, the saint’s image bears an uncanny resemblance to that of Akhmatova in her mid-20s.[3]
Anrep also depicted Akhmatova in a mosaic entitled Compassion, located in the National Gallery in London.[4]
The accursed years
Nikolay Gumilyov was prosecuted in 1921 for activities considered anti-Soviet; Akhmatova then married a prominent Assyriologist Vladimir Shilejko, and then an art scholar, Nikolay Punin, who died in the Stalinist Gulag camps.[5] After that, she spurned several proposals from the married poet, Boris Pasternak.
After 1922, Akhmatova was condemned as a bourgeois element[citation needed] and was rarely published between 1923 and 1930. She earned her living by translating Leopardi and publishing essays, including some brilliant essays on Pushkin, in scholarly periodicals. All of her friends either emigrated or were repressed.
Only a few people in the West suspected that she was still alive, when she came out with a collection of new poems in 1940. During World War II, when she witnessed the nightmare of the 900-Day Siege, her patriotic poems found their way to the front pages of Pravda. After Akhmatova returned to Leningrad following the Central Asian evacuation in 1944, she was distressed by "a terrible ghost that pretended to be my city."
Upon learning about Isaiah Berlin's visit to Akhmatova in 1946, Stalin's associate in charge of culture, Andrei Zhdanov, publicly labelled her "half harlot, half nun", had her poems banned from publication in the journals Zvezda and Leningrad. Her son spent his youth in Stalinist gulags, and she even resorted to publishing several poems in praise of Stalin to secure his release. Their relations remained strained, however.
Although officially stifled, Akhmatova's work continued to circulate in samizdat form and even by word of mouth, as she became a symbol of suppressed Russian heritage.[2]
The thaw
After Stalin's death, Akhmatova's preeminence among Russian poets was grudgingly conceded, even by party officials, and a censored edition of her work was published; conspicuously absent was Requiem, which Isaiah Berlin had predicted in 1946 would never be published in the Soviet Union[2]. Her later pieces, composed in neoclassical rhyme and mood, seem to be the voice of many she has outlived. Her dacha in Komarovo was frequented by Joseph Brodsky and other young poets, who continued Akhmatova's traditions of Saint Petersburg poetry into the 21st century.
In honor of her 75th birthday in 1964, special observances were held and new collections of her verse were published.[6]
Akhmatova got a chance to meet some of her pre-revolutionary acquaintances in 1965, when she was allowed to travel to Sicily and England, in order to receive the Taormina prize and an honorary doctoral degree from Oxford University (she was accompanied by her life-long friend and secretary Lydia Chukovskaya). In 1962, her dacha was visited by Robert Frost. In 1968, a two volume collection of Akhmatova's prose and poetry was published by Inter-Language Literary Associates of West Germany.[2]
_cropped.jpg)
Akhmatova died at the age of 76 in Moscow. She was interred at Komarovo Cemetery.
Akhmatova's reputation continued to grow after her death, and it was in the year of her centenary that one of the greatest poetic monuments of the 20th century, Akhmatova's Requiem, was finally published in her homeland.
There is a museum devoted to Akhmatova at the apartment where she lived with Nikolai Punin at the garden wing of the Fountain House (more properly known as the Sheremetev Palace) on the Fontanka Embankment, where Akhmatova lived from the mid 1920s until 1952.
A minor planet 3067 Akhmatova discovered by Soviet astronomers Lyudmila Karachkina and Lyudmila Zhuravlyova in 1982 is named after her.[7]
Works
Poetry
- Anna Akhmatova: Poems (1983)
- Anno Domini MCMXXI (1922) - rus
- Evening (1912) - rus
- Plantain (1921) - rus
- Poems of Akhmatova (1967)
- Poems of Akhmatova (1983) (trans. Lyn Coffin)
- Rosary (1914)
- Selected Poems (1976)
- Selected Poems (1989)
- The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1990)
- Twenty Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1985)
- White Flock (1914)
Examples of poetry
Grey-Eyed King (1910)
Hail to thee, o inconsolate pain!
The young grey-eyed king has been yesterday slain.
That autumn 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!...
And overnight all her black hair turned grey."
He picked up his pipe from the fireplace shelf,
And went off to work in the night by himself.
So now my daughter I will wake and rise --
And I will look in her little grey eyes...
And murmuring poplars outside will be heard:
Your king is no longer here on this earth.[8]
Song of the Very Last Meeting (1911)
My chest grew helplessly cold, But my feet were light and deft, I pulled a glove on my right hand- The one that was meant for my left.
It seemed the steps were many, But I knew - there were only three! Amid maples, autumn's whisper Pled softly: "Die with me!
My fate so fickle and evil- Has coldly betray me anew." I answered,"My dearest,my darling Mine too.I will die with you"
The song of the very last meeting. I glanced at the darkened home. In the bedroom the candled were burning With an indifferent, yellowish glow.
My Way (1940)
One goes in straightforward ways,
One in a circle roams:
Waits for a girl of his gone days,
Or for returning home.
But I do go —and woe is there—
By a way nor straight, nor broad,
But into never and nowhere,
Like trains —off the railroad.
