No, and not under an alien sky,
And not under the protection of alien wings -
I was then with my people,
Where my people, unfortunately, were.
1961
Instead of a preface

During the terrible years of the Yezhovshchina, I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad. Once, someone "identified" me. Then the woman standing behind me, who, of course, had never heard my name, woke up from the stupor characteristic of all of us and asked in my ear (there everyone spoke in a whisper):
- Can you describe it?
And I said
- I can.
Then something like a smile flickered across what had once been her face.

dedication

Mountains bend before this grief,
The great river does not flow
But the prison gates are strong,
And behind them "convict holes"
And deadly sadness.
For someone the fresh wind blows,
For someone, the sunset basks -
We don't know, we're the same everywhere
We hear only the hateful rattle of the keys
Yes, steps are heavy soldiers.
We got up as if for an early mass,
We walked through the wild capital,
They met there, the dead lifeless,
The sun is lower and the Neva is foggy,
And hope sings in the distance.
The verdict ... And immediately the tears will gush,
Already separated from everyone
As if life is taken out of the heart with pain,
As if rudely overturned,
But it goes... It staggers... Alone...
Where are the unwitting girlfriends now
My two crazy years?
What does it seem to them in the Siberian blizzard,
What does it seem to them in the lunar circle?
To them I send my farewell greetings.

Introduction

It was when I smiled
Only the dead, happy with peace.
And swayed with an unnecessary pendant
Near the prisons of their Leningrad.
And when, mad with torment,
There were already condemned regiments,
And a short parting song
Locomotive whistles sang,
The death stars were above us
And innocent Russia writhed
Under the bloody boots
And under the tires of black marus.

They took you away at dawn
Behind you, as if on a takeaway, I walked,
Children were crying in the dark room,
At the goddess, the candle swam.
Icons on your lips are cold,
Death sweat on the brow... Don't forget!
I will be like archery wives,
Howl under the Kremlin towers.

[November] 1935, Moscow

The quiet Don flows quietly,
The yellow moon enters the house.

Enters in a cap on one side,
Sees the yellow moon shadow.

This woman is sick
This woman is alone.

Husband in the grave, son in prison,
Pray for me.

No, it's not me, it's someone else suffering.
I couldn't do that, but what happened
Let the black cloth cover
And let them carry the lanterns ...
Night.

I would show you, mocker
And the favorite of all friends,
Tsarskoye Selo merry sinner,
What will happen to your life
Like a three hundredth, with a transmission,
Under the Crosses you will stand
And with my hot tear
New Year's ice to burn.
There the prison poplar sways,
And not a sound - but how much is there
Innocent lives are ending...

I've been screaming for seventeen months
I'm calling you home
I threw myself at the feet of the executioner,
You are my son and my horror.
Everything is messed up,
And I can't make out
Now who is the beast, who is the man,
And how long to wait for the execution.
And only dusty flowers
And the ringing of the censer, and traces
Somewhere to nowhere
And looks straight into my eyes
And threatened with imminent death
Huge star.

Easy weeks fly
What happened, I don't understand.
How do you, son, go to jail
White nights looked
How do they look again?
With a hawk's hot eye,
About your high cross
And they talk about death.

Spring 1939

Sentence

And the stone word fell
On my still living chest.
Nothing, because I was ready
I'll deal with it somehow.

I have a lot to do today:
We must kill the memory to the end,
It is necessary that the soul turned to stone,
We must learn to live again.

But not that ... The hot rustle of summer,
Like a holiday outside my window.
I've been anticipating this for a long time.
Bright day and empty house.

To death

You will come anyway - why not now?
I'm waiting for you - it's very difficult for me.
I turned off the light and opened the door
You, so simple and wonderful.
Take any form for this,
Break in with a poisoned projectile
Or sneak up with a weight like an experienced bandit,
Or poison with a typhoid child.
Or a fairy tale invented by you
And everyone is sickeningly familiar, -
So that I can see the top of the blue hat
And the house manager, pale with fear.
I don't care now. The Yenisei swirls
The polar star is shining.
And the blue sparkle of beloved eyes
The last horror covers.

Already madness wing
Soul covered half
And drink fiery wine
And beckons to the black valley.

And I realized that he
I must give up the victory
Listening to your
Already as if someone else's delirium.

And won't let anything
I take it with me
(No matter how you ask him
And no matter how you bother with a prayer):

Not a son of terrible eyes -
petrified suffering,
Not the day when the storm came
Not an hour of prison rendezvous,

Not the sweet coolness of hands,
Not linden agitated shadows,
Not a distant light sound -
Words of last consolation.

crucifixion

Do not cry for me, Mati,
in the tomb of the seer.
___

The choir of angels glorified the great hour,
And the heavens went up in flames.
Father said: "Almost left me!"
And mothers: "Oh, don't cry for me..."

Magdalene fought and sobbed,
The beloved student turned to stone,
And to where silently Mother stood,
So no one dared to look.

