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Oral journal "Anna Akhmatova. Civil position in lyrics"

Me like a river

The harsh era has turned...

A. Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova is a bright, original, original poet. It is believed that it was she who discovered “female” poetry in Russian literature - full of mystery, riddles, love and intuitive premonition.

IN poetic creativity A. Akhmatova’s lyrical heroine appears from the perspective of a citizen, which is not quite usual for women’s poetry. The theme of the homeland, Russia, can be traced in many of the poet’s works: starting with half-confession, dear memories in the early lyrics of A. Akhmatova, this theme eventually becomes a constant companion of her mature work.
You know I'm languishing in captivity
I pray for the death of the Lord.
But I remember everything painfully
Tver meager land.

During the First World War, the theme of the homeland helped A. Akhmatova take a position that was noticeably different from the official propaganda literature glorifying this national disaster, which brought so much grief and suffering. In Akhmatova’s mind, war has always been an evil and a tragedy, and in her work, people’s grief is shown through the prism of the experiences of a simple Russian woman.
Terrible deadlines are approaching. Soon
It will become crowded with fresh graves.
Expect famine, cowardice, and pestilence,
And eclipses of heavenly bodies...

The images of love in A. Akhmatova’s work are infinitely diverse, but the most comprehensive and global is love for the Motherland, for Russia, especially in a difficult moment for the country, during the suffering of its people.
Juniper smell sweet
Flies from burning forests.
The soldiers are moaning over the guys,
A widow's cry rings through the village.

It was not in vain that prayer services were served,
The earth yearned for rain:
Warmly sprinkled with red moisture
Trampled fields.

A. Akhmatova could not be calm and indifferent to the horrors of war. In the poem “Prayer” she asks God to accept from her any sacrifices, even the most terrible ones for a woman, if only home country regained peace and greatness.
Give me the bitter years of illness,
Choking, insomnia, fever,
Take away both the child and the friend,
And the mysterious gift of song -
So I pray at your liturgy
After so many tedious days,
So that a cloud over dark Russia

Became a cloud in the glory of the rays.

But the revolution brought even more trials to the lot of the great poet. Hard time revaluation of values, destruction of the old and familiar, the beginning of the construction of the unknown new. Many could not stand the difficult situation in the country and went abroad, but A. Akhmatova could not imagine herself being separated from her homeland; emigration seemed to her a betrayal.

I had a voice. He called comfortingly,
He said: "Come here,
Leave your land deaf and sinful,
Leave Russia forever.
I will wash the blood from your hands,
I will take the black shame out of my heart,
I'll cover it with a new name
The pain of defeat and resentment."
But indifferent and calm
I covered my ears with my hands,
So that with this speech unworthy
The mournful spirit was not defiled.

The pinnacle of A. Akhmatova’s civic poetry can be considered the lyrics of the Great Patriotic War. What is striking in the poems of this period is, first of all, the amazing organic nature, the absence of doubts, uncertainty in expressing one’s life position. Always ready to fight, Akhmatova accepted and overcame the trials of fate with honor and dignity, calling on her people to perseverance and resistance.
And the one who says goodbye to her beloved today -
Let her pain melt into strength,
We swear to the children, we swear to the graves,
That nothing will force us to submit.

Akhmatova’s poetry is amazing in that here the national and historical are revealed through the personal and intimate. The poem “Requiem” became a real monument to the national tragedy, in which the poet tells us not only about his grief and pain, but also helps us to hear the cruel voice of that time, to see the suffering and misfortune of the entire people.
It was when I smiled
Only dead, glad for peace,
And dangled like an unnecessary pendant
Near its prisons Leningrad...
Death stars stood above us
And innocent Rus' writhed
Under bloody boots
And under the black tires there is marusa.

In verse post-war period Motives of reflection on the past, on the fate of one’s generation and people are more often heard. About her poems A. Akhmatova writes: “For me, they contain my connection with time, with new life my people. When I wrote them, I lived by the rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived during these years and saw events that had no equal.”
And it seemed like centuries were walking nearby
And an invisible hand beat the tambourine,
And sounds, like secret signs,
They circled in front of us in the darkness.

