On Akhmatova

 HINSEY: Akhmatova was born in 1889 and by the time of the revolution, her ethical and aesthetic beliefs were already firmly established—  VENCLOVA: Akhmatova was a living link to a different era, not just the Silver Age, but the entire tradition of Russian culture. First of all, she represented St. Petersburg and its heritage extending back to Pushkin—even to Kantemir, the first professional Russian poet under Peter the Great. It was a poetic as well as an ethical legacy: namely, loyalty to one’s friends, stubborn yet calm resistance to the violence of the state, and, last but not least, irony and self-irony. Here, one might even go further back—to the archpriest Avvakum and his follower Morozova, two seventeenth-century martyrs whom Akhmatova mentioned more than once. In short, she stood for a hierarchy of values: good and evil had to be called by their names, period. Through communicating with her, one became aware that this ethical hierarchy was intimately—if not necessarily directly—connected with authentic poetry. These convictions were a potent antidote to the moral collapse during the Soviet period—as well as to Soviet or semi-Soviet literature.  HINSEY: Nadezhda Mandelstam says that she and Akhmatova were very concerned with the question of “what constitutes courage.” They came to the conclusion that “courage, daring, and fortitude were not synonymous.” What do you think was the source of Akhmatova’s strength?  VENCLOVA: I would say its distinguishing feature was fortitude. Courage and daring are morally neutral qualities—they were also found in many revolutionaries whose actions, in the final account, promoted evil. Fortitude, on the other hand, is usually a sign of moral strength. Soviet dissidents were courageous by definition—and daring more often than not—but many of them lacked fortitude, leading to breakdowns, which at times discredited the cause. This was not the case with these two old women who were brought up according to the prerevolutionary tradition with its Judeo-Christian roots. Brodsky said once of Nadezhda Mandelstam that she was one of the very few people for whom the Ten Commandments were still in force. Akhmatova possibly even surpassed her in this respect.  HINSEY: Having reflected upon the subject for many years, why do you think that Akhmatova was never arrested?  VENCLOVA: The Stalinist terror was a sort of lottery: one might be completely loyal and perish nevertheless. Conversely, one might be considered an “enemy of the people” and survive. I believe this arbitrariness was part of the strategy: no one could be sure of his or her fate, which worked perfectly to Stalin’s advantage. Moreover, Stalin was rather well-informed about literature, and generally understood the relative value of various authors. Figures such as Pasternak, Bulgakov, Akhmatova, or Platonov were preferable to hack writers, particularly if they could be transformed into bards for the regime (in the cases of Bulgakov and Pasternak, Stalin very nearly succeeded). Finally, there was also a sadistic element. Akhmatova lost her husband and several people she loved. Her son was imprisoned, then released, only to be imprisoned again. She was vilified in the official press and school textbooks, and for decades she was forbidden to publish her work. This was perhaps worse than execution—or a prison camp—where one might be more quickly put out of one’s misery.  HINSEY: Akhmatova was sought out by younger writers for advice about their poetry, and she was always very tactful. However, it became known that she had a series of prepared answers with which to respond. Could you explain how this worked?  VENCLOVA: Akhmatova was a good storyteller and possessed numerous real-life anecdotes that she would recite verbatim. She liked to call these her “gramophone recordings.” In the 1960s, she was literally besieged by young people who wished to acquaint her with their scribblings and hoped for encouragement from her. (Once, my friend Evgeny Levitin, an art critic, was introduced to her. After exchanging preliminary courtesies, Akhmatova said: “Well, go ahead and read your poems.” “What poems?” Levitin replied, “I have never written a line of poetry in my life!” “Glory to God Almighty!” she exclaimed, “at last a normal person!”) However, she took pity on young artists and had a fixed set of polite answers with which to respond to their efforts. These were also a type of “gramophone recording.” If she said, for instance, “Your rhymes are astonishing,” or “You are a master of metaphor,” it meant that your poems left much to be desired, after which you would consider throwing yourself into the Neva. If, however, the writing was good, she would remark: “There is some mystery in these poems.” That was what she said to young Brodsky, and to Natasha Gorbanevskaya as well.  HINSEY: In the preceding chapter, we spoke about Akhmatova’s admiration for Solzhenitsyn’s prose. But there is the famous story about him showing her some of his poetry—  VENCLOVA: Solzhenitsyn started out as a poet while in the Gulag—his verses (some of which have now been published) were straightforward and principally political. He was already a celebrity when he came to visit Akhmatova. While she highly valued his prose writings, she could not conceal her disappointment in his poetry. She said: “Well, your poems are somewhat lacking in mystery.” Solzhenitsyn retorted: “Well, Anna Andreyevna, perhaps your poems have too much mystery in them.”

Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova