Anna Akhmatova

My poems are a white flock...

Preface

The most lasting thing on earth is sadness.

A. Akhmatova

The creative destiny of Anna Akhmatova was such that only five of her poetic books - “Evening” (1912), “Rosary” (1914), “White Flock” (1917), “Plantain” (1921) and “Anno Domini” (in two editions of 1921 and 1922-1923) compiled by herself. Over the next two years, Akhmatova’s poems occasionally appeared in periodicals, but in 1925, after the next Ideological Conference, at which, in the words of Anna Andreevna herself, she was sentenced to “civil death,” they stopped publishing it. Only fifteen years later, in 1940, almost miraculously, a volume of selected works reached readers, and it was no longer Akhmatova who chose it, but the compiler. True, Anna Andreevna still managed to include in this publication, in the form of one of the sections, fragments from the handwritten “Reed,” her sixth book, which she compiled with her own hand in the late 30s. And yet, in general, the 1940 collection with the impersonal title “From Six Books,” like all the other lifetime selections, including the famous “The Running of Time” (1965), did not express the author’s will. According to legend, the initiator of this miracle was Stalin himself. Seeing that his daughter Svetlana was copying Akhmatova’s poems into a notebook, he allegedly asked one of the people in his retinue: why isn’t Akhmatova published. Indeed, in the last pre-war year, there was a certain turning point for the better in Akhmatova’s creative life: in addition to the collection “From Six Books,” there were also several publications in the Leningrad magazine. Anna Andreevna believed in this legend, she even believed that she also owed her salvation, the fact that she was taken out of the besieged city in the fall of 1941 on a military plane, to Stalin. In fact, the decision to evacuate Akhmatova and Zoshchenko was signed by Alexander Fadeev and, apparently, at the persistent request of Alexei Tolstoy: the red count was a hardened cynic, but he knew and loved Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Gumilyov from his youth and never forgot about it... Tolstoy, it seems , contributed to the publication of Akhmatova’s Tashkent collection in 1943, which, however, was not at all difficult for him, since this happened after the publication of her poem “Courage” in Pravda... The fact is that it was the author of “Peter the Great”, even if not too much, but slightly defended Akhmatova, is confirmed by the following fact: after his death in 1944, no one could help her, neither Nikolai Tikhonov, nor Konstantin Fedin, nor Alexei Surkov, despite all his considerable literary ranks...

This edition includes the texts of the first five books by Anna Akhmatova, in the edition and in the order in which they first saw the light.

The first four collections - “Evening”, “Rosary”, “White Flock” and “Plantain” are published according to the first edition, “Anno Domini” - according to the second, more complete, Berlin one, printed in October 1922, but published with the note: 1923. All other texts follow in chronological order, without taking into account those subtle connections and couplings in which they exist in the author’s “samizdat” plans: until her death, Anna Akhmatova continued to write poetry and put them into cycles and books, still hoping , that he will be able to reach his reader not only with the main poems, which invariably got stuck in the viscous mud of Soviet censorship, but also with books of poetry. Like many poets of the Silver Age, she was convinced that there was a “diabolical difference” between lyrical plays, united only by the time they were written, and an author’s book of poetry.

Exactly two years after the publication of the first edition, namely in March 1914, “The Rosary” appeared on the shelves of bookstores in St. Petersburg, Akhmatova no longer had to publish this book at her own expense... It went through many reprints, including several “ pirate." One of these collections is dated 1919. Anna Andreevna valued this publication very much. Hunger, cold, devastation, but people still need poetry. Her poems! Gumilyov, as it turned out, was right when he said, after reading the proof of “The Rosary”: “Or maybe it will have to be sold in every small shop.” Marina Tsvetaeva greeted Akhmatova’s first collection quite calmly, because her own first book was published two years earlier, except that she was surprised at the coincidence of the titles: hers was “Evening Album”, and Anna’s was “Evening”, but “The Rosary” delighted her. She fell in love! And in poetry, and, in absentia, in Akhmatova, although I felt a strong rival in her:

You will block the sun from above for me,
All the stars are in your handful.

At the same time, after “The Rosary,” Tsvetaeva called Akhmatova “Anna of All Rus',” and two more poetic characteristics belong to her: “Muse of Weeping,” “Muse of Tsarskoye Selo.” And what’s most surprising is that Marina Ivanovna guessed that fate had written out for them, so different, one travel document:

And alone in the emptiness of the prison
The road is given to us.

“The Rosary” is Anna Akhmatova’s most famous book, it was she who brought her fame, not just fame in a narrow circle of lovers of fine literature, but real fame. Meanwhile, from her early books, Akhmatova herself loved “The White Flock” and “The Plantain” much more than “The Rosary”... And even though the person to whom “The White Flock” and “The Plantain” are dedicated, Boris Vasilyevich Anrep, as it turned out many, many years later, turned out to be unworthy of this great earthly love and the poem of the fate of Anna of All Rus' was left without the main Hero, so what? Wars and tsars passed, but the poems about the hopeless love of the most charming woman of “silver Petersburg” for the “dashing Yaroslavl”, who exchanged his native woods for the velvet green of English lawns, did not pass, did not lose their pristine freshness... In 1945, on the eve of another catastrophe, when in August of the following 1946, Anna Akhmatova was once again sentenced to “civil death” by the well-known resolution of the Central Committee on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad”; she, having read Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” in the manuscript, wrote the following visionary poems:

Christ's witnesses have tasted death,
And gossipy old women and soldiers,
And the procurator of Rome - everyone passed
Where the arch once stood,
Where the sea beat, where the cliff turned black, -
They were drunk in wine, inhaled with hot dust
And with the smell of sacred roses.