1940, Fountain House

Epilogue

I learned how faces fall,
How fear peeks out from under the eyelids,
Like cuneiform hard pages
Suffering brings out on the cheeks,
Like curls of ashen and black
Suddenly become silver
The smile withers on the lips of the submissive,
And fear trembles in a dry laugh.
And I'm not praying for myself alone
And about everyone who stood there with me,
And in the bitter cold, and in the July heat
Under the blinding red wall.

Again the funeral hour approached.
I see, I hear, I feel you:

And the one that was barely brought to the window,
And the one that does not trample the earth, dear,

And the one that beautifully shook her head,
She said: "I come here as if I were home."

I would like to name everyone
Yes, the list was taken away, and there is nowhere to find out.

For them I wove a wide cover
Of the poor, they have overheard words.

I remember them always and everywhere,
I will not forget about them even in a new trouble,

And if my exhausted mouth is clamped,
With which a hundred million people shout,

May they also remember me
On the eve of my memorial day.

And if ever in this country
They will erect a monument to me,

I give my consent to this triumph,
But only with the condition - do not put it

Not near the sea where I was born:
The last connection with the sea is broken,

Not in the royal garden at the treasured stump,
Where the inconsolable shadow is looking for me,

And here, where I stood for three hundred hours
And where the bolt was not opened for me.

Then, as in blissful death I fear
Forget the rumble of black marus,

Forget how hateful the door slammed
And the old woman howled like a wounded animal.

And let from motionless and bronze eyelids
Like tears, melted snow flows,

And let the prison dove roam in the distance,
And the ships are quietly moving along the Neva.

About Anna Akhmatova's poem: "Requiem".

"Requiem" - one of the largest works of Akhmatova - a poem - was written in 1935-1940. It is the 40th year that the epilogue, the last part of the poem, is dated. But "Requiem" came to the reader only in the second half of the 50s, since in 1946 Akhmatova was severely criticized by officials and excommunicated from literature for a long time. It is possible that the Requiem and the events on which it was based were also to blame for this excommunication.

Akhmatova's husband was accused of participating in an anti-government conspiracy and shot by sentence near Petrograd in 1921. The poem "Requiem" reflects the feelings that Akhmatova experienced after losing a loved one. And although the events described in the "Requiem" refer to the 30s, they sound pain and grief experienced by the poetess herself.

According to the composition, "Requiem" by Akhmatova is most likely a poem. Separate poems are united by one idea - a protest against violence. The "Requiem" reflected not only the feelings and experiences of Akhmatova herself, not only the grief of those who were cut off from their loved ones and imprisoned in prison cells, but also the pain of those women, those wives and mothers whom Akhmatova saw in terrible prison lines. It is to these suffering women that the initiation is addressed. It sounds longing from a sudden separation, when a woman stricken with grief feels torn off, cut off from the whole world with its joys and worries.

In the introduction of the poem, a vivid, ruthless characterization of time is given. In the first chapters, the boundless, deep abyss of human grief was reflected. It seems that these lines echo the lamentation of Yaroslavna, grieving both for her beloved and for all Russian soldiers.

Akhmatova's poetry is the testimony of a man who went through all the trials that the "age-wolf" doomed her to, evidence of how terrible and unfair the desire of a handful of people to destroy the natural foundations of human existence, something that has evolved in the world for centuries. But at the same time, it is also evidence that living life, the present, the eternal in people cannot be destroyed. And perhaps that is why the poetry of A. Akhmatova is so important and so significant for us.

In the poem "Requiem" Anna Akhmatova builds her experiences into the context of the era. No wonder the poem begins like this:

No, and not under an alien sky,
And not under the protection of alien wings -
I was then with my people,
Where my people, unfortunately, were.
This was the final choice of the poetess.

“The time was apocalyptic,” Akhmatova later wrote about this, saying that, even giving books to friends, she did not sign some, since at any moment such a signature could become evidence, and in “Requiem about those terrible years it was said:

The death stars shone above us

And innocent Russia writhed

Under the bloody boots

And under the tires of the black "Marus".

There was only one way to preserve such poems in a house where search after search was going on, in a city where one apartment after another was empty: not to trust them on paper, but to keep them only in memory. Akhmatova did just that. Until 1962, she did not write down a single such line on paper for more than a few minutes: sometimes she wrote down one or another fragment on a piece of paper in order to introduce one of her closest and most reliable friends to it. Akhmatova did not dare to pronounce such lines aloud: she felt that "the walls had ears." After the silent interlocutor memorized them, the manuscript was put on fire. In one of the poems, we can read how she herself tells about this mournful rite:

... I am not a mother to poetry -

She was a stepmother.

Oh, white paper

The lines are even!

How many times have I looked

How they burn.

Gossip mutilated,

Bats with a flail,

labeled, labeled

Hard labor brand.

