With the outbreak of World War I, Akhmatova severely limited her public life. At this time, she suffers from tuberculosis, a disease that did not let her go for a long time. An in-depth reading of the classics (A. S. Pushkin, E. A. Baratynsky, Rasin, etc.) affects her poetic manner, the sharply paradoxical style of cursory psychological sketches gives way to neoclassical solemn intonations. Insightful criticism guesses in her collection The White Pack (1917) the growing "feeling personal life as a national, historical life. Inspiring in her early poems the atmosphere of "mystery", the aura of autobiographical context, Akhmatova introduces free "self-expression" as a stylistic principle into high poetry. The seeming fragmentation, dissonance, spontaneity of lyrical experience is more and more clearly subject to a strong integrating principle, which gave V.V.
The third book of poems by Akhmatova was published by the Hyperborey publishing house in September 1917 with a circulation of 2000 copies. Its volume is much larger than previous books - there were 83 poems in four sections of the collection; the fifth section was the poem "By the Sea". 65 poems of the book have been printed previously. Many critics noted the new features of Akhmatova's poetry, the strengthening of the Pushkin principle in it. O. Mandelstam wrote in an article in 1916: “The voice of renunciation is growing stronger and stronger in Akhmatova’s poems, and at present her poetry is approaching becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia.” The turning point in Akhmatov's work is connected with attention to reality, to the fate of Russia. Despite the revolutionary times, the first edition of the book "White Pack" sold out quickly. The second was published in 1918 by the Prometheus publishing house. Before 1923, two more editions of the book were published with minor changes and additions.
The epigraph is from I. Annensky's poem "Sweetheart".
Turning to the symbolism of the title, one can see that the fundamental constituent parts his will be the words "white" and "flock". Let's consider them in turn.
Everyone knows that colors affect our thinking and feelings. They become symbols, serve as warning signals, make us happy, sad, shape our mentality and influence our speech.
White is the color of innocence and purity. White color symbolizes purity of thoughts, sincerity, youth, innocence, inexperience. The white vest gives the look sophistication, White dress bride means innocence.
A person who is attracted to the white color strives for perfection, he is constantly in search of himself. White color is a symbol of creative, life-loving nature.
In Rus', white is a favorite color, it is the color of the "Holy Spirit". (He descends to earth in the form of a white dove). White is ubiquitous in national clothes and ornaments. It is also marginal, (that is, it symbolizes the transition from one state to another: death and birth again, for a new life). The symbol of this is the white dress of the bride, and the white shroud of the deceased, and white snow.
But the white color has, in addition to the joyful, its sad side of meanings. White is also the color of death. No wonder such a season as winter is associated with death in nature. The ground is covered with white snow, like a shroud. Whereas spring is the birth of a new life.
The symbol "white" finds its direct reflection in the verses of the book. Firstly, white is the color of love for Akhmatova, the personification of a quiet family life in the "white house". When love becomes obsolete, the heroine leaves "the white house and the quiet garden."
"White", as the personification of inspiration, creativity, is reflected in the following lines:
I wanted to give her a dove
The one that is whiter than everyone in the dovecote,
But the bird itself flew
For my slender guest.
(“Muse left on the way”, 1915, p. 77).
The white dove - a symbol of inspiration - flies after the Muse, devoting herself to creativity.
"White" is also the color of memories, memories:
How White stone deep in the well
There is one memory in me.
(“Like a white stone in the depths of a well”, 1916, p. 116).
Salvation Day, paradise is also indicated in white by Akhmatova:
The gate dissolved into a white paradise,
Magdalena took her son.
(“Where, high, is your gypsy child”, 1914, p. 100).
The image of a bird (for example, a dove, a swallow, a cuckoo, a swan, a raven) is deeply symbolic. And this symbolism is used by Akhmatova. In her work, "bird" means a lot: poetry, state of mind, God's messenger. A bird is always the personification of a free life, in cages we see a miserable likeness of birds, without seeing them soaring in the sky. It is the same in the fate of the poet: a genuine inner world reflected in the poems created by a free creator. But it is precisely this, freedom, that is always lacking in life.
Birds rarely live alone, mostly in flocks, and a flock is something united, united, many-sided and many-voiced.
Looking at the symbolism of the title of the third book of poetry by Akhmatova, we will see that here the temporal and spatial layers are not limited by anything. There is an exit from the circle, separation from the starting point and the intended line.
Thus, the “white flock” is an image that testifies to a change in spatial time, assessments, and views. He (the image) declares a position "above" everything and everyone, from a bird's eye view.
During the writing of the first two books, the author was included in the events of the surrounding reality, being with them in the same spatial dimension. In The White Flock, Akhmatova rises above reality and, like a bird, tries to cover with her eyes a vast space and most of the history of her country, she breaks out from the powerful shackles of earthly experiences.
"The White Flock" is a collection of poems of various orientations: this and civil lyrics, and poems of love content; it also contains the theme of the poet and poetry.
The book opens with a poem on a civil theme, in which tragic notes are felt (an echo of the epigraph, but on a larger scale). (“Thought: we are poor, we have nothing”, 1915)
In The White Flock, it is polyphony, polyphony that becomes a characteristic feature of the poet's lyrical consciousness. The search for Akhmatova was of a religious nature. Save the soul, as it then seemed to her, is possible only by sharing the fate of many "beggars".
So, in the third book "The White Flock" Akhmatova uses the meanings of the words "white", "flock", "bird" both in the traditional sense, and adds meanings that are unique to her.
"The White Flock" is her poetry, her poems, feelings, moods, poured onto paper.
The white bird is a symbol of God, his messengers.
A bird is an indicator of the normal course of life on earth.
"White flock" is a sign of commonwealth, connection with others.
The “White Flock” is a height, a flight above the mortal earth, it is a craving for the Divine.
Collection "White Flock"
The third book that came out from the pen of A. Akhmatova was The White Flock.
In 1916, on the eve of the release of The White Pack, Osip Mandelstam wrote in a review of the collection of poems Almanac of Muses: “In the last poems of Akhmatova, there was a turning point to hieratic importance, religious simplicity and solemnity: I would say, after the woman, it was the turn of the wife. Remember: "a humble, shabbyly dressed, but majestic wife." The voice of renunciation is growing stronger and stronger in Akhmatova's poetry, and at present her poetry is approaching becoming one of the symbols of Russia's greatness.
The White Pack was published in September 1917. In all the few, under the conditions of troubled times, reviews of the third book of the poet, its stylistic difference from the first two was noted.
