FINAL QUOTE: Anna Akhmatova, "My Half Century"

Anna Akhmatova was the preeminent Russian poet of the first half of the 20th Century.  She was censored and her works banned from publication, through a party resolution by the Russian government, twice, from 1925-1939 and 1946-1956.  Short-listed for the Novel Prize, she may be the best poet you've never heard of.  

I recently read a selection of her prose, from letters and diaries primarily, in "My Half Century" and have shared a selection of quotes from that book.  

Quotes one

Quotes two

Quotes three

Quotes four

Here is one final quote.  A beautiful observation, on the death of a young poet, Nadezhda Lvova.  

It is painful when a poet dies, but when a young poet dies it is even more painful.  You read the few lines that he has left behind with agonizing concentration, greedily scouring the still immature voice and the youthfully spare imagery for the secret of death, which is hidden from us, the living.

QUOTES part four: Anna Akhmatova "My Half Century"

Anna Akhmatova was the preeminent Russian poet of the first half of the 20th Century.  She was censored and her works banned from publication, through a party resolution by the Russian government, twice, from 1925-1939 and 1946-1956.  Short-listed for the Novel Prize, she may be the best poet you've never heard of.  

I recently read a selection of her prose, from letters and diaries primarily, in "My Half Century" and wanted to share occasional quotes, here, from that book.  

I love these two longer quotes discussing memory and nostalgia and how we can be constrained or hampered by looking back through glasses that are too rose-colored.  Of course, Akhmatova puts it in a far more beautiful, as well as severe, manner.  

. . .the reader of this book should get used to the idea that nothing was the way he thinks it was, or when, or where.  It's awful to say, but people see only what they want to see, and hear only what they want to hear.  They speak to themselves "in general" and almost always answer themselves, without listening to the person with whom they are speaking.  This characteristic of human nature explains ninety percent of the monstrous rumors, false reputations, and sacredly-guarded gossip. . .I ask those who disagree with me only to remember what they have heard about themselves. 

My generation is not threatened with a melancholy return, because there is nowhere for us to return to....Sometimes (when it's so deserted and fragrant in the parks) it seems to me that you could get in the car and drive to the days of the opening of Pavlovsk Station, to those places where a shadow inconsolably searches for me, but then I begin to realize that this is not possible, that one shouldn't bury oneself (never mind in a gasoline tin can) in memory's mansions, that I would not see anything and that I would only blot out what I see so clearly now. 

QUOTES part three: Anna Akhmatova, "My Half Century"

Anna Akhmatova was the preeminent Russian poet of the first half of the 20th Century.  She was censored and her works banned from publication, through a party resolution by the Russian government, twice, from 1925-1939 and 1946-1956.  Short-listed for the Novel Prize, she may be the best poet you've never heard of.  

I'm currently reading a selection of her prose, from letters and diaries primarily, in "My Half Century" and wanted to share occasional quotes, here, from that book.  

For me Slepnyovo is like an arch in architecture....  It's small at first, but then gets bigger and bigger.  And finally--complete freedom (if you exit).

Slepnyovo is the village in Russia where Akhmatova lived with her first husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, and their son, Lev.  Having grown up in a small town in Maine, I understand completely what Akhmatova is saying with this quote, and empathize fully with her.  Akhmatova knew, or felt, there was something bigger out there, if she just went out and got it.   And, in exiting Slepnyovo, she discovered complete freedom, though that freedom did come at a price.


It's also fascinating to see how Akhmatova compares Slepnyovo like an arch (small at first) in architecture, especially when one realizes that "arch" is the first, and smaller, part of the word architecture.


For other quotes I've shared from Akhmatova's "My Half Century" see below:

Quotes

More Quotes


-chris

QUOTES part two: Anna Akhmatova "My Half Century"

Anna Akhmatova was the preeminent Russian poet of the first half of the 20th century.  It's likely you've not heard of her.  Between 1912 and 1921 she had five collections of poetry published, to critical acclaim.  But when her first husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, was killed for wrongly being accused as a counterrevolutionary, Akhmatova and her son Lev were also implicated.  By 1924, critics panned her verse as simplistic and anachronistic, and a party resolution by the Soviet government essentially banned her from being published, though she continued to write poetry.  Stalin intervened in 1939, allowing for a new publication of verse, but by 1946 another resolution censored and censured Akhmatova, leaving many of her most realized works, such as "Requiem" and "Poem Without a Hero," unpublished.  But she still wrote and would share her work with confidantes, who would memorize poems and circulate them orally, so they would not be lost.  Shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965, not until 1988 was the resolution banning her poetry in Russia rescinded, allowing for a new and better understanding of this important 20th-century poet.

