One of the brightest, most original and talented poetesses of the Silver Age, Anna Gorenko, better known to her admirers as Akhmatova, lived a long and tragic life. This proud and at the same time fragile woman witnessed two revolutions and two world wars. Her soul was scorched by the repressions and deaths of the closest people. The biography of Anna Akhmatova is worthy of a novel or a film adaptation, which was repeatedly undertaken by both her contemporaries and a later generation of playwrights, directors and writers.

Anna Gorenko was born in the summer of 1889 in the family of a hereditary nobleman and retired naval engineer Andrei Andreevich Gorenko and Inna Erazmovna Stogova, who belonged to the creative elite of Odessa. The girl was born in the southern part of the city, in a house located in the Bolshoi Fountain area. She was the third oldest of six children.

As soon as the baby was a year old, her parents moved to St. Petersburg, where the head of the family received the rank of collegiate assessor and became an official of the State Control for special assignments. The family settled in Tsarskoye Selo, with which all childhood memories of Akhmatova are connected. The nanny took the girl for a walk in Tsarskoye Selo Park and other places that she still remembered. Children were taught secular etiquette. Anya learned to read from the alphabet, and she learned French at an early age, listening to how the teacher teaches it to older children.

The future poetess received her education at the Mariinsky Women's Gymnasium. Anna Akhmatova began writing poetry, according to her, at the age of 11. It is noteworthy that poetry for her was opened not by the works of Alexander Pushkin and, whom she fell in love with a little later, but by the majestic odes of Gabriel Derzhavin and the poem "Frost, Red Nose", which her mother recited.

Young Gorenko fell in love with Petersburg forever and considered it the main city of her life. She was very homesick for his streets, parks and the Neva when she had to leave with her mother to Evpatoria, and then to Kyiv. Parents divorced when the girl was 16 years old.

She finished her penultimate class at home, in Evpatoria, and finished the last class at the Kyiv Fundukleevskaya gymnasium. After completing her studies, Gorenko becomes a student of the Higher Women's Courses, choosing the Faculty of Law for herself. But if Latin and the history of law aroused a keen interest in her, then jurisprudence seemed boring to the point of yawning, so the girl continued her education in her beloved St. Petersburg, at N. P. Raev’s historical and literary courses for women.

Poems

In the Gorenko family, no one was engaged in poetry, "as far as the eye sees around." Only on the line of Inna Stogova's mother was a distant relative Anna Bunina, a translator and poetess, found. The father did not approve of his daughter's passion for poetry and asked not to shame his last name. Therefore, Anna Akhmatova never signed her poems with her real name. In her family tree, she found a Tatar great-grandmother, who allegedly descended from the Horde Khan Akhmat, and thus turned into Akhmatova.

In her early youth, when the girl studied at the Mariinsky Gymnasium, she met a talented young man, later the famous poet Nikolai Gumilyov. Both in Evpatoria and in Kyiv, the girl corresponded with him. In the spring of 1910, they got married in the St. Nicholas Church, which still stands today in the village of Nikolskaya Slobodka near Kyiv. At that time, Gumilyov was already an accomplished poet, known in literary circles.

The newlyweds went to celebrate their honeymoon in Paris. This was Akhmatova's first meeting with Europe. Upon his return, the husband introduced his talented wife to the literary and artistic circles of St. Petersburg, and she was immediately noticed. At first, everyone was struck by her unusual, majestic beauty and regal posture. Swarthy, with a distinct hump on her nose, the "Horde" appearance of Anna Akhmatova conquered the literary bohemia.

Anna Akhmatova and Amadeo Modigliani. Artist Natalia Tretyakova

Soon, St. Petersburg writers find themselves captivated by the creativity of this original beauty. Anna Akhmatova writes poetry about love, namely this great feeling she sang all her life, during the crisis of symbolism. Young poets try themselves in other trends that have come into fashion - futurism and acmeism. Gumilyova-Akhmatova becomes famous as an acmeist.

1912 becomes the year of a breakthrough in her biography. In this memorable year, not only the only son of the poetess, Lev Gumilyov, was born, but also her first collection entitled “Evening” was published in a small edition. In her declining years, a woman who has gone through all the hardships of the time in which she had to be born and create, will call these first creations "the poor verses of the most empty girl." But then Akhmatova's poems found their first admirers and brought her fame.

After 2 years, the second collection, called "Rosary", is released. And it was already a real triumph. Admirers and critics enthusiastically speak of her work, elevating her to the rank of the most fashionable poetess of her time. Akhmatova no longer needs her husband's protection. Her name sounds even louder than the name of Gumilyov. In the revolutionary 1917, Anna published her third book, The White Flock. It comes out in an impressive circulation of 2,000 copies. The couple parted ways in the turbulent 1918.

And in the summer of 1921, Nikolai Gumilyov was shot. Akhmatova was very upset by the death of her son's father and the man who introduced her to the world of poetry.

Anna Akhmatova reads her poems to students

Since the mid-1920s, hard times have come for the poetess. She is under the close attention of the NKVD. It is not printed. Akhmatova's poems are written "on the table." Many of them have been lost in transit. The last collection was published in 1924. "Provocative", "decadent", "anti-communist" poems - such a stigma on creativity cost Anna Andreevna dearly.

The new stage of her work is closely connected with soul-exhausting experiences for her loved ones. First of all, for my son Lyovushka. In the late autumn of 1935, the first wake-up call sounded for a woman: her second husband, Nikolai Punin, and son were arrested at the same time. They are released in a few days, but there will be no more peace in the life of the poetess. From that moment on, she will feel the ring of persecution tightening around her.

After 3 years, the son was arrested. He was sentenced to 5 years in labor camps. In the same terrible year, the marriage of Anna Andreevna and Nikolai Punin ended. The emaciated mother carries the transfers to her son in the Crosses. In the same years, the famous "Requiem" by Anna Akhmatova was published.

In order to make life easier for her son and pull him out of the camps, the poetess, just before the war, in 1940 publishes the collection “From Six Books”. Here are collected old censored poems and new ones, "correct" from the point of view of the ruling ideology.

Anna Andreevna spent the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in evacuation, in Tashkent. Immediately after the victory, she returned to the liberated and destroyed Leningrad. From there he soon moved to Moscow.

