The poetic world of Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva. About love in the lyrics of M. Tsvetaeva and A. Akhmatova. Meeting of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva

A woman is often a genius in love, her attitude towards love is universal, she puts the fullness of her nature into love and connects all her hopes with love.

N. Berdyaev

The theme of love in the works of many poets occupied and occupies a central place, because love elevates and awakens the highest feelings in a person. At the turn of the last century, on the eve of the revolution, in an era shocked by two world wars, “women’s poetry” arose and developed in Russia - the poetry of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova and Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva. Perhaps the theme of love in the works of wonderful poetesses was one of the main themes.

This topic is very important at the beginning of the twentieth century because, during this time of great upheaval, man continued to love, to be high, noble, passionate.

Once, while relaxing in Koktebel with Maximilian Voloshin, Marina Tsvetaeva said:

I will love the one who gives me the most beautiful stone.

To which M. Voloshin replied:

No, Marina, everything will be different. First you will love him, and then he will put an ordinary cobblestone in your hand, and you will call it the most beautiful stone.

Perhaps this story is all about Marina, still young, but already the way she will remain in her poems and in life - a romantic and maximalist. And he will weave poetry and life into one most important theme of his work - the theme of love. My only power is my passion!

Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva's talent manifested itself very early. Since childhood, her soul was tormented by contradictions: she wanted to understand and feel a lot, learn and appreciate. Of course, such an ardent and impetuous nature could not help but fall in love and ignore this great feeling in her work. Love in Marina Ivanovna’s lyrics is a boundless sea, an uncontrollable element that completely captures and absorbs. Tsvetaeva’s lyrical heroine dissolves in this magical world, suffering and tormented, grieving and sad. Marina Ivanovna was given the opportunity to experience the divine feeling of love, loss and suffering. She emerged from these trials with dignity, pouring them into beautiful poems that became an example of love poetry. Tsvetaeva is uncompromising in love, she is not satisfied with pity, but only with a sincere and great feeling in which you can drown, merge with your loved one and forget about the cruel and unfair world around you.

The author's open and joyful soul can handle great joys and sufferings. Unfortunately, there were few joys, and there was enough grief for a dozen destinies. But Marina Ivanovna walked proudly through life, bearing everything that had befallen her. And only poetry reveals the abyss of her heart, which contains the seemingly unbearable.

Despite the fact that Tsvetaeva did not want to write about politics, trying to focus only on her inner worldview, she was unable to place her work in an information vacuum. As the poetess herself said: “You can’t jump out of history.” Although there are examples when her poems became exclusively the embodiment of a person’s individual feelings and, above all, feelings of love. I would like to consider one of these examples in detail, because, in my opinion, this is one of the best works of Marina Tsvetaeva.

The poem “I like that you are sick not with me” gained great popularity thanks to the famous movie “The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath.” Written in 1915, the poem has not lost its relevance today, because human feelings, especially love, may be perceived differently at different times, but their essence remains the same: we still love, we suffer the same , we dream the same way. The poetess may be describing feelings she personally experienced, or perhaps she is simply creating an image of her heroine based on intuitive perception, suggesting that feelings can be so ambiguous:

I like that you are not sick of me,

I like that it's not you that I'm sick of

That the globe is never heavy

It won't float away under our feet...

A feeling of lightness is described from the fact that there is no spiritual torment associated with attachment to another person. Perhaps even some irony towards human weaknesses is reflected. On the other hand, the heroine thanks for love:

Thank you with both heart and fleece

Because you have me - without knowing yourself! -

Love it so much...

It’s amazing how subtly and unusually the poetess gives the reader a reason for thought, hinting that you can simply love, or you can root for a person. She points out that “illness” implies unfreedom. And the heroine, free from any obligations and rules, can: “...be funny - dissolute - and not play with words...”. There will be no awkwardness when communicating with this person:

And do not blush with a suffocating wave,

Sleeves touching slightly.

Personal freedom for the poetess is very important. She emphasizes this very clearly. At the same time, it is clearly visible that the heroine is not devoid of tenderness for the one to whom the message is addressed, calling him “my gentle one.” In my opinion, the whole value of the poem lies in its semantic complexity, like a web of feelings. It is difficult to make out what the heroine really feels. She probably doesn't understand it herself. She feels both joy and sadness at the same time. After all, starting her grateful monologue with mocking notes, she ends it with the words “Alas!” And then the previous lines cease to seem quite optimistic to us.

“Great earthly love” is the driving principle of all lyrics for Akhmatova as well.

Thanks to her magnificent poems, the reader sees the world differently - more realistically. Anna Akhmatova in one of her poems called love the extraordinary “fifth season”, with the help of which she noticed the other four ordinary ones. A loving person sees the world as more beautiful and happier, feelings are heightened and tense. Everything ordinary is transformed into extraordinary. The world before a person turns into a huge force, truly reaching peaks in the feeling of life. An extraordinary, additional reality is comprehended: “After all, the stars were larger, After all, the herbs smelled different.” It is Anna Akhmatova’s love that is the main center that brings the rest of the world of her poetry to itself. Love is almost never described in a quiet stay with Akhmatova. The feeling itself is always sharp and unusual. It acquires additional severity and unusualness, manifesting itself in extreme crisis expression. For example, the first awakening meeting or a completed break, take-off or fall, mortal danger or mortal melancholy. Akhmatova's lyrical poems are often sad. They seem to carry a special element of love and pity. In Akhmatova’s very first poems, not only the love of lovers was generated. This love turned into another, love is pity, it is not for nothing that in the Russian folk language, in the Russian folk song, a synonym for the word “love” is the word “pity”; “I love” - “I regret”: Oh no, I didn’t love you, Burning with sweet fire, So explain what power is in your sad name.

Akhmatova's lyrics from the period of her first books ("Evening", "Rosary", "White Flock") are almost exclusively love lyrics. Her innovation as an artist initially manifested itself precisely in this traditionally eternal, repeatedly and seemingly played out to the end theme.

Particularly interesting are the poems about love, where Akhmatova - which, by the way, is rare for her - goes to the “third person”, that is, it would seem that she uses a purely narrative genre, which presupposes both consistency and even descriptiveness, but even in such poems she he prefers lyrical fragmentation, blurriness and reticence. Here is one such poem, written

on behalf of the man:

" She came up. I didn't show my excitement, Indifferently looking out the window. She sat down like a porcelain idol, In the position she had chosen long ago. Being cheerful is a common thing, Being attentive is more difficult... Or did languid laziness overcome After the spicy March nights? Tiring hum conversations,

The lifeless heat of the yellow chandelier And the flickering of skillful partings Above the raised light hand. The interlocutor smiled again and looked at her with hope... My happy rich heir, You read my will.”

Came up. I didn’t show my excitement...

I Introduction

● A.A. Akhmatova and M.Ts. Tsvetaeva - lyric poets

II Strange connections happen

● Contact between each poetess and each other’s work

III Love for Poets

● Pushkin’s influence on the work of poets

● Recognition of the skill of talented poets

IV Poetic language

● The main features of the poetic language of A.A. Akhmatovs

● Individual rhythm M.I. Tsvetaevs

V Love lyrics

● “My power alone is my passion”

● Love – “The Fifth Season”

VI Theme of the Motherland in the heart and in verse

Introduction

(Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva are lyrical poets)

Admittedly, the soul of all poetry is lyricism. A lyric poet is an amazing gift that allows you to see the world anew, feel its freshness, stunning newness. I have always considered A. Akhmatova and M. Tsvetaeva to be lyrical poets. But the larger the poet, the more often his poems express a thought, compressed into a precise and succinct word, reflecting the main pain of the time.

Dostoevsky introduced into use a strange, at first glance, formula: to love life before its meaning. It seems to me that something similar happened in my attitude to the poems of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva. How did this poetry win me over? What exactly captivated you already in the very first verses? The answer is not very simple. Even now it requires reflection, although since then quite a few articles dedicated to Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova have been published. Theaters host performances based on their plays, and their poems and prose are performed at literary evenings.

