Acmeism of Gumilyov Akhmatova Mandelstam's creativity. General characteristics of acmeism

Acmeism

• Acmeism(from the Greek akme - the highest degree of something, flourishing, maturity, peak, tip) - one of the modernist trends in Russian poetry of the 1910s, formed as a reaction to the extremes of symbolism.

Acmeism has six of the most active participants in the current: N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, S. Gorodetsky, M. Zenkevich, V. Narbut. G. Ivanov claimed the role of the "seventh acmeist", but this point of view was protested by A. Akhmatova, who stated that "there were six acmeists, and there never was a seventh." O. Mandelstam was in solidarity with her, who, however, considered that six was too much: “There are only six Acmeists, and among them there was one extra ...”

Basic principles of acmeism:

The liberation of poetry from symbolist appeals to the ideal, the return of clarity to it; - rejection of mystical nebula, acceptance of the earthly world in its diversity, visible concreteness, sonority, colorfulness; - the desire to give the word a specific, precise meaning; - objectivity and clarity of images, sharpness of details; - an appeal to a person, to the "authenticity" of his feelings; - poetization of the world of primordial emotions, primitive biological nature; - a call to the past literary epochs, the broadest aesthetic associations, "longing for world culture".

Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova (pseudonym Anna Andreevna Gorenko; 1889-1966) Anna Akhmatova belonged to the group of acmeists, but her poetry, dramatically intense, psychologically deep, extremely laconic, alien to self-valuable aestheticism, in essence did not coincide with the program settings of acmeism. The connection between Akhmatova's poetry and the traditions of Russian classical lyrics, especially Pushkin's, is obvious. Of the modern poets, I. Annensky and A. Blok were closest to her. The creative activity of Anna Akhmatova lasted almost six decades. During this time, her poetry has undergone a certain evolution, while maintaining fairly stable aesthetic principles that were formed in the first decade of her career. Talking about my poetry Anna Akhmatova stated: “For me, they are a connection with the time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by those rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived in these years and saw events that had no equal.

"Briefly about yourself"

• I was born on June 11 (23), 1889 near Odessa (Big Fountain). My father was a retired Navy mechanical engineer at the time. As a one-year-old child, I was transported to the north - to Tsarskoye Selo. I lived there until I was sixteen.

• My first memories are those of Tsarskoye Selo: the green, damp splendor of the parks, the pasture where my nanny took me, the hippodrome, where little motley horses galloped, the old railway station and something else that later became part of the Tsarskoye Selo Ode.

• Every summer I spent near Sevastopol, on the shore of the Streletskaya Bay, and there I made friends with the sea. The strongest impression of these years is the ancient Chersonese, near which we lived.

• I learned to read according to the alphabet of Leo Tolstoy. At the age of five, listening to how the teacher worked with older children, I also learned to speak French.

• I wrote my first poem when I was eleven years old.

• I studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Women's Gymnasium. First badly, then much better, but always reluctantly.

• In 1905, my parents separated, and my mother and children went south. We lived for a whole year in Yevpatoria, where I took the course of the penultimate class of the gymnasium at home, yearned for Tsarskoye Selo and wrote a great many helpless poems.

• I entered the law faculty of the Higher Women's Courses in Kyiv. While I had to study the history of law and especially Latin, I was satisfied, but when purely legal subjects began, I lost interest in the courses.

• In 1910 (April 25 old style) I married N. S. Gumilyov, and we went to Paris for a month.

• Having moved to St. Petersburg, I studied at the Higher Historical and Literary Courses of Raev. At this time, I was already writing poems, which later became part of my first book.

Collections of poems by Anna Akhmatova

• "Evening", 1912

• "Rosary", 1914

• "White flock", 1917

• "Plantain", 1921

• Book "Anno Domini", 1922

Collection "Evening"

• In 1912 my first collection of poems "Evening" was published. Only three hundred copies were printed. Critics reacted favorably to him.

“She clenched her hands under a dark veil…”

She clasped her hands under a dark veil... "Why are you pale today?" - Because I tart sadness Drunk him drunk. How can I forget? He went out, staggering, His mouth twisted painfully... I ran away, not touching the railing, I ran after him to the gate. Breathless, I shouted: "Joke All that was. If you leave, I will die." He smiled calmly and eeriely And told me: "Don't stand in the wind." 1911

“I pray to the window beam…”

• I pray to the window beam - He is pale, thin, straight. Today I am silent in the morning, And my heart is in half. Copper turned green on my washstand. But so the beam plays on it, What is fun to look at. So innocent and simple In the silence of the evening, But in this empty temple He is like a golden holiday And consolation to me. 1909

Collection "Rosary"

In March 1914, the second book, The Rosary, was published. She was given approximately six weeks to live. At the beginning of May, the St. Petersburg season began to fade, and everyone was leaving little by little. This time the parting with Petersburg turned out to be eternal. We returned not to St. Petersburg, but to Petrograd, from the 19th century we immediately got into the 20th, everything became different, starting with the appearance of the city. It seemed that a small book of love lyrics by a novice author should have been drowned in world events. Time decreed otherwise.

• “The last time we met was then…”

• The last time we met then

• On the embankment where we always met.

• There was high water in the Neva,

• And the floods in the city were afraid.

• He talked about summer and

• That being a poet to a woman is absurd.

• As I remember the high royal house

• And the Peter and Paul Fortress! -

• Then that the air was not ours at all,

• And as a gift from God - so wonderful.

• And at that hour was given to me

• The last of all crazy songs.

In memory of July 19, 1914

• In memory of July 19, 1914

We have grown old by a hundred years, and it happened then at one o'clock: The short summer was already ending, The body of the plowed plains was smoking. Suddenly the quiet road was full of colors, Crying flew, ringing silver. Covering my face, I begged God Before the first battle to kill me. From the memory, like a load from now on superfluous, The shadows of songs and passions have disappeared. She - empty - ordered the Almighty Become a terrible book of thunderstorm news. 1916

Collection "White Flock"

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 Flock (1917) the growing "sense of personal life as a national, historical life."

"Privacy"

• "Privacy"

So many stones have been thrown at me, That not one of them is terrible, And the trap has become a slender tower, High among the high towers. I thank her builders, Let their care and sadness pass. From here I see the dawn earlier, Here the last ray of the sun triumphs. And often the winds of the northern seas fly through the windows of my room, And the dove eats the wheat from my hands... And the page that I haven't written is Divinely calm and light, A swarthy hand will add to the Muses. 1914. Slepnevo

• "My voice is weak, but my will does not weaken"

My voice is weak, but my will does not weaken, It even became easier for me without love. The sky is high, the mountain wind is blowing, And my thoughts are blameless. Insomnia-nurse has gone to others, I do not languish over gray ash, And the curved arrow of the clock tower Does not seem to me to be a deadly arrow. How the past loses power over the heart! Liberation is near. I'll forgive everything, Watching how the beam runs up and down Through the damp spring ivy. 1912

Collection "Plantain"

• After the revolution, Akhmatova worked in the library of the Agronomic Institute, without stopping her creative activity. In 1921, a collection of poems "Plantain" was published.

Anna Akhmatova, whose life and work we will present to you, is a literary pseudonym with which she signed her poems. This poetess was born in 1889, on June 11 (23), near Odessa. Her family soon moved to Tsarskoye Selo, where Akhmatova lived until the age of 16. Creativity (briefly) of this poetess will be presented after her biography. Let's get acquainted first with the life of Anna Gorenko.

