1961 year. The poem "Native land" is written. In the Leningrad hospital in the last years of the poet's life, with an epigraph from her poem.
Why earth
An analysis of Akhmatova’s poem “Native Land” should begin with the answer to the question: “Why is the native land, not a country, not Russia?”
The poem was written for the twentieth anniversary of the Second World War. But Anna Andreevna does not write about the country, but about her native land, fertile soil - the nurse. By the sixties, the tradition of worshiping the land remained in the past, but Anna Andreevna is sure that ethnic memory still lives in the souls of people. And yes, “it’s dirt on galoshes”, but without it Russia can’t go anywhere. This dirt feeds us and takes us into itself at the end of our life's journey. The lines of the poetess make great sense. No need to ode to lay down the earth, you just need to remember that this is part of our homeland.
The theme of the motherland has always sounded in the poetry of Anna Andreevna. It was not just devotion, but service to the homeland, in spite of any trials. Akhmatova has always been with the people. Beside. Together. She did not look down at her native people like other poets.
Why not Russia, but land? Because the poetess perceives the homeland not as a country, but as the land on which she was born and lives. She does not accept political system, repression and war. But she loves the motherland, the people with whom she lives, and is ready to bear with them all the hardships.
She already wrote about this in 1922. “Not with those I ...” - it was from this poem that the last lines for the epigraph were taken. And for four decades, in spite of everything, her attitude to her native land has not changed. And during these 40 years there was a lot of tragedy, both in her fate and in the fate of the country.
The Importance of Background
The analysis of Akhmatova’s poem “Native Land” cannot be complete if one does not know the life story of the poetess. It is impossible to understand how courageous and loyal it was to be in order not to give up one’s words and beliefs forty years ago, if one does not know what she experienced during these years.
The analysis of A. Akhmatova’s poem “Native Land” should not begin in the traditional manner - with the analysis of rhymes and other things, it will not give anything. And you should start with what happened before the writing of this poem in the life of “Anna of All Russia,” as her contemporaries called it. Then only the deep meaning of the work, all the bitterness and all patriotism invested in it will become clear.
In 1921, Anna Andreevna learned that her close friend was leaving Russia. And this is how she reacts to the departure of her loved one: she writes "Not with those I who threw the earth." The poem written the following year and included in the collection of Anno domini. In this poem, indignation, anger and a fully defined civic position. A position that should change in connection with subsequent events, but is only strengthening.
Life between two poems
From 1923 to 1940, Anna Andreevna was not printed. And it's hard for her. She was subjected to indirect repression. But that was not the most difficult. In 1935, her son Leo was arrested. And also her husband, but he was soon released. And Lev Nikolaevich, after a brief release, was again arrested. For five years, Akhmatova lived in tension and fear - have mercy on her son or not.
In 1940, the wind of hope appears; the poetess is allowed to print, some people are released from the Stalinist camps. But in 1941, the war begins. Hunger, fear, evacuation.
In 1946, when the grip of censorship seemed to loosen, Anna Andreevna was expelled from the Writers' Union and forbidden to publish her collections. In fact, it is being deprived of a livelihood. In 1949, the son of Anna Andreevna was again arrested, and again she stood in lines with the transmissions.
In 1951, she was restored in the Writers' Union. In 1955, a small house was allocated to a homeless poet in the village of Komarovo near Leningrad, after being evicted from the Fountain House in March 1952. However, they are not in a hurry to print it. And for several years, Akhmatova’s poems were published by samizdat.
In May 1960, Anna Andreevna began intercostal neuralgia, she suffered several heart attacks, ordeals in hospitals began. And in this state, she is in the hospital at the time of writing “Native Land”. What will and devotion needed to be possessed in order to carry through all the losses your love for the homeland and not change your civic position.
Traditional analysis of Akhmatova’s poem “Native land”
The work is about love for the motherland, but the word "love" is not in it. When analyzing Akhmatova’s poem “Native Land”, it is easy to understand that it is deliberately excluded. The poem is structured in such a way that even without this word it reveals all the love for the native land. For this, the two-partness of the work is applied, which is clear from the change in size.
The change in size immediately catches your eye when you analyze the poem "Native Land". Akhmatova clearly verified everything. Six-legged iambic - the first 8 lines. Next, the transition to the anapaest is three-footed, and after that the four-footed. Yamb - this is a denial of the fact that the poetess does not enter into the understanding of love. Anapest is a statement of a simple definition. Man is a part of the earth, and freely considering it his own means loving.
It should also be noted the meaning of the word "land", analyzing the poem "Native land". Akhmatova used them in pairs. The poem has two meanings. The first is the place where we live and die, a place that cannot be abandoned, no matter what happens. The second is soil, dust, "a crunch on the teeth." Everything is simple here. Both epithets (“promised”, etc.), and “decorating” vocabulary (“rashes”, “frankincense”) remain in the first, iambic part. The second part consists of vernacular, no epithets. Everything is much simpler, but deeper. True love does not need pathetics.