Long before I realized what exactly Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova brought into my spiritual life, I fell under their charm, and in Tsvetaeva’s words, under their spell. Maybe I just felt the scale and bright unusualness of the person who suddenly came into contact with me.

In my work I want to compare the works of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva. For comparison, I use a lot of evidence that M. Tsvetaeva and A. Akhmatova were, in their own way, rivals in the literary work of their time. Many of the themes of their poems are similar, but each of them finds its own way of conveying an emotional state.

It is these poetesses that interest me. I believe that the competition between these women writers is still reflected in the articles and reviews of contemporary critics. I decided to take the place of a critic in discussing this issue.

“There are strange rapprochements”... A. S. Pushkin

Pushkin's influence on the work of poets

Among the brilliant names of poets of the Silver Age, two female names stand out: Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova. In the entire centuries-old history of Russian literature, these are, perhaps, only two cases when a woman poet, in terms of the strength of her talent, was in no way inferior to male poets. It is no coincidence that both of them did not favor the word “poetess” (and were even offended if they were called that). They did not want any discounts for their “feminine weakness”, making the highest demands for the title of Poet. Anna Akhmatova wrote directly:

Alas! Lyric poet

Must be a man...

Critics of the beginning of the century constantly note this feature of theirs: “... Mrs. Akhmatova is undoubtedly a lyric poet, precisely a poet, not a poetess...”1 “... The poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva is female, but, unlike Anna Akhmatova, she is not a poetess, but a poet ..."2

What allowed them to stand on a par with the greatest lyricists of the twentieth century: Blok, Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Mandelschat, Gumilyov, A. Bely, Pasternak?.. first of all, it was the utmost sincerity, the attitude towards creativity as a “sacred craft”, the closest connection with the native land, its history, culture, masterful command of words, impeccable sense of native speech.

Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova are a whole poetic world, a universe, completely special, their own... And nevertheless, the “unification” of these two names has sufficient grounds. If you look closely, think about their destinies, carefully re-read the poems, you can see how much brings them together. Let's start with the fact that in their work they paid tribute to deep respect for each other.

Marina Tsvetaeva wrote deeply emotionally about Anna Akhmatova:

We are crowned to be one with you

We trample the earth, and the sky above us is the same!

And the one who is mortally wounded by your fate,

Already immortals descend to the mortal bed.

In my singing city the domes are burning,

And the wandering blind man glorifies the Holy Savior...

And I give you my bell hail,

Akhmatova! - and your heart to boot.

Many years later, Anna Akhmatova will give her a “Late Answer”, in which she will call Marina Tsvetaeva “a double, a mockingbird” and her constant companion:

We are with you today, Marina,

We're walking through the capital at midnight.

And behind us there are millions of them,

And there is no more silent procession...

And there are funeral bells all around

Yes Moscow wild moans

Blizzards, our trail coverer.

In the essay “Unearthly Evening” by M. Tsvetaeva, declaring his love for A. Akhmatova, worshiping her (“... I owe poems about Moscow to Akhmatova, my love for her, my desire to give her something more eternal than love... if I could just to give her the Kremlin, I probably wouldn’t write poetry”), speaks of a certain rivalry in creativity, noted by contemporaries already at the very beginning of their poetic path: “With all my being I feel a tense - inevitable - with every line of mine - comparison of us (and in com and bleeding)". She further explains: “In a sense, I had a competition with Akhmatova, but not “to do better than her,” but - it’s impossible to do better, and it’s better to put it at your feet...”

According to the stories of Osip Mandelstam, the passion was mutual: Akhmatova did not part with Tsvetaeva’s handwritten poems and carried them in her purse for so long that only folds and cracks remained.” And in 1965, in a conversation with I. Berlin, expressing her admiration for Tsvetaeva’s work, Anna Andreevna said: “Marina is a better poet than me.”

Connoisseurs of the life and work of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva can, however, argue that the only personal meeting that took place in 1941 seemed to disappoint both, but the recognition of A. A. Akhmatova dates back to the time when M. I. Tsvetaeva is already a quarter of a century was not alive, and she had about a year to live.

Both of them could say about themselves with the words “We are children of the terrible years of Russia...”3 the most difficult trials fate had in store for them: a rapid rise to the heights of the poetry of the Silver Age, the adoration and worship with which they were surrounded, were replaced by a cruel, humiliating, half-starved, beggarly existence after October 1917: lack of a corner of one’s own, constant worry for the fate of one’s loved ones and friends, gossip, bullying, inability to publish... The only thing that saved me was creativity, the awareness of the chosenness of one’s destiny. “I wouldn’t trade my work for any other business,” admitted M. I. Tsvetaeva. The theme of creativity as service is one of the main ones in the poems of both M. Tsvetaeva and A. Akhmatova:

Our sacred craft

Has existed for thousands of years...

With him, even without light, the world is bright...

A. Akhmatova

Living in a formidable time, despite the everyday troubles and tragic events of their personal lives that literally haunted them, they saw the meaning of their existence in the service of poetry. Existence, which grew out of persistent ascetic labor, conquered everyday life. “Poems are being,” said Marina Tsvetaeva.

Flour turned out to be my muse.

She somehow went through with me

Where it is impossible, where separation lives,

Where is the predator who has tasted evil.

A. Akhmatova

But where on the calendar of centuries

You, the day when I say: “No time for poetry”

M. Tsvetaeva

Creators of masterpieces of love poetry, strange, enthusiastic natures, they invariably put above all else the opportunity to practice their favorite craft:

That passion is old.

What passion! - feather.

M. Tsvetaeva

“I feel like a person only with a pen in my hand,” Anna Akhmatova wrote shortly before her death, when her hospital bed increasingly replaced her desk.

Recognition of the skill of talented poets

Holding high the title of poet, both Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova treated the reader with great respect. M.I. Tsvetaeva, for example, believed that reading poetry is an act of creativity, a great labor of the soul. “Reading is, first of all, co-creation... I’m tired of my stuff, which means I’ve read good things. The reader’s fatigue is not devastated fatigue, but creative fatigue,” she wrote in one of her letters. A. Akhmatova in the cycle “Secrets of Craft” dreams of a reader - a friend, without whom the poet’s work is unthinkable:

And every reader is like a secret,

Like a treasure buried in the ground.

I'm being reproached for something

And in some ways they agree with me...

So the confession flows silently,

Conversations of the most blessed heat.

Our time on earth is fleeting

And the insignificant circle is small,

And he is unchanging and eternal -

The poet's invisible friend.

And they themselves were thoughtful and grateful readers: the lyrics of both Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva have deep and widely branched roots, going back to Russian classical poetry and capturing entire layers of world artistic culture. It is no coincidence that an integral part of the lyrical world of these poets consists of images and subjects of antiquity. Christian philosophy had a significant influence on their work, and the Bible occupied a special place in their spiritual life. Under the pen of poets, biblical images come to life, and the thoughts of the eternal book, which have become aphorisms, sound. In different periods of their work, the legends of the Old and New Testaments were interpreted differently:

They lie there, written hastily,

Hot from bitterness and negativity.

Crucified between love and love

My moment, my hour, my day,

my year, my century.

M. Tsvetaeva

Pray for the poor, the lost,

About my living soul...

in this life I have seen little,

I just sang and waited.

I know: I didn’t hate my brother

And she didn’t betray her sister...

