The theme of the work is Akhmatova's last rose. "the conclusion of a never-before-seen cycle"

THE LAST ROSE

Did Sergei Gorodetsky, when creating one of the main postulates of Acmeism about the intrinsic value and fullness of life, in contrast to the symbolists who destroyed the earthly objectivity of existence, think that with his program cry “about a rose”, which should become “good in itself, with its petals, smell and color , and not by his conceivable similarities” (Gorodetsky 1982, 112), he paves prophetic paths for the “Eve of Adamism” - the then young Akhmatova? But nevertheless, written almost without address, these words about the “fragrant rose”, about the freshness of the feeling of the world in all its pristineness, entered into the foundation of the future Akhmatova rosary, and more broadly - into poetics in general, in some way they discovered and gave the right course to its special a sense of life that is firmly connected with the visible thing of the world. Already in the review of “Evening,” Akhmatova captured the special lyrical quality of her “love of things,” the outstanding ability to “understand and love things precisely in their incomprehensible connection with the moments experienced” (Kuzmin 1982, 106).

If we think about the origins and results in assessing the movement of Akhmatova’s lyrical world, then we cannot help but notice that the method of embodiment of life, in which only the “ugly” can be considered “ugly”, because it “withered between being and non-being” (Gorodetsky 1982, 112), in itself, the tireless pairing of objective reality with living impulses of feeling, gradually in her lyrics transforms into a kind of special philosophy of the “material world”. In such a worldview, where a secret window is opened into the material world for the spiritual, the intervening partitions have been removed (From: “Neither a rose nor a blade of grass / I will be in the Father’s gardens. / I tremble over every speck...” - in 1912 - to the program lines: “If only you knew from what rubbish / Poems grow without knowing shame...” in 1940).

This dynamics of material imprints, Akhmatova’s very striving for the complete and perfect image as perfect, are clearly visible in the movement of the figurative series associated with the creation by the poetess of her “Last Rose”. In the science itself about Akhmatova, so much has already been thought and said about “The Last Rose” - and in connection with the “magic swarm” of her poetic environment in last years her life, about which the “Brodsky” sign remained in the epigraph, and in the absurd dispute about whose unfading rose it is in the overall bouquet, and in the assessment of the cultural merits of the masterpiece (Tsivyan 1989), as well as in the religious and philosophical context, where the work is placed on a pedestal embodiments of the Mother of God images (Savkina 1995) or is presented as a precedent for the discovery of the “Sophia principle” in Akhmatova (Crown 2002), understood in the explanation this poem as “transmigration of souls” - that even the words of the living cannot be inserted here...

But this reflection is devoted to “Sub rosa dictum...”, what “was said under the rose” by the poet himself, that is, in secret; and not about the everyday collision being exaggerated today, but about the spiritual biography of the author, about the essence of what Akhmatova always wanted to express in the life of verse, and what was dictated by the inspired image of a rose, as a material symbol of completeness and Beauty.

In preparation for analyzing this masterpiece, it is necessary to immediately ask questions about the conclusions: what is before us is a bouquet of five roses, four of which (associated in the poem with Morozova, Salome, Dido, Maid of Orleans) in real life faded, and only one lived a mysterious “fresh” life, glowed and seemed to “fly” and seemed immortal (“She behaved amazingly!” (Akhmatova , 1990, 1, 426)). Or are we ourselves present in these verses at the living act of creation of the Rose, in whose inner petals immortal names live, and only one petal bent towards earthly existence from the inner self-existence of Beauty gives us the charm of life and the disturbing aroma flowing from the hidden depths of the flower?

The question, despite its allegorical nature, is far from simple, because here a lot depends on the primary intention. If we are inclined to the first version of the argument, that is, we present Akhmatova’s decision about the “fifth” and last rose, as the only one living among withered flowers, then we devalue her cultural views. We tune Akhmatova’s lyre to Tsvetaeva’s tuning fork of capturing “eternal images,” drawn, in Tsvetaeva’s words, from the “treasury of likenesses,” from “ parallel worlds"and transformed by the poetess to suit her own spiritual system. Accordingly, the lyrical philosophy of imprints changes - this is a dialogue with a departed culture, this recognition that the past can realize itself only by being renewed in the spiritual essence of the living, that is, even the religious plan of what I wanted to express with these immortal images about the universal and all-time " NOW" in "The Last Rose" by A. Akhmatov.

Of course, based on “the opposite”, one can refuse a lot here, that this is not a “wreath” - what a crown of four withered and one revived roses, not a “battle of flowers”, where the chosen beauty was showered with roses, because there are no preferences here, everything is strung on single image, but not scattered petals before us... That is, everything speaks in favor of the fact that there is not a selectively united and even logarithmic symbol here, namely, the Manifestation of the Spirit, an inspired, COLLECTIBLE image in the living (native) integrity of the components, in overall feeling of what Akhmatova believed his the world and what already looks into transcendental worlds... into the “Rose of the World”, into the “mystical rose” of symbolism rejected by the Acmeists, including.

Everything that we touch in this poem, no matter where we start, will be drawn to this collective, all-complete and perfect idea, one way or another, echo throughout the poet’s entire work. Starting from the title and epigraph, from the first words of the voicing of ROSE in Mo’s pronunciation roses ova and ending in the last line - as the apotheosis of an unfading life, where the scarlet rose blazes, as predicted by the poetess (from 1915, from the petals of existence - “Here is a light load that I can / Take with me, so that in old age, in illness, /Perhaps in poverty - remember"), in the “frantic sunset”, and tells us “about the fullness and mental strength, and the delights of a sweet life" (Akhmatova, 1990, 1, 159-160). And even about the period at the end of the poems, we can say that it is a special, final - “Akhmatovian” - sign, certifying, in contrast to, say, Tsvetaeva and many who love understatement and figures of silence, the idea of final integrity, as internal perfection, as the mark of a master , summarizing created new item being.

