About Anna Akhmatova

Born Anna Andreevna Gorenko on 11 June 1889 near Odessa, her father Andrei Gorenko was a maritime engineer. Her aristocratic mother Inna Stogova was a former member of the radical political group Narodnaya Volya (People's Will). The young Akhmatova knew French poets by heart as well as the Russians. She grew up in Tsarskoe Selo where she attended school, completing her final year at Fundukleevskaya gimnaziya in Kiev (1907). The same year she enrolled at the Faculty of Law at the Kiev College for Women, later withdrawing to study literature in St. Petersburg. In 1903 Akhmatova met the poet Nikolai Gumilyov whose persistent wooing led to their marriage in 1910. They travelled abroad in 1910 and 1911. In Paris Akhmatova became friendly with the yet unknown artist Modigliani who drew her as Egyptian queens and dancers. Together they visited the Louvre and recited French poetry.

Akhmatova's first poem appeared in 1907 in Gumilyov's journal Sinus. She participated in the Guild of Poets organized by Gumilyov and Gorodetsky. Soon it disassociated itself from the symbolists, giving birth to Acmeism, whose avowed principles were an emphasis on clarity, freshness, a return to earth and close ties with the literature and culture of Europe and of all ages. The symbolist Annensky was their acknowledged teacher. The popular Gumilyovs frequented the fashionable artistic cafe The Stray Dog.

The first collection of Akhmatova's verse, Evening (Vecher, 1912), appeared under the pseudonym Anna Akhmatova, taken from her Tatar great-grandmother. Hailed for its Acmeist clarity, conciseness, compressed style and precise details, the collection concurrently espoused the romantic concept of evening as a time of awakening for the sensitive young adult to life, love, and grief. Its miniature love lyrics manifested subtlety of style and message. The collection about married life, Rosary (Chetki), appeared in 1914. Published during the following year, the long poem By the Very Sea (U samogo morya, 1915) synopsizes the two collections, bidding farewell to adolescent reveries and a pagan outlook on life. The persona, who spurned a fisherman's love in favor of an imaginary prince, encounters death and sorrow partly of her own doing. The White Flock (Belaya staya, 1917) presents poems on memories of lost love transformed into song in the crucible of grief. The persona evolves into a sybil whose "lips no longer kiss, but prophesy." Plantain (Podorozhnik, 1921) contains poems addressed to Boris Anrep in London as keepsakes designated for the journey to a foreign land. It concludes with Akhmatova's refusal to emigrate. In Anno Domini (1922) Akhmatova's wandering personas grow stronger and independent of their lover. Religious themes increase; there are some Biblical poems: "Lot's Wife."

Meanwhile, Gumilyov had made several trips abroad and volunteered for the cavalry in 1914. The birth of their son Lev in 1912 Failed to stabilize their marriage. In 1918 Akhmatova married Vladimir Shileiko, an Assyrologist, who tried to stop his wife's writing by burning her poems. Akhmatova grieved over Gumilyov's execution (1921) for alleged involvement in a counterrevolutionary plot. She sought solace from friends with common interests. Her friendship with the poet Osip Mandelshtam stands out. She divorced Shileiko in 1928.

After 1922 no new works of Akhmatova were published because her apolitical work was considered incompatible with the new order. Labeled an "internal emigre," she was given a meagre pension. Critics believed that her time had passed. Yet her verse continued to be cited by scholars of the Formalist school and admired by poetry lovers.

During her forced silence Akhmatova applied herself to the investigation of the life and works of Pushkin, producing some seminal articles published posthumously under the title On Pushkin (O Pushkine). She worked on The Reed (Trostnik, 1926-40) which contains poems on creation and features dedications to the poets Mandelshtam, Pasternak and Dante. From 1926 to 1940 Akhmatova lived with the art critic, Nikolai Punin. The mass arrests of the 1930s which included her son and Punin generated a dirge to human suffering, Requiem (1935-40), never published in the Soviet Union during her lifetime.

An edition of early works plus a new cycle. From Six Books (Iz shesti knig, 1940), was recalled after publication. The same year Akhmatova commenced the unique, cryptic, hauntingly beautiful Poem without a Hero (Poema bez geroya) which she perfected until her death. During the war she was evacuated to Tashkent. The Asian ambience, its color and motifs, found reflection in the cycle "From a Tashkent Notebook." A volume of her poetry, Izbrannoe, appeared in Tashkent in 1943.