Young years

The young years were not cloudless for Anna Andreevna. Her parents separated in 1905. The mother took her daughters with tuberculosis to Evpatoria. Here, for the first time, the "wild girl" encountered the life of rude foreign and dirty cities. She also experienced a love drama, made an attempt to commit suicide.

Education in Kyiv and Tsarskoye Selo gymnasiums

The early youth of this poetess was marked by her studies at the Kyiv and Tsarskoye Selo gymnasiums. She took her last class in Kyiv. After that, the future poetess studied law in Kyiv, as well as philology in St. Petersburg, at the Higher Women's Courses. In Kyiv, she learned Latin, which subsequently allowed her to become fluent in Italian, to read Dante in the original. However, Akhmatova soon lost interest in legal disciplines, so she went to St. Petersburg, continuing her studies at historical and literary courses.

First poems and publications

The first poems, in which the influence of Derzhavin is still noticeable, were written by the young schoolgirl Gorenko when she was only 11 years old. In 1907, the first publications appeared.

In the 1910s, from the very beginning, Akhmatova began to publish regularly in Moscow and St. Petersburg publications. After the "Shop of Poets" (in 1911), a literary association, is created, she acts as secretary in it.

Marriage, trip to Europe

Anna Andreevna in the period from 1910 to 1918 was married to N.S. Gumilyov, also a famous Russian poet. She met him while studying at the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium. After that, Akhmatova did in 1910-1912, where she became friends with the Italian artist who created her portrait. Also at the same time she visited Italy.

Appearance of Akhmatova

Nikolai Gumilyov introduced his wife to the literary and artistic environment, where her name acquired early significance. Not only the poetic manner of Anna Andreevna became popular, but also her appearance. Akhmatova impressed her contemporaries with her majesty and royalty. She was treated like a queen. The appearance of this poetess inspired not only A. Modigliani, but also such artists as K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Altman, Z. Serebryakova, A. Tyshler, N. Tyrsa, A. Danko (below is the work of Petrov-Vodkin) .

The first collection of poems and the birth of a son

In 1912, a significant year for the poetess, two important events took place in her life. The first collection of Anna Andreevna's poems is published under the title "Evening", which marked her work. Akhmatova also gave birth to a son, a future historian, Nikolaevich - an important event in her personal life.

The poems included in the first collection are plastic in terms of the images used in them, clear in composition. They forced Russian criticism to say that a new talent had arisen in poetry. Although Akhmatova's "teachers" are such symbolist masters as A. A. Blok and I. F. Annensky, her poetry was perceived from the very beginning as acmeistic. In fact, together with O. E. Mandelstam and N. S. Gumilyov, the poetess in the early 1910s formed the core of this new trend in poetry that appeared at that time.

The next two compilations, the decision to stay in Russia

The first collection was followed by the second book entitled "Rosary" (in 1914), and three years later, in September 1917, the collection "White Flock" was published, the third in a row in her work. The October Revolution did not force the poetess to emigrate, although mass emigration began at that time. Russia was left one by one by people close to Akhmatova: A. Lurie, B. Antrep, as well as O. Glebova-Studeikina, her friend of her youth. However, the poetess decided to stay in "sinful" and "deaf" Russia. A sense of responsibility to her country, connection with the Russian land and language prompted Anna Andreevna to enter into a dialogue with those who decided to leave her. For many years, those who left Russia continued to justify their emigration to Akhmatova. R. Gul argues with her, in particular, V. Frank and G. Adamovich turn to Anna Andreevna.

Difficult times for Anna Andreevna Akhmatova

At this time, her life changed dramatically, which reflected her work. Akhmatova worked in the library at the Agronomic Institute, in the early 1920s she managed to publish two more poetry collections. These were "Plantain", released in 1921, as well as "Anno Domini" (in translation - "In the summer of the Lord", released in 1922). For 18 years after that, her works did not appear in print. There were various reasons for this: on the one hand, it was the execution of N.S. Gumilyov, ex-husband, who was accused of participating in a conspiracy against the revolution; on the other - the rejection of the work of the poetess by Soviet criticism. During the years of this forced silence, Anna Andreevna was engaged in the work of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin for a long time.

Visit to Optina Hermitage

Akhmatova associated the change in her "voice" and "handwriting" with the mid-1920s, with a visit in 1922, in May, to Optina Pustyn and a conversation with Elder Nektary. Probably, this conversation had a strong influence on the poetess. Akhmatova was maternally related to A. Motovilov, who was a lay novice of Seraphim of Sarov. She took over the generations of the idea of ​​redemption, sacrifice.

Second marriage

In the fate of Akhmatova, the turning point was also associated with the personality of V. Shileiko, who became her second husband. He was an orientalist who studied the culture of such ancient countries as Babylon, Assyria, and Egypt. Personal life with this helpless and despotic person did not work out, however, the poetess attributed the increase in philosophical restrained notes to his influence in her work.

Life and work in the 1940s

A collection entitled "From Six Books" appears in 1940. He returned for a short time to the modern literature of that time such a poetess as Anna Akhmatova. Her life and work at this time are quite dramatic. Akhmatova was caught in Leningrad by the Great Patriotic War. She was evacuated from there to Tashkent. However, in 1944 the poetess returned to Leningrad. In 1946, subjected to unfair and cruel criticism, she was expelled from the Writers' Union.

Return to Russian literature

After this event, the next decade in the work of the poetess was marked only by the fact that at that time Anna Akhmatova was engaged in literary translation. Creativity of her Soviet power was not interested. LN Gumilyov, her son, was at that time serving his sentence in labor camps as a political criminal. Akhmatova's poetry returned to Russian literature only in the second half of the 1950s. Since 1958, collections of lyrics by this poetess have begun to be published again. Was completed in 1962 "Poem without a hero", created for as many as 22 years. Anna Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966. The poetess was buried near St. Petersburg, in Komarov. Her grave is shown below.

Acmeism in the work of Akhmatova

Akhmatova, whose work today is one of the pinnacles of Russian poetry, later treated her first book of poems rather coolly, highlighting only a single line in it: "... drunk with the sound of a voice similar to yours." Mikhail Kuzmin, however, ended his preface to this collection with the words that a young, new poet is coming to us, who has all the data to become a real one. In many ways, the poetics of "Evening" predetermined the theoretical program of acmeism - a new trend in literature, to which such a poetess as Anna Akhmatova is often attributed. Her work reflects many of the characteristic features of this trend.

The photo below was taken in 1925.

Acmeism arose as a reaction to the extremes of the Symbolist style. So, for example, an article by V. M. Zhirmunsky, a well-known literary critic and critic, about the work of representatives of this trend was called as follows: "Overcoming symbolism." Mystical distances and "lilac worlds" were opposed to life in this world, "here and now." Moral relativism and various forms of the new Christianity were replaced by "an unshakable rock of values".

The theme of love in the work of the poetess

Akhmatova came to the literature of the 20th century, its first quarter, with the most traditional theme for world lyrics - the theme of love. However, its solution in the work of this poetess is fundamentally new. Akhmatova's poems are far from the sentimental female lyrics presented in the 19th century by such names as Karolina Pavlova, Yulia Zhadovskaya, Mirra Lokhvitskaya. They are also far from the "ideal", abstract lyrics characteristic of the love poetry of the Symbolists. In this sense, she relied mainly not on Russian lyrics, but on the prose of the 19th century Akhmatov. Her work was innovative. O. E. Mandelstam, for example, wrote that the complexity of the Russian novel of the 19th century Akhmatova brought to the lyrics. An essay on her work could begin with this thesis.