A. L. Slonimsky saw in the poems that made up the “White Flock”, “a new in-depth perception of the world”, which, in his opinion, was associated with the predominance of the spiritual principle over the “sensual” in the third book, and, according to the critic, in “ some kind of Pushkin's view from the outside.
Another prominent critic, K. V. Mochulsky, believes that “the sharp turning point in Akhmatov’s work” is associated with the poet’s close attention to the phenomena of Russian reality in 1914-1917: “The poet leaves far behind him a circle of intimate experiences, the comfort of a “dark blue room” , a ball of multi-colored silk of changeable moods, refined emotions and whimsical tunes. He becomes stricter, more severe and stronger. He goes out into the open sky - and from the salty wind and the steppe air his voice grows and grows stronger. Images of the Motherland appear in his poetic repertoire, the muffled rumble of war is heard, a quiet whisper of prayer is heard. Artistic generalization in this book is brought to typical significance.
The era of the "White Pack" marks a sharp turning point in Akhmatov's work, a huge rise to pathos, a deepening of poetic motifs and a complete mastery of form. The poet leaves far behind him a circle of intimate experiences, "the comfort of a dark blue room", a ball of multi-colored silk of changeable moods, exquisite emotions and whimsical tunes. He becomes stricter, more severe and stronger. He goes out into the open sky and from the salty wind and the steppe air grows and strengthens his voice. Images of the Motherland appear in his poetic repertoire, the muffled rumble of war is heard, a quiet whisper of prayer is heard.
After the feminine elegance of the "Rosary" - strict masculinity, mournful solemnity and prayerfulness of the "White Pack". Previously, poems habitually formed into a confession or a conversation with a sweetheart - now they take the form of reflection or prayer. Instead of "little things of a thoughtless life": flowers, birds, fans, perfumes, gloves - magnificent sayings of a high style. It is in the "White Flock" from the manner of the "Rosary" that a genuine poetic style. The collection reflects the reflections of the heroine about creativity and creative gift, about love, which has always completely owned her. But the departed love no longer gives rise to despair and longing. On the contrary, out of grief and sadness, songs are born that bring relief from pain. The heroine experiences a quiet, bright sadness, she thinks hopefully about the future and draws strength from her loneliness. For the sake of her country, the heroine is ready to sacrifice a lot.
Turning to the symbolism of the title, one can notice that the words “white” and “flock” will be its core components. Let's consider them in turn.
Everyone knows that colors affect our thinking and feelings. They become symbols, serve as warning signals, make us happy, sad, shape our mentality and influence our speech. Color is one of the elementary and at the same time significant sensations. The world of color exists independently of us, we are accustomed to being in the world of color, and nature itself spontaneously offers man all models of color. This is what creates a clear and integral worldview in artists and writers. At the origins of culture, color was equivalent to a word, color and object were one
White is the color of innocence and purity. White color symbolizes purity of thoughts, sincerity, youth, innocence, inexperience. A white waistcoat gives sophistication to the look, a white dress of the bride means innocence, white spots on geographical map- ignorance and uncertainty. Doctors wear white coats. A person who is attracted to the white color strives for perfection, he is constantly in search of himself. White color is a symbol of creative, life-loving nature.
In Rus', white is a favorite color, it is the color of the "Holy Spirit". (He descends to earth in the form of a white dove). White color is ubiquitous in national clothes and ornaments. It is also marginal, (that is, it symbolizes the transition from one state to another: death and birth again, for a new life). The symbol of this is the white dress of the bride, and the white shroud of the deceased, and white snow.
But the white color, in addition to the joyful, has its own sad side of meanings, since it is also the color of death. No wonder such a season as winter is associated with death in nature. The ground is covered with white snow, like a shroud. Whereas spring is the birth of a new life.
The symbol "white" finds its direct reflection in the verses of the book. Firstly, white is the color of love for A. Akhmatova, the personification of a quiet family life in the "white house". When love becomes obsolete, the heroine leaves "the white house and the quiet garden."
"White", as the personification of inspiration, creativity, is reflected in the following lines:
I wanted to give her a dove
The one that is whiter than everyone in the dovecote,
But the bird itself flew
For my slender guest.
(“Muse left on the road”, 1915).
The white dove - a symbol of inspiration - flies after the Muse, devoting herself to creativity.
"White" is also the color of memories, memories:
Like a white stone in the depths of a well,
There is one memory in me.
(“Like a white stone in the depths of a well”, 1916).
And walk to the cemetery on memorial day
Yes, look at the white lilac of God.
(“It would be better for me to call ditties provocatively”, 1914).
Salvation Day, paradise is also indicated in white by Akhmatova:
The gate dissolved into a white paradise,
Magdalena took her son.
(“Where, high, is your gypsy child”, 1914).
As for birds, they have always been symbols of the eternal, soul, spirit, divine manifestation, ascension to heaven, the ability to communicate with the gods or enter a higher state of consciousness, thought, imagination. The image of a bird (for example, a dove, a swallow, a cuckoo, a swan, a raven) is deeply symbolic. And this symbolism is used by A. Akhmatova. In her work, "bird" means a lot: poetry, state of mind, God's messenger. A bird is always the personification of a free life, in cages we see a miserable likeness of birds, without seeing them soaring in the sky. It is the same in the fate of the poet: the true inner world is reflected in the poems created by a free creator. But it is precisely this, freedom, that is always lacking in life. Birds rarely live alone, mostly in flocks, and a flock is something united, united, many-sided and many-voiced. If we recall the first two books (“Evening”, “Rosary”), then the main symbols will be the following: firstly, a dot (since “evening” is the personification of the beginning or, conversely, the end, a certain reference point); secondly, a line (a rosary in the form of a “ruler”); thirdly, a circle (rosary-beads) and, fourthly, a spiral (synthesis of a line and a circle). That is, these are symbols of something limited or given by the trajectory of movement, space, or time, or all at the same time. If you pay attention to the symbolism of the title of the third book of poems by A. Akhmatova, you can see that here the temporal and spatial layers are not limited by anything. There is an exit from the circle, separation from the starting point and the intended line.
Thus, the “white flock” is an image that indicates a change in the space-time continuum, assessments, and views. This image declares a position "above" everything and everyone, from a bird's eye view.
During the writing of the first two books, the author was included in the events of the surrounding reality, being with them in the same spatial dimension. In The White Flock, A. Akhmatova rises above reality and, like a bird, tries to cover with her gaze a vast space and most of the history of her country, she breaks out from under the powerful shackles of earthly experiences.