It is worth comparing Akhmatova’s creation with the ambiguous “Grey Rose” by S. Parnok, or with I. Severyanin’s last “Turgenev Roses”, which were mussed by emigration and Vertinsky (“How beautiful, how fresh were the roses, laid in the coffin by My Country!”), to make sure that WHO in the twentieth century was crowned with the Royal Word, chosen to speak about the great being of the world, about the Flower, which since the time of Sappho has been revered as the Queen of Flowers, and in Christian tradition was designated as a symbol of the Church! Is this why imperative-subjunctive intonations are woven into the prayerful tone of the poems (“To me... to bow down...”, “To go to the fire with Zhanna again...”, “Lord! You see, I’m tired...” ), is this not why the royal names are called to Dante’s “review of souls” - these are the frantic Russian noblewoman who walked near the king, as if near death (before her disgrace, her official place was “near the queen”), and the stepdaughter of the “quaternary Herod”, and the abandoned Aeneas, Virgil's queen (“Against my will, I left your shore, queen”), and the ruler of the thoughts of France - the warrior Virgin - Joan of Arc, who elevated the king to the throne and died as soon as her glory eclipsed her royal power! And together and next to them is the royal Akhmatova herself!

Like a pyramid, gaining strength by four points of its base, like the domes of a temple, towering over all cardinal directions (Morozova - north, Dido - south, Salome - east, Joan of Arc - west), like a four-part baptism of life (an obvious appeal to Surikov’s painting “Boyarina” Morozov"), this Rose reigns over the world, having absorbed the primary elements of existence - fire (“bonfires”), air (“smoke” of Dido), moisture (“freshness” of the rose) and the dust of the earth (dying). She is the “Last” and the “First”, and the “Fifth”, and the “Never-Former” (all Akhmatov’s names), earthly and heavenly, the eternal Rose. She is pure and chaste, she is from shed blood, from the reflections of fire - a “flower of paradise”, the Head of the temple, the Top of the pyramid, Morozova’s hand raised above the schismatic world that blasphemes and glorifies her, and All Life, which has absorbed the fullness of being - Akhmatova’s Rose of Roses, one of those on which, according to A. Fet, “the altar of the universe smokes.”

And at the same time, this is not an ethereal symbol, it is full of life, internal tragedy, we literally feel its physicality with our whole being, since it is conveyed in all the fullness of sensations, accessible to man. She is personified and internally dynamic, appears in the declination (“to bow with Morozova”), and in the dance, crowned with a bloody sacrifice - the severed head of the Forerunner (the motif of a cut flower), in the ascension (“to fly away with smoke from the fire of Dido,” oh, and from Fet also this love smoke over a rose: “In the smoky clouds the purple of the rose...”) and in the returning blaze of fire (“with Jeanne to the fire again”), and again, having passed through the death and return to life of the poet himself, “this rose” shines and pampers us with a new unique, again the first joy of being!

We feel here - a visual color burn, four bonfires are lit here - and with Morozova the flaming self-immolation of the schismatics, and in the very dance of the red-haired, according to legend, Herod's stepdaughter, and in the directly named bonfires of Dido and the French warrior maiden (the traditional flower symbol for Akhmatova is bonfire “And crimson bonfires, / Like roses, grow in the snow,” this is also the usual color scheme for Surikov, by the way, on a snow-white background, cf. here: “Fly away from the bonfire with smoke...”). We we see scarlet, white, red, spectra of red, dancing in tongues of fire, inhale(smell) smoke and freshness, tangible pain and fever (burning, prayer appeal to God for an end to suffering). We and "we hear" A rose in each line with decreasing voicing, overflowing “Z” into “F” and with deafening in “S” (in the first line - “ roses" And " pink" in the name of the noblewoman, also reminiscent of Pushkin's lines about "roses and frosts" in a peculiar word rhyme. Then the alliterative decrease of the sound root into its own echo - “ ro» « A" - in "stepdaughter I ro d A"; its lingering echo in the echoing “ O» - « With smoke O m" and "Did O us"; and inversion, mixing of sounds - in “k” OS T R e" third line, in Zha nne - fourth, as well as in the second return “to” OS T R e". And again in reverse movement, from the “echo” of the rose - through “ O" in "G" O joint venture O di! You see...”, yielding two lines to the full power of myrrh, peace and the cross [“at peace th and vos chair A Tь"], the word comes to the triumph of complete combination confirmed in the voiced sound recording ROSE- “...and live, All in oz yeah, but this one roses A loy..."; and again goes into shifted phonetics and the fading “whisper” of the last line - “ With n O va With ve and There is oshch duck..." Where the initial letters of the names are re-read: in " D ah" - D Idona, " M Not" - M Orozova " WITH new" - WITH alomea, beach WITH at", "sweet AND There is" - AND Anna, - as if the petals were sorted out). And if out of place here - of the five senses - are not included in the sense of life " taste buds”, one would say, are rather weakened, for all this is already included in the single feeling of the final lines: “freshness” to “feel” (i.e., the Adamistic “first feeling.” And the “taste of life” is paid a hundredfold in the poem “I know with the place cannot be moved...", looking at the "first line" of "The Last Rose" and in the "Fifth Rose" - about which - below).

But the main thing is that the poems of “The Last Rose” are moved, strung, fanned, illuminated, one could call it, in Gumilev’s style, the “Sixth Sense” - the omnipotence of love and the self-flowering of beauty in the living charm of the world (this also applies to Morozova - it’s not for nothing that she not quite in the “Surikov sleigh”, not the “black crow” of the painter’s primary plan, although it is associated with it in our minds: more on that later). And Akhmatova appears in bows, as if in a “hair shirt” to “languish” the body from temptations, just like that heroine who, in addition to the well-known stoicism, asceticism and faithlessness, was also “a cheerful and loving wife” (Abakkuk, 1979, 211 ), to whom Archpriest Avvakum even advised: “gouge out your eyes with a shuttle” (Avvakum, 1960) from temptations, but not without male admiration he noted: “The beauty of your face shone before us...”, “The fingers of your hands are delicate and effective<...>your eyes are lightning fast...” (Quoted from: Panchenko, 1979, 13). In letters to Morozova and her sister Evdokia Urusova, Avvakum appears as a true poet, singing them in the style of the “Song of Songs,” although he is sad that “my tongue is short, it will not reach your kindness and beauty”: “Alas, Theodosius! Alas, Eudokea! Two unharnessed spouses, two sweet-voiced gussets, two olive trees and two candlesticks, standing before God on earth!” “Oh, great luminaries, the sun and moon of the Russian earth...”, “Oh, two dawns, illuminating the whole world in the sky! Truly the beauty of the church and the radiance of the ever-present glory of the Lord by grace!” (Habakkuk, 1934). In the same words as about the boyar, Avvakum sings of the Beauty of the Church in the “Life”: “We, here and everywhere sitting in prison, sing before the Lord Christ, the Son of God, songs to songs, which Soloman sang, in vain against Mother Bathsheba: Behold your goodness, my beautiful one, behold your goodness, my beloved, your eyes burn like the flame of fire; your teeth are whiter than milk; the appearance of your face is more than a ray of sunshine, and you shine in all beauty, like the day in its strength (Praise about the Church)” (Habakkuk 1969, 664). And all this And about Morozova, who united with the Church in a time of persecution, not to mention the image of a young widow, about her compassionate deeds, about a disgraced mother caring for her son (Ivan, who died at the age of 21), without mentioning the death of the great martyr by starvation in an earthen pit . With her dying request, “very exhausted from hunger,” addressed to “one of the warriors” for a “roll” or “apple”, for clean clothes, with a covenant of “last love”: “the body, covered with cattail, near my dear sisters and place the compassionate one inseparably.”

