American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages The Slavic and East European Journal

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
Review
Reviewed Work(s): In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Akhmatova by Anna
Akhmatova and Susan Amert
Review by: Sonia I. Ketchian
Source: The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Spring, 1994), pp. 183-185
Published by: American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages
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REVIEWS 183
(Milne's main field of expertise), in which the masses of detail on tex

cal vicissitudes leave little space for interpretation. Most faulty, how
the comic-satirical stories and novellas, where she must lie in a Pro
creates when she denies that Bulgakov is a satirist at all. She finds
rooted in expansive humor and theatricality-undeniably a part of h
mutually exclusive of satire. Bulgakov himself, after all, proudly wo
among other places in the very letter to the Soviet government M
(271). Yet more important than such expressions of authorial intent i
the comic writings on "the middle ground of common sense, adjustm
high ground of moral commitment, intransigence and satire" (67), M
of their bite and power, mutes the writer's "magnificent contemp
phrase, quoted on the very first page of her study.
The unwillingness to face the harsher aspects of Bulgakov's comic
Milne's more general tendency to smooth out his rough edges. This
conclusion, in which the writer is presented as a man whose sens
unmarred by those instances of self-denigration and profound fearf
his life and works; whose "free and festive" laughter (261) is unclou
undercurrent of much of his comedy; whose mysticism and conse
diluted to make her rationalistic and liberal Western readers accept h
If the actual man and his works are more troubling, complex-eve
this very reason more fascinating than Milne's characterization admi
not vitiate her genuine achievements in this book. It remains a work
Bulgakov should read.
Edythe C. Haber, University of Massachuset
Susan Amert. In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Ak

ford University Press, 1992. xii, 274 pp., $37.50 (hard cover).
Susan Amert's excellent study, an "outgrowth" (viii) of her doctoral d