The analysis of the symbolism of the title of the book and the search for intratextual associations will begin with the epigraph. It is taken from I. Annensky's poem "Sweetheart":
I burn and the road is bright at night.
At the heart of this poem is a plot that tells about the criminal deliverance from the fruit of extramarital love.
The line, which has become an epigraph, acquires a different, generalizing meaning in the context of The White Pack. I. Annensky shows the personal tragedy of a person, the grief of a particular woman; A. Akhmatova, on the other hand, has the drama of a vast country, in which, it seems to her, the “voice of a man” will never sound, and “only the wind of the Stone Age knocks on black gates.”
"The White Flock" is a collection of poems of various orientations: these are both civil lyrics and poems of love content; it also contains the theme of the poet and poetry.
The book opens with a poem on a civil theme, in which tragic notes are felt (an echo of the epigraph, but on a larger scale):
We thought: we are poor, we have nothing,
And how they began to lose one after another,
So what happened every day
Memorial day -
Started making songs
About the great bounty of God
Yes, about our former wealth.
(“Thought: we are poor, we have nothing”, 1915).
An important substantive moment of The White Pack was, as mentioned above, the change in the aesthetic consciousness of the poet. In practice, it influenced the evolution of the character of the lyrical heroine A. Akhmatova. Individual existence in the third book merges with the life of the people, rises to its consciousness. I'm not alone, not we - you and me, but we are all, we are a flock. (Compare: "Evening" - "my prayer"; "Rosary" - "mine and your name»; "White flock" - "our voices").
In The White Flock, it is polyphony, polyphony that becomes a characteristic feature of the poet's lyrical consciousness. The search for A. Akhmatova was of a religious nature. Save the soul, as it then seemed to her, is possible only by sharing the fate of many "beggars".
The theme of beggars appeared in the poetry of A. Akhmatova in last years before the First World War. The outside world sounded with the voices of the beggars, and the heroine of her poems herself put on the mask of a beggar for a while.
The book "The White Pack" "opens with a choral opening, demonstrating the calm triumph of the novelty of the acquired experience" . Every day is the days of war, taking away new and new victims. And the poetess perceived the war as the greatest national grief. And in a time of trials, the choir of beggars turned into a choir of the poet's contemporaries, all people, regardless of social affiliation. “For Akhmatova, the most important thing in the new book is the spiritual unity of the people in the face of a terrible enemy. What wealth is the poet talking about here? Obviously, least of all about the material. Poverty is the reverse side of spiritual wealth. The choral “we” in The White Pack expresses, as it were, the people's point of view on what is happening around. As part of the composition of the entire book, the choir acts as an active character.
In the first poem there is also the motive of death, the theme of memory sounds. The image of death is even brighter, with even greater force, in the poem "May Snow", which gives rise to the third section of the book; here the sounds of sobs are heard, the mood of sadness is felt:
A transparent veil falls
On fresh turf and imperceptibly melts.
Cruel, cold spring
Poured kidneys kills.
And the sight of early death is so terrible,
That I cannot look at God's world.
I have the sadness that King David
Royally bestowed millenniums.
("May Snow", 1916).
The last lines of the poem, as well as the epigraph to it, refer us to Holy Scripture. There is an image of King David, famous for his chants to the Glory of God. The epigraph to the poem “May Snow” points to the following lines from the Psalter: “I am tired of my sighs: every night I wash my bed, with my tears I wet my bed” (Psalm. Psalm VI, 7). Here we meet the word "night" (as in the epigraph to the entire book).
Night is the time of the day, at which, usually, he is left to himself, he is given time to think, if he is alone, to cry over his troubles, to rejoice in his successes. The night is also the time of committing secret atrocities.
In the context of A. Akhmatova's book, as already mentioned, grief takes on enormous proportions. But this grief is sacred, as it is predetermined by God as a punishment for sins. And, perhaps, for A. Akhmatova, the night is that dark, terrible path that both the country and the heroine must go through, having received a blessing for that.
We see that the mood of the two epigraphs determines the main tone of the mood of the heroine and the book as a whole: sadness, grief, doom and predestination.
In the poem "May Snow" we meet one of the traditional interpretations of the meaning of white - this is the color of death. May is the time when nature is full of life, and a white "transparent veil" that suddenly and untimely fell out dooms it to death.
White as a symbol of light, beauty, we meet in poems dedicated to love, memories of a loved one:
I will leave your white house and quiet garden.
May life be empty and bright.
I will glorify you, you in my poems,
As a woman could not glorify.
(“I will leave your white house and quiet garden”, 1913).
Simultaneously with the love theme in this poem, the theme of the poet and poetry is heard. But sometimes love comes into conflict with creativity. For A. Akhmatova, poetry, her poems are “white bird”, “jolly bird”, “white flock”. Everything is for the beloved:
All to you: and a daily prayer,
And insomnia melting heat,
And my white flock of poems,
And my eyes are blue fire.
(“I don’t know if you are alive or dead”, 1915).
But the beloved does not share the interests of the heroine. He puts her before a choice: either love or creativity:
He was jealous, anxious and tender,
How God's sun loved me
And so that she does not sing about the former,
He killed my white bird.
He said, entering the room at sunset:
“Love me, laugh, write poetry!”
And I buried a merry bird
Behind a round well near an old alder tree.
(“He was jealous, anxious and tender”, 1914).
In this poem, the motive of prohibition through permission sounds. Having buried the “merry bird”, A. Akhmatova, most likely, hides for some time in the bowels of her soul the thirst to create, to write poetry.
She tests the hero (gives him freedom from the shackles of passion). He leaves, but comes back again:
I chose my share
To the friend of my heart:
I let loose
In his Annunciation.
Yes, the gray dove returned,
Beats its wings against the glass.
As from the brilliance of a wondrous riza
It became light in the upper room.
(“I chose my share”, 1915).
The poet dresses his beloved in the plumage of a gray dove, an ordinary bird - A. Akhmatova does not idealize her beloved, he is an ordinary person.
IN Everyday life the presence of birds in nature suggests that nothing disturbs its normal course. Birds sing - it means everything is fine, there is no trouble. When they fall silent, therefore, something has either already happened or will happen soon: trouble, tragedy. In this case, birds are an indicator of the normal course of life. In A. Akhmatova it sounds like this:
Smells like burning. four weeks
Dry peat burns in swamps.
Even the birds didn't sing today
And the aspen no longer trembles.
("July 1914", 1914).
