Everyone knows them. They are admired. Their marriage was entwined with myths that they themselves created. And their poems are forever inscribed in golden letters in the history of Russian poetry. But was everything really so cloudless? Here you will get acquainted with the love story of two geniuses of the Silver Age poetry, Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov.
Love - we so often say this word, but so rarely try to understand its true meaning … Love - sometimes it gives wings, breathes airiness and lightness into a person. Sometimes it is burdensome, making everything around senseless, gloomy. What is "to love"? What can you love? Loving the person you feel attracted to? Love the world? Love your job or your hobby that you do in your free time? Everyone can talk about it, but not everyone can give this concept its true interpretation …
So what is love?…. Their first meeting took place near a Christmas tree toys shop. Then, in 1903, 17-year-old Gumilyov, who at that time was walking to the station, saw her, a 14-year-old gymnasium student, Anya Gorenko, who, together with her friend Zoya Tulpatova, was busy buying winter jewelry. It was difficult to imagine this couple together: Gumilyov, who already then had a rather fearless and rebellious character, an extremely peculiar young man who could not boast of special beauty and attractiveness. Akhmatova: a fragile, sophisticated girl with sharp facial features, fairly tall and lush, thick, black hair. They were like two complete opposites of each other, but apparently this is where the well-known laws of physics lie: unlike magnets attract. The ardent and moral Gumilev immediately noticed a young, sweet girl, whom in the future he would call only affectionately as a Mermaid, and would write in her honor many of his most popular romantic poems.
But it will be later, now everything is completely different … The frail and dreamy Gumilyov, read by Baudelaire and the poetry of Nekrasov (by the way, it was mutual love for Nekrasov's poems that played an important role in the rapprochement of these two), repeatedly proposed to Anna, repeatedly content with refusal. She was interested in her as a friend, an interlocutor, his erudition and elegant manners, delighted the girl, but considering him as a potential contender for her heart - this caused slight indignation and overt ridicule on the part of Akhmatova.
Anna already then, at such a young age, enjoyed good success with men and she was not interested in this naive eccentric. After the first refusal, Gumilyov decides to forget her and, after graduating from high school, leaves for Paris. Akhmatova is in a state of complete uncertainty: she either feels sympathy, but makes fun of Gumilyov along with her friends. Once, being in a state of the same instability, Gorenko writes a letter to Gumilyov, where he calls himself useless and lonely. Throwing everything, he immediately comes to the Crimea, where the poet was, after moving from St. Petersburg. After a while, in the same place, walking by the seashore, Gumilyov makes another attempt to confess his feelings, but is again refused. Wounded and disappointed by this outcome of events, Gumilyov decides to leave back to Paris.
By the way, several times, unable to control his emotions, after another negative answers from Akhmatova, Gumilyov tried to commit suicide: so after the second refusal, he decides to drown himself in the river of the town of Tourville, the attempt was not successful: the locals saw the poet, called the police, who mistook him for a vagrant. After a while, having received in return the girl's unwillingness to marry him again, Gumilyov decides to commit suicide in the Bois de Boulogne by drinking poison. The unconscious body of the poet was found and pumped out by foresters passing by.
Nevertheless, time passed. An already more matured Anna, who clearly set all life priorities for herself, began to look at her fan, who with all her heart wants to get her hand and heart, a little differently. In her famous letter to Sreznevskaya, she admits that she does not love the poet, but sincerely wants to make him happy. Therefore, one day, at the end of 1908, Gumilyov's next offer of a hand and heart turns out to be successful - Akhmatova reciprocates. By the way, not only did she not believe in the purity of her feelings, almost everyone did not believe in this union, and so much so that even the relatives and parents of the poetess did not come to see their marriage, which took place in Kiev.
Later, about 5 months after the wedding, Nikolai begins to prepare for a trip to Africa and, despite all the advice of relatives and friends, not to leave his young wife at this time for such a long period alone, the knightly nature of Gumilyov, who lived by the principle of not being a husband the one who does not do heroic deeds for his soul mate decides not to postpone the trip. Akhmatova is left alone for almost six months. During this period of time, she reads a lot, is in a constant search for herself and goes headlong into writing her own poems. Upon his return, Gumilev will ask her if she wrote poetry, in response she will read him some of the recently written works. Having carefully listened to his wife, Gumilyov will seriously answer that she has become a poet and that the book needs to be given out.
It is worth noting that it was Nikolai who biased his wife's poetry, constantly giving her advice on how to write better. Their life was peculiar. She was his muse, he was her main critic, mentor. They were united by one thing - unquenchable love and a thirst for poetry. She did not love him, but at the same time she looked forward to meeting him. She was cold, but wanted to drown in his arms. Their marriage will last 8 years, which is true, already in the second year of married life, Gumilev, who had been seeking the attention and mutual sympathy of his muse for so long, will lose his former attraction to Akhmatova and become interested in another woman. Anna, for whom this will serve as a huge blow, will spend this entire period in a protracted depression, and after a while, feeling deceived, abandoned and unnecessary, she herself will begin to cheat on her husband.
However, the family did not collapse. On September 18, 1912, the couple had a son, whom Gumilyov will call Leo. On April 9, 1913, while in Odessa, in his letter to Akhmatova, he touchingly asks Anna to kiss her son for him and teach him to say the word "dad". It is difficult to say which of these two is more to blame for the collapse of this alliance. From each side it looked like a game of cat and mouse, a game that was peculiar only to the two of them.
Once, when Gumilyov was away, cleaning the poet's desk, Akhmatova will find a pile of letters from another, secret, beloved of the conquistador. After that, Akhmatova will never write to him. Upon Gumilyov's return home, the poetess will hold out these letters with a cold look, the poet will greet it with an embarrassed smile. In 1914, another woman, Tatyana Adamovich, appears in Gumilyov's life. Nikolai decides to leave the family and asks Akhmatova for permission to divorce. It is difficult to say why the fate of this marriage turned out exactly like this and whether it could have been different … However, it is known that after the arrest of Gumilyov on suspicion, in a falsified case, participation in the conspiracy of the Petrograd military organization, it was Akhmatova who was very worried about the life and health of the poet. Later, after the execution of Gumilyov, on August 26, 1921, she would write more than once about her sincere feelings for the poet on paper, dedicating more than one posthumous poem to him …
