POET VS. POETESS: FEMININE IMAGES IN THE POETRY OF ANNA AKHMATOVA

Sally N. Mills School of Slavonic & East European Studies/University of London MPhil Thesis 1999

iOKDON ProQuest Number: U122784

All rights reserved

INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest.

ProQuest U122784

Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author.

All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC.

ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Abstract of Thesis

Author (full names); Sally Newcomb Mills Title of Thesis: Poet vs. Poetess: Feminine Images in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova Degree:______MPhil______

Somehow, Anna Akhmatova was able to portray herself not only as an individual poet writing deeply personal lyrics, but also as a self-appointed symbol of Russia. The reason why the reader so readily accepts Akhmatova in this way is because she adopted a poetic persona which corresponds, not only to archetypal associations of women, but also to images of women specific to Russian culture.

Rather than portray her poetic persona as an active, creative poet-figure, Akhmatova's early persona is often portrayed as conspicuously silent or powerless when confronted with the articulate hero. This portrayal is one manifestation of the fact that the two most influential movements in terms of Akhmatova's poetic career - Symbolism and Acmeism/Adamism - adopted imagery which was manifestly inappropriate for Akhmatova as a woman poet. The persona's silence is, at least in part, a reaction to the general tendency to view women as handmaidens or means of transcendence for the male poet as opposed to poet figures in their own right.

In this context, this thesis will consider two approaches which Akhmatova adopted, if only to a limited extent, to portray her persona as an active poet figure. First, in a limited number of poems, Akhmatova simply adopts a male speaker. Secondly, in some poems, she develops what might be described as an 'eternal masculine' figure. Perhaps surprisingly, however, Akhmatova rejected the straightforward image of the poet as 'mother' to the poem (or even as a maternal figure in terms of individual children), though such images were readily available to her.

This thesis will also consider the unusual, detached perspective which Akhmatova's persona assumes in many poems. It will explore the sense of Akhmatova's persona as intuitive and sensitive to the forces of nature and, at times, to the will of God. Finally, it will link these approaches to the tradition of'women's language' in Russian culture.

This thesis will look at one of the most interesting manifestations of the unusual perspective with which Akhmatova invests her persona - that of the persona as object of art as opposed to artist. It will also consider Akhmatova's complex use of'doubles' and muses in this context.

The authoritative, matriarchal persona ofRekviem did not emerge in a vacuum. She is the culmination of Akhmatova's selective choice of feminine images and approaches throughout her early career. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section Page

Abstract i

Table of Contents il

Introduction 1

Chapter 1 - Symbolism and Acmeism - the Problem of Perspective 15

Chapter 2 - The Silent Persona 27

Chapter 3 - Male Speaker/Eternal Masculine/Mother to the Poem 34

Chapter 4 - Detached Persona/Sensitive PersonaAVomen's Language 66

Chapter 5 - Suffering Turned to Stone 83

Chapter 6 - Doubles 100

Conclusion 140

Bibliography 143 Introduction

K o n e H H O , h gcenm^nnaM RocTynno BticoKoe

MaCTepCTBO (|)OpMLI...HO HX CHJia He B 3TQM,

a B yMeHHH h g j i h o BbipasHTL caMoe

HHTHMHoe H Hy^GCHOG-npocToe B c g 6 g h

OKpy^CaïOHÏGM MHpG.^

Tli BLmyMaJi MGHH. TaKOH na cbgtg hgt, TaKOH na cbgtg 6 h tl eg m oxcgt. (i, 224)

Anna Akhmatova wrote with an extraordinary sense of authority. Even her earliest

poetry conveys a sense of purpose and importance that many mature poets, perhaps, never

even attempt. Somehow, Akhmatova was able to portray herself not only as an individual

poet writing deeply personal lyrics, but also, in time, as a self-appointed symbol of Russia.

Her role came to extend far beyond that of poet. She embodied the concept of an icon -

literally a conduit between Heaven and Earth - by portraying herself not only as a vessel for

the Word of God, but also as able to appeal to God on behalf of the people of Soviet Russia.

One of the reasons why the reader so readily accepts Akhmatova in this role is

because she adopted a poetic persona which corresponds, not only to archetypal images of

women, but also to images of women specific to Russian culture. Akhmatova's poetic

persona is sensitive to the forces of nature and receptive to the Word of God. Rather than

compose poetry, she is 'given' songs. At the same time, Akhmatova subtly constructs a

^ Anna Akhmatova, 'O stikhakh N. L'vovoi', in Anna Akhmatova, Sochineniia, 2 vols, vol. I, ed. V.A Chernykh, vol. II, ed. E G Gershtein etal., Moscow, 1986, II, p. 212. Further references to poems in this edition will be given in the text, citing volume and page number only. The poems will be dated, whenever possible, according to the dates cited in this edition.

1 persona who possesses characteristics associated with such figures as Mary, Cassandra and

Antigone. Thus, Akhmatova's persona derives her authority from a number of different

sources. She not only serves as a vehicle for divine inspiration, but also assumes a number

of parallel roles such as prophet and mourner of the dead.

Akhmatova negotiated influential literary movements such as Symbolism and, in

some aspects, Acmeism/Adamism which were essentially hostile, both in theory and, often,

in reality, to women poets. As Chapter 1 will later explore, members of these movements

developed imagery and espoused manifestos which often excluded the possibility of an

active, articulate, coherent female figure. Yet Akhmatova accomplished just this by

appropriating images from these movements and re-interpreting them in such a way as to

bolster her authority as a poet.

Akhmatova was not radical, but rather, deeply conservative, regarding herself as

part of a traditional male lineage which extended back to Pushkin and Dante. She worked

within existing poetic structures, rather than create new ones, and borrowed from traditional

images of women to rework them for her own creative ends. As Catriona Kelly notes,

'Akhmatova was a poet who, unlike Tsvetaeva, perpetuated rather than exploded tradition,

the tradition of "feminine poetry" included'.^ In this way, Akhmatova confidently formulated

an extraordinary role for herself as a woman poet.

^ Catriona Kelly, A History o f Russian Women's Writing 1820-J992, Oxford, 1994, p.

222. Poet vs. Poetess

Akhmatova was sensitive to the stereotype often attached to women poets of her

time - frivolous chatterboxes or, as Akhmatova's great friend, Osip Mandel'shtam coined

them, the 'seamstresses of poetry':

ftCBymKH H ÔapLimHH, pyKOACJILHHEiM CTHXOB, TG, ^TO 30ByT Cg6h OXOTHO MaÉHMH H xpaHHT ÔJiaroroBGHHyH) naMart o CHHCxojijHTejiLHOH JiacKe ôojitmoro no3Ta. Bame^ gjig npome, bbi imiimie cthxh , htoôli npaBHTLca. A mli c^eJiaeM BOT aTo: - aaroBop pyccKoè MOJioj^eam hg- rjia^GTL na ôaptimGHt, KoxoptiG HHinyT CTHXH.^

Mandel'shtam may have ultimately embraced Akhmatova as a poet of equal merit.

Nonetheless, his comments above reflect a view that was prevalent among the Russian

literary élite. As Catriona Kelly explains, to the Russian ear, the very terms 'women's

creativity' and 'women's prose or poetry' have a 'belittling if not derogatory flavour'. The

terms 'lady's prose' or 'lady's poetry' are, according to Kelly, particularly abhorrent in that

they suggest a work which is '...assumed to show the positive merits of observation and

decoration, but to have the more than compensatory demerits of sentimentality, banality, and

lack of intellectual power'.

^ Osip Mandel'shtam, 'Armiia poetov', Sobranie sochinenii, ed. G.P. Struve and B A Filippov, 4 vols, Moscow, 1991, II, pp. 208-16, p. 216.

^ Catriona Kelly, A History o f Russian Women's Writing, p. 2.

^ Julia Heaton confirms that this view remains today:

In accordance with the general climate of hostility towards feminism that exists in Russia today the term "women's writing" carries none of the positive (if still problematic) associations that it may do in the West. "Women's writing" is a taboo Akhmatova was sensitive to being typecast as a mere 'lady poet'. Alert to this

stereotype from an early age, in 1907 she wrote to her sister's husband, Sergei

Vladimirovich von Shtein, asking him to send her some of his new poems: 'IIpHmjiHTe, a

ôyw yacacHO (^cencKoe c j io b o ) pa#a B E m ex L Bamn c t h x h '.^ When she was eleven years

old, her father, 'for some reason', called her a 'decadent poetess'.^ She also looked back on

Vecher, her hrst collection, with uncharacteristic modesty:' . . . 3 t h ôe^üH L ie c t h x h n y c T c n m e H

WBOHKH noHCMy-TO HepencHaTLiBaioTCH Tpimnai^aTtiH paa Further, one of her poems

written in Tsarskoe Selo begins,

^pHn;aM ôoxcecTBeHHOH ôcccmlicjihuli HasBajia n a c %HBHa% c y a t b a . Ho H TOHHO 3HaK) - HaM 3aHHCJIHTCa B flC H tH y noaopHoro C T O Jida, ( 1910) (i, 352)

In another poem - 'On liubil...' - Akhmatova's persona specifically lists 'women's hysterics'

as one of the things the hero does not love (I, 43). This concurs with a comment noted in

Akhmatova's diary that Leonid Chatskii (pseudonym of Leonid Strakhovskii) had once

claimed that Gumilev considered her poetry to be the 'hobby of a poet's wife' in spite of

term, it is regarded as a derogatory category and as such is rejected by most Russian women writers themselves. (Julia Heaton, 'Russian Women's Writing - Problems of a Feminist Approach with Particular Reference to the Writing of Marina Palei', Slavonic and East European Review, 75, 1997, pp. 63-85, p. 63)

^ Anna Akhmatova, Letter to Sergei Vladimirovich von Shtein, 1907, Stikhi/perepiska/ vospominaniia/ ikonografiia, comp. E. Proffer, Ann Arbor, 1977, p. 98.

^ Anna Akhmatova, 'Avtobiograficheskaia proza',Sochineniia, 11, p. 245.

* Anna Akhmatova, 'Avtobiograficheskaia proza', Sochineniia, 11, p. 245.

4 Gumilev's published reviews to the contrary.^

Still another poem, 'V poslednii raz my vstretilis' togda', describes the persona's last meeting with the hero on the embankment of the Neva. The hero speaks dismissively of women poets generally:

O h roBopHJi o JieTe h o tom , H t O ÔBITB H 03TO M HCGHm^HHG - HGJIGHOCTL.

These lines are particularly interesting in that they supposedly derive from a comment by

Aleksandr Blok.^® However, the hero's proclamation about women is contradicted in the final stanza; the persona ultimately triumphs creatively in that she is 'given' one of her 'mad songs':

H B 3T0T nac ôtuia mhg oxflana nOCJIGRHHH H3 BCGX ÔGSyMEBIX HGCGH. (1914) (I, 54)

This poem is a useful example of Akhmatova's approach to her role as a poet generally. On the face of it, writing in the wake of Symbolism was an 'absurdity' - women were designated mere objects of inspiration, condemned to the stereotype of'divine babble' as opposed to being perceived as creative artists in their own right. Akhmatova might have chosen to take a more radical approach like Tsvetaeva and explode the myth in a straightforward way. Yet as noted earlier, if anything, Akhmatova perpetuated the status quo. In 'V poslednii raz my vstretilis' togda' she is 'given' her 'mad song', conveying the sense that she has been chosen

^ Anna Akhmatova, 'Iz dnevnikovykh zapisei', Literaturnoe ohozrenie, comp. R.D. Timenchik and V.A. Chernykh, 1989, 5, pp. 1-17, p. 11.

'Loving in Bad Taste' in Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture, ed. Jane T. Costlow, Stanford, 1993, pp. 156-76, p. 164. by a power greater than her earthly companion. At the same time, she remains strangely passive, not so much creating as receiving.

In her review of Nadezhda LVova's poems, Akhmatova writes: 'Ho cTpanno: xaKHe

CHJItHLie B 3Œ 3HE, TaKHC EyTKEC KO BC6M JIIOÔOBHtIM OEapOBaHHEM X6HIUHHI.I, KOFfla

HaEHHaioT imcaTB, snaioTtojibko oRnyjuoôobl , MyEHrejiLHyio, dojiesHCHHO npoaopjiHByio

H 6e3HaflexHyK).'“ This criticism is somewhat ironic in that it could easily have been levelled at Akhmatova's early works. In fact, the comment may directly reflect a criticism which Gumilev once levelled at Akhmatova herself: 'AxMaxoBoè, hxoôli hojiioôhxb mhp , nyjKHo BEmexB ero mhjilim h npocxtiM.'^^ However, Akhmatova's comment reflects her general tendency (despite her reference to Vecher above) to consider herself to be the exception to the general rule that women were inevitably inferior poets. Akhmatova seems to have concurred with the hero's proclamation in 'V poslednii raz my vstretilis' togda': to be a woman poet was an absurdity, though she was an exception. Such sentiment not only appears in Akhmatova's prose, but also in such humorous poems as 'Epigramma':

MoxJia JiH BmiG cjiobho Jfanx XBopHxt, Hjih JIaypa xap jiioôbh BoccjiaBHxt? M HayEHJia ecchiueh roBopHxt... Ho, ôoacG, KaKhx aaMOjmaxL aacxaBHxt! (1936-60) (i, i93)

The poem 'la ne liubvi tvoei proshu' also typifies the confidence which Akhmatova possessed in terms of competition fi*om female 'rivals'. In this poem, her persona reacts to the hero by

11 Anna Akhmatova, 'O stikhakh N. L'vovoi', Sochineniia, II, p. 211.

Nikolai Gumilev, 'Stat'i i zametki o russkoi poezii',Sobranie sochinenii, ed. G.P. Struve and B A. Filippov, 4 vols, Moscow, 1991, IV, pp. 199-377, p. 339. daring him to show her poems to his new lover:

M He jik)6 bh TBoeè npomy. O hb TenepL b Ha^e^cHOM Mecxe... nOBCpL, HTO a TBOeÔ HeBGCTG Pgbhhbmx hhcgm hg HHmy. Ho MyflptIG HpHMH COBGTLi: ^an GH HExaxB moh cthxh , ^an GH XpaHHTL moh HOpXpGTBI - Bghb Tax JII0ÔG3HBI xghhxh! A 3THM nypOHKBM HyXCHGH C03HaHLG HOJIHOG HOÔG^tl, HgM flpyXCÔM CBGTJIBIG ÔOCGfl!.! H HaMHTL nepBHX HGHŒMX ^(HGH... (1914) (I, 50-51)

Akhmatova's persona is sufficiently confident to allow her rival in love to read her poems,

presumably because the 'little fool' will not understand them. While she may have lost her

lover to her rival, she ultimately triumphs in terms of talent and a facade of indifference to

the situation.

Akhmatova also wished to distinguish herself from more prominent women in the

cultural life of her time. According to Lidiia Chukovskaia, Akhmatova predicted that

historians would lump her together with such diverse figures as Larisa Reisner, Zinaida

Gippius, Lily Brik, and Anna Radlova: '...ôy^GM HaatiBaxLCH: "hcghhxhhbi bpgmghh ..." B

nac HGHpGMGHHo HaH^T oÔHtHH CTHJIL.'^^ She made some exceptions to this tendency to

regard herself as unique. In her autobiographical prose, for example, Akhmatova claims to

have been related to Anna Bunina - 'the first woman poetess'. She also maintained a

Lidiia Chukovskaia, Zapiski ob Anne Akhmatovoi, 2 vols, I (1938-1941), Paris, 1976, 11 (1952-1962), Paris, 1980,1, p. 73.

Akhmatova claimed Anna Bunina was her grandfather's aunt ('Avtobiograficheskaia proza', p.240).

7 lifelong respect for Marina Tsvetaeva. But, generally, Akhmatova was anxious to avoid any

association with women writers of her own or any other era. As she notes in 'Khvaly eti mne

ne po chinu';

XsaJILI 3TH MHG HG HO HHHy, H Ca(J)0 COBCGM HH HpH HGM. (1959)^^ (1,359)

Many of Akhmatova's supporters were also careful to distinguish her from

stereotypical 'lady poets'. For example, although Gumilev was sometimes dismissive of

Akhmatova's talents, in his review ofChetki, he asserts:

B HGH OdpGXaGT TOJIOC pHJÜ HGMLIX CHX HOp CyHljGCTBOBaHHH, - XCGHHtUHBI BJHOÔJIGHHLIG, JiyXaBLIG, MGHTaiOHlJIG H BOCTOpXCGHHBIG FOBOpHT, HaKOHGU;, CBOHM HOflJIHHHMM H B TO XCG BpGMH XyAOXCGCTBGHHO-yÔGAHTGJILHLIM H3BIK0M.^^

Akhmatova was often perceived as a rare example of a woman poet of any great substance.

Femininity, in Akhmatova's particular case, was not considered by her supporters to be a

creative handicap.

However, some critics have gone further and have not only perceived Akhmatova's

femininity as a source of strength, but have also considered her to be a pioneer for women

writers. This is certainly, for example, how Akhmatova has been marketed in the West. For

example, the dust jacket to Roberta Reeder's biography of Akhmatova includes a quote from

Amanda Haight notes that Leonid Grossman compared Akhmatova to Sappho and, in 1965, the Public Orator revived this comparison when Akhmatova was awarded her honorary doctorate at Oxford University (Amanda Haight, Anna Akhmatova: A Poetic Pilgrimage, Oxford, 1990, p. 80).

Nikolai Gumilev, 'Stafi i zametki o russkoi poezii', p. 337. John Bayley: 'Anna Akhmatova has given a voice to women and their feelings.'^^ Similarly,

another of Akhmatova's biographers, Amanda Haight, believed that Akhmatova was

'...concerned with the necessity of giving voice to the woman's point of view in a culture

where women's voices, although beginning to be heard, were few and far between and where

women were still suffering from the illusion that to be equal with men, they must be like

them'.^*

It is not only Westerners who have appointed Akhmatova as representative of

women in general. Roman Timenchik, for example, has noted that Vecher appeared at a

time when Russia was looking for a great woman poet who could, at last, express the

feelings of'sincere but inarticulate women'. Akhmatova recalled in an article on Aleksandr

Blok that writer and childhood friend, Ariadna Tyrkova-Vergezhskaia, once commented;

'Bot AHHHKa fljia ceba «oÔHJiacb paBHonpaBmi.'^® The flamboyant Aleksandra Kollontai

maintained a similar view:

AxMaTOBa ne npocTO «n o3T ecca», kbkhx m hofo, nepejxHBaionjiaa t o , ^ t o y ace He pas roBopHJiH BejiHKHe nHcaxejiH yxoRan^eÈ KyjiLTypbi h tobophjih cH Jibnee H apqe cjiaÔLix no^tpaHcaTejibnHn^-nosTecc. AxMaxoBa - caMa TBopen;. H, xax no3T-TBopen;, ona hphbhocht b hckycctbo, a, snanH X h b SHanne HejioBenecKOH

Roberta Reeder, Anna Akhmatova: Poet & Prophet, London, 1995.

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 2.

R.D. Timenchik, 'Posleslovie', m Anna Akhmatova: Desiatye gody, ed. R.D. Timenchik etal, Moscow, 1989, pp. 263-78, p. 276.

Anna Akhmatova, 'Vospominaniia ob Aleksandre Bloke', Sochineniia, II, pp. 185-88, p. 185.

9 jüyniH TO, HTO He cyMCJiH cKasaTL ao nee KpynHeèmHe ôyp^Kyasntie hootbi.21

Akhmatova's detractors, however, were just as prone to criticise her for her

feminine poetry. In the Soviet period, such criticism was often made in tandem with

comments about her poetry's lack of communist content. For example, inLiteratura i

revoliutsiia, Trotskii wrote:

C EGjojoyMGHHGM HHTaemt ôoJiLmHHCTBO nam nx cthxotbophlix côophhkob, OCOÔGHHO XGHCKHX, - BOT yHC HOHCTHHG T^tG 6 g3 60 Fa HH J^O HOpOTB. JiHpHHGCKHH Kpyr A xmbtoboh, IfBGTaeBOH, PawioBOH h hhbix ;i,ghctbhtgjibhlix h HPHÔJIH3HTGJIBHBIX H03TGCC, OHGHB MBJI. Oh OXBBTBIBaGT CBMOG H03TGCCy, HGH3BGCTH0T0, B KOTGJIKG HJIH CO fflHOpBMH,H HGHpGMGHHO ÔOPa - 6 g 3 OCOÔBIX HpHMGT. 3 tO OHGHB yflOÔHOG H HOpTBTHBHOG TpGTBG JIHH.O, BHOJIHG KOMHBTHOTO BOCHHTBHHH, JipyT fliOMB, BBIHOJIHHIOHJHH BpGMH OT BpGMGHH0 ÔH3BHH0 CTH BpBHB HO XCGHCKHM HG^OMOTBHEHM. KbK 3T0T HGMOJIOflOH yXCG HGpCOHBHC, OÔpGMGHGHHBIH JIHHHBIMH, HGpGflKO BGCBMB XJIOHOTJIHBBIMH HOpyHGHHHMH AxMBTOBOH, IfBGTBGBOH H flpyFHX, yMyAPHGTCH GH^G B CBOÔO^HBIG HBCBI 3BBG^BIBBTB CyflBÔBMH BCGJIGHHOH - 3T0 HpOCTO-TBKH y My HGHOCTHHŒMO.^^

The varied ways in which such readers interpret Akhmatova's feminine poetry

reflect, as much as anything, each reader's own personal or political agenda. It is not

surprising that Amanda Haight - Akhmatova's Western biographer writing in the 1970s -

finds Akhmatova's femininity a more positive factor than Trotskii. What unites all of these

critiques, however, is a tendency to generalise and to place Akhmatova's status as a woman

poet at the heart of their criticism or praise.

Thus, as a woman writer who nearly always adopted a female poetic persona.

A. Kollontai, 'Pis'ma k trudiashcheisia molodezhi', m Requiem, ed. R.D. Timenchik and K.M. Polivanov, Moscow, 1989, pp. 54-56, p. 54.

L. Trotskii, Literatura i revoliutsiia, Moscow, 1924, p. 33.

10 Akhmatova was inevitably forced to confront a fundamental question which her male

contemporaries and precursors could overlook: how to portray a female persona and, by

extension, herself as a poet, as a serious, active and creative figure in the face of a culture

which failed to take women poets seriously?

The answer to this question is at the heart of the passage quoted at the beginning

of this chapter: her 'strength' lies elsewhere. Akhmatova's authority as a poet lies not as a

'craftsman' or active forger of words, but rather, from a series of images which link her to

archetypal associations with women in Russian culture. Her persona is imbued with a

sensitivity and ability to communicate with forces of nature, growing in sophistication to

serve, ultimately, as a kind of intermediary between Heaven and Earth. In this way,

Akhmatova developed ultimate authority as a female poet.

Approach

This thesis wül not attempt to reconcile Akhmatova's works with a particular strain

of feminist criticism. Nor will it attempt to discover fledgling strains of feminist thought

which Akhmatova may have deliberately or unwittingly incorporated into her works.

Rather, it will adopt a similar approach to that taken by Wendy Rosslyn in her book The prince, the fool and the nunnery: the religious theme in the early poetry o f Anna

On the problem of reconciling Russian women writers with Western variants of feminism, see, for example, Julia Heaton, 'Russian Women's Writing'.

This is the approach adopted in such works as Barbara Heldt's Terrible Perfection: Women and Russian Literature, Indiana, 1987.

11 Akhmatova^^ In this book, Rosslyn adopts the approach which Akhmatova, herself, advised:

to study groups of recurring images in order to discover the poet's 'personality' and 'spirit'.

Rosslyn considers various images and attitudes towards love and religion in individual poems

in order to draw general conclusions about Akhmatova's own beliefs. Similarly, this thesis

will look at individual feminine images and attitudes and evaluate the overall impression they

convey in terms of Akhmatova's poetic authority .

The impact of feminine images and attitudes on Akhmatova's poetic authority is an

important consideration in that, as noted earlier, Akhmatova wrote during an era in which

the very term 'woman writer' or 'poetess' carried a variety of negative associations. The first

Chapter will, therefore, look at the way in which two of the most influential movements in

terms of Akhmatova's poetic career - Symbolism and, in some aspects, Acmeism - developed

imagery which was manifestly inappropriate for the woman poet.

The second chapter will consider possible reasons why Akhmatova, a prolific poet,

chose to adopt an early poetic persona who is almost the antithesis of a poet-figure in that

she is often silent, incoherent or inarticulate. It will consider the progression of Akhmatova's

early silent persona through to such works asRekviem.

The third chapter will look at three strategies which Akhmatova developed to

Wendy Rosslyn, The prince, the fool and the nunnery: the religious theme in the early poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Amersham, 1984.

Wendy Rosslyn, The prince, the fool and the nunnery, p. 3 (quoting Lidiia Chukovskaia, Zapiski oh Anne Akhmatovoi, I, p. 149).

As this thesis is intended to provide a broad overview of feminine themes and images, a number of its aspects will invariably overlap with issues analysed in existing critical works. Such works will be referred to in the course of the thesis as and when relevant.

12 overcome her fundamental incompatibility with the major literary movements of her time.

First, it will consider the limited number of poems in which Akhmatova adopts a male speaker. Secondly, it will look at the image of what might be described as a kind of'eternal masculine'. Finally, it will look at one of the most complex feminine images available to

Akhmatova - the persona as mother - both in terms of the cliche of the poet as mother to the poem and in terms of the persona as mother to an individual child. The fourth chapter will consider one of the most interesting manifestations of Akhmatova's battle with the legacy of

Symbolism - the unusual perspective which she assumes in many poems. It will examine a number of poems in which she assumes a detached perspective, sometimes as if viewing her persona through a mirror. In detaching herself from her poetic persona, she is able to assume the kind of stance a male poet would normally assume, not only considering her female persona from a more objective point of view, but also assessing the persona's influence upon those around her. At the same time, Akhmatova emphasises the image of the persona as intuitive and sensitive to the forces of nature or the will of God.

The fifth chapter will look at another interesting perspective which Akhmatova assumed - portraying her persona, not as an artist, but as an art object. It will consider a number of poems in which the persona's physical body is literally transformed into a statue or monument or is the subject of another artist's portrait.

Finally, the sixth chapter will consider a topic already well explored by critics:

Akhmatova's poetic 'doubles' (including her distinctive muse). In this particular context, however, it will consider their application in terms of her unusual perspective mentioned above. Akhmatova's doubles allow her, as a poet, to assume simultaneously both an

13 objective and subjective stance in terms of her persona. Akhmatova's choice of famous heroines in such works as 'Bibleiskie stikhi' allows her to appropriate the stature they command simply by virtue of their familiarity. At the same time, however, Akhmatova subtly blends a personal subtext which the reader is able to identify.

14 Chapter 1 - Symbolism and Acmeism/Adamism - the Problem of Perspective

Symbolism

The variety of attitudes towards women writers at the time of Akhmatova's early

works has already been touched upon in the Introduction. It is now, however, worth

paying particular consideration to the Symbolists' approach to the subject. Many

Symbolists were particularly unreceptive, both in theory and in reality, to the notion of a

female poet. Of course there were female Symbolists and certain Symbolists, such as

Innokentii Annenskii, had a high regard for women's intellectual and artistic abilities.^

However, this does not diminish the fact that the fundamental dynamics of Symbolist

poetry - particularly in terms of Vladimir Solov'ev's views on love - dictated that a

woman is unable pursue the transcendent through the principle of the eternal feminine

because she actually embodies this principle herself.

The Symbolists espoused two central views on love, both of which rendered the

woman poet an oxymoron. Whereas the first derived from Solov'ev and was represented

^ Catriona Kelly explains that '[Annenskii's] respect for women's intellectual and artistic activity was almost unique amongst Russian male poets of the Silver Age'. She speculates that Annenskii, '...as a male poet who avoided the stereotyped macho posturings of the Acmeist and Futurist manifestos, may have helped to feminise Russian poetic discourse as the novelist Samuel Richardson had helped to feminise discourse in the novel a century and a half earlier' (Catriona Kelly, 'The Impossibility of Imitation; Anna Akhmatova and Innokentii Annenskii', in The Speech o f Unknown Eyes: Akhmatova's Readers on Her Poetry^ ed. Wendy Rosslyn, 2 vols, Nottingham, 1990, II, pp. 231-46, p. 233).

15 by the figure of Sophia/ the second derived from Nietzsche and manifested itself as a

quasi-cult of Dionysus. In terms of the former, Pamela Davidson notes that although

Solov'ev's concept of the 'eternal feminine' was, in theory, applicable to either sex, in

practice, the ideology designated women as the mediator of male aspirations. She cites a

number of reasons for this:

The language of the treatise, written by a man, implied a male perspective on love. Sophia, although not a woman, was closely related to the principle of the eternal feminine; she was often symbolically depicted as a female saint in the Russian iconographie tradition, and her cult was also associated with that of the Virgin Mary. Furthermore, most of Solovev's disciples who claimed to put his theory into practice were men, and to varying degrees tended to link their beloved woman with Sophia.^

Similarly, the cult derived from Nietzsche emphasised the image of the male God Dionysus

worshipped through ecstatic sacrificial rites carried out by female "Maenads". Davidson

notes that both views on love designate women as 'passive objects to be loved as a means

to a higher end, or as creatures capable of reaching or inducing Dionysiac transports of

ecstasy - or sometimes as both. In either case, their role in their experience of love was

defined by men and in terms of male inspiration as a means to an end."^

Thus, for the Symbolists, women were 'high priestesses', manifestations of Blok's

'Beautiful Lady', or, to use Akhmatova and Nadezhda Mandel'shtam's own phrase, the

^ On this subject see, for example, Pamela Davidson, The Poetic Imagination of Vyacheslav Ivanov: A Russian Symbolist's Perception of Dante, Cambridge, 1989.

^ Pamela Davidson, 'Lidiia Zinov'eva - Annibal's The Singing Ass: a woman's view of men and Eros', in Gender and Russian Literature - New Perspectives, ed. Rosalind Marsh, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 155-83, p. 157.

Pamela Davidson, 'Lidiia Zinov'eva - Annibal's The Singing Ass', p. 157.

16 l)earers of myrrh'/ With the main exception of women as prophets (which will be discussed

in Chapter 6), male Symbolists tended to portray women as passive objects of inspiration as

opposed to active, creative figures.

Of course this dynamic was not exclusive to the Symbolists; the fundamental

association of women with inspiration and men with creativity can be traced back far further.

As Nadezhda Mandel'shtam comments: 'Jlaypti h BeaTpime, upexpacHLie aaivLbi

MenecTpejieè, ne^ocTynHBie h ^tajiexne, ÔJioKOBCKHe HesHaKOMXH, npoxoflamjie mhmo

no3Ta, He Mo^ah ne BunyMxa cBoero BpeMenn, a hchto ôojiee rjiyôoKoe, yxopenenHoeb

caMoè npEpo^ïe noasHH.'^ The Symbolists were, however, particularly enamoured with the

perceived link between femininity and 'other-worldliness'.

In an article which Akhmatova herself considered to be particularly astute,^ one of

Akhmatova's greatest admirers, V.N. Nedobrovo, considered Symbolism as indicative of a

male-dominated literary culture in which romantic love was rarely portrayed from a woman's

point of view:

BcjicfliCTBHe 3Toro HCKyccTBOM «0 HpesBMHaânocTH paspadoTana no3THKa MyxccKoro cTpeMJiennH h xchckhx oqapoBaHHH,h , nanpoTHB, no3THKa xcencKHX BOJffleHHH H MyHCCKHX OÔaHHHH HOHTH HG HaJiaXCGHa. MyHMHHLI-HG3TtI, COSgaBaH MyXCKHG odpasfcl, COCpejliOTOHHBaJIHCL Ha OÔHCGHGJIOBGHGCKOM B HHX, OCTaBJIHH JIIodoBHOe B TCHH, HOTOMy HTO H BJIGKJIHCL K HGMy MaJIO, H HG MOTJIH paCHGJiaraTL HGOdXOflHMOH HGJIHPHGH HyXKGCTLIG K HGMy. Oj^HaXG THHLI MyXGCTBGHHGCTH G^BB HaMGHGHtI H GHGHB flBJIGKH GT KpHCTaJIJIH3GBaHHGCTH,

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vospominaniia, Moscow, 1989, p. 256.

^ Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vtoraia kniga, Moscow, 1990, p. 203.

^ Lidiia Chukovskaia writes that Akhmatova told her, '...Hg^gôpgbg hghhji mgh nyxt, MGG dyayHïGG yra^aji h npcflCKasaji ero noxoMy, hxg xopomo anaji mghh.'{Zapiski ob Anne Akhmatovoi, I, p. 113).

17 noJiyneHHOH TnnaMH xeHCTseHHOCTH, npHBejneHHLiMH k saKOHOoôpasHoà n;ejibH 0 CTH. J1,obojilho Be«L HasBaTL qBGT b o j i o c h onpeaejiHTL HSJnoôJieHHyio cKJiaflKy ry 6 , qxoÔ L i b o s h h k niejiocTHbrâ oôpaa xenm H H ti, cpaay onpeaejiHMLiè b HGKOTOPOM COOTHOmeHHH K peJIHrH0 3 H0 My HflCaJiy Be^HOXeHCTBeHHOCTH. A He H e p e s 3 xy jih BeHHOxencTBenHOCTL My^KHHna npHHan^aeTca ropnnx ccj)ep?*

Thus women poets, he argues, critically lack a means of entry into the 'lofty spheres' which

correspond with the Symbolists' 'eternal feminine'.^ Akhmatova herself (if ironically) appears

to acknowledge this in such poems as 'Pust' dazhe vyleta mne net';

IlycTt flaxe BtiJiexa Mne nex Ha cxan JiedcAHHOH... Y bm! JlHprraecKHH no3X OÔHsan ÔLIXL MyaoiEHon, Hnane Bce noèflex BBepx gnoM fto naca paccxaBanbH - H cafl - HG ca^, h jïgm - hg «cm, CBHflaHLG - HG CBEHaHBG. (1944-52) (I, 338)

This also appears to be the sentiment behind the following lines:

Tti BLmyMaji MGHH. TaxoH Ha cbgxg hgx , TaKOH Ha CBGXG 6 mXL hg M03KGX. (1956) (I, 224)

In this context, it is interesting to compare the poems which Akhmatova and

^ V.N. Nedobrovo, 'Anna Akhmatova', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, ed. M.M. Kralin et al, Leningrad, 1990, pp. 49-68, pp. 60-61.

^ This sentiment is echoed by Joseph Campbell in an even wider sense. Campbell contends that the archetypal female role as depicted in myth and literature is to act as 'guide' for the male hero:

The hero is the one who comes to know. As he progresses in the slow initiation which is life, the form of the goddess undergoes for him a series of transfigurations: she can never be greater than himself, though she can always promise more than he is yet capable of comprehending...Woman is the guide to the sublime acme of sensuous adventure. (Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Princeton, 1973, p. 116)

18 Aleksandr Blok wrote to each other. In her poem dedicated to Blok (written in January

1914), Akhmatova seems to confirm the prediction that she is unsuited to the lofty heights to which the Symbolist poet aspires by emphasising the realistic and concrete setting, free of Symbolist accoutrements:

M npnmjia k no3Ty b f o c t h . PoBHO nojmeHt. BocKpeceHBe. Thxo b KOMHaTe npocTopHoè, A 3a OKHaMH M 0P03.

H MajiHHOBoe cojiHi^e Haa JioxMaxtiM ch3lim «bimom... KaK X03KHH MGJmaJIHBBlà

.ftCHO CMOTPHT Ha MCHh !

y Hero FJiaaa Taxne,

H to aanoMHHTB xaxmBiH gojiiKGH; Mne xcG Jiynme, ocTopoxŒOH, B HHX H BOBCe HG FJIHHGTB.