Akhmatova’s lyrics, although outwardly unlike any of her contemporaries or any of her predecessors, were nevertheless quite deeply rooted in Russian classics. With the appearance of The White Flock (1917), it became clear that lyrical theme Akhmatova was broader and more meaningful than the specific situations identified. Akhmatova's poems included the era. Out of habit, it was rare that anyone could call Akhmatova a poet of “unhappy love”: in the poems preceding “The Rosary,” and especially after the publication of this book, a different scale arose. One of the first who not only saw this new scale, but explained it, predicting almost the entire future path of Akhmatova, was N.V. Nedobrovo. He noted not only the tragedy of her worldview, but also her inner masculinity - Akhmatova especially appreciated this observation. No one before N. Nedobrovo spoke about the organic firmness of her soul and poetry; they only habitually noted her notorious fragility and brokenness. As her entire subsequent life showed, which gave literature “Requiem” and “Poem without a Hero,” tragedy and masculinity were the main properties of her poetic talent.

After the revolution, Akhmatova published a collection of books. "Plantain" (1921), "Anno Domini MCMXXI" (1921). Unlike many of her friends and acquaintances, she did not emigrate; her poetic invective “I had a voice.” He called comfortingly...” (1917), confirmed five years later by a wonderful poem of the same meaning: “I am not with those who abandoned the earth...” (1922). Part of the emigration reacted to these verses with great irritation. They began to talk about the decline of her talent, about the literary end of the poet. But even in her own country, Akhmatova did not find proper understanding after the revolution - in the eyes of many she remained a poet old Russia, “a fragment of an empire.” This version haunted Akhmatova all her life - right up to the infamous resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”” (1946). Despite various kinds ideological prohibitions, Akhmatova’s poetic work was never interrupted and the gift of song never left the poetess. Akhmatova always sharply protested against being “walled up” in the 10th.

The 1930s were a time of difficult trials in Akhmatova’s life. Approaching world war. Pre-war poems (1924-40), collected in “Reed” and “The Seventh Book” (collections were prepared by the poetess, but were not published separately), indicate an expansion in the range of Akhmatova’s lyrics. Tragedy absorbs the misfortunes and suffering of millions of people who have become victims of terror and violence in her own country. The repressions also affected her family - her son was arrested and exiled. “Husband in the grave, son in prison, / Pray for me...” (“Requiem”). The people's tragedy, which also became her personal misfortune, gave new strength to Akhmatov's Muse. In 1940, Akhmatova wrote a lament poem “The Path of All the Earth” (begun in March 1940, first published in its entirety in 1965). This poem is with the image of a funeral sleigh in the center, with the expectation of death, with ringing bells Kitezh - directly adjacent to the "Requiem", created throughout the 30s. "Requiem" brilliantly expressed the great national tragedy; in its own way poetic form"Requiem" is close to the popular legend. "Woven" from simple words, “overheard,” as Akhmatova writes, in prison queues, he conveyed both the time and the suffering soul of the people with stunning poetic and civic power. “Requiem” was not known either in the 30s or much later (published in 1987). The most noticeable thing is the appeal to large poetic forms: in the early Akhmatova it was only outlined in “Epic Motifs” and “Near the Sea”; in the later Akhmatova it was “Requiem”, and above all “Poem without a Hero”, on which she is working 25 years old.
Mass repressions in the country, tragic events personal life(repeated arrests and exile of son and husband) brought to life “Requiem” (1935-1940). Akhmatova worked on this work for five years, intermittently. The poem was created under inhuman conditions. The poems lived in the memories of friends and relatives. The main motives of the poem are memory, bitterness of oblivion, unthinkability, impossibility of death, motif of crucifixion, gospel sacrifice.
The poem was made up of individual poems created mainly in the pre-war period. These poems were finally compiled into a single work only in the fall of 1962, when it was first written on paper. L. Chukovskaya in “Notes about Anna Akhmatova” recalls that on this day Akhmatova solemnly announced: 11 people knew “Requiem” by heart, and no one betrayed me.” When getting acquainted with the poem’s structural parts, one is struck by the interstriations of dates: “Instead of a Preface” is dated 1957, the epigraph “No, and not under an alien firmament...” - 1961, “Dedication” - 1940, “Introduction” - 1935 -m. It is also known that the version of the “Epilogue” was dictated by the author to her friend L. D. Bolshintsova in 1964. Therefore, these dates are only different signs the fact that Akhmatova turned to this creation for thirty recent years life. And at the same time, “Requiem” is a holistic work dictated by tragic times. The word “Requiem” is translated as “funeral mass”, as a service for the deceased. At the same time it is a designation of mourning piece of music.
Already in 1961, the poem was preceded by an epigraph that strictly but accurately reflected the author’s civic and creative position: “No, and not under an alien firmament, And not under the protection of alien wings, I was then with my people, Where my people are, to misfortune, was.” Here the word “alien” is repeated twice, and the word “people” twice. The idea of uniting the destinies of the people and their poet is expressed.
The title - “Requiem” - sets a solemn and mournful mood; it is associated with death, mournful silence, which is proportional to the immensity of suffering.