Gold rusts and steel decays,
Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death.
The most lasting thing on earth is sadness
And more durable is the royal Word.

“Evening” appeared on the eve of the birth of his first and only son.

"Rosary" - on the eve of the First World War.

“The White Flock” - on the eve of the revolution, and literally on the eve: in mid-September 1917.

“Plantain” (April 1921) - on the eve of great grief: in the summer of 1921, Akhmatova learned about the suicide of her beloved older brother Andrei; in August, first Blok and then Gumilyov passed away. Mikhail Zenkevich, who found Anna Andreevna that tragic winter in some strange frozen home, was amazed at the change that had happened to her. The Anna with whom he parted when leaving Petrograd in 1918, the one who lived and sang love in “Evening”, “Rosary”, “White Flock” and “Plantain”, was no longer there; the book she wrote after the terrible August 1921 - “Anno Domini” - was a book of Grief. (In the first edition - Petersburg: “Petropolis”, 1921 - the year of the end of the old life and the beginning of the new life is indicated in Roman numerals already in the title of the collection: “Anno Domini MCMXXI” (“From the Nativity of Christ 1921.”) Having read several new poems to a friend of his poetic youth and noticing that Zenkevich was amazed, she explained: "In the last months I lived among deaths. Kolya died, my brother died and ... Blok. I don’t know how I was able to survive all this."

Preface

The most lasting thing on earth is sadness.
A. Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova’s first collection “Evening” was published at the very beginning of March 1912, in St. Petersburg, in the Acmeist publishing house “Poets Workshop”. To publish 300 copies of this thin book, Anna Akhmatova’s husband, who is also the head of the publishing house, poet and critic Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev, paid one hundred rubles out of his own pocket. The reader's success of "Evening" was preceded by the "triumphs" of young Akhmatova on the tiny stage of the literary cabaret "Stray Dog", the opening of which was timed by the founders to see off 1911. The artist Yuri Annenkov, the author of several portraits of the young Akhmatova, recalling in his declining years the appearance of his model and her performances on the stage of the “Intimate Theater” (the official name of “Stray Dog”: “Art Society of the Intimate Theater”), wrote: “Anna Akhmatova, shy and an elegantly careless beauty, with her “uncurled bangs” covering her forehead, and with a rare grace of half-movements and half-gestures, read, almost humming, her early poems. I don’t remember anyone else who had such skill and such musical subtlety in reading...”
Exactly two years after the publication of the first edition, namely in March 1914, “The Rosary” appeared on the shelves of bookstores in St. Petersburg, Akhmatova no longer had to publish this book at her own expense... It went through many reprints, including several “ pirate." One of these collections is dated 1919. Anna Andreevna valued this publication very much. Hunger, cold, devastation, but people still need poetry. Her poems! Gumilyov, as it turned out, was right when he said, after reading the proof of “The Rosary”: “Or maybe it will have to be sold in every small shop.” Marina Tsvetaeva greeted Akhmatova’s first collection quite calmly, because her own first book was published two years earlier, except that she was surprised at the coincidence of the titles: hers was “Evening Album”, and Anna’s was “Evening”, but “The Rosary” delighted her. She fell in love! And in poetry, and, in absentia, in Akhmatova, although I felt a strong rival in her:

You will block the sun from above for me,
All the stars are in your handful.

And alone in the emptiness of the prison
The road is given to us.

Christ's witnesses have tasted death,
And gossipy old women and soldiers,
And the procurator of Rome - everyone passed
Where the arch once stood,
Where the sea beat, where the cliff turned black, -
They were drunk in wine, inhaled with hot dust
And with the smell of sacred roses.
Gold rusts and steel decays,
Marble crumbles - everything is ready for death.
The most lasting thing on earth is sadness
And more durable is the royal Word.