In the "Evening" love feelings appeared in different guises, but the heroine invariably appeared rejected, deceived, suffering. K. Chukovsky wrote about her that it was Akhmatova who was the first to discover that being unloved is poetic (an essay based on her work, "Akhmatova and Mayakovsky", created by the same author, largely contributed to her persecution, when the poems of this poetess not published). Unhappy love was seen as a source of creativity, not a curse. Three parts of the collection are named respectively "Love", "Deceit" and "Muse". Fragile femininity and grace were combined in Akhmatova's lyrics with the courageous acceptance of her suffering. Of the 46 poems included in this collection, almost half was devoted to parting and death. This is no coincidence. In the period from 1910 to 1912, the poetess was possessed by a sense of shortness of the day, she foresaw death. By 1912, two of her sisters had died of tuberculosis, so Anna Gorenko (Akhmatova, whose life and work we are considering) believed that the same fate would befall her. However, unlike the Symbolists, she did not associate separation and death with feelings of hopelessness and melancholy. These moods gave rise to the experience of the beauty of the world.

The distinctive features of the style of this poetess were outlined in the collection "Evening" and finally took shape, first in "The Rosary", then in the "White Flock".

Motives of conscience and memory

Anna Andreevna's intimate lyrics are deeply historical. Already in The Rosary and Evening, along with the theme of love, two other main motives arise - conscience and memory.

The "fatal minutes" that marked the national history (the First World War that began in 1914) coincided with a difficult period in the life of the poetess. In 1915, tuberculosis was discovered in her, her hereditary disease in the family.

"Pushkinism" Akhmatova

The motives of conscience and memory are even more intensified in the White Pack, after which they become dominant in her work. The poetic style of this poetess evolved in 1915-1917. Increasingly, Akhmatova's peculiar "Pushkinism" is mentioned in criticism. Its essence is artistic completeness, accuracy of expression. The presence of a "quotation layer" is also noted with numerous roll calls and allusions both with contemporaries and predecessors: O. E. Mandelstam, B. L. Pasternak, A. A. Blok. All the spiritual richness of the culture of our country stood behind Akhmatova, and she rightly felt herself his heir.

The theme of the motherland in the work of Akhmatova, attitude to the revolution

The dramatic events of the lifetime of the poetess could not but be reflected in her work. Akhmatova, whose life and work took place in a difficult period for our country, perceived the years as a disaster. The former country, in her opinion, is no more. The theme of the motherland in the work of Akhmatova is presented, for example, in the collection "Anno Domini". The section that opens this collection, published in 1922, is called "After Everything." The line "in those fabulous years ..." by F. I. Tyutchev was taken as an epigraph to the entire book. There is no more homeland for the poetess...

However, for Akhmatova, the revolution is also a retribution for the sinful life of the past, retribution. Even though the lyrical heroine did not do evil herself, she feels that she is involved in the common guilt, so Anna Andreevna is ready to share the difficult lot of her people. The homeland in the work of Akhmatova is obliged to atone for its guilt.

Even the title of the book, which in translation means "In the summer of the Lord," suggests that the poetess perceives her era as God's will. The use of historical parallels and biblical motifs becomes one of the ways to comprehend artistically what is happening in Russia. Akhmatova resorts to them more often (for example, the poems "Cleopatra", "Dante", "Bible verses").

In the lyrics of this great poetess, "I" at this time turns into "we". Anna Andreevna speaks on behalf of "many". Every hour, not only of this poetess, but also of her contemporaries, will be justified precisely by the word of the poet.

These are the main themes of Akhmatova's work, both eternal and characteristic precisely for the era of the life of this poetess. She is often compared with another - with Marina Tsvetaeva. Both of them are today the canons of women's lyrics. However, it has not only much in common, but also the work of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva differs in many respects. An essay on this topic is often asked to write to schoolchildren. In fact, it is interesting to speculate about why it is almost impossible to confuse a poem written by Akhmatova with a work created by Tsvetaeva. However, that's another topic...

ACMEISM. N.GUMILEV, A.AKHMATOVA

Parameter name	Meaning
Article subject:	ACMEISM. N.GUMILEV, A.AKHMATOVA
Rubric (thematic category)	Literature

Acmeism

The discussion about symbolism in 1910 made obvious the emerging crisis of Russian symbolism, which consisted in the fact that its representatives understood the future path of art in different ways. The younger Symbolists (A.Blok, A.Bely, Vyach.Ivanov) preached ʼʼcreativity of lifeʼʼ and ʼʼtheurgyʼʼ. Bryusov insisted on the autonomy of art and poetic clarity. The reaction to the crisis of symbolism was the emergence of acmeism as a post-symbolist movement. Acmeists and Symbolists were brought together by a common goal - ʼʼthirst for cultureʼʼ, but they were separated by a difference in the choice of ways to achieve this goal. N. Gumilyov became the head of the writers who denied any abstractions in art, the symbolist worldview.

The Petersburg group of acmeists (ʼʼakmeʼʼ - Greek, ʼʼacmeʼʼ - the highest degree, blooming power), sometimes they called themselves ʼʼadamistsʼʼ, ᴛ.ᴇ. in this case, ʼʼthe first peopleʼʼ, drawing a parallel with the first person - Adam. Acmeists did not show an aggressive rejection of all the literature of the past, they denied only their immediate predecessors - the Symbolists. A group of acmeists - N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, G. Ivanov, M. Zenkevich, V. Narbut, M. Kuzmin - were called the ʼʼ Workshop of Poets ʼʼ. The actual proclamation of the new literary trend took place in February 1912. The name and charter of the ʼʼShop of Poetsʼʼ was focused on the medieval traditions of craft guilds, they called themselves ʼʼsyndicsʼʼ of the shop, there were still students. Acmeists began to publish their own magazine - ʼʼHyperboreaʼʼ, but only a few issues were published, mainly published in the magazine ʼʼApolloʼʼ, where N. Gumilyov's program article ʼʼThe legacy of symbolism and acmeismʼʼ appeared in No. 1 for 1913. The goal of the acmeists was to turn to reality, return to earthly values, to clarity or ʼʼclarismʼʼ of a poetic text. Οʜᴎ sought to free poetry from symbolist impulses towards the ʼʼidealʼʼ, excessive polysemy, complicated imagery and symbolization. Instead of striving for the infinite, the acmeists offered to delve into the cultural world of images and meanings, they adhered to the principle of cultural associations. O. Mandelstam called acmeism ʼʼlonging for world cultureʼʼ. ʼʼClarismoʼʼ - the term was created by M. Kuzmin from the Spanish ʼʼclaroʼʼ - clear, returning the word to its original clarity, he believes that it is necessary to leave the stylistic ʼʼfogsʼʼ of symbolism and return to normative poetics. 1912-1914 was a period of a surge in acmeism, numerous public performances. But in 1914, in connection with the departure of Gumilyov to the front, the ʼʼ Workshop of Poets ʼʼ disintegrated, then attempts were made to revive the former commonwealth: in 1917 - Workshop II, in 1931 - Workshop III, but the later artificial formations did not have a significant effect on the history of Russian literature influence.

A distinctive feature of the acmeists is their asociality- lack of interest in social and civil issues - often demonstrative. Their themes - adventure stories that take the reader to exotic countries, interest in world mythology - are associated with a lack of attention to modern life in Russia. Intoxication with the history of culture, cultural and historical stylizations are a distinctive feature of their poetry. Acmeism was a noticeable course of the Silver Age. In the Russian diaspora, the traditions of acmeism were highly valued. The poets of the ʼʼParis Schoolʼʼ continued to develop the principles of acmeism - G. Adamovich, N. Otsup, V. Nabokov, G. Ivanov.