During the Great Patriotic War, having evacuated from besieged Leningrad at the beginning of the siege, Akhmatova worked intensively. Her patriotic poems “Oath” (1941) and “Courage” (1942) became widely known: “The hour of courage has struck on our watch, / And courage will not leave us.” Throughout the war years and later, until 1964, intense work continued on “Poem without a Hero,” which became the central work in her work. This is a wide canvas of epic-lyrical plan, where Akhmatova recreates the era of the “eve”, returning in memory to 1913. Pre-war Petersburg appears with the characteristic signs of that time; Along with the author, the figures of Blok, Chaliapin, O. Glebova-Sudeikina (in the image of the Confusion-Psyche, who was one of her theatrical roles) and others appear. Akhmatova judges the era, “spicy” and “disastrous”, sinful and brilliant, and at the same time himself along with her. The poem is wide in scope - in its epilogue the motif of Russia at war with fascism appears; it is multifaceted and multilayered, extremely complex in its composition and sometimes encrypted imagery. It expressed the historicism of Akhmatova’s thinking with full force. In 1946, the well-known decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” again deprived Akhmatova of the opportunity to publish, but her poetic work, according to her, was never interrupted. There was a gradual, albeit slow, return to the printed page, and her poems again aroused admiration for their artistic power and the unfading freshness of the word. Akhmatova’s last book was the large collection “The Running of Time” (1965), which became the main poetic event of that year and revealed to many readers the whole enormous creative path poet - from “Evening” to “Komarov’s Sketches” (1961).

Me like a river

The harsh era has turned...

A. Akhmatova

In the poetic work of A. Akhmatova, the lyrical heroine appears from the perspective of a citizen, which is not quite usual for women’s poetry. The theme of the homeland, Russia, can be traced in many of the poet’s works: starting with semi-confession, dear memories in the early lyrics of A. Akhmatova, this theme over time becomes a constant companion of her mature work.

You know, I languish in captivity, praying for the death of the Lord. But I remember everything painfully about the meager land of Tver.

Terrible deadlines are approaching. Soon it will become crowded with fresh graves. Expect famine, cowardice, and pestilence, and eclipses of the heavenly bodies...

The images of love in the works of A. Akhmatova are infinitely diverse, but the most comprehensive and global is love for the Motherland, for Russia, especially in a difficult moment for the country, during the suffering of its people.

The sweet smell of juniper flies from the burning forests. Soldiers are moaning over the guys, A widow's cry is ringing through the village. It was not in vain that prayers were served, the earth yearned for rain: the trampled fields were warmly sprinkled with red moisture.

A. Akhmatova could not be calm and indifferent to the horrors of war. In the poem “Prayer,” she asks God to accept from her any sacrifices, even the most terrible ones for a woman, so that her native country can regain peace and greatness.

Give me the bitter years of illness, Choking, insomnia, fever, Take away both the child and the friend, And the mysterious gift of song - So I pray at your liturgy After so many languid days, So that the cloud over dark Russia Becomes a cloud in the glory of the rays.

But the revolution brought even more trials to the lot of the great poet. A difficult time of revaluation of values, destruction of the old and familiar, the beginning of the construction of the unknown new. Many could not stand the difficult situation in the country and went abroad, but A. Akhmatova did not imagine herself being separated from her homeland; emigration seemed to her a betrayal.