Ho aanoMHHTCH 6GCGji,a, ftBIMHBIH HOJ^GHB, BOCKpGCGHBG B flOMG CGpOM H BBICOKOM y MopcKHX BopoT H g b b i. (January 1914) (i, 75-76)

In this poem, it is precisely Akhmatova's failings as a Symbolist which render her a successful

Acmeist; the details in the first stanza - the particular time and place - ground this poem in reality. This may be contrasted with the poem which Blok dedicated to her in which he transforms her into a Carmen figure:

«K pacoTa cxpam na» - BaM CKaxcyx, - B b i HaKHHGXG jig h h b o U lajiB HcnancKyio na h jig h h , KpacHBiH po 3aH - B BOJiocax.

19 «K pacoxa npocxa» - BaM cxa^KyT, - IlecTpoH maJiLK) neyMejio Bli yKpoexe peôenxa, KpacHBiô posaH - na nojiy.

Ho, pacceaHHo BHHMaa BcGM cjioBaM, KpyroM aByqaiiïEM, B l i BaflyMaeTecL rpycTHO H TBcpflHTe npo ce6a:

« H e CTpamna h ne npocxa a; M HG Tax CTpamna, htoô npocxo yôHBaxL; HG xaK npocxa a, H x o 6 HG 3HaxL, KaK 2KH3HL c x p a m H a » / °

Apparently, Blok's depiction was not spontaneous; he realised Akhmatova would come to

visit him and composed the verse the night before.Further, in her memoirs, Akhmatova

describes the way in which Blok romanticised her visit:

...y MGHH HHKOrjta HG ÔLIJIO HCHaHCKOH maJIH, B KOXOpOH H XaM H 3 0 6 pa>KGHa, HO B 3 X0 BpGMH BjIOK ÔpGgHJI KapMGH H HCHaHH3HpOBaJI H MGHH. M H KpaCHOH p 0 3 LI, paayMGGXca, HHKor^a b B O Jiocax h g HocHJia. H g cjiynaHH O 3 X0 cxhxoxbopghhg HaHHCaHO HCHaHCKOH CXpo 4 )OH pOMaHCCpO. H B HOCJIGJTHIOIO HBHiy B cxpcH y 3 a KyjiHcaMH BojiLmoro JfpaMaxHHccKoro xcaxpa b g g h o h 1 9 2 1 rojta Bjiok Hoj^omcji h CHPOCHJI MGHH: « A XJtG HCHaHCKaH m aJIL ?» 3 x 0 HOCJIG^ÜHHG CJIOBa, KOXOpLIG H cjiLimajia ox hgxo.^^

Interestingly, Akhmatova appears to have picked up on this Spanish theme in her subtle

Aleksandr Blok, Sobranie sochinenii, ed. V.N. Orlov et a l, 8 vols, Leningrad, 1960-63, III, 1960, p. 143.

" V.M. Zhirmunskii, 'Anna Akhmatova i Aleksandr Blok', Russkaia literatura, 1970, 3, pp. 57-82, p. 57.

Anna Akhmatova, 'Vospominaniia ob Aleksandre Bloke', p. 186.

20 conversion of Blok into the figure of Don JuanPoema in bez geroia.^^ Further, as Wendy

Rosslyn argues, Akhmatova re-tells the tale of Don Juan with a female protagonist, feminising Don Juan, while rejecting the image of Donna Anna as his potential saviour.

A cmeism/Adamism

The Acmeist manifestos are neither clear nor consistent. This is at least partly due to

the fact that they merely attempted to consolidate and clarify aspects of a style already

apparent rather than initiate a new way of thinking. As Roman Timenchik stresses,

Acmeism was not 'discovered' or 'thought up', but evolved fi*om the joint efforts of the young

poets involved.

13 V.N Toporov,Akhmatova i Blok, Berkeley, 1981, p. 38.

Wendy Rosslyn, 'Don Juan Feminised', in Symbolism and After - Essays in Honour of Georgette Donchin, ed. Arnold McMillin, Bristol, 1992, pp. 102-21.

It has been suggested, for example, that it was Akhmatova who originally precipitated the theory of Acmeism in thatVecher was published before her Acmeist colleagues published their manifestos on the subject (Sam Driver, 'Directions in Akhmatova's Poetry Since the Early Period', 1975, Spring Supplement, pp. 84-91, p. 84.)

Piast suggested that the term 'acme' may echo the name 'Akhmatova' (see Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 18, quoting V. Piast, Vstrechi, Moscow, 1929, p. 155). The term 'acmeism' is derived from the word 'acme' which is defined by Gumilev as '...BticmaH cTcncHb qero-jiHÔo, n^BCT, n^BeTyn^aa nopa....' (Nikolai Gumilev, 'Nasledie simvolizma i akmeizm', Sobranie sochinenii, IV, pp. 171-76, p. 171).

Roman Timenchik, 'Zametki ob akmeizme: I', Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 23-47, p. 27.

21 At least in theory, Acmeism is more complementary to the female poet than

Symbolism in that the Acmeists' emphasis on the concrete and tangible suggests at least a

superficial predisposition to portraying women more realistically than in the idealised

Symbolist manner. According to Gorodetskii's famous synopsis,

y aKMencTOB posa onaTt cxajia xopoma caMa no cede, cbohmh jienecxKaMH, aanaxoM n npexoM, a ne cbohmh mbicjihmbimh hojhoôhhmh c mhcxhhcckoh JiiodoBtio HJiH neM-HHdyflB enre.^^

As Catriona Kelly notes, '...[Acmeism] offered a way out of Symbolism's assumption that

women's writing was necessarily passive and automatic, with its emphasis on the Word and

the poet as craftsman'.^*

Given Gumilev's reputation as a somewhat macho poet, it is, perhaps, surprising that

the imagery he adopts in his critical works emphasises the sense of the work as a female.

For example, in 'Zhizn' stikha', he distinguishes between 'Art for life' and 'Art for art's sake'.

In terms of the former, '...HcxyccxBo HHSBOAax ^o cxenenn npocxHxyxKH hjih cojiaaxa. Ero

cyntecxBOBanne hmccx menHocxL Jinmt nocxojitxy, hockojilky oho cjiyxHX nyaqiitiM cMy

nejiHM. HeyflHBHxejiBHO, ecjiH y xpoxKHX Mys xjiaaa cxanoBHXca MyxntiMH, h ohh

npHodpexaiox jrypnLie Manepti.' In terms of the latter, '...HCxyccxBO naneHŒBaexcH,

cxanoBHxcH MynHxejiBHO-JiynHLiM...'^^ Further, it is not only art which Gumilev describes

in feminine terms, but also the actual poet whom he describes as a kind of mother-in-waiting

Sergei Gorodetskii, 'Nekotorye techeniia v sovremennoi russkoi poezii',Apollon, I9I3, 1, pp. 46-50, p. 48.

Catriona Kelly, A History o f Russian Women's Writing,^. 174.

Nikolai Gumilev, 'Zhizn' stikha', Sohranie sochinenii, IV, pp. 157-70, p. 158.

22 (this will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3).

The fact that Mandel'shtam accepted Akhmatova as a poet and intellectual equal is especially striking when one takes into account Nadezhda Mandel'shtam's description of his perception of women in general;

H no flyxoBHOH cxpyKType, n no (hnaHOJiornnecKHM CBoncTBaM on npnnafljieacaji k TCM, KTO He TepnHT oneKynoB n k xennmHC OTHocnTca, kbk k noAonennoMy n ne coBCGM nojiHoiteHHOMy cynrecTBy: ncnyrannLin rjiaa, ne^oxpora, BpymKa n enre Jiynme - j^yponKa... ^^Cenmpny nyxno odnaaxejitHO yaesxH H 3 flOMy - n^eaji: yMLiKanne. Ona flojixna 6 l i x l ropaajto MOJioxe n Bcemejio saBHcexL ox Myxa. B OHCHL pannen mojioji;ocxh oh ente ne BnoJine coanaBaji c b o h BKycLi n notmajicn Kyjitxy «K pacaBH it», Koxoptm oxnannno nowtepaŒBajia AxMaxoBa.^®

This, as well as the passage quoted in the Introduction in which Mandel'shtam condemned the 'seamstresses of poetry', suggest that, even if his published views of women were relatively positive, a creeping misogyny underpinned many of Mandel'shtam's views on women poets. Akhmatova would have had to overcome significant obstacles in gaining his respect as a poet. Despite Acmeism's general affinity for women poets, Akhmatova was not provided with a literary prescription for dealing with the paradigm of the Symbolists'

Beautiful Lady.

The relatively minor strand of Acmeism known as 'Adamism' developed imagery which, on nearly every level, was completely inappropriate for Akhmatova as a woman poet.

According to Gumilev, Adamism refers to, '...MyxecxBenno XBepfltm n h c h b i h B s r j i a a na

In particular, as noted above, Gumilev valued Adam's role as 'name-giver'.

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vtoraia kniga,^. 122.

Nikolai Gumilev, 'Nasledie simvolizma i akmeizm', p. 171.

23 stressing that the poet must strive to look at things already known with a fresh and

enthusiastic gaze, like Adam on the first day of creation.

Amanda Haight alludes to this theme, describing Akhmatova's style in Adamic terms and her

role as 'name-giver':

[Akhmatova] was the formulator, the poet who by means of her tool, the word, could bring order out of chaos and in so doing fulfil the highest human function: 'And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field' (Genesis 2:20).^^

In some poems, such as 'Mnogoe eshche, naverno, khochet', the persona could, in a broad

sense, be described as 'seeing the world as if new', although its late date suggests that any

link with Adamism is coincidental:

Mnoroe eme, naBepHO, xo^ex Bmtl BocnextiM rojiocoM mohm: To, yxo, beccjioBecHoe, rpoxonex, H jIB bo TLMG nOfliaeMHLIH KaMCHL TOHHT, Hjib npoÔHBaexca ckbobb ji;bim. y MGHM He BBMCneHBI CHGTBI C HJiaMGEGM, E BGXpOM, E BOflOB... OXTOrO-TO MHe MOE flpeMOXBI Bflpyr xaKEG pacnaxnyx Bopoxa H BewT 3a yxpeHHCE sBesflOE. (1936-60) (i, i94)

The poem 'Notre Dame' is, in a sense, Osip Mandel'shtam's manifesto on the subject

of Acmeism and Adamism:

r«e pEMCKEE cyflEE cyflEJi EyxcoE nap on -

CxoEX ôasEJiEKa, e panocxHBiB E nepBBiB, Kax HCKorna AnaM, pacnJiacxBiBaa nepBBi, Hrpaex MBimitaME xpecxoBBiB JiexKEB CBon.

22 Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 99.

24 Ho BtmacT ceÔH cnapyxH TaèHtm nuan; 3aecB no3a6oTHJiacL nofl,npy3KHLix apoK cHJia,

H t o 6 Macca rpysnaa ctch bi h c coKpymHJia, H CBOfl;a ^epsKoro ôeafleècTByex xapan.

CtHXHHHLIH JiaÔHpHHT, HenocTKHŒMLm Jiec, ^ymn roTHHecKOH paccyfliOHHaa nponacTL, EriineTCKaa Mong, h xpncTHaHCXBa poôocxL, C xpocxHHKOH pa^OM - fly6, H Bcioay D;api> - o x b c c.

Ho MGM BHHMaxeatHeè, xBepaitina Notre Dame,

M H s y a a a x b o h ayAOBamptie peôpa, T cm aame joynaa a: H3 xaacecxH He^oôpoè H a Kor^^a-HHÔy^üLnpexpacHoe co3«aM.^^

The speaker describes how the 'light Gothic ribbed vault' of the basilica, stretching its

'nerves', 'plays with its muscles...like Adam in former tim e s'.A s Peter Steiner notes, the

'vault' in this poem conveys the sense of'peak' or 'summit' or 'acme' (Greek for the highest

point), while the image of Adam is as close as Mandel'shtam comes to explicitly adopting an

Adamist stance.Steiner notes that the adjectives 'paa;ocxHi>iH' and 'nepBtiè' add to the

sense of optimism and primacy, while the description of playing with its muscles evokes

Gumilev's insistence on the poet's essential virility.The cathedral's masculinity is further

emphasised by the 'strength of the saddle-girth arches' and the description of the plumb-line

as 'tsar'. Thus, in the context of Adamism, the cathedral, itself, is representative of Adam

Osip Mandel'shtam, Sobranie sochinenii. I, p. 24.

24 The first draft of this poem also included a reference to tendons: 'H yKRJihi BLixanyB h Hanparaa nepBLi...'. (Peter Steiner, 'Poem as Manifesto: Mandel'stam's "Notre Dame'", Russian Literature, V, 1977, pp. 239-56, p. 246).

Peter Steiner, 'Poem as Manifesto: Mandel'stam's "Notre Dame'", pp. 245-46.

26 Peter Steiner, 'Poem as Manifesto: Mandel'stam's "Notre Dame'", p. 246.

25 in that it embodies the masculine qualities which Mandel'shtam valued so highly. Yet the

'ribbed' vault and, of course, the name Notre Dame of the 'basilica' (also a feminine noun)

reinforces the sense that the creation itself is feminine, as well as Mandel'shtam's contrast of

the 'strength of Egypt' with 'Christian meekness' and the fragile 'reed' with the strong 'oak'.

Chapter 6 will consider Akhmatova's identification with Eve in this respect. For now,

however, the point to note is not that Akhmatova was incapable of adapting to such, rather

superficial imagery or such strong views on the role of women generally; rather, it is the fact

of having to adapt (or collude) in the first place that sets Akhmatova apart from her Acmeist

contemporaries. Aleksandr Blok apparently refers to this in his early criticism of

Akhmatova: '...He snaio, CHurajia jih ona cana ceÔH «aKMeHCTKoè»;bo bchkom cjiynae,

«pacnBGTa (J)H3HHeCKHX H flyXOBHLIX CHJI»B GG yCTaJIOH, 60JIG3HGHH0H, XCGHCKGH H

caMoyrjiyÔJiGHHOH Manepe nojioxŒTGJiBHO hgjib3h ôbijionaÈTH'.^^ Though critical, Blok's

comment at least acknowledges a fundamental incompatibility for Akhmatova with the

movement she helped create. In order to overcome the 'problem of perspective' inherited

from Symbolism, Akhmatova had to adopt a number of strategies, rather than merely rely

upon Acmeist manifestos for solutions. Some of these strategies will be discussed in the

chapters which follow.

Aleksandr Blok, "Bez bozhestva, bez vdokhnoven'ia" (tsekh akmeistov)', Sobranie sochinenii, VI, pp. 174-84, p. 180.

26 Chapter 2 - The Silent Persona

As noted in the Introduction, Akhmatova's detractors considered her to be typical

of frivolous and banal women poets. At the same time, many of Akhmatova's supporters

considered her to be the exception to the rule that women were inherently inferior poets.

Further, as discussed in Chapter 1, Akhmatova wrote in the midst of major literary

movements such as Symbolism which excluded (or failed to take seriously) women poets

generally.

At the same time, although a prolific poet, Akhmatova developed a poetic persona

which is often manifestly silent. Rather than emphasise her persona's ability to articulate or

shape events through words (e.g. the Acmeist poet as 'craftsman'), Akhmatova emphasises

that language is either inappropriate or powerless in the face of difficulty. One explanation

for the persona's silence is that such a portrayal is consistent with the ideal of women in

fashion at the time she began to write. The persona does not speak because it is enough that

she simply exists, enabling the hero to take action or dedicate beautiful love lyrics to her.

In this sense, Akhmatova perpetuates classical and Symbolist associations of women as

objects as opposed to creators.^

Akhmatova's silent persona is, of course, not unique, as the futility of words is a

well-established literary theme. However, the significance of this theme for Akhmatova is

^ Such silence is also ironic in that it was commonly assumed in the West at the time of Rekviem that Akhmatova was no longer writing, a misconception oblivious to the atmosphere of repression in which she lived and the extreme lengths to which she went to ensure that the text of Rekviem survived.

27 not the fact that she adopted it, as many before and after her have, but that it complemented

her status as a woman poet. Her authority as a poet does not arise from her active talent

with words, but rather, as a passive, mysterious witness or embodiment of tragedy

surrounding her or as receptor of the Word of God.

It is important to draw a distinction between those poems in which the persona is

simply unable to speak and these in which her silence is, in fact, a means of self-expression.

There is a chronological element to this distinction. For example, Akhmatova's early persona

is often speechless when confronted with the hero. In 'Khochesh' znat', kak vse eto bylo?',

for example, the persona's struggle to find the right words is fundamental to the dramatic

tension between the two figures:

XonemL snaTb, xax Bce 3T0 ôlijio? - Tpn B CTOJIOBOH npoÔHJio, H npomaHCb, Aep^Kacb sa nepnjia, Ona cjiOBHo c TpyflOM roBopnJia: « 3 x 0 Bce...Ax, H e x , a saôbuia, M JiioÔJiK) Bac, H Bac JiioÔHJia Eme xor^a!» «ft,a». (1910) 1(,28)^

^ This compares with another famous poem - 'Szhala ruki pod temnoi vual'iu. . .' in which the persona's language is powerless to compel the hero to return to her. This poem also features a mysterious voice which questions the persona:

Cxajia pyKH no^ xcmhoh Byajibio... «O xnero xbi cero^^na ône^na?» - Oxxoro nxo a xepuKon nenajibio HanoHJia ero ^onbana.

Kax saôyfly? Oh Bbimeji, maxaacb, Hckphbhjich MyHHxejibHO pox... R côexajia, nepuji ne xacaacb, R ôe)xajia sa hhm ^o Bopox.

28 Akhmatova's persona has been described in terms of two types - the nun and the harlot (images which will be discussed in more detail in Chapter 3). For now, in terms of the

'harlot' persona, love for the hero does not generate lines of poetry or even coherent declarations of love. Rather, it emphasises the balance of power in the relationship and, often, the hero's superficial dominance over the persona. Similarly, language is ineffective in terms of Akhmatova's 'nun' persona. For example, in the following poem, Akhmatova's persona leads a life of spiritual contemplation which is manifestly silent:

Mojiioct OKOHHOMy Jiyqy - Oh ÔJiejïeH, tohok, npaM. CeroflHH s c yTpa Mojny, A cepOTc - H o n o J ia M . (1909) (i,20)

In some early poems, even if the persona does manage to speak, she specifies that she speaks 'in vain':

Kax BejiHT npocTaa yHTHBOCTL, Xloflomeji KG MHe, yjiLidnyjica, nojiyjiacKOBo, HOJiyjienHBO IIon;ejiyeM p y x H KocHyjica - H aaraflOHHbix, ApcBHHX j ih k o b Ha M6HH HOrJIHJ^ejIHOHH... )I,GCHTL JIGT SaMHpaHHH H KpHKOB, Bce MOH ôeccoHHLie hohh M BJIOHŒJia B THXOe CJIOBO H CKaaajia ero - HanpacHo. Oxomeji TLi, H crajio CHOBa Ha flyme h nycTO h hcho. (1913) (i, so)

3a^Mxaacb, a xpHKnyjia: «niyxK a

B c e , H x o ÔLIJIO. y à flC fflL , h y n p y » . yjILlÔ nyJICH CHOKOHHO H HCyXKO

H c x a a a j i m h c : « H e cxoè na B cxpy». (1911) (i, 25)

29 Also, the persona's silence is often linked to her deteriorating physical health. In 'la napisala

slova', for example, it is the act of self-expression itself that is to blame for the persona's

weakened physical state. Writing or speaking requires tremendous physical effort:

^ Hanncajia cjioBa,

4 to AOJiro cKaaaxL ne cMejia. Tyno 60 JIHT ro jio B a , CxpaHHO HCMeex xejio. (1910) (i, 33)

Finally, rather than emphasise the immortality of her work, in 'Umiraia, tomlius' o bessmert'i',

Akhmatova uses the image of her persona's voice being 'buried':

CMepxHBiH Hac, HaKJiOHacL, nanoHX npoapaynoio cyjieMOH. A JiioniH npmryx, aapoiox Moe xejio h rojiocmoh . (1912) (i, 67)

As noted already, the early persona's silence is ironic considering the fact that

Akhmatova not only became well known very quickly, but also was quite prolific.

Furthermore, Akhmatova's persona ultimately develops into the voice of all Russia. For

example, the inarticulate early persona who confronts her lover is far removed from that of

the persona who ultimately emerges in Akhmatova's civic poetry - the matriarch of

Leningrad and author of the famous war poem - 'Muzhestvo' - who rallies the people to

preserve 'Russian speech' at all costs:^

^ Akhmatova's stature as the 'voice of Russia' prompted the literary critic (and husband of Ol'ga Berggolts) Georgii Makogonenko to ask Akhmatova to appear on a radio show in order to bolster the morale of the people of Leningrad during the early months of World War 11. Though her work had been banned for years, her name still represented, to many

3 0 He CTpamHO non nyjiaMH mcptbbimh Jie^L, He ropLKO ocxaTtca 6ea K p o B a ,- H Mti coxpaHHM Teôa, pyccxaa pe% ,

BeJiHKoe pyccKoe c j io b o .

C b o ô o jü h b im h HHCTbiM Teôa npoHeceM , H BHyxaM «ajiiHM, h o t njiena cnaceM HaBeKHÎ (February 1942) (i, 199)

Also, a poem written in September 1922 anticipates the role which Akhmatova would

ultimately assume as the voice or embodiment of suffering women during the time of Terror

in the Soviet Union:

M - rojioc Bam, xcap Bamero «tixaHM , ^ - oTpaxceHte Bam ero Jimta. HanpacHBix xpBUi nanpacHBi TpenexaHBM, - BeflB Bce paBHO a c BaMH flo Komta. (1922) (i, i70)

Despite these civic works, the theme of the persona's silence continues through much

of Akhmatova's later poetry. Of course, in her later poetry, the persona's silence has a

specific political element; during the height of Stalinism, Akhmatova was forced to be silent

to protect her son and those close to her. But in many poems, her silence is of a more

expressive nature. For example, Mary's silence in Rekviem is a profound statement about

circumstances too tragic for words

Marqajmna ÔHJiacB h pBi^ajia, yneHHK jhoôhmbih xaM eneji, A Ty^a, rj^e Mojma MaxB C T oajia, Tax HHKTO BsrjmnyTB h hc nocMeJi.'^

Russians, the essence of Russian literature and culture. Interestingly, Akhmatova spoke from the point of view of an ordinary citizen and mother rather than as a celebrity poet (see Roberta Reeder, Anna Akhmatova: Poet & Prophet, pp. 257-58).

^ Anna Akhmatova, Sochineniia, ed. G.P. Struve and B A Filippov, 3 vols. I, Munich, 1967, II, Munich, 1968, HI, Paris, 1983,1, p. 368 (further references to Rekviem will be to

31 The silent Mary in Rekviem is a particularly profound image in that Akhmatova's persona's

ability to 'describe' is highlighted in the beginning of the cycle in 'Vmesto predisloviia':

B C Tpam H Lie fo a b i e:acoBmHHBi a npoBejia ceMHaauaTB MecMueB b TiopeMHBix OHcpeji^x B JIeHHHFpaji,e. Kax-To pas k t o - to «onosnaji »MeHa.

Tor^a cToaiuaa sa m h o h xcemunna c rojiyÔBiMH ryôaMH, KOTopaa, KoneHHo,

HEKorqa ne cjiBixajia M oero HMeHH, OHHyjiacB ot CBOÈCTBGHHOFO HaM BC6M OUeneHeHHX H CHpOCHJia MCHH Ha yXO (xaM BCG rOBOpHJIH mGnoTOM):

- A 3T 0 BBI MOXCGTG OHHCaTB? H H CKasajia; - Mory.

T o r g a HTO-TO BpOJ^G yJIBlÔKH CKOJIBSHyJIO n o TOMy, HTO EGKOr^a ÔBIJIOGG JIHItOM. (1,361)

In other later poems, the persona's silence is not so much a dignified gesture as a

reaction to an indifferent (or even tyrannical) hero. This persona who exerts power over the

hero through 'silence' is of an entirely different character to the one described in such poems

as Rekviem. Love for the hero does not inspire her to write lines of poetry or even speak,

as in the following poem, 'Proshchal'naia', written in 1959:

H g CMGSJiaCB H EG EGJia, IfGJIBIH flGEB MOJIEana, A BCGFO c TOÔOÈ XOTGJia C caMoro Eaqana: BGSSabOTEOH EGpBOH CCOpBI, nOJIEOH CBGTJIBIX ÔpGflEGH, H ÔGSMOJIBEOH, EGpCTBOH, CKOpOH TpaEGSBI EOCJIGflEGH. (1959) (I, 238)

this edition and will be given in the text, citing volume and page number only).

32 The theme of silence which runs throughout Akhmatova's poetry is one manifestation of the role of a female persona in a literary culture which deemed female figures objects as opposed to creators. In adopting this theme, Akhmatova maintained the status quo in that her persona continued to exhibit traditional associations of silent, mysterious heroines who inspire others to action.

33 Chapter 3 - Male Speaker/Eternal Masculine/Mother to the Poem

As discussed in the preceding chapters, from the outset of her poetic life Akhmatova was inevitably confronted with a dilemma: how to portray a female persona as a creative figure in a literary culture which demanded she remain a passive object of inspiration? She could not pursue transcendence through romantic love because, in theory, she represented the figure who serves as the vehicle for transcendence. In the terminology of Joseph

Campbell, while the male hero experienced the 'call to adventure', Akhmatova's female persona could only serve as 'guide', representing the 'totality of what can be known'. ^

Rather than radically alter the Symbolist paradigm of femininity and inspiration,

Akhmatova adapted to it. This chapter will consider three such adaptations, mainly from her earlier works. First, in a small number of poems, Akhmatova adopts a male persona, although the fact that she did not use this approach more often suggests that she did not consider this to be a viable long-term option. Further, the few poems in which she does use a male speaker are not as radical as might be supposed in that each poem still features a female character easily identifiable as Akhmatova's typical female persona, cold and indifferent to her male pursuer.

Secondly, Akhmatova occasionally develops her male hero into what might be described as a kind of'eternal masculine' figure, uplifting her persona's romantic longings to a quasi-religious experience. Again, however, Akhmatova only used this strategy in a few instances and, in most cases, she emphasises that love of the hero only results in silence and

^ Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 16.

34 death.

Thirdly, although it was an image readily available to her, Akhmatova avoided experimenting with the image of poet as 'mother' to the poem. At the same time, Akhmatova portrays her persona as a bad mother to an individual child, perhaps due to her own personal, complicated experience of motherhood.

Male Persona

As noted earlier. Symbolism developed imagery which was manifestly incompatible with the image of the female poet - particularly in terms of the concept of the eternal feminine. One obvious way in which Akhmatova might have combatted this would be to

adopt a male persona. This was, for example, a strategy adopted by Zinaida Gippius. Yet

despite the fact that Akhmatova was not necessarily obliged to adopt a feminine persona and use feminine images, a feminine persona is a dominant feature of her verse. Akhmatova

primarily wrote as a woman in the first person and identified with female figures from history

and literature (though, interestingly, not with women poets on the whole); her poetry, by her

own making, was overwhelmingly feminine. As Vasilii Gippius stressed,

Tojioc, saneBmHH b c t h x h x A. AxMaTOBoè, Btmaex c b o k ) xencKyio ffymy.

SflecL Bce xeHCKoe: sopKOCTL raaaa, JiioôoBHaa naMaxL o m h jilix Berqax, rpaim a - xoHKaa H qyxB KanpHanaa.^

^ Vasilii Gippius, 'Anna Akhmatova «V ech er»', in Desiatye gody, p. 80, p. 80.

35 In her Introduction to 'Bol'shaia ispoved", Akhmatova writes:

nOSBOJIBTe CKptlTB MEG BCG: MOH HOJI H B03paCT, II,BGT K05KH, BGpy, flBHCG «GHL pOHCAGHBH H B000n%G BCG TO, HTO MOHCHO CKptlTB. A CKptlTB HGJIB3H - OTCyTCTBHG TaJiaHTE H KOG-HTO G m e, OCTaJILHOG HC Ckplibbhtg na 3«opoB L G . ( u n d a t e d ) (i, 377)

This proclamation is interesting in that Akhmatova consistently blurs the distinction between her poetic persona and her own self. Akhmatova played on her literary celebrity and, in many poems, she deliberately evokes details from her personal appearance and life which the reader is likely to recognise.

Only in a scattering of poems does Akhmatova attempt to 'conceal her sex' by adopting a male persona and, in any case, these poems still feature a female character who is easily identified as Akhmatova's typical female persona. Still, in adopting a male speaker,

Akhmatova circumnavigated the 'problem of perspective' mentioned earlier. Adopting a male persona was an obvious way of enabling Akhmatova to retain the paradigm of male poet and female object of inspiration.

One poem in which Akhmatova adopts a male persona is directly linked to a proponent of Symbolism - Innokentii Annenskii. As its title suggests, in 'Podrazhanie IF.

Annenskomu' , Akhmatova intended to 'imitate' the male poet. In it, her male speaker

stresses his beloved's indifference to him:

H C T0 6 0 H, MOGH HGPBOH HpHHyj^OH,

M npocTHJicH. B o c t o k rojiyÔGJi. IIpocTO MOJiBHJia: « M HG aaôy^y». R EG cpaay eobgphji tg 6 g.

36 B 03HHKaH)T, CTHpaiOTCH JIHDja,

M h ji cerojüHa, a saBTpa gajicK.

O'm ero 3Ke na 3 To h cTpaH H n;e ^ Kor^a-To aarnyji yrojioK?

H Bcerfla OTKpLiBaeTca KHHra B TOM x e MecTe. H cxpaHHo Torqa: Bce KaK ôy^TO c npomajitHoro MHra He npomJiH HeB03BpaTH0 rofla.

O, CKa3aBniHH, qxc cepgi^e H3 KaMaa, Snaji HaBepHo: oho h3 othh... HHKorfla He noÉM y, xti 6jiH3Ka MHe

H jih xojilk o JiioÔHJia M e n a . ( 1 9 1 0 ) (i, 46)

Annenskii adopted a relatively flexible approach to Symbolist ideas - especially in terms of

the eternal feminine. With this in mind, Akhmatova may have felt more at liberty to depict

a flawed romance in the poem imitating his style. This is supported, for example, by

Catriona Kelly's assertion that Akhmatova intended the poem to be read, not so much as a

direct imitation of Annenskii, but as a kind of manifesto as to how Annenskii should be read.^

In a later poem dedicated to Georgii Ivanov - 'Bisernym pocherkom pishete, Lise,'

- Akhmatova portrays the romantic relationship in far more idealised terms:

^ There are two strains of thought regarding 'Podrazhanie I.F. Annenskomu'. On the one hand, Catriona Kelly maintains that the poem, '...distinguishes itself most precisely from Annenskii's poetic practice'. She argues that the poem represents Akhmatova's statement towards Symbolism generally (Catriona Kelly, 'The Impossibility of Imitation: Anna Akhmatova and Innokentii Annenskii', p. 243). On the other hand, Sonia Ketchian considers that the poem, '...selects as building blocks, that is as material, compatible themes, motifs and imagery from Annenskii's poems to craft a new pseudo-Annenskian edifice hardly distinguishable from his own' (Sonia Ketchian, The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest of Time and Space, Munich, 1986, p. 122).

37 BHcepHBiM noqepKOM nHmeTe, Lise, y ace He noflpyre, ne CTapoô TeTxe. FojiyÔH BSJiexejiH na xapHHS, Jlyn aanrpaji na ôajiKOHHoè pemeTxe.

Bame oxomxo o h h t l nan^iy Ilo^li BeHOHXOM, WIHHHOH CXpeJIOH npOH3eHHBIM. Kax x o p o m o b o c e n n e M caay! Kax x o p o m o ô lix l cobcom BJHoôJienntiM!

^ e jix o e cojiHHie CBexjio ÔJiecxHX,

v^Cejixoe HJiaxte b o x n e so jio x h x c h ... 3 Ham - ona HHXorga He npocxHX, Ecjih ocMejHoct H eè hoxjiohhxlch. (1913) (i,309)

Although Ivanov was not, himself, a Symbolist, the poem dedicated to him follows the

Symbolist paradigm of female object of inspiration - complete with doves and garlands. The female character assumes the qualities of the sun and the male speaker contemplates bowing before her, though he adds (perhaps ironically) that if he does, she will never forgive him.

The poem dedicated to Ivanov offers a straightforward means of adopting the paradigm of male artist/female object; it simply adopts the structure and plugs in a male speaker. Yet the other poems in which Akhmatova adopts a male speaker more closely resemble the poem dedicated to Annenskii in that they stress the beloved's indifference to the male speaker. In the following poem, for example, the male speaker is not inspired or overwhelmed by his beloved. Rather, his meeting with her confirms the end of the relationship:

Ha cxojiHxe nan, neneHHH cfloÔHLie, B cepeôpHHOH BasoHxe ^ïpaiKe. noAOÔpajia HOXH, cejia yjüoÔHee, PaBHOflymHO CHpocHJia: « Y x e ? » npoxHHyjia pyxy. Moh ryÔLi aoxponyjiHCB Jfo xoJiOAHtix xjiaflXHX xojieu.

38 o ôyflymeè BCTpe^e mli ne ycjiobhjihcl. M 3Haji, yTo 3T0 KOHGi;. (November 1910)(i,306)

Similarly, the speaker in the poem 'Shelestit o proshlom staryi dub' has been silent for years

and his fingers chill and tremble at the memory of her hands:

niejiecTHT o npomJioM CTaptiè «y6, JlyHHLiH Jiyn JieHHBo npoTM syjica. ^ TBOHX ÔJiarocjTOBeHHBix ry6 H nxorga mchtok) ne KOCHyjica.

EjieflHBiH Jio6 aa^poH jihjioboh cxcax, T li CO MHOH). Tnxaa, bojitnaa. najiLHLi xoJioAGH)T H flpoxcax, ToHKOCXt pyx XBOHX npHHOMHHaa.

^ MOJiHaji xax MHoro xhxkhx Jiex. XltiXKa BCXpeH eniie neoxBpaxHMa. Kax aaBHo a snaK) xboh oxbcx: ü amÔJiK) H ne ôtiaa aroÔHMa. (February 1911) (1, 344)

Akhmatova did not explore the option of adopting an androgynous persona. This

approach was, for example, readily adopted by Marina Tsvetaeva, allowing her to overcome

the more confining stereotypes a female persona might otherwise evoke.T he fact that

Akhmatova did not attempt this approach is in keeping with her overall tendency to adhere

to tradition as opposed to radically revising the image of a Russian heroine; while

Akhmatova's early heroine is in keeping with the reading public's expectations, her later

heroine is imbued with archetypal 'female' authority. By contrast, as Anya Kroth notes, for

Tsvetaeva to have chosen a male or female persona, 'would have meant acceptance of the

^ On this subject see, for example, Antonia Filonov Gove, 'The Feminine Stereotype and Beyond: Role Conflict and Resolution in the Poetics of Marina Tsvetaeva', S/avic Review, 36, 1977, pp. 231-55.

39 division and duality of sex and would have been inconsistent with the poet's world view'.^

Thus, to a limited extent, Akhmatova experimented with adopting a male speaker in

her early period. Although she eventually abandoned this approach entirely, the fact that she

applied it at all suggests an awareness that adopting a female persona presented certain

limitations in the prevalent literary culture.