ACMEISM. N.GUMILEV, A.AKHMATOVA - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "AKMEISM. N.GUMILEV, A.AKHMATOVA" 2017, 2018.

ACMEISM. N.GUMILEV, A.AKHMATOVA

LECTURE 8

The discussion about symbolism in 1910 made obvious the emerging crisis of Russian symbolism, which consisted in the fact that its representatives understood the future path of art in different ways. The younger symbolists (A. Blok, A. Bely, Vyach. Ivanov) preached "life-creation" and "theurgy". Bryusov insisted on the autonomy of art and poetic clarity. The reaction to the crisis of symbolism was the emergence of acmeism as a post-symbolist movement. Acmeists and Symbolists were brought together by a common goal - the "thirst for culture", but they were separated by the difference in the choice of ways to achieve this goal. N. Gumilyov became the head of the writers who denied any abstractions in art, the symbolist worldview.

The Petersburg group of acmeists ("acme" - Greek, "acme" - the highest degree, blooming power), sometimes they called themselves "adamists", i.e. in this case, "the first people", drawing a parallel with the first man - Adam. Acmeists did not show an aggressive rejection of all the literature of the past, they denied only their immediate predecessors - the Symbolists. A group of acmeists - N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, G. Ivanov, M. Zenkevich, V. Narbut, M. Kuzmin - were called the "Workshop of Poets". The actual proclamation of the new literary trend took place in February 1912. The name and charter of the "Shop of Poets" was focused on the medieval traditions of craft guilds, they called themselves "syndics" of the Shop, there were still students. Acmeists began to publish their own magazine - "Hyperborea", but only a few issues were published, mostly published in the magazine "Apollo", where N. Gumilyov's program article "The Heritage of Symbolism and Acmeism" appeared in No. 1 for 1913. The goal of the acmeists was to turn to reality, to return to earthly values, to the clarity or "clarism" of the poetic text. They sought to free poetry from symbolist impulses towards the "ideal", excessive polysemy, complicated imagery and symbolization. Instead of striving for the infinite, the acmeists offered to delve into the cultural world of images and meanings, they adhered to the principle of cultural associations. O. Mandelstam called acmeism "longing for world culture." "Clarism" - the term was created by M. Kuzmin from the Spanish "claro" - clear, the return of the word to its original clarity, he believes that it is necessary to leave the stylistic "fogs" of symbolism and return to normative poetics. 1912-1914 was a period of a surge in acmeism, numerous public performances. But in 1914, in connection with the departure of Gumilyov to the front, the "Shop of Poets" disintegrated, then attempts were made to revive the former commonwealth: in 1917 - Shop II, in 1931 - Shop III, but the later artificial formations did not affect the history of Russian literature. had a significant impact.

A distinctive feature of the acmeists is their asociality- lack of interest in social and civil issues - often demonstrative. Their themes - adventure stories that take the reader to exotic countries, interest in world mythology - are associated with a lack of attention to modern life in Russia. Intoxication with the history of culture, cultural and historical stylizations are a distinctive feature of their poetry. Acmeism was a noticeable course of the Silver Age. In the Russian diaspora, the traditions of acmeism were highly valued. The poets of the "Paris School" continued to develop the principles of acmeism - G. Adamovich, N. Otsup, V. Nabokov, G. Ivanov.

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov (1886-1921)

Gumilyov studied at the gymnasium in Tsarskoye Selo, where the famous poet Innokenty Annensky was the director, after graduating from the gymnasium he leaves for Paris, where he listens to lectures at the Sorbonne, studies painting, and writes poetry. From Paris in 1907 he made his first trip to Africa, then returned to Russia, entered St. Petersburg University. In 1910 he marries A. Gorenko (Akhmatova), again leaves for Africa (in 1909 and 1910).

Three periods can be distinguished in his work: the first (1905-1910) is pre-Acmeistic, the second (1911-1916) is early Acmeistic, (1917-1921) is late Acmeistic. His life ended tragically, he was shot at the age of 35, in 1921.

The first book of poems - "The Way of the Conquistadors" (which he later did not consider his first book), 1908 - "Romantic Flowers", 1910 - "Pearls", dedicated to V.B. - the teacher. Already in the first collections, the theme of the path is indicated, the influence of Nietzsche is felt, the poet sees himself as a magician, dreamer, life-creator, capable of turning a dream into reality. The plots in the poems unfold in exotic situations - in the abyss, in caves, dungeons, on the banks of the Nile and Lake Chad, in Ancient Rome, Baghdad, Cairo, etc.

I am a conquistador in an iron shell,

I'm merrily chasing a star

I walk through the abysses and abysses

And I rest in a joyful garden.

Today, I see, your look is especially sad,

And the arms are especially thin, hugging their knees.

Listen: far, far away on Lake Chad

Exquisite giraffe roams.

The theme of the Devil-Lucifer is often encountered (“The Cave of Sleep”, “Behind the Coffin”, “Smart Devil”, “Ballad”), metamorphoses are frequent - the lyrical hero turns into a jaguar. The theme of passion is embodied in the plot - the taming of a wild beast. The lyrical heroine does not believe in a magical world, the St. Petersburg "fog" becomes only one possible reality for the heroine: "But you inhaled the heavy fog for too long." She doesn't want to believe in anything but rain. Many poems are built on the antinomy of the natural and civilized world: the heroine of the poem “Lake Chad” is a black woman, an African woman, fell in love with a white man, runs with him, he leaves a woman in Marseille, she dances naked in front of drunken sailors. Very often, heroes are outstanding people of past eras - Pompey, Beatrice, Caracalla, Semiramis, Odysseus, Agamemnon, they all defend their right to choose, up to the right - "to choose your own death" ("Choice"). Often the heroes of his poems are leaders, conquerors of space, seekers of new lands, the archetypal motif of the collection is the motif of the path. The path is both overcoming geographical space, and a journey into the depths of history (Odysseus, Captains), overcoming the limitations of human life.

Be the captain! Please! Please!

Instead of an oar, we hand over a pole ...

Only in China will we anchor,

Even if we meet death on the way!

Plots of wandering, images of wanderers, images borrowed from ancient and biblical mythology, even from world literature (Homer, Dante, Rabelais, even Jesus Christ is a wanderer). "Captains" - the central cycle in "Pearls" - is a classic neo-romantic lyrics - old forts, taverns, countries where no human foot has set foot, but the Captains have no purpose.

The second period of creativity (1911-1916) is a new stage. The poet changes his attitude towards symbolist art, he began to look for new ways in art. In 1911, the "Workshop of Poets" was created, in the manifestos of which the "intrinsic value" of each thing was declared, not a symbol, but a living reality where everything is "weighty", everything is tight. This attitude to the integrity of the world was reflected in Gumilyov's new books: Alien Sky (1912), Quiver (1916). In 1913, the poet led an expedition to Africa, was in Abessia, where he collected folklore, got acquainted with the life of African tribes. In 1914, Gumilyov volunteered for the front, he was awarded two St. George's crosses, but did not forget about creativity, wrote plays, essays.