But the difficulties and dangers associated with the poem for Akhmatova were not reasons not to bring the work to life. Like her own child, she bore the poem under her heart, putting feelings, pain, experiences, losses into it ... I. Erokhina, in her article on the Requiem, recalls the fact that “almost 20 years later, by the cycle of 1935-1940, Akhmatova writes prose "Instead of a preface." It is dated April 1, 1957, but most likely written later: in Akhmatova’s notebooks of 1959-1960, we can twice find the outline of the Requiem cycle, but none of them contain a preface.” And at the same time, the author of the article notes that Requiem was then still conceived precisely as a cycle of 14 poems; "Epilogue" was only the name of one of them, and not a structural and semantic part of the whole: in one of the plans of the cycle, this poem goes at number 12, followed by "Crucifixion" and "Sentence". Yermolova wonders why April 1, 1957, and immediately ventured to suggest that this emphasized the retrospective look - the poet was able to fulfill the “order” after everything: on May 15, 1956, Lev Gumilyov returned from prison (perhaps this is also some kind of funeral date, "again the hour of the memorial approached").

So, for almost two decades, lyrical fragments arose that seemed to have little connection with each other. Until March 1960, the plot interconnection of these "excerpts" was not realized. And only when Akhmatova wrote the Prologue ("Initiation" and "Introduction") and the two-part Epilogue, "Requiem" was formally completed. The main body of texts of the Requiem (prologue; 10 separate fragments, partially titled, and an epilogue) was created from the autumn of 1935 to the spring of 1940. Even later, during the period of the “thaw”, when, apparently, the hope for the publication of the work flickered (in reality it did not take place), important additions were written to the main text: “Instead of a preface” (April 1, 1957) and 4 lines of the epigraph (1961 .) .

External structure and inner world of "Requiem"

There are times in history when only poetry is able to cope with reality, incomprehensible to the simple human mind, to fit it into a finite framework.

I. Brodsky

The history of the creation of the work is undoubtedly important for the study of the poem itself, since it is closely connected with the life of Akhmatova. "Requiem" repeats a certain fragment of life in miniature, meaning the main events. This can be seen by comparing the biography of the poet and the work. Here is how I. Erokhina does it in her article:

“October 22, 1935 - the first arrest of L. Gumilyov and M. Punin (“They took you away at dawn”, November 1935, Moscow);

March 10, 1938 - Gumilev's second arrest, investigation; all other poems are dated 1938-1939. ("Sentence" June 22, 1939, Fountain House).

July 22, 1939 - L. Gumilyov was sentenced to 5 years in the ITL, in mid-August 1939 he was sent to this ("To death", August 19, 1939, Fountain House).

and S.I. Kormilov also points to a very close connection between the poem and the life of the poet: “Requiem is one of the most autobiographical works of Akhmatova. Already in the epigraph from his own poem of 1961 there are pronouns “I” and “my” (used twice), but in both cases “my” is the people. "Requiem" is both the most generalized in content and the most universally significant Akhmatov's work.

But let's move on from generalized facts to the direct structure of the Requiem. As mentioned above, the poem consists of separate passages, parts-poems that live their own lives, if you do not know that these are elements of one whole, as the author showed us only some time after their creation.

Still, according to Kormilov, the composition of the "Requiem" is also unique. Kormilov notes that in no other work or cycle does the frame make up half of the text. Meanwhile, in the ten poem-chapters of the "Requiem" there are a total of one hundred verses, and in the auto-epigraph, "Dedication", "Introduction" and the two-part "Epilogue" 87 verses, "Instead of an introduction" plays the role of a poem in prose, all together - about 100 lines , which, taking into account the relatively long size of the "Epilogue" (iambic pentameter and amphibrach tetrameter), is approximately equal to the "Basic" text. It is difficult for Akhmatova to start talking about what has affected her personally, but it is difficult to end only with her personal pain. Although the emphasis of the frame is relative, it says more about the general than about its own.

The main character of "Requiem" is a mother from whom some faceless forces (the state and life) take away her son, depriving him of his freedom and, perhaps, his life. The work is built as a dialogue between a mother and fate, that is, irreversible circumstances independent of human capabilities. Erokhina writes that the main idea of ​​the Epilogue is the thought of memory, which closes time in a single ring and in this opposes its original linearity: “The hour of the memorial has come again…”.

The past is experienced today... now... as once... and as it will be more than once... always...

The cyclicity is emphasized by the repetition: “I see, I hear, I feel you…” and anaphoras:

“And the one that was barely brought to the window,

And the one that does not trample the earth, dear,

And the one that...

……………………….

Forget the rumble of black Marus,

Forget how hateful the door slammed…”

The memorial hour is the point of connection of souls, one and all (“I remember them always and everywhere” - “Let them also remember me ...”) of the living and the departed. L.M. Yelnitskaya ("Encyclopedia of World Literature") identifies several plans of content in the "Requiem". First of all, the poem contains indications of modernity - that era when "Leningrad dangled like an unnecessary pendant / Near its prisons." The plot of the arrest, conviction and exile of the son is built, in which everything is real and recognizable:

“They took you away at dawn, / They followed you as if on a takeaway ...”.

The arrest scene is metaphorically conceived as an element of the funeral rite - the removal of the body of the deceased.

