Anna Andreevna Ahmatova (English spelling)

Russia's greatest female poet of the 20th century. Born in Odessa. Grew up in Tsarskoye Selo, a place associated with Pushkin, and studied at the Women's University in Kiev. In 1910, she married Acmeist poet Gumilyov (shot in 1921) and moved to St. Petersburg (Leningrad during the Soviet era) where she began writing poetry. She pursued Acmeism, which could be called neoclassical, together with Mandelstam and others. The following year, in 1911, she traveled to northern Italy and was deeply impressed by Italian painting and architecture. She published her first collection of poems, "Evening" (1911), her second collection of poems, "Rosary" (1914), and her third collection, "A Flock of White Birds," in 1917. In all of her poems, the themes of love, solitude, and death are sung elegantly, mixing religious emotion and eroticism, but it is also worth noting that the subtle arrangement and function of trivial things in everyday life is also a feature of her poems. After the Russian Revolution, she worked in the library of the Agricultural University and published the poetry collections "The Big Box" (1921) and "1921 A.D." (1922). In the 1920s, she devoted herself to Pushkin research and wrote Pushkin essays for 20 years, but from 1926 to 1940, her poems were hardly allowed to be published in Russia. In the late 1930s, her only son with Gumilyov was arrested and imprisoned twice. She wrote about this tragedy in "Requiem" (1935-1940), but it was not published in the former Soviet Union. In 1941, she escaped Leningrad under German siege and moved to Tashkent, and in her poetry collection "The Seventh Book" (1936-1964), she examines the era through themes such as the storm of war, victory, life in Tashkent, discovering the good in people, serious illness, and Asia. After the war, in 1946, she was attacked as a decadent poet in the Zhdanov Criticism, but after the Thaw in 1956, she made a comeback, completing the requiem-like long poem, "An Epic Without a Hero" (1940-1962), and lived as an indomitable poet through the turbulent history of modern Russia. In her later years, she devoted herself to translating the works of the great Italian poet Leopardi, a contemporary of Pushkin. In 1976, a one-volume collection of Akhmatova's poems was published in the Soviet Union, though it was not a complete edition.

[Masahiro Kudo]

"Egawa Taku's translation of 'Epic Poems Without Heroes' (included in 'World Literature 37', 1979, Shueisha)"

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

20世紀ロシア最大の女流詩人。オデッサ生まれ。プーシキンゆかりの地ツァールスコエ・セローに育ち、キエフの女子大学に学ぶ。1910年、アクメイズムの詩人グミリョフ（1921年に銃殺）と結婚しペテルブルグ（ソ連時代のレニングラード）に移って詩作を開始。マンデリシュタームらと新古典派ともいうべきアクメイズムを追求した。翌1911年、北イタリアを巡り、イタリア絵画・建築に深く感銘。処女詩集『夕べ』（1911）、第二詩集『数珠(じゅず)』（1914）、1917年には第三詩集『白き鳥の群れ』を発表。いずれも愛、孤独、死の主題が宗教的な情感とエロティシズムとない交ぜに流麗に歌われるが、日常生活の些細(ささい)な事物が微妙に配置されて機能している特徴も見逃せない。ロシア革命後は農科大学の図書館で働き、詩集『おおばこ』（1921）、『西暦1921年』（1922）を上梓(じょうし)。1920年代に入るとプーシキン研究に没頭、20年間プーシキン論を書き継ぐが、1926年から1940年まで彼女の詩編は国内での発表がほとんど許されなかった。1930年代後半には、グミリョフとの間にもうけたひとり息子が二度にわたって逮捕投獄、この悲劇を『レクイエム』（1935～1940）に書くが旧ソ連では未刊。1941年にドイツ軍包囲下のレニングラードを脱出、タシケントに移り、詩集『第七の書』（1936～1964）では、戦争の嵐(あらし)、勝利、タシケント生活、人々の善の発見、大病、アジアなどのテーマで時代を考察。戦後1946年、ジダーノフ批判によってデカダン詩人と攻撃されるが、1956年の「雪どけ」後に復活、鎮魂歌的な長詩『ヒーローのいない叙事詩』（1940～1962）を完成、激動のロシア現代史を不屈の詩人として生きた。晩年はとくに、プーシキンと同時代であるイタリアの大詩人レオパルディの翻訳に打ち込む。1976年ソ連で、完全版ではないがアフマートワの一巻詩集が出版された。

［工藤正広］

『江川卓訳『ヒーローのいない叙事詩』（『世界の文学 37』1979・集英社・所収）』

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