But the clouds that barely parted overhead - the son was released from the camps - are gathering again. In 1946, her work was destroyed at the next meeting of the Writers' Union, and in 1949, Lev Gumilyov was arrested again. This time he was sentenced to 10 years. The unfortunate woman is broken. She writes requests and letters of repentance to the Politburo, but no one hears her.

Elderly Anna Akhmatova

After leaving the next imprisonment, the relationship between mother and son remained tense for many years: Leo believed that his mother put creativity in the first place, which she loved more than him. He moves away from her.

Black clouds over the head of this famous, but deeply unhappy woman disperse only at the end of her life. In 1951, she was reinstated in the Writers' Union. Akhmatova's poems are being published. In the mid-1960s, Anna Andreevna received a prestigious Italian award and released a new collection, The Run of Time. And the well-known poetess Oxford University awards a doctoral degree.

Akhmatova "booth" in Komarovo

At the end of years, the world-famous poet and writer finally got his own home. The Leningrad Literary Fund allocated her a modest wooden dacha in Komarovo. It was a tiny house, which consisted of a veranda, a corridor and one room.

All the “furnishings” are a hard bed, where bricks were stacked as a leg, a table built from a door, a drawing by Modigliani on the wall and an old icon that once belonged to the first husband.

Personal life

This regal woman had amazing power over men. In her youth, Anna was fantastically flexible. They say that she could easily bend back, reaching the floor with her head. Even the ballerinas of the Mariinsky Theater were amazed by this incredible natural plasticity. She also had amazing eyes that changed color. Some said that Akhmatova's eyes were gray, others claimed that they were green, and still others claimed that they were sky blue.

Nikolai Gumilyov fell in love with Anna Gorenko at first sight. But the girl was crazy about Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a student who did not pay any attention to her. The young schoolgirl suffered and even tried to hang herself on a nail. Luckily, he slipped out of the clay wall.

Anna Akhmatova with her husband and son

It seems that the daughter inherited her mother's failures. Marriage with none of the three official husbands did not bring happiness to the poetess. The personal life of Anna Akhmatova was chaotic and somewhat disheveled. They cheated on her, she cheated. The first husband carried his love for Anna through his entire short life, but at the same time he had an illegitimate child, whom everyone knew about. In addition, Nikolai Gumilyov did not understand why his beloved wife, in his opinion, was not at all a brilliant poetess, causes such delight and even exaltation among young people. Anna Akhmatova's poems about love seemed to him too long and pompous.

In the end, they parted.

After parting, Anna Andreevna had no end to her fans. Count Valentin Zubov gave her armfuls of expensive roses and trembled at her mere presence, but the beauty gave preference to Nikolai Nedobrovo. However, Boris Anrepa soon replaced him.

The second marriage with Vladimir Shileiko tormented Anna so much that she dropped: “Divorce ... What a pleasant feeling it is!”

A year after the death of her first husband, she parted ways with her second. Six months later, she marries for the third time. Nikolai Punin is an art critic. But the personal life of Anna Akhmatova did not work out with him either.

Punin, Deputy Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, who sheltered the homeless Akhmatova after a divorce, did not make her happy either. The new wife lived in an apartment with Punin's ex-wife and his daughter, donating money to a common cauldron for food. The son Leo, who came from his grandmother, was placed at night in a cold corridor and felt like an orphan, forever deprived of attention.

Anna Akhmatova's personal life was supposed to change after meeting with the pathologist Garshin, but just before the wedding, he allegedly dreamed of the late mother, who begged not to take the sorceress into the house. The marriage was cancelled.

Death

The death of Anna Akhmatova on March 5, 1966 seems to have shocked everyone. Although she was already 76 years old at that time. Yes, and she was sick for a long time and hard. The poetess died in a sanatorium near Moscow in Domodedovo. On the eve of her death, she asked to bring her a New Testament, the texts of which she wanted to compare with the texts of the Qumran manuscripts.

The body of Akhmatova from Moscow hastened to be transported to Leningrad: the authorities did not want dissident unrest. She was buried at the Komarovsky cemetery. Before his death, the son and mother could not reconcile: they did not communicate for several years.

On the grave of his mother, Lev Gumilyov laid out a stone wall with a window, which was supposed to symbolize the wall in the Crosses, where she carried messages to him. At first, a wooden cross stood on the grave, as Anna Andreevna asked for. But in 1969 the cross appeared.

Monument to Anna Akhmatova and Marina Tsvetaeva in Odessa

The Anna Akhmatova Museum is located in St. Petersburg on Avtovskaya Street. Another one was opened in the Fountain House, where she lived for 30 years. Later, museums, memorial plaques and bas-reliefs appeared in Moscow, Tashkent, Kyiv, Odessa and many other cities where the muse lived.

Poems

• 1912 - "Evening"
• 1914 - "Rosary"
• 1922 - The White Pack
• 1921 - "Plantain"
• 1923 - "Anno Domini MCMXXI"
• 1940 - "From six books"
• 1943 - “Anna Akhmatova. Favorites»
• 1958 - Anna Akhmatova. Poems»
• 1963 - "Requiem"
• 1965 - The Run of Time

So contemporaries called Anna Akhmatova.

“My ancestor Khan Akhmat was killed at night in his tent by a bribed Russian assassin, and with this, as Karamzin narrates, the Mongol yoke ended in Russia. On this day, as in memory of a happy event, a religious procession was going from the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. This Akhmat, as is known, was a Chingizid. One of the Akhmatova princesses, Praskovya Egorovna, married a rich and noble Simbirsk landowner Motovilov in the 18th century. Egor Motovilov was my great-grandfather. His daughter Anna Egorovna is my grandmother. She died when my mother was 9 years old, and in honor of her I was named Anna ... "

(from the memoirs of Anna Akhmatova)

At 14, Anya Gorenko was a slender, black-haired, white-skinned beauty with huge gray eyes and a chiseled profile.
And the 17-year-old Gumilyov did not shine with beauty, but fell in love with Anna, making her his Muse and Beautiful Lady. Unrequited love only provoked the young man.

And Anna Gorenko fell in love with a tutor from St. Petersburg. Vladimir Golenishchev-Kutuzov.

In 1905, after a divorce from her husband, Inna Erazmovna took the children and moved to Evpatoria. Anna's tuberculosis worsened and the sea air was good for her. During long walks, she enjoyed the sea views.

