Bella Akhmadulina is called the Free Wind of the 60s of the XX century. She was the only queen among the male poets of the sixties, whom they all adored and many were in love with. Readers...

Bella Akhmadulina is called the Free Wind of the 60s of the XX century. She was the only queen among the male poets of the sixties, whom they all adored and many were in love with. Readers and listeners literally absorbed her poems, which she read in a singsong voice, with bated breath, with inner trepidation and delight. How did the personal fate of this legendary poetess of her time develop?

She was born in 1937 in Moscow. Her mother is Russian, with Italian roots, her father is a Tatar. The mixing of blood led to the birth of a poetically gifted child in this international family. Isabella began to print at the age of 17, the first publication took place in the magazine "October".

At the age of 18, she was admitted to the Literary Institute without reservations. There she met her first husband, the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The lovers could not live without quarrels under a common roof, because each of them was a whole poetic whirlwind, and the personal life of the young was held hostage by their own talents.

Bella Akhmadulina and Evgeny Yevtushenko

During the persecution of Boris Pasternak, Bella behaved decently and refused to sign that shameful letter from the “creative intelligentsia”, in which her weak-willed “comrades” in the poetic workshop branded the poet for his “anti-Soviet” works, without even bothering to read them. Isabella paid for her decency by being expelled from the institute.

Troubles in his personal life, expulsion from the university did not excommunicate Bella from literature. She managed to enter Russian literature, as they say, "from the back door." She was not published, but she performed at many literary evenings at the Polytechnic, gathering huge audiences of listeners. Her name was enthusiastically passed from mouth to mouth.

Bella herself was very skeptical about her popularity of that time. In one of her interviews, she described this period in the literary life of the country as the time of Pasternak and Akhmatova, they were still alive then and continued to create. But the very Soviet society of that period became a turning point, people were waiting for a sip of freedom, and it was this political and social situation in the country that elevated young, rising poets (E. Yevtushenko, A. Voznesensky, R. Rozhdestvensky, B. Akhmadulina, etc.) to the rank heralds of freedom.

According to Bella Akhmadulina, not poets, but lovers of poetry, able to hear the music of the verse, are the saviors of the world on whose shoulders it stands.

In 1963, Bella was overwhelmed by a new love passion for the then rising legend of cinema and literature - Vasily Shukshin. He filmed her in his film “Such a Guy Lives”, and she “worked on his image”: she helped him buy a new suit, tie, and shoes. She saved him from the tarpaulin boots, in which he walked all the time, having arrived in Moscow from the Russian hinterland.

Then, among Bella's loves was the writer Yuri Nagibin (he became her second husband, but also not for long), then Gennady Mamlin, fashionable at that time, and a little later, Eldar Kuliev (from whom Bella gave birth to a daughter, Lisa).

Short romances, unsuccessful marriages seemed to never end in her life, and Bella began to drink. From the final fall, she was saved by a meeting with a man who could change her life for the better, support her in time and make her happy as a woman. The name of this person is Boris Messerer, a theater artist. He belonged to the family of the famous Soviet ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, his mother was a silent film actress, and then a costume designer in one of the capital's theaters.

Boris Messerer himself also belonged to the galaxy of the "sixties" and, like no one else, could understand Isabella's spiritual mood. When these two people met, Boris did not know that Bella was a poet. He did not read her poems, because Bella was not published then. Ordinary citizens of the USSR recognized Akhmadulina's poems only from the films of Eldar Ryazanov ("Irony of Fate").

Despite all the dangers of her disgraced position, Bella still continued to stand up for all Soviet dissidents, signing numerous letters in their defense.

Bella's joint house with Boris Messerer was popularly called the "Attic on Povarskaya". The workshop of Boris himself was located here, and all the best creative forces of Moscow flocked here. It was such a general unofficial Academy of Arts. The almanac "Metropol" was born here, in which many then forbidden authors were published (V. Aksenov, V. Vysotsky, V. Erofeev, etc.).

Bella Akhmadulina and Boris Messerer

In the 90s of the twentieth century, the artist Boris Messerer designed all the performances of the Moscow Art Theater. Chekhov, ballets at the Bolshoi Theater. In 2002, an exhibition of his easel graphics was held, where a fresh author's method of depicting still lifes was presented.

