Interview with Anna Akhmatova

Today we are here with Anna Akhmatova, a Russian poet who lived a very adventurous life. I am going to ask some questions about her life and the time period that she lived in.


Q: Where did you grow up? How did your generation affect your life?
A: Well, I was born in near Odessa (In Russia) on June 23 1889. I was given the name Anna Gorenko. When I was a year old, we moved up north to Tsarskoye Selo, where I lived until I was 16 years old. When I was 15 years old my mother and I went back to the house where I was born. When I walked in I said "Here one day there will be a memorial plague." I only meant it as a joke, but today the plague stands there, set up by the city of Odessa to show their pride and brag about me a little. The day I was born was also kind of a holiday for my people. It was St.John's Eve. It is believed that all forces, good and bad, were present on this night. People bathed in rivers, jumped over bonfires, and much more. I was given the name Anna which means "grace."

My parents grew up in a time where the upper class people were politically active. I was born into the Russian aristocracy, and even though my parents divorced when I was young, they both impressed upon me the importance of politics. My godmother taught French and and was one of the liberated women of her generation. Both of my parents had close contact with the "People's Will." It was a terrorist organization which believed that the assassination of certain members of the government would bring it down.

I went to law school. Shortly after, the first world war started. Although Russia was not directly involved initially due to shortage of funds, the country felt the war.  Cold, unheated apartments impacted us all.  The change in Russian government in 1917 impacted my entire generation. Many of my peers fled Russia. I chose to stay, and it impacted my writing significantly.


Q: What events in your early life made you interested in the arts?
A: Poetry was a huge part of Russian culture, particularly within the aristocracy. Writing poetry was part of our education. I published my first poem when I was 11, encouraged by my governess who always thought I would become a poet. My governess was very superstitious so whenever something amazing would happen to me she would cry out, "Darling this was destined for you!" or "You were meant to be here one day!" Once, when I was staying in Kiev I found a pin in the shape of a lyre in the park of what they called the "Tsar's Garden." My governess told me "This means you will be a poet." In 1894 in Gungerburg, where my family spent the summer, I found a rare type of mushroom called a tsar-mushroom. That was supposed to bring me good luck.


Q: Who helped you become the person you are today?
A: When my dad found out that I wanted to write poetry he wasn't very happy, telling me "not to shame the family name by becoming a 'decadent poetess.'" He said I must have a pen name so I took the name Akhmatova from my maternal great-grandmother, who inspired my mother when she was a child. My husbands and lovers have also shaped the person I have become today.

Other than my family, my love for and pride in my country have impacted me the most. Over my lifetime, some of the best poetry I have written is about Russian politics.  It is impossible for me to separate who I am with my feelings of patriotism for my Russian, the real Russia, and not what it became later when the Soviets came into power.


Q: What was poetry like in the world when you started publishing your poems?
A: When I started writing and publishing my poetry there were many other writers throughout the world such as Mark Twain, Charles Dickinson, and Stephan Crane. But they were all English. I think I was the only big Russian poet. People were inspired by a lot of the writers during that time so the competition was very high. But it just depends where you were in the world. Since I speak fluent French and Russian, I talked to a lot of people from different cultures and asked them to get my poetry out there to the public.


Q: How did the economy at the time affect your writing?
A: Well, I did live during World War One. But Russia did not have enough resources to have a major war at the time. Even though we had support and resources from Britain, Russia did not get involved in the war too much. But many Russians died in the war. They picked up anything they could in the battlefield. I did go on my honeymoon in Paris and I lived in Pairs for several years writing poetry and having paintings of me done. That was towards the end of the war.

Most of my poetry was about the war but also about the men that went off to war that I fell in love with. Many men proposed to me but I declined all of them. I was finding out who I was before I got into a serious relationship.


Q: What were some strategies that you used in your poems to make them popular?
A: I didn't actually expect my poems to become that popular. I didn't really use any good strategies. I wrote about my family, people I met, my lovers, the war. Everything that people can relate to. My father was a writer so I could say it runs in the family, but we both did very different writing.


Q: What were some great opportunities that you had that changed your life and the world of poetry?
A: I was born into upper class, and my parents had a lot of money which helped me travel the world. I also married 3 men, Nikolai Punin, Vladimir Shilejko, and Nikolay Gumilyov. Gumilyoy was a poet and critic who helped me get into my style poetry. Shilejko was a poet and translator and he made me see the world from a different perspective. Punin was my last husband and he was a Russian scholar and writer. I was privileged to have so many other writers in my life and they happened to be my husbands.

I also read many stories to wounded soldiers, which they loved. I'm glad because that got me to write about something else besides love poetry. The change in the Russian government in 1917 as part of the Bolshevik Revolution caused me to change my writing significantly. I wrote a lot about the provisional government that was put into place and gained a lot of attention as a result. This set my writing career on a course that strongly followed Russian politics.


Q: Did anything hold you back from writing poetry?

A: This answer depends upon the time period we are speaking about, Early in my career I had a lot of time on my hands. This was in a time period where everyone wanted to be an artist or was an artist. Most of my written themes were about love, relationships and feminism. Beginning about 1918 through 1920, some of my work was censored.  Over the entire course of my career, there were times when I was unable to write because of political instability. Also, at time because of the people I was married to or associated with, I was perceived as an enemy of the government, and my writing had to stop for my own safety.


Q: Is there anything about you personally that you think contributed to your success as a poet?

A: After the revolution in 1917 a lot of my friends left the country and tried to convince me to leave as well. I didn't want to leave because I felt very strongly that a poet can only sustain her art in her native country. I consider Russian speech my only true home and I had to live where it was spoken.


Q: How does your poetry affect the world?
A: I think all the cruelty and pain my country had experienced was difficult for the Russian people to accept. I am proud of my Russian people. They are creative and they often accept their failures. I believe in the future of Russia. I believe its tradition of great culture would be passed down through generations. Maybe by poetry or stories or other types of writing. I believe the Russian word stayed alive and strong.

Sources:
Anna Akhmatova by Roberta Reeder
Anna and all of the Russians: A life of Anna Akhmatovs by Elaine Feinstein
Anna and her Circle by Konstantin Polivanov and translated by Patricia Beriozkina
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/anna-akhmatova
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/anna-akhmatova
http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/1890.htm
http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/akhmatova/akhmatova_ind.html
http://www.uvm.edu/~sgutman/Akhmatova.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/11532201/Modigliani-and-the-Russian-beauty-the-affair-that-changed-him.html
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Russian/Akhmatova.htm
http://www.poemhunter.com/anna-akhmatova/
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/clives_lives/2007/02/anna_akhmatova.html