The Eternal Masculine

Another strategy which Akhmatova might have employed to counter the limitations

of adopting a female persona would have been simply to reverse the scheme and depict a

kind of 'eternal masculine'. V.N. Nedobrovo, for example, attempted to reconcile

Akhmatova’s unhappy heroine with the concept of the 'eternal feminine' in this way:

AnojiJioHOBO TOMJicHHe no nanenaTnennio b ne^pax j i h h h o c t h cjiHBaeTca c xcencTBenHbiM TOMJienneM no BennoMy JKencTBennoMy - n b Jiynax Bejinxon jnoÔBH aBJincTcn nejioBex b nooann AxMaxoBon. Myxon x œ b o h ro^mn njiaxHT ona ero B03BejiHnenne.^

It is questionable as to whether or not Akhmatova ever explicitly adopted this

strategy. With the exception of U samogo moria (discussed in detail below), at most this

approach might be indirectly traced in a limited number of poems from her early period in

the sense of a male hero who inspires the persona to write. In 'Ne budem pit' iz odnogo

^ Anya M. Kroth, 'Androgyny as an Exemplary Feature of Marina Tsvetaeva's Dichotomous Poetic Vision', Slavic Review, 38, 1979, pp. 563-82, p. 582.

^ V.N. Nedobrovo, 'Anna Akhmatova', p. 230.

40 stakana', for example, the hero's voice 'sings' in her poetry and vice versa:

He ôyflCM HHTL H3 oflHoro cTaKana Hh BOW m li, hh cjiaflKoe bhho. He nonejiyeMCH m li yxpoM pane, A BBenepy ne norjiajüHM b okho. Tli winmniL cojiHi^eM, a ^Liiny Jiysoio, Ho XHBLI MLI JII0 6 0 BHIO O^HOH).

Co MHOH Bcer^a moh BepHLiH, nexHLiH flpyr, C T0 6 0 H TBOH Becejiaa no^pyra. Ho MHe HOHHTeH cepLix rjiaa H cn y r, H TLI BHHOBHHK M o e r o H e w r a . KopoTKHX MLI He yHaHtaeM Bcxpen. Tax H a m h o k o h naM cyx(;;eHO 6epe% .

JlnmL rojioc tboh noex b mohx cxHxax, B XBOHX cxHxax Moe wixaHLe Beex. O, ecxL Kocxep, Koxoporo He CMeex KocHyxLCH HH saÔBeHHe hh exp ax, H ecJiH 6 3Haji xli, xax cennac MHe jiioôli Tboh cyxne, poaoBLie ryÔLi! (1913) (i, 56)

Also, in 'Tvoi belyi dom i tikhii sad ostavliu', the hero is no longer the persona's beloved, though their relationship will fuel her poetry in future:

Tboh ôejiLiè ^OMh xhxhh ca^ ocxaBJiio. J],a 6 y^ex xh3hl nycxLiHHa h CBexJia. Teda, x e d a b mohx c x H x a x npocjiaBJiio, Kax HceHiHHHa npocjiaBHXL ne Morjia. H XLI H O A pyry HOM HHmL f lo p o r y io B X0 6 0 K) c o 3ji:aHHOM j^JiH x jia 3 e e p a io , A a xoBapoM pewocxHLiM xopryio - TbOK) JII 0 6 OBL H HeXŒOCXL HpOflaiO. (1913) (I, 77)

Much later, in the second poem of the cycle 'Cinque', both male and female figures assume an aura of other-worldliness; the 'night dialogue' between the persona and hero is

'transformed' into the 'light brilliance of crossed rainbows':

41 HcTJieBaioT sByKH b H sapa npHTBopHJiacL tbmoh. B HaBcerjoia oneMeBmeM MHpe ^Ba JiHmL rojioca; tboh h moh. H n o f l B ex ep c n e a p H M L ix Jla^or,

C k B03L nOHTH KOJIOKOJILHLIH 3B 0H , B JierKHH ÔJiecK nepeK pecxntix paqyr Pa3xoBop HOHHOH HpeBpanijeH. (1945) (i,2i9)

The title of Wendy Rosslyn’s book, The prince, the fool and the nunnery is taken

from one of Akhmatova’s poems in which a Hamlet-hero informs the Ophelia-persona of her

options:

y KJia^ÔHH^a HanpaBO hmjihji nycxw pt, A 3a HHM rojiyôejia pexa. Tbi cKaaaji Mne: « H y hxo 3k, nan b Monacxbipb Hjih aaMyx 3a flypaxa...» HpHEHbi XOJILKO xaKoe Bcexfla roBopax, Ho a 3xy aanoMHHJia peHL, - HycxL cxpyHXCH ona cxo bckob noj;p%; FopHocxaeBOH ManxneH c h j ic h . (1909) (i,2 i)

According to Rosslyn, these options are emblematic of the options available to Akhmatova’s

early poetic persona in general:

The heroine can persist in her search for an ideal relationship of human love, though in the awareness that the ideal has already been refused her: that is to say, she can marry, but her husband must be a fool, and not a prince. Or she can abandon her search and, withdrawing from human intimacy because it is inevitably flawed, seek a relationship with God instead: that is to say, she can get thee to a nunnery.^

Akhmatova’s persona is famous for this tendency to blur the search for a human relationship

with a relationship with God (this will be considered below). In a sense, this blurring could

be described as the foundation of a kind of eternal masculine in that love for a hero is uplifted

^ Wendy Rosslyn, The prince, the fool and the nunnery, p. 31.

42 into religious devotion.

The 'double image of the heroine' is particularly prominent in terms of Akhmatova's collections as a whole, as her persona often changes character from poem to poem.

However, the tendency to mix 'prayer' with 'sin' is evident in many individual poems as well, such as Usamogo moria (1914). This poem comes closest in Akhmatova to the depiction of an 'eternal masculine' in that the idealised hero is explicitly linked with Christ.

The poem begins with the heroine sitting, siren-like, on a rock a mile from land. The siren image is reinforced by a gypsy woman who tells her that she will someday 'lure' the tsarevich, not with her beauty, nor with love, but with her 'one song'. As well as a classical image, the siren is an important feminine image in Russian folklore. A variation on the rusalka, she lures men to their deaths with her song. The image of the persona as a siren foreshadows the events that will take place later in the poem; she will lure the tsarevich to her shores, killing him in the process.

The young persona's limited knowledge of the outside world comes from her friendship with the local fishermen:

R c ptidaKaMH ;apyxc6y BOflHJia. noR onpoKHHyTOH Jio^KOÊ y a CTO Bo BpGMa JIHBHH C HHMH Cim ejia, IIpo Mope cjiymajia, aanoMHHajia, KaxcflOMy cjioBy xaHHo B e p n .

H oqent Ko m h c ptibaxH npHBtiKJiH.

E cjih m c h h na npncTann nexy,

CxapmHH sa m h o io cjiaji ^eBnonxy, H xa Kpnnajia: «H am n BepnyjiHct! Htinne Mti xaMÔajiy xapnxt ôy^eM ». (i, 263)

This scene is far less sexual in tone than an earlier poem on the same subject - 'Rybak':

43 PyKH rojibi Bbime jiokth, A rjiaaa chhch, hcm Jie^. EflKHH, jtymHLiH sanax «erTH, Kax sarap, Teôe EmeT.

H Bcerfla, Bcer^a pacnaxHyx Bopox KypxKH rojiyôoH, H ptiôaHKH XOJILKO axnyx, 3 aKpacHeBmHCL npea xoôoè.

^.aXCG flCBOHKa, HXO XOflHX B ropoxü npofljaBaxt xaM cy, Kax noxepHHHaa ôpo^Hx BenepaMH na MLicy.

ni,exH ÔJiej^HLi, pyxH cjiaÔBi, HcXOMJieHHtlH B30P xjiyôox, Horn 6H mexonyx xpaôti, BbinojiaaH na necox.

Ho onayxce ne jiobhx Hx npoxHHyxoH pyxoH. B c e CHJILHGH ÔHGHLG XpOBH B xejie, panennoM xocxoh. (1911) (1,42-43)

Yet, a menacing kind of sexuality lingers in U samogo moria in the form of the 'clever tramp' from whom the persona buries her 'yellow dress' so he will not steal it while she swims.

The persona possesses a sensitivity to nature: a green fish swims up to her and a gull flies to her. She also has the ability to 'divine water' and is considered to bring good luck by those in her community. In isolation, these abilities may seem arbitrary. However, when considered against a background of the kinds of issues discussed earlier, a common theme emerges: this persona, in many respects, is a traditional Symbolist heroine, an earthly link with realms beyond the comprehension of ordinary men.

However, as might be expected, Akhmatova's persona is far more complicated than

44 the one-dimensional figure of a Symbolist heroine. For one thing, she is ambitious in that she dreams of becoming tsaritsa. She even rejects the love of a grey-eyed boy because he cannot help her achieve this aim:

... « H to 5Ke - Oh oTBGTHjr, - Torflia mhc fliejiaTL, Ecjih t b k a b Teda BJiioÔHJica». H MHe cTajio oÔEmno: «F jiyntm !- ^ cnpocHJia. - H to t m - napcBHH?» 3 to ÔLIJI ceporjiasBiH MajiLHHK, Ha nojirofla Mena MOJioxe. «M xoay na xede xenHXtca, - Oh CKaaaji, - CKopo cxany BspocjiBiM H Hoeny c xo6 oh na ceaep...» Sanjiaxaji b b ic o k h h MajiLHHK, Oxxoro Hxo a He xoxejia Hh po3, HH exaxL na ceaep.

Hjioxo a ero yxemaaa: «H ow M aÈ , a 6y«y napHuen, Ha Hxo MHe xaxoro M yxa?» « H y , xorna a cxany MonaxoM, - Oh cKasaji, - y aac a Xepconece». « H e x , He nano Jiyame: MonaxH Xojilko aejiaiox, axo yMHpaiox. Kax HpHAcma - ogHoro xoponax, A flpyrne, snaemB, He njiaayx». (i, 263-64)

The persona is not content simply to inspire others to action; she wishes to alter events, to have an impact upon the course of history. This is, in part, compounded by her knowledge that her country is at war:

M codnpajia (hpaHuyscKHe nyjiH , Kax codnpaiox rpHÔai h aepHHxy, H npHHOCHJia jïomoh a noqojie OcxojixH pacaaaie 6om6 xaxejitix. (i, 262 )

As she tells her sister:

45 «K o rg aa CTany n,apHii;eH, BticTpoK) mecTB 6poHeHocn;eB H m e c T B KaHOHepcKHX jiosok, Htoôbi ô y x T L i MOH o x p a n a j iH caMoro 0H O JienTa». (i, 262)

The persona's prayer in autumn anticipates the kind of ruler she intends to become:

« B o x e , MLI Myspo uapcTBOBaTL ôy^eM,

C t p o h t l nafli MopeM ôojiLmne uepxBH H MaHKH BLICOKHG CTpOHTL. ByacM ôepGML MLI Bojay h aeM Jiio,

M li H H K oro o Ô H x a x L n e C T a n e M .» (i, 265)

At the same time, the persona's prayers are also inclined to revolve around much more personal concerns:

A BGHGpoM nepeji; KpoBaxLio MoJIHJiaCL TGMHOH HKOHKC, H to6 r p a fl He hoôhji n e p e m e n , H to6 KpynnaH pLiba jiOBHJiacL H HTOÔLI XHTPLIH ÔpORHra He saM eTHJi x e n T o r o njiaxLH . (i, 262-63)

In typical Akhmatova fashion, the persona's more civic ambitions are inextricably linked to her own private world.

The poem ends at Easter with the persona at the edge of the sea, anticipating the tsarevich's arrival. She sings her song, only to see an old man in the distance carrying the dying tsarevich. She recites a prayer she has known since childhood, but the tsarevich dies calling out to her.

One of the most interesting features of this poem is its unusual choice of settings.

Given the cast of characters, the more obvious story would be that of the tsarevich. An

Odysseus figure, the poem would recount the trials and tribulations he endures in order to

46 return to the youthful heroine. Instead, Akhmatova chose the sheltered, almost exclusively female world of the persona and her sister, Lena. In this respect, Akhmatova's side of the story is that which is traditionally overlooked or misrepresented (an approach which will be considered in Chapter 6 on Akhmatova's doubles).

As we shall see in Chapter 6, Lena is associated with the Mother of God. The shroud she embroiders features a scene from the Crucifixion and foreshadows the death of the tsarevich. Lena weeps for the tsarevich and, like Mary in Rekviem, falls silent upon news of his death. Lena is the Christian counterpart to Akhmatova's pagan persona. Further, as

Wendy Rosslyn observes, the dates of the tsarevich's movements suggest a parallel with

Christ;

Like Jesus going to Jerusalem, Palm Sunday finds the tsarevich already on his journey. And before Easter Day both are dead. The death of each is followed by a miracle, and the shroud of Christ which Lena is making stands as an omen of the death of the tsarevich. Both Jesus and the tsarevich are bridegrooms.*

Thus, the association of the tsarevich with Christ effectively uplifts the persona's romantic yearnings to a religious awakening. The tsarevich represents a kind of'divine masculine' for whom the persona may devote her 'singular song'. The profane nature of this song is suggested by the persona's question to Lena about its source:

«JIcHOHKa, - a cecTpe cxaaajia, - M yxo3cy cen^ac na 6eper. Ecjih itapeBEM aa mhoh npne^^cT, Tbi oôlhchh eMy %opory. IlyC T B OH MGHH B CTCHH HarOHHT: XoHexcH Ha Mope MHe cero^HH».

« T ^ e a c e t l i HeceHxy ycntixajia, Ty, HTO i^apeBHHa npHMaHHT? -

Wendy Rosslyn, The prince, the fool and the nunnery, p. 114.

47 Fjiaaa npHOTKpbiB cecTpa cnpocHJia, - B r o p o ^ e t l i co bc c m He ÔLiBaeinL, A 3u;ecL noK )T ne xaxne necnn». K caMOMy yxy ee ckjiohhbihhcl, ^ npomeHTajia; «SnaeniL , Jlena, Be#L a caMa npimyMajia necnio, JlyHme K O TO poË H ex n a C B e x e » .

H He HOBepHJia MHe h flo jir o , jQ,ojiro c ynpexoM ona MOJinajia. (i, 266-67)

The two sisters also represent the extremes of Akhmatova's varied youth. On the

one hand, Akhmatova characterises her time spent as a young girl in Khersones as follows:

B^3LiHecKoe j^excxBO. B OKpecxHocxax 3 x o h AaHH...a noJiyaHJia npo3BHiu;e «gHKaa fleBOHKa», HoxoMy axo xo^HJia ô o c h k o m , dpo^HJia 6e3 mJiauLi h x.xi;., ôpocajiacL c Jio^pcH B oxKpLixoe Mope, KynajiacL b o BpeMa mxopMa, h aaropajia xoro, h x o cxo#H%a Koxca, h bccm 3xhm moKHpoBajia HpoBHHunajiLHLix ceBacxonojiLCKHx ôapLimeHL.^

This contrasted with her life in Tsarskoe Selo:

B U,apcKOM Cejie ona «ejiajia Bce, h x o nojiarajiocL b x o BpeMH ÔJiaroBOCHHxaHHOÈ ôapLHHHe. YMejia cjioxhxl ho (J)opMe pyxH, cgejiaxL peBepanc, ynxHBO h KopoxKo oxBexHXL Ho-(hpaHny3CKH Ha Bonpoc cxapon ^aMLi, roBejia na CxpacxHOH b FHMHaaHHeCKOH UepKBH.

The two sisters embody the famous characterisation of the persona as 'half-harlot, half-nun'.

At the same time, however, they represent a split in Akhmatova's approach, not only to the

role of her poetic persona, but also to her own role as a female poet. On the one hand, she

could assume a more active, ambitious role, using her song to lure the tsarevich. On the

other hand, she could emulate Mary and assume a more passive and humble role of weeping

for the fallen. At least when writing U samogo moria, Akhmatova seems to have advocated

^ Anna Akhmatova, 'Dikaia devochka', Sochineniia, II, pp. 243-46, p. 243.

Anna Akhmatova, 'Dikaia devochka', p. 244.

48 the latter in the poem's ambiguous ending:

B cyMcpKH a flOMoè Bepnyjiact. B KOMHaTC TeMHOH 6tIJI0 THXO,

H Ha« jiaMnaflKOH CToaji b m c o k h h ,

Y s k h h MajiHHOBLiH oroHeaeK. « H e npHXOtüHJi sa t o ô o h uapearra, - Jlena cxasajia, marn ycjitimaB,- R npoxmajia ero tto Benepnn H noctijiajia tteren na npncTant». « O n nHKortta ne nprmex sa Mnoio, On nHKorfla ne Bepnexca, Jlena. Yinep cerottna m o h n ;a p e B H n » . flojiro H nacTO cecxpa KpecxnaacL; Boa noBepnyBmncB k c x e n e , M O Jinajia. ^ floraaaaact, nxo Jlena naanex.

Catimaaa a - na;; n,apeBnaeM nean: «X pncxoc BOCKpece ns MepxBLix», ■ H necKasanntiM CBexoM cnaaa Kpyraaa n^pKOBt. (i. 268)

A remarkably similar poem - 'Ty pover', ne zmeinoe ostroe zhalo' - also deals with the persona's powerlessness to cast spells that will make the tsarevich dream of her at night:

Tbi noBept, ne sMennoe ocxpoe acaao, A xocKa MOK) BBinnaa KpoBt. B ôeaoM noae a x h x o k ) tteByrnxon cxaaa, nxHHBHM roaocoM Kanny aïoôoBb.

H %aBno Mne saxpbixa aopora nnaa, Mon napeBHn b bbicokom KpeMae. OÔMany an ero, odmany an? - He snaio! ToabKO aoxbK) aoHBy na seMae.

He saôbixb, xax npnmea on co Mnoio npocxnxbca. M ne naaxaaa: sxo cy«b6a. Bopoacy, nxo6 n#peBnny nonbio npncnnxbca, Ho deccnabna Moa Bopoacda.

Oxxoro ab ero con desMaxeacen n Mnpen, Hxo a sflecb y saxpbixbix Bopox,

49

fiNDOii Hjib yxe cBeTJiooKaa, neamaa Chphh Haa i^apeBHHeM necHio noex? (undated, though included in Vecher) (i, 37)

In this poem, the image of the Siren is made explicit. Again, the theme of the persona's

silence appears - in the 'white field' the persona becomes a 'quiet' girl. Self-expression

becomes possible when linked with nature in that she cries out for love with the 'voice of a

little bird'.

As noted above, the two sisters represent what Boris Eikhenbaum first described as

the 'double image of the heroine' as 'half "harlot" burning with passion, half-"nun" able to

pray to God for his forgiveness'.“ One interesting issue in connection with this

characterisation is whether either role complements the persona as a poet figure. There are

many examples of the persona assuming both roles - as a so-called 'harlot', using her song

to attract the hero, and as a 'nun', devoting her gifts to a quiet spiritual existence. In some

poems, Akhmatova’s persona is preoccupied with passion or the 'torment' of romantic love.

In 'Pokomo mne voobrazhen'e', for example, the persona remembers the hero 'bitterly':

Bons Anna Akhmatova: Opyt analiza, Paris, 1980, p. 7. One of Akhmatova’s biographers, Roberta Reeder, however, questions this characterisation:

Surely Eikhenbaum should have understood the difference between the normal passion of a woman who felt life deeply, and the decadent eroticism more typical of the Symbolists, such as Gippius. As the artist Yury Annenkov says of this characterisation of Akhmatova’s poems, "Erotic motives - 1 have never felt them in the poetry of Akhmatova. Love - yes. About love she has written a lot. But Pushkin also wrote a lot about love. " (Roberta Reeder, Anna Akhmatova-. Poet & Prophet, p. 169)

For example, in the poem 'Gost" the male figure asks the persona: «PaccKaxH, KaK xe6a i^ejiyioT, PaccKaxcn, xax r^ejiyemt t l i . » (1 January 1914) ( 1, 74-75 )

50 IIOKOPHO MHe BOOÔpaHCCHLe B H soôpaxente ceptix mas. B MOGM TBCPCKOM yeflHHeHbc H rOpLKO BCnOMHHaH) Bac.

npCKpaCHblX pyK CHaCTJIHBtiè HJICHHHK Ha JiGBOM ôepery Hcbm,

M o h snaMGHHTbiH coBpeMennHK, CjiyHHJIOCB, KaK XOTGJIH Bbl,

Bbi, npHKasaBHiHH Mne: %oBonbHo, H ojïH , yôeè cbok) jiioôobl! H BOT H xaio, H ÔeSBOJIBHa, H o BCe CHJILHCH CKyHaCT KpOBL.

H e cjiH H yMpy, t o k t o x c e

M o h c t h x h n a n H m e T b b m ,

K to CTaTb SBeHHiujiMH h o m o x c t E niie ne cKaaannbiM cjiobbm ? ( 1 9 1 3 ) (i, 54)

This is one of the few poems in which the persona explictly mentions writing poems to the hero. Her will to live is driven by the fear that there will be no one to take her place. Also, in 'Ty pis'mo moe, milyi, ne komkai', the persona asks the hero to read her letter to the end:

TbI HHCbMO MOe, MHJIblH, HG KOMKBH. )fo KOHHa ero, flpyr, npoHTH. HaaOGJIO MHG ÔbITb HCanaKOMKOH, BbiTb n y x c o H n a tbogm n y x H .

H e rJIHJïH TBK, HG XMypbCH THGBHO. M JHOÔHMBH, H TBOH.

He n a c T y m K a , e g K o p o jic B a H yxcG EG MOEamcEKa a -

B 3T0M CepOM, ÔyjïEHEEOM EJiaTbG, Ha CTOETaEEbix KaôJiyKax... Ho, KBK EpGXQÏG, XOyEG OÔbETbG,

T o t HCG c r p a x b orpoMEbix m aaax.

51 T li hhclmo Moe, mhjilih , He komkbh.

He H JiaH L o sa B e x H O H j i h œ , T li ero b TBoeô ôe^noè KOTOMKe Ha caM oe hho nojio3KH. (1912) (i, 67-68)

Though designation of the persona of these last two poems as a 'harlot' may be extreme, they certainly differ in tone from what might be characterised as Akhmatova's 'nun' poems in which her persona aspires to a peaceful, spiritual life, if only through her death. In a very early poem (1909), 'Molius' okonnomu luchu', for example, her washstand is transformed into a 'golden celebration' by a sunbeam:

M ojiiocl OKOHHOMy Jiyny - O h 6jie)%GH, tohok, h ph m . Cero^^HH H c yrpa Mojmy, A cepHHie - HOHOJiaM. H a pyKOMOHHHKG MOGM H03GJIGHGJia MGflL. Ho Tax zrpaGT Jiyu na hgm, H tO BGCGJIO rJIH^GTL. TaKOH HGBHHHLIH H HpOCTOH B BGHGPHGH THmHHG, Ho B 3T0H XpaMHHG HyCTOH Oh cjiobho npasHHHK sojiotoh H yXGmGHLG MHG. (1909) (1,20)

Again, Akhmatova emphasises that the persona has been 'silent' since morning. It is a force from nature - in this case, a sunbeam (perhaps suggestive of the Light of God) - that transforms her environment, not the persona's own words. Also, in 'la nauchilas' prosto, mudro zhit", the persona deals with her 'useless anxiety' by living 'simply and wisely':

R HayHHJiacL np ocxo, My)otpo xch xl, Cmoxpgxl Ha hg6 o h mojihxlch dory, H AOJiro HGpe# bghgpom dpo^azxL, H xo6 yxoMHXL HGHyzcnyio xpcBory.

52 Korfla mypmaT b oBpare jionyxH H HHKHCT rp03fll> pHÔHHtI iKeJITO-KpaCHOH, Cjiaraio a Becejitie cthxh O HŒ3HH TJICHHOH, TJICHHOH H HpGKpaCHOH.

M B03Bpani;aK)CB. JIh x c t mhc Jia^oHL IlyniHCTLIH KOT, MypJIBIKaeX yMHJItHCH, H apKHH 3aropaeTca otohl H a ôamcHKe oaepnoH JieconHJiLHH.

JlHmt H3peflKa npopeatiBaex xhuib K pHK ancxa, cjiexeBmero na KpLimy. H eCJIH B fliBCpt MOH) Xbl HOCXyHHIHB, Mne KaacexcH, a ^axe ne ycjiLimy. (1912) (i, 61 -62 )

Akhmatova may be suggesting, however, that such a lifestyle is not conducive to generating interesting poetry as she composes 'happy poems about mortal life...'.

In still other poems, the two dynamics merge; Akhmatova blends the sacred and profane to dramatic effect, as illustrated in 'Ispoved":

YmGJIK npOCXHBmHH MHG rpGXH. JIhjigbbih cyMpaK racHX cbghh, H XGMHaa GHHXpaXHJIb HaxpbiJia XGJiGBy h hjighh .

H g xgx jih xgjigc: «JI^GBa! Bcxanb...» yjtapbi CGp%na aame, name. H p HKGCHGBGHHG CKBG3B XKaHt PyKH, paccGauHG KpGCxamen. (1911)(i,68)

Although some early poems bear traces of what can be described as a kind of eternal masculine, on its own this approach was insufficient to overcome the barriers which

Symbolism and Acmeism presented in terms of portraying a female figure as a creative poet and Akhmatova largely abandoned this approach later in life. Perhaps one explanation for this is that, whatever role the male hero assumes, Akhmatova's female persona continues to evoke assocations with inspiration as opposed to creativity. As she says in one poem:

53 CKasaji, HTO y Mena conepHHU, Hex. M JCJM Hero He acennijiHa seMHaa. (i, i38)

Mother to the Poem

The Acmeists were particularly prone to adopting the cliche of 'giving birth to

poetry'/^ In 'Zhizn' stikha', for example, Gumilev describes the creation of individual poems

as follows:

IIpOHCXOHmeHHe OXaCJILHBIX CTHXOTBOpeHHH TaHHCTBCHHO CXOXCe C

HpoHcxo^KjreHHCM xoHBbix opraHHSMOB. ^yM a Hoaxa HOJiynaex tojihok H3

BHenm ero MHpa, HHor^a b HesaÔBmaeMO-HpKHÊ MHr, HHor^a cMyxHo, xax saqaxLe

BO cHe, H flojiro npHxoflHXCH BMHamHBaxfc aapofltim dyaymiero XBopeHHH,

HpHCJiymHBaacL k poôkhm a bh x c h h h m em:e HeoKpenm en hoboh x œ 3h h . B c e

#eÈcxByex na xofl ee paaBHxaa - h kocoh Jiyq Jiynti, h BHeaanno ycjitim aHHaa

Mejiofl;HH, H npoHHxaHHaa KHHxa, h aanax UBexxa. B ce onpeflejiaex ee dyflym yio

cyAfcôy. UpeBHHe yBaxcaJiH MOJinan^ero noaxa, xax yaaxcaiox xennuiH y,

roxoBHHiyiocH cxaxb M axepbio.

H a K o n ei^ , b M y x a x , cxojkhx c MyxaMH «exopoxcfleHHH (06 sxom r o B o p n x h XypreneB), noHBJinexcH cxEXOXBopenne. Bjiaro eMy, ecjiH b M OM enx e r o HOHBJieHHH H03X He ÔBIJI yBJieHeH KaKHMH-HHÔy^L nOCXOpOHHHMH HCKyCCXBy cooôpaxeHHHMH, ecJiH KpoxKHH, KBK rojiyÔL, OH cxpeMHJicH Hepe^îaxb yxce BLiHomeHHoe, roxoBoe h, Myjo^pbm x a x 3 M eè, c x a p a jic x aaKJHOHHXb B ce a x o b H aH Ô ojiee co B ep m eH H y io 4>opMy.^'*

Gumilev does not dwell on the moment of conception - the 'shock from the external world' -

but rather, on the poet nurturing the foetal poem, responsible for its early development.

Catriona Kelly identifies the minor prose writer, N.N. Verevkin, as making, '...the first attempt to invoke scientific or pseudo-scientific material in order to link women's psychology with their physiology' (Catriona Kelly,A History o f Russian Women’s Writing, p. 42).

Nikolai Gumilev, 'Zhizn' stikha', p. 160.

54 Interestingly, he notes that it is the 'silent' poet whom the ancients respected.

Gumilev’s feminine image of the act of poetic creation has to do with the poem’s

mysterious early development which the poet cannot control or comprehend. For the poet

to tamper with this critical maternal phase is to commit the Symbolist error of attempting to

know the unknowable.

Osip Mandel'shtam also uses reproduction as a metaphor for memory and the

composition of poetry. In one passage, he describes memory as a process similar to

biological growth:

Bce MBi, caMH o tom ne no^tospcBaa, MBJiacMca HocHxejmMH rpoMa^nHoro 3M6pHOJiorEraecKoro oin>rra: BettL npouecc npHnoMHHaHM, yBemiaHHbm nobe^on ycHJina naMam, yttHBErrejibHO cxox c (henoMenoM pocxa. H agecb h xaM - pocxoK, sa^axoK, - Hepxo^Ka Jimta huh nojiyxapaKxepa, nojiysByK, OKOHHaHHe hmchh, hxo- xo rybnoe hjih Hebnoe, cjiajrKaa ropomnna na natiKe, - pasBHBaexcH ne h3 ceba, HO JiHiiib oxBCHaex na npHrjiamem>e, Jimiih BLixaimaexca naBcxpeay, onpaBtttiBaa ojKEmanne.^^

This image of the poet as mother-in-waiting is, at least, a positive image of a woman as a

poet. However, Akhmatova does not exploit this image, though in one poem she

mysteriously remarks:

M cxHxaM He Maxepbio - M a n e x o H b b u ia . (i, 237).

In 'Poslednee stikhotvorenie' (the sixth poem contained in the cycle 'Tainy remesla'),

Akhmatova falls short of explicitly portraying her persona as a mother-in-waiting, though

Osip Mandel'shtam, Puteshestvie v Armeniiu, Sobranie sochinenii, II, pp. 137-76, p. 155.

55 she does emphasise the unique physical qualities of each of the poems that manifests itself to her, or the circumstances of the poems' genesis:

O ^H O , CJIOBHO KCM-TO BCTpGBOHCeHHLIH rpOM, C fltlXaHHCM XŒ 3HH BptlBaCTCH B flOM, CMecTCH, y ropjia TpenemeT, H KpyxŒTCH, H pyKOHJiemeT.

J fp y r o e , b h o jih o h h o h po a h c l T H m n n e, H e 3naH) OTxyqa Kpa^GTca ko mhc,

Ü3 3epKaJia c m o t p h t n y c T o r o H HTO-TO ÔOPMOHGT CypOBO.

H ecTL H TaKHG: cpe%B ô e j io r o a h h , KaK 6 y#T 0 hohth hto ne Brms Mena, CxpyHTCH no ôejioè ôyMare, K aK HHCTBIH HCTOHHHK B O B pare.

A BOT eme: rannoe ôpojnHX BOKpyr - H e 3ByK H ne uBex, ne DiBex h He 3b y k ,- FpanHxcH, Mennexc^, Btexcn, A B pyKH 3KHBLIM HG flaeXCK.

H o 3 X 0Î..H 0 KanejiBKG b l ih h jio k p o b b , KaK B lOHOcxH 3Jiaa aeBHOHKa - jhoôobb,

H , MHG HG CKaaaBmH h h cjio B a ,

B g3M0JIBHGM CflGJiaJIOCL CHOBa.

H a HG 3HaBajia xcgcxohg deflti.

Ymjio, H ero npoxanyjiHCb cjigsbi K KaKOMy-xo KpaèneMy Kpaio, A H 6g3 Hero . yMHpaio. (1936-60) (i, 192-93)

In the second stanza, for example, the persona specifies that the poem is 'bom in midnight silence', while others are bom during the day. In the fourth stanza, the poem slips through her hands alive and, in the final stanza, the personified poem, after drinking her blood 'drop by drop', falls silent and abandons her, leaving footprints to the 'very edge of the edge'.

Whereas the persona is not depicted as 'mother' to the poem, she is sometimes

56 portrayed as as mother to a child or even a matriarchal figure for all of Russia. Marina

Tsvetaeva alludes to this in her portrayal of Akhmatova and her son Lev in the following poem;

Hm5I peôeHKa - Jlea, MaTepH - Anna. B HM6 HH e r o - PHGB, B MaTepHHCKOM - THmt. BoJIOCOM oh PBI3K: - FojioBa TiojiLnana! - H t o 2k , o c a n n a MajicHLKOMy napio.^^

The theme of Mary as one of Akhmatova's most important 'doubles' will be considered in

Chapter 6. For now, it is interesting to note that Akhmatova's persona is more successful as a universal mother than as mother to her own child. Just as she chastises her persona for her failings in romantic relationships, Akhmatova's persona blames herself for her failings to embody the high maternal ideals to which she aspires, as in the following poem:

« F fle , BLicoKaH, t b o h n;LiraneHOK,

T o t , h to ujiaKaji nofl HepntiM h jib t k o m , r^G TBOH MaJIGHLKHH HGpBBIH pGÔGHOK,

H to t l i sH aom L , h to noMnnmL o h g m ?»

«R ojih m e t g p h - CBGTJiaa h l it k h , H JÏOCTOHHa GG HG ÔLIJia. B ÔGJiLiH pan pacTBOpHJiacL KajiHTxa, M a rg a jiH H a CLiHOHKa BSHJia.

KangoiLiH «g hl m o h - bgcgjilih , x o p o m n n , 3 a 6 jiy«HJiacL h b hjihhhoh bgchg,

T oJILKO pyKH TOCKyiOT HO HOmG,

T o jilko HJian gfo cjiL im y bo ch g .

Marina Tsvetaeva, Sochineniia, ed. Anna Saakiants, 3 vols, Moscow, 1990, pp. 286- 87.

57 C T a n e x cepji.D.e xpeBOMCHBiM h t o m h l i m , H He noMHK) Tor^iia HHHcro,

Bce 6 poxy a no KOMnaxaM x c m h l i m , Bce nm y KOJiBiôcjiBKy e r o » . 1914 ( ) (i, io3)

In 'Mne ne nado schast'ia malogo', the persona prays to the Mother of God to be a good mother;

M ne ne nano cnacxBa M ajioro, Mynca k mhjioh npoBoncy H noBOJiLHoro, ycxajioro, CnaxL pedcHKa yjioxy.

C n o B a M ne b npoxjiannon ropnnne Boroponnny mojihxl. .. Tpynno, xpynno acnxL 3axBopnnn;eè, Jfa xpynnen b cccjioh d t i x t .

Tojilko 6 con npncnnjica njiaMcnnLin, KaK Bonny b naropnLin xpaM, IlaxnrjiaBLin, dcjiLin, KaMcnnLin, Ho sanoMnennLiM xponaM. ( 1914) (i, 121)

Wendy Rosslyn notes of this poem:

...the heroine is willing to sacrifice family happiness, doubtless all the more so because it is of little value to her: family life depresses her, imprisoning her spirit. Her willingness to give it up does not represent a step on her religious path, for she does not move along that path, she only dreams of doing so. Religion is for her a way of escaping from life's difficulties, rather than a means of dealing with them.^^

The poem is, perhaps, more ambiguous than this quote suggests. In any case, however, the persona is not portrayed as a bad mother as her child is 'content'.

The persona's guilt over her abilities as mother are almost certainly rooted in the complex relationship Akhmatova had with her own son. Lev Gumilev. It is commonly held

Wendy Rosslyn, The prince, the fool and the nunnery, p. 144.

58 that Akhmatova 'gave up' her son to be raised in Bezhetsk by his paternal grandmother when she and Gumilev broke up. Though the background to this decision is unclear, the usual explanation is that Akhmatova found life as a mother incompatible with life as a poet. In her memoir, one of Akhmatova's childhood friends, Valeiiia Sreznevskaia, describes Akhmatova as an 'imperious mother'. According to Sreznevskaia:

PoxmeHHe ctma g^ c h l CB5i3ajio Anny AxMaTOBy. Ona nepBoe b p c m h caM a

KopMHJia cbina h npoqno oôocHOBajiacb b IfapcKOM .