2nd plan: generalized folklore, characterized by the destruction of a concrete historical situation and its elevation to an invariable archetypal model. The peculiarity of the author's personal biography: "The husband is in the grave, the son is in the grave" - ​​appears as eternal in Russian history. The poem reveals the inner world of a Russian mother, who at all times goes through the suffering of deprivation and abandonment, through despair, the desire for death, and finally - madness. Personal motives are woven into the generalized plot (for example, the opposition of the “Tsarsko-selskoe merry sinner” - Akhmatova of the 30s standing under the walls of the prison “three hundred, with a transfer” and the hope of learning something about the fate of her son). Such details, however, do not serve to individualize the image, the author, but only put him in the general series of human destinies of that era.

Finally, the 3rd plan of content is connected with the biblical myth: the “son of man” being led away to perish is identified with Jesus Christ. The Mother of God is with an earthly woman, the heroine of the poem. The scene of the crucifixion, in which the direct words of Christ at the moment of execution are quoted, is freely interpreted by the author and serves to “elevate” the mass tragedy of the time of the “Great Terror” to the highest tragedy of the human race.

The structure of the "Requiem" is determined by the movement of the author, brought up by the culture of the "middle century", towards catholicity, towards the merging of his life with the fate of the people, which is stated in the Epigraph: "I was then with my people, / Where my people unfortunately were » .

Genre "Requiem"

I agree with L.M. Yelnitskaya, N. Leiderman and other critics who consider the question of the genre of "Requiem" controversial. Here is how N. Leiderman in his article “The Time and Greatness of Sorrow” describes the situation around this issue: “Different opinions are expressed about the genre of Akhmatov's Requiem. Some researchers call "Requiem" a lyrical cycle, others object ("Requiem" is not an ordinary cycle of poems, but rather a poem with a huge epic scope), others prefer to get away from genre definitions, replacing them with an indefinite designation - "some organic whole". However, neither one, nor the other, nor the third do not give any serious arguments in favor of their point of view. But the problem of the genre is by no means a formal matter: it is a question about the type of image of the world that unites all the components of the work into a single artistic whole, which means that the sensation (or recognition) of the genre provides the key to the system of conventions that forms the image of the world and makes it plastically tangible. and visible author's concept.

L.M. Elnitskaya, however, believes that the tendency to see a poem in the Requiem is more stable and refers to E. Etkind, who, analyzing the composition of the work, came to the conclusion that the Requiem was carefully thought out in general and in detail. "Requiem" is subject to the law of symmetry: nothing can be added or taken away without violating the proportionality of the parts and their balance. According to the researcher, "Requiem" most of all approaches "The Twelve" by A.A. Blok. Akhmatova, like her older contemporary, also follows the principle of montage of individual lyric poems in a lyric poem.

Yes, this graceful lady from "The Stray Dog" had to drink a cup, perhaps bitterer than all of us, in these truly "Cursed Days" (Bunin)... ”, but Fate brought her an estimate of the Crucifixion. Could it have been imagined then, in this Stray Dog, that this fragile and thin woman would utter such a cry - feminine, maternal, a cry not only about herself, but also about all those who suffer - wives, mothers, brides, in general about all those who are crucified?<…>

Where did the masculine strength of the verse come from, its simplicity, the thunder of words, as if ordinary, but buzzing with a death bell ringing, smashing the human heart and arousing artistic admiration? Truly, "volumes are much heavier." Written twenty years ago. The silent verdict on atrocities will forever remain. (Paris, 1964)

“The greatness of these 23 pages” is amazingly accurately defined by Boris Zaitsev, which finally approved the title of a truly national poet for Akhmatova.

The few of her contemporaries who were lucky enough to hear it performed by the author told her about the nationality of the Requiem. A.A. Akhmatova extremely valued this opinion, in her diaries there is such an entry: “December 13, 1962 (Ordynka). Gave to read "R . Almost everyone has the same reaction. I have never heard such words about my poems. (Folk.) And all kinds of people speak.

In Russia, "Requiem" was fully published only in 1987 in the magazines "October" No. 3, "Neva" No. 6. Several editions of her works, including the poem "Requiem" . Currently, the poem is included in the school curriculum.

1.2 Analysis of the poem "Requiem"

Poem is both a lyrical diary, and an agitated eyewitness account of the era, and a work of great artistic power, deep in content. Over the years, a person becomes wiser, perceives the past more sharply, observes the present with pain. So Akhmatova's poetry became deeper over the years, I would say - sharper, more vulnerable. The poetess thought a lot about the ways of her generation, and the result of her thoughts is the Requiem. In a small poem, one can, and indeed should, peer into every line, experience every poetic image.

First of all, what does the title of the poem mean?

The very word "requiem" (in Akhmatova's notebooks - Latin Requiem) means "departure mass" - a Catholic service for the dead, as well as a mourning piece of music. The Latin name of the poem, as well as the fact that in the 1930s - 1940s. Akhmatova was seriously engaged in the study of the life and work of Mozart, in particular his "Requiem'a", suggests the connection of Akhmatova's work with the musical form of the requiem. By the way, there are 12 parts in Mozart's Requiem, and the same number in Akhmatova's poem (10 chapters + Dedication and Epilogue).

« Epigraph" and "Instead of a Preface"- original semantic and musical keys of the work. " epigraph" the lines (from the poem of 1961 “So it was not in vain that we had troubles together ...”), which, in essence, are a recognition of complicity in all the disasters of our native country, were added to the poem. Akhmatova honestly admits that her whole life was closely connected with the fate of her native country, even in the most terrible periods:

No, and not under an alien sky,

And not under the protection of alien wings -

I was then with my people,

Where my people, unfortunately, were.