In these books, the image of the lyrical heroine changes especially clearly: “She”, “From the lair of the serpent”, “By the fireplace”, “One evening”. There is a hidden confrontation between the characters, and the winner is always a woman, this is not a “fatal duel”, but a duel of wills, characters. "By the fireplace" - the hero talks about his exotic travels, when he felt almost like a god, and an unexpected ending: "And, melting in the eyes of evil triumph / The woman in the corner listened to him." Gumilyov's hero is not weak, but such a denouement is often found in poetry. "Margarita", "Poisoned" - a new type of poem, built on a novelistic-ballad principle. The lyrical hero himself is also changing, if earlier the hero identified his path with the path of superhumans of the Nietzsche type, now he is trying to understand modern life, it has become his “one joy”: “I am polite with modern life.” In the poem “I believed, I thought,” the hero concludes that his former path as a conqueror of “tops, seas” can lead to an abyss, to a fall into the abyss. Gumilyov sees a way out of this situation in an appeal to the eastern worldview, accepts the merger of “everything with everything”: “And so I dreamed that my heart does not hurt, / It is a porcelain bell in yellow China on a motley pagoda ... Hanging and ringing in greeting / In the enamel sky, teasing flocks of cranes. Interest in the East remains for a long time; the poet even creates a book of free translations, an imitation of ancient Chinese poets: "The Porcelain Pavilion". This reflection was interrupted by the war of 1914. The lyrical hero of Gumilyov found himself, his path became destined. This was vividly reflected in the "Iambic Pentameters": "And in the roar of the human crowd / In the hum of passing guns, In the incessant call of the battle trumpet / I suddenly heard the song of my fate / And I ran where the people were running."

The collection "Kolchan" reflects the history of Russia, military impressions, the personal fate of the poet:

The country that could be paradise

Became a lair of fire

We are entering the fourth day

We haven't eaten for four days.

But do not need earthly food,

In this terrible and bright hour,

Because the word of the Lord

Better than bread feeds us.

- his credo became the words:

Golden heart of Russia

Beats peacefully in my chest.

The third period is represented by collections: "Bonfire" (1918); "Tent" (1921, the whole book is devoted to Africa); "Pillar of Fire" (1921, the title of the book has a complex connotation, this is the name of one of the symbols of the Buddha).

Modernity, the events of 1917-1920 Gumilyov interprets as a spontaneous explosion, carrying the seeds of chaos and demonism. To explain these destructive processes, he turns to ancient Russian history and mythology: “The Serpent” is the key to the problems of the entire collection; The “winged serpent” - from folklore - hid in the garden at midnight in May, he kidnaps girls at night, but none was in his palace, they die on the way, and “I throw the bodies into the Caspian Sea”, Volga appears in the role of a snake fighter (in folklore was Dobrynya), because it was Volga in folklore who guarded Holy Rus' from infidel raids. In this poem, the threat to national and state integrity is transferred to the past, and in the poem "The Man" the terrible mood that is associated with the appearance in Russia of Rasputin - the Antichrist is described:

In the wild and wretched

Many such men

Heard on your roads

The joyful rumble of their steps.

The poem "I and you" is a prophecy, a foresight, of which there are many in Gumilyov's work:

And I won't die in bed

With a notary and a doctor,

And in some wild crack,

Drowned in thick ivy.

In "Ezbekiya" - a large Cairo garden is described, and the hero was tormented by a woman, he wanted to die, but this beauty, this garden allowed him to inhale the taste of life, he exclaims: "Above grief and deeper than death is life." In Pillar of Fire (the collection came out in August 1921, when Gumilyov had already been arrested), a new understanding of personality appears. In the poem “Memory”, the author retells his life, his experiences, he wanted to become a god and a king, “But Saint George touched twice / Bullet’s untouched chest”, now he does not know how his life will end: “I will shout ... but will who will help so that my soul does not die? The author in the last book is constantly occupied with the question of his significance as a poet, of his end, of his relationship with readers: "My readers." The power of his prophetic visions is especially evident in the poem "The Lost Tram", which is interpreted in different ways. The tram appears suddenly, it flies over "three bridges", takes the poet "across the Neva, across the Nile and the Seine", they "rounded the wall" and "slipped through a grove of palms." The displacement of time and space, the connection of all memories - a consequence of the fact that the tram "lost in the abyss of time." The displacement of landmarks causes the appearance of images of the dead:

And, flashing by the window frame,

Gave us an inquisitive look

The beggar old man - of course, the same one,

That he died in Beirut a year ago.

Literary heroes appear as real characters whose death causes acute pain. Breaking the connections causes the action to be transferred to the 18th century:

How you moaned in your room,

Me with powdered braid

Went to introduce himself to the Empress,

And I didn't see you again.

Masha is the name of the heroine, it is not clear what kind of image, it seems to be from Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, but again everything is not so simple. In this work, everything is unreal, and the question "Where am I?" remains unanswered: “Do you see the station where you can buy a ticket / To the India of the Spirit?”. There are absolutely terrible and prophetic images here:

Instead of cabbage and instead of swede

Dead heads are for sale.

and the auror's head "lay with the others / Here in a slippery box, at the very bottom." The poet sees both the past and the present: the bizarre landscape of St. Petersburg with the Bronze Horseman, reminiscences, memories, images from Russian and world literature, the philosophical beginning in poetry.

Gumilyov considered The Lost Tram to be mystical poetry; his insights are connected with his reflections on the spiritual fate of Russia. The poem ends with the motive of the church funeral of himself as dead and the confession: "It is difficult to breathe and it hurts to live."

Both in prose and in Gumilyov's poetry, the past, present and future are presented in the form of a "stream of consciousness", by crossing and intertwining mental states. The poet called it “hallucinating realism; alloy in a single picture of the state of consciousness and the state of the world.

In Gumilyov's latest works, the cultural and temporal space is expanding. To explain the destructive processes of 1914-1920, he turns to ancient Russian history and mythology. He comprehends the causes of the Russian - "male" revolution in the spirit of the grotesque, phantasmagoria, and the poet connects the revolutionary rebellion with the revival of the pre-Christian, pagan beginning (see the verse "Man"). In search of forces capable of pacifying the "spontaneous freemen", Gumilyov turns to the historical past of Russia, in it he finds similar situations of the "troubled" time, confusion - the execution of Grishka Otrepyev, the appearance of "twins". Trying to comprehend the turning point in his own destiny, which, as it turned out, is connected with the universal destiny, Gumilyov turns to the "ancestral source", looking for the ancestral, collective memory - "Great Memory". The motif of "great memory" is projected simultaneously onto several philosophical and mythological theories, but the main thing is the search for one's spiritual homeland and one's true "I":

And I realized that I was lost forever

In the blind passages of space and time,

And somewhere native rivers flow,

To which my path is forever forbidden.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

Anna Andreevna Gorenko (Akhmatova is a pseudonym) was born near Odessa, in the family of an officer, her parents separated, lived with her mother, in Tsarskoye Selo, near St. 1913 dispersed. The divorce was finalized in 1918. She lived mainly in Leningrad, died in Moscow. The main principle of acmeism - to be the highest degree of something - was embodied in her work, it lasted half a century and became a measure of poetic skill. Akhmatova is a major poet of the 20th century; the word “poetess” cannot be applied to her. Personal experiences, the fate of the country and people are reflected in her poetry.