I had a voice. He called comfortingly, He said: “Come here, Leave your deaf and sinful land, Leave Russia forever. I will wash the blood from your hands, I will take the black shame out of my heart, I will cover the pain of defeats and insults with a new name.” But indifferently and calmly I closed my ears with my hands, so that the sorrowful spirit would not be defiled by this unworthy speech.

The pinnacle of A. Akhmatova’s civil poetry can be considered the lyrics of the period of the Great Patriotic War. What is striking in the poems of this period is, first of all, the amazing organic nature, the absence of doubts, lack of confidence in expressing one’s position in life. Always ready to fight, Akhmatova accepted and overcame the trials of fate with honor and dignity, calling on her people to perseverance and resistance.

And the one who today says goodbye to her beloved, Let her pain melt into strength. We swear to the children, we swear to the graves, That nothing will force us to submit.

It was when only the dead smiled, glad for the peace, And Leningrad dangled like an unnecessary pendant Near its prisons... The death stars stood above us, And innocent Rus' writhed under bloody boots And under black marus tires.

Poems of the post-war period often contain motifs of reflection on the past, on the fate of one’s generation and people. About her poems A. Akhmatova writes: “For me, they contain my connection with time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by the rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived during these years and saw events that had no equal.”

And it seemed like centuries were walking nearby, and an invisible hand was beating the tambourine, and sounds, like secret signs, were circling before us in the darkness.

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Anna Akhmatova juniper smell sweet analysis
Akhmatova's civil position

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova was perceived by many, and is still perceived now, only as a lyrical poetess, the author of lyrical collections of novels containing a love story. But that's not true. Yes, sure, love lyrics Akhmatova is the pinnacle of 20th century poetry. But the poetess’s work is far from exhausted by research into the deeply personal and interest in it.

By the age of thirty, Akhmatova’s poetry became clearly and consciously tragic. And this tragedy is no longer a love tragedy, as in the early lyrics. And it all started immediately after the revolution.

One of Akhmatova’s first civil poems is “I Had a Voice” (1917). It was about such poems by the poetess O. Mandelstam that he remarked: “...At present, her poetry is close to becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia.” Already in this poem one can see those features that will become characteristic of Akhmatova’s entire work: the conflict of lies and truth, sin and conscience is resolved in favor of the spirit. Do not abdicate responsibility for what is happening, share it with all the people, be “where my people, unfortunately, were.”

The main theme for the artist is the theme of memory, his favorite thought is poetry, language is not only a condition for the preservation of the nation, but also “history itself.” This is evident both in the poem “I’m not with those ...” (1922) and in the poem “Courage” (1942). But the personal and the national merge most strongly not so much in war poems as in the poem “Requiem.” Here memory is salvation from death, the continuous creative life of the soul, spiritual salvation humanity. Akhmatova’s main method is from private reflection (on poetry in the cycle “Secrets of the Craft”, and on specific fate in individual chapters of “Requiem”) - to the fate of Russia, to the universal humanity. “Requiem” is the only poem of its kind, dedicated not only to the victims, but also to the wives of the repressed. The dedication contains an association with the wives of the Decembrists. At the beginning, the author states absolutely openly that the fate of a Russian woman - from the wives of the archers of Peter the Great and the Decembrists to Stalin's “members of the family of traitors to the motherland” - is always the same. Nobody interpreted Russian history this way before Akhmatova. For men there is always repression, for women there is always a farewell and mourning. And here the generalization goes further - “And no one dared to look where the mother stood silently.” From the fate of the Russian woman - to the fate of the mother in general, to the Mother of God.

For the author, Russia is not limited to the crimes of the authorities and the submission of victims. In the poem " Native land"(1961) “Ashes that are not involved in anything” are the previous generations, to which Akhmatova herself will join in the near future. The right to consider the land as one’s own is given to a person, according to the poet, only by the willingness to “lie down in it and become it.” It contains a measure of patriotism and a measure of responsibility.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova is the greatest poet, lyrical works which occupy a significant place in all world literature. She lived in an era of revolutionary changes, terrible wars, and upheavals. Events that had no equal in history took place before her eyes:

So that's when we decided to be born

And, accurately measuring the time,

So as not to miss anything from the spectacle

Unseen...

Undoubtedly, all this influenced her work, giving the lyrics a civic orientation. It is these motives of Akhmatova’s poems that are most clearly imprinted in my memory.