These lines were written much later than the poem itself. They are dated 1961. Already retrospectively, recalling the events of past years, Anna Andreevna is re-aware of those phenomena that drew a line in people's lives, separating a normal, happy life and a terrible inhuman reality.

The poem "Requiem" is short enough, but what a strong effect it has on the reader! It is impossible to read this work indifferently, the grief and pain of a person with whom terrible events have occurred make one accurately imagine the whole tragedy of the situation.

"Instead of a Preface"(1957), picking up the theme " my people", takes us to " then”- the prison line of Leningrad in the 30s. Akhmatov's "Requiem", like Mozart's, was written "on order"; but in the role of "customer" - "a hundred millionth people." Lyrical and epic the poem is merged together: talking about her grief, Akhmatova speaks on behalf of millions of "nameless"; behind her author's "I" is the "we" of all those whose only creativity was life itself.

The poem "Requiem" consists of several parts. Each part carries its own emotional and semantic load.

"Dedication" continues the theme of prose "Instead of a Preface". But the scale of the described events changes:

Mountains bend before this grief,

The great river does not flow

But the prison gates are strong,

And behind them "convict holes"

And deadly sadness.

The first four verses of the poem, as it were, outline the coordinates of time and space. Time is no more, it has stopped (“the great river does not flow”);

“The wind is blowing fresh” and “the sunset is basking” - “for someone”, but no longer for us. The rhyme "mountains - burrows" forms a spatial vertical: "involuntary girlfriends" found themselves between heaven ("mountains") and the underworld ("burrows", where their relatives and friends are tormented), in earthly hell.

"Dedication" is a description of the feelings and experiences of people who spend all their time in prison lines. The poetess speaks of "mortal anguish", of hopelessness, of the absence of even the slightest hope of changing the current situation. The whole life of people now depended on the sentence that would be pronounced on a loved one. This sentence forever separates the convict's family from normal people. Akhmatova finds amazing figurative means to convey her state and others:

For someone the fresh wind blows,

For someone, the sunset basks -

We don't know, we're the same everywhere

We hear only hateful rattle of keys

Yes, the steps are heavy soldiers.

There are still echoes of Pushkin-Decembrist motifs, a call in common with a clearly bookish tradition. It's more of a poetic declaration of grief than grief itself. But a few more lines - and we are immersed in a direct feeling of grief - an elusive-all-encompassing element. This grief, dissolved in everyday life, in everyday life. And from the boring prosaic nature of grief, the consciousness of the ineradicability and incurability of this misfortune, which has covered life with a dense veil, grows:

We got up as if for an early mass,

We walked through the wild capital,

We met there, the dead lifeless,

The sun is lower and the Neva is foggy,

And hope still sings in the distance.

“Fresh wind”, “sunset” - all this is a kind of personification of happiness, freedom, which are no longer available to those languishing in prison lines and those behind bars:

The verdict ... And immediately the tears will gush,

Already separated from everyone

As if life is taken out of the heart with pain,

As if rudely overturned,

But it goes... It staggers... Alone.

Where are the unwitting girlfriends now

My two crazy years?

What does it seem to them in the Siberian blizzard,

What does it seem to them in the lunar circle?

To them I send my farewell greetings.

Only after the heroine gives the "involuntary girlfriends" of her "rabid years" "farewell greetings", begins "Introduction" in a requiem poem. The extreme expressiveness of images, the hopelessness of pain, harsh and gloomy colors amaze with stinginess and restraint. Everything is very specific and at the same time as generalized as possible: it is addressed to everyone and everyone, to the country, its people and to the lonely suffering, to the human individuality. The gloomy, cruel picture that appears before the reader's mind evokes associations with the Apocalypse - both in terms of the scale of universal suffering, and in terms of the feeling of the “last times” that have come, after which either death or the Last Judgment is possible:

It was when I smiled

Only the dead, I am glad for peace.

And dangled with an unnecessary pendant

Near the prisons of their Leningrad.

And when, mad with torment,

There were already condemned regiments,

And a short parting song

The locomotive horns sang.

The death stars were above us.

And innocent Russia writhed

Under the bloody boots

And under the tires of "black marus".

How sad that a talented person had to face all the hardships of a monstrous totalitarian regime. The great country of Russia allowed such a mockery of itself, why? All lines of Akhmatova's work contain this question. And when reading the poem, it becomes harder and harder to think about the tragic fate of innocent people.

The motif of the "wild capital" and "rabid years" "Dedications" in "Introduction" embodied in the image of great poetic power and accuracy.

Russia is crushed, destroyed. The poetess from the bottom of her heart pities her native country, which is completely defenseless, mourns for her. How do you deal with what happened? What words to find? Something terrible can happen in a person's soul, and there is no escape from it.