And even, addressing in the 1937 poem “I know I can’t budge...” to V. Surikov’s painting “Boyaryna Morozova” (“What crazy Surikov / My last one will write the way?”), Akhmatova becomes close to this heroine of the schism not only awareness of the tragedy of their own path or a prayerful predisposition of the soul, but also a common sense for them of the inescapable, almost pagan joy of life. “With a fragrant birch branch / To stand in the church at Trinity, / With the noblewoman Morozova / To drink sweet honey” (Akhmatova, 1990, 1, 256). These poems, in terms of Morozova’s introduction to the world, even in the subjunctive mood in the above stanza, certainly anticipate the opening line of “The Last Rose.”

And how much it says about the fate of the noblewoman, about her spiritual structure, in what new completeness this life image of the great martyr resurrects for us “sweet honey”! Presumably, "nectar" the one for which Archpriest Avvakum strictly reprimanded his royal ward in one of his letters, meaning by it a certain general sweetness of earthly life: “My light, empress! ...don’t let the damned flesh eat. The soul is not a toy that it can be suppressed by carnal peace! Stop drinking honey too. Sometimes we get water in honor, but we live” (Abakkuk, 1969, 208). On the one hand, “sweetened” can be understood as honey added for sweetening (Compare with the continuation of the “reproach” of Morozov’s spiritual mentor: “Only honest is the one who rises at night to pray, so that the honey will stop drinking into kvass.” "" (Habakkuk, 1969, 209)). On the other hand, according to Dahl, the semantics of the word also contains definitions: “delighting, pleasant, predisposing to bliss”, and “sweet”, “ sweetie”, - in an appeal to a lover. It seems that Akhmatova, introducing this pleonasm as a sign of redundancy, a certain semantic tautology of “sweet sweetness,” had in mind not only the Old Russian - “sweet honey”, but also the entire meaningful spectrum of the word, including “malted” (sprouted grain for sweet bread), warming her living life in Morozova. And not contrasting her life-loving and passionate character with the feat of faith, but literally illustrating - from what order and completeness of earthly attachments she rose to the torment of the “last path”.

Love, like the “sixth sense”, in all its guises, literally permeates “The Last Rose”, it is the internal hormone and the breathing air of the poem, it is both the stem and the ovary of the petals, linking everything into a single bud - thorns and thorns, it is in a whimsical the bend of barely opened living petals. The “love names” called out here are far from accidental; despite all the apparent inconsistency, they are nourished by historical and cultural soil, running living currents through the capillaries and main vessels of Akhmatova’s entire work. And everything is given to everyone here, according to Habakkuk’s word, as life “for equal use.” A lot has been said about the heroines of Akhmatova, including “The Last Rose” - as about the author’s “mirror doubles”, and about “ancient images”, and in the light of biblical studies (Timenchik, 1995, 201-207), and about supramorality beauty, but somehow their connection in the wholeness of the poem was not looked at. After all, this is not just a subtraction of oneself, the definition of “one’s other” from female behavioral types in the history of human spirituality, some internal cultural “we” of Akhmatova. Here is organic unity, expressed in an indissoluble natural-cultural and historical-religious existing connection. Moreover, unity overturned into spiritual reservoirs own creativity, in all its mixtures, dynamics and contradictions. Well, and not without Blok’s “Beautiful Lady” here! And wasn’t it Blok who addressed Akhmatova at one time - ““Beauty is terrible” - they will tell you...” (“To Anna Akhmatova”), wasn’t it he who bequeathed to her a similar “red rose in her hair” and the very idea of the tragedy of beauty?

And yet, Akhmatova makes it possible to “feel the difference”, by the very image of the creation of a rose, by the tangible plasticity, material tangibility of the recreated phenomenon, by inviting inside the flower “a living and colorful world that has forms” (Gorodetsky 1982, 112), and the perception of simply a rose as a rose . That is why there are not Blok’s “closing scarlet circles” here, but the living and immediate freshness of the scarlet flowering of beauty. The very organic unity of the poem is predetermined by the soul of Akhmatov’s poetry. Here, perhaps for the first time, Akhmatova realized real spiritual experience gathering oneself in unity, in the agreement of those who disagree, discovering oneself as a whole, in the great All-Love. And sinful and passionate, and sacrificial and self-willed, condemned and not subject to justice, prayerful and repentant, immaculate and chaste, but alive in everything, inexhaustible and open to the world with all her being! This determines the harmony and full sound of “The Last Rose” in these, nevertheless, “self-immolating verses,” as a similar thing was said about Klyuev (already in the epithet “The Last ...” and the apocalypticism is heard). The unquenchable fires of the first lines look exactly like the Christian legend that the ashes of the burnt righteous people turn into a rose (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1988, 2, 387). This is also about Morozova - they threatened her with the rack, the “trump”, that is, burning, according to the custom of that time, at the stake. This is also noted in “The Tale of Boyarina Morozova...”: “And they installed a chimney in the Swamp. And Patriarch Velmi asked Theodora (Morozova’s name “in nuns.” - A.L.) to be burned...” (The Tale of Boyarina Morozova, 1979, 145). Patriarch Pitirim shouts in anger: “Morn the sufferer!” (ibid., 148). And the noblewoman herself invites fire upon herself: “I count this as great... even if God grants me the honor of his name being burned with fire, to be in the chimney I have prepared for you in the Swamp...” (ibid., 146).