Bella Akhmadulina, with such a famous and talented husband, continues her poetic career. She also took up prose.

After meeting with Boris, her creative career also went uphill: since 1977 she received the title of Honorary Member of the Academy of Arts and Letters in the United States, in 1989 her work was finally recognized in her native country - she became the Laureate of the USSR State Prize.

Despite the computerization of society, Bella Akhmadulina still writes her poems with an ordinary ballpoint pen, and her husband picks up these manuscripts throughout the apartment (on leaflets, napkins and various scraps of paper). He humorously calls his house “the white desert”, since neither Bella nor Boris have enough time to establish home comfort. For many years they did not even have a banal TV at home.

In this marriage, Bella had another daughter, Anna. Now the girls are adults and lead independent lives. It was this man who became Bella's happy love for many years, behind whose back she can finally afford to be a weak and fragile woman, with her unusual inner world.

On the library shelf she is next to Akhmatova. In the world of high art - next to chamber music: almost ethereal, but warm and sadly intelligent. In the space of life - with the troubles and euphoria of the earthly time allotted to it by Fate.

But no matter how much she valued friendship, love, inspired communication, “closed solitudes” were most precious. They were "difficult-gratifying and fruitful." Without these hours, days or nights spent alone with poetry, there would be no pages signed with the tender name "Bella".

How bizarrely the deck is shuffled ...

It's all about the name and date of birth. After all, she was born Isabella. Her mother was passionate about Spain: the proud royal name Isabella seemed to her the embodiment of Spanish. Having matured, the girl abandoned the Spanish-royal trace: she got rid of Iza, leaving herself only Bella.

Bella Isabella was born in 1937. A hundred years have passed since, all people died and died - on terrible and strange accusations. Joseph Brodsky saw in the symbolic date of her birth "confirmation of the amazing vitality of Russian culture."

Bella Akhmadulina's blood mixed Russian, Tatar, Italian colors. The Russian-Italian mother served as a translator, the Tatar father worked at customs. Grandmother was the sister of the revolutionary Alexander Stopani. The grandson of an Italian organ grinder, in October 1917 he was at the epicenter of events, in Smolny.

Perhaps, not only fine facial features, but also social activity were transferred from Stopani to Bella's great-niece. She refused to participate in the "universal" condemnation of Pasternak, fought as best she could for Sakharov, and supported Voinovich, who decided to emigrate. And in general, she was seen in conflict situations that were extremely inconsistent with the image of a sweet poetess.

Life as art

When did Bella's path to poetry begin?..

Readers first recognized her as a journalist who wrote for the modest newspaper Metrostroyevets. (In 1964, viewers, after watching the film "Such a Guy Lives", recognize Bella in a stylish journalist.) There were many funny situations. You need to take an interview, and they laugh at Bella, yesterday's schoolgirl. But she still wrote - albeit not yet poetic, but reporter's lines about a greenhouse in which cucumbers are grown for Metrostroy workers, about electric trains.

Akhmadulina's poetic debuts took place thanks to the efforts of two poets - Evgeny Vinokurov and Stepan Shchipachev. Bella met Vinokurov at the Stalin Automobile Plant (later named after Likhachev). He led a literary circle there, and Bella came to class. In May 1955, Vinokurov included Bella's poem "Motherland" in a poetry selection for Komsomolskaya Pravda. Both Vinokurov and Shchipachev fussed about publishing her poems in the October magazine. Later, Bella will say that she was stunned fee - 70 rubles! ..

The poet Ilya Selvinsky will advise Bella to enter the Gorky Literary Institute. In his recommendation, he writes:

“Whatever it is, whatever happens in your life, remember that you have a talent with traits of genius, and do not sacrifice it to anyone or anything!”

Bella Akhmadulina

At the institute, her poetic talent was noticed and appreciated immediately, but somehow in different ways: they praised and taunted. Bellin talent of a different kind - do not betray! - resulted in an exception. The reason was the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1958, she was awarded to an ideologically untrustworthy writer. Today it is difficult to understand why the news of the awarding of the prize horrified Pasternak. The writer realized that in the USSR he was now a stranger among his own. Events began to develop according to the worst scenario.