He ttyMaio, 4T0 Tortta BottHJiHCb qyttaKH-OTUbi, xaTaiontHe KOJiacoHKy c cbmoM, - ttJiM 3Toro 6bum onbiTHbie mmn. H Kojia 6bui xax Bce OTitbi, naBentaji CBoero

cbffla BcaKHH pas, Kor^a 3T0 6buio b 03M 03KH0, h KoneqHo, 6bui ne xyxe, ecjm ne

jiy^m e MHornx oôpasDiOBbix g t u g b . PasBe Bce 3TH h h t h ne MGiyT nasbiBaTbca

JÜGÔGBblG? P gJIH GTU.GB H MaTCpCH TaK paSJIHHHbl, GCGÔCHHG B UepBblG TG^bl

peôeHKa. HGHeMHGry h A hh GCBGÔGXjoiajiacb g t p g jih M aT ep n b t g m HGHHManHH,

KGTGpGe CGupHJKeHG C yxG^GM H saÔGTBMH G peôeHKe: TaM ôbiJiH ôaôym xah h h h h .

H Gua BGmjia b GÔbiHHyio HŒSHb jiHTepaxypHGH ÔGreMbi.^*

Pavel Luknitskii, however, rejects the notion that Akhmatova was relieved to give up her son. In his diary of his encounters with Akhmatova, he writes that she was coerced by Gumilev's mother and aunt into giving up her son:

Kortta JleBa pojtHJica, ôaôym xa h t c t k b saôpajiH ero k c e ô e na t g m GCHGBauHH, HTG «T b i, AncHKa, MGJiGttaa, KpacHBaa, xytia Teôe peôenK a?» AA CHJiHJiacb

npGTeCTGBaTb, h g 3TG ÔbUIG ÔeCHGJieSHblM, HGTGMy HTG HHKGJiaÔ CTCHaHGBHH ÔbIJI

Ha CTGpGHe ôaôyiH KH h C b c p h k g b g h . H g t g m bsh jih k c e ô e b BeixeitK - GTGÔpajiH p eô eH K a . A.A. cuejiajia Bce, h t g ô h 3 tg fg n e cjiyHHJiGCb...^^

Amanda Haight also gives a brief synopsis of this event in Akhmatova's life:

Her marriage to Gumilyov was no cure for loneliness. Akhmatova seemed, until much later in life, incapable of the simple acts of love which make it possible to live with another person. She and Gumilyov, who was in many ways like her, did not

Valeriia Sreznevskaia, 'Dafnis i Khloia', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 15-25, p. 23.

P.N. Luknitskii, 'Iz dnevnikov', in Oh Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 128-69, p. 136.

59 know why they were living in the same house, or what to do with their child. Recognizing this inadequacy, Akhmatova left her child to be brought up by her husband's mother, who had little afifection for her daughter-in-law; thus in effect she 'lost' her son.^®

Akhmatova's relationship with her son later in life was, evidently, complicated. At sixteen,

Lev Gumilev eventually came to live with Akhmatova when she was living with Nikolai

Punin at Fontannyi Dom. He attended school through the help of Punin's brother and went

on to study History at Leningrad University. He was arrested twice - once on 1 December

1934 on the day of Kirov's assasination (he was released almost immediately) and again on

10 March 1937, the same year in which Osip Mandel'shtam was arrested for the last time.

Lev Gumilev was imprisoned in Leningrad for seventeen months. His death sentence was

eventually commuted to exüe, and he spent seven years in the same prison camp where Punin

died. He was arrested again on 6 November 1949, an event which Akhmatova blamed on

her famous meeting with Isaiah Berlin in 1945 and the fact of his parents' fame generally.

Her cycle of poems 'Slava mini' in which she praises Stalin were offerings to save her son's

life, representing, according to Amanda Haight,

...a sacrifice she had not been allowed to make before, when as a young woman she had tried to give up being a poet for the sake of a more 'normal' existence as a woman. In doing this now she proved that she had come the whole way, not only as a poet but as a woman. It is a measure of a person's greatness if having sacrificed all to be true to one thing, he can give that up if it should be necessary. Akhmatova could write praise of Stalin and it became not a sad thing - proof of a proud poet brought finally to heel - but a joke on the very times themselves when a handful of bad poems by someone who had written the poems of Requiem' could actually result in saving someone's life. But that it was a sacrifice there is no doubt and for

20 Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, pp. 28-29.

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage,^. 159.

60 Akhmatova the cycle did not exist as poetry.

The loss of a child is a recurring theme in Akhmatova's poetry. In her earlier poetry, however, the circumstances behind the loss of the persona's child vary. For example, in some poems, the persona does not abandon her child, but loses him through neglect or through the interference of others. In the poem cited above, 'Gde, vysokaia, tvoi tsyganenok', the persona admits that she is not worthy of the 'bright torture' of motherhood. The heavens intervene, the gates of white paradise open, and Magdalene takes away her son. Amanda

Haight notes that the fact that the persona 'is willing to include her child in the sacrificial offering underlines once more her failure as amother'.But the poem emphasises that the child is 'taken' rather than sacrificed. Rather than question the justice of her loss, the persona seems resigned to the explanation that she is not 'worthy' of a mother's fate.

This poem contrasts the persona and Magdalene as guardians for the child. The casting of Mary Magdalene as intercessor may suggest the persona's failure as a mother is related to her own love life. Images of lightness and darkness emphasise the contrast between the two women; whereas Magdalene resides in 'white paradise', the persona wanders through 'dark rooms'. Although the persona describes motherhood as 'bright torture', she carries her crying child under a 'black' shawl. The setting of the poem during a 'long springtime' evokes, on the one hand, an atmosphere of light and fertility; on the other

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 159.

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 49.

61 hand, Spring often signifies Akhmatova's fear of tuberculosis.^'^

In 'Budu tikho na pogoste', the persona describes the scene when her child visits her

grave:

Byfly THXO na norocxe Ilo fl flOCKOH flyÔOBOH cuaTL, Byflemt, mhjimh, k Maivte b rocTH B BOCKpeceni.e npHÔeraxL - Hepea penxy h no ropxe, Tax flx o BspocjiLiM He flornaxL, Haflaflexa, MajiLHHx aopxnn,

ByflemL x p e c x m o h yanaBaxL. S n a io , MHJILIH, M o x e m L M ajio 06o MHe npHHOMHEaxL: He ôpaH H Jia, ne jia c x a jia . He BOflHJia HpHflamaxL. (1915) (i, lo?)

Though her 'sharp-sighted' son will recognize his mother's cross, he will not remember much

about the mother herself The persona confesses to her son of all the duties she did not do

in her lifetime, maintaining the theme of the persona as a bad mother. In this poem,

however, she specifies that her child will run up to her grave so that 'the adults will not catch

up', perhaps suggesting that others have previously interfered and prevented him from

visiting or being alone with his mother.

In contrast, in 'Zabolet' by kak sleduet, v zhguchem bredu', the child is led to the

persona by someone only identified as 'ty'. Here, as in the previous poem, the persona

describes a future event:

See Sonia Ketchian, The Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest o f Time and Space, p . 11. Akhmatova's two sisters died of tuberculosis (see Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 6).

62 3a6ojieTL 6hi Kax cjieayex, b acryqeM 6pe«y IIoBCTpeqaTBca co bccmh oim tl, B nojiHOM BCTpa h cojiHD;a npHMopcKOM ca^y IIo mHpoKHM ajiJicHM ryjiHTL.

^aacG McpTBBie Hbinqe comacHLi h ph h th , H HarnaHHHKH b flOMC mocm. Tti peôcHxa sa pynxy ko mhc npHBcpiH, Tax #aBHo a cxynaio o hcm.

Byay c MHJiLiMH ecTL rojiyôoH BHHorpa^, Byw nHTB JiejüHHoe bhho H rjM fleTB, xax CTpyHTca ce^toè BO#ona% Ha xpeMHHCToe BJiaxHoe #no. (1922) (i, i45)

Again, the child seems to be in the care of others. Though the persona has 'longed' for him, only now, in a delirious vision, is she reunited with her child. It is unclear whether the child is alive or, like the others, dead or exiled.

In these poems, the persona's role as a mother is passive. In 'Gde, vysokaia, tvoi tsyganenok', Mary Magdalene intervenes and 'takes' her child away. In the other poems, the child is in the care of others. The persona admits to being a failure as a mother, though she describes this failure as if she, herself, is not directly responsible. In 'Gde, vysokaia, tvoi tsyganenok', she vaguely remarks that she is not worthy of the 'bright torture' of a mother's fate. In 'Budu tikho na pogoste', she seems confident that the child is too young to resent her for all the things she did not do for him. In all three poems, the persona accepts that others are her child's proper guardians.

In Molitva', the persona is willing to sacrifice her son (and lover and poetic gift) for the sake of Russia:

63 JI,aè MHe ropbKHc roflbi ne^yra, 3aflbixanbH, ôeccoHHHny, xap, OxbiMH H peôeHKa, h flpyra, H TaHHCTBeHHbiô HeceHHbiH flap - T aK MOJHOcb 3a T B o e è JiH TyprneH IloCJie CTOJIbKHX TOMHXeJIbHblX flH eô, Hxoôbi xyna nafl xeMHOô PoccHeè Cxafla oÔJiaKOM b cjiaBe JiyHeô. (1915) (i, 102)

Like Abraham who was willing to sacrifice his son as a gesture of faith, Akhmatova's persona declares her willingness to sacrifice on behalf of Russia.

In 'Zemnoi otradoi serdtsa ne tomi', the persona apparently speaks to a man:

3eMH0H oxpaflOH cepflfla ne xomh.

H e npHcxpan^aHCfl h h k x e n e , h h k flOMy, y CBoero peôeHKa xjieô BosbMH, Hxoôbi oxflaxb ero qyxoM y.

H ôyflb cflyroH CMHpeHHenmHM xoro, KXO ÔbIJI XBOHM KpoMemHbiM cyHocxaxoM, H HasoBH JiecHoro 3Bepa ôpaxoM, H He HpocH y ôora nnnero. (1 9 2 1 ) (i, i38)

Part of the Christian ethic she espouses is to deny not only herself, but her own child as an act of charity.

Although Akhmatova never explicitly adopted the image of 'giving birth to poetry', this image could nonetheless be regarded as the basis for more subtle and sophisticated themes. For example, the image complements her association with the Mother of God. For now, however, it is interesting to note that although Akhmatova was reluctant to portray her persona as a competent mother, she boldly linked her persona with Mary - most notably in

Rekviem. This 'double' suited her as a poet in that the ultimate extension of the image of

'mother to the poem' is the poet as vessel for the Word of God.

As a side note, in a few poems, Akhmatova evokes associations with the pagan

64 precursor of the Mother of God - the cult of Mother Earth{mat' syra zemlia ). In this

tradition, as Joanna Hubbs explains,

...all things are borne by the earth and derive from her fertility. The soil is the great baba...the giant Matrioshka who enfolds the historical Mother Russia. The soil is sacred; the peasants implore "Moist Mother Earth" for aid in their lives.

Traces of such pagan associations can be found in several of Akhmatova's poems, though

primarily in her later works. In one of her later poems, for example, she evokes a kind of

primitive fertility rite, pressing her body onto the earth and drawing from it a 'mysterious

strength':

B o t ona, njioAOHOcnaa occHb! IIosflHGBaTO ee npHBenn. A naTHa^naTL ÔJiaaceHHeômHX Becen R nojuHMTbca n e CMejia c aeMJiH. R Tax 6 jih3KO ee paarjia^ejia, K H e è npnnajia, e e obsajia, A ona B obpeaeHHoe Teao CHJiy TaHHyio Tanno anaa. (1962) ( 1, 22?)

Thus, Akhmatova only adopted a male speaker in a limited number of poems. She

rarely depicted what might be described as a kind of'eternal masculine'. She also rejected

the positive image of the persona as 'mother' to the poem as well as emphasised her persona's

failings as mother to an individual child. The following chapter will, however, discuss some

of the more subtle associations with women and creativity which Akhmatova did exploit.

Joanna Hubbs, Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture, Bloomington, Indiana, 1988, p. xiv.

65 Chapter 4 Detached Persona/Sensitive PersonaAVomen’s Language

Akhmatova adopted the approaches discussed in Chapter 3 to a limited extent only and, primarily, during her early period. Two more widely used approaches will be considered in this chapter - the image of the persona as detached and as sensitive to the forces of nature. These more common devices reflect what might be termed the tradition of'women's language' which will be discussed at the end of the chapter.

The Detached Persona

In addition to the approaches discussed in Chapter 3, Akhmatova developed her authority as a woman poet by portraying her persona in a detached fashion. This approach creates the impression that she writes from an objective point of view as well as allowing her to retain the sense that her persona is, essentially, passive; it is not she who speaks, writes or generally acts as a poet - it is someone else who instigates these actions. The persona is merely a vehicle for an action ultimately implemented by someone else - whether a controlling lover or a mysterious voice in the trees. This image, as will be discussed in

Chapters 5 and 6, is the precursor to such themes as the persona's actual transformation into a statue and her complex use of doubles.

For example, in the second poem of'Severnye elegii', the persona describes her early childhood as follows;

66 H HHKaKoro posoBoro flexcTBa... BecHymeqeK, h MHmeK, h nrpym eK, H flo ô p tix T6TB, H CTpamHLIX H ^aXCG IIpnaTGJiGÈ cpG#B KaMemKOB peqHLix. Ceôe caMOH a c caM oro naaajia To HtHM-TO CHOM KasaJiaCL HJIH ÔpeflOM, H jib OTpaxeHLeM b aepxajie ayxcoM, BeS HMGHH, ÔeS nJIOTH, ôe3 npHHHHtl. Yxce a snaaa cnHCOK npecTynaeHHH, KoTopLie flOJiHŒa a coBepmHTt. H BOT a, jiyHaxHaecKH cxynaa, BcxynHJia b x œ 3hb h Hcnyraaa x œ 3h l : Ona nepe^o mhok) cxaaaacB JiyroM, r ^ e HeKoxfla ryjiajia IIpoaepnHHa. Ilepeflo MHOH, ôeapojïHOH, neyM eaoi, OxKpBiJiHCB HeoxŒaaHHBie %BepH, H BBIXOAHHH aiOflH H KpHHaHH: «O na npnmaa, ona npnmaac a M a !» A a na h hx xjiaflejia c HayMJienBeM H flyMajia: «O hh c yMa cohuih!» H aeM cHaBHeH ohh Mena XBaanan, H gm mhoh cnaB nee aiogH BocxHHi;aJiHCB, T gm MHG cxpamHGG ôbiho b MHpe xœ xb, H XGM CHaBHGH xoxGaocB Hpoôyj^HXBca, H 3HaJia a, axo aanjiaay cxophhgh B xiopBMG, B M ornae, b cyMacmeameM som g, BG3JÜG, xflG npocBinaxBca HawiexŒX XaKHM, KaK a , - HO w inaacB HBixKa caacxBGM. (4 July 1 9 5 5 ) ( 1, 254)

It is not as if the persona believes the praise from others is undeserved - it merely bewilders her as she enters life like a 'sleepwalker' with no control over the 'list of crimes' she is to commit. People respond to her as if she is a holy figure. Rather than feel inspired by such adoration, however, she is frightened and knows she will ultimately pay for it in prison, the grave or the madhouse. Thus, the persona disassociates herself from her accomplishments.

She is a passive 'sleepwalker', condemned by the praise of others.

In other poems, a mysterious 'voice' serves the function of narrator, describing the

67 flawed persona from an outside perspective. Akhmatova uses this technique in some of her most famous poems, such as 'Pesnia poslednei vstrechi' in which the 'whisper of autumn in the maple trees' pleads with the persona, 'Die with me';

Tax ôecnoMoruHo rpy%B xojioAeJia, Ho marn moh ôlijih JierxH. M na npaByio pyxy naflejia Hepnarxy c jicboh pyxH.

HoxasajiocB, hto mhofo cxyneneH, A a snajia - h x to jilx o x p n ! Meagiy xjichob menox ocennHH HonpocHJi: « C omhok ) yMpn!

R oÔManyx Moeè yntuioé nepeMCHHHBOH, 3JI0H Cy^lLÔOH». H. oxBexHJia: «M hjim h, mhjibih! Haxo5xe. YMpy c xoôoh...»

3x0 necHa nocjie^neH Bcxpean. ^ Bsrjianyjia na xeMHHH «om. Tojilxo b cnajiBHe ropejiH cbchh PaBHOAymno-acejiXMM orneM. (1911) (i, 28)

This poem is also interesting in terms of the concept of an 'eternal masculine' discussed earlier. Akhmatova contrasts two types of hero: one earthly one who, presumably, is within the 'dark house' burning candles in the bedroom with an 'indifferent yellow light', and another, mysterious one - the 'whisper of the autumn in the maples' whom the persona calls

'darling'. The persona appears to leave the former, indifferent lover, in order to die with a kind heavenly one. Though she responds to the whisper in the maples, neither bridegroom, however, seems to inspire the persona to speak; she is so flustered, she is unable to put on her gloves. The persona's death is the inevitable conclusion.

Another famous early poem - 'Seroglazyi korol" - ends with the 'whisper' of the

68 poplars:

CjiaBa Teôe, ôesticxoflHaHôojib ! yM ep B^epa ceporjiaatm KopojiL.

Beqep oceHHHè ômi jiymenh aji, My^c MOH, BepHyBmHCL, cnoKOÔHO cKaaaji:

«SnaeniB, c oxotbi ero npHnecjiH, Tejio y cxaporo ffyôa nanuiH.

)KajiB KopojieBy. Taxon MOJioAon! 3 a HOHt o^Hy ona cxajia ceflcè».

Tpyôxy CBOK) na KaMHne nameji H na paôoxy HOHHyio ymeji.

J3,0HKy MOK) H ceèHac pasôyncy, B cepLie FJia3KH ee norjiaxcy.

A 3a OKHOM mejiecxHX xonojia: « H e x Ha acMJie XBoero KopoJiH...» (1910)(i,42)

Whether or not the husband appreciates that he has been cuckolded is unclear. Still, the poem presents two versions of bridegroom - the husband and a king who is no longer of the earth. In terms of language, the husband dominates in that he is the one who announces that the king is dead; in terms of power, the persona with her grey-eyed child triumphs. But the line which confirms her relationship with the king is the 'whisper of the poplars'.

Another example of this mysterious voice is found in 'Lotova zhena' in which the voice of 'alarm' convinces Lot's wife to look back. This poem will be considered in more detail in Chapter 6 on Akhmatova's 'doubles'. For now. Lot's wife is split between her

'righteous' husband and the mysterious voice of'alarm.' She chooses the latter with famous consequences. This poem is unusual in that the female character is distinct from Akhmatova, though, as the later chapter will discuss, Akhmatova empathises with her to the point of

69 assimilation.

In 'Tri raza pytat' prikhodila', the voice assumes a harsh, judgemental tone:

Tpn paaa nLiTaxt npuxoflHJia. M c KpHKOM TOCKH npocbinajiacB H BEmejia TOHKHe pyKH H TCMHblH naCMemJIHBLIH pOT. « T b i c K6M n a sape uejioBajiacb,

KjiHJiacb, HTO norHÔHemb b p a sjiy K e, H xcrynyio paj;ocTb xaHJia, P b ia a a y n e p H b ix B o p o x ? Koro xb i na CMcpxb npOBOflHJia, Tox CKopo, o, CKopo yM pex».

BbiJi rojioc KaK k p h k HCxpeÔHHbiô,

Ho cxpaHHO na h c h - x o h o x o h œ h . Bce xejio Moe Harnôajiocb, HoHyBcxBOBaB CMepxnyH) flpoxb, H njioxnaa cexb nayxHHbi Ynajia, OKyxajia jio x e ... O, Xbi ne nanpacno cMeajiacb, Mon nenpomennan Jioncb! (1911) (i, 38-39)

The tone suggests that the voice may emanate from the persona's own conscience.

However, Akhmatova could easily have conveyed the persona's feelings of guilt without this external device; the main impression which the detached voice contributes to the poem that a simple first-person narration could not is a sense of detachment from the persona.

In 'Golos pamiati' (dedicated to Ol'ga Sudeikina), as the title suggests, the mysterious

'voice' is that of'memory':

Hxo xbi BBWHmb, xycKJio na cxeny cMoxpn, B nac, Koraa na ne6e noaannn sapa?

Hanxy jih na cnnen CKaxepxn BOflbi

H jih 4)JiopenxHHCKHe ca^bi?

Hjih napK orpoMnbiH IfapcKoro Cejia, F^e xe6e xpcBora nyxb nepecexjia?

70 H jib Toro tbi BimHmB y cbohx kojich , K to jiJis. ôejioè CMepTH tboh noKHHyji njien?

H ot, h BHHcy CTeny tojibko - h na H eè O tcbctbi neôecHBix racnymnx orneH. (1913) (i,6i)^

The notion that the substance of the poem is derived from elsewhere is also related

to the theme of the persona’s communication with the dead (a theme particularly important

in such major works asPoema bez geroia). In this context, the ‘voice’ is actually someone

from Akhmatova’s past, such as Gumilev. But more often, the voice of the poem is neutral;

it simply manifests itself to the persona and demands that she translate it into words.

In other poems, Akhmatova manages to suggest a sense of detachment without an

external voice or hero to comment on her appearance or behaviour. Sam Driver remarks on

this displacement of the persona:

...it is the stance or point of view of the persona - somehow apart from herself, observing herself - which is most unusual. The peculiar stance permits an emotional distance, a degree of restraint and a certain objectivity in the expression of intense lyrical emotion.^

In 'Na shee melkikh chetok riad,' for example, the persona considers her own image in a

mirror (one of its earlier titles was 'V zerkale'^) :

^ The reference to the one who 'broke her spells' for 'white death' is an allusion to Vsevolod Kniazev, who killed himself out of unrequited love for Ol'ga Sudeikina. Akhmatova, herself, may have been in love with him at one point. (Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 27)

^ Sam Driver, 'Anna Akhmatova: Early Love Poems',Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1971, l,pp. 297-325, p. 303.

^ Anna Akhmatova, Sochineniia, I, p. 405.

71 Ha mee MejiKHX qexoK pafl, B mHpoKOH My^)TG pyKH npaqy, Fjiaaa pacceaHHO rji^flax H ôojiLme HHKorfl,a He njianyx.

H KaxexcH jihho ÔJiejojHeô Ox JiHJioBeion];ero mejiKa, HoHXH HOXOflHX HO ÔpOBGÈ Moh neaaBHxaa nejiKa.

H HenoxoHca na nojiex HoxoHKa MeHJiennaa 3xa, Kax ôyHxo non HoraMH hjigx, A He KBaHpaxHKH napxexa.

A ôjieHHLiH pox cjierxa paaxax, HepoBHO xpyHHoe Htixante, H Ha FpyHH M o e ô Hpoxax n,BexH HeôbiBmero CBHHaHLH. (1913) (i, 134)

In this poem, the persona tells the story of the meeting which did not happen by considering the minute details of her appearance: the 'pale face' against 'lavender silk' and the 'pale mouth slightly open'. At the same time, her reference to the 'straight fringe' adds to the sense that this is Akhmatova, herself, speaking directly to the reader as opposed to speaking through the medium of a distinct persona.

Another evocative example of this tendency is found in 'Tikho I'etsia tikhii Don' in

Rekviem in which the 'yellow moon' which lights the scene provides an almost cinematic quality:

ThXO JILeXCH XHXHH JI,OH, ^eJIXBIH MeCHir BXOHHX B HOM.

Bxohhx b manxe naôexpeHL. Bhhht xejixbiH MecHir xem>.

3xa ixeHHTHHa dojiLHa, 3xa HcenmpHa onna.

72 MyjK B MorHJie, cbih b T io p tM e, IIOMOJIHTeCL 060 MHe. (1,363)

This tendency is also found in the third poem in Rekviem :

H eT , 3 TO He H, 3 TO KTO-TO flpyroH cxpaflaeT. M 6 bi TaK EG Morjia, a to , e tc cjiynHJioci., IlycTB nepHBie cyKna noKpoioT, H nycTB ynecyx (J)onapH... HOEb. (I, 364 )

In the ninth poem, the persona 'overhears' herself:

H noHHJia a, nxo eMy ^oJDKHa a ycxynnxb noôejiy, IIpHCJiymHBaacb k CBoeMy Y x e KaK 6 bi nyxoMy 6 pe«y. (367)

The common tendency in all of the above poems is a reluctance to describe events through straightforward first-person narration. Like those poems in which Akhmatova adopts a male speaker, these perspectives allow her to consider her persona from outside, creating an atmosphere of objective detachment. This approach allowed Akhmatova to retain the sense of her persona as objective. In this way, she neither controls her actions, nor takes responsibility for them. She also emphasizes the sense that the persona is a detached, objective observer.

The Sensitive Persona

Rather than display characteristics akin to the Symbolists' eternal feminine or the

Acmeists' poet as 'craftsman', Akhmatova emphasises the sense of her persona as intuitive

73 and responsive to the forces of nature. Rather than being inspired by nature, she is sensitive to it or, as with the birds in 'Bessmertnik sukh i rozov' (1916) (I, 97-98), 'converses' with it. Rather than act as 'craftsman' of the poem, she is the medium through which the chaotic poem finds form.

The image of the sensitive, receptive persona is particularly pronounced in

'Tvorchestvo' in which the poem manifests itself to the persona progressively from 'sound' to 'lines':

BbiBacT TaK: Kaxa^-TO HcxoMa; B ymax ne yMOJiKaex 6 oh nacoB; Bflajm pacxax cxHxaioiiiiero rpoMa. HeyanaHHLix h njieHHBix roJiocoB M ne Hy^axcH h xajiob ti h cxohm, Cyjxaexca xaxoè-xo xaÈHtm xpyr. H o B 3XOÔ ôesflHe m enoxoB h sbghob Bcxaex o^hh, Bce nobeflHBmHH 3Byx. Tax Bxpyr Hero HenonpaBHMO x h x o , Hxo cjitimHO, x a x b Jiecy pacxex xpaBa, K a x no acMJie rmex c xoxomxoh jihxo... H o BOX y x e nocJitimajincL cjioBa H JierxHx p n d )M cnrnajiLHLie sBOHonxn,- T o r jta a nannnaio noHHMaxb, H npocxo npoAHXxoBaHHLie cxponxn J Io a ca x cM b ÔGJiocnexcnyio xexpaqb. ( 193 6-60) (i, i90)

The persona is extraordinarily perceptive, but, in the process of actual writing, she is merely a scribe as opposed to an active forger of words.

Similarly, in other poems such as 'Iva', Akhmatova draws on the traditional notion of feminine receptivity:

A a pocjia b yaopnon xnmnne, B npoxjiaflHOH flcxcxon Mojiofloro Bcxa. H EG ÔLIJI MHJI MEG XOJIOC EGJIOBGXa, A rojioc BGxpa 6tui nonaxGE meg.

74 M JionyxH JiioÔHJia h KpanHBy, Ho ôojiLme Bcex cepeôpanyio HBy. H, Gnaroaapnaa, ona XHJia C o MHOH BCK) XŒ 3HL n Jiaxyq H M H BeTBHMH BeccoHHHny oBCHBajia cnaMH. H - CTpaHHo! - a ee nepexŒ iaa. TaM ncHB TopHHT, ayacHMH roaocaM H

^ p y r n e h b b i ^ t o - t o r o B o p a T

Hofl HamHMH, nog t c m h H eô eca M H . H a MOJiay . KaK ôy%TO yMep ôpaT. (1940) (i, i83)

This poem (written in 1940) not only evokes Akhmatova's childhood in Tsarskoe Selo, but

also her bond with Pushkin/ For example, the epigraph to the poem - 'H «paxatiH nyx

flepcB' - is taken from Pushkin. Also, such imagery resembles that of a poem written in 1911

and included in Akhmatova's first collection - Vecher.

CMyrjiBiH OTpoK ôpoflHJino a ju ie a M , y oaepHBix rpycTHJi ôeperoB, H CTOJICTHC MBI JiejICCM Ejie cjiBimHBiH mejiecT maroB.

H fjibi cocen rycTo n kojiko YcTHJiaiOT HH3KHe nHH... 3 a6 cb jiexajia ero xpeyrojiKa H pacTpenanHBiH tom Hapnn. (1911) (i, 24)

The type of tree is different - a willow in the former and a pine in the latter. However, the

image of a particular tree as a direct link to Pushkin remains. Again, Akhmatova emphasises

receptivity rather than craftsmanship: the persona is receptive to the 'conversations' of the

other willows in the former poem and is able to discern the 'barely audible footsteps' in the

latter. When the willow dies and becomes a mere stump in 'Iva' the persona becomes silent -

For a general discussion on this subject, see David Wells, Akhmatova and Pushkin: The Pushkin Contexts o f Akhmatova's Poetry, Birmingham, 1994.

75 as if a brother has died, while the 'other willows' speak to each other.

As one of the specific places in which the persona is able to discern such mysterious sounds is Tsarskoe Selo, it is interesting to consider 'Gorodu Pushkina' in this context:

O, r o p e M He! O hh x e 6 a c o h c fjih ...

O, B c x p e n a , h x o pasjiyxH xaacejiee!.. SflecB btiJi ( f io n x a n , BLicoKHe ajuien, TpoMafla napxa «peBHero BflajiH, 3apa ÔLiJia ceôa caMoô ajiee,

B anpejie aanax npejiH h aeM JiH, H nepBLiH H dtejiyè... (1957) ( i,236)

The persona mourns the loss of place as if mourning for a loved one. There is no sense of

'conversing' with her surroundings as these have been destroyed. However, the title and epigraph 'I tsarskosel'skie khranitel'nie seni. . .' again emphasise the link with Pushkin.

In the second poem of the cycle, it is poetry and the persona, herself, who preserve the 'living outlines of her gardens' at Tsarskoe Selo:

3 x 0 0 HBLI JIHCXBI B aGBHXHagl^aXOM BGKG yBHJIH,

H x OÔBI B CXPOHKG CXHXa CGpGÔpHXBCa CBGXCGG CXOKpaX. OfliHHajiBiG P03LI nypnypHLiM mnnoBHHKOM cxajiH, A JIHI^GHCKHG FHMHH BCG XBK 5KG 3a3;(paBH0 3ByHaX.

nojicxojiGxta npomjio...III,Gji;po B3BicKana jü h b h o h cyflBÔoio, ^ B ÔGCnaMHXCXBG %HGH BaÔBIBaJia XGHGHBG FO^OB,-

H xyaa EG BGpnycBl Ho b o 3 b m y h 3 a JiGxy c coôoio OHGpxaHBjl 3ŒBBIG MOHX DiapCKOCGJIBCKHX CaflOB. (1957) (I, 237)

Though not the main theme of the poem, the persona will take with her something fully formed rather than create something new. Also, the first lines emphasise that the willow leaves wither in order that they may be one hundred times more 'freshly silvered' in poetry.

Nature retains control of its own transformation into poetry.

The personification of nature has a Christian element to it. For example, in the

76 second poem o f Verenitsa chetverostishii', Akhmatova writes:

B Ka^cgoM %pGBG pacnaTLiH rocno#B, B Ka^mOM KOJIOCG TGJIO XpHCTOBO, H MOJIHTBLI npG^HCTOG CJIOBO HcniGJMGT ôojiHmero njioxL. (1946) (i,2 ii)

The personification of nature also has links with Pushkin who developed the tradition of the poet as 'listener' in Russian literature. However, the fact that the sensitive, listening poet is an image derived from other traditions does not undermine its particular and additional significance for Akhmatova as a woman poet; Akhmatova borrowed heavily firom such traditions precisely because they complemented her status as a woman poet.

Akhmatova appropriated the image of woman as passive vehicle for inspiration and transposed it onto the image of the woman poet as receptor. She retained the Symbolist sense of the female persona as passive and, often, inarticulate. However, she also borrowed fi’om traditions such as the poet as 'listener' to render her persona as a kind of human conduit for the divine or forces of nature. As she writes in 'V lesu':

J l e x y B TpaBG a, rycTOH h B J ia x H o ô , BeccBasHo bbohkh moh cjiOBa. (1911) (i, so?)

The overall impression she creates is that the persona is in direct contact with a primal source of nature. Rather than mediate between a romantic figure on earth (as, for example, in Blok's Stikhi o prekrasnoi dame), she is the direct recipient of divine inspiration.

77 Women's Language

Akhmatova's detached, sensitive persona enhances the sense that her authority is

derived from 'elsewhere'. She writes, not only with the confidence of someone who has

endured the trials she describes, but also as someone responsive to realms beyond the

comprehension of ordinary people. Such 'female sensitivity' not only distinguishes her from

her male contemporaries and precursors, but bolsters her authority as a poet.

Further, Akhmatova's treatment of the theme of passivity can be extreme; sometimes

she depicts the personified poem as consuming her, forcing her to transmit its message. For

example, this tendency is particularly prominent in Akhmatova's prose writings on Poema

hez geroia:

M cpasy ycjiLimajia h yBHjuejia ee bck) - xaxaa ona cefinac (xpoMe bohhli, pasyMGCTca), ho noHaHoÔHJiocb jüBaHHaTB jict, h toôli h3 nepBoro nabpocxa BLIpOCJia BCH n o 3 M a .

Ha MecHDiM, na rojçbi ona saxpbiBajiaci. repMCTHHecKH, a aaÔLiBajia ee, a n e jiioÔHJia ee, a BHyTpenne ôopojiacL c neè.^

Akhmatova also described her struggle with the Poema in verse;

Bce nebo b p l d k h x rojiybax, PemeTKH b OKnax - nyx rapeM a... Kax noHKa, nabyxaeT TeMa. Mne He yexaTL bes xeba - BerjiaHKa, beaceHxa, no3Ma.

A a ^OHHCLiBaio « H e a e x » , Onaxb B HpejnHeceHHOH xocxe.

5 Anna Akhmatova, 'Proza o poeme',Sochineniia, II, pp. 221-31, p. 222.

78 jn,o cepeflHHLi MHe BHflna Moh n o 3 M a . B neè npoxjia«HO, KaK B flOMC, rfle «ym ncTLià MpaK

H OKHa aanepTti o t 3 h o h ,

H rfle noxa h t o h o t r e p o h , Ho KpOBJIK) KPOBLK) 3aJIHJI MHR.(1943) (1,205-06)

Again, Akhmatova was not the only poet - male or female - to describe the origins

of a new poem as deriving from an external source. For example, Nadezhda Mandel'shtam

describes the 'musical phrase' which struck both her husband and Akhmatova:

Ctbdoh naHHHaioTCH xax - 06 3T o m c c t l y m h o f h x h o 3 t o b , h b « H o3Me 6 e3 repoH

» , H y O.M.: B ymax 3ByHHX naaoHJiHBan, cnanajia HeochopMJiennaH, a h o t o m TOHHan, HO erne ôeccjioBecHaH MyaLixajitnaH (hpaaa. Mne ne pa3 npuxoaHJioci, BHflexB, xax O.M. HLixajicH HaôaBHXLCH ox Horyj^xH, cxpHxnyxt ee, yHXH...OH

Moxaji roJiOBOH, c jio b h o ee m o h c h o btuio BtmjiecHyxt, xax xanjiio BO^ti,

HonaBmyio b yxo b o BpeMH xynaHHH. Ho h h h x o ee He aaxjiymajio - h h myM, h h

paflHO, HH paaroBOpLi b x o h x e xoMnaxe.