In the situation of 1945, when after several spring months of the national Victory Day the authorities began to “tighten the screws” again and sharply, it was dangerous not only to read such poems aloud, but also to store them in desk drawers, and Anna Andreevna, who never forgot anything, forgot more precisely, she hid them so deeply in the basement of her memory that she could not find them for a whole decade, but after the 20th Congress, she immediately remembered them... It was not for nothing that her friends called her a seer, she foresaw a lot in advance, in advance, and sensed the approach of trouble long before its arrival, not a single one none of the blows of fate took her by surprise; constantly living “on the edge of death,” she was always prepared for the worst. But her main books were lucky; they somehow miraculously managed to jump out from under the printing press on the eve of the next sharp turn - either in her own life or in the fate of the country.
“Evening” appeared on the eve of the birth of his first and only son.
"Rosary" - on the eve of the First World War.
“The White Flock” - on the eve of the revolution, and literally on the eve: in mid-September 1917.
“Plantain” (April 1921) - on the eve of great grief: in the summer of 1921, Akhmatova learned about the suicide of her beloved older brother Andrei; in August, first Blok and then Gumilyov passed away. Mikhail Zenkevich, who found Anna Andreevna that tragic winter in some strange frozen home, was amazed at the change that had happened to her. The Anna with whom he parted when leaving Petrograd in 1918, the one who lived and sang love in “Evening”, “Rosary”, “White Flock” and “Plantain”, was no longer there; the book she wrote after the terrible August 1921 - “Anno Domini” - was a book of Grief. (In the first edition - Petersburg: “Petropolis”, 1921 - the year of the end of the old life and the beginning of the new life is indicated in Roman numerals already in the title of the collection: “Anno Domini MCMXXI” (“From the Nativity of Christ 1921.”) Having read several new poems to a friend of his poetic youth and noticing that Zenkevich was amazed, she explained: "In the last months I lived among deaths. Kolya died, my brother died and ... Blok. I don’t know how I was able to survive all this."
In the first edition, the collection “Anno Domini” was published, as already mentioned, at the end of October, poems about the new grief came in a steady stream, publishing them in Russia, where the name of the executed Gumilev was banned, became dangerous: the second, supplemented, edition had to be printed already in Berlin, which by 1922 became the center of Russian emigration. Here it was still possible to preserve the epigraph from Gumilyov in the “Voice of Memory” cycle, but even a simple mention of a meeting with Emperor Nicholas on a winter evening in snow-covered Tsarskoe Selo still had to be encrypted. In the now widely known poem “Meeting” (1919), the final quatrain - “And the gilded guide\ Stands motionless behind the sleigh,\ And the king looks around strangely\ With empty, bright eyes” in the Berlin version looks like this:

And a gilded guide
Stands motionless behind the sleigh.
And it's strange you look around
Empty bright eyes.

But this is the only forced compromise. In general, “Anno Domini” is free from both the author’s and Soviet censorship...
In the year of her first civil death Anna Akhmatova was only thirty-six years old; about the earthly period that she still had to live, she always spoke briefly and bitterly: after all. However, this - another, replaced life (“they changed my life, it flowed in a different direction and in a different way ...”) was a life, and in it there was love, and betrayal, and the torment of muteness, and the golden gifts of a late, but fruitful autumn, and even the test of glory. But this was a bitter, bitter glory, because all her best things were not published in her homeland. They were brought secretly from Munich, Paris, New York, they were memorized by voice, copied by hand and on a typewriter, bound and given to friends and loved ones. Akhmatova knew about this and still suffered... Of all the fatal “non-meetings”, the non-meeting with by your reader was the most painful pain for her. The pain of this separation, not at all figuratively, but literally, tore her tormented heart, and it killed him. By a strange coincidence, March 5, 1966: the day of the death of the main culprit of all her troubles - Joseph Stalin.

Alla Marchenko

Evening

I

Love

Then like a snake, curled up in a ball,
He casts a spell right at the heart,
That's all day long like a dove
Coos on the white window,
It will shine in the bright frost,
It will seem like a lefty in the slumber...
But it leads faithfully and secretly
From joy and from peace.
He can cry so sweetly
In the prayer of a yearning violin,
And it’s scary to guess it
In a still unfamiliar smile.

November 24, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

In Tsarskoe Selo

I

Horses are led along the alley,
The waves of combed manes are long.
O captivating city of mysteries,
I'm sad, having loved you.
Strange to remember! The soul was yearning
I was suffocating in my dying delirium,
And now I've become a toy,
Like my pink cockatoo friend.
The chest is not compressed in anticipation of pain,
If you want, look into my eyes,
I just don’t like the hour before sunset,
The wind from the sea and the word “go away.”

November 30, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

II

...And there is my marble double,
Prostrate under the old maple tree,
He gave his face to the lake waters,
He listens to green rustling sounds.
And the light rains wash
His dried wound...
Cold, white, wait,
I, too, will become marble.

1911

III

And boy...

And the boy who plays the bagpipes
And the girl who weaves her own wreath,
And two crossed paths in the forest,
And in the far field there is a distant light, -
I see everything. I remember everything
Lovingly and meekly in my heart,
There's only one thing I never know
And I can’t even remember anymore.
I don't ask for wisdom or strength,
Oh, just let me warm myself by the fire!
I'm cold... Winged or wingless,
The merry god will not visit me.

November 30, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

Love conquers...

Love conquers deceitfully
In a simple, inexperienced chant.
So recently, it’s strange
You weren't gray and sad.
And when she smiled
In your gardens, in your house, in your field,
Everywhere it seemed to you
That you are free and at liberty.
You were bright, taken by her
And drank her poison.
After all, the stars were larger
After all, the herbs smelled different,
Autumn herbs.

Autumn 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

She clenched her hands...

She clasped her hands under a dark veil...
“Why are you pale today?..”
- Because I have tart sadness
Got him drunk.
How can I forget? He came out staggering
The mouth twisted painfully,
I ran away without touching the railing,
I ran after him to the gate.
Gasping for breath, I shouted: “It’s a joke.
All that has gone before. If you leave, I’ll die.”
Smiled calmly and creepily
And he told me: “Don’t stand in the wind.”