Already in the composition itself, an amazing combination of poems is revealed in the poetess’s verification of the eternal female images of the world. The two quatrains that make up “The Last Rose” do not break down into a historical and cultural context and a separate Akhmatova’s fate, but are congruent, as if mutually superimposed and dialogical. Morozova, bowing, whispers a prayer with Akhmatova’s lips: “Lord! You see, I’m tired...”; the danced head of the Forerunner - “dies and rises” in the second line of “Akhmatov’s”, let’s say, quatrain; Salome’s thoughtless dance (“and live”) also “lives” here, and the fire and flying smoke of Dido’s fire are synchronously remembered in “ scarlet“The blossoming of a rose (3rd line of the second quatrain)... Why it is in this line, in parallel with this fire, that a rose appears and is “materialized” is also quite understandable. Dido’s bonfire (“A lot burned in that bonfire...” - Akhmatova) is assembled from all the objects and attributes of love that Aeneas touched, with his very image: “The bonfire was built<…>And [her] destroying bed / Marriage...", and "her husband's weapon, all his clothes / Places on top of the bed... Aeneas's dress, and a sword, / And an image cast from wax...", "it is gratifying to destroy , / Everything that will remind of him...” (Virgil, Aeneid, canto 5, 490-510). And in its flame the life of the queen disappears, coming to life again in the new bloom of the rose. We can say that Dido’s well-known preference is realized here by the “Acmeistic” heart of the poetess and appeals to her philosophy of the material world. Such a “material” fire, as it were, gives the poet the right to embody the ethereal (hence “Take everything”, with an internal request - like “return everything”, this is also a lovingly put together fire of self-immolation). This demiurgic gift, close to Pushkin’s “elegant materialism,” the poetess from “ young nails“I always knew him behind me (“Cold, white, wait, / I, too, will become marble...” - “And there is my marble double...”) and once again confirmed it with “The Last Rose”: “I know that the gods turned / People into objects without killing consciousness, / So that wondrous sorrows could live forever. /You have been turned into my memory” (“Like a white stone in the depths of a well...”).

And finally, the last line in the 1st stanza, calling to the Virgin of Orleans, speaks not only of chastity, but also of the renewal of love aimed at the future - appearing to the world in every new color, in purity and purity, in the tragic expectation of a new scorching fire (the motif of a repeated fire, a new “freshness of the rose” that can be “felt again”). And with all this “all-world responsiveness” and roll calls of poems, the indissoluble integrity of the poem is strengthened and confirmed everywhere by the effect of the presence of Akhmatova herself, her unique, almost Verigilian accompaniment to all the souls called by her to life (I am with Morozova...), “with Zhanna to the fire again”, “You see, I’m tired”, “Give me again...”). In addition to the authorial activity inherent in Akhmatova’s lyrical self-awareness in general, let us recall the similarity of this technique with Surikov’s painting “Boyaryna Morozova.” As you know, the artist depicted himself on the “historical” canvas (on the left side of the picture) in the image of a young man standing next to a laughing priest and thoughtfully contemplating what was happening. He stands, as it were, across the flow, in a different link of time, and is a kind of “figure of reference” in the system of dynamic integrity of the entire crowd. No wonder it’s literally approaching him close-up running figure of a boy in sheepskin. One must think that in a similar way, Akhmatova, in her momentary life, introduces herself into the plans of cultural-historical reality, knowing that in her time she is already “across the stream.” That is, it exists in “all time.” And in the case of Dido - there is a sign of the heroine’s preference, a deep intrigue - the sister lamenting over the queen is called, like Akhmatova, Anna: “... and runs, gasping for breath... Anna calls her sister: “This is what your there was a plan!.. you didn’t want to take me as your companion... / I built this fire myself and I myself cried out / To the stepfather gods - only so as not to be here at your last moment...” (Virgil, Aeneid , canto 5, 670-680). This is all the more convincing since the “sister” motif is generally one of the significant ones for the poetess, and in the light of the reality of Surikov’s picture - near the sleigh of the disgraced noblewoman, her sister is being guarded in prayer and bow.

All this allows us to talk about “The Last Rose” not only as a “table of contents” to Akhmatova’s experiences in general, a kind of compendium of creativity, but also as a lapidary poem(replaying the term I. Bernstein - “hidden cycle” (Bernstein 1989)), related, let’s say, to such a cycle formation as “Bible verses” - the same lyrical integrity, stretching over a lifetime. Moreover, the cycle completed in 1961 with “Michal”, just as a harbinger of the appearance of “The Last Rose” itself. (In science about Akhmatova very often ontological and philosophical foundations cycle formations are reduced to real recipients, " hidden prototypes”, as the magnetic centers of poems, etc. (Bernstein 1989; Timenchik 1995), which, in a certain sense, violates the conciliar principle of creativity contained in the very idea of cycloposition).

After all, only at first glance it seems that in Akhmatov’s lyrical masterpiece only the titular lines appear before us, and not the hidden characters in their living and immediate development. But, as we will see, these cascading poems gravitate towards a cycle, because in their movement they “seem” to one or another sector of the soul of the poetess herself, recognize the “native” in previous lyrical formations, and simultaneously live their own unique, reverently recreated by the author, obvious life. This is truly, to paraphrase the poetess, "conclusion non-former cycle». Unexistent, because the cycle did not take place (but was intended to be from “Three Roses”). And it could not take place, although the poems were written (one must think, “The Fifth Rose”, “Forbidden...” [which never happened] and “The Last...”). Since the cycle is still not the author’s organization of everyday space, connected, in in this case, with the “Leningrad Four Poets”. And since everything that Akhmatova wanted to express (to myself about everything) - entered into her masterpiece, found its sum of results, its beautiful "conclusion"(that is, imprisoned in embodiment) in The Last Rose. Who knows, maybe with this creation Akhmatova encroached on the very nature of cycle formation, as a lyrical fullness that overflows beyond the scope of a single poem, and, on the contrary, compressed, condensed - to the gene, the seed of a flower - the main lines of her creativity, created a kind of selection of the soul , like a “reverse cycle”? Or maybe she revealed the second side of the conciliar action - not only to go out into the world in a fit of spiritual harmony, but also to unite it - by holistically gathering oneself.