The theme of civil courage is most fully reflected in the poem “Requiem”, which is an expression of boundless human suffering and patience during the period Stalin's repressions, the tragic events of the thirties. Anna Andreevna shared all the severity of that time with her people. The lines of the poem are imbued with the mood of “deadly melancholy,” grief, and despair.

Flipping through the pages of this work, I mentally imagine those terrible years that are called in literature the “period of Stalinist repressions.” An image of death appears, personifying the tragic time of the thirties:

Only dead, glad for peace,

And dangled like an unnecessary pendant

Leningrad is near its prisons.

Such stunning pictures run through the entire poem, enhancing the mood of fear, despair, and hopelessness. The poetess, creating a gloomy panorama of time, conveys the atmosphere of a tragic period in history, when it was easier for a person to accept death than to withstand the trials that befell everyone. The lyrical heroine of the poem, feeling the unbearable weight of loss, being in a state of uncertainty and worrying about the fate of her son and husband, makes a prayer to death:

You will come anyway - why not now?

I'm waiting for you - it's very difficult for me.

I turned off the light and opened the door

To you, so simple and wonderful.

Having lost everything most valuable in life, a woman is ready to accept death in any form: be it a “poisoned shell” or fatal disease. Tragic death was a better way out of the situation than the possibility of seeing how “the blue shine of beloved eyes obscures the last horror.”

The image of all-consuming fear is also the personification of time. They were afraid of everything and everyone.

They were afraid of stern janitors, bowing acquaintances, all-seeing neighbors. They were afraid and hid their eyes. Fear gripped everything around:

Everything is completely mixed up.

And I can't make it out

Now, who is the beast, who is the man,

And how long will it be to wait for execution?

It seems to me that such gloomy pictures painted by the poetess are necessary in order to show the importance of courage and perseverance of those who tried to resist this fear.

Reading the lines of “Requiem”, I clearly imagine a generalized image of a mother with “deadly melancholy” in her eyes, who found herself alone with her grief and pain. All the women in this tragic time were similar to each other; they were depersonalized by loneliness and fear for the fate of the family and the fate of the country. Exhausted, they bitter cold, and in the July heat” they stood at the general prison “under the red, blinding wall,” hoping to meet their loved ones. The seventeen months spent by the lyrical heroine in prison queues represent lost time. This is a period that probably claimed seventeen years of life, because the time spent in a terrible stupor, mortal anticipation, lasts an eternity. The poetess, together with her country, went through this the hard way and had the right to say:

I learned how faces fall,

How fear peeks out from under your eyelids,

Like cuneiform hard pages

Suffering appears on the cheeks,

Like curls of ashen and black

They suddenly become silver,

The smile fades on the lips of the submissive

And fear trembles in the dry laugh.

Simultaneously with the generalized images of time and mother, it appears to me in the poem main image strong generation who managed to rise from the quagmire of general human humiliation, who managed not only to withstand and overcome, but also to preserve the dignity of a courageous people. Therefore, Akhmatova proudly declares:

And if they shut my exhausted mouth,

To which a hundred million people shout,

May they remember me in the same way

On the eve of my funeral day.

The lines of the poem “Requiem” cannot be forgotten; they again and again return my thoughts to the oppressive period of the Stalinist regime. The unusually capacious, deep content of this work is rethought. The images of the poem make you think about the question “How much civil courage was required for the Russian people to be able to withstand, withstand, survive and tell the truth about a cruel, inhumane time.”

It is quite natural that the topic of civil courage has become main theme"Requiem". The main idea that runs through everything work, - thought about the amazing resilience of character, the strength of the Russian man who withstood the time when:

Death stars stood above us

And innocent Rus' writhed

Under bloody boots

And under the black tires there is marusa.

Undoubtedly, this poem corresponds to my idea of genuine poetry. The work of only such an artist true patriot, a person who is worried about what is happening, striving to do everything to ensure that the tragedy of the people does not repeat itself, who managed to tell the truth and convey his experiences, revealing a rich inner world, can be called real.

The artistic gift of A. A. Akhmatova allowed her to reveal with amazing emotionality the theme of civil courage in the poem “Requiem”, to show the merging of her difficult fate with the long-suffering fate of Russia.