The wartime relaxation of controls on her publications ended with the decision of the Central Committee concerning the literary journals Zvezda and Leningrad which unleashed attacks on Akhmatova and Zoshchenko, resulting in their expulsion from the Union of Soviet Writers without the right to publish. As a means of support and appearing in print Akhmatova began to translate from numerous languages. Six volumes have appeared as separate imprints. Despite her success, Akhmatova complained that for a poet translating was comparable to devouring one's own brains.

The "Thaw" brought the release from prison of Lev and the gradual lifting of the ban on Akhmatova's publications. An edition of her poetry, with recent works, The Course of Time (Beg vremeni), appeared under her supervision in 1958. It introduced her largest collection The Seventh Book (Sed'maya kniga), emphasizing new themes--literary craft, war, death and symbolism--as well as part of her Poem without a Hero. The ailing poet became the acknowledged grande dame of Russian letters. Young poets gathered around her. She met the American poet Robert Frost, who specifically asked to see her during his visit to the USSR, even though the state-sponsored Writers Union officials tried to prevent their meeting. International recognition brought the Taormina Prize for Poetry in Italy (1964) and the awarding of an honorary degree from Oxford University (1965). With Akhmatova's death Russian literature lost a great poet.

--Sonya Ketchian, Handbook of Russian Literature (YUP, 1985, ed. Victor Terras)

Brief Timeline

1889
Born Anna Gorenko, near Odessa (now in Ukraine), to mother Inna Stogova, a former member of the revolutionary group the People's Will and to father Andrei, a maritime engineer.

1903
Meets poet Nikolai Gumilev, her future husband and father of her only son.

1907
Graduates from Fundukleevskaya Gimnazia in Kiev (now in Ukraine).
Her first poem appears in Sirius, Gumilev's journal, and begins to participate in the Guild of Poets, the group that would spawn the famous Acmeist movement.

1910
Marries Gumilev and they travel to Paris where they meet the then unknown Modigliani, who painted a several portraits Akhmatova.

1912
First collection Evening appears under the pseudonym Anna Akhmatova, a name she takes from her Tatar grandmother. This collection highlighted the intimate, colloquial, romantic voice that would characterize much of her early poetry. Her only son Lev Gumilev is born.

1914
Second collection Rosary appears. Gumilev, now a well known poet himself, leaves her to join the Cavalry during the World War I. They are no longer a married couple.

1915
Writes "By the Sea".
Marries famous scholar, Vladimir Shileiko, who tries to stop her writing by burning her poems.

1917
Publishes The White Flock, where her tone becomes more severe and gains somewhat epic proportions.

1921
Gumilev is executed for involvement in counterrevolutionary plot

1922
Publishes Anno Domini, in which her use of religious themes increase and her work’s intricate connection to old Russian folklore is more visible. She becomes unable to publish, as a forced silence begins because her apolitical work is now thought incompatible with the new regime.

1926-1940
Divorced from Shileiko, she moves in with art critic Nikolai Punin. These are years of utter poverty, and at times, near starvation. Many contemporaries, and also scholars abroad have by now decided that she has stopped writing, because her work has been, for year, unavailable in print. Works on cycle Reed, poems dedicated to Mandelstam, Pasternak, and Dante. Begins her Pushkin scholarship which is generally considered as some of the most interesting scholarly works written about the poet in Russian language.

1935-40
Writes Requiem, her tribute to human suffering, inspired by the arrest of her son, death of Punin in prison, and the purges of the 1930's.

1940
A reprint and new cycle of poems Six Books appears, but is quickly recalled and is forbidden by the State. Begins writing "Poem without a Hero" on which she will work until her death. This will be known as her most dense, complex and layered poem.

1943
Evacuated to Tashkent form Leningrad. Long illness in Tashkent. volume Selected Verses appears as the States attempt to use the publication of her poetry to uplift the patriotic feelings of the Russian people during the World War II.

1955
Her son, Lev, is released from prison and rehabilitated. He will, in a few years, become one of the most interesting Russian historians of his generation.

1958
Edition with new work The Course of Time appears under her supervision, with severe State censorship.

1964
Awarded Italian Taormina Prize for poetry. Allowed by the State to travel abroad for the first time in many decades to receive this award.

1965
Awarded honorary degree by Oxford University.

1966
Dies and is burried in Komarovo. At the time of her death, she was surrounded by the circle of young poets such as future Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky; the circle later became known as “Akhmatova’s Orphans”.