I am currently reading a "My Half Century," a curated collection of Akhmatova's prose, much of it taken from her diaries and letters.  It's a fascinating book, and I wanted to share some quotes from it, through a series of posts here.

Remember Rousseau, who said:  "I only lie when I cannot remember."  

These both stood out for me because they speak to the heart of what it means to be a writer, particularly a fiction writer (and poetry would certainly fall under this, as well).  The first is about the primary job of a fiction writer --- lying.  Fiction authors lie for fame and money -- or, at the very least, to be heard by an audience of one -- but it is also about trying to get at the truth, a great truth than just the facets of a narrative.  Great, and even good, fiction must be about something.  And very often the fictions crafted by writers come from something in their past, whether directly transposed to the page or morphed into something more dramatic (or possibly less close to reality), and I believe that when they cannot remember, they lie.

Sometimes I unconsciously recall somebody else's phrasing and transform it into a line of poetry.

The second quote makes me think of an anecdote from Harlan Ellison, whom you may have heard of if you've read a few of my posts here on the site.  One of his best-known stories, and one of my personal favorites, is titled "Jeffty is Five."  It's a tragedy about a young boy who remains five years old, even while his boyhood friends grow up and start to have lives of their own.  But, not only does Jeffy remain five, but he is also still able to access that olden time from when he and his friends were five, a time when radio dramas curled your blood and secret decoder rings were ubiquitous, when comics were a nickel and real chocolate was used in candy bars.  It's a poignant, affecting, amazing story, and I would recommend you seek it out.
But I digress:  the inspiration for this story came when Ellison was at a friend's home for a get-together.  It was Walter Koenig's home, and while in conversation, Ellison overheard a snippet of another conversation wherein they were discussing a boy named Jeffery, who was five, if I'm remembering this correctly.  Ellison misheard it as "Jeffty is Five," and his brain immediately started building that story, right there, in the middle of the party.  In the end, it allowed him to craft one of his best stories, and it all came from something similar to the unconscious use of another's phrasing and transforming it into a bit of poetry.  

QUOTES: Anna Akhmatova, "My Half Century"

Anna Akhmatova was the preeminent Russian poet of the first half of the 20th century.  It's likely you've not heard of her.  Between 1912 and 1921 she had five collections of poetry published, to critical acclaim.  But when her first husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, was killed for wrongly being accused as a counterrevolutionary, Akhmatova and her son Lev were also implicated.  By 1924, critics panned her verse as simplistic and anachronistic, and a party resolution by the Soviet government essentially banned her from being published, though she continued to write poetry.  Stalin intervened in 1939, allowing for a new publication of verse, but by 1946 another resolution censored and censured Akhmatova, leaving many of her most realized works, such as "Requiem" and "Poem Without a Hero," unpublished.  But she still wrote and would share her work with confidantes, who would memorize poems and circulate them orally, so they would not be lost.  Shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965, not until 1988 was the resolution banning her poetry in Russia rescinded, allowing for a new and better understanding of this important 20th-century poet.

I am currently reading a "My Half Century," a curated collection of Akhmatova's prose, much of it taken from her diaries and letters.  It's a fascinating book, and I wanted to share some quotes from it, through a series of posts here.

In a diary entry, toward the end of her life, Akhmatova looked back to the early 1900s and to the funerals she witnessed in the streets of Tsarskoe Selo, when it felt like a shift had taken place, as Russia cast off the 19th Century and moved into the 20th.  Her language, and the details, such as "fresh greenery and flower...dying from the frost," add so much to her insights, offering a distinct image that also works as a metaphor, not only for the funeral described, but for the world at large and the changes rushing headlong at them, with the onset of WWI.

...And sometimes on that same Shirokaya Street a funeral procession of unbelievable splendor would pass by coming from or going to the station:  a boys' choir would sing with angelic voices, and you couldn't see the coffin for all the fresh greenery and flowers, which were dying from the frost...The carriages with formidable old women and their dependents followed the catafalque as if they were awaiting their turn, and everything resembled the description of the countess's funeral in "The Queen of Spades." 

And it always seemed to me (later, when I would recall those spectacles) that they were a part of some grandiose funeral for the entire nineteenth century.  That was how the last of Pushkin's younger contemporaries were buried in the 1890s.  This spectacle in the blinding snow and the bright Tsarskoe Selo sun was magnificent, but the same thing in the yellow light and thick fog of those years, which oozed out from everywhere, could be terrifying and even somewhat infernal.

Beautiful, and haunting.

-chris