January 8, 1911
Kyiv

Memory of the sun...

The grass is yellower,
The wind blows early snowflakes
Just barely.
The willow spread out in the empty sky
The fan is through.
Maybe it's better that I didn't
Your wife.
The memory of the sun in the heart weakens,
What is this? - dark?
May be! Will have time to come overnight
Winter.

January 30, 1911
Kyiv

High in the sky…

High in the sky the cloud turned gray,
Like a squirrel skin, spread out.
He told me: “It’s not a pity that your body
It will melt in March, fragile Snow Maiden!”
In the fluffy muff, my hands were cold,
I felt scared, I felt somehow vague,
Oh how to get you back, quick weeks
His love is airy and momentary!
I don't want bitterness or revenge,
Let me die with the last white blizzard,
Oh, I wondered about him on the eve of Epiphany,
I was his girlfriend in January.

Spring 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

The door is half open...

The door is half open
Linden trees blow sweetly...
Forgotten on the table
Whip and glove.
The circle from the lamp is yellow...
I listen to the rustling sounds.
What did you leave?
I don't understand…
Joyful and clear
Tomorrow will be morning
This life is beautiful
Heart, be wise.
You're completely tired
Beat slower, slower,
You know, I read
That souls are immortal.

February 17, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

Want to know…

...Do you want to know how it all happened? -
It struck three in the dining room,
And, saying goodbye, holding the railing,
She seemed to have difficulty speaking:
“That’s all, oh no, I forgot,
I love you, I loved you
Already then!"
"Yes?!"

October 21, 1910
Kyiv

Song of the last meeting

My chest was so helplessly cold,
But my steps were light,
I put it on my right hand
Glove from the left hand.
It seemed like there were a lot of steps,
And I knew there were only three of them!
Autumn whispers between the maples
He asked: “Die with me!”
I'm deceived, do you hear, sad,
Changeable, evil fate."
I replied: “Darling, darling!
And me too. “I’ll die with you...”
This is the song of the last meeting,
I looked at the dark house
Only candles were burning in the bedroom
Indifferent yellow fire.

September 29, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

Like a straw...

You drink my soul like a straw.
I know that its taste is bitter and intoxicating,
But I won’t break the torture with prayer,
Oh, my peace lasts for many weeks.
When you finish, say: not sad,
That my soul is not in the world,
I'll go the short way
Watch children play.
Gooseberries bloom on the bushes,
And they carry bricks behind the fence,
Who is he! - My brother or lover,
I don’t remember and I don’t need to remember.
How bright it is here and how homeless,
A tired body rests...
And passers-by think vaguely:
That's right, I just became a widow yesterday.

February 10, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

I've lost my mind...

I've lost my mind, oh strange boy,
Wednesday at three o'clock!
Pricked my ring finger
A wasp ringing for me.
I accidentally pressed her
And it seemed like she died
But the end of the poisoned sting
It was sharper than a spindle.
Am I going to cry for you, strange one?
Will your face make me smile?
Look! On the ring finger
So beautifully smooth ring.

March 18-19, 1911

I don’t need my legs anymore...

I don't need my legs anymore
Let them turn into a fish tail!
I float and the coolness is joyful,
The distant bridge is dimly white.
I don’t need a submissive soul,
Let it become smoke, light smoke,
Flying over the black embankment,
It will be baby blue.
Look how deep I'm diving
I hold on to the seaweed with my hand,
I don't repeat anyone's words
And I won’t be captivated by anyone’s melancholy...
And you, my distant one, are you really
Have you become pale and sadly mute?
What do I hear? Three whole weeks
You keep whispering: “Poor thing, why?!”

<1911?>

II

Deception

I

This morning is drunk with the spring sun
And on the terrace the smell of roses is more audible,
And the sky is brighter than blue earthenware.
Notebook in soft morocco cover,
I read elegies and stanzas in it,
Written to my grandmother.
I see the road to the gate, and the bollards
They turn white clearly in the emerald turf,
Oh, the heart loves sweetly and blindly!
And the exquisite flower beds delight,
And the sharp cry of a crow in the black sky,
And in the depths of the alley is the arch of the crypt.

November 2, 1910
Kyiv

II

The stuffy wind blows hotly,
The sun burned my hands
Above me is a vault of air,
Like blue glass.
Immortels smell dry
In a scattered braid,
On the trunk of a gnarled spruce
Ant Highway.
The pond is lazily silvering,
Life is easier in a new way
Who will I dream about today?
In a light hammock net?

January 1910
Kyiv

III

Blue evening. The winds calmed down meekly,
A bright light calls me home.
I wonder: who is there? - Isn’t it the groom?
Isn't this my fiance?..
There's a familiar silhouette on the terrace,
A quiet conversation can barely be heard.
Oh, such captivating languor
I didn't know until now.
The poplars rustled alarmingly,
Tender dreams visited them,
The sky is the color of blued steel,
The stars are dull pale.
I am carrying a bouquet of white gillyflowers,
For this reason, a secret fire is hidden in them,
Who, taking flowers from the hands of the timid,
A warm hand will touch you.