A. Akhmatova's teacher in the brevity, simplicity and authenticity of the poetic word was A. S. Pushkin throughout her life. It was he who suggested to her the image of the Muse, which would be the embodiment of Akhmatov's consciousness. Through all her work passes the image of the Muse - a friend, sister, teacher and comforter. In the poems of A. Akhmatova, the Muse is realistic, she often takes on a human form - “slender guest”, “dark-skinned”.
The image of a bird depends on the state of the poet's soul, on her desires and aspirations. But sometimes not always fair reality, discord with a loved one leaves an imprint on him. For example:
Am I talking to you
In the sharp cry of birds of prey,
I'm not looking into your eyes
From white matte pages.
(“I see, I see a moonbow”, 1914).
So wounded crane
Others are calling: kurly, kurly!
When the spring fields
Both loose and warm ...
(“So Wounded Crane”, 1915).
That's why it's dark in the light,
That's why my friends
Like evening, sad birds,
About the never-before love is sung.
(“I was born neither late nor early”, 1913).
A. Akhmatova's bird is also an indicator of the mood of the heroine, the state of her soul.
A. Akhmatova in this book does not deviate from the traditional interpretation of the image of a white bird as God's messenger, an angel with white wings:
The rays of dawn burn until midnight.
How good it is in my tight lock!
About the most tender, about always wonderful
God's birds are talking to me.
(“The immortelle is dry and pink. Clouds”, 1916).
We don't remember where we got married
But this church sparkled
With that fierce radiance
What only angels can do
Bring in white wings.
("Let's be together, dear, together", 1915).
For A. Akhmatova, God is the highest essence, an immovable hypostasis, to which everything is subject. And in the last verse of the book, soaring high above the earth, she proclaims this:
A. There are unique words,
Whoever said them - spent too much.
Only blue is inexhaustible
Heavenly, and the mercy of God.
(“Oh, there are unique words”, 1916).
This is a philosophical poem. Becoming one of the voices of the choir at the beginning of the book, towards the end of it lyrical heroine A. Akhmatova unites with the whole Universe.
So, in the third book "The White Flock" A. Akhmatova uses the meanings of the words "white", "flock", "bird" both in the traditional sense, and adds meanings that are unique to her.
"The White Flock" is her poetry, her poems, feelings, moods, poured onto paper. The white bird is a symbol of God, his messengers. A bird is an indicator of the normal course of life on earth.
"White flock" is a sign of commonwealth, connection with others.
The “White Flock” is a height, a flight above the mortal earth, it is a craving for the Divine.
Foreword
Sadness is the strongest thing on earth.A. Akhmatova
The creative fate of Anna Akhmatova developed in such a way that only five of her poetic books - "Evening" (1912), "Rosary" (1914), "White Flock" (1917), "Plantain" (1921) and "Anno Domini" (in two editions of 1921 and 1922-1923) were compiled by herself. Over the next two years, Akhmatov's poems occasionally still appeared in periodicals, but in 1925, after the next Ideological Conference, at which, in the words of Anna Andreevna herself, she was sentenced to "civil death", they stopped publishing her. Only fifteen years later, in 1940, almost miraculously, a volume of selected works broke through to readers, and it was no longer Akhmatova who chose, but the compiler. True, Anna Andreevna still managed to include in this edition, as one of the sections, fragments from the handwritten "Reed", the sixth book of hers, which she compiled with her own hand in the late 30s. And yet, on the whole, the collection of 1940 with the impersonal title "From Six Books", like all the other lifetime favorites, including the famous "Running Time" (1965), did not express the author's will. According to legend, the initiator of this miracle was Stalin himself. Seeing that his daughter Svetlana was copying Akhmatova's poems into a notebook, he allegedly asked one of the people in his retinue why Akhmatova was not being published. Indeed, in the last pre-war year V creative life Akhmatova, there has been some turning point for the better: in addition to the collection "From Six Books", there are also several publications in the journal "Leningrad". Anna Andreevna believed in this legend, she even believed that she also owed Stalin her salvation, the fact that she was taken out of the besieged city in the fall of 1941 on a military plane. In fact, the decision to evacuate Akhmatova and Zoshchenko was signed by Alexander Fadeev and, apparently, at the insistent request of Alexei Tolstoy: the red count was a burned-out cynic, but he knew and loved Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Gumilyov from his youth and never forgot about it ... Tolstoy, it seems , contributed to the release of the Tashkent collection of Akhmatova in 1943, which, however, was not at all difficult for him, since this happened after the publication of her poem “Courage” in Pravda ... The fact that it was the author of “Peter the Great”, albeit not too much, but slightly defended Akhmatova, and this fact confirms: after his death in 1944, no one could help her, neither Nikolai Tikhonov, nor Konstantin Fedin, nor Alexei Surkov, despite all his considerable literary ranks ...
This edition includes the texts of the first five books of Anna Akhmatova, in the edition and in the order in which they first saw the light.
The first four collections - "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock" and "Plantain" are published according to the first edition, "Anno Domini" - according to the second, more complete, Berlin one, printed in October 1922, but published with the note: 1923. All other texts follow in chronological order, without taking into account those subtle connections and links in which they exist in the author's "samizdat" plans: until her death, Anna Akhmatova continued to write poetry and put them into cycles and books, still hoping that she would be able to reach her reader not only with the main poems, which invariably got stuck in the viscous mire of Soviet censorship, but also with books of poetry. Like many poets Silver Age, she was convinced that between the lyrical plays, united only by the time of their writing, and the author's book of poems - "a diabolical difference".
The first collection of Anna Akhmatova "Evening" was published at the very beginning of March 1912, in St. Petersburg, in the acmeist publishing house "Poets' Workshop". To publish 300 copies of this thin little book, Anna Akhmatova's husband, who is also the head of the publishing house, poet and critic Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev laid out one hundred rubles from his own pocket. The success of Vecher was preceded by the “triumphs” of young Akhmatova on the tiny stage of the literary cabaret Stray Dog, the opening of which was timed by the founders to coincide with the farewell of 1911. Artist Yuri Annenkov, the author of several portraits of the young Akhmatova, recalling in his declining years the appearance of his model and her performance on the stage of the Intimate Theater ( official name"Stray Dog": "Art Society of the Intimate Theater"), wrote: "Anna Akhmatova, a shy and elegantly careless beauty, with her" uncurled bangs "covering her forehead, and with a rare grace of half-movements and half-gestures, - read , almost humming, his early poems. I do not remember anyone else who would have possessed such a skill and such musical delicacy of reading ... ".
