Akhmatova, Anna

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).

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Akhmatova, Anna

 orig. Anna Andreyevna Gorenko

Anna Akhmatova.

(credit: Novosti Press Agency)

(born June 23, 1889, Bolshoy Fontan, near Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire—died March 5, 1966, Domodedovo, near Moscow) Russian poet. She won fame with her first poetry collections (1912, 1914). Soon after the Revolution of 1917, Soviet authorities condemned her work for what they perceived as its narrow preoccupation with love and God, and in 1923, after the execution of her former husband on conspiracy charges, she entered a long period of literary silence. After World War II she was again denounced and expelled from the Writers Union. Following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, she was slowly rehabilitated. In her later years she became the influential centre of a circle of younger Russian poets. Her longest work, Poem Without a Hero, is regarded as one of the great poems of the 20th century. Regarded today as one of the greatest of all Russian poets, she is also admired for her translations of other poets' works and for her memoirs.

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Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna 

(pseudonym of A. A. Gorenko). Born June 11 (23), 1889, in Odessa; died Mar. 5, 1966, in Domodedovo, Moscow Oblast; buried in Leningrad. Soviet Russian poet.

Akhmatova was born into the family of a naval officer. She studied at the Women’s College in Kiev and at the law department of the University of Kiev. From 1910 on, she lived mainly in St. Petersburg. In 1912, Akhmatova’s first book of poems, Evening, was published; it was followed by the collections The Rosary (1914), The White Flock (1917), Plaintain (1921), Anno Domini MCMXXl (1922), and others. Akhmatova was a member of the Acmeist group. In contrast to the symbolists, with their attraction to otherworldly, vague elements, the lyric poetry of Akhmatova was based on real life, drawing motifs of “great earthly love” from it. The principle of contrast is a distinguishing trait of her poetry; melancholic, tragic notes alternate with light, jubilant ones.

After the October Revolution, though Akhmatova was far removed from revolutionary activity, she nonetheless sharply condemned the White émigrés, people who had broken with their motherland (“I am not with those who have forsaken the land . . .”). In the course of a number of years, with difficulties and contradictions, new traits formed in Akhmatova’s creative work; she transcended the enclosed world of refined, aesthetic experiences. Beginning in the 1930’s, Akhmatova’s poetic range widened somewhat; themes of the motherland sounded more strongly, as well as the vocation of the poet (“Mayakovsky in 1913,” “Dante,” and the cycle Secrets of the Craft). A stream of historicism appeared in her creative work, a sarcastic farewell to the prerevolutionary epoch—for example, “At the Smolensk Cemetery,” “Prehistory,” “Ode to Tsarskoe Selo,” and “St. Petersburg in 1913.” During the Great Patriotic War patriotic verses stand out in Akhmatova’s poetry (for example, “The Oath” and “Courage”). Motifs of blood unity with the country sounded in her lyric cycles

The Moon at Its Zenith and From an Airplane. The peak of Akhmatova’s creative work is the large-scale, lyric-epic Poem Without a Hero (1940–62). The tragic plot of a young poet’s suicide alternates with the theme of the oncoming destruction of the old world; this poem is marked by a richness of images, precise quality of words, rhythm, and euphony. On the whole, Akhmatova’s poetry is characterized by a classical simplicity and clarity of style, by con-creteness and “substantiveness” in the structure of the images, and by an elevated lyric quality and melodiousness. Akhmatova translated Eastern, Western European, Jewish, and Latvian poets. Her works on the creative art of A. S. Pushkin are marked by refinement of analysis. Akhmatova’s poems have been translated into many languages.

WORKS

Iz shesti knig. Leningrad, 1940.
Stikhotvoreniia (1909–1960). [Afterword by A. Surkov.] Moscow, 1961.
Beg vremeni: Stikhotvoreniia, 1909–1965. Moscow-Leningrad, 1965.
Golosa poetov: Stikhi zarubezhnykh poetov ν perevodakh Anny Akhmatovoi. [Foreword by A. Tarkovskii.] Moscow, 1965.
Stikhotvoreniia. Moscow, 1967.
“Stikhi raznykh let.” [Edited by V. Zhirmunskii.] Novyi mir, 1969, no. 5.

REFERENCES

Eikhenbaum, B. Anna Akhmatova: Opyt analiza. Petrograd, 1923.
Eikhenbaum, B. “Anna Akhmatova: Opyt analiza.” In his book Stat’io poezii. Leningrad, [1969].
Ozerov, L. “Melodika, Plastika, Mysl’.” Literaturnaia Rossiia. Aug. 21, 1964.
Pavlovskii, A. Anna Akhmatova: Ocherk tvorchestva. Leningrad, 1966.
Dobin, E. Poeziia Anny Akhmatovoi. Leningrad, 1968.
Tarasenko, An. Russkie poety XX v. 1900–1955: Bibliografiia. Moscow, 1966.

E. S. DOBIN