Without Gloss: Unusual Facts About Anna Akhmatova

Without Gloss: Unusual Facts About Anna Akhmatova
Without Gloss: Unusual Facts About Anna Akhmatova

Video: Without Gloss: Unusual Facts About Anna Akhmatova

Video: Without Gloss: Unusual Facts About Anna Akhmatova
Video: 5 facts about Anna Akhmatova. Poetry and biography 2024, March
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Without gloss: unusual facts about Anna Akhmatova

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Poetess Anna Akhmatova has become the new heroine of our weekly column "Without Gloss". We tell you unusual facts about her!

Alias

Anna Akhmatova had to take a pseudonym, because her father told her not to dishonor their name. Therefore, Anna took the name of her great-grandmother. The real name of the poetess is Anna Gorenko.

Muse Modigliani

Painting by Amadeo Modigliani

In the spring of 1910, the Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani met Anna Akhmatova in Paris. Then the poetess rested there with her first husband, Nikolai Gumilyov. Six months later, Modigliani wrote her a letter in which he admitted that she had amazed him. In 1911 Akhmatova left for Paris. Their romance lasted a whole year, after which they never saw each other. During this time, the artist painted 16 paintings with her image, which he later gave to her and asked to keep. It was not possible to keep the promise, all the paintings, except one, burned down. In 1920, at the age of 36, Modigliani died of an illness. And only a few years after his death, he was recognized as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century.

Honorary Doctor of Oxford

A year before her death, in 1965, Anna Akhmatova visited Great Britain and became an honorary doctor of the University of Oxford.

Personal diary

Throughout her life, Anna Akhmatova kept a diary. But it became known about him only seven years after the death of the poetess, he was found absolutely by accident. Now it is kept in the museum of Anna Akhmatova.

NKVD

For a long time, the poetess was under the supervision of the NKVD. Many biographers believe that the writer Sofya Ostrovskaya, who was one of the poetess's close friends, followed her. Anna Akhmatova, by the way, did not know that she was working for the NKVD.

Disapproval of husband's relatives

The first husband of the poetess was Nikolai Gumilyov, who was seeking her hand for a very long time. But none of his relatives came to their wedding, since they were all against this marriage and believed that it would not last long.

Superstition

Akhmatova was very superstitious. The poetess rejected Gumilyov's first offer to marry him, since during a walk they saw two dolphins washed ashore. Akhmatova considered that this was a bad sign.

Difficult relationship with son

For a long time, Akhmatova did not take part in the upbringing of her only son, Leo. Almost immediately after his birth, she gave him to her mother-in-law and simply sent the money. In the late 1920s, Leo moved to live with his mother, but the relationship remained strained. In the 1930s, he was repressed, Akhmatova tried to help her son (she even wrote poems glorifying Soviet power), but she failed. In the 1950s, he returned from the camps and accused his mother of not making enough efforts to save him.

Cheating husband

Anna Akhmatova's husband had an affair on the side. The couple promised to tell each other about infidelity. Close friends once heard from him: "Imagine, she changed first." Although many biographers are sure that he just wanted to present himself in the best possible light.

Harassment of Akhmatova

"Her poems cannot be tolerated in Soviet literature," said the 1946 resolution of the Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Anna Andreevna's works were not published not only during her life, but also 20 years after her death.

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