Exactly two years after the publication of the first edition, namely in March 1914, on the shelves bookstores Petersburg, The Rosary appeared, this book by Akhmatova no longer had to be published at her own expense ... She withstood many reprints, including several "pirated ones". One of these collections is dated 1919. Anna Andreevna valued this edition very much. Hunger, cold, devastation, but people still need poetry. Her poetry! Gumilyov, as it turned out, was right when he said, after reading the proofreading of the Rosary: “Maybe it will have to be sold in every small shop.” Marina Tsvetaeva rather calmly met the first Akhmatova collection, because her own first book was published two years earlier, except that she was surprised at the coincidence of the names: she has “Evening Album”, and Anna has “Evening”, but “Rosary” delighted her. She fell in love! And in poetry, and, in absentia, in Akhmatova, although I felt in her a strong rival:
Then, after the "Rosary", Tsvetaeva called Akhmatova "Anna of All Rus'", she also owns two more poetic characteristics: "Muse of Lamentation", "Tsarskoye Selo Muse". And what is most surprising, Marina Ivanovna guessed that fate had written out for them, so different, one road trip:
You make me freeze the sun in the sky,
All the stars are in your hand.
"The Rosary" is the most famous book of Anna Akhmatova, it was she who brought her fame, not just fame in a narrow circle of lovers of fine literature, but real fame. Meanwhile, Akhmatova herself, from her early books, loved The White Flock and Plantain much more than The Rosary ... And let the person to whom The White Flock and Plantain are dedicated - Boris Vasilyevich Anrep, as it turned out many, many years later, turned out to be unworthy of this great earthly love and the poem of the fate of Anna of All Russia was left without the main Hero, so what? Wars and tsars have passed, but the poems about the hopeless love of the most charming woman of "silver Petersburg" for the "dashing Yaroslavl", who exchanged his native copses for the velvet greens of English lawns, did not pass, did not lose their original freshness ... In 1945, on the eve of another catastrophe, when In August of the following 1946, Anna Akhmatova was once again sentenced to “civil death” by the well-known decision of the Central Committee on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad, after reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita in the manuscript, she wrote the following visionary verses:
And alone in the emptiness of the prison
We were given a travel guide.
In the situation of 1945, when, after several spring months of the national Victory Day, the authorities again and abruptly began to “tighten the screws”, it was dangerous not only to read such poems aloud, but also to store them in the drawers of the desk, and Anna Andreevna, who never forgot anything, forgot or rather, she hid them so deeply in the basement of her memory that she could not find them for a whole decade, but after the 20th Congress she immediately remembered ... Friends called her a seer for a reason, she foresaw a lot in advance, in advance, and she sensed the approach of trouble long before her arrival, not one from the blows of fate did not take her by surprise; constantly living "on the edge of death", she was always ready for the worst. But her main books were lucky, by some miracle they managed to jump out from under the printing press on the eve of the next sharp turn - or in her own life or in the fate of the country.
Witnesses of Christ have tasted death,
And old gossips, and soldiers,
And the procurator of Rome - all passed
Where the arch once stood
Where the sea beat, where the cliff blackened, -
They were drunk in wine, inhaled with hot dust
And with the smell of sacred roses.Gold rusts and steel rots,
Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death.
Sadness is the strongest thing on earth
And more durable is the royal Word.
"Evening" appeared on the eve of the birth of the first and only son.
"Rosary" - on the eve of the First World War.
The "White Flock" - on the eve of the revolution, and literally on the eve: in mid-September 1917.
"Plantain" (April 1921) - on the eve of great grief: in the summer of 1921, Akhmatova learned about the suicide of her elder beloved brother Andrei, in August, first Blok and then Gumilyov passed away. Mikhail Zenkevich, who sought out Anna Andreevna that tragic winter in some strange frozen dwelling, was amazed at the change that had happened to her. That Anna, with whom he parted, leaving Petrograd in 1918, the one who lived and sang love in "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock" and "Plantain", was no more; the book she wrote after the terrible August 1921 - Anno Domini - was a book of Sorrow. (In the first edition - St. Petersburg: "Petropolis", 1921 - the year of the end of the former and the beginning of a new life is indicated in Roman numerals already in the title of the collection: "Anno Domini MCMXXI" ("From the Nativity of Christ 1921.") Having read several new poems to a friend of his poetic youth and noticing that Zenkevich was amazed, she explained: "The last months I lived among deaths. Kolya died, my brother died and ... Blok. I don't know how I could survive all this."
In the first edition, the collection "Anno Domini" was released, as already mentioned, at the end of October, poems about the new mountain went in an even stream, publishing them in Russia, where the name of the executed Gumilyov was banned, became dangerous: the second, supplemented, edition had to be printed already in Berlin, which by 1922 had become the center of Russian emigration. Here one could still keep the epigraph from Gumilyov in the cycle “Voice of Memory”, however, even a simple mention of a meeting with Emperor Nicholas winter evening in the snow-covered Tsarskoe Selo, I had to encrypt it all the same. In the now widely known poem "Meeting" (1919), the final quatrain - "And the gilded haiduk \ Stands motionless behind the sleigh, \ And the tsar looks around strangely \ With empty bright eyes" in the Berlin version looks like this:
But this is the only forced compromise. On the whole, Anno Domini is free from both copyright and Soviet censorship...
And a gilded haiduk
Stands motionless behind the sleigh.
And strangely you look around
Empty bright eyes.
In the year of her first civil death Anna Akhmatova was only thirty-six years old, about the earthly period that she still happened to live, she always spoke briefly and bitterly: after all. However, this other, substituted life (“they changed my life, it flowed in a different direction and in a different way ...”) was a life, and in it were love, and betrayals, and the torments of dumbness, and golden gifts of a late, but fruitful autumn, and even a test of glory. But this was a bitter, bitter glory, because all her best things were not printed in her homeland. They were brought secretly from Munich, Paris, New York, they were memorized from the voice, copied by hand and on a typewriter, bound and given to friends and loved ones. Akhmatova knew about this and still suffered ... Of all the fatal "non-meetings" your reader was her worst pain. The pain of this separation was not at all figurative, but literally tore her tormented heart, and she killed him. By a strange coincidence, March 5, 1966: on the day of the death of the main culprit of all her troubles - Joseph Stalin.
Alla Marchenko
Evening
I
Love
November 24, 1911
That snake, curled up in a ball,
At the very heart conjures
That whole days like a dove
Cooing on the white window,It will shine in the bright hoarfrost,
Feel like a left-handed man in a slumber ...