September 1910
Tsarskoe Selo

IV

I wrote the words
What I didn’t dare say for a long time.
My head hurts,
My body feels strangely numb.
The distant horn has fallen silent,
There are still the same riddles in the heart,
Light autumn snow
Lay down on the croquet court.
The last leaves to rustle!
Let the last thoughts languish!
I didn't want to interfere
That we should have fun.
I forgave the red lips
I am their cruel joke...
Oh, you will come to us
Tomorrow on the first route.
The candles in the living room will be lit,
During the day their flicker is softer,
They will bring a whole bouquet
Roses from the greenhouse.

Autumn 1910
Tsarskoe Selo

I'm drunk with you...

I'm having fun with you when I'm drunk,
There is no meaning in your stories;
Early autumn hung
Yellow flags on elms.
Both of us are in a deceitful country
We wandered and bitterly repent,
But why a strange smile
And we smile frozen?
We wanted stinging torment
Instead of serene happiness...
I will not leave my comrade,
And dissolute and tender.

1911
Paris

My husband whipped me...

My husband whipped me with a patterned one,
Double folded belt.
For you in the casement window
I sit with the fire all night.
It's dawning. And above the forge
Smoke rises.
Ah, with me, the sad prisoner,
You couldn't stay again.
For you I share a gloomy fate,
I took my share of the torment,
Or do you love blonde
Or is the redhead cute?
How can I hide you, loud moans!
There is dark, stuffy hop in the heart;
And the rays fall thin
On an unrumpled bed.

Autumn 1911

Heart to heart...

Heart to heart is not chained,
If you want, leave.
Much happiness is in store
To those who are free on the way.
I don't cry, I don't complain
I won't be happy!
Don't kiss me, I'm tired,
Death will come to kiss you.
The days of acute yearning are over
Together with the white winter...
Why, why are you
Better than my chosen one.

Spring 1911

Song

I'm at sunrise
I sing about love
On my knees in the garden
Swan field.
I tear it out and throw it away
(May he forgive me)
I see the girl is barefoot
Crying by the fence.
I'm at sunrise
I sing about love
On my knees in the garden
Swan field.

March 11, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

I came here...

I came here, a slacker
I don’t care where I’m bored!
A mill sleeps on a hillock,
You can remain silent here for years.
Over the dried dodder
The bee floats softly
I call the mermaid by the pond,
And the mermaid died.
Dragged with rusty mud
The pond is wide and shallow.
Over the trembling aspen
The light month began to shine.
I notice everything as new
The poplars smell damp.
I'm silent. I'm silent, I'm ready
To become you again - earth.

February 23, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

White night

Oh, I didn't lock the door,
Didn't light the candles
You don’t know how, you’re tired,
I didn't dare to lie down.
Watch the stripes fade
In the sunset darkness the pine needles,
Drunk with the sound of a voice,
Similar to yours.
And know that all is lost
That life is a damned hell!
Oh I was sure
That you will come back.

February 6, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

Under the canopy...

It's hot under the canopy of the dark barn,
I laugh, but in my heart I cry angrily,
An old friend mutters to me: “Don't croak!
May we not meet good luck along the way!”
But I don’t trust my old friend,
He is funny, blind and poor,
All his life he measured his steps
Long and boring roads.

September 24, 1911
Tsarskoe Selo

Bury me, wind...

Bury me, bury me, wind!
My family didn't come
The wandering evening is above me
And the breath of the quiet earth.
I was, like you, free,
But I wanted to live too much:
You see, the wind, my corpse is cold,
And there is no one to lay hands on.
Close this black wound
Veil of evening darkness
And led the blue fog
I need to read the psalms.
And so that it’s easy for me, lonely,
Go to the last dream,
Make a noise with the tall sedge
About spring, about my spring.

December 1909
Kyiv

Believe me...

Believe me, it’s not a sharp snake sting,
And my melancholy drank my blood.
In the white field I became a quiet girl,

The most lasting thing on earth is sadness.

A. Akhmatova

This edition includes the texts of the first five books by Anna Akhmatova, in the edition and in the order in which they first saw the light.

You will block the sun from above for me,

All the stars are in your handful.

And alone in the emptiness of the prison

The road is given to us.

Collection "White Flock"

The third book published by A. Akhmatova was “The White Flock”.

In 1916, on the eve of the release of The White Flock, Osip Mandelstam wrote in a review of the collection of poems Almanac of the Muses: “In Akhmatova’s last poems there was a turning point towards hieratic importance, religious simplicity and solemnity: I would say, after the woman, it was the wife’s turn. Remember: “a humble, shabbyly dressed, but majestic-looking wife.” The voice of renunciation is growing stronger and stronger in Akhmatova’s poems, and at present her poetry is close to becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia.”

The White Flock was published in September 1917. In all the few, due to the conditions of troubled times, reviews of the poet’s third book noted its stylistic difference from the first two.

A. L. Slonimsky saw in the poems that made up “The White Flock” a “new in-depth perception of the world,” which, in his opinion, was associated with the predominance of the spiritual principle over the “sensual” in the third book, and, according to the critic, in “ some kind of Pushkin-like view from the outside.”