In 1906, Gumilyov left for Paris, deciding to wrest fatal love from his heart and try on the mask of a disappointed hero. And Anna began to miss his love.

The last class of Gorenko was held at the Fundukleevskaya gymnasium in Kyiv, from which she graduated in 1907. She lived at that time with relatives in Kyiv. In 1908-1910, she studied at the law department of the Kyiv Higher Women's Courses and corresponded with Gumilyov, who had left for Paris.

At the same time, the first publication of her poem "There are many brilliant rings on his hand ..." in the Parisian Russian weekly "Sirius", the publisher of which was Gumilyov.

Young Anna all this time wanted to escape from the supervision of adults.

In 1910, she accepted Gumilyov's official offer to become his wife. A month later, she ended up in Paris, where she met with the then unknown artist Modigliani. He asked permission to paint her portrait. And they had a passionate but short romance.

In the same 1910, Anna Gorenko and Nikolai Gumilev got married in the Nicholas Church in the village of Nikolskaya Slobidka near Kyiv. Gumilyov's relatives were not present at the wedding, as they believed that their marriage would soon fall apart.

In May, the couple went on their honeymoon trip to Paris, returned to Russia, spent the summer in Slepnev, the Tver estate of Nikolai Gumilyov's mother.

After that, the couple moved to St. Petersburg, where Anna attended the women's historical and literary courses of N. P. Raev.

In the spring of 1911, they again visited Paris, upon returning to St. Petersburg, Anna published the first publication under the pseudonym Anna Akhmatova - the poem "Old Portrait" in the "General Journal".

Anna Akhmatova in a drawing by Modigliani. 1911

In the spring of 1912, the couple traveled through Northern Italy. In September of the same year, the couple had a son, Lev Gumilyov.

L. Gorodetsky, commons.wikimedia

In 1912, the first collection of Akhmatova's "Evening" was published with a preface by M. A. Kuzmin. "Sweet, joyful and sorrowful world."

Anna Akhmatova considered Annensky her teacher, she herself wrote: “I trace my origins from the poems of Annensky. His work, in my opinion, is marked by tragedy, sincerity and artistic integrity.

In 1912, Anna Akhmatova was elected secretary of the newly formed "Workshop of Poets".

Her fame is growing, in 1913 Akhmatova speaks to a huge audience at the Higher Women's Bestuzhev Courses, artists paint her portraits, poets dedicate poems to her, including Alexander Blok. At this time, there were rumors about their secret romance. Modigliani writes passionate letters to her from Paris.

But in Akhmatova's personal life, not everything is going smoothly.

In 1912, Gumilyov fell in love with his young niece, Maria Kuzmina-Karavaeva, whom he met on his mother's estate. The girl reciprocated, but she was ill with tuberculosis and soon died.

However, even the birth of a son did not kindle in Gumilyov's heart the former love for his wife.

Later, Akhmatova wrote: “Nikolai Stepanovich was always single. I can't imagine him being married." But she herself did not feel like a good mother and sent her son to her mother-in-law.

In the spring of 1913, Akhmatova met Nikolai Vladimirovich Nedobrovo and a reverent friendship began between them.

In August, Nikolai Gumilyov signed up as a volunteer in the Life Guards Ulansky Regiment, and went to the front.

In 1914, Akhmatova's Rosary was published. The poems in this collection were largely autobiographical. Many contemporaries saw in them the author's lyrical diary.

Olga Kardovskaya, 1914

After the "Rosary" fame fell on Akhmatova.

The collection was also highly appreciated by B.L. Parsnip.

During the First World War, Akhmatova was silent for a long time, expressing her pain in "Prayer" and "in July 1914."

During these years, her tuberculosis worsened, which took a long time to heal. In 1915, she was treated in Finland, and spent the summer of 2016 under the supervision of doctors in Sevastopol, where her last meeting with Nedobrovo took place.

In March 1917, Anna accompanied Gumilyov abroad, to the Russian Expeditionary Force, where he was subsequently awarded two St. George Crosses for bravery, and she herself went to the estate of her husband's mother Slepnevo, where she spent the whole summer with her son and mother-in-law and wrote poetry.

In the fall of 1917, Anna Akhmatova's poetry collection The White Flock was published.

Despite the scattered emotionality of lyrical experiences, the collection seems to be a single whole. No wonder Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote: "Akhmatova's poems are monolithic and will withstand the pressure of any voice without cracking."

In 1918, when Gumilyov returned to Russia, Akhmatova informed him that she needed a divorce because she had fallen in love with another person.

Gumilyov, despite the fact that their marriage could hardly be called happy, was stunned. He tried to dissuade his wife from the decision, but she remained adamant. And having received a divorce, she connected her fate with a well-known specialist in ancient Egypt, Vladimir Shileiko. Son Leo stayed with his grandmother and father. Gumilyov more than once brought his son to visit his mother in their apartment with Shileiko.

After the October Revolution, Akhmatova did not want to emigrate, remaining in "her own deaf and sinful land."

In 1921, Akhmatova’s collections “Plantain” and “Anno Domini MCMXXI” were published, the main leitmotif of which was sadness about the fate of their homeland and mystical dreams about “great earthly love”.

In 1922, M. S. Shaginyan wrote about the poetess: “Over the years, Akhmatova is more and more able to be amazingly popular, without any quasi, without falsehood, with severe simplicity and with priceless avarice of speech.”

The post-revolutionary years turned out to be difficult for Akhmatova - Blok died, Gumilyov was shot, she broke up with Shileiko.

But Akhmatova finds strength in herself and participates in the work of writers' organizations, in literary evenings, and is published in periodicals.

Then he finds a job in the library of the Agronomic Institute.

In 1922, Akhmatova married the art critic N. N. Punin, with whom she would live for 15 years.

In 1924, Akhmatova's new poems appeared in print for the last time, and an unspoken ban was imposed on her name. And only its translations and the article “About the Tale, about the Golden Cockerel” by A.S. Pushkin.

In 1935, her son L. Gumilyov and N. Punin were arrested.

Bulgakov helped Akhmatova write a letter to Stalin, L. Seifullina, E. Gershtein, B. Pasternak, B. Pilnyak and Gumilyov and Punin were released.

In 1937, the NKVD prepared materials on Anna Akhmatova herself to accuse her of counter-revolutionary activities.

And in 1938, the son of Akhmatova was again arrested. Then the poetess begins to write her famous Requiem cycle, which for many years she did not dare to write down on paper.