Courage (1942)
We know what trembles on the scales,
and what we must steel ourselves to face.
The bravest hour strikes on our clocks:
may courage not abandon us!
Let bullets kill us—we are not afraid,
nor are we bitter, though our housetops fall.
We will preserve you, Russian speech,
from servitude in foreign chains,
keep you alive, great Russian word,
fit for the songs of our children's children,
pure on their tongues, and free.
References
- ^ Anderson, Nancy K.; Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (2004). The word that causes death's defeat. Yale University Press.
- ^ a b c d James, Clive. "Anna Akhmatova Assessed". Clive's Lives. Slate.com. http://www.slate.com/id/2159089/.
- ^ In “Ana Achmatova and Mullingar Connection” - broadcast on RTÉ 4th May 2008, the poet Joseph Woods recounts the story of the mosaics. Relevant section begins at timestamp 40’43”.
- ^ For English-language commentary on the relationship between Akhmatova and Anrep, please see Wendy Rosslyn, "A propos of Anna Akhmatova: Boris Vasilyevich Anrep (1883 - 1969)," New Zealand Slavonic Journal 1 (1980): 25 - 34.
- ^ N. N. (Nikolai Nikolaevich) Punin Diaries
- ^ Harrison E. Salisbury, "Soviet" section of "Literature" article, page 502, Britannica Book of the Year 1965 (covering events of 1964), published by The Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1965
- ^ Schmadel, Lutz D. (2003). Dictionary of Minor Planet Names (5th ed.). Berlin; New York: Springer. p. 253. ISBN 3540002383. http://books.google.com/books?id=KWrB1jPCa8AC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad&pg=PA253.
- ^ http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/texts/gray_eyed.html
Bibliography
- Feinstein, Elaine. Anna of all the Russias: A life of Anna Akhmatova. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005 (ISBN 0-297-64309-6); N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006 (ISBN 1-4000-4089-2).
- Poem Without a Hero & Selected Poems, trans. Lenore Mayhew and William McNaughton (Oberlin College Press, 1989), ISBN 0-932440-51-7
- Reeder, Roberta. Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet. New York: Picador, 1994 (ISBN 0-312-13429-0).
External links
 |
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Anna Akhmatova |
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anna Akhmatova |
- Anna Akhmatova by John Simon
- site for documentary - Film About Anna Akhmatova by Helga Landauer and Anatoly Naiman
- Russian and English text side by side, translated by Andrey Kneller
- Anna Akhmatova at the Wikilivres
- Akhmatova website with biography, video
- (four translations)
- The Obverse of Stalinism: Akhmatova's self-serving charisma of selflessness by Alexander Zholkovsky
- Akhmatova: brief biography, Requiem, links
- Anna Achmatowa - Works in Russian, German and English at the eLibrary Projekt (eLib)
- English and Russian text of "Requiem," translated by Lyn Coffin
- English translations of Lot's Wife, Three Periods of Memory and "They're not my kin who left the land..."
- English translations of Clenched My Hands..., Grey Eyed King, My Guest, You amuse me... and December 9th, 1913
- Akhmatova on Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide Committee - Gariwo
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Learn More
 | Dissident Movement |
| Gumilev, Lev Nikolayevich |
| Gumilev, Nikolai Stepanovich |
 | Who is anna stockdale? Read answer... |
| Who is Anna Anderson? Read answer... |
| What is an anna-kate? Read answer... |
Help us answer these
 | Who belonged in the same period of Anna Akhmatova? |
| Why did Anna Akhmatova's son go to prison? |
| Anna akhmatova- what does the last toast mean? |
Post a question - any question - to the WikiAnswers community:
Copyrights:
 |
 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Biography. © 2006 through a partnership of Answers Corporation. All rights reserved. Read more |
|
| Russian History Encyclopedia. Encyclopedia of Russian History. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
 |
| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
 |
| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Anna Akhmatova". Read more |
Related answers
- In Anna Karenina who was Anna in love with?
- Anna's Death in Anna Karenina?
- Who is anna's boyfriend?
- Who is anna ferdinand?
- Where is anna now?
ADVERTISEMENT
Answer these
- Who is Anna Akhmatova?
- March elegy plus Anna Akhmatova analysis?
- How long was Anna Akhmatova poetry banned?
- What is Anna in French?
Mentioned in
- Midnight Verses (Sources) (poem)
- Delo Anny Akhmatovoy (1989 History Film)
- Midnight Verses (poem)
- Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (Russian poet)
- Acmeists (poetry, Russia)
- Acmeism
- Acmeism (art)
- Fear and the Muse: The Story of Anna Akhmatova (1999 Language & Literature Film)
- Midnight Verses (Further Reading) (poem)
- Poems (6) of Marina Tsvetayeva, for alto & piano, Op. 143 (orchestrated as Op 143a) (Classical Work)
- Natan (Isayevich) Al'tman (art)
- Boris (Dmitriyevich) Grigor'yev (art)
- Russian Songs (Classical Album)
- Akhmatova Songs, for soprano & cello (or string quartet) (Classical Work)