A. Akhmatova

Love for poets

The charm of A. S. Pushkin’s personality, his humanistic philosophy, and the height of his moral ideal had a huge influence on the development of Silver Age poetry. M.I. Tsvetaeva and A.A. Akhmatova were the most attentive readers of A.S. Pushkin and made a significant contribution to the study of his poetry. Each of them has their own Pushkin. For Tsvetaeva, he is the first love and eternal companion, with whom she constantly compares her sense of beauty, her understanding of poetry. The memoir essay “My Pushkin”4 is an aphoristic and lively story about how a girl, who was destined to become a great poet herself, discovered Pushkin. She took “Lessons in Courage” from him. Lessons in pride. Lessons in fidelity. Lessons from fate. Lessons in loneliness." You can also add: lessons in love of freedom. With all her admiration for the genius of Pushkin, her love was absolutely devoid of slavish dependence:

Pushkin's hand

I press, not lick...

While in exile, on the eve of the centenary of the death of A.S. Pushkin, Tsvetaeva translates his poems into French. According to contemporaries, she achieved the highest skill in these translations and thereby greatly contributed to the recognition of the brilliant Russian poet in Europe. In 1937, she wrote the essay “Pushkin and Pugachev”, in which she put all her cherished thoughts about art.

In the cycle “Poems to Pushkin,” Tsvetaeva affirms her blood, inseparable spiritual kinship with Pushkin, kinship in craft and inspiration. She is infinitely close to independence, rebellion, rebellion, and selfless service to the poetry of “the smartest man in Russia.”

Anna Akhmatova was also an original study of Pushkin’s creativity. It couldn't help but be! Her childhood in Tsarskoye Selo was enveloped in the air of Russian poetry and culture. In Tsarskoe Selo, for the first time she discerned the “barely audible rustle of steps” of the “swarthy youth” and since then she has never left. From Pushkin she learned the authenticity and simplicity of the poetic word, great love for Russia. Pushkin’s “I would never want to change my fatherland” undoubtedly inspired her when creating the poignant lines:

He said: "Come here,

Leave your land deaf and sinful,

Leave Russia forever..."

But indifferent and calm

I covered my ears with my hands,

So that with this speech unworthy

The mournful spirit was not defiled.

In the most difficult moments, her great predecessor was nearby, helping to survive: “Approximately from the mid-twenties (when Akhmatova stopped being published.) I began to study very diligently and with great interest the architecture of old St. Petersburg and the study of the life and work of Pushkin.” In the deeply poetic (although it is written in prose) “The Tale of Pushkin”, she speaks of him as a national shrine, as a poet who has overcome time and space. In her study of “The Stone Guest,” Akhmatova argues that it was Pushkin who formed the moral ideal of Russian literature, paved “the high road... along which both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky walked.” Some of her Pushkin works (Pushkin and Mitskevich, Pushkin and Dostoevsky) were burned in anticipation of her arrest. According to I. N. Tomashevsky, this was perhaps the most significant thing that she wrote about Pushkin.

Akhmatova’s “Pushkiniana” lasted about half a century. Endowed with an amazing, almost real intuition, she penetrated into all the secrets of Pushkin’s craft and deeply understood the psychology of her personality. And if in her youth she fervently and boldly challenged the Tsarskoe Selo statue: “I, too, will become marble...” - then. Having walked a long way next to the genius, I realized at what price the poet’s words are “bought”:

Who knows what fame is!

At what price did he buy the right?

Opportunity or grace

Above everything is so wise and crafty

Joking, mysteriously silent

And call a leg a leg?..

Two great poetesses were reflected in their own way in the Mirror of Genius. It is not for nothing that the collection of essays by Marina Tsvetaeva is so directly named - “My Pushkin”. It’s mine and no one else’s! Each of them has its own special personal Pushkin, because the truly spiritual is always individual, personal, subjective, i.e. not belonging to anyone except the person himself. By expressing their attitude towards the Genius, they actually communicated something extremely important about themselves. Forming the images of the Poet, they testified not so much about Pushkin as about themselves. They peered into the Mirror of Genius, reflecting in their own way in the fragrant waters of his inexhaustibly rich poetry.

Akhmatova's poetry is often traced back to the Pushkin tradition. Indeed, Akhmatova is brought closer to Pushkin not only by classical clarity, but also by the harmonious correspondence between thought and word, between the beauty of mental movement and the perfection of poetic form. Such harmony between the power of insight into the essence of things and the power of the poetic gift creates a special property in poetry - irrevocability, obligation, immutability, firmness of what is said, “seriousness” of what is communicated5. The world is enriched by poetic discoveries that fall “on the glass of eternity”

It is also noteworthy that among their contemporaries, Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva chose the same poets as their idols. Both had a poetic affair with Alexander Blok; they did not rate any of the poets of their time so highly. For them, he was the personification of the conscience of the era; the “secret fire” of his poems really helped them live. Poems dedicated to Blok are the pinnacle of the poetic heritage of both Marina Tsvetaeva and Anna Akhmatova.

The poetry of A. Akhmatova could not help but be influenced by the brilliant and sophisticated poetics of the Symbolists. One can note the influence of I. Annensky and A. Blok. V.M. Zhirmunsky in his study “Anna Akhmatova and A. Blok” cites cases of “infection” of A. Akhmatova’s poems with the poetics of A. Blok. We are not talking about borrowing, but about contamination - verbal, figurative, sometimes involuntary repetition of syntactic structures. There are also cases of deliberate overlap with A. Blok. One example:

In Akhmatova (1961):

As if there wasn't a grave ahead,

And the mysterious staircase takes off.

In A. Blok (1912):

And such a compelling force

What am I ready to repeat after rumors,

It's like you brought down angels,

Seducing you with your beauty...

Despite differences in political preferences, both paid tribute to the innovative searches and lyrical gift of Vladimir Mayakovsky. Being very skeptical about the poetic experiments of young Sergei Yesenin, after his tragic death his contribution to Russian poetry was appreciated. (Truly: “Face to face, you can’t see the face.”) Much was close to them in the works of Osip Mandelstam and Boris Pasternak.

Poetic language

The main features of A. Akhmatova’s poetic language are the classical clarity and precision of the word, its transparency, restraint and laconic style of expression, rigor and harmony of the poetic structure. A. Akhmatova’s poetry is characterized by laconic and succinct formulations that contain great power - the power of thought and the power of feeling. Akhmatova’s language is highly characterized by a sense of proportion and the absence of unnecessary words. Just enough is said so that the expressed truth appears in all its strength and completeness. “Powerful brevity”6 - this statement about the Russian language is quite applicable to Akhmatova’s poetic language.

In the main thing - in her approach to the poetic word - Akhmatova differs sharply from the poets of symbolism. In the famous article of 1916 “Overcoming Symbolism” by V.M. Zhirmunsky shows how a change in worldview changes poetic language. The refusal of the Acmeist poets (A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, N. Gumilev) from mystical perception, from irrational knowledge of other worlds and their aspiration to the external earthly world, to simple human feelings formed the basis of new artistic forms. The mystical sense of the world was conveyed by complex and polysemantic images-symbols, in which, in addition to the direct meaning, there was a chain of allegories, hints at the existence of other worlds. Increased musicality and melodiousness of poetic form served as an instrument of irrational cognition. She created a mood that made it possible to feel the infinite in the finite, to touch the invisible and ineffable, inexpressible in words world depths.

M. Tsvetaeva wrote well about the accuracy of A. Akhmatova’s details: “When young Akhmatova, in the first verses of her first book, gives loving confusion with the lines:

I put it on my right hand

The glove from the left hand, -

she gives at one blow all feminine and all lyrical confusion<...>. Through the obvious, even amazing precision of details, something more than a state of mind is affirmed and symbolized - an entire mental structure.<...>In a word, from two Akhmatova lines a rich scattering of broad associations is born, diverging like circles on water from a thrown stone. In this couplet there is the whole woman, the whole poet and the whole of Akhmatova in her uniqueness and originality, which cannot be imitated.
Another detail was drawn to the attention of M. Tsvetaeva in A. Akhmatova’s poem of 1917:

Along the hard ridge of a snowdrift

To your white mysterious house

Both so quiet

We walk in gentle silence.