In 1939, at a reception in honor of the awarding of writers, Stalin asked about Akhmatova, whose poems were very fond of his daughter Svetlana: “Where is Akhmatova? Why doesn't he write anything?

Publishing houses rushed to fulfill the will of the leader - after a 17-year break in 1940, her collection "From Six Books" was published, which included both old and new poems after careful censorship. But the collection was scolded by critics, and it was removed from libraries.

The Great Patriotic War found Akhmatova in Leningrad.

In 1941 she wrote the poem "Oath", in 1942 "Courage".

By order of the government, Anna Akhmatova, who had already developed dystrophic edema, was evacuated to Tashkent, where she spent two years.

In this city, she will write many poems and begin work on "A Poem Without a Hero."

In May 1943, the Tashkent collection of poems by Akhmatova "My Asiatic" was published. And in the same year she received the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad".

On May 15, 1944, Akhmatova arrived in Moscow, where she lived with her friends Ardovs on Bolshaya Ordynka, and in the summer she returned to Leningrad, and went to the Leningrad Front with poetry reading.

In the Leningrad House of Writers, Akhmatova's creative evening was a great success, and starting from 1946, her creative evenings were regularly held in Leningrad and Moscow.

But on August 16, the General Meeting of the Leningrad creative intelligentsia took place, at which A. Zhdanov made a devastating report. The work of Akhmatova and Zoshchenko was declared ideologically alien and harmful. The meeting unanimously supported the line of the Central Committee.

Already prepared for release collections by Akhmatova “Anna Akhmatova. Poems" and "Anna Akhmatova. Favorites" were not published.

The reason for the persecution of Akhmatova, most likely, was the visit to her by the English historian I. Berlin.

On September 1, 1946, the Presidium of the Board of the Union of Writers of the USSR decided: to exclude Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko from the Union of Soviet Writers.

Anna Akhmatova was left without a livelihood, she was deprived of ration cards. Searches were made in her room several times, after which a listening device was installed.

With great difficulty, Boris Pasternak secured 3,000 rubles from the Literary Fund for the starving Akhmatova.

And in 1949, Punin and Lev Gumilyov were arrested again.

Akhmatova constantly walked around the offices, making every effort to free her son, who went through the whole war and reached Berlin.

Despite the fact that in order to free her son from the camps, Akhmatova had to write a laudatory poem to Stalin, however, in vain, she expressed her true attitude towards the despot in completely different verses:

“I will dream of you as a black sheep,
On unsteady, dry feet,
I'll come and bleat, howl:
“Did you have a sweet supper, padishah?
You hold the universe like beads
By the bright will of Allah we keep ...
And my son came to taste
And you and your children?”

After Stalin's death, the editors began to tremble less and, despite the obstacles still placed by the bureaucrats, Akhmatova's poems began to appear in print.

On January 19, 1951, at the suggestion of Alexander Fadeev, Akhmatova was reinstated in the Writers' Union.

In May, Akhmatova had her first myocardial infarction; at that time she lived in Moscow with the Ardovs.

Before going to the hospital, Akhmatova called E. Gershtein and gave her her manuscripts and documents for safekeeping. And after being discharged from the hospital and still in Moscow, Anna Andreevna found out that she had been evicted from the Fountain House on Red Cavalry Street.

On June 21, 1953, she received news of the death of Nikolai Punin in the Vorkuta camp in the village of Abez.

And on February 5, 1954, she filed a petition addressed to the Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Armed Forces Voroshilov to review the case of Lev Gumilyov. And only on May 11, 1956, the son was rehabilitated due to the lack of corpus delicti.

A year before, in May 1955, the Leningrad branch of the Literary Fund allocated Akhmatova a country house in the writers' village of Komarovo. Akhmatova called it "The Booth".

Olgvasil, commons.wikimedia

In October 1961, Anna Akhmatova was operated on in the surgical department of the first Leningrad hospital, where she ended up due to an exacerbation of chronic appendicitis.

After the operation, she had a third myocardial infarction. She celebrated New Year 1962 in the hospital.

And in August 1962, the Nobel Committee nominated Anna Akhmatova for the Nobel Prize, which she did not receive.

By the beginning of the 60s, a circle of students had formed around Akhmatova.

In 1963, Anna Akhmatova was nominated for the Etna-Taormina International Literary Prize.

On May 30, 1964, a gala evening dedicated to the 75th anniversary of Anna Akhmatova took place in Moscow at the Mayakovsky Museum.

On December 1, 1964, Anna Akhmatova left for Italy, where, at a gala reception in Rome at the Ursino Akhmatova castle, the Etna-Taormina literary prize was awarded for the 50th anniversary of her poetic activity and in connection with the release of a collection of her selected works in Italy.

And on December 15, 1964, Oxford University decided to award Anna Andreevna Akhmatova a degree and the mantle of an honorary doctor of literature.

In 1965, Akhmatova's last lifetime collection, The Run of Time, was published, and in October Akhmatova's last public performance took place at a gala evening at the Bolshoi Theater dedicated to the 700th anniversary of Dante's birth.

At this time, Akhmatova lived in Komarovo, where friends came to visit her.

On November 10, 1965, Akhmatova suffered a fourth myocardial infarction. On February 19, 1966, she moved from the hospital to a cardiology sanatorium near Moscow.

On March 4, she made the last entry in her diary: “In the evening, going to bed, I regretted that I had not taken the Bible with me.”

On March 5, 1966, Anna Akhmatova died in Domodedovo, she was buried on March 10 according to Orthodox custom in the St. Nicholas Naval Cathedral in Leningrad and was buried in a cemetery in the village of Komarovo near Leningrad.

But only the earthly life path of Anna Akhmatova ended, her poetic and spiritual life continues and influences not only the minds and hearts of Russians, but also people living far beyond the borders of Russia.

Creativity Akhmatova received worldwide recognition.

And in conclusion, I would like to quote the words of N. Struve: “Not only did the unique voice, which until the last days brought the secret power of harmony into the world, fall silent, the unique Russian culture, which existed from the first songs of Pushkin to the last songs of Akhmatova, completed its circle with it.”

Undoubtedly, Akhmatova's poetry is an integral part of Russian culture. But not only. She entered both world and Soviet culture and continues to live in modern Russian culture.