Anna ArmpeeBHa paccxaabiBaJia, qxo, xor^a npnmjia « H o 3M a», ona roxoBa ÔLUia cwJiaxB qxo yroj^HO, jumit 6 i>i ox nee H3ÔaBHXBCH, ^axe ôpocHJiact cxnpaxL, HO HHqero ne h o m o f j io .

B xaxoH-xo MOMenx qepea MyatixaJiBHyio (hpaay B%pyr nocxynajiH cjioBa, h xor^a

HaqHHajm meBejraxLCH lyÔLi. Beponxno, b paboxe xoMHoanxopa h no3xa ecxt qxo-

xo oÔHïee, H HOHBJieHHe cjiob - xpnxHqecxHH m o m o h x , paaflejiHiomHH 3 x h jübb BH^a coqHHHxejiLcxBa.

HnoFfla Hoxyaxa npHXOflHJia x O.M. b o o n e , h o , npocHyBmncL o h n e h o m h h j i HpHCHHBmHXCH eM y CXHXOB.^

The image of the poet as human conduit for a fully-formed poem was especially significant

for Akhmatova in that it complemented her status as a woman poet. It evoked the Symbolist

images of women and their perceived sensitivity to realms beyond the comprehension of

^ Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vospominaniia, p. 64.

79 ordinary men. In efiFect, it is an image borrowed from a tradition of what might be described

as 'women's language'.

The concept of a separate and mysterious 'women's language' was supported by

Akhmatova’s teacher and mentor - Innokentii Annenskii. As already briefly noted in

Chapters 1 and 3, Annenskii was relatively receptive to the notion of a female poet.

According to Catriona Kelly, he developed a flexible approach to Symbolism;

On the one hand, Annenskii argued that "the eternal feminine" was nothing more than a symbol, a construct. But on the other hand, he asserted that the origins of recent Russian women’s poetry lay in the fact that women had been "written out" of men’s poetry by such constructs, and he urged women writers to use "women's language", which he saw in conventional Symbolist terms as mysterious, magical, other-worldly, alienating, yet of great power. ^

A prominent example of the sense of a separate and mysterious 'women's language'

is contained in Doktor Zhivago. In this novel, Boris Pasternak explicitly links his hero - lurii

Zhivago - with Christ, while Lara, his heroine, is linked to Mary Magdalene. As Jane Gary

Harris describes, 'Lara, as Pasternak’s ultimate feminine image, his "representative" of Life

"bom to understand its insane enchantment," expresses the "voice" or "presence" of everyday

life in its most intricate details, for in her "the articulate principle of existence becomes

sensitive and capable of speech'". Significantly in this context, Harris notes that Lara does

not express verbally the philosophical ideals first articulated by Nikolai Nikolaevich (and

subsequently by lurii Zhivago), 'as the "representative of life" she absorbs them and acts

^ Catriona Kelly, A History o f Russian Women's Writing, p. 173.

80 them out'.* At first, these two points seem to contradict each other - on the one hand Lara

becomes capable of speech, on the other, she does not express ideals verbally. This is

because Pasternak preserves both aspects - the ability to speak, a woman's voice, and yet

without losing the woman's passivity, which may remain silent.

The role of Akhmatova's sensitive persona in the poetic process is not so much to

compose poetry, but rather, to embody or transmit poetry. On the one hand, this image runs

contrary to Akhmatova’s ambitions as a poet. On the other hand, it affords her a level of

authority unavailable to her male contemporaries in that the substance of her poetry is

derived from a higher source, normally beyond human comprehension. In this way,

Akhmatova is able to portray her poetic persona, not so much as a poet, but as a kind of

intermediary between Heaven and Earth.

* Jane Gary Harris, 'Pasternak's Vision of Life: The History of a Feminine Image',Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 9, 1974, pp. 355-421, pp. 417-18.

81 CHAPTER 5 - Suffering Turned to Stone

OCTBJICa npO(J)HJIL (KGM-TO OÔBGJÏGHHBIÈ Ha ÔGJI0CHG3Œ0É H3B6CTH CTGHBl), He acencK H H , ne M y x c K o è , ho hgjihbih T aèn B i. (1 9 4 3 ) (1, 194)

HHTHaADiaTB JICT - naTHaji;niaTBK) BCKaMH FpaHHTHBIMH KaK ÔyflTO npHTBOpHJIHCB, Ho H caMa ÔBUia n KaK rpaHHT. (1 9 4 2 ) (i, 256)

One of the ways in which Akhmatova was able to adapt to the Symbolists' perspective of women as passive objects of inspiration was to portray her persona as an actual work of art. This approach is related to the themes of the 'sensitive' and 'detached' persona discussed in Chapter 4. Akhmatova tends to portray her persona as a vehicle for art as opposed to an actual artist. Her body is the instrument through which each poem finds coherent expression. Her role as a poet is essentially passive; she has little or no control over the process of artistic creation.

This chapter will consider two artistic media in which Akhmatova identified with the work of art as opposed to the artist - statues and portraits. It is important to note at the outset, however, that it is not only Akhmatova's statue and portrait poems that demonstrate a tendency to relate to the work of art as opposed to the artist. In most of Akhmatova's poems which concern a work of art - whether painting, music or ballet - her persona is not the artist, composer, or choreographer, but at the centre of the work itself.

82 The variety of art forms which Akhmatova depicts reflects her relatively generous regard for

forms other than poetry. Rather than adopt the stance that the role of the poet supersedes

that of all other artists, Akhmatova embraced various forms of art. For example, in the

following poem, she compares various means by which different types of 'artists' express

themselves:

H e m CBCxcecTb c j io b h qyBCTBa npocTOTy

XepHTL He TO JIB, HTO XCHBOHHCUy - SpeHBC

H j i h EKxepy - rojioc h «BEDKenBe, A xeHiiHiHe npeKpacHOH - xpacoxy? (1915) (i, 84)

Statue Poems

The most common manifestation of this theme is the portrayal of the persona as a

statue. This motif is related to the general dilemma discussed earlier of portraying a female

poetic persona as a creative figure, as opposed to the object of inspiration which Symbolism

demanded. As a woman, Akhmatova was effectively excluded from the dominant image of

the poet as active sculptor/artist. She responded to this dilemma by adopting a separate, but

complementary image - that of the poet whose body is art or is 'created' by others.^

Akhmatova's statue imagery is normally considered in terms of a general Acmeist

^ According to Susan Gubar, a similar strategy was commonly used in the writings of privileged Western women: 'Certainly women's limited options...have shaped the art they create. Unable to train themselves as painters, unable to obtain the space or income to become sculptors, gifted women in these areas have had to work in private, using the only materials at hand - their bodies, their selves. ' (Susan Gubar, "'The Blank Page" and Female Creativity', in Writing and Sexual Difference, ed. Elizabeth Abel, Brighton, Sussex, 1982, pp. 73-109, p. 79).

83 predisposition for words suggesting concreteness, weight and mass. Sam Driver, for

example, links the theme of the persona turning to stone with the Acmeists' 'love of

architectonic mass'.^ This tendency is particularly pronounced in the works of Osip

Mandel'shtam who often used the image of the poet as 'sculptor'. His aim, of course, differed

from that of the Symbolists; Mandel'shtam and his Acmeist contemporaries were more

interested in the 'craftsmanship' of the sculptor than his ability to animate lifeless stone. For

example, in 'Razgovor o Dante', Mandel'shtam writes:

PaccyacaaioT xax, xax ecjiH 6ti fI,aHT hm cji nepea xjiaaaMH eme Havana padoxti

coBepmeHHO roxoBoe nejioe h saHHMajica xexHHxoH MyjiÆaca: cnaqajia h 3 r n n c a , noxoM B 6poH3y. B JiynmeM cjiyqae eMy qaiox b pyxH pe3en; h noBBOJiaiox

cxyjiLinypHHqaxL h jih , x a x jhoôhx Btipaxaxbca, «B aaxt». Hpn 3 x o m aaÔLiBaïox

oflHy MajieHLxyio noApoônocxL: peaen; xo jilx o CHHMaex Jinmnee, h H epnoBH X

cxyjm nxopa ne ocxaBJixex MaxepnajiLHLix cjicflOB ( h xo oqenL npaBHXca nyôJiHxe) - caMa cxaflHaJiLHOCxL paôoxBi cxyjiLnxopa cooxBexcxByex cepHH HepHOBHHXOB.^

However, in his poem actually depicting Akhmatova, Mandel'shtam does not use a

stone image to glorify her abilities as poet-craftsman but, rather, describes her partial

transformation into stone:

B noji-o6opoxa, o nenajit, Ha paBHojo^msBix norjiHAejia. C n a fla n c h jic h , oxaMenejia JloHCHo-xJiaccHHecxaH majit.'^

Thus, one of Akhmatova's contemporaries who exerted enormous influence over her

associated Akhmatova not with the 'creator', but with the 'creation'.

^ Sam Driver, Anna Akhmatova, New York, 1972, p. 108.

^ Osip Mandel'shtam, 'Razgovor o Dante',Sobranie sochinenii, II, pp. 363-424, p. 384.

Osip Mandel'shtam, 'Akhmatova', Sobranie sochinenii. I, p. 37.

84 This motif of the petrified persona is, perhaps, best illustrated by the famous poem

"Lotova zhena' (a poem which will also be discussed in Chapter 6 on Akhmatova's doubles).

Akhmatova's inscription to the poem is taken from the Bible and emphasises the critical

moment: 'xena ace JloxoBa orjianyjiacL noaa^H eroh crajia coJiaHLiM CTOJinoM.' In the rest

of the poem, Akhmatova elaborates upon the Biblical story:

H npaBeflHHK m eji aa nocjiaHHHKOM bora, OrpOMHLIH H CBeTJIBIH, HO HCpHGH FOpe. Ho rpoMKO acene roBopHJia xpeBora: He noa^HO, xbi M oacemt em e nocMoxpexL Ha KpacHBie bam nn po#Horo CoAOMa, Ha HJiomaAb, FAe nejia, na ABop, FAe npajia,

Ha O K H a nycxbie b l i c o k o f o A O M a ,

T a c MHJioMy M yacy A exeè poAHJia.

Barjianyjia - h , cKOBanbi CMepxHoio bojibio, Tjiaaa ee bojibme CMOxpexb He mofjih ; H cAejiajiocb xejio npoapannoio cojibio, H ôbicxpbie HOFH K aeMJie npHpocjiH.

Kxo aceHHmny xy OHJiaKHBaxb byAex? He MeHbmeè jih mhhxch ona na yxpax? Jlnmb cepAUe Moe HHKOFAa He a a b y A e x OxAaBmyio acnanb aa eAHHCXBeHHbm BaxjiaA. (1922-24) (i, 147-48)

In becoming a pillar of salt. Lot's wife is recast into a kind of statue or memorial. Her

physical body is transformed into something permanent; she literally becomes rooted to the

earth. Thus, her personal memories, as well as the actual action of looking back, are

preserved for eternity. Her body serves as a kind of artistic medium.^

^ Akhmatova's link with Lot's wife is reinforced in another poem written in 1946, 'Vtoraia godovshchina', which marks the second anniversary of Akhmatova's return to Leningrad (quoted in full in Chapter 6).

85 Another example of Akhmatova's use of her statue imagery isRekviem. The disciple who stands at the foot of the Cross in 'Raspiatie', for example, reacts by 'turning into stone'

('yneHHK jiioÔHMLiô KBMeHeji) (I, 368). Similarly, she describes her son's 'terrible eyes' as

'suffering turned to stone' ('KaMeHejioe cTpa^aHLe'), and in 'Prigovor', she writes,

y Mena ceroflna MHoro aejia: Haflo uaMaTL go Konua yÔHTB, Haa;o, axob flyma OKaMenejia, Haa;o CHOBa nayaHTtca xchtl. (i, 365 )

In the last poem of this cycle, the reader is especially encouraged to identify the speaker/persona as Akhmatova, herself. She describes her transformation into a 'monument' that will ensure the preservation of her memory, even beyond death:

A ecjiH Korfla-HHÔyflb b 3 t o h c x p a n e BoajTBHXHyxb aaayM aiox naMaxHHK Mne,

Coxjiacbe na 3xo flaio xopacecxBo, Ho xoJiLKo c ycjiOBLCM - He cxaBH X L e r o

Hh o k o j io Mopa, r«e a pojïHJiacb: Hocjieflnaa c MopeM pasopBana cBasL,

Hh b uapcKOM caw y aaBexnoro nna, Tfle xeHL ôesyxem naa nnrex Mena,

A 3^tecL, r^e c x o a j ia a xpncxa aacoB H r^e * a a Mena ne o x k p lij ih s a c o B .

3axeM , Hxo h b cMepxH ÔJiaacenHOH 6 o k ) cl S aÔMXB rpoMBixaHHe aepntix M apyct.

3a6tixt, KaK nocxtuiaa xjionajia #Bepb H BBiJia cxapyxa KaK panentiH 3Bepi>.

H nycxL c nenoABirjKHLix h 6 p o h 3 0 b l ix BeK KaK cjieati cxpynxca noflxaaBmnn cner,

86 H rojiyÔB TiopeMHbiH nycTB ryjiHT B^ajin, H THXO im yx no Hese KOpaÔJiH. (i, 370 )

This image fulfils the prophecy which Akhmatova recalls in her memoirs:

Kor«a MHe 61 .1J10 15 jic t , h m l i x q ij ih na %ane b Jlycxqopche, npoeaxcaa xax-TO

MHMO 3Toro Mecxa, MaMa npejDpioxŒJia Mne c o h x h h nocMoxpexL na aany CapaKHHH, Koxopyio a npexfle ne BH^ejia. Y Bxo#a b Hsôymxy a cKaaajia: « 3 « e c L Koxfla-HHÔyflit ôyaex MGMopHaabnaa fljocxa». YL ne ômaa XEnecaaBna. 3 x0 ÔLUia npocxo xjiynaa myxxa. MaMa oropanaacb. « B o x e , xax a naoxo xe 6 a BOCHHxaaa», - cxaaaaa ona.^

These images differ fi’om that in Lotova zhena' in that Akhmatova relies upon others to erect

such a monument. This distinction is significant: it reflects Akhmatova's progression from

a poet of essentially private themes to that of civic poet. Whereas Lot's wife, as a pillar of

salt, preserves her personal experience of singing, spinning and bearing children,

Akhmatova's monument will embody the experience of all the suffering people of Russia.

As Michael Basker notes, '...instead of looking upon and praying for the suffering and

sundered narod, the poet now merges completely with them as the instrument of their

expression....'^

In other poems, this motif of the persona's body as a statue is only indirectly

apparent. In the poem 'Uedinenie', for example, Catriona Kelly suggests that the adjective

'slender' (cxponnan) may render the 'tower' a metaphor for Akhmatova's own body:*

^Anna Akhmatova, 'Korotko o sebe',Sochineniia, II, p. 240.

^ Michael Basker, 'Dislocation and Relocation in Akhmatova's "Rekviem"', inThe Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 5-26, p. 21.

* * Catriona Kelly, A History o f Russian Women's Writing, p. 215.

87 T ax MHoro xaMnen ô p o m en o b mchh, Hto hh ofliHH H3 HHX yx e He CTpamen, H CTpoHHOH ôaniHGH cTajia aanaana, Bbicokok) cpe^H bmcokhx ôamcH. CxpoHTejieH ee ÔJiaro^apio, IlycTL Hx 3a6oTa h nenajiL MHHyex. Oxciojta paHLme BHXcy a aapio, 3gecB cojiHHa Jiyn HocjieAHHH xopxecxByex. H H a cx o B OKHa KOMHaxLi M oeè, H rojiyÔB ecx h3 pyx mohx HmeHHny... A He AOHHcaHHyio mhoh cxp aH H u y - BoxcecxBeHHO cnoxoHHa h J ierx a , ^,OHHmex M yati CMyxjian pyxa. (1914) (i, 78)

This poem also features the image o f the passive persona discussed earlier in that it is the muse's 'swarthy' hand which will finish the persona's unfinished page.

Although the persona's actual transformation into a statue appears more often in

Akhmatova's later poems, in one early poem, the persona sees her 'marble double' lying under an old maple tree:

.. .A XaM MOH MpaMOpHBIH flBOHHHX, IIOBepHCeHHLIH HOfl CXapLIM XJieHOM, 03epHLiM Bo^aM oxflaji jihx , BHHMaex m opoxaM 3ejieHi>iM.

H Moiox CBexJiBie floxruH Ero aanexmyiocH pany... XoJIOJ^HblH, beJIBIH, HOflOXmH, M xo)xe MpaMopHOK) cxany. (1 9 1 1 ) (i, 24)

The statue's wounds (as well as the third poem in this short cycle - 'Smuglyi otrok brodil po alleiam') indicate that this 'double' is Pushkin, though the statue's position also evokes the image of Narcissus. Again, transformation into a statue represents a permanent link with her past, as well as her cultural inheritance.

In addition to the Acmeist tradition referred to earlier, another obvious source for

88 Akhmatova's statue motif is Pushkin. For example, the persona's transformation into a

monument in Rekviem (cited earlier) most obviously evokes Pushkin's famous Bronze

Horseman. However, as Roberta Reeder notes , '[Pushkin's poems] are more objective

descriptions of statues, focusing on the way in which visual art has translated emotion into

stone or bronze. In Akhmatova's work the statue has become her "marble double" and is

employed to parallel the speaker's own state of mind.' Hence, the persona's 'marble double'

'...is cold and white, that is, aloof and emotionally distant, just as she sees herself. ^ Thus,

Akhmatova's persona empathises with statues to such an extent, the statues become actual

extensions of the persona herself.

In 'Tsarskosel'skaia statuia', Akhmatova turns to a subject also used by Pushkin - the

statue by Sokolov in Tsarskoe Selo of a milkmaid with a pitcher, as depicted in the fable by

La Fontaine:

Y x e KJieHOBBie jihc tbi Ha npya cjiexaioT JieôeflHHLiô, H OKpOBaBJieHBI KyCTBI Hecnemno s p e io m e n ph ô h h l i,

H ocjienHTejibHO cTpoHHa, HoffxaB HeaHÔHynme nom , Ha KaMHe ceBepHOM ona CrmHT H CMOTpHT Ha %OporH. (19 1 6 ) (1,95-96)

Again, the adjective 'slender' appears, perhaps suggesting a link between the statue and

^ Roberta Reeder, 'Tsarskoe Selo in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: The Eternal Return', in The Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 285-302, p. 291.

This contrasts with Annenskii's 'Bronzovyi poet' in which the statue is clearly identified as Pushkin while the poetic persona remains distinct.

89 Akhmatova herself. However, this statue is not only slender, but 'dazzlingly slender'

('ocJienHTejiLHo cTpoHHa'). The next two stanzas further suggest that the persona's

relationship to the statue is not so much one of identification, as of rivalry:

R nyBCTBOBajia CMyxHtiH cxpax npefl 3T0Ê jneBymKOH BocneToè. HrpajiH Ha ee rnienax JlyHH CKyflieiomero CBexa.

H KaK a eè npocxHxt Bocxopr XBoeô XBajiti BJiioôJieHHoè...

C m o x p h , eè Becejio rpycxHxt, XaKOH HapaflHO oônaaceHHoè. (1916) (i, 95-96)

This statue is able to arouse feelings of envy in the persona with her 'dazzling slenderness',

fame and, most importantly, the ability to attract the attention of the persona's lover. Thus,

although the statue remains a separate figure from the persona, their relationship is akin to

that between the persona and her muse or 'sister' in other poems (this subject will be

considered in more detail in Chapter 6).

Roberta Reeder notes that Akhmatova's depicton of this statue again differs from

Pushkin. Pushkin's milkmaid has a dilemma: in being immortal, she must sit, 'eternally

contemplating the broken pitcher'. Akhmatova's statue, by contrast, raises feelings of

jealousy in the persona: 'Playing on a phrase from the Pushkin poem,"JI,eBa neHajiLHo

cHflHx", Akhmatova observes, "eè Becejio rpycxnxL", as if she were enjoying this state.

Perhaps the statue represents all other women who might attract the speaker's lover, and thus

creates the uneasy feeling in the poet.'"

" Roberta Reeder, 'Tsarskoe Selo in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: The Eternal Return', p. 292.

90 The image of the poet transformed into a statue also reinterprets the myth of

Pygmalion. According to Ovid's version of this myth, Pygmalion, the King of Cyprus, fell

in love with his own work of art, an ivory statue of a woman. He asked Aphrodite to grant

him a woman resembling the statue and returned home to find that his statue had actually

come to life.^^ This myth has become a literary archetype; Pygmalion is the emblematic artist

who 'creates' life fi'om stone. Akhmatova, therefore, furnishes a variation on this theme; the

artist who, herself, is transformed into a work of art. As Susan Gubar concludes in the

context of a short story by Isak Dineson, 'In terms of the Pygmalion myth...the woman who

cannot become an artist can nevertheless turn herself into an artisticobject.Akhmatova

may have been drawn to the Pygmalion motif in response to its Symbolist associations. As

Irene Masing-Delic notes, the Symbolists regarded Pygmalion as the prototypical artist:

This mythic sculptor as it were anticipated their cherished theurgical aspirations. To them he was the true artist who transcended the confines of mere art, an artist who, knowing the secrets of wondrous transformations, learned how to animate stone in the literal sense of the word "animate." He thus achieved the creation of real life, as opposed to its mere likeness.

Susan Gubar describes the moment when Ovid's Pygmalion discovers his statue has come to life: 'When he feels the ivory under his fingers soften, "as wax grows soft in the sunshine, made pliable by handling," Pygmalion is astonished with joy: "It's a body!" Not only has he created life, he has created female life as he would like it to be - pliable, responsive, purely physical. Most important, he has evaded the humiliation shared by many men of acknowledging that it is he who is really created out of and from thefemale body' (Susan Gubar, "'The Blank Page" and Female Creativity', p. 73).

Susan Gubar, "'The Blank Page" and Female Creativity', p. 79.

Other writers, she adds, were attracted to variations on this motif: George Bernard Shaw interpreted the image as the portrayal of an artist, '...who aspires, like God, to create life'. Goethe, by contrast, rejected the image entirely in favour of King Midas who was granted the power by Dionysus to transform whatever he touched into gold - '..that is, make human beings into statues rather than statues into human beings' (Irene Masing-

91 She traces the origin of the motif to Ovid'sMetamorphoses and notes that the image had

attracted attention in Russian literature as far back as Pushkin/^

Portrait Poems

Another medium to which Akhmatova was drawn in this context is portrait

painting. This is probably due, in part, to the fact that a number of leading artists of her

time painted portraits of her. Most of these portraits emphasise Akhmatova's regal qualities.

For example, Amedeo Modigliani drew Akhmatova's head in the style of'queens and dancers

of the Nile'.^^ Both Ol'ga Della-Vos-Kardovskaia and Natan Al'tman's oil portraits feature

her famous profile and straight fringe; the effect is one of serenity and composure.

In 'Nadpis' na neokonchennom portrete', Akhmatova literally portrays her persona

Delic, 'Creating the Living Work of Art: The Symbolic Pygmalion and His Antecedents', in Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia o f Russian Modernism, ed. Irina Paperno and Joan Delaney Grossman, Stanford, 1994, pp. 51-82, pp. 51-52).

Irene Masing-Delic, 'Creating the Living Work of Art: The Symbolic Pygmalion and His Antecedents', p. 51.

On this subject generally, see Wendy Rosslyn, 'Painters and Painting in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: The Relation between Poetry and Painting', in Anna Akhmatova 1889- 1989: Papers from the Akhmatova Centennial Conference, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, June 1989, ed. Sonia Ketchian, Berkeley, 1993, pp. 170-85.

See Anna Akhmatova, 'Plan stat'i o pozdnei Pushkinskoi proze',Sochineniia, 11, pp. 156-59. On this subject generally, see Natal'ia Lianola, Angel cpechaVnym litsom - obraz Anny Akhmatovoi V tvorchestve Modil'iani, St Petersburg, 1996.

92 from the unusual perspective of an unfinished portrait - not the person sitting for the portrait,

but from within the work of art itself:

O, He B3ABixaÈTe 060 M n e , IlenajiB npecTynna h nanpacna,

R 3jnect, ne cep c m n o jio T H e, B03HHKJia CTpaHHO H HeHCHO.

B3JieTeBmHX pyx h 3j io m ô o j il h g h , B raa3ax yjiLifixa HCCTynjienLH, R H e Morjia 6 ti c x a T t h h o h IIpcA ropLKHM nacoM HacjiaxmeHBH.

Oh Tax xoTCJi, o h xax b c jic ji CjIOBaMH MCPXBBIMH H 3JIBIMH. Moh pox xpcBOHoao aaajieji, H H^exH cxajiH cHeroBbiMH.

H Hex rpexa b ero b h h c , y men, FJiHflHX B FJiaaa Apyrne, H o HHHCFO He CHHXCH MHC B MOCH npeflCMcpxHOH jiexapFHH. (included in Vecher) (i, 44)

As an unfinished portrait, the persona is trapped and manipulated by the artist's limited

vision. The artist may or may not be the unfaithful lover; in any case it is he who 'ordered'

her awkward and 'frenzied smile' and 'snow white cheeks'.The persona is manifestly the

art object as opposed to the artist.

In the second part of'Epicheskie motivy', Akhmatova depicts sitting for her famous

portrait by Al'tman. Again, she emphasises the relationship between painting and poetry:

Similarly, in 'Otryvok' (I, 55), a mysterious voice observes the effect the persona's lover has had on her, including, evidently, causing her to outline her eyes as if with 'black, thick Indian ink'.

93 KaK B sepKBJio, rjia^ejia a TpeBoacHO

Ha ceptm x o jic t , h c K a a g ü o io He^ejieô

Bce ropme h CTpannee 6 m jio c x o ^ c t b o

Moe c MOHM H3o6paxeHi.eM h o b b i m .

Tenept He anaio, r^c xyaoxŒHK m b j i b i h , C KOTOPLIM a H3 rOJiyÔOH MBECapRBI H epe3 OKHO na K ptim y BLixoflHJia H no KapHH3y nuia nafl CMepxHOH ôeaflH oè,

H t o 6 BEweTB cner, Heny n oÔJiaxa, -

Ho nyBCTByio, h t o My3Bi namn flpy^KHBi Becnennon n njiennrejiBnoio apyacôon,

Kax ^eayniKn, ne anaBmne jik ) 6 b h . (1914-16) (i, i 54)

Similarly, the artist's 'blessed' work appears before the (presumably female) persona of

'Khudozhniku':

Mne Bce TBoa MepernnTca paôoxa, Tboh ÔJiarocjioBennBie xpy^Bi: Jinn, naBcexfla ocennnx noaojioxa H CHHB c e r o fln a c o a a a n n o n Bon;Bi.

HoayMan, n xonaanmaa aipeMoxa y ace Be#ex Mena b xboh ca^Bi, Ffle, Kaacfloro nyraacB n o B o p o x a , B ôecnaMaxcxBe nniy xboh cjiegBi.

Bonw J in a n o n CBO% npeoôpaacennBin, TBoen p y x o K ) b ne6o npeBpanrennBin, Hxo6 ocxyninaca moh hocxbijibih acap?...

TaM cxany a ÔJiaacennoio naBexn H, pacKaJiennBie CMcacaa bckh, TaM cnoBa obpexy a cJieanBiH %ap. (1924) (i, i74)

Wendy Rosslyn considers the artist of this poem to be God: '...His works are the golden hue of the lime trees, forever autumnal, and the blueness of the water just created.Whereas

Wendy Rosslyn, 'Painters and Painting in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova', p. 179.

94 this may be suggested by the image of the persona entering into the artist's 'garden', the poem

stresses that the artist's 'works' are 'blessed', suggesting that although the artist may be

inspired by God, he is a separate, human agent; it is his human hand which 'transforms' the

vault into sky.

The persona, by contrast, 'searches' for 'traces' of the artist. The persona is passive;

she searches in a state of'unconsciousness' and is 'led' by 'drowsiness'. The 'gift' she hopes

to recover is not creative in the same way as the artist's but, rather, is the gift of'tears', an

image evoking associations with the figure of the Mother of God Rekviem.in At the same

time, the persona's search for the artist evokes another 'double' who figures in Akhmatova's

work - Antigone.

Earlier, it was noted that even when Akhmatova does not literally portray her

persona as a statue, she often empathises with statues to such an extent, the statue can be

regarded as a poetic 'double'. This is also true of Akhmatova's 'portrait poems'. For

example, although the persona in 'Staryi portret' is distinct from the figure in the portrait, she

identifies with the figure to the point of assimilation;

Cxcajia TeÔH 3ojiothcti.im OBajioM YsKaa, CTapaa p a M a ; Herp 3a to6 oh c rojiyôtiM onaxajioM, CxpoHHaH ôenaa flaMa.

Tohkh no-^teBHHLH nexŒBie njieqn, CMOTpnmL Ha%MGHHO-ynpaMo; TycKJio MepuaioT BbicoKHe cbchh, Cjiobho b npeftn,BepHH xpana.

This theme is related to the death of Nikolai Gumilev and Akhmatova's subsequent search for his grave (on this, see Chapter 6 on one of Akhmatova's doubles, Antigone).

95 Bo3Jie Ha 6poH30BOM CTOJiHKe n;HTpa, Po3a B rpanenoM ôoKajie... B HBHX 3T0 najibn;ax apoxajia najiHxpa, B 3T0M TOpXCGCTBGHEOM 3aJIG?

H flJiH Koro 3TH xcyxKHG ryÔLi C xaJIH CMGPTGJIBHOH OXpaBOH? H gXP 3a XOÔOK), HapHJÜHLIH H xpyÔLiH, C m o x ph x J iy x a B o . (Autumn, 1910) (i,305-06)

The fact that the poem is dedicated to a female artist - the Kiev painter and pioneer of Russian Futurism, Aleksandra Ekster - adds an interesting twist. For example, rather than discuss the relationship between the artist and poetic persona, Akhmatova focuses exclusively on the subject of the portrait; the 'artist' is almost an irrelevance. Further, as

Wendy Rosslyn observes, '...though the poem is addressed to the painter Ekster, the portrait is neither by her, nor of her, nor in her style, and the portrait remains unidentified'.^^

A similar portrait motif also appears in Akhmatova's identification with Feodosiia

Morozova as depicted in the famous painting by Surikov. Morozova was a seventeenth- century noblewoman and follower of the Old Believers who rejected changes in devotional practice in the seventeenth century. While Awakum was burned at the stake, Morozova was sent to a convent and tortured on the rack. She eventually died in prison. One lesser- known aspect of the Morozova legend with which Akhmatova almost certainly would have identified is the fact that the followers of Patriarch Nikon also tortured Morozova's son as a means of punishing her. Surikov's painting depicts Morozova in the guise of the archetypal Mother Russia - the suflfering woman who remains strong in the face of adversity.

Wendy Rosslyn, 'Painters and Painting in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova', p. 173.

96 As Vera Sandomirskii Dunham explains, Surikov's painting is based upon this image; he

depicts Morozova being dragged away on a sled as ’the fiercely stubborn folk heroine who

"went to the end", who would have let her son be tom by bloodhounds rather than deny her

faith and who indeed died in prison of starvation’/^

Akhmatova’s identification with Morozova is mediated through Surikov's depiction;

M 3HaK), C MeCTB He CfljBHHyTLCH Ot TÆHCeCTH BhCBMX BGK. O, ecjiH 6 bi Bflpyr OTKHnyTtcH B KaKOH-TO CeMHaAUaTLIH BCK.

C nymHCTOH) BCTKOH 6epe30B 00 non; TpoHuy b nepKBH ctohtl, C ÔOHpLineiO M 0P030B0H CjiajUHMBIH MCflOK H O H H B a T B ,

H H ocjie Ha hpobhhx b cyMepxH B HaB03H0M CHery T O H y T b ...

KaKOH cyM acme^rnHH CypHKOB MoH HOCJIGJÏHHH HaHHmGT UyXb? (1939) (I,32o/^

The persona not only fantasises about what it would be like to be 'thrown back' into the

seventeenth century of Boiarynia Morozova, but considers her own life in her own century

to be worthy of depiction by some ’mad Surikov’/'^ This highlights a trend which Wendy

^ Vera Sandomirski Dunham, 'The Strong Woman Motif, inTransformation o f Russian Society, ed. Cyril E. Black, Cambridge, Mass., 1960, pp. 459-483, p. 468.

According to Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, the last two lines of this poem refer to a comment made by Punin to Akhmatova while the two were visiting the Tret'iakov Gallery where Surikov's painting hangs: 'A xenepL noÈmeM nocMCTpcTb, k b k Bac noBeayx na Ka3HL.' {VospominanUa, p. 4).

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam writes : 'IIoBepHB b «kpgxocxb»apejioè AxMaxoBOH, h Honajiacb na MHKHHy. Be%b b Jiynmnx cxHxax, BHcmne c^tepxaHHBix, Bcerjta cjiLimnxcH rojioc 3#aK0H fioapbiHH, xo HJiaKajibHmnti, nocxHHUti h MOJiejiLnmitBi, xo

97 Rosslyn describes as follows:

The relationship between literature and painting in Akhmatova's poems, weighted as it is in favor of literature, could well be described as an interactive one on the part of the poet. The poet remodels paintings. That is to say, on the one hand, that which is enclosed within the frame is conceived of as life rather than as art, and on the other hand, that there is no rigid barrier between the picture and the viewer.

Whereas the persona ofRekviem envisages her immortality through the rendering of her

body into a bronze monument, the persona of the Morozova poem envisages a time when

her actions will be immortalised in someone else's work of art, though, of course, it is

important to note the earlier point that Akhmatova already had evidence that she would be

immortalised through portraits.

Another poem - 'Kogda chelovek umiraet' - considers the relationship between

viewer and portrait subject:

Korga HeJioBeK yMHpaeT, HsMenaioTCH ero nopTpcTLi. no-flpyroMy rjiasa rjmwiT, h ryôti yjibiôaioTca flpyroè yjibiÔKoé. M saMexHJia 3To, BepnyBmHCL C noxopoH o%Horo noaxa. H c xex nop npoBepana qacxo, H Moa jïoraAKa no^^xBepj^HJiacL. (1940) (i, i86)

In one sense, the portrait changes when the subject dies because the viewer's perception of

the subject changes. On the other hand, Akhmatova was also prone to more theatrical,

supernatural twists. For example, in Poema bez geroiia, the portraits actually come to life:

npoKJiHHaiomeô neflpyroB h npeB03Hocanteè flpyaen h e^HHOMLimjieHHHKOB, hxo jiioboMy HuKony cjieflOBajio 6bi j^ep^caxbca no^ajibme.' {Vtoraia kniga, p. 444).

Wendy Rosslyn, 'Painters and Painting in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova', p. 178.

98 CnajDbHH FepoHHH. Topirr b o c k o b h h cBcqa. Hag KpoBaxLio Tpn nopxpeTa x o s h h k h flOMa B pojiax. CnpaBa ona - Kosjionoraa, nocpe^HHe - HyxanMi^a, cjieaa - nopxpex B xeHH. OpgMM xaxcexca, qxo 3X0 KojioMÔHHa, flpyxHM - JI,OHHa Anna (h3

«IIIaroB KoMaHflopa») ...HoBoroasaa HOHL...nyxaHHiiia oxHBaex, c x o ^ h x c

n o p x p e x a , h eô qyp;HXca rojioc....^^

In a wide sense, the image of portraits actually coming to life reflects Akhmatova's tendency to portray life and death in terms of parallel worlds. It also conveys the theatrical sense of place as the set for a drama.

It would go too far to suggest that Akhmatova deliberately portrayed her persona as a work of art solely as a direct attempt to negotiate a Symbolist tradition which insisted that the 'artist' be male. Akhmatova had a variety of reasons for portraying her persona in this way. However, this strategy certainly achieved such an effect; Akhmatova maintained the paradigm of male artist by tending to write from the point of view of the work of art.