Doesn't the specific experience of creating a "cycle attempt" from "roses" tell us this? After all, literally a year later, in “The Fifth Rose,” Akhmatova will trace the path of a flower in a spiral of incarnations - from the sun (“Soleil”), light, the absolute of the rose from the “Garden of Eden” to forms spiritual transformation: to poetry (“sonnet”) and music (“sonata”), and further - to a real rose, a kiss (“And we will wet our lips in you” - missing in “The Last Rose” taste, “taste of a kiss”). And in the 3rd quatrain (from the blessed earthly “home”), in return turns - through the spiritual transformation of a flower into love (“You were like love...”) and higher, through “earthly confusion” into an incomprehensible all-encompassing feeling (“This is the point not in love at all..."). Therefore, “The Last...” is the rose of return (“Take everything!”), that is, the reverse reflection of the ray from the material world into the high monastery, this is a response to the caress of heaven, embodied hypostatically - in poetry, in an earthly flower, in “ freshness" of life and all-encompassing love. And these are the turns of the spiral, the descending-ascending steps along which all of Akhmatova’s creativity goes into the created rose, which lingered for a moment in the earthly incarnation in order to respond with the highest love, the soul of the flower, to the Divine All-Love. Therefore, it is necessary to read carefully what is written in golden script into each of the petals of “The Last Rose”, to see everything that stands behind any line of Akhmatov’s masterpiece.

Let’s assume that the “life-creating” idea of terrible (“Beauty is terrible”) and fatal beauty will be attracted to the image of “Herod’s stepdaughter” from the Silver Age. Transmoral beauty, appearing in self-worth and artistic self-forgetfulness, in curse and tragic greatness. All this entails both Oscar Wilde (with his “Salome” and his “Nightingale and the Rose” taking root in Russia), and Blok’s - from the “dying memories” of love for N. Volokhova, the culprit of “Faina” and “Snow Mask” : “Lurking, Salome passes, / With my bloody head”; “Only the head on a black platter / Looks with longing into the surrounding darkness” (“ Cold wind from the lagoon" (Blok, 1968, 406)). Akhmatova’s own poem about T. Vyacheslova also responds to this: “And she carried the Baptist’s head on a bloody platter” (“To the Portrait”).

Salome of “The Last Rose” will be directly connected with the “inner carnival” of the poetess herself, with all her “rope dancers”, dancers who “will dance in hell”, “shepherdesses and princesses”, marquises and “port girls”, and more broadly - she will “look” at the very artistic principle of the poetess, which led her from transformations to incarnations, from masks to transformation into faces eternal beauty in the same “Bible verses”. And here, of course, we cannot ignore “Poems without a Hero,” where the biblical dance of the fatal and thoughtless daughter of Herodias is for the first time assessed in a strict light moral law; it grows into the image of a universal masquerade - judged by the poetess - “a dance over the abyss”, over the abyss of what “the twentieth century was embarrassed by.” It is a gift that “Jokanaan” - John the Baptist - is remembered here, as well as the selfless dance of King David. Let us add that the first quatrain, referring us to this masquerade, partly in contrast to its “game” idea, demonstrates the real spiritual path of humanity in the tragedy of love and beauty. In turn, Dido will draw from Akhmatova’s work the image of sacrificial love, motives of tragic discord, plots of grief and separation, abandonment and despair, not to mention the “material fires” and the poems directly dedicated to the Aenean queen, whose first title was: “Says Dido” (“You forgot those in horror and torment, / Through the fire outstretched hands / And the hope of the damned news” (“Don’t be afraid, I’m still similar...” 1962)), which is quite enough to substantiate the idea “ intra-verse cycle." Moreover, among the crossed out lines there is a direct autoquote: in Dido’s “bonfire, / Probably my voice and body were burned” (Compare: with “And people will come and bury / My body and my voice” from “Dying, I yearn for immortality. ..”, poems, by the way, quoted in Gumilyov’s “The Lost Tram”). And what about the “antique pages” of her work, and Virgil? and Dante, through the mediation of the author of the Aeneid, is not included here? And here is the path of the poems that pass through the main cultural eras- antiquity (Dido), biblical times and early Christianity(Salome), the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Joan of Arc and Dante's image of the Rose), the Russian Middle Ages in the foreshadowing of Peter's reforms (Morozov). And would it really be such a big impudence to see in Akhmatova’s poems the flaming Heavenly Rose from Dante’s Divine Comedy, “the rose of paradise, the image of the universe and the highest bliss” (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1998, 2, 387)!? With the only amendment that the Mother of God, crowning the Rose, the petals of which are composed of the souls of the righteous and saints, inhabited by them, will innate to the angelic flower those who have tasted in the earthly vale higher love, recognizing them: " They are from my family!..»

With the name of Morozova, called out in the first verse, in addition to what has already been said, in Akhmatova’s work those “fiery places” that she recognized as the main ones in her feat and asceticism of love as All-Love will be highlighted and attracted to the poem. From these depths of Akhmatov’s poetry, to the stoic boyar (as well as to the fiery heroine of France), lines about the Mother of God embodiment of earthly femininity reach: “... and creative sadness / Not an earthly wife’s moth. /Such people were exiled to monasteries /And burned on high bonfires” (“How could you, strong and free...”), in the poetess’s inexhaustible hope for the patronage of the Mother of God and native land his own, and to the martyrs of the world. That is, here one recognizes both her “drop of Novgorod blood” and the painfully memorable “Tver meager land”, all of her Russia - monastic and cell, pilgrim and pilgrim, in Nekrasov’s “poor and wretched”, holy fool, orphan, convict and persecuted (“The Mother of God sees off, /Wraps her son in a scarf, /Dropped by an old beggar woman /At the Lord’s porch.” - “Lamentation”) - everyone to whom her compassionate heart was drawn, whose earthly names she wanted to inscribe in the mournful scroll-martyrology of the “Requiem” " That Rus' from which she dreamed of diverting all punishments to herself with a hot word and, praying at Her “liturgy,” cried out to heaven so that the “cloud” over Russia “became a cloud in the glory of the rays!” (“Give me the bitter years of illness...”). And then, in “Requiem,” she sadly stated the results of her high self-denial (in response to: “Take away both the child and the friend...”, - “The husband is in the grave, the son is in prison, / Pray for me...”).

