Bella Akhmadulina: the secret of the name
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:
Bella Akhmadulina“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!”
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 neglect of 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 the episodic role of 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:
-Bella Akhmadulina“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.
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 distinctly 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.
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