Another prominent critic, K.V. Mochulsky, believes that the “sharp turning point in Akhmatov’s creativity” is associated with the poet’s close attention to the phenomena of Russian reality of 1914 - 1917: “The poet leaves far behind him the circle of intimate experiences, the comfort of the “dark blue room” , a ball of multi-colored silk of changeable moods, exquisite emotions and whimsical melodies. He becomes stricter, harsher and stronger. He goes out into the open sky - and his voice grows and gets stronger from the salty wind and steppe air. In his poetic repertoire, images of the Motherland appear, the dull rumble of war echoes, and the quiet whisper of prayer is heard.” The artistic generalization in this book is brought to typical significance.

The era of the “White Flock” marks a sharp turning point in Akhmatova’s creativity, a huge rise to pathos, a deepening of poetic motifs and complete mastery of form. The poet leaves far behind him a circle of intimate experiences, “the comfort of a dark blue room,” a ball of multi-colored silk of changeable moods, exquisite emotions and whimsical melodies. He becomes stricter, harsher and stronger. He goes out into the open sky and his voice grows and gets stronger from the salty wind and steppe air. In his poetic repertoire, images of the Motherland appear, the dull rumble of war echoes, and the quiet whisper of prayer is heard.

After the feminine grace of “Rosary” - the strict masculinity, mournful solemnity and prayerfulness of “The White Flock”. Previously, poems usually took the form of a confession or a conversation with a loved one - now they take the form of reflection or prayer. Instead of the “little things of thoughtless life”: flowers, birds, fans, perfumes, gloves - lush sayings of high style. It is in “The White Flock” that a genuine poetic style is smelted and forged from the manner of “The Rosary.” The collection reflects the heroine’s thoughts about creativity and creative gift, about the love that has always ruled her undividedly. But gone love no longer gives rise to despair and melancholy. On the contrary, out of grief and sadness songs are born that bring relief from pain. The heroine experiences a quiet, bright sadness; she thinks hopefully about the future and draws strength from her loneliness. For the sake of her country, the heroine is ready to sacrifice a lot.

Turning to the symbolism of the title, one can notice that its core components will be the words “white” and “flock”. Let's look at them one by one.

Everyone knows that colors affect our thinking and feelings. They become symbols, serve as signals that warn us, make us happy, sad, form our mentality and influence our speech. Color is one of the most elementary and at the same time significant sensations. The world of color exists independently of us, we are accustomed to being in the world of color, and nature itself spontaneously offers man all the models of color. This is what creates a clear and integral worldview in artists and writers. At the origins of culture, color was equivalent to a word; color and object were one whole

White is the color of innocence and purity. White color symbolizes purity of thoughts, sincerity, youth, innocence, and inexperience. A white vest gives the appearance sophistication, a white dress of the bride means innocence, white spots on a geographical map - ignorance and the unknown. Doctors wear white coats. A person who is attracted to the color white strives for perfection, he is constantly in search of himself. White color is a symbol of a creative, cheerful nature.

In Rus', white is the favorite color, it is the color of the “Holy Spirit”. (He descends to earth in the form of a white dove.) White color is ubiquitous in national clothes and ornaments. It is also marginal (that is, it symbolizes the transition from one state to another: death and birth again, for a new life). This is symbolized by the white dress of the bride, the white shroud of the deceased, and white snow.

But white, in addition to the joyful color, also has its sad side of meaning, since it is also the color of death. It is not for nothing that such a time of year as winter is associated with death in nature. The ground is covered with white snow, like a shroud. Whereas spring is the birth of a new life.

The symbol “white” is directly reflected in the poems of the book. Firstly, white is the color of love for A. Akhmatova, the personification of a quiet family life in the “white house”. When love becomes obsolete, the heroine leaves the “white house and quiet garden.”

“White”, as the personification of inspiration and creativity, is reflected in the following lines:

I wanted to give her a dove,

The one who is whiter than everyone else in the dovecote,

But the bird itself flew

For my slender guest.

(“The Muse Gone Along the Road”, 1915).

The white dove - a symbol of inspiration - flies away after the Muse, devoting itself to creativity.

“White” is also the color of memories, memory:

Like a white stone in the depths of a well,

One memory lies within me.

(“Like a white stone in the depths of a well”, 1916).

And go to the cemetery on memorial day

Yes, look at God's white lilacs.

(“It would be better for me to cheerfully call out ditties”, 1914).

The Day of Salvation and paradise are also designated by Akhmatova in white:

The gate has dissolved into a white paradise,

Magdalena took her son.

(“Where, high one, is your little gypsy”, 1914).