an elementary division of Anna Axmatova's poetry into two ma
concentrates on the "late" period (post-1935) as the least studie
opaque. Her definition of the early poetry as "sublimely transparent
with a relatively unified image of the lyrical persona and of the
transparent difficulty quotient and a persona who is fragmented int
and guises is arguable vis-A-vis the persona and the actual transpa
The discourse, unusually devoid of an Introduction or a Conclusio
that are furnished with two or three epigraphs each. The method
major texts" (vii) with an examination of all factors, including the bi
the poem's interpretation. Indeed, the predominant method is
tertextuality, openly present in the later verse. Amert's smoothl
reader's journey through the sophisticated examination.
Chapter 1, "Secrets of the Craft," opens with Axmatova writin
concerning Baratynskij, who fell into disfavor with the maturing of
reference to himself. In turn, her reference to Pu'kin's relations wit
reference to herself and the change in her poetry's reception in 19
may relate this layering, or twice removed discussion of oneself, to
or multiple subtexts within her verse.
The author links Axmatova's movement from the early "erotic diar
184 Slavic and East European Journal
of the late period with her gravitation toward larger poetic forms; namely, with the focus of
the "role and fate of the poet" (6), where relative simplicity becomes complexity and obscu-
rity. Amert thus enters her discourse with a list of seminal facts on the poetry that have long
been established in Axmatova scholarship, such as Axmatova intentionally creating mystery
for personal and political reasons even outside the poems by changing addressees and dates.
Nothing is said about the possibility of mystifying the locus. Quoting Axmatova on her change
from the erotic diary to the metapoetry and the secrets in contrast to the Symbolists' ritual-
bound "mysteries," Amert engages in revelations and comparisons; notably, of the elegy
"Cleopatra" with Shakespeare, Pu'kin, and Requiem, beginning what will be many fine
comparisons with Pu'kin.
Of further interest is the notion of the abyss equalling a trope for subtextual dimension in
the verse. In response to the secrets and concealments in Axmatova, the book gives a reading
of key later texts by identifying crucial literary references and allusions and by interpreting
their significance-a method long established as viable and fruitful in American Axmatova
scholarship. In putting forth the secrets of Axmatova's craft, the author has particularly
rewarding moments, such as that the line in Requiem ("Muz v mogile, syn v tjur'me") stem-
ming from Pu'kin's Baxfisarajskij fontan ("Otec v mogile, doE' v plenu") presents through
analogy with its neighboring lines a coded, allusive portrait of Stalin (19) and of silence
speaking by weaving literary references and allusions into the poetry. In the later poetry the
theme of silence denotes metonymically the suppression of speech. In fact, by incorporating
the reader and the theme of reception into the later work, Axmatova appears to invite active
deciphering of the text, thereby circumventing suppression in her own way.
Chapter 2, "Akhmatova's Song of the Motherland: The Framing Texts of Requiem," ad-
dresses Requiem's "deceptive" simplicity. Several articles of Axmatova's centennial year
(1989) would have deepened the discussion. Amert is excellent on the prose beginning,
"Instead of a Foreword"; she connects the notion of facelessness with a loss of spirituality or
soul in the depersonalized women queuing by the Kresty Prison. The noted parallels are of
broad scope, such as Pugkin's "Vo glubine sibirskix rud," Dante's Inferno, Horace's "Exegi
monumentum," her own "July 1914," and the stone image.
By far the best is Chapter 3, " 'Prehistory': A Russian Creation Myth," treating Axma-
tova's predilection for origins first in the early "Epideskie motivy" and "U samogo morja" as
mythologization of her poetic talents' origins and by identifying the poetic gift with memory.
In the late period the poem "Putem vseja zemli" is viewed as a series of attempted returns to
the past until the ultimate myth of origins, which connects with Russia and home, outranking
the Muse and water. Quoting Tolstoj's Nata'a Rostova to indicate a return to a time immedi-
ately prior to her birth (recalling Bella Axmadulina's "Moja rodoslovnaja" and hence
Pu'kin), Amert leads the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery in the best comparison
with Dostoevskij to date; she uncovers a compressed literary biography of Dostoevskij and
applications of his works and idiom. Dostoevskij's presence is explained as Axmatova's renun-
ciation of her biological father's name, Gorenko, through adoption of her maternal great-
grandmother's name-a fact that makes Dostoevskij her literary father. Running parallel to
the main indebtedness is Pasternak's "Otcy." Axmatova's focused and static image of her
mother renders it iconic, unlike the kaleidoscopic shifting of imagery in the other parts, and
probably stems from the "sacrosanct nature of the memory of the mother" (88) inspired by
Ala Karamazov's memory of his mother. Of interest are the changes in every aspect of
Petersburg, including street names relating to Dostoevskij. Finding that "Predystorija" is
effectively modeled on the poetics of Dostoevskij's novels, Amert takes the next step-that
through Dostoevskij's metapoetics Axmatova (as usual) reveals her own technique.
Wisely honing in on one seminal aspect, Chapter 4, "The Poet's Lot in Poem Withouta Hero,"
presents a good general explanation interspersed with illuminating insights. The young poet not
enduring mild injuries is connected with Lermontov's "Smert' poeta." Amert begins with the
REVIEWS 185
metapoetic "Reika" and its link to Pu'kin's "Poet i tolpa" before decip
Blok, Mandel'?tam, Xlebnikov, Kljuev, Dante and his hell, Pugkin's
Onegin and hers from Podma. She is good on connecting the word "r
"res8tka," which has a better known meaning of "grating" or bars. A
parallels between Lenskij and Knjazev, and Ryleev as a counterpart
In Chapter 5, "The Poet's Transfigurations in The Sweetbrier Blo
Axmatova's method of presenting events in a constantly shifting per
Podma. She finds that the cycle, rather than simply quoting phrases
passages from other works, "alludes to whole narratives, and spec
illustrious love stories" (132) to portray the persona's fate. In certain
and Dante, Amert refers to Marcia Rose Satins's unpublished dis
'Shipovnik tsvetet': A Study of Creative Method" (Univ. of Pennsy
discovers that the separation of the modifying pronoun "te" and "ru
for Dido mirrors the physical gesture of outstretched arms on a p
coinage for Axmatova's burned poems: "written for the ashtray"
Vladimir Toporov that Aeneas's quote in the epigraph is presen
(Axmatova unusually refrained from using the original Latin), Am
the hint at the attacks by leftist critics, notably Pisarev, that silenced
obvious parallel for Axmatova.
The concluding chapter, "The Design of Memory," investigate
primary focus demarcated by the theme of memory that recovers the p
epoxi u vospominanij," in which memory is conflated with oblivi
casting of memory as a three-dimensional, enclosed space is traced to
sions, with memory as spatial metaphors. Amert equates the three ep
"Sixth Northern Elegy," effectively comparing the latter to the so
Pu'kin's "Vospominanija v Carskom Sele." She places the image of t
Axmatova's poetic universe, drawing parallels with Pu'kin's deserted
that serves as a metaphor for the heart of the dead Lenskij. This aut
image to the speaker's deserted home in Requiem and to Blok's view
as "homeless," as well as to Axmatova's own biographical "homeles
Among the corrections to be noted are that the dates of Lev Gumil
1935 and 1938 (he was briefly detained in 1934).
Thus the method of examining and explaining themes and image
poetry through her use of other poets has once again served a sc
valuable addition to the ongoing investigation of Axmatova's geniu
served its readers on several counts through incorporation into t
pioneering Axmatova scholarship.
Sonia I. Ketchian, Russian Research Center, Harvar
Helena Goscilo and Byron Lindsey, eds. The Wild Beach: An Antho
Russian Stories. Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1992. xxi + 352 pp., $39.95 (
As the companion volume to editors Goscilo and Lindsey's highly

Anthology of Russian Literature Under Gorbachev (Ardis, 1990),
stories picks up smoothly where the first leaves off. In fact, the two
a single project, that is, the texts in both collections were identified
time in 1987-1988 (when the majority of them first appeared in print
due to limitations of space, what in essence is a single tome became tw

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American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages

American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages is collaborating

(Milne's main field of expertise), in which the masses of detail on tex

Edythe C. Haber, University of Massachuset

Susan Amert. In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Ak

Susan Amert's excellent study, an "outgrowth" (viii) of her doctoral d

Sonia I. Ketchian, Russian Research Center, Harvar

As the companion volume to editors Goscilo and Lindsey's highly

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