But faithfully and secretly leads
From joy and peace.Can cry so sweetly
In the prayer of a longing violin,
And it's scary to guess
In an unfamiliar smile.
Tsarskoye Selo
In Tsarskoye Selo
I
November 30, 1911
Horses are led along the alley,
The waves of combed manes are long.
O captivating city of mysteries,
I'm sad, loving you.Strange to remember! The soul yearned
Choking in death delirium,
Now I've become a toy
Like my pink cockatoo friend.The chest is not compressed with a premonition of pain,
If you want, look into my eyes
I do not like only the hour before sunset,
Wind from the sea and the word "go away."
Tsarskoye Selo
II
1911
... And there is my marble double,
Defeated under the old maple,He gave his face to the lake waters,
Heeds the rustle of green.And light rains wash
His clotted wound...
Cold, white, wait
I, too, will become a marble.
III
And the boy...
November 30, 1911
And the boy who plays the bagpipes
And the girl who weaves her wreath,
And two crossed paths in the forest,
And in the far field a distant light, -I see everything. I remember everything
Lovingly meekly in the heart of the shore,
Only one I never know
And I can't even remember anymore.I don't ask for wisdom or strength
Oh, just let me warm myself by the fire!
I'm cold... Winged or wingless,
The merry god will not visit me.
Tsarskoye Selo
Love conquers...
Autumn 1911
Love conquers deceitfully
In a simple unskillful chant.
Still so recently-strange
You were not gray and sad.And when she smiled
In your gardens, in your house, in the field,
Everywhere you seemed
That you are free and at will.You were bright, taken by her
And drinking her poison.
Because the stars were bigger
After all, the herbs smelled differently,
Autumn herbs.
Tsarskoye Selo
Shrugged her hands...
January 8, 1911
She clasped her hands under a dark veil...
"Why are you pale today? .."
- Because I am tart sadness
Got him drunk.How can I forget? He walked out, staggering
Mouth twisted painfully
I ran away without touching the railing
I followed him to the gate.Breathless, I shouted: "Joke
All that has gone before. If you leave, I'll die."
Smiled calmly and creepily
And he said to me: "Don't stand in the wind."
Kyiv
Memories of the sun...
January 30, 1911
yellow grass,
The wind blows with early snowflakes
Barely.Willow in the empty sky flattened
Fan through.
Maybe it's better that I didn't
Your wife.The memory of the sun in the heart is weakening,
What is this? - dark?
May be! Will have time to come during the night
Winter.
Kyiv
High in the sky…
Spring 1911
High in the sky a cloud was gray,
Like a squirrel's skin, spread out.
He told me: "It's not a pity that your body
It will melt in March, the fragile Snow Maiden!”In a fluffy muff, the hands grew cold,
I was scared, I was somehow vague,
Oh how to get you back, fast weeks
His love is airy and minute!I don't want bitterness or revenge
Let me die with the last white blizzard
Oh, I wondered about it on the eve of Epiphany,
I was his girlfriend in January.
Tsarskoye Selo
The door is half open...
February 17, 1911
The door is half open
Lindens blow sweetly ...
Forgotten on the table
Whip and glove.The circle from the lamp is yellow ...
I'm listening to the noise.
What did you leave?
I don't understand…Happy and clear
Tomorrow will be morning
This life is wonderful
Heart, be wise.You are quite tired
Beat quieter, deafer,
You know I read
that souls are immortal.
Tsarskoye Selo
Want to know…
October 21, 1910
…Do you want to know how it all was? -
Three in the dining room struck,
And, saying goodbye, holding on to the railing,
She seemed to say with difficulty:
"That's it, oh no, I forgot
I love you, I loved you
Already then!"
"Yes?!"
Kyiv
Song of the last meeting
September 29, 1911
So helplessly my chest went cold,
But my steps were light
I put on my right hand
Left hand glove.It seemed that many steps
And I knew there were only three!
Autumn whisper between the maples
He asked: “Die with me!I'm deceived, you hear, sad,
Changeable, evil fate.
I said, "Darling, dear!
And me too. "I'll die with you..."Is a song last meeting,
I looked at the dark house
Candles burned in the bedroom
Indifferent yellow fire.
Tsarskoye Selo
Like a straw...
February 10, 1911
Like a straw, you drink my soul.
I know its taste is bitter and intoxicating,
But I will not break the torture with a plea,
Oh, my rest is many weeks.When you finish, say: it's not sad,
That my soul is not in the world,
I'm going down the road
Watch how the children play.Gooseberries bloom on the bushes,
And they carry bricks behind the fence,
Who is he! - My brother or lover,
I don't remember and I don't need to remember.How light is here and how homeless,
Resting a tired body...
And passers-by think vaguely:
That's right, just yesterday she was a widow.
Tsarskoye Selo
I went crazy...
March 18-19, 1911
I've lost my mind, oh strange boy
Wednesday at three o'clock!
Pricked ring finger
A ringing wasp for me.I accidentally pressed her
And she seemed to die
But the end of the poisoned sting
Was sharper than the spindle.Will I cry about you strange
Will your face smile at me?
Look! On the ring finger
So beautifully smooth ring.
I don't need my legs anymore...
<1911?>
I don't need my legs anymore
Let them turn into a fish tail!
I swim, and the coolness is joyful,
The distant bridge turns white.I do not need a humble soul,
Let it become smoke, light smoke,
Taking off over the black embankment,
It will be light blue.Watch how deep I dive
I hold on to the seaweed with my hand,
I do not repeat any words
And I will not be captivated by anyone's longing ...And you, my distant, really
Has he become pale and mournful?
What do I hear? For three whole weeks
You all whisper: “Poor, why ?!”
II
Deception
I
November 2, 1910
This morning is drunk with the spring sun
And on the terrace you can hear the smell of roses,
And the sky is brighter than blue faience.
Notebook covered in soft morocco,
I read elegies and stanzas in it,
Written by my grandmother.I see the road to the gate, and pedestals
They turn white clearly in the emerald turf,
Oh, the heart loves sweetly and blindly!
And exquisite flower beds delight,
And the sharp cry of a crow in the black sky,
And in the depths of the alley is the arch of the crypt.
Kyiv
II
January 1910
The sultry wind blows hot,
The sun burned my hands
Above me is an air vault,
Like blue glass.Immortals smell dry
In a scattered braid,
On the trunk of a gnarled spruce
Ant Highway.The pond is lazy silver,
Life is easy again
Who will dream of me today
In a light hammock net?
