Indian Journal of Science and Technology

Abstract

Objectives: The article aims at understanding the features of Anna Akhmatova’s lyrical addressing, focusing on the specific authorized poetic address, the recipients of which were the people from her inner circle and contemporary poets. Methods: In terms of methodology the study is based on the study of the phenomenon of dialogism of Russian poetry in general and of the Silver Age on articles and dissertations devoted to the study of literary, genetic and biographical relations of Anna Akhmatova, on the genre characteristics of her poetry, on her aesthetic concept and dialogic tactics. The analysis used the socio-cultural, biographical, comparative-historical, typological and specific historical methods of research. Findings: In the early works of Anna Akhmatova the poetological issues are resolved both in her narrow professional dialogue and in her dialogue with the reader, in which the poet acts a mentor who hasn’t grasped the depth of the transcendental, but clearly sees the life as a unity of beauty and ugliness and teaches to take it as it really is. In this period Anna Akhmatova hardly enters the poetological field and does not use imperatives and invectives. The polemical pathos of the poet has enhanced significantly after the October Revolution, especially at a time when the state apparatus begins to establish total control over not only the external manifestations of life, but also on the way of thinking and hence on artistic creation. Under this condition of totalitarianism the activity of poetic communications is being increased and some kind of encryption technology is being developed, e.g. “conversation in a whisper” between the poets, the topic of which often becomes a reflection of the artist’s choice and fate in the face of fierce pressure from outside. In the era of the Great Terror Anna Akhmatova builds several related communication strategies, depending on the type and the conditions of existence of the recipient of the text. The first strategy is implemented in a strictly secret addressing created without the “inner censor” and intended, first, to the providence of the reader – the reader of the future; and secondly – to a very narrow circle of close friends who can be trusted (for example, the poem “A little bit of geography” and “They took you away at daybreak ... “ addressed to the exiled Mandelstam). The second strategy was realized in the verses intended for printing; when creating them she used the restrictive mechanisms to overcome the censorship obstacles, these became the principles of the artistic structuring of texts. Novelty: The foreground of Akhmatova’s poems does not contradict the generally accepted ideological canons but the second hidden background associated with “forbidden” political taboos or containing anti-totalitarian assessment and interpretation is understandable and accessible to the reader.
Keywords: A. A. Akhmatova, Intercultural Communication, Lyrical Dialogue, Lyrics, Poetics, Silver Age of Russian Poetry, Tradition