Here, in general, it is worth recalling Akhmatova’s ancient Russian affections, in particular, the poem “Dry lips are tightly closed...” (Akhmatova, 1990, 1, 62), created at the origins of her work. These are poems dedicated to Princess Evdokia, the wife of Dmitry Donskoy, the same as Morozov, an ascetic of the faith, a legendary heroine who “saved Moscow with prayer.” Akhmatova presents her in her work as a young princess, immersing us in the world of her early prophetic visions (a boy born blind appears to her in a half-sleep: “And, bent over, tearlessly prayed / Her mother prayed for the blind boy, / And the whooper beat without a voice, / Her lips pressed against the air catch"). Here, the emerging compassionate feeling for the people anticipates the coming miracle of Evdokia - the healing of the blind, the right to which she will gain throughout her ascetic life as an intercessor of the Russian land. The poem corresponds to a legend about how Princess Evdokia, before being tonsured as a nun, promised to save a man blind from birth from illness, and on the day when she accepted the holy name of Euphrosyne, which means Joy, on the steps of the temple, a blind man wiped his eyes with the outstretched sleeve of her robe and received his sight. According to legend, about 30 people were miraculously healed by the nun Euphrosyne. It is curious that Akhmatova is here again - next to Surikov. A year after the creation of "Boyaryna Morozova", V. Surikov, in grief from the subsequent premature death of his wife, wrote a pictorial embodiment gospel story(“It has not been heard since time immemorial, that someone opened the eyes of a man born blind,” John, 9) “Healing of a man born blind.” Turning to the world of Russian antiquity, Akhmatova finds female version this miracle-working of Christ found in Russia.

In connection with the image of Morozova in “The Last Rose,” it would be appropriate to return to the general plan of Surikov’s painting “Boyaryna Morozova” and evaluate it as if through Akhmatov’s eyes. Painting, probably, could not bypass her here; the poetess needed the viscous materiality of the oil stroke to fully embody the rose, and not just the ethereal “rose oil”. The poetess, apparently, knew well not only the artistic canvas itself, but also the surroundings of the creation of this masterpiece, and regarded it as complete, with “spiritual eyes.” For example, a line from a poem about a boyar (“I know, I can’t budge...”) “To drown in dung snow...” in combination with the image of the path (“...Surikov / Will my last one write the path?”) is clearly takes us to the plot when the artist, puzzled by how to make the picture the sleigh has gone(“my horse doesn’t go, and that’s all”), “I added more canvas,” drew ruts in the dislodged snow, straw trailing along the trail and... “the horse went” (quoted from: Pevzner, 2001).

Surikov’s lessons in “The Last Rose” are somewhat different and look at the spiritual results. And although it is tempting to name through the mediation of what image Akhmatova could write the line “I and Morozova bow down...” - it would definitely be a “boyar in blue with a golden scarf” frozen in a reverent bow - yet the essence is more general plans paintings, in the presence of the “invisible world”. This is especially relevant today, when Surikov’s pictorial epic is perceived as a picture of schism (“Split is the name of this disease, schism, discord between people, and in every person there is this sled track...” (Chernova, 2000), and not a call to unity. Meanwhile, if you look at Surikov’s canvas with eyes not “ discordant"man, then we will discover some saving ovaries, we will see the immersion of this multifaceted and fragmented world" to the temple", and the highest agreement. That is, what has always potentially lived in the ideals of Akhmatova’s creativity. Already in the verses of 1915 “It’s getting dark, and in the dark blue sky...” the heroine leaving the temple is preoccupied with the fragmentation of the beautiful in life, imagining what is visible around in the images of petals not united into a whole: “As if the petals were lying everywhere / Those yellow-pink medium-sized roses, /The name of which I forgot.” (Akhmatova, 1990,1, 160). But the abandoned temple itself suggests how there is a reasonable connection between everything in the world. Reserving the right to admire “every speck” of life, Akhmatova nevertheless always feels in herself not only the intrinsic value of the moment she is experiencing, but also the conciliar connection of everything into a great integrity in the rose and the temple. And she seems to throw this unifying principle forward from these early verses, to future incarnations, to the synthesis of the “rose-temple”, the rose - a symbol of the Church, among other things.

Indeed, in Surikov’s painting, surrounded by white light-color ( snow - second light of Russia, - according to G. Gachev, “Snow = light of Rus'” (Gachev, 1995, 105)) above the crowd, divided on both sides, the domes of churches rise and group, and the trampled whiteness of the snow underfoot is cleared in color, being reflected in the melting twilight white haze of the sky. It’s the same inside the picture: we walk through the brown-golden shades of color, through the purification of the golden substance, and we see the same ring - from the fox collar through the sheepskin skin of the running boy, the straw of the sleigh carrying Morozova, the golden cloth of the noblewoman, to the Image illuminated by a lamp. The Most Pure One in the upper right corner, and we complete the protective circle with the golden heads of churches.

One must think that Akhmatova’s gaze could not help but dwell on the group of female images, about which the artist himself said: “ Women's faces I loved Russians very much, unspoiled by anything, untouched. Why is it beautiful? - features are harmonized - this is the essence of beauty. Those who bow are all Old Believers from Preobrazhensky” (quoted from: Pevzner, 2001). Morozov and the images of the female series are, as it were, introduced into the inner “golden circle”. Some mysterious currents emanate from the great noblewoman, from the height of her feat and doomed beauty, and, passing through the figures of her sister Evdokia running after the sleigh and the kneeling beggar woman, young beautiful faces, crowned with the icon of the Mother of God, suddenly light up in the crowd. The already mentioned noblewoman with an icon-painted face, and a woman mournfully pressing a scarf to her lips, and a curious nun, and a young woman frozen in shock with crossed arms can be attributed to this cathedral ovary of the picture. This illuminated semicircle of “straightening”, “rising from her knees” beauty removes from Morozova’s appearance both the mourning foreshadowing and the stern frenzy of the image, introducing her into a single “beautiful” series - this is the key of the picture, as an image of a conciliar action, despite the schism. Moreover, Morozova’s face, admittedly “iconographic,” is generally illuminated with a light “not of this world.”

