The ever-changing myth of Anna Akhmatova
Hanna Hodgetts examines the emergence of the enduring legacy of one of Russia’s greatest poets
“Like almost everyone – man, woman, young, old – I had fallen in love with Anna. I loved her aristocratic bearing. I loved her image, her myth and the power with which she could open doors in both head and heart with only a couple of words”
— Jan Brokken, De gloed van Sint-Petersburg: Wandelingen door heden en verleden, translated by Hanna Hodgetts
Anna Akhmatova in a sketch by Amadeo Modigliani from 1911 (Image credit: public domain)
On Liteinуi Prospekt in Saint Petersburg, stands one of those bookshops which seem to have become more numerous in Russia’s biggest cities over the past few years: quasi-intellectual bastions of hipster culture, where the coffee is good and one can find expensive, but lavishly illustrated art books. The most well-represented author in this bookshop on Liteinyi was Anna Akhmatova. Her aquiline nose and black fringe roamed the bookshop like benevolent ghosts from the past. Apart from her whole oeuvre, one could buy postcards, tote bags, posters and pin-badges decorated with her distinct profile. This was not entirely surprising, as the museum in the Fountain House dedicated to Russia’s most famous female poet is situated on the same street. Nonetheless, it shows how Akhmatova has become an identity marker for young, progressive Petersburgers, who hope to channel her spirit. It is the latest step in a long history of mythologisation, first performed by Akhmatova herself and later by her critics, biographers and fans.
Akhmatova’s self-mythologisation
Anna Andreevna Gorenko was born on 23rd June 1889 in Odessa. At the age of 18 she started publishing poems and, at the request of her father, chose a pseudonym: Akhmatova. The name was taken from her Tatar grandmother who was related to Akhmat Khan, the last Khan of the Golden Horde. Joseph Brodsky later described this choice as “her first successful line”, and Marina Tsvetaeva characterised the name as “an immense sigh” (ogromnyi vzdokh). The alliteration in her initials and the exotic root of her pseudonym contribute to an air of mystery surrounding her persona.
Akhmatova always carefully shaped her public persona and actively contributed to the establishment of her image as a distant aristocrat. Nadezhda Mandelshtam, wife of Osip Mandelshtam, once observed that Akhmatova “lived always aware of her own biography”. Throughout her life she tried to downplay her Ukrainian heritage, whilst emphasising her connections with aristocratic Tsarskoe Selo and metropolitan Petersburg. She stressed her aristocratic background purposefully, although she came from an unremarkable gentry family, whose princely relation to Akhmat Khan was clouded in legend and who were initially considered modest outsiders when they settled in Tsarskoe Selo in 1890. For these reasons, Alexander Zholkovskii calls Akhmatova a “self-made aristocrat”.
Akhmatova was in the habit of repeating the same anecdotes when visitors were around, thereby creating a mythology about herself. Allegedly, she even took on an editorial role in the production of biographical material about her, avoiding appearances on film and ‘correcting’ portraits by sculptors and painters. Isaiah Berlin, amid his deep respect for the poet, thought her a “consummate actress who had mastered a queenly role,” who was also “shrewd and self-knowing enough to detach herself from it.” Akhmatova herself, however, denied any involvement in creating her public image, declaring: “I have lived my own unique life, and my life lacks nothing; it has no need to borrow from other people... Why should I invent another life for myself?”
Some have interpreted this tendency to self-mythology as a defence mechanism. They argue Akhmatova used her self-made façade to keep people at a distance. This would be understandable, as Akhmatova suffered greatly from the end of the Revolution until Stalin’s death. Her former husband and cofounder of the Acmeist movement in poetry, Nikolai Gumilev, was shot in 1921. Her son, Lev Gumilev, spent 18 years in Soviet labour camps and her later husband, Nikolai Punin, was sent to the camps too, where he died in 1953. Others relate her myth-making to the decadent, bohemian milieu she grew up in. The concept of zhiznetvorchestvo (life creation) was developed by the symbolists of the 1910s, who considered life an art form in its own right and made concerted efforts to impose an aesthetic pattern on behaviour and biography. It involved shaping, moulding, carving their public persona to their own artistic taste. Akhmatova, who did exactly this, can be seen as an heir to the concept of zhiznetvorchestvo.
