Photo: Bella Akhmadulina
Childhood and family of Bella Akhmadulina
Akhmadulina's hometown is Moscow. She was born and lived on Varvarka. Her father served as a large customs chief, while her mother worked as an interpreter and a KGB major. The girl had an exotic combination of blood, since there were Italians in her mother's family, and Tatars in her father's. To a greater extent, due to the employment of parents, Bella was raised by her grandmother. It was she who instilled in her granddaughter a love for animals, which she carried through her whole life.When the war began, the father was immediately called. Bella, along with her grandmother, went to the evacuation. First they went to Samara, then to Ufa and further to Kazan. There lived a second grandmother on her father's side, but for the girl she was completely alien and unfamiliar. In this city, Bella became seriously ill.
It is not known whether she would have survived or not, if her mother had not arrived in Kazan. This was in 1944. Thus ended the evacuation. Once at home, Bella went to school. Grandmother instilled in her granddaughter a love of reading. She read Pushkin and Gogol and wrote absolutely without mistakes in the lower grades. I must say that Akhmadulina always went to school with great reluctance, often missed classes. According to her recollections, during the war years she got used to loneliness, and the school seemed to her a strange place. Only four years later, the girl began to get used to it.
The first poems of Bella Akhmadulina
As a schoolgirl, Bella began to attend the House of Pioneers, where a literary circle was organized. The first magazine in which the poems of the young poetess were published was the October magazine. This happened in 1955. These first verses were childishly chaste and touching. Yevgeny Yevtushenko immediately drew attention to her works, he was surprised by unusual rhymes and some kind of writing style of his own.Bella at that time attended classes at the Literary Association, planning to become a student at the Literary Institute after school. Parents dreamed that their daughter would enter the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. Bella made an attempt, but failed her exams. The girl got a job in the Metrostroyevets newspaper, where she wrote articles and her poems. A year later, Akhmadulina became a student, entering the Literary Institute. After Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize, he was declared a traitor. Bella refused to sign the accusation letter. This was the real reason that the student was expelled from the institute. It happened in 1959.
The beginning of the literary career of Bella Akhmadulina
The poetess managed to get a job at Literaturnaya Gazeta as a freelance correspondent in Irkutsk. While in Siberia, she wrote a story and called it "On Siberian Roads". It was published in the Literary Gazette, several of her poems were published at the same time. She wrote about the amazing region and the extraordinary people who lived there. Soon the editor-in-chief of the newspaper contributed to the fact that the talented girl was reinstated at the institute. In 1960, she graduated from it, while receiving a red diploma. Bella Akhmadulina - poetryQuite a bit of time passed, and a collection of poems called "String" was published. After she performed at the Polytechnic Museum of the capital together with Yevtushenko, Voznesensky and Rozhdestvensky, real popularity came to her. Artistry and penetrating intonation determined her style. As the poetess said, such performances were difficult for her, despite the seeming ease.
Mature poems by Bella Akhmadulina, collections
In her first collection, Akhmadulina seemed to be looking for her own themes. In 1969, the collection "Music Lessons" appeared, six years later the collection "Poems", and in 1977 - "Snowstorm" and "Candle". The periodical press vied with each other to publish Bella's poems.Her style was finally formed by the mid-sixties. It was unusual that in modern Soviet poetry she was the first to speak in a high poetic style. In her works there was a stylization of the "old" style, and sophistication, and metaphor, and sublimity.
Bella Akhmadulina. This is how hearts are brokenCritics treated Akhmadulina's work differently. There were those who reproached her for intimacy and mannerisms, some treated condescendingly and favorably.
The poetess starred in two films. In "Such a Guy Lives" she can be seen in the role of a journalist. Leonid Kuravlev also played in this film. She also took part in the filming of the film "Sport, Sport, Sport."
Bella Akhmadulina's personal life
The first husband of the poetess is Yevgeny Yevtushenko. They met at the institute. Yevtushenko recalled that they often quarreled as spouses, but just as quickly reconciled. Together, the couple stayed for only three years. Her second husband is Yuri Nagibin (writer). They lived together for eight years. After the break, Bella adopted the orphanage girl Anna into the family, who, in the hope of returning her husband, was given the name Nagibina and patronymic Yurievna. This was followed by a short civil marriage with Eldar Kuliev. They had a common daughter, Elizabeth.
A year after the birth of her daughter, Akhmadulina married Boris Messerer. She lived with this man for more than thirty years.
Poetry concert of Bella Akhmadulina (2001)Death of Bella Akhmadulina
Akhmadulina spent her last years in Peredelkino, where she lived with her husband. She was very sick and hardly wrote. In the fall of 2010, she was hospitalized and urgently underwent surgery.Despite the fact that the operation went well, and the poetess recovered quite quickly, she died only four days after discharge. The funeral passed without pathos. Only close people were present.