And sweeter than all the songs sung

This dream is fulfilled for me,

The swaying of brushed branches

And your spurs make a slight ringing sound.

““And the gentle ringing of your spurs” is more tender than anything that has been said about love” 7

Akhmatova’s poetry reflected the tragedy of the 20th century. Akhmatova said “unique words” about him in her poems (Oh, there are unique words. Whoever said them spent too much). Akhmatova’s “powerful brevity” is manifested in a characteristic property of her: the more tragic the content, the more stingy and laconic the means by which it is expressed, the sharper the techniques of concise presentation. At the same time, the impact on the reader increases.

Akhmatova's poetic power is manifested in the choice and juxtaposition of words in the same manner as in the choice and juxtaposition of details. Akhmatova used the expression “freshness of words” in relation to poetry (We lose simplicity in words and feelings, not like a painter loses his sight). The freshness of words is determined by the freshness and accuracy of the view, the originality and uniqueness of the poet’s personality, his poetic individuality. In Akhmatova’s poems, even ordinary words sound as if they were spoken for the first time. Words are transformed in Akhmatova's contexts. The unusual juxtaposition of words changes their meaning and tone. In verse -

I learned to live simply and wisely,

Look at the sky and pray to God,

And wander for a long time before evening,

To tire out unnecessary anxiety.

When the burdocks rustle in the ravine

And the bunch of yellow-red rowan will fade,

I write funny poems

About life that is perishable, perishable and beautiful.

I'm coming back. Licks my palm

Fluffy cat, purrs sweetly,

And the fire burns bright

On the turret of the lake sawmill.

Only occasionally does the silence cut through

The cry of a stork flying onto the roof.

And if you knock on my door,

I don't think I'll even hear it.

The words simply, live wisely, unnecessary anxiety, fluffy cat, bright fire can be used in ordinary speech, but in the context of this poem and in the broader context of Akhmatova’s poetry, they sound as inherent in Akhmatova’s style, as her individual words. The combination of definitions in the line About perishable, perishable and beautiful life is quite individual, a combination of funny poems.

In the lines from the poems And we live solemnly and difficultly And we honor the rituals of our bitter meetings, the combination we live difficultly usually, but in the unification solemnly and difficultly the word difficult already has a different meaning. Blok has the lines: A sad fate - it’s so difficult, so difficult and festive to live, And to become the property of an assistant professor, And to produce new critics...8 In Akhmatova’s poems, a similar idea receives a new shade, is colored in a new way by the context. The verbal form also changes slightly: instead of festively, solemnly. The words we honor rituals (in relation to love encounters) were from Blok (I honor the ritual: it’s easy to fill the Bear’s cavity on the fly - “On the Islands”). But in the context of Akhmatova’s poem, these words take on a different tone and become her individual identity. A strong poetic personality leaves its mark on the meaning of words.

At the time of one of her creative upswings - in 1916 - M. Tsvetaeva wrote about the “compliance of Russian speech”:

And I think: someday I too,

Tired of you, enemies, of you, friends,

And from the pliability of Russian speech, -

I will put a silver cross on my chest,

I’ll cross myself and quietly set off on my way

Along the old road along Kaluzhskaya.

Indeed, the element of Russian speech was entirely subject to M. Tsvetaeva. The poetry of M. Tsvetaeva revealed to the reader the miracle of language, the miracle of its capabilities. Many deep properties of the Russian language would have remained hidden if they had not been embodied with a high degree of poetic skill in the poems of M. Tsvetaeva. She felt justified before the “court of the Word”: But if there is a Last Judgment of the Word, I am clean in it.

The poetry of M. Tsvetaeva harmoniously combines traditional poetic language with unprecedented novelty. The poetic discoveries of M. Tsvetaeva correspond to the trends of the era. At the same time, M. Tsvetaeva belongs to those who participated in the creation of this era and, having gone beyond its boundaries, became the property of future times. It is no coincidence that B. Pasternak, admiring the poetic power of M. Tsvetaeva, remarked in a letter to her in 1926:

Listen: poems from the other world

And Pyra during the plague.

One of the innovative trends in the first quarter of the 20th century was the desire for rhythmic (and therefore semantic) emphasis on the word in a poetic text. V. Mayakovsky achieves this effect simply - by constructing the verse with a “ladder”. In M. Tsvetaeva, the separation of a word and a part of a word is carried out in more complex ways. It is associated with a special rhythm, in the creation of which the nature of repetition plays an important role.

The originality of Tsvetaeva’s individual rhythm and the uniqueness of her intonation are based on an amazing contrast: increased musicality - like the Symbolists - is combined in her poems with increased emphasis on the word and its isolation. The verse is pronounced in jerks, trying to embed individual words into the reader’s consciousness with unusual force. Hence the addiction to the dash sign. This rhythm is captivating.

The abundance of Marina Ivanovna’s repetitions makes her speech musically palpable and gives rise to the music of poetry. At the same time, Tsvetaeva’s repetitions help highlight the elements of speech.

Internal rhymes built vertically are characteristic of M. Tsvetaeva’s poems:

Others have eyes / and a bright face,

And at night / I talk with the wind.

The poetry of M. Tsvetaeva is characterized by repetitions of morphemes. Repetition of prefixes isolates the prefix and emphasizes its meaning, so that it acquires independent semantic weight. Words with the same prefix can be located within a line (Ah, in discord, in discord, in divorce Shiroki - gates!), but usually they run through the entire text. Often a word is further divided by a dash. Poem dedicated to B. Pasternak:

Distance: versts, miles...

We were arranged, seated,

To behave quietly,

At two different ends of the earth.

Distance: miles, distance...

We were unstuck, unsoldered,

They separated him in two hands, crucified him,

And they didn’t know that it was an alloy

Inspiration and tendons...

They didn’t quarrel - they quarreled,

Layered...
Wall and moat.

They scattered us like eagles -

Conspirators: versts, distances...

They didn’t upset us, they lost them.

Through the slums of the earth's latitudes

They sent us away like orphans.

Which – well, which – March?!

They smashed us like a deck of cards!

Lexical repetitions are common in M. Tsvetaeva’s poems. Interesting cases occur when a word is repeated in different forms or with different syntactic functions. Here is a stanza where the word snow is repeated three times:

And standing under the slow snow,

I'll kneel in the snow,

And in your holy name

I'll kiss the evening snow...

In these verses to A. Blok, the repetition of the word snow turns it into a multi-valued symbol. Its meaning includes the symbolism of Blok himself, and the cold in his appearance and in the appearance of his city, and the cold of distance, and even the weather of St. Petersburg. The armor of cold that hides the “secret heat” is the deep meaning of this symbol. “Secret Heat” internally connects Tsvetaeva with Blok.

The rhythm that Tsvetaeva hears (according to her, she worked by ear) requires a symmetrical construction of lines, stanzas and the composition of the poem as a whole.

Tsvetaeva’s thinking is especially characterized by comparisons and contrasts, often covering the entire text:

I am a page for your pen.

I'll accept everything. I'm a white page.

I am the keeper of your good:

I will return it and return it a hundredfold.

I am a village, a black land.

You are a ray and rain moisture to me.

You are Lord and Master, and I am

Chernozem - and white paper!

Stanza from the cycle of poems “The Table”:

You with burps, I with books,

With truffle, I with stylus,

You with olives, I with rhymes,

With a pickle, I with a dactyl.

Many poems with syntactic and lexical repetitions sound like spells. Here are two stanzas from the poem “I will conquer you from all lands, from all heavens”:

I will conquer you from all lands, from all heavens,

Because the forest is my cradle and the forest is my grave,

Because I stand on the ground with only one foot,

Because I will sing about you like no one else.

I will win you back from all times, from all nights,

All the golden banners, all the swords,

I'll throw in the keys and chase the dogs off the porch -

Because in the earthly night I am more faithful than a dog.