Almost no one in the USSR knew Pasternak's work Doctor Zhivago aroused a "sudden" unwillingness among the intelligentsia and students to breathe the same air with the author of the "slanderous novel". Pasternak was expelled from the Writers' Union. The question arose of expulsion from the country.

It is not difficult to imagine how the student Akhmadulina's trick was perceived at the Literary Institute: she refused to sign a collective letter condemning the writer.

After all, she could, since she appreciated Pasternak so much, run to him and explain that she was forced to sign. So did some of her classmates. But Bella did her own thing. In this regard, the institute did not forgive her for neglecting Marxism-Leninism: she confused diamat (dialectical materialism) with diabetes in the exam and was not embarrassed. Of course, the student was expelled.

With such a reputation, she was not offered a job.

But Bella was still lucky enough to do without accusations of parasitism: Sergei Smirnov, a well-known writer, attached her as a freelance correspondent to Literaturnaya Gazeta in Siberia. He was not an easy person, as Akhmadulina herself said, but then he really helped her.

Later Akhmadulina was reinstated at the institute. She successfully graduated in 1960. Even before becoming a "graduate", Bella wrote many beautiful lines. For example, here are these:

Along my street which year
footsteps sound - my friends are leaving.
My friends slow departure
that darkness outside the windows is pleasing.

In 1975, thanks to the composer the lines will become a romance and will sound in the film Ryazanov "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!"

By the way, Bella has a beautiful relationship with the cinema. Her poem "Oh, my shy hero" is penetratingly read in "Office Romance" by Svetlana Nemolyaeva. Romances on poems by Akhmadulina are heard in the Ryazan film "Cruel Romance" (music by Andrey Petrov). And Bella herself appeared in the frame: she played an episodic role as a journalist in Shukshin's film “Such a Guy Lives” and read her poems in Klimov's film “Sport, Sport, Sport”.

October 1964 Leonid Kuravlev (left), Vasily Shukshin (center) and Bella Akhmadulina (right) rehearse a scene on the set of the film "Such a guy lives." Photo: Yuri Abramochkin / RIA Novosti

In 1962, the publishing house "Soviet Writer" published the first collection of poetry by Bella Akhmadulina - "String". The publication of this book was made possible thanks to the help of the poet Pavel Antokolsky.

Years later, in an interview, Akhmadulina will speak quite critically about her first publications and about this collection in particular. Nevertheless, then the reader met the new name with great interest, and the Writers' Union in the same 1962 accepted Bella into its ranks.

A short but very bright era began. The Internet calls this phenomenon a subculture. But in fact, everything was simpler and livelier. The "Sixties" are talented young people, encouraged by the beginning of the political "thaw".

Composer Mikael Tariverdiev writes about that time and its heroes:

“We were united by the feeling that our changing country needs us, that our peers need us ... The future smiled at us. Illusions of youth did not allow any of us to soberly assess the situation in the country. It seemed to us that only joy awaits us ahead.

-Bella Akhmadulina

There is a need to listen to poetry and therefore - full houses at poetry evenings at the Polytechnic Museum, entire stadiums of people greedy for poetry.

Probably, Bella lived then in anticipation of joy. But at home, not everyone loved her. She regularly did things that were wrong for a Soviet person: either she would publish in an "emigrant" publishing house, or she would support a dissident, or she would "contact" with an underground almanac.

The idea of ​​publishing the literary almanac "Metropol", which will include texts not allowed in official publications, arose in 1978 from Vasily Aksenov and Viktor Erofeev. Later Evgeny Popov, Andrey Bitov, Fazil Iskander joined the publication. The "samizdat" almanac includes worksAkhmadulina, Voznesensky, Vysotsky, Aleshkovsky, Sapgir and a few others.

All participants of the almanac were waiting for big tests. However, they never had a quiet life.

1980 became a very difficult year for Bella.. She was allowed to travel around the country with performances, but what did she see? Zinc coffins with the bodies of soldiers who died in Afghanistan, distraught mothers. Vysotsky died, the writers Aksenov and Voinovich left the country.