In 1988, a documentary film "Requiem" was shot about Anna Akhmatova, in which her only son, Lev Nikolaevich Gumilyov, who had not yet passed away, took part.

1. It is known that A.A. Akhmatova is a pseudonym. What is the real name of the poetess?

BUT.Anna Versilova

B.Anna Snegina

AT.Anna Suvorina

G. Anna Gorenko

2. What famous poet was the husband of A. Akhmatova?

A. Blok
M. Sholokhov
N. Gumilyov O. Mandelstam

3. What was the name of the first published collection of poems by A. Akhmatova?

Beads
Evening Plantain
Anno Domini

4. In line with what literary trend did the poetic skill of A. A. Akhmatova develop (in her youth)?

futurism

acmeism

imagism

symbolism

5. Specify the first published collection of poems by A.A. Akhmatova.

"Lyric Pantheon"

"Beads"

"Evening"

"White Flock"

6. Indicate what is the main theme of Akhmatov's early works.

love

building a new society

tocriticism of bourgeois morality

nature

7. Which collection included A.A. Akhmatova’s poem “The Song of the Last Meeting”:

"Evening",

"Beads",

"Plantain",

"White Flock"

8. Lyrica A.A. Akhmatova is distinguished by deep psychologism. What poetic means help the author convey the inner state of the characters?

So helplessly my chest went cold,

But my steps were light.

I put on my right hand

Left hand glove.

It seemed that many steps

And I knew there were only three of them!

symbol

portrait

household item

landscape

9. Lyrical heroine A. Akhmatova:

A woman surrounded by everyday life, cares of the heart.

The fighter is a revolutionary.

A woman immersed in feelings, intimate experiences of personal destiny .

10. In what years was the poem written by A.A. Akhmatova "Requiem"

1917-1930

1935-1940

1959-1961

1938-1958

11. How many poems were included in the poem "Requiem"?

15

12. In the poem "Requiem" the theme of the monument sounds. To whom does he want to “install” a monument to A. A. Akhmatov?

victorious people

people's suffering

yourself

new government

13. Indicate which biblical name appears in the Requiem.

Magdalene

Joseph

Job

Shulamith

14. Indicate the last lifetime collection of poems by A.A. Akhmatova.

"Anno Domini"

"Plantain"

"Running Time"

"Cane".

15. In the poem “I had a voice” (1917) A. Akhmatova spoke:

As a passionate civil poet who expressed the voice of the intelligentsia, who made their choice and stayed with their native country .

As a poet who understood and accepted the revolution.

16. A. Akhmatova has a collection of poems "Anno Domini", which means "Summer of the Lord" in translation. Which Russian writer has a work with the same title?

N. Gumilyova
I. Shmeleva A. Blok
A. Tvardovsky

17. What poem did A. Akhmatova write for 22 years?

"Requiem"
« A poem without a hero "Running Time"

What is the creative fate of the main collections of poems by A. Akhmatova?

The first book of poems by Anna Akhmatova "Evening" was published in March 1912 in the edition of the "Workshop of Poets" with a circulation of 300 copies. The preface to it was written by the poet M.A. Kuzmin. Frontispiece by E.E. Lansere, screensavers by A.Ya. Beloborodov. The book includes 46 poems, written mainly in 1910-1911, 14 of them were published in magazines in 1911. The creative history of Akhmatova's preparation of her first poetry collection can be restored in general terms thanks to her later autobiographical notes, as well as by studying the few surviving autographs of poems included in the book "Evening".

In the 1950s Akhmatova recalled that she began writing poetry at the age of 11; she wrote them “with rather long breaks” during her years of study at the Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium (1900-1905), at the Kyiv Fundukleev Gymnasium (1906-1907) and at the Kyiv Higher Women's Courses (1908-1910). However, until the winter of 1910/11. the quality of the poems, in her words, "was so deplorable that even Gumilyov, who was in love with no memory, was not able to praise them." “Then,” recalls Akhmatova, “the following happened: I read the proofreading of The Cypress Casket (by I.F. Annensky) (when I arrived in St. Petersburg in early 1910) and understood something in poetry.” “When Gumilyov returned from Addis Ababa on March 25, 1911, and I read to him what later became known as “Evening”, he immediately said: “You are a poet, you need to make a book.”

The composition of the first collection of poems by Akhmatova was the result of a very strict selection. From her youth, she, then still Anna Gorenko (the pseudonym Anna Akhmatova first appears in 1910), wrote down the texts of her poems in special notebooks, “putting numbers over them for an unknown purpose.” “As a curiosity, I can tell you,” she wrote half a century later, “that, judging by the surviving manuscript,“ The Song of the Last Meeting ”is my two hundredth poem.” These notebooks have not come down to us. In the late 1940s Akhmatova burned them. However, before being destroyed, she tore out several sheets from different notebooks and kept them in her archive. Judging by the numbers of the surviving texts, from December 1910 to September 1911 (from “The Gray-Eyed King” to “The Song of the Last Meeting”) she wrote about 80 poems: no more than 35 of them are included in “Evening”.

The book "Evening" was greeted with favorable reviews in the press (reviews by V.Ya. Bryusov, S.M. Gorodetsky, G.I. Chulkov, etc.) and sold out very quickly. However, subsequently Akhmatova never completely republished the poems from this book. Selected "Poems" from the book "Evening" were included as a separate section in her next book, "Rosary" (1914). In her last lifetime collection, The Run of Time (1965), Akhmatova included 24 poems from the original composition of the book Evening. At the same time, in The Run of Time, the book Evening opens with seven poems that were not in the 1912 edition. Their creative history is rather complicated. Until the mid-1940s, none of them was known. In workbooks 1956-1960. contains rough autographs of some of these poems with the author's dates "1909" and "1910". Apparently, many decades later, Akhmatova recalled her early, previously unpublished poems and, entering them into workbooks, continued to work on them, changing individual words and entire lines. In the post-war years, she published some of these “remembered” poems in magazines, included them in her collections of 1958 and 1961, and then in The Run of Time. As can be seen from the plans for publications preserved in the workbooks of 1959-1961, Akhmatova intended to combine these poems into a separate section or cycle “Pre-Evening. From the first (Kyiv) notebook" preceding "Evening", however, in the collection "Running of Time" this plan was not realized, and the book "Evening" opens with these verses.