“Immensity in the world of measures”, characteristic of M. Tsvetaeva’s poetic nature, leads to countless “transfers”. Speech spills out beyond the boundaries of the poetic line, moving into the next one. Closely related words appear on different lines:

I don't need white

On black - chalk the board!

Almost beyond the limit

Souls beyond melancholy...

Violation of the accepted “measure” in the very form of the verse symbolizes the “immensity” of the soul. But Tsvetaeva is creating a new, individual measure. Continuous hyphens are often accompanied by deep pauses within lines, and this leads to their additional division and vertical similarity of the selected parts. A unique Tsvetaeva rhythm emerges. To some contemporaries this seemed like a destruction of verse. But this form of verse gives it special strength and dynamism. Tsvetaeva’s transferences participate in the birth of the powerful stride of the verse. (“Invincible Rhythms” - according to Andrei Bely). The main feature of Tsvetaeva as a poet is her deep immersion in the life of language, her obsession with the elements of speech, its dynamics, its rhythms. At the same time, this is an immersion in the element of images - images of Russian folklore, Russian pagan mythology, ancient mythology, biblical images, images of world literature, etc. Images express themselves in words, in speech. M. Tsvetaeva herself said most precisely about herself:

The poet starts talking from afar.

The poet's speech goes far.

Love lyrics

A woman is often a genius in love, her attitude towards love is universal, she puts the fullness of her nature into love and connects all her hopes with love.

N. Berdyaev

This topic is very important at the beginning of the twentieth century because, during this time of great upheaval, man continued to love, to be high, noble, passionate.

Once, while relaxing in Koktebel with Maximilian Voloshin, Marina Tsvetaeva said:

- I will love the one who gives me the most beautiful stone.

To which M. Voloshin replied:

- No, Marina, everything will be different. First you will love him, and then he will put an ordinary cobblestone in your hand, and you will call it the most beautiful stone.

I like that you are not sick of me,

I like that it's not you that I'm sick of

That the globe is never heavy

It won't float away under our feet...

Thank you with both heart and fleece

Because you - without knowing me! -

Love it so much...

It’s amazing how subtly and unusually the poetess gives the reader a reason for thought, hinting that you can simply love, or you can root for a person. She points out that “illness” implies unfreedom. And the heroine, free from any obligations and rules, can: “...be funny - loose - and not play with words...”. There will be no awkwardness when communicating with this person:

And do not blush with a suffocating wave,

Sleeves touching slightly.

“Great earthly love” is the driving principle of all lyrics for Akhmatova as well.

Thanks to her magnificent poems, the reader sees the world differently, more realistically. Anna Akhmatova in one of her poems called love the extraordinary “fifth season”, with the help of which she noticed the other four ordinary ones. A loving person sees the world as more beautiful and happier, feelings are heightened and tense. Everything ordinary is transformed into extraordinary. The world before a person turns into a huge force, truly reaching peaks in the feeling of life. An extraordinary, additional reality is comprehended: “After all, the stars were larger, After all, the herbs smelled different.” It is Anna Akhmatova’s love that is the main center that brings the rest of the world of her poetry to itself. Love is almost never described in a quiet stay with Akhmatova. The feeling itself is always sharp and unusual. It acquires additional severity and unusualness, manifesting itself in extreme crisis expression. For example, the first awakening meeting or a completed break, take-off or fall, mortal danger or mortal melancholy. Akhmatova's lyrical poems are often sad. They seem to carry a special element of love and pity. In Akhmatova’s very first poems, not only the love of lovers was generated. This love turned into another, love is pity, it is not for nothing that in the Russian folk language, in the Russian folk song, a synonym for the word “love” is the word “pity”; “I love” - “I regret”: Oh no, I didn’t love you, Burning with sweet fire, So explain what power is in your sad name.

on behalf of the man:

Came up. I didn’t show my excitement...

The mystery of the popularity of Akhmatova’s love lyrics.

Almost immediately after the appearance of the first book, and after “The Rosary” and “The White Flock” in particular, people began to talk about the “mystery of Akhmatova.” The talent itself was obvious, but unusual, and therefore its essence was unclear, not to mention some truly mysterious, albeit side properties. The “romance” noted by critics did not explain everything. How to explain, for example, the captivating combination of femininity and fragility with that firmness and clarity of design that testify to authority and an extraordinary, almost harsh will? At first they wanted to ignore this will; it was quite contrary to the “standard of femininity.” The strange laconicism of her love lyrics also evoked bewildered admiration, in which passion resembled the silence of a pre-thunderstorm and usually expressed itself in only two or three words, similar to lightning flashing behind a menacingly darkened horizon.

In the complex music of Akhmatova’s lyrics, in its barely flickering depths, in its darkness escaping from the eyes, in the subsoil, in the subconscious, a special, frightening disharmony constantly lived and made itself felt, which embarrassed Akhmatova herself.

Akhmatova’s love story included the era - she voiced and altered the poems in her own way, introducing into them a note of anxiety and sadness that had a broader meaning than her own fate.

“That fifth time of the year, Only its praise. Breathe the last freedom, Because this is love. The sky has flown high, The outlines of things are light, And the body no longer celebrates the anniversary of its sadness.”

In this poem, Akhmatova called love the “fifth season of the year.” From this unusual, fifth time, she saw the other four, ordinary ones. In a state of love, the world is seen anew. All senses are heightened and tense. And the unusualness of the ordinary is revealed. A person begins to perceive the world with tenfold force, truly reaching the heights of his sense of life. The world opens in additional reality: “After all, the stars were larger, // After all, the herbs smelled different.” That’s why Akhmatova’s verse is so objective: it returns things to their original meaning, it draws attention to what we are normally able to pass by indifferently, not appreciate, not feel. “Over the dried dodder // A bee floats softly” - this is seen for the first time.

Therefore, the opportunity opens up to experience the world in a childish way. Poems such as “Murka, don’t go, there’s an owl” are not thematically defined poems for children, but they have a feeling of completely childish spontaneity.

And one more feature related to the same. In Akhmatova’s love poems there are many epithets, which the famous Russian philologist A. N. Veselovsky once called syncretic and which are born from a holistic, inseparable, fused perception of the world, when the eye sees the world inseparably from what the ear hears in it; when feelings are materialized, objectified, and objects are spiritualized. “In white-hot passion,” Akhmatova will say. And she sees the sky, “wounded by yellow fire” - the sun, and “the lifeless heat of the chandeliers.”

The role of details in Akhmatova’s poems about love

“Great earthly love” is the driving principle of all Akhmatova’s lyrics. It was she who made us see the world differently - no longer symbolist and not Acmeist, but, to use the usual definition, realistically.

Theme of the Motherland

The poet has no homeland; the poet belongs first of all to the world. But every Russian poet belongs first of all to Russia. Always. The feeling of patriotism in Russian poets has been brought to some critical point. This is a cup that cannot be filled so that the water overflows. It's not enough for poets. M. Tsvetaeva is a Russian poet, in addition, she is an eyewitness to all the turning points of her time. The lyrics of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva are a chronicle. A chronicle of love experiences and a chronicle of Russia, the Motherland, and the twentieth century.

Sometimes Tsvetaeva does not know how to react to a particular event, to praise or curse it. The pangs of creativity give birth to masterpieces. She takes the events, of which she was a contemporary, into the depths of centuries and analyzes them there. That's why Stenka Razin.

Tsvetaeva loves Russia; she would not exchange it for Foggy Albion, or for the “big and joyful” Paris, which took 14 years of her life:

I'm alone here. To the chestnut trunk

To cling to your head so sweetly:

And Rostand’s verse cries in my heart,

How is it there, in abandoned Moscow?

The feminine principle is everywhere in Tsvetaeva’s work. Her Russia is a woman. Strong, proud, and... always a victim. The theme of death permeates all feelings, and when it comes to Russia, it is heard especially loudly:

You! I’ll lose this hand, -

At least two! I'll sign with my lips

On the chopping block: the strife of my lands -

Pride, my homeland!