Kyiv
III
September 1910
Blue evening. The winds subsided,
The bright light is calling me home.
I wonder who is there? - Isn't it the groom?
Isn't this my fiancé?On the terrace the silhouette is familiar,
A quiet conversation can be heard.
Oh, such captivating languor
I didn't know until now.The poplars rustled anxiously,
Tender dreams visited them,
Blued steel skies
The stars are matte pale.I carry a bouquet of white lions,
For this, a secret fire is hidden in them,
Who, taking flowers from the hands of the timid,
Touches a warm hand.
Tsarskoye Selo
IV
Autumn 1910
I wrote the words
I didn't dare to say for a long time.
A dull headache
The body is strangely numb.The distant horn is silent,
In the heart all the same riddles
Light autumn snow
Lie down on the croquet ground.Leaves last to rustle!
Thoughts are the last to languish!
I didn't want to interfere
The one that should have fun.Forgive red lips
I am their cruel joke...
Oh you will come to us
Tomorrow on the first run.Candles are lit in the living room
During the day their shimmer is softer,
A whole bouquet will be brought
Roses from the greenhouse.
Tsarskoye Selo
I'm drunk with you...
1911
I'm having fun drunk with you
There is no sense in your stories;
Autumn early hung
The flags are yellow on the elms.Both of us are in a deceitful country
Wandered and bitterly repent
But why a strange smile
And frozen smile?We wanted stinging flour
Instead of serene happiness ...
I won't leave my friend
And careless and tender.
Paris
Husband whipped me...
Autumn 1911
Husband whipped me patterned
Double folded belt.
For you in the casement window
I sit with fire all night.It's dawning. And above the forge
Smoke rises.
Ah, with me, a sad prisoner,
You couldn't stay again.For you, I'm gloomy
I took a share of flour,
Or do you love a blonde
Or a redhead?How can I hide you, sonorous groans!
In the heart of a dark stuffy hops;
And the rays fall thin
On an unrumpled bed.
Heart to heart...
Spring 1911
Heart to heart is not riveted
If you want, leave.
Much happiness is in store
For those who are free on the way.I don't cry, I don't complain
I won't be happy!
Don't kiss me, I'm tired
Death will come to kiss.The days of sharp yearnings are lived
Together with the white winter ...
Why, why are you
Better than my chosen one.
song
March 11, 1911
I'm at sunrise
I sing about love
On my knees in the garden
Swan field.Rip and throw
(Let him forgive me)
I see the girl is barefoot
Weeping at the wattle fence.I'm at sunrise
I sing about love
On my knees in the garden
Swan field.
Tsarskoye Selo
I came here...
February 23, 1911
I came here, loafer
I don't care where I get bored!
On the hillock the mill slumbers,
Years can be silent here.Over dried dodder
The bee floats softly
I call the mermaid by the pond,
And the mermaid died.Dragged in rusty mud
The pond is wide and shallow.
Above the trembling aspen
The light moon shone.I see everything as new
Poplars smell wet.
I am silent. Shut up, ready
Become you again - the earth.
Tsarskoye Selo
white night
February 6, 1911
Ah, I didn't lock the door,
Didn't light the candles
You don't know how, tired,
I didn't dare lie down.Watch the stripes go out
In the sunset darkness needles,
Drunk on the sound of a voice
Similar to yours.And know that all is lost
That life is a damned hell!
Oh I was sure
What are you coming back.
Tsarskoye Selo
Under a canopy...
September 24, 1911
It's hot under the canopy of the dark barn,
I laugh, and in my heart I cry angrily,
An old friend mutters to me: “Don't croak!
We will not meet luck on the way!But I don't trust my old friend
He is funny, blind and miserable,
He measured his whole life with steps
Long and boring roads.
Tsarskoye Selo
Bury me wind...
December 1909
Bury, bury me, wind!
My relatives did not come
I need a wandering evening
And the breath of the quiet earth.I was free like you
But I wanted to live too much
You see, the wind, my corpse is cold,
And no one to lay down their hands.Close this black wound
Veil of evening darkness
And led the blue fog
I need to read the psalms.And so that it's easy for me, lonely,
Go to the last sleep
Proshumi high sedge
About spring, about my spring.
Kyiv
You believe...
Believe me, not a snake's sharp sting,
And my anguish drank my blood.
In a white field, I became a quiet girl,
Anna Akhmatova
My white flock of poems ...
Foreword
Sadness is the strongest thing on earth.
A. Akhmatova
The creative fate of Anna Akhmatova developed in such a way that only five of her poetic books - "Evening" (1912), "Rosary" (1914), "White Flock" (1917), "Plantain" (1921) and "Anno Domini" (in two editions of 1921 and 1922-1923) were compiled by herself. Over the next two years, Akhmatov's poems occasionally still appeared in periodicals, but in 1925, after the next Ideological Conference, at which, in the words of Anna Andreevna herself, she was sentenced to "civil death", they stopped publishing her. Only fifteen years later, in 1940, almost miraculously, a volume of selected works broke through to readers, and it was no longer Akhmatova who chose, but the compiler. True, Anna Andreevna still managed to include in this edition, as one of the sections, fragments from the handwritten "Reed", the sixth book of hers, which she compiled with her own hand in the late 30s. And yet, on the whole, the collection of 1940 with the impersonal title "From Six Books", like all the other lifetime favorites, including the famous "Running Time" (1965), did not express the author's will. According to legend, the initiator of this miracle was Stalin himself. Seeing that his daughter Svetlana was copying Akhmatova's poems into a notebook, he allegedly asked one of the people in his retinue why Akhmatova was not being published. Indeed, in the last pre-war year in the creative life of Akhmatova, there was a certain turning point for the better: in addition to the collection "From Six Books", there were also several publications in the Leningrad magazine. Anna Andreevna believed in this legend, she even believed that she also owed Stalin her salvation, the fact that she was taken out of the besieged city in the fall of 1941 on a military plane. In fact, the decision to evacuate Akhmatova and Zoshchenko was signed by Alexander Fadeev and, apparently, at the insistent request of Alexei Tolstoy: the red count was a burned-out cynic, but he knew and loved Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Gumilyov from his youth and never forgot about it ... Tolstoy, it seems , contributed to the release of the Tashkent collection of Akhmatova in 1943, which, however, was not at all difficult for him, since this happened after the publication of her poem “Courage” in Pravda ... The fact that it was the author of “Peter the Great”, albeit not too much, but slightly defended Akhmatova, and this fact confirms: after his death in 1944, no one could help her, neither Nikolai Tikhonov, nor Konstantin Fedin, nor Alexei Surkov, despite all his considerable literary ranks ...