The studio of the artist Boris Messerer, her faithful companion, was then an island of relative calm for Akhmadulina. She writes about the workshop: "I always thank her walls and the objects inhabiting her, which encourage friendship and pure thoughts." It will also be healing to stay in a quiet provincial Tarusa.

Having healed, Bella herself will again become like that “hopeful little orchestra under the control of love,” about which her friend Okudzhava wrote.

Artist Orest Vireysky draws Bella Akhmadulina, photo: Ria Novosti

"Little Orchestra"

Gradually, everything will get better: publications, collections, invitations to meetings with readers, foreign trips will appear.

Bella never seemed trouble periods of poverty. The long silence of publishers and publications did not bring Bella to sobs: she knew that readers needed her poems.

Most of all, Bella cherished the lines that were not yet born, the poetry within herself. In later interviews, she admitted that she was very happy with the talent of others: she admired Marina Neelova, Chulpan Khamatova, she was sad about Vysotsky, Okudzhava. Alas, she lost many, many, their "slow departure" remained her pain.

But, just as in Akhmadulina's poetry there is a place for both a soda machine and a coffee devil, so in her character there was a place for mischief and humor. And a cartoon character.

When the actress Iya Savvina voiced Piglet in the cartoon about Winnie the Pooh, she parodied the manner of speech of Bella Akhmadulina. Bella reacted brilliantly. She called the actress and said:

“Thank you, Iya, for giving me not a pig, but a lovely piglet.”

How many more paradoxes, mysteries, hoaxes in the world of Akhmadulina!..

All about her

Mikael Tariverdiev:

“And Bella has always been like that. She has remarkably not changed over the years. So strange, infinitely beautiful, subtly cutesy, but absolutely natural. She never played. Such is the creation. Such a rare unusual flower.

Photo: elle.ru

Some strange mixture of a Tatar princess and a Russian princess. There was no simplicity in her, there was never any familiarity in her. As far as I remember, and we have known each other for so many years, we have always been with her on “you”. And it always seemed strange to me when they addressed her with “you”. She somehow always distanced herself from everything, with complete sympathy, disposition, tenderness. A woman of amazing beauty and perfection. And that's how she stayed."

Joseph Brodsky:

“Bella Akhmadulina clearly, quite clearly stands out from the background of her predecessors and contemporaries, since she does not seek to juggle the criteria. And speaking of influences, as far as one can speak of influences on her poetry, she owes more to Boris Pasternak, the man, than to any of the women in Russian poetry—Marina Tsvetaeva, for example, or Anna Akhmatova.”

Boris Messerer :

“I have always had many friends, communication with which took up a significant part of my time. But my main instinct in life was the desire to keep Bella and protect her from various domestic troubles in order to protect her rare talent.

In the photo from left to right: composer Rodion Shchedrin, poetess Bella Akhmadulina and artist Boris Messerer, photo: kommersant.ru / Alexander Timoshenko

Pavel Antokolsky:

“Not a tavern, so someone else's tavern.
Not now, so in any century.
I pray for you superstitiously
On your knees and to the floor with your forehead.

Found an error? Select it and left click Ctrl+Enter.

Bella Akhmadulina is a laureate of the State Prize of the USSR, a Presidential Prize, a laureate of the State Prize of the USSR, a Presidential Prize of Russia, a State Prize of Russia, an independent Triumph Prize, and a number of international poetry prizes. She was awarded the Orders of Friendship of Peoples, "For Merit to the Fatherland". He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

I know the truth is simple:
love is the right way to
so that humanity close
close to heart and mind.

Bella Akhmadulina was born in 1937 in Moscow. While still a schoolgirl, she began to study in a literary circle at ZIL, which was led by the famous poet Yevgeny Vinokurov. Started typing early. Her original talent was admired by poets of the older generation - P. Antokolsky, I. Selvinsky, M. Svetlov, M. Lugovskoy, and friends from the Literary Institute and performances at the Polytechnic Museum - A. Voznesensky, R. Rozhdestvensky, B. Okudzhava, E. Yevtushenko (who became her first husband).

As soon as she appeared in public, Bella immediately won the hearts of young people: both with her refined beauty and completely unlike anyone else's sublime figurative and metaphorical poetry.