"Motherland", 1932

But these are “late” feelings. There is also childhood on the Oka River, in Tarusa, sweet memories and a desire to return there again and again, to remember, to take with you the Russia of the past century:

Give us back our childhood, give it back

All multi-colored beads, -

Small, peaceful Tarusa

Summer days.

In her autobiography, Tsvetaeva writes that she returned to Moscow in 1939 from emigration to give her son, George, a homeland. But, perhaps, in order to return this homeland to herself?.. But that old Moscow, about which she selflessly writes in 1911, no longer exists, the “glory of languid great-grandmothers // Houses of old Moscow” perished. This is the terrible era of Stalin with boarded up doors and the quiet whisper of gossip. Tsvetaeva is suffocating, again irresistibly drawn to childhood, she wants to run away and hide from all the “dirt” pouring from above. But she is also amazed at the strength of her people, who have withstood the difficult trials of incessant coups and continue to bear the unbearable burden of dictatorship. She is subjugated by him, she is proud, she knows that she is also part of this people:

The people are like poets

Herald of all latitudes, -

As the poet, with his mouth open,

Such people are worth it!

"The People", 1939

The tragedy of the White Guard is also its tragedy. Did she know, when in 1902, in Genoa, she wrote revolutionary poems, which were even published in Geneva, what the horror of revolution and civil war was comparable to? Most likely not... That’s why there is such grief later, grief and repentance:

Yes! The Don block has broken!

White Guard yes! died.

"Don", 1918

Everything perishes in Tsvetaeva’s poems, and she herself perishes.

The theme of the Motherland is, first of all, the theme of the entire Russian people, Russian history, it is the theme of Derzhavin, Blok. Tsvetaeva has it all together. She herself is a part of this Motherland, its singer and its creator. She cannot live in Russia and cannot live away from it. Her whole fate and creativity is a paradox. But the paradox is far from meaningless! Tsvetaeva is like a mirror - she reflects everything, without distortion, she accepts everything, she simply cannot live with it, with this inescapable feeling of homeland. And all of it, this feeling, is in her poems:

Suffer me! I'm everywhere:

I am dawn and ore, bread and sigh,

I am and I will be and I will get

God will get your lips like your soul.

"Wires", 1923

Akhmatova imagines love for the Motherland as follows: if there is a Motherland, then there will be life, children, poetry. If it is not there, then there is nothing:

It's not scary to lie dead under bullets,

It's not bitter to be left homeless, -

And we will save you, Russian speech,

Great Russian word.

Anna Akhmatova has a wonderful quality that is based on an original national feature - a sense of belonging to the world, empathy with the world and responsibility to it: my fate is the fate of the country, the fate of the people is history. Anna Akhmatova lived, of course, a hard life. Her husband was shot and her son went from prison to exile and back, she was persecuted and persecuted. Endless adversity fell on her head. She almost always lived in poverty and died in poverty, having experienced, perhaps, all the hardships except the deprivation of her homeland - exile. But, despite all her hardships, she lived a happy life. She was a poet: “I never stopped writing poetry. For me, they represent my connection with time, with the new life of my people. When I wrote them, I lived by the rhythms that sounded in the heroic history of my country. I am happy that I lived during these years and saw events that had no equal.”

“Native Land” is one of A. Akhmatova’s poems united by the theme of the Motherland. The image of her native land created by her attracts with its unusualness: the poet wrote about the land in the literal sense of the word, giving it, however, a philosophical meaning. Let's see how this manifests itself in the poem. The epigraph in “Native Land” was a line from Akhmatova’s famous poem “I am not with those who abandoned the earth,” which concisely but aptly describes the characteristic features of the Russian national character:

And there are no more tearless, arrogant and simpler people in the world than us. From here follows the attitude of the Russian person towards his native land: We don’t carry it on our chests in treasured amulet, We don’t write poems about it to the point of sobbing, It doesn’t wake us up with bitter dreams, It doesn’t seem like a promised paradise. Every day we walk on the earth, we build on it, but we almost never identify it with the concept of “Motherland” in the high sense of the word, and in general we rarely use this word in everyday life. Our native land has become something commonplace for us, thoroughly known (“dirt on our galoshes,” “crunch on our teeth”). Living on his land, working on it, a person sometimes does not notice its beauties: for him these are familiar pictures, contemplated throughout his life. “Sick, in poverty” in their native land, the Russian person “doesn’t even remember it.” Rarely does anyone feel their family, blood closeness to the earth, which they daily “grind, and knead, and crumble.” But we “lie down in it and become it, that’s why we call it so freely – ours.” That is why “unmixed ashes” are so dear to us, but this feeling lives in the depths of the soul of every Russian person, rarely manifesting itself in external actions. Thus, the Motherland appears here as an integral part of our being, a concept absorbed by the Russian person along with mother’s milk. This is the deep philosophical meaning that Akhmatova puts into the words “native land.” The love for the native land of the lyrical heroine is both individual and universally significant at the same time: on the one hand, the heroine identifies herself with one of the ordinary Russian people, her voice merges with the chorus of other voices, on the other hand, she expresses the generalized attitude of the Russian people to the concept of “Motherland”.

Russian poetry cannot be imagined without Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva. For me, the experience of comparing the poetic worlds of Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva was an acute awareness of the depth and completeness of the human individuality of each person, the oblivion of which inevitably leads to self-denial and further, to spiritual decay. What is most striking is the truth of each of the images - and their irreducibility to each other, their specialness, their uniqueness.

Two voices, two instruments, two separate and combined sounds - and both are unique and irreplaceable. Music is not only a melody, but also everything that is organically connected with it: accompaniment, images and experiences. The world of each of the poetess is enchanting and delightful, but it is twice beautiful in comparison with the world of her colleague in the pen and three times excellent when referring to the work of the Genius.

The poles oppose each other, but belong to a single planet. The elegism of Anna Akhmatova and the rebellion of Marina Tsvetaeva do not deny each other, but are intertwined, forming a kind of mysterious unity. The poetic world of Anna Akhmatova is associated with synonyms - deep, powerful, unhurried and secretly creative. The creativity of Marina Tsvetaeva is passionate, exuberant, sweeping away any restrictions and most of all attracting to the fullness of personal freedom.

In my opinion, the characters of the poetesses themselves represent hypostases of the Russian female character that complement each other. Marina Tsvetaeva quite harshly opposed herself to her environment, strived for complete independence and was always ready to sacrifice herself in order to defend her own rightness. At the same time, Anna Akhmatova hurried to accept and console, delve into the experiences of others and dissolve the hardships of the world in her own heart, accepting the pains of those living as her own and not putting herself above others in anything, but simply and directly feeling a living kinship with everyone. Thus, together they form a single three-dimensional picture of Russian “female” poetry, highlighting two great missions inherent in the bearers of the Feminine Principle - to defend their own personality, and at the same time to heal, inspire and protect others. It seems to me that the “female” poetry they created is as fundamentally different from “male” poetry as the role and position of a woman in love is different from the natural patterns of behavior for men. But this is a special topic that requires a separate discussion.

Dreams..." Akhmatova's love lyrics of the 20-30s, to an incomparably greater extent than before, are addressed to the inner secret spiritual life. Chapter 2. Traditions of the prose writers of the Russian classical school of the 19th century in the poetry of Anna Akhmatova § 1. Akhmatova and Dostoevsky Back in 1922 Osip Mandelstam wrote: “Akhmatova brought into Russian lyric poetry all the enormous complexity and richness of the Russian novel...

The analytical chapter of our study is devoted to the analysis of the forms she uses as style-forming means. Chapter 2. Analysis of lexical and grammatical archaisms in the poetry of B. Akhmadulina. §1.Lexical archaisms. Let us turn, firstly, to lexical archaisms. As mentioned above, within their composition we distinguish three subgroups: lexical-phonetic, lexical-word-formative and proper...