Anna Akhmatova, Sochineniia, ed. G.P. Struve and B.A. Filippov, II, p. 112.

99 Chapter 6 - Doubles

B CTapOCTH H B lOHOCTH MLI BC6

aroneHTpHKH, a b n r p e b RBOÈnnqecTBO fleècTBOBaji MexannsM sroueHTpaaMa. IIpaB^a, B onpaBflaHHe AxMaxGBOH a Mory

C K aaaxL, h t o KpoMe aroueHTpHaMa b 3 t o m

npoÆBJMJiocL em ec b o h c t b o npHcymee eè b CaMOH BLICOKOH CTGnGHH: OHB yBJICKaJiaCB KaacABiM qejioBGKOM, H OT 3Toro y Hee BoaHHKajia noTpeÔHocTi» noKpenHe ero

cBsaaxL c coôoè, c jih t l c ^l c h h m . (Nadezhda Mandel'shtam)^

Akhmatova's identification with famous heroines bolstered her overall authority as

a poet by creating the impression that she, as a woman who endured similar experiences, was

able to empathise with such heroines to a greater extent than the authors who initially told

the tale. In this way, her doubles serve as manifestations of her own character. As Kees

Verheul explains;

There are in the poet's work several poems that would at a superficial reading seem to be mere poetical third-person portraits of well-known historical or literary figures. When we compare these poems, however, with other, first-person verse from a similar period, it appears that we have in most cases to do with 'lyrical' portraits, that is to say portraits in which some essential traits of the persons described are intimately related to elements from the author's life that have been differently, and more directly transformed into motifs connected with the figure of the lyrical T in other poems.^

^ Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vtoraia kniga, p. 357.

^ Kees Verheul, 'Public Themes in the Poetry of Anna Achmatova', Russian Literature, V, 1971, pp. 73-112, p. 85.

100 Similarly, in her article on Akhmatova's use of ancient heroines, T V. Tsiv'ian makes it clear

that Akhmatova's motivation in choosing her particular heroines was not simply assimilation

for its own sake but, rather, to explore their motivation in specific, highly charged, moral

situations; Akhmatova found her own experiences 'mirrored' in the stories of these women

who personified the great themes of history and literature.^

At the same time, however, Akhmatova's doubles enabled her to distance herself

from their experiences in that she retold a tale already familiar to her reader or picked up

where the story left off. Akhmatova tended to choose figures whom she could approach

through an existing literary medium, through their representation in a work of literature,

although a historical or mythological reality lies behind. Akhmatova chose heroines from

standard literary texts and works familiar to all educated Russians. When she portrays

Cleopatra, for example, her epigraph indicates that she is specifically referring to the

Cleopatra of Pushkin's poem. Her Dido is Virgil's Dido; her Phaedra, Seneca's Phaedra; her

Cassandra, the Cassandra fi"om Schiller. Even her Morozova is not the Morozova of legend

but specifically the Morozova of Surikov's painting. Thus, the embodiment of her choice of

famous historical doubles enables her to assume a role akin to an objective storyteller

without diminishing her more subjective subtext. This approach is similar to the detached

persona considered earlier in Chapter 4; Akhmatova retains a distance from her poetic

persona, emphasising the sense that she is a player in a much larger story.

By directly or indirectly referring to the texts of her precursors and contemporaries.

^ T V. Tsiv'ian, 'Antichnye geroini - zerkala Akhmatovoi',Russian Literature, 7/8, 1974, pp. 103-19.

101 Akhmatova emphasised a sense of tradition and continuity. She also elevated her own status

as a poet by aligning herself with a canon of great poets who commanded national and

universal respect; as the natural 'inheritor' of such literary giants as Pushkin and Schiller,

Akhmatova emphasised the sense that she was 'chosen' to play a role of similar stature.'^

Much has been written about Akhmatova's use of intertextuality as a means of

widening the scope of her poetic themes. Sonia Ketchian, for example, links the

intertextuality in Akhmatova's work with the philosophical concept of metempsychosis: the

belief that, upon death, the soul enters into another body. Ketchian explains that, in a broad

sense, '...metempsychosis represents the same for the persona of Akhmatova's verse as

literary tradition does for poetry and for the poet per se, enabling an individual, like the

lyrical ego, to experience several stages of life, retaining all the while the memory associated

with each life span'.^ Linking this concept with such themes as memory and non-meetings,

Ketchian demonstrates that this concept adds another layer of authority to Akhmatova's

work:

...if the oeuvre of each poet can be construed as one lifetime or one stage in the process of literary reincarnation, then resonances with any other writer's works represent, as it were, an incorporation of other lives and the memories of others into the framework of Akhmatova's work. Consequently, the limits of her work are expanded, enabling the poet to observe an economy of her own words and images through the invocation of already-existing and recognizeable images, concepts and

^ On this subject in terms of Pushkin see, for example, David Wells, Akhmatova and Pushkin.

^ Sonia Ketchian, The Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest o f Time and Space, p. 118. On intertextuality in Akhmatova see also, for example, T.V. Tsiv'ian, 'Antichnye geroini - zerkala Akhmatovoi', and R.D. Timenchik, 'Avtometaopisanie u Akhmatovoi', Russian Literature, 10/11, 1975, pp. 213-26, p. 219.

102 themes.^

This analysis is related to the more general strategy discussed earlier. By

appropriating the work of others or, to use Sonia Ketchian's terminology, by incorporating

the lives of others into her works, Akhmatova again managed to emphasise the sense that

her persona is, essentially, passive. Her role is not so much that of active poet, but that of

interpreter, or manifestation, of other writers' themes and techniques. Thus, metempsychosis

is another concept which compliments Akhmatova as a woman poet in that it allowed her

to explore a number of themes that would otherwise be unavailable to her poetic persona.

As Sonia Ketchian comments:

...the persona in Akhmatova, in assuming a reincarnated identity and the capabilities enabling her to undergo metempsychosis, grows clearly independent of Akhmatova the person and enters other times, lives and forms of life and nature. Akhmatova the poet, the creator of this migrating persona, cannot accompany her in her transformations or transmigrations. Instead, she employs the unusual speaker to experience what is inaccessible to herself and with the help of the Muse, a witness to all bygone times and events as well as to those to come, she crafts the poem to reflect the experience and results of the persona's metempsychosis.^

Related to this is the fact that Akhmatova's doubles allowed her to draw upon the

stories of women who distinguished themselves through such 'alternative' means as

prophecy, matriarchy, intercession, lamentation and martyrdom. Rather than tackle head on

the obstacle of portraying her female persona as a poet figure in a male-centered poetic

culture, Akhmatova experimented with complementary means of self-expression.

Interestingly, Akhmatova's affinity for historical heroines provided her with models

^ Sonia Ketchian, The Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest o f Time and Space, p. 79.

^ Sonia Ketchian, The Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest o f Time and Space, p. 102.

103 who, though important creative figures in their own right, were not poets; whereas

Akhmatova identified with archetypal heroines, she did not write about other female writers

(though in a few poems she pays homage to Marina Tsvetaeva). This, at least in part, reflects a tendency discussed earlier, in that Akhmatova considered herself to be the exception to the general rule that women were inferior writers. She considered her primary literary precursors to be such male writers as Pushkin, Dante and Blok. Akhmatova positively prided herself on her originality, even claiming in 'Mogla li Biche slovno Dant tvorit" that she 'taught women how to speak':

Morjia JiH Bmie cjiobho ^anx tbophtl, H j i h JIaypa xap jiioôbh BOCcjiaBHTL?

M HayHHJia xenm nH f o b o p h t l ... Ho boxce, K8K Hx saMOjmaTL sacxaBHTL! (1936-60) (i, 193)

This chapter will now consider some of the more important doubles who appear in

Akhmatova's poetry. It will not consider the full range of doubles, excluding, for example,

such figures as Princess Eudoxia (who makes a cameo appearance in Vecher) and Laura and

Beatrice (mentioned briefly in the poem quoted above). Rather, it will concentrate on those figures who represent major themes in Akhmatova's work generally.

Mary

Akhmatova related to certain aspects of Mary more than others. For example, in terms of Mary's status as a mother, Akhmatova is ambivalent. As noted earlier, Akhmatova's persona has contradictory feelings towards motherhood. On the one hand, in a sense,

Akhmatova grew to become a matriarchal figure for all the sufifering people of Soviet Russia;

104 her identification with Mary certainly bolstered this sense, if only indirectly / On the other

hand, Akhmatova's persona is a self-confessed bad mother.

In addition to that of matriarch, Mary evokes another role which does relate to

Akhmatova's persona - that of intercessor. As with matriarchy, however, Akhmatova's

persona displays contradictory feelings towards her new role. In 'Tiazhela ty, liubovnaia

pamiat'!', for example, she writes:

T axejia TLi, JiioôoBHaa naM axt!

Mne B jiMMy t b o c m next h ropext, A flp yxH M - 3X0 xojitKO njiaMM, Hxo6 ocxtiBm yio «yniy rpext.

H x o 6 h rpexL npectimeHHoe xejio, H m HaAOÔHLi cjiesBi m o h ... xoro JIB a, rocnonH, nejia, ^Jia xoro JIB npHHacxHJiacB jiioôbh !

jn^aè MHG BBIHHXB XaKOH OXpaBBI,

H x o ô b i cflejiajiacB a h c m o h , H MOK> ôeccjiaBHyio cJiaBy OCHaHHBIM 3aÔBGHHGM CMOH. (1914) (1,79-80)

In the first poem of'liul' 1914', the persona actually mentions the Mother of God:

IlaxHex rap BIO. HexBipe nenejiH Top4) cyxoH no ôojioxaM ropnx. )l,axe nxHHBi ceroflna ne nejin, H ocHHa y ace ne npoxŒX.

* Lidiia Chukovskaia wrote of how Akhmatova looked like a statue of the Madonna when she held one o f two little children from next door, yace ne pas saMeaajia - c peôenKOM na pyxax ona cpasy cxanoBHXca noxoxeè na cxaxyio Ma^onnBi, - ne jihuom , a Bcen ocaHKOH, KaKHM-xo cKpoMHBiM H cKopÔHBiM BcaHaHCM.' (Lidüa Chukovskaia, Zapiski ob Anne Akhmatovoi, I, pp. 150-51).

105 Cxajio cojiHn;e hcmhjioctlk ) ôoxLeè, c IlacxH nojieô ne KponHJi. IIpHXOflHJI OflHOHOrHH npOXOXŒH H OAHH Ha flBope roBopHJi:

«CpoKH CTpamHBie 6 j ih 3 h t c h . Cxopo

CxaneT xecno o t c b c x œ x m o t h j i . )Ka:HTe rjia^a, h xpyca, h Mopa, H saxMeHtH Heôecntix CBexHJi.

T o jibko nameH aeMJiH ne pasflejiHX Ha noxexy ce6e cynocxax: BoropoflHEta ôeJiLiè paccxejiex Ha;t CKopÔHMH bcjihkhmh njiax».(20 July 1914) (i, loo)

The second poem in the cycle focuses on the women whose husbands died in battle:

Mo^ŒceBejiBHHxa sanax cjiaflKHH Ox ropampx JiecoB JiexHX. Hafl peÔHxaMH cxonyx coimaxKH, BflOBHH HJian no «epeane sbchhx.

He nanpacHO MOJieÔHLi cjiyxŒJiHCL, O Aoxcjte xocKOBajia aeMjm: KpacHOH BJiaroH xenjio OKponHJiHct

SaxonxaHHBie h o jih .

HH3K0, HH3K0 HGÔO HyCXOC, H rojioc MOJiHHtero xnx: « P a n n x xejio XBoe npecBaxoe, Menyx xcpeônn o pn3ax x b o h x » . (20 July 1914) (i, loo)

In a sense, these two poems present contrasting vehicles for intercession. The first poem

emphasises the need for intervention by the Mother of God in the tradition ofPokrov f the

second poem describes the process of collective prayer. The persona remains distinct from

these actions; her personal response as well as her thoughts on her own role remain

^ Mary's role as intercessor relates to the tenth century legend ofPokrov in which she is said to have appeared in a church in Constantinople and extended her veil over the people.

106 ambiguous. This contrasts with the later memorial poem in which the persona positively recoils from the devastation she witnesses, covering her face and begging God to strike her dead before the first battle.

The image of Mary in the tradition ofPokrov is implicit in the poem Maiskii sneg':

IIpoapaHHaH jio2œtch nejiena Ha cBexHH fl,epH h HeaaMCTHO Taex. ^ecTOKaa, cxyflCHaa Becna HajiHBmnecH no^KH yÔHBaex. H pannen CMcpxH xaK yxacen bha, H t o He Mory na 6 0 x 0 0 M0p rjiajtexL a. Bo MHG HenajiB, KOxopoH HapL ffaBH^ H o-napcK H oja;ap0Ji XLicHHejiexLa. (1 9 1 6 ) (i, 98-99)

The image ofPokrov is suggested by the 'transparent shroud'. The link with Mary is also suggested by the epigraph included which is derived from Psalm 6:7: 'Ytomjigh a

Boaj^LixaHHHMH MO0M0: Kaxjuyio HOHt OMLiBaio Jioxe Moe cjieaaMH mohmh OMonaio

HOCXejIt MOK).'

Akhmatova explicitly develops the link between her persona and the image of Mary as intercessor in two major works U- samogo moria and Rekviem. Rekviem^ in particular, represents Akhmatova's mature sense of her role as a female poet: to act as intercessor on behalf of the people of Russia, not only offering her poetry as a form of prayer, but also as a form of protection in the tradition ofPokrov.

Rekviem realises an ambition which Akhmatova attempted to articulate in the much earlier U samogo moria: to serve the Russian people as an active poet. Yet Akhmatova mediates this through the figure of Mary. As discussed earlier, she appropriates the stature

Mary commands and assumes her roles as mother and intercessor. As Amanda Haight notes

107 of the figure of Mary inRekviem, 'Akhmatova is not observing Mary from outside. She is looking at the world through her eyes'. In this way, Akhmatova embraces the various traditions discussed earlier: she assumes the role of a poet without jeopardising the more traditional feminine associations with inspiration and 'other-worldliness'.

U samogo moria was discussed in Chapter 3 in the context of Akhmatova constructing a kind of 'eternal masculine'. This chapter will focus on the persona's sister,

Lena. Lena is a poetic double for the persona: the girls are almost the same age and have such similar appearances, their mother could only tell them apart by their birthmarks. Unlike the athletic persona who loves to swim, Lena has been paralysed since birth:

Kax BocKOBaH xyxjia Jiexajia; Hh na K o r o hc cepflHJiact. (i, 266 )

If the persona represents the 'wild girl' aspect of Akhmatova's childhood in Khersones, Lena represents the well brought-up girl of Tsarskoe Selo. Whereas the persona uses her song to lure the tsarevich, Lena quietly embroiders a shroud featuring a scene from the

Crucifixion:

CjiBimajia a, xax ona meuTajia: «Ü Jiam BoropoflHm»!ôy^cT chhhm... Boxce, anocTOJiy Moanny ^ e M U y X Œ H flJM CJIC3 fljOCTaXL MHG H G r j lG ...» (1,266)

Lena's shroud anticipates the death of the tsarevich. When the persona goes to the seaside, she notices:

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 100.

108 A BticoKO BSJicTeBmee neôo,

K ek BoropoflHiiiLiH njiHni;, c h h c j i o , - npe^Kge OHO TaKHM ne ôtiBajio. (i,267)

Further, Lena's feverish whisper about the Mother of God's blue cloak foreshadows the scene of the tsarevich's death. Interestingly, Lena's silence at the end of the poem anticipates

Mary's in Rekviem (this scene is quoted in full in Chapter 3). Turning her face to the wall,

Lena 'falls silent'. She also crosses herself repeatedly and (the persona guesses) weeps for the fallen tsarevich - an action traditionally associated with Mary. Thus, Akhmatova places

Lena in a Christian context in contrast to her more pagan sister.

The speaker of Rekviem is a composite figure. On the one hand, she speaks with the personal conviction of a mother who has endured a tremendous personal sacrifice. On the other hand, she is imbued with archetypal authority, representative of the Russian people's last link with God.

From the outset ofRekviem, Akhmatova's persona expresses an absolute conviction of her moral duty to 'describe'. Her authority to do so stems from the fact that she is in her proper place - among her people - during this particular tragic period of Russian history;

Hex, H ne nofl nyx^tiM neôocBojtoM, H ne nojt sannïToè Hynmtix KpBUi, - R ÔBiJia Torjta c mohm napcj^oM, TaM, r^e moô napo^, k HecHacxtio, 6bui. (36 1)

If her authority is based upon her personal experience of living through such terrible times, her impulse actually to describe events is instigated by the woman who identifies her in the

Leningrad prison line. The woman with 'blue lips' is a kind of variation of Akhmatova's muse.

In Rekviem, Akhmatova not only carries out the task of describing the circumstances

109 that unite the women who stand in line, she extends this task to actually protecting the

victims:

X o T e jio c L 6 l i Bcex noHMCHHO nasBaxL, JQ,a OTHHJIH cnHCOK, H Hcrfle yanaTB.

HHX COTKaJia B mnpOKHH nOKpOB Ha ôe^HBix, y hhx x e no^cjiymaHHbix cjiob. (369)

As in U samogo moria, weaving a cover over the victims evokes the image of Mary.

Although Akhmatova could not necessarily claim to protect them in this world, she could

offer them a memorial shroud and bring them together - dead or alive. Also, in the first

Epilogue, the persona prays for all who suffered a similar fate:

Yanajia a, xax onanaioT JiHita, Kax n a -n o jt b c k BBirjiajtMBaex exp ax, K a x XJIHHOHHCH XCeCXXHC CXpaHHUiBI CxpajtaHHe bbibohhx n a n t e x a x ,

K ax JioxoHBi Ha nenejiBHBix h n ep H B ix CepedpHHBiMH nejiaioxcH Bjtpyr, yjiBidxa BHHex na ryôax noxopHBix, H B cyxoHBXOM CMemxe upoxcHX Hcnyr. H a MOJiiocB He o cede ouhgh, A 060 Bcex, xxo xaM cxohji co mhoio, H B JIIOXBIH XOJIOH, HB HIOJIBCXHH aHOH, Ilofl xpacHOK) ocjienmeio cxenoio. (368-69)

Susan Amert notes that Rekviem 'commemorates the "velikie skorbi"/"great sorrows"

of the Russian land, but it is the poet who plays the role of intercessor for Russia by

fashioning a metaphorical burial shroud for it, a shroud that will preserve and sanctify,

ensuring Russia's future resurrection'. “ This image of the persona as intercessor or

protector may be contrasted with an earlier poem in the cycle, 'Raspiatie', in which the

“ Susan Amert, In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Palo Alto, California, 1992, p. 53.

110 persona likens her vigil outside the prison where her son is incarcerated to that of those who witnessed Christ's Crucifixion. As noted earlier, each figure represents a potential manifestation of grief, each of which is represented throughout Akhmatova's poetry:

MarjDiaJiHHa ÔHJiaci. h p B ig a jia , yqCHHK JIIOÔHMLIH KaMGHGJI, A Tyga, TflG Mojma MaTL cToajia, Tax HHKTO B arjianyT B h h g nocMGJi. (i, 368)

The disciple who 'turns to stone' can be linked to Akhmatova's statue poems in the sense that she is transformed into a memorial as opposed to creating a memorial. Mary Magdalene who 'beats and sobs' can also be compared with Akhmatova's persona who declares:

^GHCKHH rOJIOC, XpHnJItlH H SaflOpHLIH, Hg noGT - KprniHT, kphhht. (i,313)

This image is also repeated within Rekviem itself. For example, in one poem, the persona declares:

CGMHaRUaTB MGCMUGB KpHHy, 3 0 B y TGÔM flOMOH. (1,364)

In another famous section from 'Uvodili tebia na rassvete', she declares:

B y a y a, xax ctpgjigukhg x c g h k h , nO,n; KPGMJIGBCKHMH bamHSMH BBITB. (I, 363)

However, it is the image of Mary that remains most prominent in the reader's mind. As

Michael Basker notes:

...to the extent that the three disunited figures may be seen as projections of the self, Mary evidently symbolises no harmonious, healing reintegration; while the final locative statement establishes that her place is a kind of no-man's land, inaccessible to normal human emotion{a tuda..). From the context of the entire poem it must be concluded that Mary has come to terms with suffering and terror not through mystic transcendence or divine intervention, but by complete divorce of self from all that is most dear in the normal world, a fiercely cruel purging of all ordinary

111 emotion....

Further, Amanda Haight considers Mary's suffering to be a reflection of Christ's:

Mary the mother is set in opposition to Mary Magdalene who has lost Christ and will only find Him again when he appears to her after his resurrection. The Mother's suffering is a reflection of that of Christ who endures the Crucifixion to fulfil what he has been sent to do and whose suffering is not lessened but, if anything, heightened by understanding this necessity. He has no comforting illusions to place between Himself and the feeling of having been forsaken by God. And Mary, his mother, must watch Him, knowing that one cannot help anyone else, however great one's love, and that His suffering is necessary if God's purpose is to be fulfilled.

As noted in an Chapter 2, in one sense, Mary's silence represents the general atmosphere of political repression which Akhmatova emphasises at the outset by explaining that everyone spoke in whispers. At the same time, however, Mary's silence reflects a motif which runs throughout Akhmatova's poetry of the persona who is unable to speak, though this in no way diminishes her authority. Her purpose in this poem is not to speak, write or even commemorate - she is simply a mother bearing witness to her child's suffering.

Cassandra

Cassandra was granted the power of prophecy by Apollo who was in love with her.

When she later rejected him, Apollo changed her powers so that no one would ever believe her prophecies. Cassandra was then condemned to anticipate disasters and yet be powerless

Michael Basker, 'Dislocation and Relocation in Akhmatova'sRekviem', p. 21.

Amanda Haight, /f Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 100.

112 to convince others to avert them. Akhmatova was drawn to the image of Cassandra early

in her poetic career.In a letter to her brother-in-law written at seventeen, she says;

...noMHHTe BGmyio Kaccanapy Illnjuiepa? M ofl,Hoi rpanbio jtymn npHMLiKaio k TeMHOMy oôpaay 3 t o h BejiHKoè b c b o c m cTpa^aHHH npopo^HitLi! Ho floBejinnrm MHe AajiGKO.^^

Given Cassandra's status as archetypal woman prophet and Akhmatova's stated orientation

towards her, one can suppose an implicit or explicit allusion or parallel to Cassandra in

Akhmatova's assertion of a prophetic role. For example, Akhmatova alludes to a link

between her persona and Cassandra in 'Teper' nikto ne stanet slushat' pesen', written in 1917:

TenepL hhkto hc CTaneT cjiym axt necen. HpejtCKaaaHHtie HacxynHJiH «hh. Moh nocjiettHHH, mhp bojitme He Hyjtecen, He paspMBBH MHe cepflH,a, He sbghh.

Ente HeflaBHO JiacTOHKoè CBOôogHOH CBepmajia t h cboh yxpennHH hojigt, A HLine cxanemb HnnteHKon tojioahoh. He AocTynnmLCH y nyxcHX Bopox. (1917) (i, i3i)

Similarly, in 'la gibel' naklikala milym', written in 1921, she writes:

In many respects, Akhmatova's early attraction to the image of Cassandra came true for her later in life. On 14 August 1946, the Central Committee of the Communist Party passed a resolution censuring the journals Zvezda and Leningrad for publishing the works of Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko. A week later, Andrei Zhdanov issued a report in which he stated that publishing Akhmatova 'was equivalent to publishing Merezhkovsky, Kuz'min, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Gippius, Sologub, and others from the same "literary swamp'" (quoted in Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, pp. 143-44). However, such isolation went beyond the realisation of the Cassandra predicament in that Akhmatova was neither listened to, nor able to be heard.

Anna Akhmatova, Anna Akhmatova: stikhi/perepiska/vospominaniia/ikonografiia, p. 96.

113 ^ THÔeJIt HBKJIHKaJia MHJIHM, H rnôJiH oflHH 3a flpymM. O, rope MHc! 3 th mothjibi npejïCKaaaHBi cjiobom mohm. K bk BopoHM KpyiKaTCH, qya FopHHyio, CBCHcyio kpobl, XaK ^HKHe necHH, JiHKya, Moh nacBiJiajia jiioôobl. C T060 H) MHG CJiaHKO H 3H 0H H 0, Tbi ÔJIH30K, KBK cepHi^e B rpyHH. JI,aH pyKy mhg, cjiyman chokohho. XeÔH 3aKJiHHaio: y HAH. H nycTB He y3Haio h, thg tbi, O My3a, ero hg 3obh, ^a ÔyHGT HŒBBIM, HGBOCHGTBIM M ogh hg yanaBHiHH jiio ô b h . (1921) (i, i63)

The image o f Cassandra can also be detected in more indirect references. For

example in

Her, HjapGBHH, a hg ra,

K gm m g h h t b i b h h g t b x o n e m B , H HBBHO MOH yCTa He HGJiyioT, a npoponaT. (1915) (i, ii4)

The persona of this poem describes her abilities in detail. Yet the hero appears to reject her

'lips' which 'no longer kiss' but 'prophesy' in that she tells him to go home and forget that they

ever met.

The persona as a Cassandra figure is suggested in Rekviem generally in that one of

the cycle's major themes is the futility o f language in the face of tragedy. Anna Crone also

links the theme o f the persona's madness to Cassandra, comparing lines from 'Uzhe

bezumie krylom' in Rekviem to Cassandra's description o f herself in Aeschylus: 'Half-mad

Anna L. Crone, 'Antimetabole in Rekviem'. the Structural Disposition o f Themes and Motifs', in The Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 27-44, p. 37.

114 and I endured it all':

Y x e ôeayMHe KpLUiOM Jl,ymH aaKptiJio nojioBHHy, (4 May 1940) (i,367)

Crone also identifies the image of Cassandra in a poem written at the end of the 1940s, 'Vse

ushli i nikto ne vemulsia':

HarpaAHJiH m c h h H eM O T O io, H a BGCB MUp OKaaHHO KJIHHa OÔKOpMHJIH MGHM KJIGBGTOIO OnOHJIH OTpaBOH MGHM. H AO caM oro Kpaa AOBCAmn, HoneMy-TO ocxaBHJiH TaM - B y A y a ropoACKoè cyMacmeAmeè Ho npHTHxmHM ôpoAHTL njiomjaAAM/^

Crone notes that in this poem, 'Akhmatova presents herself as a Cassandra, cursed, ridiculed,

taken to the final lengths of suffering but not killed.

A classical prophet such as Cassandra was an image readily accessible to the female

poet. According to Catriona Kelly, the male Symbolists were, in particular, receptive to the

image of the woman writer as prophet (especially in the tradition of Russian folklore) as a

way of actualising their belief that women, by their nature, were granted 'privileged access

to the mythic domain': 'The argument that women's capacity for prophecy was directly

dependent on their nature ruled out the possibility that women might appropriate male

Anna Akhmatova, The Complete Poems o f Anna Akhmatova, ed. Roberta Reeder, trans. Judith Hemschemeyer, 2 vols, Somerville, Mass, II, p. 630.

Anna L. Crone, 'Antimetabole m Rekviem: the Structural Disposition of Themes and Motifs', p. 37.

115 masks, since that would have knocked down the equation between nature and expression. ,19

In addition to Cassandra, Akhmatova's persona bears some qualities of the Old

Testament prophet, particularly as famously depicted by Pushkin. In Pushkin's poem, the

seraphim commands the poet:

«BoCCXaHL, np O pO K , H BELHyi,L, H BHCMJIH,

H c u g jih h c b BOJieK) M o e ô , H , 0ÔX0A3 MOpa H SeMJIH,

FjiarojiOM acrn ceproa jh o ^^c h » . ^ ®

There are traces of Pushkin's prophet in Akhmatova's mature poetry, though as Jeanne Van

der Eng-Liedmeier argues, it is impossible to consider the Biblical prophet a straightforward

'double'. She cites, in particular, the poem 'Pamiat' 19 iiulia 1914', noting that, like Pushkin,

Akhmatova emphasises the poet's special calling and inner transformation:^^

M bi Ha CTO Jiex cocxapHJiHCB, h oto Torna cjiyHHJiocB b nac ohhh: KopoTKoe yncG KOHHaJiocB Jiexo, ^BIMHJIOCB XeJIO BCnaXaHHBIX paBHHH.

Bnpyr sanecxpejia XHxaH aopora, IIJiaH nojiexeji, cepeôpHHo s b c h h ... SaxpBiB JIHIÏO, H yMOJiHJia bora Jfo nepBOH ÔHTBBI yMepXBHTB MCHH.

Catriona Kelly, A History o f Russian Women's Writing, p. 164.

Aleksandr Pushkin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh, ed. B V Tomashevskii etal, 10 vols, 1962-66, II, 1963, p. 338.

Jeanne Van der Eng-Liedmeier, 'Aspects of the Prophetic Theme in Akhmatova's Poetry', in The Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 315-34, p. 318.

116 H s naMSTH, k b k rpya OTHLine JiHniHHè,

H c q e s j iH t c h h necen n cTpacTen. Eh - onycTeBmeH - npHKasaji BceBLimnHH C t b t l cTpamnoH Knnron rpoaoBBix BecTeè. ( 1916 ) (i, 109-10)

Van der Eng-Liedmeier also acknowledges two major distinctions between Pushkin and

Akhmatova's respective versions of the poet/prophet. Firstly, she notes that Akhmatova is

concerned with the purification of memory as opposed to transformation of the senses and

heart. Memory, she notes, is an all-encompassing theme throughout Akhmatova's poetry and

takes in 'all the impressions and experiences given to her by the senses and the heart'.

Secondly, unlike Pushkin, Akhmatova initially uses the pronoun 'we', shifting to the first

person singular in the second and third stanzas. This, Van der Eng-Liedmeier suggests,

denotes a particular group for whom the persona speaks.

Akhmatova was certainly open to conveying the sense of the poet as 'chosen'. For

example, this image is suggested in the famous opening in Rekviem - 'Vmesto predisloviia'

(I, 361) - in which the persona is approached by a 'woman with blue lips' from the cold. This

woman does not select Akhmatova at random but, rather, she 'recognises' her (which

Akhmatova, herself, emphasises by putting the word in quotation marks) (I, 361). The

woman believes that Akhmatova, above others, possesses the ability to describe events.

This image of Akhmatova as uniquely suited to serve this function has a precursor

in an earlier poem, 'Besshumno khodili po domu'. In this poem, Akhmatova's persona is led

to a sick man whom she does not recognise. The man is temporarily revived in her presence

and praises God that she has finally arrived. He tells her:

Jeanne Van der Eng-Liedmeier, 'The Prophetic Theme in Akhmatova's Poetry', pp. 318- 19.

117 «...T aK Mena tbi b 6pe«y TpeBOXHmL,

Bce c jio B a t b o h ôepery. CKa^Œ: TBI npocTHTB ne M oaceniB?» H H CKaaajia: «M ory». (1914)(i, io5)

The persona gives the same short answer as she gives the woman inRekviem: 'Mory'.

The fact that Akhmatova was drawn to the image of Cassandra rendered her a different kind of poet from those who exclusively identified with Pushkin's famous prophet from 'Prorok'. For one thing, Cassandra evokes the theme of'muteness' and powerlessness, despite her poetic capabilities. It also provides Akhmatova with a perspective that enables her to uplift her message to historical proportions; the persona's 'muteness' in the face of her own personal failings in her romantic life expands to represent a nation cowed into silence by a repressive regime. Ultimately, Akhmatova's authority and celebrity were enhanced by the merging of poet and persona: Akhmatova, herself, eventually became regarded as a

Cassandra figure in her own right. As Nadezhda Mandel'shtam describes:

O.M. HG cjiyHaÔHO nasBaji Anny AnflpeeBHy KaccanapoH. B 3T0M nojioxcenHH ÔBIJIH HG TOJIBKO H 03TBI. JIlOflH CTapmGTO, HGM MBI, HOKOJIGHHH BHflGJIH, HTO Ha^BHraGTCH, h o HX rojioca hotgphjihcb h saMGpjiH. Ehi;g ao hoôgj^bi « h o b o to » OHH yCHGJIH CKasaTB 06 GTO 3THKG, BtEÜGOJIOTHH, HGTGpHHMOCTH H o6 HCKaXCGHHBIX HpGHCTaBJIGHHHX O HpEBG. TOJIOC BOHHIOH^GrO B HyCTBIHG... H C KaxmjBIM flHGM CTanOBHJIOCB HCHGG, HTO TOBOpHTB C OTpyÔJIGHHBIM H3BIK0M CTaHOBHTCH BCG TpyHHGG.^^

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, VospominanUa, pp. 148-49.

118 'Bibleiskie stikhi' - Rachel, Lot's Wife and Michal

The famous cycle 'Bibleiskie stikhi' is useful for considering Akhmatova's use of doubles in general. In the three poems which comprise the cycle, Akhmatova relates the stories of women who play mere supporting roles in the Bible; Rachel, Lot's wife, and

Michal. Akhmatova is the self-appointed champion of these women; although she relates their tales from the point of view of an external narrator, she sympathises with their plights.

The impression is that, as a woman, she is finally able to relate a more accurate version of events than has been traditionally understood, as she suggests in a personal aside in 'Lotova zhena':

Kto xenmHHy axy onjiaKHBaTt ôy^ex? He MCHBmeH jih m h h t c h ona H3 yxpax? JlnmL cepOTC M oe HHKora;a ne saby^ex OxflaBmyio xhshb aa eflHHCXBCHHLiH BsrJiaa. (1922-24) (i, i48)

The poems in this cycle are the most explicitly 'feminist' in approach, though

Akhmatova would almost certainly not have described them as such. She anticipates a trend in such Western works as Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys which retells the story of Jane

Eyre from the point of view of Rochester's insane wife locked away in the attic, Bertha.

Akhmatova goes beyond picking up on a theme or narrative structure; she re-tells the story from what has been traditionally the unsympathetic point of view.

In this cycle, the Bible serves as the primary text from which Akhmatova improvises a more detailed portrayal. Akhmatova makes some concessions to the actual Biblical texts; her epigraphs are direct quotes from the Bible and each poem begins with the conjuntion

'and', simulating Biblical style. However, the similarities end there. Rather than meekly

119 accept their fate, all three heroines struggle with the situations in which they find themselves.

Rachel is consumed with jealousy for her sister; Lot's wife looks back in defiance of her husband's wishes and in full knowledge of the potential consequences; Michal's soul is full of'sorrow' and 'resentment' as she is presented to David.

Akhmatova's Biblical heroines are, in many respects, typical of Akhmatova's poetic persona generally. This is because Akhmatova highlights qualities in her heroines which also apply to her own poetic persona, including an unwillingness to submit to the will of others and a predisposition for such human weaknesses as jealousy, nostalgia and passion. In all but name, her Biblical heroines are the heroines of Chetki and Belaia staia. Further, as

Amanda Haight explains, these issues were central to Akhmatova's personal life;

The poet's choice of these [Biblical] women as heroines was not purely arbitrary. Akhmatova was not describing Rachel, Lot's wife, and Michal from outside, but looking through their eyes. In them she had found at least the suggestion of a way of looking at life which might begin to explain the riddle of her own existence. If she could use a heroine who drew together the disconnected facets of her own character, it could only be because she had herself undergone, or was undergoing such a change.

Rachel

Akhmatova's epigraph indicates the precise part of the Biblical story on which she intends to focus: 'H cjiyxŒJi HaxoB sa PaxHJii» ccml jict ; h o h h noKasajincL eMy sa necKOJiLKo flHeè, noTOMyhto oh jhgôhji ee.' The poem's first stanza only elaborates slightly on the Biblical version:

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage,^. 88.