In Akhmatov's "Requiem" there is a constant shift of plans: from the general - to the particular and concrete, from the horizon of many, all - to the horizon of one. This achieves a striking effect: both the wide and narrow grasp of eerie reality complement each other, interpenetrate, combine. And, as it were, at all levels of reality - one incessant nightmare. So, after the initial part "Intros"(“It was when I was smiling…”), majestic, looking at the scene from some superstellar cosmic height (from which Leningrad is visible - a kind of giant swinging pendulum;

REQUIEM

(1935-1940)

<Эпиграф>

"You cannot leave your mother an orphan.

No, and not under an alien sky,
And not under the protection of alien wings, -
I was then with my people,
Where my people, unfortunately, were.

INSTEAD OF FOREWORD

During the terrible years of the Yezhovshchina, I spent seventeen months in prison queues in Leningrad.
Somehow, someone "recognized" me. Then the blue-lipped woman standing behind me
who, of course, had never heard my name in her life, woke up from a peculiar
we were all stunned and asked in my ear (there everyone spoke in a whisper):

Can you describe this?

And I said

Then something like a smile flickered across what had once been her face.

DEDICATION

Mountains bend before this grief,
The great river does not flow
But the prison gates are strong,
And behind them "convict holes"
And deadly sadness.
For someone the fresh wind blows,
For someone, the sunset basks -
We don't know, we're the same everywhere
We hear only the hateful rattle of the keys
Yes, steps are heavy soldiers.
We got up like it was early lunchtime.
We walked through the wild capital,
They met there, the dead lifeless,
The sun is lower and the Neva is more foggy,
And hope sings in the distance.
Sentence. And immediately the tears will flow
Already separated from everyone
As if life is taken out of the heart with pain,
As if rudely overturned,
But she walks... staggers... alone...
Where are the unwitting girlfriends now
My two crazy years?
What does it seem to them in the Siberian blizzard,
What does it seem to them in the lunar circle?
To them I send my farewell greetings.

March 1940

INTRODUCTION

It was when I smiled
Only the dead, happy with peace.
And dangled with an unnecessary pendant
Near the prisons of their Leningrad.
And when, mad with torment,
There were already condemned regiments,
And a short parting song
The locomotive horns sang.
The death stars were above us
And innocent Russia writhed
Under the bloody boots
And under the tires of black marus.

I.<Уводили тебя на рассвете...>

They took you away at dawn
Behind you, as if on a takeaway, I walked,
Children were crying in the dark room,
At the goddess, the candle swam.
Icons on your lips are cold.
Death sweat on the brow ... do not forget!
I will be like archery wives,
Howl under the Kremlin towers.

II.<Тихо льется тихий Дон...>

The quiet Don flows quietly,
The yellow moon enters the house.

Enters in a cap on one side,
Sees the yellow moon shadow.

This woman is sick
This woman is alone

Husband in the grave, son in prison,
Pray for me.

III.<Нет, это не я, это кто-то другой страдает...>

No, it's not me, it's someone else suffering.
I couldn't do that, but what happened
Let the black cloth cover
And let them take the lanterns.
Night.

IV.<Показать бы тебе, насмешнице...>

I would show you, mocker
And the favorite of all friends,
Tsarskoye Selo merry sinner,
What happened to your life.
Like a three hundredth, with a transmission,
Under the Crosses you will stand
And with my hot tear
New Year's ice to burn.
There the prison poplar sways,
And not a sound. How much is there
Innocent lives are ending...

v.<Семнадцать месяцев кричу...>

I've been screaming for seventeen months
I'm calling you home.
I threw myself at the feet of the executioner -
You are my son and my horror.
Everything is messed up,
And I can't make out
Now who is the beast, who is the man,
And how long to wait for the execution.
And only lush flowers,
And the ringing of the censer, and traces
Somewhere to nowhere
And looks straight into my eyes
And threatened with imminent death
Huge star.

VI.<Легкие летят недели...>

Easy weeks fly
What happened, I don't understand.
How do you, son, go to jail
White nights looked
How do they look again?
With a hawk's hot eye,
About your high cross
And they talk about death.

Vii. SENTENCE

And the stone word fell
On my still living chest.
Nothing, because I was ready
I'll deal with it somehow.
I have a lot to do today:

We must kill the memory to the end,
It is necessary that the soul turned to stone,
We must learn to live again.
But not that ... The hot rustle of summer,
Like a holiday outside my window.
I've been anticipating this for a long time.
Bright day and empty house.

1939. Summer

VIII. TO DEATH

You will still come. Why not now?
I'm waiting for you. It's very hard for me.
I turned off the light and opened the door
You, so simple and wonderful.
Take any form for this,
Break in with a poisoned projectile
Or sneak up with a weight like an experienced bandit,
Or poison with a typhoid child,
Or a fairy tale invented by you
And everyone is sickeningly familiar, -
So that I can see the top of the blue hat
And the house manager, pale with fear.
I don't care now. The Yenisei is flowing
The polar star shines.
And the blue sparkle of beloved eyes
The final horror eclipses.