As for birds, they have always been symbols of the eternal, soul, spirit, divine manifestation, ascent to heaven, the ability to communicate with the gods or enter a higher state of consciousness, thought, imagination. The image of a bird (for example, a dove, swallow, cuckoo, swan, raven) is deeply symbolic. And this symbolism is used by A. Akhmatova. In her work, “bird” means many things: poetry, a state of mind, God’s messenger. A bird is always the personification of free life; in cages we see a pitiful semblance of birds, without seeing them soaring in the sky. It is the same in the fate of a poet: the true inner world is reflected in poems created by a free creator. But it is precisely this, freedom, that is always lacking in life. Birds rarely live alone, mostly in flocks, and a flock is something united, united, many-sided and many-voiced. If we recall the first two books (“Evening”, “Rosary”), then the main symbols will be the following: firstly, a dot (since “evening” is the personification of the beginning or, conversely, the end, a certain starting point); secondly, a line (rosary in the form of a “ruler”); thirdly, a circle (rosary beads) and, fourthly, a spiral (synthesis of line and circle). That is, these are symbols of something limited either by a given trajectory of movement, space, or time, or all at the same time. If you pay attention to the symbolism of the title of the third book of poems by A. Akhmatova, you can see that here the temporal and spatial layers are not limited by anything. There is an exit from the circle, a separation from the starting point and the intended line.

Thus, the “white flock” is an image indicating a change in the space-time continuum, assessments, and views. This image declares a position “above” everyone and everything, from a bird’s eye view.

During the period of writing the first two books, the author was included in the events of the surrounding reality, being with them in the same spatial dimension. In “The White Flock” A. Akhmatova rises above reality and, like a bird, tries to cover with her gaze a huge space and most of the history of her country; she breaks out from under the powerful shackles of earthly experiences.

Let's start analyzing the symbolism of the book's title and searching for intra-textual associations with the epigraph. It is taken from I. Annensky’s poem “Darling”:

I'm burning and the road is bright at night.

This poem is based on a plot that tells about the criminal deliverance from the fruit of extramarital love.

The line, which became an epigraph, takes on a different, generalizing meaning in the context of “The White Flock”. I. Annensky shows the personal tragedy of a person, the grief of a particular woman; for A. Akhmatova, it is the drama of a vast country, in which, it seems to her, “the voice of man” will never sound, and “only the wind of the Stone Age knocks on the black gates.”

“The White Flock” is a collection of poems of various orientations: these are civil lyrics and love poems; It also contains the theme of the poet and poetry.

The book opens with a poem on a civil theme, in which tragic notes are felt (echoes the epigraph, but on a larger scale):

We thought: we are beggars, we have nothing,

And how they began to lose one after another,

So what happened every day

On a memorial day, -

We started composing songs

About the great generosity of God

Yes about our former wealth.

(“We thought: we are beggars, we have nothing,” 1915).

An important substantive moment of “The White Flock” was, as mentioned above, a change in the poet’s aesthetic consciousness. In practice, it influenced the evolution of the character of the lyrical heroine A. Akhmatova. Individual existence in the third book merges with the life of the people and rises to their consciousness. I’m not alone, it’s not us - you and I, but we are all, we are a flock. (Compare: “Evening” - “my prayer”; “Rosary” - “my and your name”; “White flock” - “our voices”).

In “The White Flock” it is polyphony, polyphony that becomes a characteristic distinguishing feature of the poet’s lyrical consciousness. A. Akhmatova’s search was of a religious nature. It seemed to her then that she could save her soul only by sharing the fate of many “beggars.”

The theme of beggars appeared in the poetry of A. Akhmatova in the last years before the First World War. The outside world began to sound with the voices of beggars, and the heroine of her poems herself temporarily put on the mask of a beggar.

The book “The White Flock” “opens with a choral opening, demonstrating the calm triumph of the novelty of the acquired experience.” Every day is a day of war, claiming more and more victims. And the poetess perceived the war as the greatest national grief. And so, in times of trial, the choir of beggars turned into a choir of the poet’s contemporaries, all people, regardless of social class. “For Akhmatova, the most important thing in the new book is the spiritual unity of the people in the face of a terrible enemy. What wealth is the poet talking about here? Obviously, least of all about material things. Poverty is the other side of spiritual wealth." The choral “we” expresses in “The White Flock” a kind of popular point of view on what is happening around. As part of the composition of the entire book, the choir acts as an active character.

The first poem also contains a motif of death and the theme of memory. The image of death appears more clearly, with even greater force, in the poem “May Snow,” which gives rise to the third section of the book; Here you can hear the sounds of sobs and feel the mood of sadness:

A transparent veil falls

On fresh turf and melts away imperceptibly.

Cruel, icy spring

It kills engorged buds.

And early death is such a terrible sight,

That I cannot look at God’s world.

I have the sadness that King David

Royally bestowed thousands of years.

(“May Snow”, 1916).

The last lines of the poem, as well as the epigraph to it, refer us to the Holy Scriptures. The image of King David, famous for his songs to the Glory of God, appears. The epigraph to the poem “May Snow” points to the following lines from the Psalter: “I am weary with my sighs: every night I wash my bed, with my tears I wet my bed” (Psalm. Psalm VI, 7). Here we encounter the word “night” (as in the epigraph to the entire book).

Night is the time of day in which, usually, he is left to himself; he is given time to think, if he is alone, to cry over his troubles, and to rejoice at his successes. Night is also the time for secret atrocities.

In the context of A. Akhmatova’s book, as already said, grief takes on enormous proportions. But this grief is sacred, since it is predetermined by God as punishment for sins. And, perhaps, for A. Akhmatova, night is that dark, terrible path that both the country and the heroine must go through, having received a blessing.