Each poem by Akhmadulina reveals her amazing ability to rise above everyday life. The simplest, most ordinary things, be it a candle, a portrait, rain, a garden, acquire a special, almost magical meaning in them and acquire a “soul”, which the poetess ennobles, endowing with values ​​close to her. And its values ​​are kindness, nobility, trust and compassion for people, generosity, the ability to appreciate friendship and loyalty. She considers friendship-love and friendship-creativity to be one of the strongest human feelings and sings of the purity of friendly thoughts.

In today's mercantile world, such qualities are rare, so the poetess often plays with time and space, makes excursions into history in poetry. In the atmosphere of the past centuries (mainly the 19th century), she finds those qualities that make up her ethical creed and which serve her as a moral measure of her contemporaries.
Referring to the images of classical poets, Akhmadulina, as it were, seeks to acquire a spiritual genealogy. The fact that she really continues the traditions of Pushkin, Lermontov, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Akhmatova, Maldenshtam was recognized by many poets, including I. Brodsky.

B. Akhmadulina opened before the reader the work of many excellent poets of the peoples of the USSR and abroad: her translations from Georgian, Armenian, Abkhaz, Kabardino-Balkarian, from European languages ​​are distinguished by the same polished style as her own works.

In the USSR, she published more than 10 poetry collections (although a number of her poems during this period saw the light only in Samizdat). In post-Soviet Russia, she published more than 15 collections and collected works in three volumes. Her poems have been translated into many languages.

Bella Akhatovna has always been on the side of those oppressed by the regime. For refusing to participate in the persecution of B.L. Pasternak, she was expelled from the Literary Institute, but, fortunately, then reinstated. Later, she actively spoke out in defense of A. Sakharov, L. Kopelev, G. Vladimov, V. Voinovich and other dissidents.

This gave rise to official criticism of the poetess. She was constantly reproached for mannerisms, pompousness, intimacy, criticized for the fact that, unlike other "sixties", she avoids socially significant social topics. But only people who were guided by the goal of condemning the poetess could speak like that. In fact, she always felt a kinship with the people who lived around, and showed them "complicity of love." Here is what she wrote in the poem "This is me":

Flesh of the flesh of tired fellow citizens,
It's good that in their long line
shops, cinemas, train stations
I'm the last one standing at the checkout -
behind the boy remote
and old women in a down scarf,
merged with them like a word and word
in my language and in theirs.

6.10.10 Magazine "60 years is not age"

Poems

***
The old syllable attracts me.
There is charm in ancient speech.
She happens to be our words
and more modern and sharper.

Shout: "Half the kingdom for the horse!" -
what a temper and generosity!
But it will come down on me
last fervor futility.

Someday I'll wake up in the dark
forever losing the battle,
and it will come to my mind
madman of the ancient decision.

Oh, what a half kingdom for me!
A child taught by the age
I will take a horse, I will give a horse
for half a moment with a man,

loved by me. God is with you,
oh my horse, my horse
zealous horse.
I'm gratuitously your reason
I will weaken - and the herd is dear

you will catch up, you will catch up there,
in the steppe empty and red.
And I'm bored with ramblings
these victories and defeats.

I feel sorry for the horse! I'm sorry love!
And in a medieval manner
lies under my feet
just a footprint left by a horseshoe.
1962

Scooter
I see the flight of your wheels,
about the pink scooter!
I follow him without stopping tears,
that they pour for no reason at the beginning of summer.

And the girl who crouched to the rider
with a jubilant and fatal smile,
I seem to be clinging to a leaf,
bent and slow snail.

Goodbye! Your path is on top of me
and fades there, in the green distance.
Two rainbows, two skies, two fires,
shameless, burning in your knees.

And your body glows through the cloak,
like a thin stem through glass and water.
Suddenly some strange cry comes out of me
flies out, squeaking, to freedom.

Then your swing is high
and not dangerous dizziness,
what's on the other side of the board
I am doing the reverse.

As long as silence descends on me
your noise flies in distant lawns.
While my gait is heavy
you will raise two green wings.

