"Requiem", analysis of Akhmatova's poem. Poem "Requiem Anna Akhmatova requiem summary by chapter
Year of publication of the poem: 1963
Anna Akhmatova's poem "Requiem" is one of the most famous works of the famous Russian poetess. It is not for nothing that the Requiem should be read according to the school curriculum, because not only domestic critics, but also their foreign counterparts speak highly of this work. The poem "Requiem" by Akhmatova has become a kind of symbol of the era and is rightfully considered one of the strongest works of the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Poems "Requiem" summary
If you read Anna Akhmatova’s poem “Requiem” in a summary, then it begins with a preface in which someone “identified” Anna Akhmatova standing in the prison line, and then the woman standing behind her quietly asked: “Can she describe this?” and Anna said that she could. This resulted in 15 poems written between 1938 and 1940. All of them are connected by meaning and form the poem "Requiem", which, like, tells about the realities of Soviet life in Russia.
In each verse of the poem "Requiem" by Akhmatova, one can read the pain and horror experienced by the mothers and wives of political prisoners. They had to stand under the Crosses from morning to evening, waiting for the verdict. The verses describe how Akhmatova's son was taken away at dawn, how she shed tears standing three hundred in line of the same unfortunate women, how for seventeen months she threw herself at the feet of the executioner and simply called her son. All that pain associated with waiting for the verdict and an attempt to comprehend it is collected in these poems by Akhmatova.
As an epilogue in Akhmatova's poem "Requiem", you can read a verse in which the poetess asks if you erect a monument to her, then put it in the place where 17 most terrible months of her life passed. She asks for a monument to be erected on the bank of the river, where she spent 300 hours of her life. And this monument should be not only its personification, but also the cry of a tortured one hundred million people.
Poem "Requiem" on Top Books website
Reading "Requiem" by Anna Akhmatova is currently so popular that the work is included in our rating. And this despite the fact that the poem is included in the school curriculum, which provides her with a fairly stable interest from the students. Based on this, we expect that in the future Akhmatova's poem "Requiem" will periodically fall into our book ratings.
In the poem, on behalf of the lyrical hero, who is the counterpart of the poetess, the personal tragedy that occurred in the Akhmatova family, and the tragedy of all the people who were subjected to the fist of repression in those days, is revealed. The hero of the poem speaks to the reader and is not afraid to tell the whole truth.
Anna Andreevna uses almost all poetic meters and rhythms to create a tragic effect. This technique helps the reader quickly feel the events of the poem. There is also white verse, which was inherent in Futurist poets:
“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 away the lanterns ... "
In this quatrain, A. Akhmatova vividly conveys the feelings of the character. The hero wants to get rid of suffering, anxiety, so that, finally, all misfortunes are covered with black canvases and carried away by the night city streets. "Night" is associated with everything bad and terrible that happened in the character's life.
The work was written under the influence of what she experienced during the period when Akhmatova stood in the prison queues, trying to find out about the fate of her son Lev Gumilyov.
The main idea of the work is an expression of the scale of people's grief.
There are many symbols in the poem, the main of which is the image of Jesus and Magdalene - identification with the suffering of all mothers.
This century brought grief not only to the Akhmatova family, but also to other people, as mentioned above.
"No, and not under someone else's firmament,
And not under the protection of other people's wings -
I was then with my people,
Where my people, unfortunately, were.
This was the final choice of the poetess.
Updated: 2017-07-09
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Requiem
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
- 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 Rus' 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.
CRUCIFICATION
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.
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 hour of the funeral 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,
To 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.
The wound inflicted on the homeland, each of us
feels in the depths of his heart.
V. Hugo
True poetry is beautiful because it expresses the high truth of the poet's soul and the merciless truth of time. A. Akhmatova understood this, and readers who love her poetry and I am sure will always love her poems penetrating right into the soul also understand this.
To understand the great courage of Akhmatova’s soul, one must know her most tragic work, Requiem, because the truth is not only the death of innocent people, blood and tears, it is also a cleansing from all filth, from everything vile, dirty and terrible that was going on during the Bolshevik terror against their own people. Hushing up this side of the life of our state threatens with new tragedies. Openness cleanses, makes it impossible for this to happen again sometime in our history.
The poem "Requiem" was created from 1935 to 1940. In those distant years, the poem could only be read in handwritten lists. What truth did this work of Akhmatova keep that they were afraid to publish it for so long? It was the truth about Stalin's repressions. Akhmatova knew firsthand about them: her only son, Lev Gumilyov, was arrested, whose father, the famous Russian poet N. Gumilyov, a former tsarist officer, was shot by the Bolsheviks back in the 1920s.