IX.<Уже безумие крылом...>

Already madness wing
Soul covered half
And drink fiery wine
And beckons to the black valley.
And I realized that he
I must give up the victory
Listening to your
Already as if someone else's delirium.
And won't let anything
I take it with me
(No matter how you ask him
And no matter how you bother with a prayer):
Not a son of terrible eyes -
petrified suffering -
Not the day when the storm came
Not an hour of prison rendezvous,
Not the sweet coolness of hands,
Not linden agitated shadows,
Not a distant light sound -
Words of last consolation.

X. CRUCIFICATION

"Do not cry to Me, Mati,
in the grave they are sighted.
1

The choir of angels glorified the great hour,
And the heavens went up in flames.
He said to his father: “Why did you leave me?”
And Mother: “Oh, don’t cry for Me…”

Magdalene fought and sobbed,
The beloved student turned to stone,
And to where silently Mother stood,
So no one dared to look.

And the one that does not trample the earth, dear,
And the one that beautifully shook her head,
She said: "I come here as if I were home."
I would like to name everyone
Yes, the list was taken away, and there is nowhere to find out.
For them I wove a wide cover
Of the poor, they have overheard words.
I remember them always and everywhere,
I will not forget about them even in a new trouble,
And if my exhausted mouth is clamped,
With which a hundred million people shout,
May they also remember me
On the eve of my funeral day.
And if ever in this country
They will erect a monument to me,
I give my consent to this triumph,
But only with the condition: do not put it
Not near the sea where I was born
(The last connection with the sea is broken),
Not in the royal garden at the treasured stump,
Where the inconsolable shadow is looking for me,
And here, where I stood for three hundred hours
And where the bolt was not opened for me.
Then, as in blissful death I fear
Forget the rumble of black marus,
Forget how hateful the door slammed
And the old woman howled like a wounded animal.
And let from motionless and bronze eyelids
Like tears flowing melted snow,
And let the prison dove roam in the distance,
And the ships are quietly moving along the Neva.

Fountain House

dedication

Mountains bend before this grief,
The great river does not flow
But the prison gates are strong,
And behind them "convict holes"
And deadly sadness.
For someone the fresh wind blows,
For someone, the sunset basks -
We don't know, we're the same everywhere
We hear only the hateful rattle of the keys
Yes, steps are heavy soldiers.
We got up as if for an early mass,
We walked through the wild capital,
They met there, the dead lifeless,
The sun is lower and the Neva is foggy,
And hope sings in the distance.
The verdict ... And immediately the tears will gush,
Already separated from everyone
As if life is taken out of the heart with pain,
As if rudely overturned,
But it goes on... It staggers... Alone...
Where are the unwitting girlfriends now
My two crazy years?
What does it seem to them in the Siberian blizzard,
What does it seem to them in the lunar circle?
To them I send my farewell greetings.

Introduction

It was when I smiled
Only the dead, happy with peace.
And swayed with an unnecessary pendant
Near the prisons of their Leningrad.
And when, mad with torment,
There were already condemned regiments,
And a short parting song
Locomotive whistles sang,
The death stars were above us
And innocent Russia writhed
Under the bloody boots
And under the tires of black marus.

They took you away at dawn
Behind you, as if on a takeaway, I walked,
Children were crying in the dark room,
At the goddess, the candle swam.
Icons on your lips are cold,
Death sweat on the brow... Don't forget!
I will be like archery wives,
Howl under the Kremlin towers.

The quiet Don flows quietly,
The yellow moon enters the house.

Enters in a cap on one side,
Sees the yellow moon shadow.

This woman is sick
This woman is alone.

Husband in the grave, son in prison,
Pray for me.

No, it's not me, it's someone else suffering.
I couldn't do that, but what happened
Let the black cloth cover
And let them carry the lanterns ...
Night.

I would show you, mocker
And the favorite of all friends,
Tsarskoye Selo merry sinner,
What will happen to your life
Like a three hundredth, with a transmission,
Under the Crosses you will stand
And with my hot tear
New Year's ice to burn.
There the prison poplar sways,
And not a sound - but how much is there
Innocent lives are ending...

I've been screaming for seventeen months
I'm calling you home
I threw myself at the feet of the executioner,
You are my son and my horror.
Everything is messed up,
And I can't make out
Now who is the beast, who is the man,
And how long to wait for the execution.
And only dusty flowers
And the ringing of the censer, and traces
Somewhere to nowhere
And looks straight into my eyes
And threatened with imminent death
Huge star.

Easy weeks fly
What happened, I don't understand.
How do you, son, go to jail
White nights looked
How do they look again?
With a hawk's hot eye,
About your high cross
And they talk about death.

Sentence

And the stone word fell
On my still living chest.
Nothing, because I was ready
I'll deal with it somehow.

I have a lot to do today:
We must kill the memory to the end,
It is necessary that the soul turned to stone,
We must learn to live again.

But not that ... The hot rustle of summer,
Like a holiday outside my window.
I've been anticipating this for a long time.
Bright day and empty house.

To death

You will come anyway - why not now?
I'm waiting for you - it's very difficult for me.
I turned off the light and opened the door
You, so simple and wonderful.
Take any form for this,
Break in with a poisoned projectile
Or sneak up with a weight like an experienced bandit,
Or poison with a typhoid child.
Or a fairy tale invented by you
And everyone is sickeningly familiar, -
So that I can see the top of the blue hat
And the house manager, pale with fear.
I don't care now. The Yenisei swirls
The polar star is shining.
And the blue sparkle of beloved eyes
The last horror covers.