120 H BCTpeTHJI H h K O B b flOJIHHe PaXHJIB, Oh eè hokjiohhjich, khk ctpehhhk ôesqoMHLiè. CTajua no^;i>iMajiH ropanyio n tu it,

H cTOHHHK ÔbIJI KaMHGM SaBaJIGH OrpOMHLIM. Oh KEMCHb CBoeio pyK oè otbejihji H HHCTOÔ BOflOK) OBCD; HanOHJI. (1 9 2 1 ) (I, 146)

Akhmatova emphasises that Jacob bows to Rachel like a 'homeless wanderer'. She leaves out the purpose of Jacob's visit - to obey Isaac's command to take a wife from one of Laban's daughters.

Akhmatova then relates the portion of the story in which Jacob agrees to serve Laban for seven years in return for Rachel, Laban's youngest daughter.

Ho cxaJio B rpy^H ero cep ^ e rpycTHTb, B oJiert, KEK OTKPLITEH pEHE, H OH COFJiaCHJICH 3E flGBy C JiyX H T t

C eM L J ie r nacxyxoM y JI e b e h e . PaxHJib! JJjiH xoro,kxo bo bjiecxh XBoeé, C eM L JieX - CJIOBHO CGML OCJieHHXejILHLIX JüHeÔ.(I, 147)

The reference to seven years seeming like 'seven dazzling days' is borrowed from the Bible

{Bytie, 29: 20). The rest of the poem describes Laban's deceit when he sends his older daughter, Leah, to the marriage bed and not Rachel:

Ho MHoro npeMyflp cpeôpojiioôeuJI e b e h , H a c a jio c x L eMy HesnaKOME. O h wM aex: KE^K^Liè npocxHXca o6m eh Bo cjiEBy JIebehobe ^ome. H JI h k ) HeapHHyio XBep^oè pyxoè HpHBO^HX K HaKOBy B Ô pEH H L lè HOKOÔ.

Tenex Ha;; nycxLiHeô b l ic o k e h h o h l , PoHMex npoxJia;;HLie pocLi,

H c x o n e x JI e b e h o b e M Jia a m a H « o h l ,

Tepaaa nymncxLie k o c l i.

Cecxpy HpoKJiHHEex, h bora xyjiHX,

H EHxejiy CMepxH h b h x l c h b g j ih x .

121 H CHHTCH HaKOBy cjiafljocTHBiô qac npoapaqHbiè hcto^khk j^ojihhmé, Becejitie Bsopti PaxHJiHHtix rjias H rojioc ee rojiyÔHHBiè; HaKOB, He TBI JIH M6 HH DjeJIOBaJI H HepHOH roJiyÔKOH cboch nasBiBaji? (1921) (i, 146 -47 )

Akhmatova leaves out the fact that Laban's excuse for sending Leah is that it is not customary to give the younger daughter before the elder. In the Bible, Laban goes on to tell

Jacob to finish out Leah's bridal week and, in return, he may then have Rachel as well.

Akhmatova also leaves out any references to a higher plan: Jacob's instructions to form a tribe from the daughters of his mother's brother - Laban. Ultimately, in the Bible, God rewards Leah with children while leaving Rachel childless for years. Whereas in the Bible, the love story is secondary, for Akhmatova, it is central. She transforms the story of Rachel and Jacob into a confrontation that could have occurred between her early persona and hero.

She rebels against the part she has been allotted to play in God's plan.

Lofs Wife

The only significant mention the Bible makes of Lot's wife serves as Akhmatova's epigraph to the poem: '^XKena ace JIoTOBa orjianyjiacB nosa^H ero h cxajia c o j ih h b i m cTOJinoM.' From this textual point, Akhmatova constructs a history for Lot's wife:

H npaBe^HHK m en 3a nocjiaHHHKOM 6ora, OrpOMHBiH H CBexjiBiH, HO HepHOH Tope. Ho rpoMKo acene roBopHJia xpeBora: He nosflHO, xbi MoacemL em,e nocMoxpexB Ha KpacHBie damnn poflHoro CoflOMa, Ha HJioma^B, r^e nejia, na %Bop, rjije npana, Ha OKHa nycxBie BBicoKoro ji;oMa, Fne MHJioMy Myacy nexeè ponnjia.

122 Bsrjianyjia - h , CKOBanti c m c p t h o k ) ôojilk ), Fjiasa ee ôojitm e cMOTpeTfc ne Morjin; H cflejiajiocL Tejio npoapaqnoio cojibio, H ôbicTpbie Hora aeMJie npHpocjiH.

K to xenmHHy 3Ty onjiaKHBaxL ôyjtex? He M eH L m eè jih MHHXca ona h 3 y x p a x ? JlnniL cepOTe Moe HEKorqa ne saôyqex OxflaBmyio 2 Œ 3 h l 3a eflHHCXBeHHLiè B3XJMm. (1 9 2 2 -2 4 ) (i, 147-48)

As already discussed in Chapter 5, the transformation of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt may

be interpreted as her transformation into a kind of memorial to the act of remembrance.

Parallel to this is the way in which Akhmatova blends the concrete objects with personal

experience; she not only sees the buildings of Sodom - the red towers, the square, the

courtyard and the 'empty windows of the tall home' - but also recalls the activities that went

on there: singing, spinning and giving birth to children. This effect is described by Kees

Verheul as follows:

...the heroine's departure from her native city is envisaged as a breach with her personal past, from which she is irrevocably cut off by historical catastrophe. The PUBLIC BUILDINGS of the city which she is to leave are filled with PERSONAL MEMORIES; the description of the architecture of Sodom, to which the heroine casts her lethal glance, culminates in that of the HOUSE in which she has lived with her husband and children and from which she is now to be cut off forever.

Lot's wife has fond associations with motherhood in particular which, as discussed

in Chapter 3, is untypical of Akhmatova's persona generally. As Amanda Haight emphasises,

'Lot's wife does not look back at a place which has been a trap from which she has to free

Kees Verheul, The Theme o f Time in the Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova, The Hague, 1971, p. 59.

123 herself or to some place where she has been a "bad mother".'^^ Rather, she cherishes her memories to such an extent, she is willing to give her life to preserve them.

Akhmatova uses similar imagery in 'Vtoraia godovshchina', written on the second anniversary of her return to Leningrad:

H c t , fl He BLiHJiaKajia hx. OhH BHyxpH CKHUeJIHCB caMH.

H Bce npoxoAHT npe% rjiaaaMH

^aBHO 6e3 HHX, Bcerqa des hhx.

Bea HHX M6HH TOMHT H ^tymHT OÔHABI H paSJiyKH dOJIB. IIpOHHKJia B KPOBB - TpG3BHT H C y m H T Hx BCGCXŒraïoHtaH cojib.

Ho MHHTCH MHG: B COpOK HGTBGpTOM, H He B HIOHH JIB HepBBIH %eHB, Kax Ha mejiKy Boannxjia c x e p T O M Tboh CTpaflajiBHecKax tghb.

Eme Ha BceM nenaxB Jieacajia BejiHKHX de%, He^aBHHX rpoa, - H H CBOH ropo# yBHnajia Ckbo3B pa^iyry HocjienHHX cjiea. (1946) (i,2i5-i6)

The 'rainbow' of her 'last tears' and the reference to 'fiery salt' spreading through her blood echo the image of Lot's wife looking back on Sodom.

Michal

In this poem, Akhmatova drastically elaborates upon the Biblical tale. Only her epigraph is taken directly from the Bible {Tsarstv 18:21):

Amanda Haight, A Poetic Pilgrimage, p. 86.

124 Ho nojiioÔHJia . ,n:o% Cayjia Mejixojia. Cayji ayMaji: OT^aM ee aa Hero, H o n a 6 y%eT eMy ceTtio.

The rest is Akhmatova's own elaboration;

H OTpoK Hrpaer ôeayMny napio, H HOHt ôecnonra^Hyio pymnx, H rpoMKO noôe^Hyio KJirraeT sapio, H npnapaKH yacaca symHT. H HapL ÔJiarocKJioHHO eMyfobopht : «OroHL B Teôe,lo n o m a , flHBHLiè ropHT, H H 3a TaKoe JiexapcTBO O x^ aM x e 6 e %OHKy h i^apcxB o». H DiapcKaa %OHKa rjiMgHX na ne&qa, E h necen ne nyacno, ne nyxŒO Bénira, B pyme ee cKopôt h oôrwa, Ho xonex Menxojia - Jl,aBHfla. BjieHHee, neM MepxBaa; pox ee cacax; B sejieHLix xjiaaax HccxynjieHte; C h h io x OHeacflbi, h cxponno SBenax Banacxta npH xaacj^oM ABEacente. Kax xaÔ H a, xax c o n , xax n p a M a x e p b JI h j ih x ... He BOJieô cBoeio ona roBopnx: «H aB epno, c oxpaBOH MHe najin nnxte, H MOH n o M p a n a e x c a %yx. BeccxbmcxBO Moe! YHHaceHLe Moe! Bpoaara! PaaôoHHHx! Hacxyx! SaneM ace hhkxo H3 nprmBopHbix BejiLMoac, y BEI, na nero ne noxoac? A cojiHi^a JiyHH . a 3Be3Abi b hohh... A 3xa xoHOüHaa ji;poaa,...( 1922-61) (i, 148-49)

One possible interpretation of this poem is that it focuses on Michal's resistance to play the part handed to her by God. Michal, in the Bible, becomes key in that she warns David to run for his life from her father who used her like a 'trap'. Yet Akhmatova's heroine is full of

'sorrow' and 'shame' at her passion for David - a mere shepherd. Akhmatova's mysterious reference to Lilith - the 'original mother', will be considered below.

125 For now, however, it is interesting to note that David's main attraction in this poem are his musical talents. Similarly, in 'Muzyka', Akhmatova describes music in terms of something 'miracle-working' which 'burns' in it;

B H en MTO-TO nyja,OTBopHoe ropHT, H Ha rjiasax ee Kpaa rpaHHTca. Ona oqna comhok) fobopht, Kor^a ^tpyrne ho^ohth doaxcH.

Korqa HocjieflHHH %pyr o x B e j i rjiasa, Ona dtiJia co m hoh b M oeè Mornjie

H n e j i a c j io b h o nepBaa rposa

H jil 6y%xo Bce n^BexBi saroBopHJiH. (1958) ( 1, 234-35)

Antigone

Antigone was the daughter of Oedipus who resigned the throne of Thebes, giving way to Creon. Antigone accompanied her blind father when he was eventually expelled from

Thebes. She is more famous, however, for disobeying Creon's proclamation that her brother,

Polyneices, should be left for the beasts and birds to tear and devour for fighting against the city of Thebes. Creon proclaimed that anyone who buried Polyneices would be put to death.

Despite her sister's pleas to obey the state, Antigone insisted on burying the brother she loved, answering to a higher law than that of the state. Antigone was put to death for her actions.

While Akhmatova was drawn to the role of intercessor, she was also drawn to figures such as Antigone for her associations with mourning the dead. This image, as

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam notes, was one her husband would have commended:

126 y MaH^eJitniTaMa ôb ijio CBoeoôpasHoe ;üejieHHe MHpa na « M y x e â » h « x c e n » . Bck) oTBexcTBeHHOCTL 3a TeneHHe seMHbix ^GJi Hecyx « M y x Œ » , a « x e n t i » njiaKajiLmHUiLi, raflajiLmHn;ti, coÔHpaxejitHHUiLi JiexKoro nenjia...TojitKo m h g ra^axE o h ne nosBOJiHJi,h h oÔEDKajiact, h x o BtiKJiiOHeHa h 3 HHCJia « x c e n » . OjipaHgaj>i, oxornaB ox m g h h rajüajiKy on cKaxaji; « T e ô e 3aHCM ra^iaxE? Tti yxce Bce 3naemL». rocno^H, h x o h 3najia xor^üa, c c jih h h ceanac HHHero ne anaïo...^^

She also describes how her husband valued the image of men in battle and the 'handshake at moments of danger', though,'...b MHuyxy onacnocxH ne Hamjioct h h o%noro « iv ty x a » ,

K oxopL iH 6 m noHcaji eMy pyxy. 3 axo c naMH 6tuia ujiaKajiLruHua AxMaxoBa, nocneanna

H3 xex, Koro on naaLiBaji « m l i » . Ee npom;ajn>HLm nou&nyn c x o h ji b o j i t m e xoro, n a nxo

ôtiJiHcn ocoÔ H b i KyuEie «M yacn» namen anoxH.'^*

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam also notes that the image of Antigone was representative of a generation of Russian women:

B MorynxecxBeHHHX ^epxaaax %Baqnaxoro Bexa, npocjiaBJiaeMLix neKoxopMMH HoaxaMH H MHOFHMH xpHÔynaMH KaK eflHHcxBennaa najneacfla nejiOBenecxBa, BJiacxHxejiH H i^apH HaxoflHjmcL na xaxon roJioBOKpyxHxejiLHOH BMcoxe h b xaxon ocjienHxejitHOH naojiaunn, nxo EHKaxne qeJioBenecKHe rojioca ne flocxHrajiH h x cjiyxa. Mhjijihohm Heocyni;ecxBHBmHxca AnxHroH npaxajiHct no yxjiaM, aanojinaJiH anxexbi, x o ^ h jih na cjiyxby n ne cMejiH ne xo nxo noxoponnxB, no flaxce onJiaxaxL c b o h x MepxBeniOB. Ejianymaa xcennmna neMeflJienno noxepajia 6hi cjiyxôy n cfloxjia c rojiojiy.^^

In the third poem of a cycle dedicated to Boris Pasternak, Akhmatova explicitly refers to Antigone when she lead her blind father out of Thebes:

C jio b h o ^nonxa cjienoro S^nna, Myaa k cMepxH npoBHfln;a BCJia,

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vtoraia kniga, p. 57.

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vtoraia kniga, p. 57.

Nadezhda Mandel'shtam, Vtoraia kniga, pp. 123-24.

127 A oflHa cyM acmeflmaa JiHna B 3T0M xpaypHOM Mae n,Bejia npMMO npOTHB OKHa, Tfle KOr^a-TO On noBe^aji mhc, hto nepe« h h m BL6TCH nyXL 30JI0T0H H KptlJiaTBIH, r ^ e OH B Linm eK ) b o jic h xpaH H M . (11 July 1960) (i,247)

As with the image of Cassandra, some of Akhmatova's references to Antigone are more generic. For example, Akhmatova's poetry often fulfils the function of a lament - a ritual which, in Orthodoxy, is traditionally performed by women and which is associated with

Antigone. Akhmatova briefly mentions such a figure in U samogo moria - the soldier's wife who 'sang of her grief. Mourning for the dead provided another role which ideally suited

Akhmatova as a woman poet.

This image of Antigone is related to the death of Nikolai Gumilev and Akhmatova's subsequent search for his grave. However, the theme also predates Gumilev's death as the following extract written in 1914 demonstrates:

BecTCH OT Hero He nojiynHmt fiojitme. He ycjiBimHmt t h n p o Hero. B OÔBHTOH HoacapaMH, CKopÔHOH Hojibme He H a H fle m b Mornjibi ero. (1914) (i, lo i)

Akhmatova dedicated the poem 'la ne znaiu, ty zhiv ili umer,-' to Boris Anrep:

M He 3HaK), Tbi 3ŒB HJiH yMep, - Ha 3eM Jie xefia m oxho HCKaxb

H jih TOJibKO B B e n e p n e H jiyM e Ho yconm eM CBexjio ropeBaxb. (1915) (i, ii3-i4)

This poem also, perhaps, relates to the theme of the eternal masculine discussed in an earlier chapter. 'Everything' is for the hero: her 'daily prayers', the 'fever of insomnia' and her poetry - her 'white flock', referring to the book in which the poem is included.

128 Eve

As noted in Chapter 1, there is an obvious tension in attempting to include

Akhmatova in a movement such as Acmeism/Adamism with overwhelmingly masculine

imagery. Akhmatova faced the choice of either adopting the masculine theory, despite her

evident incompatibility, or assuming a separate image complementary to the dominant

masculine one. Akhmatova was conscious of this tension, as suggested by the following

quote;

B 3HMy Sturm und Drang aKMensMa mli HecKOJiLKo pas BLicxynajiH KaK rpynna. ryM(HJieB) H rop(oj;eiiKHH) METajm AOKJiaflLi, noMmo,kb k cxapHK Pa^(eTCKnn) (?) c rnraHTCKOH 6opofl,OH noTpHcaji KyKJiaKaMH a Kpaaaji: « 3th AflaMLi h 3xa Tomaa E a a »t ([o] e[cTL] a) [sic].^°

Further, in 'Dolgim vzgliadom tvoim istomlennaia', Akhmatova explicitly links her persona

with Eve:

JfOJirHM B3rJI5mOM TBOHM HCTOMJieHHaH, H caMa HayHHJiacb tomhtl. Hs peôpa TBoero coTBopennaa, KaK Mory a xe6a ne j i i o ô h t l ?

BlITL TBOeiO CeCTpOK) OTpa^HOK) Mne saBemano jtpeBneè cy^Lboè, A a cxajia jiyKaBOH h xaflHoio H cJiaflaaèmeH xbock ) paôoè.

Ho Korjua saMHpaio, CMapennaa, Ha rpyflH xboch cnera ôejieè, KaK JiHKyex XBoe yMyflpenHoe CepOTe - cojiHi^e oxhhshli moch ! (1921) (I, i63)

30 Anna Akhmatova, 'Avtobiograficheskaia proza', p. 7.

129 Akhmatova's contemporaries approached the impact of a female Adamist with mixed results. For example, in a poem dedicated to Akhmatova - 'Son Adama' - Gumilev succumbs to the temptation of casting her in the role of Eve;

B o t E b b - jieneqcT ôeccBasHO,

B o t E b b - CBMTBM, c neHBJitio onen, To JiyHHaa flCBa, t o %eBa acMHaa, Ho Be^HO H Bciofly qyxcaa, nyacaa.^^

Gorodetskii, the poet most closely associated with Adamism, was also prone to associating

Akhmatova with Eve as opposed to Adam. Unlike Gumilev, Gorodetskii positively addressed the issue of Akhmatova's apparent incompatibility with such a masculine theory:

...AnjBM, KBK HCTHHHLm XyflOlKHHK, nOHSJI, HTO 3^601» OH flOJIXCCH yCTyHHTB M6CT0

Eae ^CHCKBH pyxa, xencKoe yyTBC, h cchckhh B3op a^ect bojiee

yMecTHBi...JlnpHKB A h h l i A x m b t o b o h ocTpoyMHO H nexcHO no^omjia k 3 t o h aaflane, flocTBTOHHo Tpyanoè. O 'Benep' m h o t o h h c b jih . M h o t h m c p a a y ctbjih

flopOTHMH Haanjpaa nenajiB, nejiaaaBOCTL h beaxHTpocTHOCTb 3 t o h k h h t h . H o MBJio KTO aaMCTHJi, HTO neccHMH3M 'BcHcpa' - aKMeHCTERen, HTO 'naabiBaa'

ypOppCB HCBpaCTGEHH H BCHKOH HHOH TOCKH, A h EB A x MBTOBB B HCCHaCTHtlX 3THX

aBepcHLimax jiio ô h t n e t o , h to HCKaJieHeno b h h x , h c t o , h to octbjiocl

OT ApaMB, JiHKyioHraro b p a io c b o g m . 3 t h 'o c t b t k h ' o h b JiacK aeT b n o o a n n cbo c h pyKOH HOHTH MBCTCpa.^^

Although this association of Akhmatova with Eve may seem essentially superficial, it suggests that Akhmatova was confronted with imagery which cast her in a fundamentally different role from that of her male contemporaries. The two images of the poet - Adam and

Eve - are mutually exclusive: one names, the other is named. Akhmatova seems to allude to this in her comments on the poem cited above, 'Tsaritsa', in which Gumilev compares her

Nikolai Gumilev, Sobranie sochinenii. I, p. 150.

Sergei Gorodetskii, 'Nekotorye techeniia v sovremennoi russkoi poezii', p. 49.

130 to Eve:

To 3Ke B CHG AjtaMa npo Esy. Ona - flBOHTca. H o Bcer^ta nyacaa. 3 t o b odnteM njiane, no yxe npHJioxeno k A. Bennaa 6opi.6a....[sic]^^

This comment suggests that it was the contradictory nature of Gumilev's characterisation

that concerned her, as opposed to actually being cast as Eve in the first place. This image

of being 'split in two' reappears in 'Prolog' (also known as 'Son vo sne'), but in this context,

however, it refers to the 'split' between the woman as beloved and poet:

ffaxcG 3xa nojiHOHL ne floônjiacB,

K to B03JiK)6jieHHaa, k t o n o 3 T , He nornôjia a, no pasflBonjiaci., A jtBOHM n aM B M Hpe M ecTa n e T .( 1 9 6 4 ) (i, 374 ;

Later in this work, Akhmatova writes:

3 t o t p a n , rjoie m l i ne corpemnjin, Tomen naM .

3 to t aanax CMepTonocHLix jih jih h H em e He CTLmHLin cpaM. CnHTca yjiLidaiomeHca Ebg,

H to ee CKB03L rpo3HLie Bexa C dynyiiiHM ydnnneio bo apeBe H o B en eT JiiodH M aa p y x a . ( 1 9 4 6 ) (i, 376)

The image of Eve carries with it aspects of archetypal associations with Original Sin

that do not apply to Adam. By exploiting these associations, Akhmatova was able to upliff

the theme of personal guilt to archetypal proportions. Thus, even when Eve is not

specifically mentioned, her presence is felt nonetheless, as, for example, in 'Iz bol'shoi

ispovedi':

Anna Akhmatova, "'Samyi neprochitannyi poet". Zametki Army Akhmatovoi o Nikolae Gumileve', Novyi mir, 1990, 5, pp. 219-23, p. 219.

131 M 3BaHbe TO npHOÔpejia 3 a coTHH npecTynjieHHH, H3MeHHHIlieH SblJia H BepHOH - TOJItKO T6HH. (1963) (1, 380)

Lilith

A less well-known character in the Adam and Eve myth is Lilith - Adam's first wife.

In 'Tsaritsa', Gumilev not only compared Akhmatova to Eve, but also to Lilith:

T b o h j i o 6 b K yqpax oxjiHBa 6poH3Li,

KaK cxajib, rjiaaa x b o h o c x p L i,

Teôe aaro^MHHBMe 6 o h 3 l i B Tndexe cxaBHJiH Kocxpbi.

K o x A a T h m y p b yHLUioH 3Jio6e H apoflbi ÔpOCHJI K HX MGxe,

Te6% n e c j i H b nycxbinnx T g ô h Ha ÔOGBOM ero m pTe.

H XBI BCxynHJia b KpenocxB ArpBi,

CBexJia, KaK flpeBHHH JIh j i h x ,

T b o h BecejiBie onarpBi BBcneJiH 30JI0X0M kohbix.^'^

Also, as noted earlier, Akhmatova compares Michal's role in her 'Bibleiskie stikhi' to that of 'the first mother - Lilith'. This comparison is mysterious. First of all, Akhmatova seems to suggest that the point of comparison between Michal and Lilith has to do with motherhood in that she stresses that Lilith is 'the first mother'. However, Michal was not a maternal figure: she was ultimately denied children as punishment for condemning David for his dance before the Arc of the Covenant. Secondly, Lilith is not a typical maternal image.

According to Hebraic tradition, when Adam tried to force Lilith to lie with him, Lilith

Nikolai Gumilev, Sobranie sochinenii. I, pp. 102-03.

132 sneered and fled to the Red Sea. When God sent his angels to fetch her, she cursed them

and ignored God's command. She willingly slept with demons, however, and gave birth to

one hundred children each day. Meanwhile, God created Eve as Adam's more co-operative

companion. Lilith was known as 'Great Mother' to agricultural tribes, though her legacy

was as more of an archetypal 'anti-mother'. According to Christian legend, male babies could

not be left alone in the house or else, it was said, Lilith would seize them. Some believers

even drew protective chalk around baby boys with the names of the angels whom God sent

to fetch Lilith. Lilith, therefore, may be considered a variant of the 'bad mother' and 'harlot'

motifs discussed earlier.

Perhaps Akhmatova's reference to Lilith in 'Melkhola' (quoted in full above),

therefore, has to do with a refusal to submit; just as Lilith refused to submit to Adam,

Akhmatova's Michal attempts to overcome her passion for David. Of course, in the Bible,

Michal did ultimately submit to David. The ambiguous ending to Akhmatova's poem may

allude to this:

A cojiH ua Jiynn . a 3Be3fl,Li b h o ^ h ... A 3xa xoJio^tHaa Apo2a>...»(i, i49)

The Woman's Encyclopedia o f Myths and Secrets, ed. Barbara G. Walker, San Francisco, 1983, pp. 541-42.

133 Muse Poems

Akhmatova's muse poems highlight a number of themes which have been explored

in earlier chapters. For example, Akhmatova's muse conveys the sense of a parallel world

to which Akhmatova's persona is granted privileged, if limited, access. Also, in some poems,

her muse provides yet another means of Akhmatova's persona adopting an objective stance;

she may remain passive while her muse takes action. In others, however, Akhmatova

emphasises the symbiotic relationship between her persona and muse; as one deteriorates,

so does the other. Finally, in some poems, as David Wells notes, Akhmatova's novel twist

to the image of the poem as 'dictated' to the poet is to depict her muse as companion or

friend as opposed to the traditional male connotation of muse aslover.This is evident in

such poems as 'Muze' in which she describes her muse as her 'muse-sister':

Mysa-cecxpa sarjianyjia b j i h u o , BsrjiaA ee acen h ap o K . H OTHHJia sojioToe KOJitnio, XlepBBiH BeceHHHH no%apoK.

Myaa! tb i BrmnmB, xax caacTJiHBBi Bce -

fr,eBymKE, xenm nH Bi, b ^ o b b i. .. Jlyame norndsy na KOJiece,

T oJIBKO He 3TH OKOBBI.

Snaio: ra#aa, h MHe odpBiBaxB HeacHBiH npexoK MaprapnxKy.

J^cjmen na 3Xo h seMJie HCHBixaxB KaacHBiH JiiodoBHyK) HBixxy.

David Wells, 'Three Functions of the Classical in Akhmatova's Poetry', inThe Speech of Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 183-99.

134 )Kry flo 3apH na oKoroKe cBcqy H HH O KOM He TOCKyiO, Ho He xony, n e xony, n e xony 3naTb, KaK EtejiyioT %pyryio.

3aBTpa MHe eKaxcyx, eMeacB, aepKajia: «B aopTBOH He a c e n , He apoK ...» Thxo OTBeay: «O na oxnajia BoJKHH HOflapOK». (1911) (1, 38)

The poem stresses the persona's symbiotic relationship with her muse; the muse's gaze is

'bright and clear' and she has taken the persona's 'golden ring'.

In 'la prishla tebia smenit', sestra', Akhmatova refers to a muse-like figure as her

'sister', emphasising the close link between the two:

« M n p n m j ia xe6a cm chhtl, cecxpa, y JiecHoro, y blicokofo Kocxpa.

H o cen eJ iH x b o h b o j io c h . T jiaaa 3aMyxHJia, saxyMauHJia cjieaa.

Tbi yace He noHHMaemb ncHba hxhh, Tbi HH 3Be3fl He 3aMeaaemb, hh 3apHHH.

H AaBHo yflapbi ôybna ne cjibimnbi, A a 3Haio, xbi bonmbca xnmnnbi.

^ npnmjia xe6a cMennxb, cecxpa, y JiecHoro, y bmcokoxo Kocxpa».

« T b i Hpnmjia M en a noxopoHHXb. T)%e ace aacxyn xboh , r^e jionaxa? TojibKO (J)JieHxa b pyKax xbohx . M He 6yw xe6a b h h h x b , Pa3Be acajib, axo %aBHO, Koraa-xo, HaBcer^a moh xojioc aaxHX.

135 M oh Ha#eHB, IIo3a6yfl,L o Moeè TpeBore, JI,aH Bexpy KynpHMH HrpaxB. Tbi naxneniB, kbk naxnex cnpenB, A npHHiJia no xpyjo;HOH flopore, Hxoôbi 3jo(ecB 03apeHH0H cxaxB ».

H oflna ymjia, ycxynan, Ycxynaa Mecxo «pyroè. H E G B ep n o 6 pejia, KaK cjienaa, HeanaKOMOH y3K0H xponoH.

H BCG ny^HJiocB gh, hxo njiaMH BjIH3K0...6y6GH RGpHCHX pyKB. H ona KBK ÔGJIOG 3HBMH, H ona KBK CBGX MBHKB. (1912) (1,71-72)

This poem illustrates a number of themes and motifs discussed in earlier chapters. For example, the people entitled to sit by the 'high fire' are female. Although the poem seems to have more to do with a younger poet (or muse) figure replacing the elder, it is women who are (or have been able) to 'understand the song of birds', ' notice the stars or summer lightning' and cause the tamborine to beat. This process also highlights the image of the sensitive persona discussed earlier; it is her ability to discern such things which renders her a poet figure, not her ability to craft words. The silent persona is not applicable in this poem as one of the symptoms which convince the elder figure to give up her place is that her voice has quietened down forever and the younger person says that she knows 'the elder is fiightened of silence'. The theme of the detached persona is retained, however, in that the two sisters serve as observers of the other. Further, an association with Symbolism is conveyed by the scent of 'lilac' and the mysterious sense of place, suggestive of another world. The impression is that this could be one manifestation of one Eternal Feminine

136 replacing the other.

Another poem which evokes a sense that the muse is akin to a kind of Symbolist

parallel world is 'Muza ushla po doroge':

Mysa ymjia no flopore, OcenneH, ysKon, KpyTon, H dbiJiH cMyrjibie norn OôpbisraHLi KpynnoH pocoè.

H flOJiro ee npocnjia 3 hMLI CO MHOH no^oH^aTb, Ho CKaaajia: «B e^b a^ecb Mornjia, Kax Tbi Moxemb en%e flbimaxb?»

^ rojiyôxy eô Aaxb xoxejia,

Ty, nxo B c e x b ronyôaxne ôejieè, Ho nxHua caMa nojiexejia 3a cxpoHHOH rocxbeè Moeè.

R, XJWAH en BCJie^, Mojmajia, ^ JiioÔHJia ee oflny, A B ne6e aapa cxoxjia,

Kax B o p o x a b ee e x p any. (1915) (i,8i)

The gate to the muse's country is like a link to another world which contrasts with the

persona's world which is like a 'grave'.The reference to the muse's feet as 'swarthy' is

interesting in that that is the description in 'Smuglyi otrok brodil po alleiam' which signals

that the youth in question is Pushkin. Her muse is also described as 'swarthy' in 'Uedinenie';

A EC AOEHcannyio mhoh cxpannity - BOHCeCXBGHHO CHOXOHHa H JIGXXa, fI,OHHmex Mysbi cMyraax pyxa. (1914) (i,78)

37 The muse's parallel world is also described in 'Fust' golosa organa snova grianut':

A H Hfly BJiaRGXb ny^ecHbiM ca^OM, r«e mejiecx xpaB h BOcxjiHi^aHbH My3. (1921) (i, i60)

137 In 'Vse otniato; i sila, i liubov", both the persona and her muse deteriorate simultaneously. This probably has to do with the fact that the poem was written while

Akhmatova was in the Crimea recovering from tuberculosis. Nonetheless, it is not the silent muse who attempts to revive the persona's flagging strength, but the persona's own

'conscience':

Bce OTHMTO: h CH Jia, a JiioôoBb. B H C M a jitiH ropofl ôpomeHHoe t c j i o He pa%o cojiH D y. HyBCXByio, a x o KpoBb Bo MHe y x e coBceM noxojioflejia.

Becejioa Mysbi npaB He yanaio: Ona xjiHflHx a cjiOBa ae npoponax, A rojiO B y b BenoHKe xeMHOM k jio h h x ,

HaneMOJKeHHaH, na rpy%b m o k ).

H xoJibKO coBecxb c KaxjubiM «neM cxpam nea BecHyexca: BejiaKoa xoaex «ana. S a x p b iB Jiauo, H oxBeaajia ea... Ho ôojibme aex aa cjiea, aa oapaBflaaaa. (1916) (i, 84)

The sense that her muse is, in fact, just as sad or vulnerable as she, is also emphasised in 'Byl blazhennoi moei kolybel'iu':

Cojieeio MOJieaaa Moax BbiJi xbi, cxporaa, caoKoaabia, xyMaaabia. TaM BaepBbie apcAcxaji Mae xeaax,

y x a a a B m a m o h ayxb o c a a a a b i a , H aeaajibaaa Myaa m o h , Kax cjieayio, Bo^ajia Mean. (1914) (i, 85)

Akhmatova's muse poems embrace a number of themes discussed earlier. For example, in 'O, znala 1' ia, kogda v odezhde beloi', Akhmatova again uses the image of turning to stone (in this case, her lyre), evoking many of the issues discussed in Chapter 3 :

138 o, 3HBJia JIB Korfta b oge^Qie ôejioô BxoflHJia Myaa b tcchbih moh npnioT,

H to k JiHpe, HBBcerfla OKaMenejioH, Mon HŒBBie pyKH npnna^iyT. (1925) (i, n o)

In 'Muza', Akhmatova takes the image of the passive persona to the extreme:

Kor^ta a hohbk) 5Kpy ee npHXO^iia, ] ^ 3 H B , K axeT C H , BHCHT HB BOJIOCKe.

H to n o n ecT H , h to io h o c t l , h to c bo ô o ub

II pe« MHJioH rocTLeè c «yflOHKOHb p y x e .

H BOT B o m jia . OTKHSyB hokpbibbjio , BHHMBTeJIBHO BBFJIHHyJIB HB MeHH.

E h ro B o p io : «T bi jib J f a n iy a h k t o b b jib CTpBHHnBi À^üB?» OTBenaeT « H » . (1924) (i,173 -74 )

The reference to Dante also suggests a continuity between him and Akhmatova. Again, she sees herself as part of a male lineage of poets. In any case, her role in the poetic process is utterly passive; her muse literally 'dictates'. Finally, the poem 'Muza' from the cycle 'Tainy remesla' evokes the image of 'women's language' discussed earlier. In this poem, the persona corrects the assumptions made by others about the nature of the 'divine babble':

KbK H HCHTB MHe c 3T0H o6y30H, A em e HB3BIBBI0T My30H,

F o b o p h t : « T bi c nen na Jiyry...»

F o b o p h t : «EoHcecTBenHBiH jieneT ...» ^ecT H e, HeM Jinxopajnxa, OTTpenJieT, H OHHTB BeCB FOfl, HH F y -iy . (1936-60) (I, 191)

139 Conclusion

The fact that Akhmatova began her poetic career in the wake of Symbolism had a profound impact on her own poetic persona. Symbolism cast her, as a woman, as an object of inspiration or mediator between the (male) artist and the chaos of the universe. In adopting a female persona, Akhmatova confronted a paradigm which automatically designated her as object as opposed to creator.

Although the images which the Acmeists furnished in terms of a creative female figure were less restrictive, they did not provide Akhmatova with a prescription for dealing with the 'problem of perspective' she inherited from the Symbolists. The Acmeists were prone to emphasising the poet's masculinity and virility - a trend which manifestly excluded

Akhmatova. They also glossed over the obvious tension of including Akhmatova as an

Adamist by either ignoring the issue altogether or designating her as an Eve figure with little thought as to the implications of this parallel image. Whereas Gumilev awkwardly adopted the cliché of the male poet as 'mother' to the poem, Akhmatova did not readily adopt this image, at least partly, perhaps, as a consequence of her complicated associations with motherhood in general.

Akhmatova did use a number of devices to enhance her authority as a woman poet.