So move on! while I stand.
So babble! - as long as I'm numb.
All your heavenly lightness
I redeem with my weight.
1960

One day, swaying on the edge
everything that is, I felt in the body
the presence of an irreparable shadow,
somewhere away from my life.

Nobody knew, only a white notebook
noticed that I blew out the candles,
kindled for the creation of speech, -
Without them, I didn't want to die.

So tormented! Came so close
to the end of agony! She didn't say a word.
And it's just a different age
searching for a fragile soul.

I began to live and will live long.
But from that time on, I am the flour of the earth
I call only that which is not sung by me,
everything else - I call bliss.
1960

Spell

happy beggar, good convict,
chilled in the north by a southerner,
consumptive and evil Petersburger
I live in the malarial south.

Don't cry for me - I will live
that lame-foot, who came out onto the porch,
that drunkard, drooping on the tablecloth,
and this, which paints the Mother of God,
I will live as a wretched bogomaz.

Don't cry for me - I will live
that literacy taught by a girl,
which in the future is fuzzy
my poems, my red bangs,
how the fool would know. I will live.

Don't cry for me - I will live
merciful merciful sisters,
in military recklessness dying,
Yes, under my star and bright
somehow, but I'll live.
1968

Get on stage
I came and I say: like the current snow
it's easy to fly from heaven to please February,
so it is easy for me to please you on the stage.
Don't believe me when I say this.

Oh, I'm not used to, I'm not the first, not new
take in the skin like a burn, the attention of your eyes.
My voice falls like snow at your feet
and he will die like snow and turn into mud.

Can't! Tired! I reject fate
appear on the platform from a hospital sheet.
What frost in the forehead! What horror in the shoulder blades!
Oh, someone, come and stretch the time!

On the verge of fatal, on the edge of the rope -
dancer, so dance until you break.
I know that I will die, but I will wake up, as it should.
It was like that every time. So it will be this time.

Exhausted to the bottom with inquisitive eyes,
I am wasting my life on hearing.
But the one I love is always calm in the hall.
I will not save myself, I will not shame him.

When will I wake up from the vain risk
it is not known why to reduce yourself to nothing,
but someone will say: she was an artist,
and someone will say: she was a poet.

The larynx is exhausted by the bleeding of speech,
but my jump from the darkness of the wings is cheerful.
In one face of people, more and more clearly and sharply,
the features of your beautiful faces merge.

I will turn the sluggishness of the gesture into a bow.
I do not at all regret my words or my torments.
Will you get them for a little bliss?
I do not ask forever - but only for a moment, for a moment.
1973

Autumn
The clock strikes, heralding autumn:
harder than last year
an apple hits the ground
as many times as there are apples in the garden.

This music, intelligible and important,
who says that the clock does not stand?
Performing an act of courage
but the garden seems to be inactive.

Everything is more noticeable in sad nature
expression of love and kinship,
as if you are not a random witness,
and the hero of her triumph.
1973

In the subway at the stop "Sokol"
I don't know what happened to me
I don't know what attracted me.
opened before me,
split in two, glass.

In the subway at the stop "Sokol"
my head dropped.
Asking for a glass of tomato juice
I stayed for an hour or two.

I was in a hurry to remember something
And she said out of the blue:
"For your beauty and grace
Thank you, tomato.

For the fact that you are wet with moisture,
For the fact that you are thick with a vegetable,
For being red and brave
Your baby kiss around the mouth.

And the people in that confusion
pointing up and down
like scorching whirlwinds
flew over my head.

Every girl sliding
on marble, as if on ice,
dangerous, fiery, scythe
a huge pupil bloomed in his forehead.

Suddenly, everything that executed those people,
all that they were given to know,
hit me hard and light,
like a needle in a cloth.

And weary women tears,
forever sticking to the eyes,
passed through me like frost
through bare trees.

But here is the mistress of the buffet
all white, like white light,
She exclaimed, “What is it!
Are you going to leave or not?

Ah, baby, my month is clear,
come with me, stop grieve!
We are in the beautiful Maryina grove
With you, two Marys will live.

In the subway to the stop "Sokol"
Since then I have been walking every day.
Some kind of high sorrow
I mourn and look around.

And to this incomparable Mary,
crouching, as to a good trunk,
sipping cold juice
or just standing around.