Her first books - "Evening" (1912), "Rosary" (1914) - the initial period of creativity (1907-1914). With her very first books, she showed that love lyrics can be “female”, not inferior in their perfection and tragedy to “male” lyrics, but even in the first books, the theme of her poems is many-sided - these are poems about her beloved city (“Poems about St. Petersburg”), this is a topic about the role and purpose of the poet, the features of the poetic gift. Akhmatova's lyrics are confessional and often autobiographical in nature, but the heroine in poetry has a different look, different guises - a naive girl, a sophisticated beauty, an abandoned lover, an old woman, a simple Russian woman. From the very beginning, critics noted such a feature of her poetry as "novelistic", psychological prose. Her poems were called short stories, short stories, but this should not be taken literally, in most of the poems it is not a presentation of events, but an “imposition” of one perception on another, these are stories about a “moment”, but usually they have two aspects, they are present simultaneously:

She clasped her hands under a dark veil...

"Why are you pale today?"

- Because I am tart sadness

Drunk him drunk -

The very first phrase is dramatic and meaningful, but the information is clear, the reader immediately understands that a drama has occurred - no matter who asks the question, then the author introduces the climactic episode that has already remained in the past.

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."

This answer is even more impressive than the hands clasped under the veil. The tragedy of situations is present in many of Akhmatova's poems, but they often have bright notes as well. The inner world of Akhmatova’s heroes is conveyed through a description of the characters’ appearance, their portrait features (“your profile is thin and cruel”), hairstyles (“And lurks in tangled braids / A barely audible smell of tobacco”), figures (“I put on a tight skirt, To seem even slimmer”), through reflection in the mirror or in the perception of strangers (“And condemning looks / Calm tanned women”). The appearance of the characters changes very quickly: facial expressions(“Dry lips are tightly closed”), gestures("The soaring hands break the sick"), sight(“How do I know those stubborn / Unsatisfied views of yours”), gait("He came out staggering") character the speech itself, often interrupted ("That's it... Oh, no, I forgot / I love you").

To convey the inner state of her characters, Akhmatova uses “realistic” images (“Forgotten on the table / Whip and glove”), interior details (“Worn rug under the icon”), clothing features (“In a gray everyday dress, / On worn-out heels”) , jewelry (“What a beautifully smooth ring”), etc. Akhmatova actively uses color symbolism, the symbolism of flowers (“I carry a bouquet of white levkoy”, “And only a red tulip, the Tulip is in your buttonhole”), trees, birds (stork, peacock), minerals (“A diamond rejoices there and opal dreams” ).

The time of day, the season, even the weather are psychologically colored in Akhmatova’s lyrics - this technique goes back to the traditions of folklore, to psychological parallelism (“The Gray-eyed King”, where evening, autumn, sunset predict fading, the proximity of death, when the heroine learned about the death of her former beloved). One of the most famous early poems - "The Song of the Last Meeting" - conveys physical sensations: a gait, an act ("I put a glove on my right hand from my left hand"), subjective sensations. The heroine turned around and saw that she had left dark home, disinterested yellow candle fire.

The second period (1915-1923) coincided, according to Akhmatova, with the fact that the real twentieth century had come, she had been counting it since 1914. During these years, books were published: "The White Flock" (1917), "Plantain" (1921), Anno Domini (1922, "In the Year of the Lord" - lat.). the thematic range of her poetry is expanding; the love theme does not recede into the background, but the heroine herself changes. If in the early lyrics the situations of the triumph of a man over the heroine prevailed, now the woman is most often strong, she not only prays, but also demands, resists someone else's will, she is able to answer the man: “You obedient? You've gone mad / I'm obedient to the Lord's will alone.

In Akhmatova's poetry, a theme appears that will eventually become the main one in her work - she realizes that she can be the voice of the people. Akhmatova often used the pronoun “we” in her early lyrics, but this meant uniting with her lover (“We wanted stinging flour / Instead of serene happiness”), now this “we” more often means unity with the people (“We thought we were poor. ..")

In general, the topic of exile and emigration is one of the most painful for the poet during this period. She also had a personal meaning for Akhmatova, since her friend Boris Anrep decided to leave the country and called Anna with him (he lived in England, a mosaicist, they met in old age, the black ring she gave before parting had great symbolic meaning for her, and The man didn't remember it. The decision to stay at home and share their fate with their people is fundamental for Akhmatova, this is a moral choice. An analysis of the poem “When Suicide is Anguished” can serve as an example of a “political” approach to artistic creativity: the last four lines were not printed in emigration, it turned out that the angel was calling the poetess to leave her homeland. The first eight lines were not printed in Soviet publications, and it turned out that this was the devil-tempter calling to leave the Motherland. The meaning and salt of this poem is just in the neighborhood of the initial and final lines. The "Prinevsky capital" is desecrated, but the mission of the lyrical heroine is to try to save this city.

A few years later, Akhmatova writes an equally famous poem, in which she again tells the world the cruel truth about the trials that befell those who remained in Russia, but it is also about faith in that new, incomprehensible thing that was born in Russian life.

Everything is plundered, betrayed, sold,

The wing of the black death flickered,

Everything is devoured by hungry longing,

Why did it become light?

She made a sensible decision to stay in her homeland, she believed that in the future it would be difficult for emigrants who had lost their homeland. she believes that: "in the evaluation of the late / Every hour will be justified."

I am not with those who left the earth

To be torn apart by enemies

I will not heed their rude flattery,

I won't give them my songs.

But the exile is eternally pitiful to me.

Like a prisoner, like a patient.

Dark is your road, wanderer,

Wormwood smells of someone else's bread.

In Akhmatova's poetry there are a lot of thoughts about creativity, about the "holy craft", as she called it - these are separate poems and whole cycles. She erects her Muse on a high pedestal, does not hesitate to correlate her Muse with the one that served Dante himself.

And so she entered. Pulling back the cover

She looked at me carefully.

I tell her: “Did you dictate to Dante

Pages of Hell? Answers: "I am."

She considers herself the heiress of the great masters, she often has Tsarskoye Selo motifs, for example, poems from the cycle “In Tsarskoye Selo” (1911).

A dark-skinned youth wandered through the alleys,

At the lake shores sad,

And centuries we cherish

Barely audible rustle of steps.

Pine needles thick and prickly

Cover low stumps...

Here lay his cocked hat

And the disheveled Tom Guys.

Of course, Akhmatova could speak about poetic creativity directly, without all sorts of grandiloquent hints, allusions to the classics of previous centuries;

When would you know from what rubbish

Poems grow without shame.

Like a yellow dandelion by the fence

Like burdock and quinoa.

Since the second half of the 1920s, researchers have been counting the third period of Akhmatova's work (1924-1966). But I must say that in the 1920s and 1930s she was practically not published, compared to previous years she wrote little, often “on the table”. During these years, Akhmatova studied the work of Pushkin, her Pushkin studies can make up a separate volume. Akhmatova and Gumlev had one son, the famous historian of Eurasianism Lev Gumilyov. During this period, the son was arrested three times in 1935, 1938 and 1949. The terrible personal experience of standing in prison lines for many months became one of the reasons that prompted Akhmatova to write the poem "Requiem" (1935-1940), the leitmotif of the poem - "I was then with my people / Where my people, unfortunately, were .. .". Maternal grief allowed her not only to feel her involvement in the tragedy of the people, but also to become their voice:

They took you away at dawn

Behind you, as if on a takeaway, I walked,

Children were crying in the dark room,

At the goddess, the candle swam.

Icons on your lips are cold.

Don't forget the sweat of death on your forehead.

I will be like archery wives,

Howl under the Kremlin towers.

The personal tragedy and the tragedy of the people is comprehended through the gospel parallels and the image of the Mother of God standing at the crucifixion of the Son-Savior.