This edition includes the texts of the first five books of Anna Akhmatova, in the edition and in the order in which they first saw the light.
The first four collections - "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock" and "Plantain" are published according to the first edition, "Anno Domini" - according to the second, more complete, Berlin one, printed in October 1922, but published with the note: 1923. All other texts follow in chronological order, without taking into account those subtle connections and links in which they exist in the author's "samizdat" plans: until her death, Anna Akhmatova continued to write poetry and put them into cycles and books, still hoping that will be able to reach its reader not only with the main poems, which invariably got stuck in the viscous mud of Soviet censorship, but also with books of poetry. Like many poets of the Silver Age, she was convinced that between lyrical plays, united only by the time of their writing, and the author's book of poems, there was a "devilish difference."
The first collection of Anna Akhmatova "Evening" was published at the very beginning of March 1912, in St. Petersburg, in the acmeist publishing house "Poets' Workshop". To publish 300 copies of this thin little book, Anna Akhmatova's husband, who is also the head of the publishing house, poet and critic Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev laid out one hundred rubles from his own pocket. The success of Vecher was preceded by the “triumphs” of young Akhmatova on the tiny stage of the literary cabaret Stray Dog, the opening of which was timed by the founders to coincide with the farewell of 1911. The artist Yuri Annenkov, the author of several portraits of the young Akhmatova, recalling in his declining years the appearance of his model and her performance on the stage of the Intimate Theater (the official name of the Stray Dog: The Art Society of the Intimate Theater), wrote: “Anna Akhmatova, shy and an elegantly careless beauty, with her “uncurled bangs” that covered her forehead, and with a rare grace of half-movements and half-gestures, read, almost singing, her early poems. I do not remember anyone else who would have possessed such a skill and such musical delicacy of reading ... ".
Exactly two years after the publication of the first edition, namely in March 1914, Rosary appeared on the shelves of bookstores in St. Petersburg, Akhmatova no longer had to publish this book at her own expense ... She withstood many reprints, including several pirated." One of these collections is dated 1919. Anna Andreevna valued this edition very much. Hunger, cold, devastation, but people still need poetry. Her poetry! Gumilyov, as it turned out, was right when he said, after reading the proofreading of the Rosary: “Maybe it will have to be sold in every small shop.” Marina Tsvetaeva rather calmly met the first Akhmatova collection, because her own first book was published two years earlier, except that she was surprised at the coincidence of the names: she has “Evening Album”, and Anna has “Evening”, but “Rosary” delighted her. She fell in love! And in poetry, and, in absentia, in Akhmatova, although I felt in her a strong rival:
You make me freeze the sun in the sky,
All the stars are in your hand.
Then, after the "Rosary", Tsvetaeva called Akhmatova "Anna of All Rus'", she also owns two more poetic characteristics: "Muse of Lamentation", "Tsarskoye Selo Muse". And what is most surprising, Marina Ivanovna guessed that fate had written out for them, so different, one road trip:
And alone in the emptiness of the prison
We were given a travel guide.
"The Rosary" is the most famous book of Anna Akhmatova, it was she who brought her fame, not just fame in a narrow circle of lovers of fine literature, but real fame. Meanwhile, Akhmatova herself, from her early books, loved The White Flock and Plantain much more than The Rosary ... And let the person to whom The White Flock and Plantain are dedicated - Boris Vasilyevich Anrep, as it turned out many, many years later, turned out to be unworthy of this great earthly love and the poem of the fate of Anna of All Russia was left without the main Hero, so what? Wars and tsars have passed, but the poems about the hopeless love of the most charming woman of "silver Petersburg" for the "dashing Yaroslavl", who exchanged his native copses for the velvet greens of English lawns, did not pass, did not lose their original freshness ... In 1945, on the eve of another catastrophe, when In August of the following 1946, Anna Akhmatova was once again sentenced to “civil death” by the well-known decision of the Central Committee on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad, after reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The Master and Margarita in the manuscript, she wrote the following visionary verses:
Witnesses of Christ have tasted death,
And old gossips, and soldiers,
And the procurator of Rome - all passed
Where the arch once stood
Where the sea beat, where the cliff blackened, -
They were drunk in wine, inhaled with hot dust
And with the smell of sacred roses.
Gold rusts and steel rots,
Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death.
Sadness is the strongest thing on earth
And more durable is the royal Word.
In the situation of 1945, when, after several spring months of the national Victory Day, the authorities again and abruptly began to “tighten the screws”, it was dangerous not only to read such poems aloud, but also to store them in the drawers of the desk, and Anna Andreevna, who never forgot anything, forgot or rather, she hid them so deeply in the basement of her memory that she could not find them for a whole decade, but after the 20th Congress she immediately remembered ... Friends called her a seer for a reason, she foresaw a lot in advance, in advance, and she sensed the approach of trouble long before her arrival, not one from the blows of fate did not take her by surprise; constantly living "on the edge of death", she was always ready for the worst. But her main books were lucky, by some miracle they managed to jump out from under the printing press on the eve of the next sharp turn - either in her own life or in the fate of the country.
"Evening" appeared on the eve of the birth of the first and only son.
"Rosary" - on the eve of the First World War.
The "White Flock" - on the eve of the revolution, and literally on the eve: in mid-September 1917.
"Plantain" (April 1921) - on the eve of great grief: in the summer of 1921, Akhmatova learned about the suicide of her elder beloved brother Andrei, in August, first Blok and then Gumilyov passed away. Mikhail Zenkevich, who sought out Anna Andreevna that tragic winter in some strange frozen dwelling, was amazed at the change that had happened to her. That Anna, with whom he parted, leaving Petrograd in 1918, the one who lived and sang love in "Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock" and "Plantain", was no more; the book she wrote after the terrible August 1921 - Anno Domini - was a book of Sorrow. (In the first edition - St. Petersburg: "Petropolis", 1921 - the year of the end of the former and the beginning of a new life is indicated in Roman numerals already in the title of the collection: "Anno Domini MCMXXI" ("From the Nativity of Christ 1921.") Having read several new poems to a friend of his poetic youth and noticing that Zenkevich was amazed, she explained: "The last months I lived among deaths. Kolya died, my brother died and ... Blok. I don't know how I could survive all this."