The second book of poems - "The Rosary", which appeared two years after the "Evening", brought Akhmatova all-Russian fame and determined her place in the forefront of modern Russian poetry. The first edition of "Rosary" was published in the spring of 1914 by the publishing house "Hyperborey" with a circulation of 1000 copies, which was not small for that time; Until 1923, the "Rosary" was reprinted 8 more times with some changes in the composition and arrangement of the poems. Poems from the "Rosary" were repeatedly reprinted in lifetime and posthumous editions of selected works by Akhmatova. Many of them have been translated into foreign languages ​​and have firmly entered the golden fund of world lyric poetry. Of the numerous (mostly favorable) press reviews, Akhmatova considered the most profound and insightful article by the critic and poet N.V. Nedobrovo (Russian Thought. 1915. No. 7), who saw in the poetry of the Rosary "a lyrical soul rather harsh than too soft, rather cruel than tearful, and clearly dominating, not oppressed."

The third book of poems by Akhmatova - "The White Flock" - was published in September 1917 by the publishing house "Hyperborey" with a circulation of 2000 copies. It includes 83 poems and the poem "By the Sea". Most of the poems had previously been published in magazines and almanacs. In 1918-1923. 3 more editions of The White Pack were published, somewhat different from the first edition in terms of the composition and arrangement of the poems. Under the conditions of war and revolutionary times, relatively few responses to the book appeared in the press, but its reader success was no less than that of the Rosary. Attentive readers and later critics noted the strengthening of the classical, Pushkinian beginning in the poetry of The White Pack, Akhmatova's desire to rise above the fleeting and everyday, to approach deep psychological and ethical generalizations. The range of her love lyrics has expanded: along with poems about unrequited and lost love, especially characteristic of "Evening" and "Rosary", jubilant lines sounded about love, all-conquering, healing, filling life with meaning and light. In Akhmatova's poems, the themes of the Motherland and war, memory and conscience were revealed in a new way. Earlier and deeper than others, the poet O.E. Mandelstam. In an article of 1916, which remained unpublished at that time, he wrote that "a different time has come for Akhmatova ... At present, her poetry is close to becoming one of the symbols of the greatness of Russia."

The fourth book of poems by Akhmatova - "Plantain" - was published in April 1921. in the publishing house "Petropolis" with a circulation of 1000 copies, cover by M.V. Dobuzhinsky. The book contains 38 poems. Plantain was reprinted twice in 1922 and 1923. as a separate section in Akhmatova's next book of poems, Anno Domini.

In November 1921, the Petropolis Publishing House published the fifth book of Akhmatova's poems - "Anno Domini MSMXXI" ("In the summer of the Lord 1921"). The book consisted of three sections. The first, titled like the rest of the book, included poems written in 1921; the second - "Voice of Memory" - also contained earlier poems; the third was a reprint of the book Plantain. A year later, the second, supplemented edition of the book was published under the title "Anno Domini" (as the book of the 3rd collection of poems by Akhmatova, published jointly by the publishing houses "Petropolis" and "Alkonost"). and many others, printed in Berlin. The second edition was supplemented by the first section, entitled "New Poems", the three subsequent sections are reprinted from the first edition without changes. Preparing the collection "The Run of Time", Akhmatova additionally included in the book "Anno Domini" a number of poems from different times that had not been published before.

The sixth book of Akhmatova's poems was being prepared for publication on the eve of the Great Patriotic War and was supposed to include poems written over the 17 years that had passed since the publication of the book Anno Domini. These years were difficult in the life and work of Akhmatova. After the creative upsurge of 1921-1922, a long decline ensued. For 12 years (1923-1934) she wrote no more than 20 poems. During this period, almost no new or old poems of hers appeared in print. Akhmatova during these years was engaged in the study of Pushkin's work, the architecture of St. Petersburg, and translations. A new creative upsurge began in the mid-1930s. In 1940, a collection of selected poems by Akhmatova "From Six Books" was published. In it, the sixth book was called "Willow" and opened with a poem of the same name.

The preparation of the seventh book of poems by Akhmatova began during the Great Patriotic War, while in evacuation, in Tashkent. According to the original plan, the book was to be called "Odd". Later this name was given to one of the sections of the Seventh Book. In the early 60s. Akhmatova intended to title the new book The Run of Time, but later she gave this title to a collection of selected poems, published in 1965 and including poems from all seven books. The Seventh Book was the last section in it. In Akhmatova's archive, several plans of the Seventh Book of the 1950s and early 1960s have been preserved. with a different arrangement of poems and cycles included in it. In its final form, the composition and complex structure of the Seventh Book took shape in The Run of Time.

Anna Andreevna Akhmatova (last name at birth - Gorenko; June 11, 1889, Odessa, Russian Empire - March 5, 1966, Domodedovo, Moscow Region, RSFSR, USSR) - one of the largest Russian poets of the 20th century, writer, literary critic, literary critic, translator.
The fate of the poet was tragic. Although she herself was not imprisoned or exiled, three people close to her were subjected to repressions (her husband in 1910-1918 N. S. Gumilyov was shot in 1921; Nikolai Punin, her life partner in the 1930s, was arrested three times , died in the camp in 1953; the only son, Lev Gumilyov, spent more than 10 years in prison in the 1930s-1940s and in the 1940s-1950s). The grief of the widow and mother of the imprisoned "enemies of the people" is reflected in one of the most famous works of Akhmatova - the poem "Requiem".
Recognized as a classic of Russian poetry back in the 1920s, Akhmatova was hushed up, censored and hounded, many of her works were not published not only during the author's lifetime, but also for more than two decades after her death. Even during her lifetime, her name was surrounded by fame among a wide range of poetry admirers both in the USSR and in exile.
Biography
Akhmatova adjoined acmeism (collections Evening, 1912, Rosary, 1914). Loyalty to the moral foundations of life, the psychology of women's feelings, comprehension of the national tragedies of the 20th century, coupled with personal experiences, attraction to the classical style of poetic language in the collection “The Run of Time. Poems. 1909-1965". Autobiographical cycle of poems "Requiem" (1935-1940; published 1987) about the victims of the repressions of the 1930s. In "A Poem Without a Hero" (published in full in 1976), there is a recreation of the era of the "Silver Age". Articles about the Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin.
Family. Childhood. Studies. Anna Akhmatova was born on June 23, 1889, in Bolshoi Fontan, near Odessa. Her maternal ancestors, according to family tradition, ascended to the Tatar Khan Akhmat. Father - a mechanical engineer in the Navy, occasionally engaged in journalism. As a child, Akhmatova lived in Tsarskoye Selo, where in 1903 she met Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov and became a constant recipient of his poems. In 1905, after the divorce of her parents, she moved to Evpatoria. In 1906-1907, Anna Andreevna studied at the Fundukleevskaya gymnasium in Kyiv, in 1908-1910 - at the legal department of the Kyiv Higher Women's Courses. Then she attended the women's historical and literary courses of N.P. Raev in St. Petersburg (early 1910s).
Gumilyov. In the spring of 1910, after several refusals, Anna Akhmatova agreed to become Gumilyov's wife (in 1910-1916 she lived with him in Tsarskoye Selo); on her honeymoon, she made her first trip abroad, to Paris (she visited there again in the spring of 1911), met Amedeo Modigliani, who made pencil portrait sketches of her. In the spring of 1912, the Gumilyovs traveled around Italy; in September their son Leo was born. In 1918, having divorced Gumilyov (in fact, the marriage broke up in 1914), Akhmatova married the Assyriologist and poet Vladimir Kazimirovich Shileiko (real name Voldemar).