Magdalene fought and sobbed,

The beloved student turned to stone,

But where the mother stood silently,

So no one dared to look.

Separate parts of the "Requiem" were created at different times, but the poem has unity, unity of problems, structure, lyrical plot (Arrest - Waiting - Sentence to death - Crucifixion), there is a dedication, an introduction and an epilogue. Many passages are close to folk lamentation, funeral lamentations: "The husband is in the grave, the son is in prison / Pray for me." She also created the image of a person leaving life: "And the blue sparkle of beloved eyes / the last horror covers." The grieving heroine in the poem becomes the spokeswoman for the nation's grief: both as a "prisoner" she expresses all the pain of women's suffering, and as a poet, she says with a high calm that "hundred-million people" are shouting with her "tormented mouth". The image of the monument at the end of the poem suggests another cross-cutting motif - the motif of petrification from grief: "And the stone word fell / On my still living chest", "It is necessary that the soul be petrified", "Son's terrible eyes - petrified suffering." The poem has several levels of generalization - the fate of the author, the fate of the Soviet people in the 30s of the twentieth century, the fate of the Russian people in different periods of the tragic Russian history (the Streltsy rebellion at the end of the 17th century, the fate of the Don Cossacks in Soviet times, etc.), and, finally, the fate of mankind in the Sacred History (“Crucifixion”), and the author’s main idea is to affirm the equal magnitude of the destinies of individuals and the people as a whole.

During the Great Patriotic War, Akhmatova became a folk, national poet, her lyrics acquire civil pathos: “Leningrad in March 1941”, “And you, my friends of the last draft!” In the poem "Courage" (1942), the idea of ​​the importance of preserving the Russian language, without which there is no Russian nation and Russian history, sounds:

We know what's on the scales now

And what is happening now.

The hour of courage has struck on our clocks,

And courage will not leave us.

It's not scary to lie dead under the bullets,

It's not bitter to be homeless -

But we will keep you, Russian speech,

Great Russian word.

Her neighbor in a communal apartment, the boy Valya Smirnov, died under the bombing, his image acquires a symbolic generalized meaning, this is an epitaph to all the dead children:

Knock with your fist - I will open.

I have always opened up to you.

I am now behind a high mountain,

Beyond the desert, beyond the wind, beyond the heat,

But I will never betray you.

Akhmatova writes her final work “A Poem Without a Hero” for a long time, from 1940 to 1962. This work reflected the era of the Silver Age, the revolution, even the impulse to freedom during the Second World War. The plot was based on a long history - the suicide of a young boy, the poet Vsevolod Knyazev in 1913, he was unrequitedly in love with the beautiful Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, Akhmatova's girlfriend. Against this background, the atmosphere of life and life of pre-war St. Petersburg is recreated, this is the youth of the poetess and her entourage, as well as the dramatic events of subsequent years, when “not a calendar - the real twentieth century” came. In the depicted kaleidoscope of faces, numerous images and motifs flash - Faust, Don Giovanni, Salome. In this excited atmosphere of general disintegration, mystical motifs also sound - for example, the figure of Mephistopheles, the lord of darkness, appears. One of the central images is Petersburg, which the poetess perceived as her hometown, over which a curse hangs. Among the recognizable "heroes" of the poem are Blok (Demon), Mayakovsky (Milestone), Isaiah Berlin (Guest from the Future), O. Mandelstam, O. Glebova-Sudeikina. M. Kuzmin and others. The author does not mention Gumilyov's name, although she points out that censorship was looking for him in vain, but much in the poem is based on his absence. Due to the saturation of the poem with personal memories and experiences, it has a special cryptography, which makes the poem seem obscure to many: “The box has a triple bottom / But I confess that I used / Sympathetic ink.” The image of a mirror appears all the time, it becomes a through leitmotif: "I write with a mirror letter." There are many reminiscences and allusions in the poem, and they refer not to specific texts, but to various works of the authors of the Silver Age and their predecessors. Accurate fixation of the atmosphere of the Silver Age with its creative and anarchic spirit is projected onto the further fate of Russia, its martyrdom and heroism during the Second World War. The poem ends with the image of a split homeland, Russia split in two. Behind the interweaving of the author's associations and allusions, a clear thought arises: by abandoning the tragic or heroic pose, the author takes on the sins and delusions of an entire generation, sharing with him the responsibility for the fate of his people.

In 1946, Akhmatova, along with M. Zoshchenko, became the subject of sharp criticism, in the spirit of the party campaign to tighten policy in the field of culture. They stopped printing it again - until 1950. Akhmatova during these years was engaged in literary translation, wrote literary articles. The last lifetime collection of poems - "The Run of Time" (1965). In the last years of her life, she was held in high esteem, she traveled abroad - to France, to Italy, where she received a literary prize, to England, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford University.

Acmeism (from the Greek Akme - the highest degree of something, flourishing, maturity, peak, tip) is one of the modernist trends in Russian poetry of the 1910s, the basis of which was the rejection of the ambiguity and fluidity of images and the desire for material clarity image and accuracy, chasing of the poetic word /17/.

The "earthly" poetry of the acmeists is prone to intimacy, aestheticism and poeticization of the feelings of the primordial man. Acmeism was characterized by extreme apoliticality, complete indifference to the topical problems of our time.

The beginning of a new trend was laid in the autumn of 1911, when a conflict arose in the poetic salon of Vyacheslav Ivanov. Several talented young poets defiantly left the next meeting of the "Academy of Verse", outraged by the criticism of the "masters" of symbolism.

A year later, in the autumn of 1912, the six poets who formed the Union "Poets' Workshop" decided not only formally, but also ideologically to separate from the Symbolists. They organized a new community, calling themselves "Acmeists". At the same time, the "Shop of Poets" as an organizational structure was preserved - the acmeists remained in it as an internal poetic association / 43 /.

Acmeists did not have a detailed philosophical and aesthetic program. But if in the poetry of symbolism the determining factor was the transience, the momentaryness of being, a kind of mystery covered with a halo of mysticism, then a realistic view of things was put as the cornerstone in the poetry of acmeism. The hazy unsteadiness and fuzziness of symbols were replaced by precise verbal images. The word, according to the acmeists, should have acquired its original meaning.

The highest point in the hierarchy of values ​​for them was culture. A distinctive feature of the acmeist circle of poets was their "organizational cohesion" /57/. In essence, the acmeists were not so much an organized movement with a common theoretical platform, but a group of talented and very different poets who were united by personal friendship. The symbolists had nothing of the sort. Acmeists immediately acted as a single group.

The main principles of acmeism were:

The liberation of poetry from symbolist appeals to the ideal, the return of clarity to it;

Rejection of mystical nebula, acceptance of the earthly world in its diversity, visible concreteness, sonority, colorfulness;

The desire to give the word a specific, precise meaning;

Objectivity and clarity of images, sharpness of details;

Appeal to a person, to the "authenticity" of his feelings;

Poetization of the world of primordial emotions, the primitive biological natural principle;

A call to the past literary epochs, the broadest aesthetic associations, “longing for world culture” /20/.

In February 1914, it split. The "shop of poets" was closed. As a literary trend, acmeism did not last long - about two years, but it had a significant impact on the subsequent work of many poets.

Acmeism has six of the most active participants in the current: N. Gumilyov, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, S. Gorodetsky, M. Zenkevich, V. Narbut.

