Россия и Запад

The second poem of «Crucifixion» focuses on three people close to Jesus — one is Magdalene, who «beat her breast and sobbed», acting out her passion; the second is the disciple; and, in Akhmatova’s rendition, the third is the Mother of God, who stands alone: «А туда, где молча Мать стояла, Так никто взглянуть и не посмел»[362]. Again, Akhmatova significantly distorts Scripture in order to enhance the figure of Mary. In John 19:27 Jesus exhorts his disciple to view his (Jesus’s) mother as if Mary were the disciple’s own mother. The disciple takes Mary into his house henceforth. But Akhmatova empowers the Mother of God by setting her apart and alone, seemingly unloved and ignored, whose mourning is unbearable for other people to countenance, but thereby all the more unforgettable[363]. Unavoidably, in the associative, coded language of poetry, Akhmatova’s Mother of God is clearly vying here with Tsvetaeva’s Magdalene of 1923, who resonates in the demonstrably dramatic figure of Akhmatova’s Magdalene.

In the final poem of the cycle’s epilogue Akhmatova solidifies her own affinity for the Mother of God through a particularly Russian image of Mary as protector of all believers, who covers them with her mantle. With this image she also reenforces herself as a national poet, whose voice will protect people who no longer have a voice or a self:

Для них соткала я широкий покровИз бедных, у них же подслушанных слов.

О них вспоминаю всегда и везде,О них не забуду и в новой беде[364].

«Requiem» is indeed meant to be that mantle of words to preserve the memory of the Great Terror, which in turn can protect Russians from ever suffering this awful fate again.

In this final poem Akhmatova rises above the poetic rivalry with Tsvetaeva, placing the «Requiem» cycle in an ancient tradition of monument poems that dates back to Horace and in Russia starts in the 18^th century and moves forward through Pushkin. Here too Akhmatova establishes herself as the moral voice of her nation by suggesting that the monument be placed by the door of Kresty Prison, or in the logic of myth, by the «Cross», to honor Russia’s mothers in their effort to withstand the injustice of the Stalinist state:

А если когда-нибудь в этой стране

Воздвигнуть задумают памятник мне,Согласье на это даю торжество,Но только с условьем — не ставить егоНи около моря, где я родилась <…>А здесь, где стояла я триста часов

И где для меня не открыли засов[365].

Akhmatova dramatizes the image of the sorrowing mother:

И пусть с неподвижных и бронзовых векКак слезы струится подтаявший снег,И голубь тюремный пусть гулит вдали,

И тихо идут по Неве корабли[366].

The weeping mother in the end is the final judge of the terror and the wasted existence of the Stalin years.

With «Requiem» Pasternak’s rivalry with Akhmatova gains in intensity. In 1939 Akhmatova read to Pasternak some of the poems from «Requiem», to which Pasternak allegedly responded, «Now even dying wouldn’t be terrifying»[367]. As a rule, Pasternak was known for not paying much attention to other people’s poetry, and Akhmatova was often irritated that he seemed so ignorant of her work[368]. In fact, such turns out not to have been the case. Pasternak paid her the highest compliment, again in the secret code of poetic language, competing with her in what he considered to be his most serious work, «Doctor Zhivago».

Pasternak started working in earnest on his novel in 1946, the year after World War II ended. The significance of the novel for its author is the topic of letter of October 13, 1946: «This is my first real work. In it I want to give an historical image of Russia of the last 45 years… this thing will be an expression of my views on art, the Gospel, a person’s life in history and many other things… The atmosphere of the thing is my Christianity, in its breadth a bit different from Quakers or Tolstoyanism, coming from aspects of the Gospel other than its moral ones»[369]. What he meant by the «other than moral» aspects of the Gospel was its life-affirming aspects, its passion and its faith in resurrection.

For first time in his career, Pasternak is realizing the concept of the Bible theorized in his 1929 autobiography as the «notebook of humanity», the living, ever relevant rethinking and re-adaptation of sacred text. Here for the first time he draws on biblical archetypes that resonate with historical, philosophical, and mythical layers of meaning.