The first publications of Anna Akhmatova. First collections. Writing poetry from the age of 11 and publishing from the age of 18 (the first publication was in the Sirius magazine published by Gumilyov in Paris, 1907), Akhmatova first announced her experiments to an authoritative audience in the summer of 1910. Defending spiritual independence from the very beginning of family life, Anna made an attempt printed without the help of Gumilyov - in the fall of 1910 she sent poems to V. Ya. from Bryusov, they were published. Upon Gumilyov's return from his African trip, Akhmatova reads to him everything she had composed during the winter and for the first time received full approval of her literary experiments. Since that time, she has become a professional writer. Released a year later, her collection "Evening" found a very quick success. In the same 1912 participants recently arr. of the founded "Workshop of Poets" (Akhmatova was elected his secretary), they announce the emergence of a poetic school of acmeism.
Akhmatova's life in 1913 proceeded under the sign of growing metropolitan fame: Anna spoke to a crowded audience at the Higher Women's Courses, artists painted her portraits, poets addressed her with poetic messages. New more or less long-term intimate attachments of Akhmatova arose - to the poet and critic N. V. Nedobrovo, to the composer A. S. Lurie, etc. all-Russian fame, which gave rise to numerous imitations, and approved the concept of "Akhmatov's line" in the literary consciousness. In the summer of 1914, Akhmatova wrote the poem “By the Sea”, which goes back to childhood experiences during summer trips to Chersonese near Sevastopol.
"White Flock". With the outbreak of the First World War, Anna Akhmatova sharply limited her public life. At this time, she suffered from tuberculosis, a disease that did not let her go for a long time. An in-depth reading of the classics (A. S. Pushkin, Evgeny Abramovich Baratynsky, Jean Racine, etc.) affects her poetic manner, the sharply paradoxical style of cursory psychological sketches gives way to neoclassical solemn intonations. Insightful criticism guesses in her collection The White Flock (1917) the growing "sense of personal life as a national, historical life." Inspiring in her early poems the atmosphere of "mystery", the aura of autobiographical context, Anna Andreevna introduced free "self-expression" as a stylistic principle into high poetry. The seeming fragmentation, dissonance, spontaneity of lyrical experience is more and more clearly subject to a strong integrating principle, which gave Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky reason to remark: “Akhmatova’s poems are monolithic and will withstand the pressure of any voice without cracking.”
Post-revolutionary years. The first post-revolutionary years in the life of Anna Akhmatova were marked by hardships and complete estrangement from the literary environment, but in the fall of 1921, after the death of Blok, the execution of Gumilyov, she, having parted with Shileiko, returned to active work - she participated in literary evenings, in the work of writers' organizations, published in periodicals . In the same year, two of her collections were released - "Plantain" and "Anno Domini. MCMXXI". In 1922, for a decade and a half, Akhmatova joined her fate with art historian Nikolai Nick. olaevich Punin.
Years of silence. "Requiem". In 1924, Akhmatova's new poems were published for the last time before a long break, after which an unspoken ban was imposed on her name. Only translations appeared in the press, as well as an article about Pushkin's The Tale of the Golden Cockerel. In 1935, her son L. Gumilyov and Punin were arrested, but after Akhmatova's written appeal to Stalin they were released. In 1937, the NKVD prepared materials to accuse her of counter-revolutionary activities; in 1938 Anna Andreevna's son was again arrested. The experiences of these painful years clothed in verses made up the Requiem cycle, which the poetess did not dare to fix on paper for two decades. In 1939, after a half-interested remark by Stalin, publishing authorities offered Anna a number of publications. Her collection "From Six Books" was published, which included, along with the old poems that had passed a strict censorship selection, and new works that arose after many years of silence. Soon, however, the collection was subjected to ideological scrutiny and withdrawn from libraries.
War. Evacuation. In the first months of the Great Patriotic War, Anna Akhmatova wrote poster poems. By order of the authorities, she was evacuated from Leningrad before the first blockade winter, she spends two and a half years in Tashkent. She wrote many poems, worked on "A Poem without a Hero" (1940-1965) - a baroque-complicated epic about the St. Petersburg 1910s.
Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of 1946. In 1945-1946, Anna Andreevna incurred the wrath of Stalin, who learned about the visit of the English historian Isaiah Berlin to her. The Kremlin authorities made her, along with Mikhail Mikhailovich Zoshchenko, the main object of party criticism, the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks directed against them “On the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad” (1946) tightened the ideological dictate and control over the Soviet intelligentsia, misled by the liberating spirit national unity during the war. Again there was a ban on publications; an exception was made in 1950, when Akhmatova feigned loyal feelings in her poems, written for the anniversary of Stalin in a desperate attempt to alleviate the fate of her son, once again subjected to imprisonment.
last years of life. In the last decade of A. Akhmatova's life, her poems gradually, overcoming the resistance of party bureaucrats, the timidity of editors, come to a new generation of readers. In 1965, the final collection "The Run of Time" was published. At the end of her days, she was allowed to accept the Italian literary prize Etna-Taormina (1964) and an honorary doctorate from Oxford University (1965).