In 1912, Tsvetaeva wrote: “Yesterday we bought a book of poems by Anna Akhmatova, which is so praised by critics...”. Apparently, we are talking about “Evening,” the first collection of the poetess - it was he who made Anna Gumilyova (then she bore the name of her first husband) famous. In the same 1912, Tsvetaeva’s daughter Ariadna was born. It was she who later, in 1921, wrote a letter to Akhmatova declaring her love for her poems - both from herself and from her mother. On this letter, Tsvetaeva signed: “Alya [as she affectionately called Ariadne] prays every evening: “Send, Lord, the kingdom of heaven to Andersen and Pushkin, and the kingdom of earth.”

Anna Akhmatova, 1920s. (Pinterest)

Tsvetaeva dedicated about 20 poems to Akhmatova. The main ones were written in 1916-1917. - Akhmatova, according to stories, carried them with her in her purse, so much so that “only folds and cracks remained.” Arthur Lurie, a famous composer at that time close to Akhmatova, reproached the poetess for treating Tsvetaeva “like Chopin to Schumann.” The famous Chopin did not favor the young fan. However, in the letters to Marina that have reached us, Akhmatova is good-natured and quite sympathetic. "<…>I wish you continued friendship with the Muse and good spirits, and, if you like, let’s hope that we will meet someday,” Akhmatova wrote in response to the letter from Ariadna and Marina Tsvetaeva. "<…>I never write to anyone, but your attitude is infinitely dear to me.<…>I dream of reading your new poems,” Akhmatova’s second response in the spring of 1921 to Tsvetaeva’s enthusiastic letter about “The Plantain” (Akhmatova’s collection).

Marina Tsvetaeva with her daughter Ariadna. (Pinterest)

Meeting of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva

In August 1921, Nikolai Gumilev, from whom Akhmatova was already divorced, was shot. After this, rumors spread about the death of the poetess herself. Tsvetaeva, who was worried about Akhmatova’s fate, wrote one of her last letters to her. Akhmatova did not answer. The correspondence that began was interrupted until 1941, when the poetesses finally met in June. This almost sudden two-day meeting was the only one.

Anna Akhmatova. (e-w-e.ru)

Tsvetaeva and her family returned from emigration to Moscow. Akhmatova lived in Leningrad, but came to the capital to visit her friends, the Ardovs, on Bolshaya Ordynka Street and stayed with them for a long time. This was the case at the beginning of June 1941. The poets phoned and agreed to meet in the Ardovs’ apartment: “We somehow met very well, without looking closely at each other, without figuring each other out, but simply.” In the evening, Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva went to the theater together, and then agreed on the next meeting. On the second day we saw each other at Akhmatova’s other acquaintances, the Khardzhievs. The owner of the apartment recalled that when Tsvetaeva left Akhmatova, the latter said: “Compared to her, I’m a chick.”

Akhmatova’s acquaintances have more detailed memories of this second meeting. According to their stories, Tsvetaeva spoke a lot and nervously, Akhmatova was more silent. Khardzhiev described this meeting as “mutual touching of the knives of the soul.”

Late answer

In 1940, Akhmatova wrote her “Late Reply,” a poem addressed to Tsvetaeva. The “muse of crying” dedicated just one poem to her admirer (in another, the image of Marina fleetingly appears). It was not published, and Akhmatova did not dare to read it personally: she was afraid of touching where it hurt:

I returned home today.
Admire, dear arable lands,
What happened to me?
The abyss swallowed up my loved ones,
And the parental home was destroyed.

Monument to Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova in Odessa. (tsvetaeva.lit-info.ru)

On August 31, Marina Tsvetaeva hanged herself in a house in Yelabuga, where she had gone for evacuation. Her son, Georgy Efron (Moore), remained alone. The evacuated writing community helped him: some with food, some with money. Akhmatova also helped in any way she could. However, their friendly relationship ended quickly: “There was a time when she helped me; this time is over. One day she showed herself to be petty, and this trifle ruined everything before; So, we’re even – no one owes anyone anything. I stopped liking her, and she didn’t like me,” Moore wrote this in his diary.

She admired Akhmatova, although she sometimes wrote about the shortcomings of her poetry. Akhmatova called Tsvetaeva a “powerful poet,” but also did not always have an unambiguous attitude towards her. Poetic talent connected them, but as individuals they did not coincide. The poetess could not get closer, but still understood each other. And today these two names stand side by side in the history of Russian literature - not only because they are in the same time period, but also because they are equal in size.

24. M. Tsvetaeva and A. Akhmatova. The nature of similarities and dissimilarities

Two women, women - POETS, not poetesses. Both Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva insisted on this. Not a single female name in literature has yet been allowed to rise to them. The childhood of both was sad: “And no rosy childhood,” said Akhmatova, “Tsvetaeva could say the same. And in general, the fate of both of them was difficult. There were many losses.

Tsvetaeva became fascinated by her poetry, as well as by the personality behind the poems. She created for herself the image of a “fatal beauty”, called her the “Muse of Lamentation” and “Chrysostomed Anna of All Rus'”. Subsequently, when Tsvetaeva writes enthusiastic letters to her, Akhmatova will treat them with her characteristic restraint.

The famous Russian émigré literature researcher Konstantin Mochulsky spoke well about the poetic and psychological differences between the two, back in 1923:

“Tsvetaeva is always on the move; its rhythms include rapid breathing from fast running. She seems to be talking about something in a hurry, out of breath and waving her arms. He will finish and move on. She is a fidget. Akhmatova - speaks slowly, in a very quiet voice; reclining motionless; he hides his chilly hands under a “false-classical” (in Mandelstam’s words) shawl. Only in a barely noticeable intonation does a restrained feeling slip through. She is aristocratic in her tired poses. Tsvetaeva is a whirlwind, Akhmatova is silence... Tsvetaeva is all in action - Akhmatova is in contemplation...”

The theme of love plays a big role in both of their works. poets often talk about the same thing, although in different ways. A common theme in the lyrics of A. Akhmatova and M. Tsvetaeva is the attitude of both lyrical heroines towards their rival: indifference, a sense of proud female superiority, but not envy or jealousy towards her - a “simple woman”, “market dust” (M. Tsvetaeva ), “fool” (A. Akhmatova). For Marina Tsvetaeva, the word love was associated with the words of Alexander Blok: secret heat. Secret heat is a state of the heart, soul, and the entire being of a person. This is burning, service, incessant excitement, confusion of feelings. But the most comprehensive word is still love. The peculiarity of the perception of M. Tsvetaeva’s lyrics is that she is credited with a masculine, strong beginning. The shades of feeling of the lyrical heroine A. Akhmatova come from the understanding of love as passion, love as a struggle, a duel of souls. In the love lyrics of M. Tsvetaeva, there is no “equivalent” to the soul of the lyrical heroine, there is no struggle, no duel, there is only dedication of oneself to a loved one. He is “desired”, “stinged”, “sick”!

Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova, who reached their peak by the 1920s (Akhmatova’s poetry collections “The White Flock”, 1917, “Plantain”, 1921, “Anno Domini”, 1922), cannot help but be compared in love lyrics. It is noteworthy that no one has ever accused Akhmatova’s heroine of egocentrism, although she can begin a dialogue with her lover with the following remark: “You submissive? You are crazy!". And on the contrary, egocentrism is the core of all Tsvetaeva’s creativity, but in her theme of love, as a reflection of the primordial female lot, the motive of sacrifice and submission is absolutized: “They hung millstones around my neck,” “I will not disobey,” “Nailed to the pillory... I kiss the hand that hits me”; or on behalf of women of all times, suffering in love, a bitter questioning cry - “My dear, what have I done to you?” In an address to a lover who will come at least a hundred years later, the story is about how “... I begged everyone for letters / To kiss at night.”

