Tag Archives: Poetry

A Mother Borne Against a Vicious Tide

At first glance, Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem appears to be straightforward artistic representation of unimaginable pain and oppression. Joseph Stalin’s purges killed and imprisoned a huge percentage of creative individuals during the 1930s, and his harsh policies remained until his death in 1953. Many artists, writers, and political dissidents were imprisoned in Gulag work camps, and many died or were executed there. Millions were interned in the gulags at different times, and the conditions were unimaginably harsh. With little knowledge of Akhmatova’s life, and reading Requiem for the first time, I imagined it to be a tale of her time in the Gulag. Lines such as “We don’t know, we are the same everywhere. / We only hear the repellent clank of keys, / the heavy steps of soldiers” bring to mind the frustration of a prisoner driven mad by the routine and banality of unjust and cruel captivity. Akhmatova’s unusual use of point of view clued me in to Requiem’s real background: it is not story of Akhmatova’s time in the Gulag, but her experiences when her loved ones suffer that fate. It is an easy inclination to read the poems as 3rd person, with Akhmatova addressing herself as “You”, but the frequent mention of her son gave me pause, and I eventually recognized the true narrative behind the cycle.

Another assigned work, Nadezhda Mandelstam’s Hope Against Hope immediately illuminates any obscured or ambiguous sections of Requiem, as the female Mandelstam gives her personal account of Akhmatova’s association with the Gulag and other forms of the Purges. We learn that the “son” (I flung myself at the executioner’s feet. / You are my son and my terror.”) in Requiem is Akhmatova’s son Lev, who was imprisoned in a Leningrad-area Gulag camp. This took an enormous emotional toll on Akhmatova, as she visited Lev and witnessed his pain firsthand. She writes, “If I could show your former ironic self, / that once carefree sinner of Tsarkoye Selo, / so popular in your circle of friends”. The sentiment offered here is universal: humor (specifically irony) before tragedy is often hard to comprehend as existing, and is portrayed as unimaginable in writings after the event. To offer a current instance of the phenomenon, I must turn to the recent election. There was much disgust among liberal thinkers and comedians at the irony prevalent before the surprise of November 8th. “How could we have acted like this”,  and “How could we be so oblivious to the possibility of catastrophe” were themes repeated often on social media as a collective post-mortem began after the results were finalized. This is an almost direct analog to Akhmatova’s nostalgia and regret for her son’s once “Ironic, carefree, [sinning]” past, when all were oblivious to the tragedy that would soon become fate and reality for so many of their friends and family.

As revealed by Nadezhda Mandelstam, the other subtext of Requiem becomes apparent. Akhmatova’s husband, Nikolay Punin, would meet his death in the Gulag. Her poems, which may be viewed as suicidal when lacking this knowledge, deal intimately with the concept and theory of death, presumably after Punin passed. As she writes in the epilogue of Requiem, “The hour of remembrance has grown close again. /  I see you, hear you, feel you.” Although Lev made it out of the camp alive, Akhmatova would live the rest of her life with the loss of Punin. As is evident in Requiem, Akhmatova also believed that Lev would most likely die in captivity, and this fear greatly influenced her poetry. Helpless against a brutal regime and powerless to save her husband and son, Akhmatova turned to the only area where she could have a voice: art. Her poetry in Requiem attests to the brilliance that emerged from this period of tragedy and loss.

A Passport to Propaganda in Poetry

By the 1930s, the new Soviet Union was already unrecognizable from the fledgling society that rose up after the Russian Revolution of 1917. With Lenin’s death, pure Marxist ideology fell by the wayside as Stalin steadfastly increased the state’s power and moved toward pure authoritarianism. This trend gradually spread to cover all segments of society, including art. Although they were often tolerated in the years immediately after the Revolution, any artistic ideas that could be interpreted in a subversive way were quickly and efficiently stamped out. The fin de siècle and symbolist ideas present in the artistic landscape of pre-revolutionary Russia were replaced by a state sponsored style and theme: Socialist Realism.

In its essence, Socialist Realism painted the state in the best light possible, creating a cultural representation of a perfect Soviet Society. This is exemplified perhaps nowhere better than in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poem “My Soviet Passport”. The poem is the ultimate distillation of Soviet Realism: it paints the Soviet state and nation as supremely righteous and enviable, while managing to diminish countless other nations at the same time. Mayakovsky begins the poem with “I’d rip out / bureaucracy’s guts / I would .” This is the epitome of pure, socialist rage against capitalism and the bourgeois, although it is ultimately ironic and misplaces. The Soviet government itself would go on to be highly bureaucratic. The Soviet citizen the poem is written from the perspective of notices special treatment being paid to travelers from Great Britain and the United States. The narrator depicts the customs agent as bending over backwards to please and pay respect to the citizens of these great, capitalist societies. It is an extremely unflattering portrait of deference being shown to undeserving old British “uncles” and “lanky Yankees”.

The passport collector’s reaction to the sudden appearance of a Soviet passport under their nose is very different from their reaction to that of any other nation. It is one of shock, awe, and disconcerted reverence. The officer handles it like a “bomb” and a “snake”. These are not pleasant descriptions, but are definitely empowering ones to a Soviet citizen who wishes for reverence and respect from the global community. As a new nation with an untested form of government, the USSR desperately wanted acknowledgement and respect from other nations,  and probably desired the inspiration of a small amount of fear. In a small way, this parallels the version of America that many of our President Elect’s supporters hope will solidify in the coming years. Through his realist poetry, Mayakovsky paints a strong young Soviet Union, one that already has a vaunted position on the world stage. This was obviously intended to place some artificially constructed pride of country in a reader’s heart, as well as providing validation of a powerful and fear-inspiring society.

By the end of his study of “The most valuable of certificates” (the Soviet passport), Mayakovsky makes no pretense about the poem’s true intention. With a burst of nationalistic sentiment that would surely have pleased the state censors to no end, Mayakovsky brings the poem to a close. “Envy me / I’m a citizen / of the USSR!” he writes. In a front to back reading, the poem’s true intention may be clearer, yet its goals are never subtle when read in any manner. Whether it be through fear or genuine ideological fervor, Mayakovsky does an excellent job of promoting the new government’s most central ideals.