We see that the mood of the two epigraphs determines the main tone of the mood of the heroine and the book as a whole: sadness, sorrow, doom and predestination.

In the poem “May Snow” we encounter one of the traditional interpretations of the meaning of white - it is the color of death. May is a time when nature is full of life, and a suddenly and untimely falling white “transparent veil” dooms it to death.

We find white as a symbol of light and beauty in poems dedicated to love and memories of a beloved:

I will leave your white house and quiet garden.

Let life be deserted and bright.

I will glorify you in my poems,

How a woman could not glorify.

(“I’ll leave your white house and quiet garden”, 1913).

Along with the love theme in this poem, the theme of the poet and poetry can be heard. But sometimes love comes into conflict with creativity. For A. Akhmatova, poetry, her poems are a “white bird”, a “cheerful bird”, a “white flock”. Everything for your loved one:

All for you: and daily prayer,

And the melting heat of insomnia,

And my poems are a white flock,

And my eyes are blue fire.

(“I don’t know whether you are alive or dead,” 1915).

But the lover does not share the heroine’s interests. He puts her before a choice: either love or creativity:

He was jealous, anxious and gentle,

How God's sun loved me,

And so that she doesn’t sing about the past,

He killed my white bird.

He said, entering the little room at sunset:

“Love me, laugh, write poetry!”

And I buried the funny bird

Behind the round well near the old alder tree.

(“He was jealous, anxious and tender”, 1914).

This poem sounds the motif of prohibition through permission. Having buried the “cheerful bird” A. Akhmatova, most likely, hides for some time in the depths of her soul the thirst to create, to write poetry.

She tests the hero (gives him freedom from the shackles of passion). He leaves, but returns again:

I chose my share

To the friend of my heart:

I let you go free

On his Annunciation.

Yes, the gray dove has returned,

Beats its wings against the glass.

Like the shine of a wondrous robe

It became light in the upper room.

(“I chose my share”, 1915).

The poet dresses his beloved in the plumage of a rock dove, an ordinary bird - A. Akhmatova does not idealize her beloved, he is an ordinary person.

In everyday life, the presence of birds in nature indicates that nothing disturbs its normal flow. The birds are singing - it means everything is fine, there is no trouble. When they fall silent, it means that something has either already happened or will happen soon: a misfortune, a tragedy. In this case, birds are an indicator of the normal course of life. For A. Akhmatova it sounds like this:

It smells like burning. Four weeks

The dry peat in the swamps is burning.

Even the birds didn't sing today

And the aspen no longer trembles.

(“July 1914”, 1914).

A. Akhmatova’s teacher in brevity, simplicity and authenticity of the poetic word was A. S. Pushkin throughout her life. It was he who suggested to her the image of the Muse, who would be the embodiment of Akhmatova’s consciousness. The image of the Muse runs through all her work - a friend, sister, teacher and comforter. In the poems of A. Akhmatova, the Muse is realistic; she often takes on a human form - “slender guest”, “swarthy”.

The image of the bird depends on the state of the poet’s soul, on her desires and aspirations. But sometimes it is not always fair reality, discord with a loved one that leaves its mark on it. For example:

Am I talking to you?

In the sharp cry of birds of prey,

Am I not looking into your eyes?

From white matte pages.

(“I see, I see the moon bow”, 1914).

So wounded crane

Others call: Kurly, Kurly!

When the fields are in spring

Both loose and warm...

(“So wounded crane”, 1915).

That's why it's dark in the room,

That's why my friends

Like evening, sad birds,

They sing about love that never existed.

(“I was born neither late nor early,” 1913).

A. Akhmatova’s bird is also an indicator of the heroine’s mood, the state of her soul.

A. Akhmatova in this book does not deviate from the traditional interpretation of the image of a white bird as God’s messenger, an angel with white wings:

The rays of dawn burn until midnight.

How good it is in my cramped prison!

About the most tender, about the always wonderful

God's birds speak to me.

(“Immortelle is dry and pink. Clouds”, 1916).

We don’t remember where we got married,

But this church sparkled

With that frantic radiance,

What only angels can do

Bring in white wings.

(“Let's be together, darling, together”, 1915).

For A. Akhmatova, God is the highest essence, an immovable hypostasis, to which everything is subject. And in the last poem of the book, soaring high above the earth, she proclaims this:

O. There are unique words,

Whoever said them spent too much.

Only blue is inexhaustible

Heavenly, and the mercy of God.

(“Oh, there are unique words”, 1916).

This is a poem of a philosophical nature. Having become one of the voices of the choir at the beginning of the book, by the end of its lyrical heroine A. Akhmatova unites with the entire Universe.

So, in the third book “White Flock” A. Akhmatova uses the meanings of the words “white”, “flock”, “bird” both in the traditional sense and adds meanings unique to her.

“The White Flock” is her poetry, her poems, feelings, moods poured onto paper. The white bird is a symbol of God and his messengers. A bird is an indicator of the normal course of life on earth.

“White flock” is a sign of community, connection with others.

The “white flock” is a height, a flight over the mortal earth, a craving for the Divine.