Akhmatova spent seventeen long months in prison queues until the fate of her son was decided. One day they recognized her in this mournful queue and asked: “Can you describe this?” Akhmatova answered firmly: "I can." It was an oath to the people with whom she was always together, sharing all their misfortunes.
Akhmatova fulfilled her oath. She described the time, “when only the dead smiled, glad to be at peace,” when the people suffered either in prisons or near them. Akhmatova, “three hundredth with a transfer and with her hot tear” under the Crosses (this is the name of the prison in St. Petersburg) stands in line next to “involuntary friends” and prays for everyone who stood there “both in the bitter cold and in the July heat.”
She would like to call these sufferers by name, "Yes, they took away the list, and there is nowhere to find out." With her poem, Akhmatova commemorated everyone on this and that side of the prison walls and hoped that even if they shut her mouth, “with which a hundred million people scream,” she would also be remembered on the eve of her “funeral day.” Akhmatova ends the poem with a testament: if someday, she writes, they want to erect a monument to her in Russia, then she asks not to erect it either by the sea, where she was born, or in Tsarskoe Selo, where her happy youth passed, material from the site
And here, where I stood for three hundred hours And where the bolt was not opened for me. Then, even in blissful death, I'm afraid To forget the rumble of black marus, To forget how hateful the door squelched And the old woman howled like a wounded animal.The son of Akhmatova, having gone through prisons and camps, surprisingly, remained alive. He became a famous historian and ethnographer. In 1962, Akhmatova brought the poem to the Novy Mir magazine. Received a refusal. In the same year, the poem was sent abroad and printed in Munich. During her lifetime, Akhmatova saw only this edition, which, of course, was not distributed in her homeland, since, according to the concepts of that time, it was published illegally. And only in the 1980s we were able to read the poem "Requiem" published in our homeland. The poetry of A. Akhmatova, including her Requiem, is rightfully considered one of the most striking phenomena in Russian poetry of the 20th century.
A truly iconic figure in Russian literature is Anna Akhmatova.
"Requiem" researchers call the pinnacle of her lyrics. All themes are organically intertwined in the work of the poetess: love experiences, a poet and history, a poet and power, the culture of the 19th century, the "silver" age, Soviet realities ... Akhmatova lived a long life: a spoiled girl born in pre-revolutionary Russia, a young poetess from the beau monde was destined to know the full weight of the Soviet stone den. It is therefore natural that the breadth of her creative range can be called comprehensive: love lyrics, civil poetry, folklore elements, ancient themes, biblical stories.
"Requiem", Akhmatova: summary
Work on the poem continued from 1935 to 1940, in the most difficult, bloody and terrible time. In it, the poetess managed to organically combine the chronicle line and the genre tradition of funeral lamentation. From the Latin language "Requiem" is translated as calm. Why did Akhmatova give this particular name to her work? Requiem is a funeral service traditional for the Catholic and Lutheran churches. Later, this term acquired a broader meaning: they began to designate the poetess, as it were, funerals for herself, and her friends in misfortune, and all of Russia.
Akhmatova, "Requiem": semantic plans
Modern literary scholars distinguish four layers in the poem: the first is obvious and is, as it were, “on the surface” - the grief of the lyrical heroine describing the nighttime arrest of a loved one. It should be noted here that the poetess relies on personal experience: in the same way, her son, husband N. Punin, and fellow writer O. Mandelstam were arrested in the same way. Fear, confusion, confusion - who can know more about this than Akhmatova? "Requiem", however, is not limited to this: the tears of the lyrical heroine in the text merge with the weeping of thousands of Russian women who suffered from the same misfortune. Thus, the personal situation expands, becomes more global. In the third semantic layer of the poem, the fate of the heroine is interpreted as a symbol of the era. Here, the researchers point to the theme of the “monument” arising in this connection, which goes back to Pushkin. However, for Akhmatova, the monument is not a symbol of glory, but rather the embodiment of intravital and posthumous suffering. That is why she asks to put it near the prison, where the woman spent so many terrible hours with her unwitting "girlfriends". The image of a monument made of stone merges with the motif of "fossil" - this epithet is one of the most frequent in "Requiem". In the epilogue, the monument becomes, as it were, the visible embodiment of the metaphor of "petrified suffering". The image of the suffering poetess merges with the image of Russia torn to pieces, perishing, a terrible era - this is Anna Akhmatova.
"Requiem" has a fourth semantic plan. This is the grief of a mother whose son was repressed. It corresponds to the torment of the Mother of God, watching the ascent of Jesus Christ to Golgotha. According to the poetess, the torment of every mother who loses her son is comparable to the suffering of the Virgin Mary. Thus, the personal tragedy of one woman and one child becomes universal.