Creative activity
One of the most talented poets of the Silver Age, Anna Akhmatova lived a long life full of both bright moments and tragic events. She was married three times, but she did not experience happiness in any marriage. She witnessed two world wars, during each of which she experienced an unprecedented creative upsurge. She had a difficult relationship with her son, who became a political repressant, and until the end of her life, the poetess believed that she preferred creativity to love for him.
Anna Andreeva Gorenko was born on June 11, 1889 in Odessa. Her father, Andrei Antonovich Gorenko, was a retired captain of the second rank, after completing his naval service, he received the rank of collegiate assessor. The mother of the poetess, Inna Stogova, was an intelligent, well-read woman who made friends with representatives of the creative elite of Odessa. However, Akhmatova will not have childhood memories of the “pearl by the sea” - when she was one year old, the Gorenko family moved to Tsarskoye Selo near St. Petersburg. From childhood, Anna was taught French language and secular etiquette, which was familiar to any girl from an intelligent family. Anna received her education at the Tsarskoye Selo Women's Gymnasium, where she met her first husband Nikolai Gumilyov and wrote her first poems. Having met Anna at one of the gala evenings at the gymnasium, Gumilyov was fascinated by her and since then the fragile dark-haired girl has become the constant muse of his work.
First verse Akhmatova composed at the age of 11 and after that she began to actively improve herself in the art of versification. The poet's father considered this occupation frivolous, therefore he forbade her to sign her creations with the name Gorenko. Then Anna took the maiden name of her great-grandmother - Akhmatova. However, very soon her father completely ceased to influence her work - her parents divorced, and Anna and her mother moved first to Evpatoria, then to Kyiv, where from 1908 to 1910 the poetess studied at the Kyiv Women's Gymnasium. In 1910 Akhmatova married her longtime admirer Gumilyov. Nikolai Stepanovich, who was already a fairly well-known personality in poetic circles, contributed to the publication of his wife's poetic developments. Akhmatova's first poems began to be published in various publications since 1911, and in 1912 her first full-fledged poetry collection, Evening, was published. In 1912, Anna gave birth to a son, Leo, and in 1914 fame came to her - the Rosary collection received good reviews from critics, Akhmatova began to be considered a fashionable poetess. Gumilyov's patronage by that time ceases to be necessary, and discord sets in in the relationship of the spouses. In 1918, Akhmatova divorced Gumilyov and married the poet and scientist Vladimir Shileiko. However, this marriage was also short-lived - in 1922 the poetess divorced him too, in order to marry six months later with art critic Nikolai Punin. Paradox: subsequently, Punin will be arrested almost at the same time as Akhmatova's son, Lev, but Punin will be released, and Lev will go through the stage. Akhmatova's first husband, Nikolai Gumilyov, would already be dead by that time: he would be shot in August 1921.

Last published collection Anna Andreevna dates back to 1924. After that, her poetry falls into the field of view of the NKVD as "provocative and anti-communist." The poetess is very upset by the inability to publish, she writes a lot "on the table", the motives of her poetry change from romantic to social. After the arrest of her husband and son, Akhmatov began work on the poem "Requiem". The "fuel" for the creative frenzy was the soul-exhausting experiences for the native people. The poetess was well aware that under the current government this creation would never see the light of day, and in order to somehow remind readers of herself, Akhmatova wrote a number of “sterile” poems from the point of view of ideology, which, together with censored old poems, make up the collection “Out of Six books, published in 1940.
Akhmatova spent the entire Second World War in the rear, in Tashkent. Almost immediately after the fall of Berlin, the poetess returned to Moscow. However, there she was no longer considered a "fashionable" poetess: in 1946, her work was criticized at a meeting of the Writers' Union, and soon Akhmatova was expelled from the SSP. Soon another blow falls on Anna Andreevna: the second arrest of Lev Gumilyov. For the second time, the son of the poetess was sentenced to ten years in the camps. All this time, Akhmatova tried to pull him out, scribbled requests to the Politburo, but no one listened to them. Lev Gumilyov himself, not knowing anything about the efforts of his mother, decided that she had not made enough efforts to help him, so after his release, he distanced himself from her.
In 1951, Akhmatova was reinstated in the Union of Soviet Writers and she is gradually returning to active creative work. In 1964, she was awarded the prestigious Italian literary prize "Etna-Torina" and she is allowed to receive it, since the times of total repression have passed, and Akhmatova has ceased to be considered an anti-communist poetess. In 1958, the collection "Poems" was published, in 1965 - "The Run of Time". Then, in 1965, a year before her death, Akhmatova received her doctorate from Oxford University. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova died on March 5, 1966 in Domodedovo near Moscow.
The main achievements of Akhmatova
1912 - collection of poems "Evening"
1914-1923 - a series of poetry collections "Rosary", consisting of 9 editions.
1917 - collection "White flock".
1922 - collection "Anno Domini MCMXXI".
1935-1940 - writing the poem "Requiem"; first publication - 1963, Tel Aviv.
1940 - collection "From six books".
1961 - collection of selected poems, 1909-1960.
1965 - the last lifetime collection, "The Run of Time".
Interesting facts from the life of Akhmatova
Throughout her life, Akhmatova kept a diary, excerpts from which were published in 1973. On the eve of her death, going to bed, the poetess wrote that she was sorry that her Bible was not here, in the cardiological sanatorium. Apparently, Anna Andreevna had a premonition that the thread of her earthly life was about to break.
Akhmatova's "Poem Without a Hero" contains the lines: "clear voice: I'm ready for death." These words sounded in life: they were spoken by Akhmatova's friend and colleague in the Silver Age, Osip Mandelstam, when they, along with the poetess, walked along Tverskoy Boulevard.
After the arrest of Lev Gumilyov, Akhmatova, along with hundreds of other mothers, went to the infamous Kresty prison. One day, one of the women, exhausted by expectation, saw the poetess and recognized her and asked, “Can you describe this?”. Akhmatova answered in the affirmative, and it was after this incident that she began working on Requiem.
Before her death, Akhmatova nevertheless became close to her son Leo, who for many years harbored an undeserved grudge against her. After the death of the poetess, Lev Nikolayevich took part in the construction of the monument together with his students (Lev Gumilyov was a doctor of Leningrad University). There was not enough material, and the gray-haired doctor, along with the students, wandered the streets in search of stones.