In A. Akhmatova’s lyrics, the suffering role very often belongs to a man. He is a “tormented owlet”, “a toy boy”, “a restless one”. The Trouble of Love may happen to him. The lyrical heroine of M. Tsvetaeva says: “... not a single lover brought me out of the house.” For the lyrics of M. Tsvetaeva, the law is that the torment of love, suffering is only the share of women. The theme of separation and rupture is covered repeatedly, in many ways. And there are similar plots, but Akhmatova invariably encloses even the most tragic feelings, even the boiling lava of passion and pain, in the granite frame of verse. Tsvetaeva would later write about her lyrics like this: “I always fought and shattered into pieces... and all my poems are those same silver heartbeats.”

It is interesting that Akhmatova’s first collection is “Evening”, and Tsvetaeva’s is “Evening Album” (poems by 15-17 year old Tsvetaeva)

Both loved and wrote about Russia. The turmoil and pain of the tragic period in the life of Russia penetrates into their poems. For Akhmatova, these are notes of anxiety and sadness, torment of conscience, a constant feeling of turmoil inside and pain for the fate of the Motherland. Tsvetaeva has a seething passion, constant contrasts and an acute premonition of death. Akhmatova’s prayer style, traditional for women’s poetry, is increasingly heard, and she prays for the fate of her country. Tsvetaeva, especially during the period of emigration, can hear hatred for everything that so turned the era upside down, and at the same time, unbearable pain from separation from her beloved land.

If Akhmatova grew into a poet of Russia, if she carried her era within herself (she was later called “Epoch”), then Tsvetaeva the poet turned into a kind of “citizen of the Universe.”

Both studied Pushkin. A - and this work will correspond to her nature: leisurely thinking, comparison of various sources, and, of course, many important and subtle discoveries.

Marina Tsvetaeva will take up the Pushkin theme a little later, without studying Pushkin as in depth as Akhmatova. Her judgments and “formulas” are merciless and biased; Akhmatova’s observations are restrained, although not dispassionate; behind every thought there is a mountain of processed, thoughtful sources. Although both were diametrically opposed “Pushkinists” (Tsvetaeva in this regard greatly irritated Akhmatova), they were united by their dislike for Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina (Goncharova).

Probably in the distant future an elegant synthesis will be found for our era. Contradictions will be dulled, contrasts will be extinguished, diversity will be reduced to unity, and from discordance a “consonant chorus” will emerge. The future scientist, fascinated by harmony, will brilliantly demonstrate the “unified style” of our time. But what a pity for our discord, our living diversity, even our absurdity. And no “idea” will reconcile us with the transformation into masks of those faces that we knew and loved.

Complexity and inconsistency are the features of our era; we will preserve them carefully. What we value now is not the commonality that unites our poets into groups and schools, not the elements of similarity - always external and meaningless. The private, the personal, the irreducible, the separating – that’s what interests us.

Marina Tsvetaeva: the path into the loop

In Moscow, the domes are on fire!
In Moscow, the bells are ringing!
And I have tombs in a row,
Queens and kings sleep in them.

Here is the structure of a folk song with its usual repetitions and parallelism; The chanting with “swinging” is great enthusiasm. Akhmatova is from St. Petersburg; her love for her hometown is illuminated by airy sorrow. And she puts it into cold, classic lines.

But I wouldn’t trade the magnificent one for anything.
Granite city of glory and misfortune.

Tsvetaeva is always on the move; its rhythms include rapid breathing from fast running. She seems to be talking about something in a hurry, out of breath and waving her arms. He will finish and move on. She is a fidget. Akhmatova - speaks slowly, in a very quiet voice: she reclines motionless; he hides his chilly hands under his “false-classical” (in Mandelstam’s words) shawl. Only in a barely noticeable intonation does a restrained feeling slip through. She is aristocratic in her tired poses. Tsvetaeva is a whirlwind, Akhmatova is silence. You can’t even see the first one’s face – it’s so mobile, its facial expressions are so varied. The second has a clean line of a frozen profile. Tsvetaeva is all in action - Akhmatova is in contemplation,

one barely smiles
where the other roars with laughter.

Akhmatova’s lyrics are elegiac through and through - suffering love, “stuffy melancholy”, the torment of the unloved or fallen out of love, the longing of the bride for the dead groom; its background is the four walls of a hateful room; a painful illness that leaves you bedridden. There is a snowstorm outside the window - and she is alone in the approaching twilight. Tsvetaeva’s poetry is full of health, filled with sultry young blood, sunny, sensual. There is frenzy, jubilation, intoxication in it.

Blood that sings like a wolf
Blood is a fierce dragon,
Blood, like blood and milk
He kisses the blood - forcibly.

The first is defeated, submissive, bashful, the second is the “king-maiden”, courageous, warlike, greedy, and persistent and powerful in her love. Her fingers are tenacious, her embrace is tight: whatever she grabs, she won’t let go. The whole world is hers; and she sorts through all his joys like pearls in the palm of her hand - voluptuously and carefully. Lands, seas, grasses, and dawns are not enough for her. He searches for everything, everything wanders across the steppes and across the “ocean”: keen eyes, insatiable heart.

Akhmatova ascends the steps of initiation: from dark love to heavenly love. Her face became thinner, like an icon-painted face, and her body was “abandoned,” overcome, forgotten. The past worries only in dreams, she is all in prayer, and lives in the “white room”, in the “cell”. Tsvetaeva - rooted to the ground; fell to her, fragrant and warm, and could not tear herself away. She is jubilant, blooming flesh. What does she care about Eternity when her earthly thirst is unquenched and insatiable.

I drink, I won't get drunk. Sigh - and a huge exhale
And blood murmuring underground roar.

One is already in the kingdom of shadows: the other has not yet comprehended the possibility of death.

I don't accept eternity
Why was I buried?
I didn't want to go to the ground
From my beloved land.

She loves the splendor of the church, the solemnity of the ritual, the sweetness of prayer. She is religious, but not religious. How differently Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva express their love for Russia! The first rises to true pathos and becomes a prayer for the unfortunate “dark” homeland. She renounces everything personal, drives away the last “shadows of songs and passions”, for her the homeland is in the spirit and she prays

So that a cloud over dark Russia
Became a cloud in the glory of the rays.

For the other, it is not the grief of the soul, but the terrible cry of a tormented body. What does it matter to her that those killed will become “new warriors of God’s army” - they are all her sons, her flesh. She blocks them with herself, like a mother of her children, and howls over their corpses with a wild animal voice.

This lament is perhaps the most powerful of all written by Tsvetaeva:

Both right and left
Bloody mouths.
And every wound:
- Mother
And that's all
And it’s clear to me, drunk,
From the womb - and into the womb:
- Mother!
Everyone is lying next to each other
- Don’t separate the boundary.
Look: soldier!
Where is yours, where is the stranger?
……………………
Without will - without anger -
Drawing - stubbornly -
Up to the sky:
- Mother!

Akhmatova’s art is noble and complete. Her poems are perfect in their Simplicity and subtle grace. The poet is gifted with an amazing sense of proportion and impeccable taste. No wanderings and throwing, almost no delusions. Akhmatova immediately takes the broad path (her first collection, “Evening,” already contains masterpieces) and walks along it with confident ease. Tsvetaeva, on the contrary, still cannot find herself. From amateurish, institute poems in the “evening album” (the title of her first collection), she moves on to the touching little details of “The Magic Lantern”, rushes between Bryusov and Blok, does not avoid the influence of A. Bely and Mayakovsky, falls into the extremes of the folk genre and ditty style. She has a lot of temperament, but her taste is questionable, and she has no sense of proportion at all. Her poems are uneven, sometimes chaotic and almost always drawn out. Her last poem: “The Tsar Maiden” perishes from verbosity. And yet this work is remarkable and her voice is not forgotten.

Meeting of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva

Late answer

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