Portrait of Anna Akhmatova, by Nathan Altman, 1914 (Image credit: public domain)
Akhmatova in the eyes of others
Akhmatova in a photo by Moisei Nappelbaum, 1926 (Image credit © Nappelbaum Estate, licensed under fair use for comment and academic criticism)
Few poets have received as much personal admiration as Anna Akhmatova. Not only her work has been lauded, but many men and women were captured by her presence during and after her life. The most beautiful paintings and drawings have been made of her. One of the most famous ones is the drawing at the top of this article, by the Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani, with whom she had a short love affair in 1911. The power of the drawing lies in its determined lines, giving a vague impression of Akhmatova’s silhouette and the contrast between that and her profile, which was drawn with more detail. Natan Altman gives us (above) a slightly melancholic Akhmatova in a landscape of abstract crystals, symbolising the world of sublime and abstract dreams. Her profile is unmistakable and the sapphire-coloured dress and golden scarf, hanging loosely around her elbows, underpin her regal aura. Her wide cleavage adds a sensual undertone. All these different elements propagate her myth.
In the photo (left) by Moisei Nappelbaum we see a similar contribution to the maintenance of her personal myth. The photo is taken in profile, which emphasises Akhmatova’s aquiline nose. On the other hand, it reminds one of a monarch’s head on a coin, and automatically connotes power and authority. In both Altman’s and Nappelbaum’s cases, we can see how Akhmatova’s myth worked. It was her mystical, monarchist aura that first appealed to her admirers, who in turn went on to perpetuate her myth.
Marina Tsvetaeva (Image credit: public domain)
To golden-mouthed Anna of All the Russias
To a word of redemption-
Wind, carry my voice away
And my grievous sigh.Tell, burning twilight,
Of eyes black with sorrow,
And of the subdued bow of earth
Amidst fields of gold.You have risen once more
To thundering heights!
You! – Nameless one!
Carry my love away
To golden-mouthed Anna of All the Russias.— Marina Tsvetaeva, 1916
translated by Emma Bain
Apart from the visual material that established Akhmatova’s profile as a timeless icon, Akhmatova’s myth has been sustained by poems too. One such poem is Osip Mandelshtam’s To Cassandra, in which he refers to Akhmatova as the mythological prophetess who warned of the Fall of Troy. Marina Tsvetaeva, the only other contender for the title of Russia’s greatest female poet, deeply admired Akhmatova and wrote no less than twelve poems about her. One of them, in which Akhmatova is dubbed ‘Anna of all the Russias’, is cited above. This description enforces the image of Akhmatova as tsarina, ruling the land from Voronezh to Vladivostok. All these literary nicknames enriched Akhmatova’s myth, adding extra layers of meaning.
However, not all contributions to Akhmatova’s public image have been positive. Andrei Zhdanov, whom Stalin had placed in charge of cultural policy, famously stigmatised Akhmatova as ‘half-nun, half-whore’: a direct expression of Freud’s Madonna-Whore dichotomy. Although this overtly sexist quote is of an entirely different order from her admirers’ comments, it cannot be denied that it has further shaped Akhmatova’s public image.
Apart from such blatant insults, there has been severe criticism of Akhmatova’s myth-making strategies. The book ‘Anti-Akhmatova’ by Tamara Kataeva was published in 2007 with the purpose of demoting Akhmatova’s work from the literary canon and debunking the prevailing image of Akhmatova as unimpeachable moral authority. Kataeva presents Akhmatova as an egotistic, fame-obsessed and lazy drunkard, as well as a terrible mother. When asked on Ekho Moskvy radio for the motivation for her book, she responded: “Akhmatova’s cult is not worthy of being sustained. She is not an idol worthy of being ‘nashe vse’” (our everything; a predicate usually attributed to Pushkin), “nor is she worthy of being the Anna of all the Russias. Nor is she worthy of being our moral beacon, nor is she worthy of being everything that has been associated with Akhmatova’s name.”
Despite Kataeva’s efforts, Akhmatova’s work has remained an inextricable part of the Russian literary canon and her myth a powerful cultural institution. Demoting Akhmatova’s work from the canon would be considered unjust, both because of the intrinsic artistic value of her work and the role her work has played in Russian society. Today, Isaiah Berlin's words still ring true. “The widespread worship of her memory…, both as an artist and as an unsurrendering human being, has… no parallel. The legend of her life and her unyielding passive resistance to what she regarded as unworthy of her country and herself, transformed her into a figure… not merely in Russian literature, but in Russian history in our century.”
As is the case with all myths, it changes, forever meandering through landscapes of meaning and connotation. The latest trend is the adaptation of Akhmatova’s image for consumerist purposes, which is embedded in Russia’s hipster community and seems to appeal mostly to a young, progressive, female audience. However, over the next twenty years, Akhmatova’s myth could take up a radically different place within Russian society and our conception of Akhmatova could involve more than that of an aristocratic femme fatale, prophet and persecuted martyr.
Hanna Hodgetts is a third-year student of French and Russian at University College London. Before the pandemic, she studied at the Higher School of Economics, Saint Petersburg. She has a special interest in Russian films, anything from Eisenstein to Zvyagintsev.