Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (Anna Gorenko) - poet, translator, literary critic, critic, Nobel Prize winner. One of the brightest and most significant representatives of the Silver Age, who survived the change of eras, revolution, war, repression, the blockade of Leningrad and the loss of loved ones.
For many years, the name Akhmatova was in disgrace, her works were banned and not published for a long time, but her whole biography and life were devoted to poetry and literary activity.
Biography of the poetess
Anna Andreevna Gorenko was born in the summer of 1889, on June 23, near Odessa. Her father, Andrei Andreevich Gorenko, was a hereditary nobleman, and her mother, Inna Erasmovna Stogova, belonged to the Odessa creative elite. Anna was the third child of six.
When Anna was not yet a year old, the family from Odessa moved to St. Petersburg, where her father was offered the place of collegiate assessor in the State Control. The girl spent all her childhood in Tsarskoe Selo, where she studied etiquette and French. Later, Anna was sent to the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium, where she received her primary education and began writing poetry for the first time.
Petersburg became the favorite and main city of her life for the future poetess. She considered him family and was very worried when she and her mother had to leave Petersburg for a while and live in Evpatoria and Kiev. This happened immediately after the divorce of her parents, when Anna was 16 years old. Mom took the children to the sea to cure them of an exacerbation of tuberculosis. After a while, Anna leaves for her relatives in Kiev, where she had to finish her studies at the Fundukleevskaya gymnasium, after which she enters the Higher Courses for Women and becomes a student of the Faculty of Law.
Anna found jurisprudence too boring, and she went to St. Petersburg to continue her studies at the women's history and literary courses.
The family never had anything to do with poetry, and the father did not support or approve of his daughter's passion for poetry. No one admired her work, so Anna did not sign her poems with the name of Gorenko. Studying the family tree, the girl discovered a distant relative who belonged to the family of Khan Akhmat. It was then that her pseudonym appeared - Akhmatova.
The beginning of literary activity
Akhmatova's career began in St. Petersburg, where she becomes a representative of a new fashion trend - acmeism. Its supporters were: the famous poet Gorodetsky, as well as Gumilev, Mandelstam and many other authors of that time.
Nikolai Gumilyov, a close friend and admirer of Akhmatova, lived in France at the beginning of the 20th century and was involved in publishing the Sirius magazine. It was he who, in 1907, published Anna's first poem in his magazine.
For the first time in St. Petersburg they started talking about Akhmatova after a performance in "Stray Dog", where young authors gathered and recited their poems.
The first collection of poems by Akhmatova - "Evening" - was born in 1912. He is perceived in literary circles with great attention and interest and brings Anna popularity. The second collection entitled "Rosary" was published only 2 years later, but it was thanks to him that Akhmatova became one of the most fashionable poetesses of that time. The third collection - "White flock" - appears in 1917 and is published in large circulation.
After the revolution, starting in the 1920s, the works of numerous poets of the pre-revolutionary era fell into disgrace. Many authors, including Akhmatova, are under the supervision of the NKVD. However, Anna continues her creative activity and writes a lot, but she is not published. The poems are considered anti-communist and provocative, and this stigma remains on Akhmatova's work for many years. In 1924, an official decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) was issued, which stated a complete ban on the publication of her works.
Personal life and creativity
Another fate in the Mariinsky gymnasium, Anna meets Nikolai Gumilyov. Their romantic encounters begin in Tsarskoe Selo. Nikolai takes care of Anna, showing her all sorts of signs of attention, but the girl is carried away by another and the relationship between Gumilyov and Akhmatova does not add up.
However, having left for Evpatoria, she does not interrupt her acquaintance with a talented young man, and for a long time has been in correspondence with him. Nikolai at this time was already well known in literary circles and was publishing a weekly in France.
In 1910, Gumilyov came to Kiev and made an offer to Anna there. The couple got married in the spring in the village of Nikolskaya Slobodka. The husband and wife spent their honeymoon in Paris.
In 1912, Anna and Nicholas had a son, Levushka.
The marriage of the poetess Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov broke up at the end of the summer of 1918, and in 1921 Nikolai Gumilyov was arrested and shot, accused of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy.
After her divorce from Gumilyov in 1918, Anna has many fans claiming her hand and heart, but this did not lead to a serious relationship.
After a while, Anna marries the poet and orientalist Vladimir Shileiko. The relationship ended quickly, greatly exhausting the young woman.
Already in 1922, Akhmatova became the common-law wife of Nikolai Punin. But this marriage does not bring Akhmatova happiness. Punin settled Anna in the apartment where Nikolai's ex-wife lived with her daughter. There was no place for Anna's son in this house, and when he came to visit his mother, Leo felt like no one needed. The personal life of the spouses did not work out, and this marriage of Akhmatova broke up in the same way as with her previous husband.
Acquaintance with the doctor Garshin was supposed to change the fate of Akhmatova. The couple was about to get married when the man had a prophetic dream in which his mother asked not to marry a "witch." The wedding was canceled and that was the end of their relationship.
All the years after the death of her first husband, Anna worries about the fate of her family and friends, and most of all about her son. In 1935, Nikolai and Akhmatova's son were arrested, but the charges were not enough, so they were released. There will be no peace in Akhmatova's life after the events that happened. After 3 years, Lev is arrested again and sentenced to 5 years in the camps. At the same time, the marriage between Punin and Akhmatova falls apart.
In these terrible years for Anna, she does not cease to be engaged in creativity and it is then that her Requiem appears.
Before the start of the war Akhmatova published a collection of poems - "From Six Books", which contains her new works and censored, "correct" old poems.
During the war, Akhmatova is in Tashkent, in evacuation. Only in 1944 did she return to the destroyed Leningrad, and then moved to Moscow.
After the war, Lev Gumilyov was released, but his relationship with his mother became very tense. The son believed that Akhmatova was only interested in her literary work, and she did not like him. Until the very departure of Akhmatova from life, the son did not make peace with her.
In the Writers' Union, Akhmatova's work was never recognized. At one of the regular meetings, her poems were condemned, considering it anti-Soviet. In the life of Akhmatova, a black streak comes again. Lev Gumilyov was arrested again in 1949 and sentenced to 10 years. Trying to help her son, Akhmatova writes numerous letters to the Politburo, but receives no answers.
Akhmatova's work is again forgotten for several years. Only in the early 60s did they start to publish it again and restore it in the Writers' Union. A few years later, her collection "The Run of Time" was published and she received a prestigious prize in Italy. In addition, Akhmatova was awarded a doctorate from the University of Oxford.
At the end of life
Akhmatova spent the last years of her life in Komarovo, where she was given a small house.
The poet died in 1966, on March 5, in a sanatorium near Moscow at the age of 76 after a long illness.
The body was transported to Leningrad, where Akhmatova was buried in a small cemetery in the village of Komarovo.