The early work of Anna Akhmatova expressed many principles of acmeistic aesthetics, perceived by the poetess in an individual sense. However, the nature of the world outlook distinguished her from other acmeists. Blok called her a "real exception" among acmeists. “Only Akhmatova went as a poet along the paths of the new artistic realism she discovered, closely connected with the traditions of Russian classical poetry ...”, wrote Zhirmunsky / 26 /. The gravitation towards the classical strict and harmoniously adjusted tradition of Russian poetry of the twentieth century was predetermined long before Akhmatova became a poet. An important role in this was played by her classical education, her childhood spent in Tsarskoe Selo, her upbringing in the best traditions of Russian noble culture.

A feature of the early work of Akhmatova's poetry is the interpretation of the poet as the guardian of the flesh of the world, its forms, smells and sounds. Everything in her work is permeated with sensations of the surrounding world /29/.

"The wind blows hot, stuffy,

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 the light mesh of a hammock?

Within the framework of acmeism, Akhmatova developed an understanding of being as presence, which is an important principle for the philosophy of acmeism - the principle of "domestication", habitation of the surrounding space as a form of creative attitude to life. This homely, intimate sense of connection was reflected in Akhmatova's later work.

A purely value perception of the real world, including the "prose of life" was the ideological basis of a new way of embodying emotions /48/.

But contrary to the acmeistic call to accept reality "in the totality of beauties and ugliness", Akhmatova's lyrics are filled with the deepest drama, a keen sense of fragility, disharmony of being, an approaching catastrophe.

Akhmatova's poetry has a property that distinguishes it from other acmeists: it is intimacy, self-absorption, immersion in the secrets of the soul - feminine, complex and refined / 49 /.

But this intimacy is reinforced by clarity and rigor, which does not allow any "openness".

"Oh, shut up! from exciting passionate speeches

I'm on fire and trembling

And frightened tender eyes,

I'm not taking you.

Oh shut up! in my young heart

You awakened something strange.

Life seems to me a marvelous mysterious dream

Where kiss-flowers

Why are you so leaning towards me

What did you read in my eyes,

Why do I tremble? why am i on fire?

Leave! Oh, why did you come."

The work of Anna Akhmatova in the group of acmeists and in Russian poetry as a whole should be defined as "tragic lyricism". The tragedy, even in her early poems, is the deeper and more distinct, the brighter, sometimes even more joyful, the background against which this tragedy is shown. If her colleagues in acmeism are defined according to the principle of the artistic transformation of external reality in an objective aspect, in the energy of action, in the direct experience of culture as memory and as one of the goals of life, then Akhmatova focuses her artistic attention on the inner, emotional sphere, on the formation of personality, on internal conflicts through which the personality passes /29/. Let's look at the lines:

Three in the dining room struck,

And saying goodbye, holding on to the railing,

She seemed to say with difficulty:

"That's all... Oh, no, I forgot,

I love you, I loved you

Already then!" - "Yes".

This is the lyrical conflict of Akhmatova. Here you can already feel the tragic intensity in which the source of Akhmatova's late work.

The main theme of Akhmatova's lyrics has always been love. She developed a special concept of love, the embodiment of which was a psychological and poetic discovery in Russian lyrics of the 20th century /29/. Akhmatova moved away from the symbolist stereotype of depicting love as a refraction in the human soul of certain world entities (universal harmony, elemental or chaotic beginnings) and focused on "earthly signs", the psychological aspect of love:

It was stuffy from the burning light,

And his eyes are like rays.

I just shuddered: this

Can tame me.

He leaned over - he would say something ...

Blood drained from his face.

Let it lie like a tombstone

For my life love.

The essence of love, according to Akhmatova, is dramatic, and not only love without reciprocity, but also “happy.” The “stopped moment” of happiness dies, because the satisfaction of love is fraught with longing and cooling. The analysis of this state is devoted to the poem "There is a cherished trait in the proximity of people ...".

The interpretation of love affected the development of the image of the lyrical heroine. Under the external simplicity of appearance hides a completely new image of a modern woman - with a paradoxical logic of behavior that eludes static definitions, with a "multi-layered" consciousness in which contradictory principles coexist.

Contrasting facets of consciousness are personified in different types of the lyrical heroine /29/. In some poems, this is a representative of literary and artistic bohemia. For example:

"Yes, I loved them, those gatherings of the night, -

Ice glasses on a small table,

Over black coffee odorous, thin steam,

Fireplace red heavy, winter heat,

The gaiety of a caustic literary joke

And a friend's first glance, helpless and creepy."

Sometimes the lyrical "I" is stylized as a village woman:

"My husband whipped me patterned,

Double folded belt.

For you in the casement window

I sit with the fire all night ... "

The trend of alienation of the lyrical hero from the author's "I" is characteristic of the poetics of acmeism. But if Gumilyov gravitated toward the personalistic form of expressing the lyrical "I", and the hero of the early Mandelstam "dissolved" in the objectivity of the depicted world, then Akhmatova's "objectification" of the lyrical heroine happened differently.

The poetess, as it were, destroyed the artistic convention of poetic outpouring. As a result, the "stylistic masks" of the heroine were perceived by readers as genuine, and the lyrical narrative itself was perceived as a confession of the soul. The effect of "auto-recognition" was achieved by the author by introducing everyday details into the poem, a specific indication of the time or place, and imitation of colloquial speech.

“In this gray, everyday dress,

On worn heels...

But, as before, a burning embrace,

The same fear in the huge eyes.

Prosaicization, domestication of the lyrical situation often led to a literal interpretation of texts and the birth of myths about her personal life.

On the other hand, Akhmatova created an atmosphere of understatement and impenetrable mystery around her poems - the prototypes and addressees of many of her poems are still being debated. The combination of the psychological authenticity of the experience with the desire to "remove" the lyrical "I", to hide it behind a mask-image is one of the new artistic solutions of the early Akhmatova /51/.

She created vibrant, emotional poetry; more than any of the acmeists, she bridged the gap between poetic and colloquial speech. She avoids metaphorization, the complexity of the epithet, everything in her is built on the transfer of experience, the state of the soul, on the search for the most accurate visual image. For example:

“The insomnia-nurse has gone to others,

I do not languish over gray ash,

And the clock tower crooked arrow

It doesn't seem like a deadly arrow to me."

Akhmatova's poems stand out for their simplicity, sincerity, and naturalness. She apparently does not have to make an effort to follow the principles of the school, because fidelity to objects and perceptions follows directly from her nature. Akhmatova keenly feels things - the physiognomy of things, enveloping their emotional atmosphere. Any detail is inextricably intertwined with her mood, forming one living whole. Early Akhmatova strives for indirect transmission of psychological states through fixation of external manifestations of human behavior, delineation of an event situation, surrounding objects. Eg:

“So helplessly my chest went cold,

But my steps were light.

I put on my right hand

The glove on the left hand."

Thus, acmeism had a great influence on the work of Akhmatova, but at the same time, her poems differ sharply in their concept from the works of other acmeist poets.

Acmeists refused to embody unknown entities that cannot be verified. Akhmatova's approach to inner experiences, in fact, was the same, but her unmanifested essences move from the ontological plane to the psychological one. The world in Akhmatova's poetry is inseparable from the perceiving consciousness. Therefore, the picture of reality is always doubled: the realities of the external world are valuable in themselves and contain information about the internal state of the heroine.

However, Akhmatova's poetic revolution did not consist in the fact that she began to use words with an objective meaning to embody emotions, but in the fact that she united two spheres of being - the external, objective and internal, subjective, and made the first a plane of expression for the latter. And this, in turn, was the result of a new - acmeistic - thinking.