It was precisely such an experience of combination and harmony in the polyphony of life, such a harmonizing presence of the “invisible world” that synchronizes heterogeneous historical and cultural layers of existence, that Akhmatova was able to bring into the poem “The Last Rose”. And she left the name of the unbending Russian noblewoman in the first line as the password for this reading. And it is through the mediation of Surikov’s masterpiece that she appeals to the Mother of God image, as one of the hypostases of Sophia, spiritualizing and gathering the world and the diversity of beauty and diversity of what is unique in it.

The names of Morozova and Joan of Arc, framing the first “all-world” quatrain of “The Last Rose,” are here under the special favor of the Intercessor (the Virgin of Orleans is correlated with the Ever-Virgin, as it were, by definition). But if we take into account the combination of the prayerful state of the poem as a whole with internal action his - collecting Roses - as well as with the finale of the first stanza directed to the West (France), then a new depth of the poet’s plan will be revealed, revealing his work in a single impulse towards purity and chastity. Indeed, in Western paraphernalia “The rose is a symbol of unity”, “The rose symbolizes the number five” (here with the lyrical “I” of Akhmatova - five heroines), “and this feature of it is reflected in Catholic everyday life, where the rosary and a special prayer for them are called “ Rosary” (Latin Rosarium, German Rosenkranz), and “Rosary” corresponds to the reflection on the three “quintuplets” - five “joyful”, five “sorrowful” and five “glorious” sacraments of the life of the Virgin Mary, who herself is revered as the Rose or has the Rose as its attribute” (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1988, 2, 386).

The above refers us to the origins of Akhmatova’s poetry, to the “Rosary Beads,” and forces us to rethink the spiritual experience of the poetess in the light of the creation of the cathedral image of the Rose. This needs additional comment: " beads... in French are also called roses... their balls were at first made from grated rose petals bound with gum arabic" (Zolonitsky, 1913). Rosaries “were first used by the Lamai monks, and then from them were transferred to the Turks, among whom, strangely, they also bear the name of roses, although they are made from balls of earth taken in Mecca or Medina” (ibid.). In this sense, the title of the 1914 collection - “The Rosary” - is not only a happy find and completely adequate to the book, but can be extended to subsequent work, and can be recognized as one of the leading symbolic threads that knit together the artistic fabric of her quest. Here and there we find particles of “pink dust” interspersed in small scruples or involved in handfuls in the material fabric of her poems.

In “The Rosary” there is a clear change in favor of instrumenting the poems with the sound root of “roses,” as mentioned above, and in the sense of complete preference for “roses.” Indeed, this book begins with the tulip “Confusion” - a “harem flower” - a symbol of female sacrificial submission and meekly waiting love, with a flower materialized, like “ the last rose", presented "through tears" ("Things and faces merge..."). The tulip in Persia “was called “dulbash” - a Turkish turban, from which the word “turban” was subsequently derived”, the tulip was especially loved “in the East by the Turks, whose wives bred it in abundance in seraglios...”, where “it was celebrated annually a wonderful, magical holiday of tulips, which the Sultan looks at as a flattering proof of his wives’ affection and love,” and, based on the charm of the tulip, chooses its owner as the most beloved of his loved ones (Zolonitsky, 1913). Akhmatova, obviously, was aware of this semantic etymology of the tulip. And suddenly this symbol, already recognized, triumphant, twice confirmed in verse (“And only a red tulip, / The tulip is in your buttonhole”), which was assigned to Akhmatova’s figurative series, disappears, is replaced by a new plot - lyrical novel"The Poet and the Rose". “The rosary” as “Rosarium” becomes the most accurate definition of Akhmatova’s way of comprehending the world. It’s always simultaneous with her: both the spiritual wreath of prayers and the tactile “holy beads” of the material world, fingered in her fingers - in their mysterious and indissoluble integrity. No matter how later, after “The Rosary,” the rose was abstracted into meaning combinations (“immortal rose,” “grave roses,” “first...”, “last...”, “fifth...”), no matter how has not been subjected to selection (“nutmeg white roses”, “roses will be braided with a crown of reds”, “ruddy...", “yellow-pink medium-sized roses”, “Soleil” [sunny], “tea roses”), it will always appear in living freshness of life (“And roses in a washing jug!”, “Unique, perhaps, the sweetness / of Immortal roses ...”), and invariably remembering your heavenly and universal purpose (“Ruddy rose and ray, / And I have one lot”, “It won’t be scary or painful./No roses, no Archangel powers,” “I want to go to the roses, to that one and only garden...” In the latter there is paradise, and the Summer of the Lord, and simply Akhmatova’s favorite “Summer Garden,” by the title of the poem).

If we get even deeper into the metaphysics of the poem “The Last Rose,” then along with the creation of the scarlet flower we will see here a cross in the drawing of an invisible semantic acrostic. More precisely, it is “like a shadow of the cross of Golgotha,” a certain X, which D. Merezhkovsky so diligently deduced, drawing the route of Christ’s wanderings on earth, asserting that “world history takes place under this sign of the cross” (Merezhkovsky 1925, 26). The principle of organizing cultural and historical space in Akhmatova’s poem is based on the same experience. From the author’s “I” there is a descending line of thought to Morozova and Salome, through historical reality to spiritual tradition. And, in turn, another line rises: from the ancient source - “with the smoke of Dido” - back, through a historical symbol - the image of Joan of Arc to the poetess herself turned to heaven. The definition of the cross here is connected with the 4 cardinal directions, and with the quatrain with four names, and indirectly - the rose is an attribute of Christ (“Here he is - Christ - in chains and roses!” - A. Blok), a symbol of resurrection and Divine love (Myths of the Peoples of the World, 1988, 2, 386).