Already madness wing
Soul covered half
And drink fiery wine
And beckons to the black valley.

And I realized that he
I must give up the victory
Listening to your
Already as if someone else's delirium.

And won't let anything
I take it with me
(No matter how you ask him
And no matter how you bother with a prayer):

Not a son of terrible eyes -
petrified suffering,
Not the day when the storm came
Not an hour of prison rendezvous,

Not the sweet coolness of hands,
Not linden agitated shadows,
Not a distant light sound -
Words of last consolation.

crucifixion

Do not cry for me, Mati,
in the tomb of the seer.

The choir of angels glorified the great hour,
And the heavens went up in flames.
He said to his father: “Almost left me!”
And Mother: “Oh, don’t cry for Me…”

Magdalene fought and sobbed,
The beloved student turned to stone,
And to where silently Mother stood,
So no one dared to look.

Epilogue

I learned how faces fall,
How fear peeks out from under the eyelids,
Like cuneiform hard pages
Suffering brings out on the cheeks,
Like curls of ashen and black
Suddenly become silver
The smile withers on the lips of the submissive,
And fear trembles in a dry laugh.
And I'm not praying for myself alone
And about everyone who stood there with me,
And in the bitter cold, and in the July heat
Under the blinding red wall.

Again the funeral hour approached.
I see, I hear, I feel you:

And the one that was barely brought to the window,
And the one that does not trample the earth, dear,

And the one that beautifully shook her head,
She said: "I come here as if I were home."

I would like to name everyone
Yes, the list was taken away, and there is nowhere to find out.

For them I wove a wide cover
Of the poor, they have overheard words.

I remember them always and everywhere,
I will not forget about them even in a new trouble,

And if my exhausted mouth is clamped,
With which a hundred million people shout,

May they also remember me
On the eve of my memorial day.

And if ever in this country
They will erect a monument to me,

I give my consent to this triumph,
But only with a condition - do not put it

Not near the sea where I was born:
The last connection with the sea is broken,

Not in the royal garden at the treasured stump,
Where the inconsolable shadow is looking for me,

And here, where I stood for three hundred hours
And where the bolt was not opened for me.

Then, as in blissful death I fear
Forget the rumble of black marus,

Forget how hateful the door slammed
And the old woman howled like a wounded animal.

And let from motionless and bronze eyelids
Like tears, melted snow flows,

And let the prison dove roam in the distance,
And the ships are quietly moving along the Neva.

Analysis of the poem "Requiem" by Akhmatova

A lot of scientific research has been written about the terrible period of Stalinist repressions. Many works of art are dedicated to him. Among them, the most vivid are the personal memories and impressions of direct witnesses of these events. A. Akhmatova felt all the pain and fear produced by this "bloody meat grinder". The poem "Requiem" conveys all the horror of those years through the personal experience of the poetess.

The poem has been in the making for a long time. The introduction and the first part were written in 1935, immediately after the first arrest of Akhmatova's only son, Lev. The poetess, with the help of Pasternak, wrote a letter to Stalin personally and achieved the release of her son, but the punitive authorities did not leave them alone. In 1938 there was a second arrest. This time, Akhmatova's humiliating plea did not bring results. Leo was sentenced to exile in Siberian camps. For two years, the poetess continued to create a poem that became her intimate diary, reflecting all feelings and experiences. In conditions of total control, Akhmatova did not dare to write down a poem. She memorized the lines and read them only to the closest people.

The plot of the poem "Requiem" is based on the presence of Akhmatova in the prison queue. In such queues, she spent almost a year and a half. In this humiliated expectation, there were many mothers and wives thrown out of society for the fabricated crimes of their men. In the preface to the poem, Akhmatova recalls that a woman recognized her in line and asked her to describe what was happening.

In the “Dedication”, which precedes the poem, the poetess describes her grief, as heavy as a stone, that seized her soul immediately after the verdict was passed. She greets her "involuntary friends" in the prison queue, who are now bound forever by a common misfortune.

"Requiem" has no clear chronology. Separate parts are marked with dates, but they are inconsistent. It doesn't play a big role. Two terrible years are perceived as a holistic picture of a personal tragedy against the backdrop of nationwide grief. Some of the main motives of the work can be identified.

Akhmatova emphasizes the enormous scale of repression through the number (“convicted regiments”) and historical parallels (“Rus writhed”, “streltsy wives”). The poetess uses religious symbolism. In the country of victorious atheism, faith acts as another victim of the regime. A part of the poem "The Crucifixion" is completely devoted to this, in which the suffering of all mothers is touchingly compared with the grief of the Virgin.

By the end of the poem, the motif of doom, the impossibility of any resistance, is growing. Akhmatova sees salvation only in death, but she suspects that it will not give the final deliverance from the all-consuming fear. The poetess believes that the best recognition of her services to Russian poetry will be a monument near the prison walls, which will be an eternal reminder to those living of that terrible and merciless time.