In a limited number of poems, for example, she experimented with adopting a male speaker.

In others, she reversed the Symbolist paradigm to create a kind of'eternal masculine'. As a more substantial device, however, Akhmatova simply retained the associations of the feminine with the transcendent. Her persona is sensitive to the forces of nature and, in some

140 poems, to the Word of God. At the same time, she enhances the sense that the persona is detached from her own actions; she is not the creator or the actor but, rather, the receptor and the instrument through which divine forces find coherent form. One implication of this approach is that, in many poems, her persona is silent or unable to speak coherently. At the same time, however, she is imbued with the authority of one with direct access to the Word of God. Thus, rather than become overwhelmed by negative associations of women and creativity (such as the 'divine babble' of female poets), she appropriated them and reworked them for her own creative ends.

A related theme to this approach is that of the persona as a work of art as opposed to the creator of a work of art. This theme perfectly complemented the Symbolist legacy of the artist as a Pygmalion figure. It also lent itself to identification with such figures as Lot's wife, whose transformation into a pillar of salt Akhmatova uplifts into the action of a poet - a desire to preserve memory at all cost.

Akhmatova's doubles are figures taken from history as mediated through works of literature familiar to Russians. Akhmatova retold their stories from their own individual points of view. At the same time, she elaborated upon their stories to bring out elements relevant to her own personal circumstances; her identification with the great matriarchs, wives and mothers of history went beyond mere identification - it extended to actual assimilation. Again, this technique allowed her to continue to portray her persona as essentially passive; she simply embraced events and actions which had already taken place and made them seem like her own.

141 The authoritative, matriarchal persona ofRekviem did not emerge in a vacuum. She is the culmination of Akhmatova’s selective choice of feminine themes and imagery throughout her early career. She is also the manifestation of the powerfiil cult of personality which Akhmatova actively encouraged. Akhmatova realised that her strength as a poet was a particular feminine kind of strength. Just as the poet who identifies with Mary is clearly a different kind of poet from one who identifies with Christ, the poet who identifies with Eve evokes a different range of associations from one who identifies with Adam. Akhmatova realised that it was precisely this perception of her as different that effectively underpinned her extraordinary sense of poetic authority.

142 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abbreviations

The following abbreviations are used throughout this Bibliography:

Anna Akhmatova 1889-1989: Ketchian, Sonia, ed., Anna Akhmatova 1889-1989: Papers from the Akhmatova Conference, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Berkeley, 1993.

Desiatye gody: Timenchik, R.D. et al, éd., Anna Akhmatova: Desiatye gody, Moscow, 1989.

Ob Anne Akhmatovoi: M M . ¥da\m et al, td., Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, Leningrad, 1990.

Poema bezgeroia: Timenchik, R.D. e ta l, ed., Poema bezgeroia, Moscow, 1989.

Posle vsego: Timenchik, R.D. e ta l, ed., Posle vsego, Moscow, 1989.

Requiem: Timenchik, R.D. e ta l, td.. Requiem, Moscow, 1989.

A Sense o f Place: Loseff, Lev, ed., A Sense o f Place: Tsarskoe Selo and Its Poets (Papers from the 1989 Dartmouth Conference Dedicated to the Centennial o f Anna Akhmatova), Columbus, Ohio, 1993.

Speech o f Unknown Eyes: Wendy Rosslyn, ed.. The Speech o f Unknown Eyes: Akhmatova's Readers on Her Poetry, 2 vols, Nottingham, 1990.

Tainy remesla: Koroleva, N.V.et a l, éd., Tainy remesla, Moscow, 1992.

Tsarstvennoe slovo: Koroleva, N.V.eta l, ed., Tsarstvennoe slovo, Moscow, 1992.

Anna Akhmatova: Editions

Akhmatova, Anna, Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh, ed. M.M. Kralin, Moscow, 1996.

Akhmatova, Anna, The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, trans. Judith Hemschemeyer, ed. Roberta Reeder, 2 vols, Somerville, Mass., 1990.

Akhmatova, Anna, Akhmatovskii sbornik, ed. Sergei Deduline et a l, Paris, 1989.

143 Akhmatova, Anna, Stikhotvoreniia ipoemy, ed. II. Slobozhan, Leningrad, 1989.

Akhmatova, Anna, Sochineniia, 2 vols. I, ed. V.A. Chernykh, II, ed. E.G. Gershtein e ta l, Moscow, 1986.

Akhmatova, Anna, Sochineniia, ed. G.P. Struve and B. A. Filippov, 3 vols. I, Munich, 1967, II, Munich, 1968, III, Paris, 1983.

Akhmatova, Anna, Stikhotvoreniia i poemy, ed. V.M. Zhirmunskii, Leningrad, 1979.

Akhmatova, Anna, Anna Akhmatova o Pushkine: stafi i zametki, ed. E.G. Gershtein, Leningrad, 1977.

Akhmatova, Anna, Tale Without a Hero and Twenty-Two Poems by Anna Akhmatova, trans. and ed. Jeanne van der Eng-Liedmeier and Kees Verheul, The Hague, 1973.

Akhmatova, Anna, Izbrannye stikhotvoreniia. New York, 1952.

Anna Akhmatova: Other Publications

Akhmatova, Anna, '"Samyi neprochitannyi poet". Zametki Army Akhmatovoi o Nikolae Gumileve', Novyi mir, 1990, 5, pp. 219-23.

Akhmatova, Anna, 'Iz dnevnikovykh zapisei', ed. R.D. Timenchik and V.A. Chernykh, Literaturnoe obozrenie, 1989, 5, pp. 1-17.

Akhmatova, Anna, 'Iz vospominanii. Pis'ma Anny Akhmatovoi', ed. Emma Gershtein, Voprosy literatury, 1989, 6, pp. 248-70.

Akhmatova, Anna, Neizvestnoe stikhotvorenie Anny Akhmatovoi', ed. R.D. Timenchik, Oktiabr', 1989, 10, pp. 182-84.

Akhmatova, Anna, Stikhi/perepiska/ vospominaniia/ ikonografiia, comp. E. Proffer, Ann Arbor, 1977.

Akhmatova, Anna, 'Ten Letters of Anna Akhmatova', trans. Edith Stevens, Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1976, 13, pp. 627-44.

Akhmatova, Pis'ma A. A. Akhmatovoi k N.I. Khardzhievu', ed. Henrik Baran, Russian Literature,\914, 7/8, pp. 5-17.

Akhmatova, Anna, 'Neizdarmye zametki Anny Akhmatovoi o Pushkine', ed. Emma GQrûû.éwi,Voprosy literatury, 1970, 1, pp. 158-206.

144 Akhmatova, Anna, 'Anna Akhmatova's Poema bez geroyd, ed. Amanda Haight, Slavonic and East European Review, XLV, 1967, pp. 474-96.

Secondary Literature

Almi, I.L., 'O liricheskikh siuzhetakh Pushkina v stikhotvoreniiakh Anny Akhmatovoi', in Tainy remesla, pp. 5-19.

Amert, Susan, Predystoriya: Akhmatova's Aetiological Myth', inAnna Akhmatova 1889- 1989, pp. 13-28.

Amert, Susan, In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova, Palo Alto, California, 1992.

Amert, Susan, '"Bol'shim Mayakovskim putem"; Akhmatova and the kazennyi gimn', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 257-66.

Anikin, A.E., 'Chudo smerti i chudo muzyki (O vozmozhnykh istokakh i paralleliakh nekotorykh motivov poezii Akhmatovoi)',Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 285-302.

Annenkov, lurii, 'Posledniaia vstrecha', Neva, 1989, 6, pp. 196-98.

Atkinson, Dorothyet a l, ed.. Women in Russia, Stanford, 1977.

Ardov, Mikhail O , 'Ne "poetessa" - Poet! Iz besed s Annoi Akhmatovoi',Literaturnaia gazeta, 1989, 4, p. 5.

Astapov, Vasilii, 'Seansy v Komarove', inOb Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 398-410.

Azarov, Vsevolod, 'Mezhdu sosen', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 357-59.

Babaev, E.G., Pushkinskie stranitsy Anny Akhmatovoi', Novyi mir,\9%l, 1, pp. 153-66.

Bakhterev, Igor', 'Tot mesiats v Tashkente', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 216-23.

Balashova, T V , 'Slovo frantsuzskoi kritiki v sporakh o tvorchestve Akhmatovoi', in Tainy remesla, pp. 124-31.

Barili, Gabriel, 'Stafi o Pushkine Akhmatovoi i "Razgovor o Dante" Mandel'shtama - Iz nabliudenii', in Tainy remesla, pp. 39-47.

Barker, Adele Marie, The Mother Syndrome in the Russian Folk Imagination, Columbus, Ohio, 1986.

145 Basker, Michael, 'Gumilyev, Annensky and Tsarskoe Selo; Gumilev's "Tsarskoselskii krug idei'", in ^ Sense of Place, pp. 215-30.

Basker, Michael, 'Dislocation and Relocation in Akhmatova'sRequiem', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 5-26.

Berdiaev, Nikolai, 'Iz knigi Samopoznanie', mPoema bezgeroia, pp. 97-102.

Berdiaev, Nikolai, 'O tvorcheskoi svobode i fabrikatsii dush', 'm Requiem, pp. 252-58.

Berlin, Isaiah, Personal Impressions, New York, 1981.

Billington, James, The Icon and the Axe. An Interpretive History o f Russian Culture, New York, 1970.

Blok, Aleksandr, Sobrcmiesochinenii, ed. V.N. Oxlawetal, 8 vols, Leningrad, 1960-63.

Boldyrev, A.N., 'Zapiski iz dnevnika', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 301-10.

Boym, Svetlana. 'Loving in Bad Taste: Eroticism and Literary Excess in Marina Tsvetaeva's "The Tale of Sonechka'", in Sexuality and the Body in Russian Culture, ed. Jane T. Costlowe/a/, Stanford, 1993, pp. 156-76.

Budyko, M I, 'Rasskazy Akhmatovoi', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 461-506.

Burnett, David, Akhmatova, Durham, 1998.

Campbell, Joseph, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Princeton, New Jersey, 1973.

Cavanagh, Clare, 'The Death of the Bookà la russe : The Acmeists under Stalin', Slavic Review, 55, 1996, pp. 125-35.

Chukovskaia, Lidiia, Zapiski ob Anne Akhmatovoi, 2 vols, I (1938-1941), Paris, 1976, n (1952-1962), Paris, 1980.

Chukovskaia, Lidiia, Pamiati Anny Akhmatovoi - stikhi, pis'ma, vospominaniia, Paris, 1974.

Chukovskii, Komei, 'Chukovskii ob Akhmatovoi. Po arkhivnym materialam', inDesiatye gody, pp. 249-50.

Chukovskii, Valerian, Po povodu stikhov Anny Akhmatovoi', inPoema bez geroia, pp. 110-19.

Clyman, Toby W. and Greene, Diana, Women Writers in Russian Literature, Westport, Connecticut, 1994.

146 Crone, Anna L , 'Akhmatova and the Passing of the Swans: Horatian Tradition and Tsarskoe Selo', in A Sense o f Place, pp. 88-112.

Crone, Anna L , 'Genre Allusionsin Poema bez geroia\ Masking Tragedy and Satyric Drama', in Anna Akhmatova 1889-1989, pp. 43-59.

Crone, Anna L., 'Antimetabole in Rekviem: The Structural Disposition of Themes and Motifs', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 27-44.

Crone, Anna L., 'Blok as Don Juan in Akhmatova's "Poema bez geroja'",Russian Language Journal, XXXV, 1981, pp. 145-62.

Davidson, Pamela, 'Lidiia Zinov'eva - Annibal's The Singing Ass: a Woman's View of Men and Eros', in Gender and Russian Literature: New Perspectives, ed. Rosalind Marsh, Cambridge, 1996, pp. 155-83.

Davidson, Pamela, 'Akhmatova's "Dante"', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 201-24.

Davidson, Pamela, ed., Posviashchaetsia Akhmatovoi, New Jersey, 1990.

Davidson, Pamela, The Poetic Imagination of Vyacheslav Ivanov: A Russian Symbolist's Perception of Dante, Cambridge, 1989.

Dobin, E., Poema bezgeroia Anny Akhmatovoi', Voprosy literatury, 1966, 9, pp. 63-79.

Driver, Sam, 'Directions in Akhmatova's Poetry Since the Early Period', Russian Literature,\915, Spring supplement, pp. 84-91.

Driver, Sam, Anna Akhmatova, New York, 1972.

Driver, Sam, 'Akhmatova: A Selected, Annotated Bibliography', Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1971, 1, pp. 432-34.

Driver, Sam, 'Anna Akhmatova: Early Love Poems',Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1971, 1, pp. 297-325.

Driver, Sam, 'Acmeism', Slavic and East European Journal, XII, 1968, pp. 141-56.

Dunham, Vera Sandomirsky, 'The Strong-Woman Motif, inThe Transformation o f Russian Society: Aspects o f Social Change Since 1861, ed. Cyril E. Black, Cambridge, Mass, 1960, pp. 459-83.

Eikhenbaum, Boris, Anna Akhmatova: Tri knigi, Ann Arbor, 1990.

Eikhenbaum, Boris, Anna Akhmatova: Opyt analiza, Paris, 1980.

Eldar, Silva e/a/., ‘Angliiskie nedeli Anny Akhmatovoi’, in Tainy remesla, pp. 132-47.

147 Faryno, Jerzy, ‘Whose Messenger is Akhmatova’sPoema bez geroyaT, in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 97-112.

Faryno, Jerzy, 'Kod Akhmatovoi',Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 83-102.

Fedotova, O A , ‘Ania Gorenko’, inOb Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 29-38.

France, Peter, Poets of Modern Russia, Cambridge, 1982.

Frank, Viktor, ‘Beseda s Georgiem Adamovichem’, mPosle vsego, pp. 227-36.

Gasparov, M.L., ‘The Evolution of Akhmatova’s Verse’, inAnna Akhmatova 1889- 1989, pp. 68-74.

Gershtein, Emma, "Lishniaia liubov'; Stseny iz moskovskoi zhizni', Novyi mir, 1993, 11, pp. 151-85.

Gershtein, Emma, 'Memuary i fakty (ob osvobozhdenii L'va Gumileva)', Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1976, 13, pp. 645-55.

Gibian, George and Tjalsma, H.W., Russian Modernism, Ithaca, NY, 1976.

Gifford, Henry, 'Akhmatova i 1940', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 45-54.

Ginzburg, Lidiia, Iz starykh zapisei', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 186-94.

Gippius, Vasilii, 'Anna Akhmatova', \n Desiatye gody, pp. 215-19.

Gippius, Vasilii, 'Anna Akhmatova « V e c h e r » ', in Desiatye gody, pp. 215-19.

Gippius, Vasilii, 'Tsekh poetov', in Desiatye gody, pp. 82-86.

Gitovich, Silvia, 'Ob Anne Andreevne', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 330-56.

Gorodetskii, Sergei, 'Nekotorye techeniia v sovremennoi russkoi poezii',Apollon, 1913, I, pp. 46-50.

Gove, Antonina Filinov, 'The Feminine Stereotype and Beyond; Role Conflict and Resolution in the Poetics of Marina Tsvetaeva',Slcivic Review, 36, 1977, pp. 231-55.

Graham, Sheelagh, Amor Fati: Akhmatova and Gumilev', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 247-56.

Gray, Camilla, The Russian Experiment in Art 1863-1922, London, 1986.

148 Griakalova, N. lu., Torklomye traditsii v poezii Anny Akhmatovoi',Russkaia literaiura, 1982, 1, pp. 46-64.

Gubar, Susan, '"The Blank Page" and Female Creativity', in Writing and Sexual Difference, d. Elizabeth Abel, Brighton, Sussex, 1982, pp. 73-109.

Gumilev, Nikolai, Sobranie sochinenii, 4 vols, ed. G.P. Struve and B.A. Filippov, Moscow, 1991.

Gumilev, Nikolai, Nikolai Gumilev on Russian Poetry, ed. and trans. David Lapeza, Ann Arbor, 1977.

Haight, Amanda, Anna Akhmatova: poeticheskoe stranstvie: dnevniki, vospominaniia, pis'ma, Moscow, 1991.

Haight, Amanda, Anna Akhmatova: A Poetic Pilgrimage, Oxford, 1990.

Haight, Amanda, 'A Letter from Tsvetayeva to Akhmatova', Slavonic and East European Review, L, 1972, pp. 589-93.

Haight, Amanda, 'Letters from Nikolay Gumilyov to Anna Akhmatova 1912-1915', Slavonic and East European Review, L, 1972, pp. 100-06.

Harris, Jane Gary, Pasternak's Vision of Life; The History of a Feminine Image',Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1974, 9, pp. 355-421.

Haskins, Susan, Mary Magdalen, London, 1994.

Heaton, Julia, 'Russian Women's Writing - Problems of a Feminist Approach with Particular Reference to the Writing of Marina Palei', Slavonic and East European Review, LXXV, 1997, pp. 63-85.

Heldt, Barbara, Terrible Perfection: Women and Russian Literature, Bloomington, Indiana, 1987.

Hingley, Ronald, Nightingale Fever: Russian Poets in Revolution, New York, 1981.

Homans, Margaret, Bearing the Word: Language and Female Experience in Nineteenth- Century Women's Writing, Chicago, 1989.

Homans, Margaret, Women Writers andPoeticldentity, Princeton, New Jersey, 1980.

Hubbs, Joanna, Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth in Russian Culture, Bloomington, Indiana, 1988.

Iakovlev, V., 'O semantike nekotorykh proizvedenii Anny Akhmatovoi', Russkaia literatura, 1992, 1, pp. 170-74.

149 Ivanovskii, Ign., 'Master', in Oh Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 295-305.

Jovanovich, Milivoe, 'K razboru "chuzhikh golosov" Rekviemev Akhmatovoi', Russian Literature, XV, 1984, pp. 169-82.

Karlinskii, ^\mon, Marina Tsvetaeva, Cambridge, 1986.

Kats, Boris and Timenchik, R.D., Akhmatova i muzyka: IssledovateVskie ocherki, Leningrad, 1989.

Katsis, Leonid, 'Zametki o stikhotvorenii Anny Akhmatovoi, "Maiakovskii v 1913 godu"', Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 317-36.

Kelly, Catriona, A History o f Russian Women's Writing 1820-1992, Oxford, 1994.

Kelly, Catriona, 'The Impossibility of Imitation: Anna Akhmatova and Innokentii Annenskii', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 231-46.

Ketchian, Sonia, ed., Anna Akhmatova 1889-1989: Papers from the Akhmatova Conference,Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Berkeley, 1993.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'Anna Akhmatova and W.B. Yeats: Points of Juncture', inAnna Akhmatova 1889-1989, pp. 86-109.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'Akhmatova's Civic Poem "Stansy" and Its Pushkinian Antecedent', Slavic and East European Journal, XXXVII, 1993, pp. 194-210.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'Metempsychosis in the Verse of Anna Akhmatova: With a View Towards Pushkin', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 303-14.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'A Source for Anna Akhmatova's "A String of Quatrains": Hovannes Tumian's "Quatrains'", Slavic and East European Journal, XXXI, 1987, pp. 520-32.

Ketchian, Sonia, The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: A Conquest o f Time and Space, Munich, 1986.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'The Genre ofPodrazanie and Anna Achmatova', Russian Literature, XV, 1984, pp. 151-68.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'Metempsychosis in the Verse of Anna Akhmatova',Slavic and East European Journal, XXV, 1981, pp. 44-60.

Ketchian, Sonia, 'Akhmatova's "Uchitel"': Lessons Learned from Annenskij',Slavic and East European Journal, XXII, 1978, pp. 26-29.

150 Ketchian, Sonia, 'A Unique Device of Akhmatova's Tribute to Mandelstam', Slavic and East European Journal, XX, 1976, pp. 400-04.

Khardzhiev, N., 'O perevodakh v literatumom nasledii Anny Akhmatovoi', in Tainy remesla, pp.229-32.

Khlodovskii, R.I., 'Anna Akhmatova i Dant', in Tainy remesla, pp. 75-92.

Kollontai, Aleksandra, 'Pis'ma k trudiashcheisia molodezhi', \n Requiem, pp. 54-56.

Kolpakova, N.P., 'Stranitsy dnevnika', in Ob Anne Akhmatavoi, pp. 119-27.

Koroleva, N.V., "'Mogla li Biche slovno Dant tvorit'...": Problema zhenskogo obraza v tvorchestve Akhmatovoi', inTainy remesla, pp. 93-112.

Koroleva, N.V.etal, ed., Tainy remesla, Moscow, 1992.

Koroleva, N.V.etal, ed., Tsarstvennoe slovo, Moscow, 1992.

Koroleva, N.V.etal, ed., Svoiu mezh vas eshche ostaviv tem...: Akhmatovskie chteniia, Moscow, 1992.

Kovalenko, S.A., 'Akhmatova i Maiakovskii', in Tsarstvennoe slovo, pp. 166-80.

Kralin, M.M. etal, ed., Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, Leningrad, 1990.

Kravtsova, Irina, 'Ob odnom adresate stikhotvorenii Anny Akhmatovoi',Russkaia mysT, 1992, 10, pp. 10-11.

Kravtsova, Irina, "'Severnye elegii" Anny Akhmatovoi (opyt interpretatsii tselogo)', Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 303-15.

Kroth, Anya M., 'Androgyny as an Exemplary Feature of Marina Tsvetaeva's Dichotomous Poetic Vision',Slavic Review, 38, 1979, pp. 563-82.

Kshondzer, M.K., 'Stikhotvorenie "Nadpis' na knige" v kontekste liriki A. Akhmatovoi (O gruzinskikh motivakh v poeticheskom mire Akhmatovoi)', in Tainy remesla, pp. 65-68.

Kuzmin, Mikhail, Predislovie M A. Kuzmina k pervoi knige stikhov Anny Akhmatovoi', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 39-44.

Latmanizov, M.V., 'Besedy s A. A. Akhmatovoi', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 507-30.

Leiter, Akhmatova's Petersburg,V\E[ 2i&Q\^\â^à, 1983.

151 Levin, lurii, O sootnoshenii mezhdu semantikoi poeticheskogo teksta i vnetekstovoi realnost'iu (Zametki o poetike O. Mandel'shtama)', Russian Literature, 1974, 10/11, pp. 147-72.

Levin, lurii, Segal, D M , Timenchik, R.D., Toporov, V.N., 'Russkaia simvolicheskaia poetika kak potentsial'naia kul'tumaia paradigma', Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 47-82.

Lianola, Natal'ia, Angel s pechal'nym litsom - obraz Anny Akhmatovoi v tvorchestve ModiViani, St Petersburg, 1996.

Ljunggren, Anna, 'Anna Akhmatova's Requiem : A Retrospective of the Love Lyric and Epos', m. Anna Akhmatova 1889-1989, pp. 110-26.

Loseff, Lev, ed., A Sense o f Place: Tsarskoe Selo and Its Poets (Papers from the 1989 Dartmouth Conference Dedicated to the Centennial of Anna Akhmatova), Columbus, Ohio, 1993.

Lossky, Véronique, Chcmts de femmes: Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Brussells, 1994.

Luknitskii, Pavel, Vstrechi s Annoi Akhmatovoi, 2 vols, I (1924-1925), Paris, 1991, II (1926-1927), Paris, 1997.

Luknitskii, Pavel, 'Iz dnevnikov', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 128-69.

Makogonenko, G.P., O sbomike Anny Akhmatovoi "Nechet"',Voprosy literatury, 1986, 2, pp. 170-90.

Magomedova, D M., 'Annenskii i Akhmatova (K problème "romanizatsii" liriki)', in Tsarstvennoe slovo, pp. 135-40.

Mandel'shtam, Nadezhda, Vtoraia kniga, Moscow, 1990.

Mandel'shtam, Nadezhda, Vospominaniia, Moscow, 1989.

Mandelstam, Osip, The Collected Critical Prose and Letters, ed. and trans. Jane Gary Harris, London, 1991.

Mandel'shtam, Osip, Sobranie sochinenii, ed. G.P. Struve and B.A. Fillipov, 4 vols, Moscow, 1991.

Markova, T.M., 'Anna Akhmatova v tvorcheskoi sud'be L. Tat'ianichevoi', Russkaia literatura, 1983, 3, pp. 150-55.

152 Masing-Delic, Irene, 'Creating the Living Work of Art: The Symbolic Pygmalion and His Antecedents', m Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia o f Russian Modernism, ed. Irina Papemo e/ a/., Stanford, 1994, pp. 51-82.

McLaughlin, Sigrid, The Image of Women in Contemporary Soviet Fiction, London, 1989.

Meilakh, Mikhail, 'Anna Akhmatova's poem "Zaklinaniye"', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 173-82.

Meilakh, Mikhail, 'Ob imenakh Akhmatovoi', Russian Literature, 1975, 10, pp. 33-57.

Meilakh, Mikhail, 'Review of Kees Verheul's The Theme o f Time in the Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova', Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 203-13.

Meilakh, Mikhail and Toporov, V.N., 'Akhmatova i Dant', International Journal of Slavic Linguistics and Poetics, XV, 1972, pp. 29-75.

Mickiewicz, Denis, 'The Acmeist Conception of the Poetic Word',Russian Literature, 1975, Spring supplement, pp. 59-83.

Minogue, Sally, q6... Problems for Feminist Criticism, London, 1990.

Montefiore, Jan,Feminism and Poetry: Language, Experience, Identity in Women's Writing, London, 1987.

Musatov, V.V., 'Akhmatova i Mandel'shtam', Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 357- 72.

Naiman, Anatolii, Remembering Anna Akhmatova, ed. and trans. Wendy Rosslyn, New York, 1991.

Naiman, Anatolii, 'An Analysis and Interpretation of Anna Akhmatova's "Tvorchestvo"', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, 11, pp. 225-30.

Naiman, Anatolii, Rasskazy ob Anne Akhmatovoi, Moscow, 1989.

Nedobrovo, N.S., 'Anna Akhmatova', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 49-68.

Nikolaeva, T.M., 'Smert' vlastelina na okhote ("Okhota" N. Gumileva i "Seroglazyi korol'" Akhmdiiowoï)', Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 343-55.

Obukhova, Ol'ga, 'Metamorfozy liricheskogo "la" v poezii Anny Akhmatovoi',Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 391-403.

Olshankaia, E.M., 'Anna Akhmatova i Arsenii Tarkovskii (K istorii vzaimootnoshenii dvukh poetov)', Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 373-84.

153 Patera, Tatiana, A Concordance to the Poetry o f Anna Akhmatova, Dana Point, 1995.

Pavlovskii, A.I., 'Bulgakov i Akhmatova', Russkaia literatura, 1988, 4, pp. 3-17.

Pavlovskii, A.I., Anna Akhmatova, Leningrad, 1982.

Pervushin, N.V., 'Akhmatova i Blok', Russian Language Journal, XXV, 1990, pp. 3-7.

Polukhina, V., 'The Grammar, Semantics and Function of Negation in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova’, in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 151-68.

Przybylski, Ryszard, 'Public Orator’s Speech at the Oxford Honorary Degree Ceremony', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 335-38.

Punina, I.N., O Valerii Sreznevskoi', in Oh Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 26-28.

Pushkin, Aleksandr, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh, ed. B V. Tomashevskii 10 vols, Moscow, 1962-66.

Reeder, Roberta, Anna Akhmatova: Poet & Prophet, London, 1995.

Reeder, Roberta, 'Tsarskoe Selo in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: The Eternal Return', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 285-302.

Rosslyn, Wendy, Painters and Painting in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: The Relation Between the Poetry and Painting', 'm Anna Akhmatova 1889-1989, pp. 170-85.

Rosslyn, Wendy, Remodelling the Statues at Tsarskoe Selo: Akhmatova’s Approach to the Poetic Tradition', in/I Sense o f Place, pp. 147-70.

Rosslyn, Wendy, 'Don Juan Feminised', in Symbolism and After: Essays on Russian Poetry in Honour of Georgette Donchin, ed. Arnold McMillin, Bristol, 1992, pp.

102- 21 .

Rosslyn, Wendy ed.. The Speech o f Unknown Eyes: Akhmatova's Readers on Her Poetry, 2 vols, Nottingham, 1990.

Rosslyn, Wendy, 'Akhmatova's Poema bez geroia: Ballet and Poem', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 55-72.

Rosslyn, Wendy, 'The Function of Architectural Imagery in Akhmatova's Poetry',Irish Slavonic Studies, VI, 1985, pp. 19-34.

Rosslyn, Wendy, The prince, the fool and the nunnery: the religious theme in the early poetry of Anna Akhmatova, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, 1984.

154 Rosslyn, Wendy, 'The Theme of Light in the Early Poetry of Anna Akhmatova', Renaissance and Modern Studies, XXIV, 1980, pp. 79-91.

Ruskino, Elaine, 'Adamism and Acmeist Primitivism', Slavic and East European Journal, XXXII, 1988, pp. 84-97.

Ruskino, Elaine, 'Acmeism, Post-Symbolism, and Henri Bergson', Slavic Review, 41, 1982, pp. 494-510.

Saakiants, A.A., 'Anna Akhmatova i Marina Tsvetaeva...', in Tsarstvennoe slovo, pp. 203-06.

Salmi, Natal'ia, 'Anna Akhmatova i Innokentii Annenskii (k voprosu o smene modelei mira na rubezhe dvukh vekov', in Tsarstvennoe slovo, pp. 126-34.

Sampson, Earl D , Nikolay Gumilev, Boston, 1979.

Sampson, Earl D , 'In the Middle of the Journey of Life: Gumilev's Pillar o f Fire', Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1971, 1, pp. 382-96.

Sazonova-Slonimskaia, lu. L , Nikolai Vladimirovich Nedobrovo', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 70-74.

Shefher, Vadim, 'Poeziia sil'nee, chem sud'ba', in Ob Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 411-16.

Shileiko, Tamara, 'Legendy, mify i stikhi', Novyi mir, 1986, 4, pp. 199-213.

Shindin, S., 'Anna Akhmatova i russkaia kul'tura nachala XX veka. Tezisy konferentsii', Russian Literature, XXX, 1991, pp. 273-83.

Shwartzband, S., 'Anna Akhmatova's Second Book: Chyotki: Systematic Arrangement and Structure', in Speech o f Unknown Eyes, I, pp. 123-38.

Steiner, Peter, 'Poem as Manifesto: Mandel'stam's "Notre Dame'",Russian Literature, III, 1977, pp. 239-56.

Sukhanova, Mariia, 'Fuga Temporum', Russkaia literatura, XXX, 1991, pp. 337-42.

Taubman, Jane Andelman, 'Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova: Two Female Voices in a Poetic Quartet', Russian Literature TriQuarterly, 1974, 9, pp. 355-70.

Thomson, R.D.B.,Three Russian Women Poets: Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Bella Akhmadulina, Trumansburg, New York, 1983.

Timenchik, R.D. etal, td., Anna Akhmatova: Desiatye gody, Moscow, 1989.

Timenchik, R.D. etal, ed., Poema bez geroia, Moscow, 1989.

155 Timenchik, R.D. etal, éd., Posle vsego, Moscow, 1989.

Timenchik, R.D. et a l, éd.. Requiem, Moscow, 1989.

Timenchik, R D , 'Chuzhoe slovo u Akhmatovoi',Russkaia rech', 1989, 3, pp. 33-36.

Timenchik, R D , 'Innokentii Annenskii i Nikolai Gumilev', Voprosy literatury, 1987, 2, pp. 271-78.

Timenchik, R D , 'Zametki ob akmeizme: III', Russian Literature, IX, 1981, pp. 175-91.

Timenchik, R D , 'Akhmatova's Slavic and East European Journal, XXIV, 1980, pp. 362-68.

Timenchik, R.D., 'Po \iOVQ)&\x Antologiipeterhurgskoi poezii epokhi akmeizmd, Russian Literature, V, 1977, pp. 315-23.

Timenchik, R D , 'Zametki ob akmeizme; II', Russian Literature, V, 1977, pp. 281-300.

Timenchik, R D , 'Avtometaopisanie u Akhmatovoi',Russian Literature, 1975, 10/11, pp. 213-26.

Timenchik, R D , 'Zametki ob akmeizme: 1', Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 23-47.

Toporov, V.N.,Akhmatova i Blok, Berkeley, 1981.

Trotskii, L., Literatura i revoliutsiia, Moscow, 1924.

Tsvetaeva, Marina, Sochineniia, ed. Anna Saakiants, 3 vols, Moscow, 1990.

Tsvetaeva, Marina, 'Geroi truda', in Requiem, pp. 32-33.

Tsiv'ian, T.V., Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 103-19.

Tsiv'ian, T V , 'Antichnye geroini - zerkala Akhmatovoi',Russian Literature, 1974, 7/8, pp. 103-19.

Tucker, Janet G , Innokentij Annenskij and the Acmeist Doctrine, Columbus, Ohio, 1986.

Umnikov, S.D., Kratkaia Akhmatovskaia entsiklopediia, Leningrad, 1991.

Van Buren, Jane Silverman, The Modernist Madonna: Semiotics of the Maternal Metaphor, London, 1989.

Van der Eng-Liedmeier, Jeanne, 'Aspects of the Prophetic Theme in Akhmatova's Poetry', in Speech of Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 315-34.

156 Van der Eng-Liedmeier, Jeanne, 'Reception as a Theme in Akhmatova's Later Poetry', Russian Literature, XV, 1984, pp. 83-147.

Vechesiova, Tat'iana, 'Ee tainstvennyi golos', inOb Anne Akhmatovoi, pp. 282-89.

Verheul, Kees, 'Tishina u Akhmatovoi', in Tsarstvennoe slovo, pp. 14-20.

Verheul, Kees, 'Public Themes in the Poetry of Anna Achmatova', Russian Literature, V, 1971, pp. 73-112.

Verheul, Kees, The Theme of Time in the Poetry of Anna Akhmatova, The Hague, 1971.

Vidre, K , 'Tam v Tashkente...,' Neva, 1989, 6, pp.198-201.

Vilenkin, Vitalii, Vstopervom zerkale, Moscow, 1987.

Vinogradov, N N ., Anna Akhmatova, Munich, 1970.

Vinogradov, V.V., O poezii Anny Akhmatovoi (Stilisticheskie nabroski). The Hague, 1969.

Walker, Barbara, ed.. The Woman's Encyclopedia o f Myths and Secrets, San Francisco, 1983.

Warner, Marina, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult o f the Virgin Mary, London, 1990.

Wells, David, Anna Akhmatova - Her Poetry, Oxford, 1996.

Wells, David, Akhmatova and Pushkin: The Pushkin Contexts o f Akhmatova's Poetry, Birmingham, 1994.

Wells, David, 'The Function of the Epigraph in Akhmatova's Poetry', inAnna Akhmatova 1889-1989, pp. 266-81.

Wells, David, 'Akhmatova and the Nineteenth-Century Poetic Tradition; The Genres of Elegy and Ballad', Slavonic and East European Review, LXXI, 1993, pp. 38-45.

Wells, David, 'Three Functions of the Classical in Akhmatova’s Poetry', inThe Speech of Unknown Eyes, II, pp. 183-99.

Wigzell, Faith, ed., Russian Writers on Russian Writers, Oxford, 1994.

Woodward, James B , 'Semantic Parallelism in the Verse of Akhmatova', Sla\nc and East European Journal, XV, 1971, pp. 455-65.

Zhirmunskii, V.M., Tvorchestvo Anny Akhmatovoi, Leningrad, 1973.

157 Zhirmunskii, V.M., 'Anna Akhmatova i Aleksandr Blok', Russkaia literatura, 1970, 3, pp. 57-82.

Zhrenkov, D , Anna Akhmatova v Peterburge - Petrograde - Leningrade, Leningrad, 1989.

158