And it is no coincidence that at the entrance to this Akhmatova Temple of the Rose - one way or another - religious and religious names sound: here is the Russian noblewoman, a supporter of ancient piety, and the frivolous Salome, involved in a conspiracy against John the Baptist, and indirectly - Dido - with her creator Virgil , who predicted in the “IV Eclogue” at the turn of the new era the birth of the Divine Child, and Jeanne de Arc, accused of heresy, was counted as Catholic Church to the saints. And among them - again Akhmatova, in painful confrontation with the godless world, in defending the holy faith of the fathers, in seeking the universal Faith of faiths.

In general, in assessing “The Last Rose” we should additionally talk about it as a certain phenomenon, Akhmatov’s “Exegi Monumentum”, its living Monument that is renewed in flowering. Isn’t that why she even needed in the epigraph a sample of her own winged handwriting, seen and aptly assessed by other eyes: “You will write about us obliquely...” (I. Brodsky), a person of a different generation? Isn’t she addressing this line to herself on behalf of the heroines she resurrects, isn’t she leaving “The Last Rose” for future people, so that her name, along with the unbroken Russian noblewoman and Dido ascending to the sky, can be called out from a single flower?! And the question is far from idle! Especially in today's almost discord with Akhmatova's Rose. After all, with all the secrecy and censorship, the silencing of the epigraph in certain years, this is still Not dedication. Here is a verse with reference to the author - “I. B.”, about which the ignorant naively asked: no longer “ from Ivan or Bunin"? That is, with the preference given to the epigraphic line, as opposed to the name, Akhmatova seems to have removed the sign of the narrow affiliation of this masterpiece to any addressee. But, on the contrary, from the “addressee” a mirror was appropriated, which was necessary for the poetess herself, who wants this creation not to be a response “about”, not to be understood as something said quietly, “under a rose.” In all her ways, Akhmatova is involved in this poem and, apparently, she wanted to leave a handwritten sign as a testimony to the unique, always raised upward, her own handwriting. Mixed in with All-Love and almost with “Pushkin’s universal responsiveness,” these poems were and will be what they were intended to be - by the ROSE itself - a kind of Last Testament, her: “No, all of me will not die,” a reminder of her entire living world and our corresponding right and happiness, returning to Akhmatov’s lines, “this scarlet rose... to feel the freshness again”...

LITERATURE

1. Habakkuk. Life of Archpriest Avvakum // Izbornik (Collection of works of literature of Ancient Rus'). - M.: Khud. lit. 1969.

2. Habakkuk. A deplorable word about the three confessors // The Tale of Boyarina Morozova / Preparation of texts and research by A. I. Mazunin. - L. 1979.

3. Habakkuk. Letter to the noblewoman F.P. Morozova: (“The Lord is coming...”) // Life of Archpriest Avvakum written by himself and his other works. - M., Goslitizdat, 1960.

4. Habakkuk. Letters to the noblewoman F. P. Morozova (“Before these letters ...”) // Life of Archpriest Avvakum written by himself and his other works / Ed. N.K. Gudziya. - M.: Goslitizdat. 1960.

5. Habakkuk. Letter to the noblewoman F.P. Morozova and Princess E.P. Urusova // Life of Archpriest Avvakum written by himself and his other works. - [M.], Academia. - 1934. P. 317-321. Electron. version: .

6. Akhmatova A. A. Works in 2 volumes - M.: Pravda. 1990.

7. Bernstein I. A. Hidden cycles in Akhmatova’s lyrics // Proceedings of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Literature and Language Series. 1989. T. 48. No. 5.

8. Blok A. A. Poems. Poems. Theater - M. 1968.

9. Virgil. Aeneid. - M.: Artist. literature. 1971.

10. Voloshin M. Surikov: materials for the biography. Electr. edition:< http://lingua.russianplanet.ru/library/mvoloshin/mv_surik.htm>

11. Gachev G. D. Life with Thought. Book happy person(Bye…). Confession. - M. 1995.

12. Gorodetsky S. Some trends in modern Russian poetry // Rocyjskie kierunki literackie. Przelom 19 i 20 week. - Warzawa. 1982.

13. Zolotnitsky N. F. Flowers in legends and traditions. - M. 1913. Electron. version: .

14. Crown V.V. Sophia’s world of Anna Akhmatova // Archetypal structures of artistic consciousness: Collection of articles. - Ekaterinburg: Ural Publishing House. un-ta. 2002. Issue. No. 3. Electron. version:< http://poetica1.narod.ru/sbornik/korona1.htm>.

15. Kuzmin M. (Preface to the book of poems by A. Akhmatova “Evening”) // Rocyjskie kierunki literackie. Przelom 19 i 20 week. - Warzawa. 1982.

16. Merezhkovsky D.S. The Secret of Three. Egypt and Babylon. - Prague. 1925.

17. Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia. In 2 volumes. T. 2. - M. 1988.

18. Panchenko A. M. Boyarina Morozova - symbol and personality // The Tale of Boyarina Morozova. - L. 1979.

19. Pevzner L. Surikov is working on the image of “Boyaryna Morozova”. Electron, version: .

20. The Tale of Boyarina Morozova / Preparation of texts and research by A. I. Mazunin. - L. 1979.

21. Savkina I. L. The image of the Mother of God and the problem of the ideal feminine in Russian women's poetry XX century // Transfiguration (Russian feminist magazine). 1995. No. 3. P. 155-168.

22. Timenchik R. About Akhmatova’s “Biblical” secret writing // Zvezda. 1995. No. 10. P. 201-207.

23. Tsivyan G.V. Cassandra, Dido, Phaedra // Literary review. 1989. No. 5. P. 29-33.

24. Chernova T. Reading Friedrich Gorenstein. Notes from a provincial reader // “October”. 2000. No. 11.

You will write about us obliquely.
I.B.

Morozova and I bow down,
To dance with Herod's stepdaughter,
Fly away from Dido's fire with smoke,
To go to the fire with Zhanna again.
God! You see I'm tired
Resurrect, and die, and live.
Take everything, but this scarlet rose
Let me feel fresh again.
1962

In June 1962, Joseph Alexandrovich, on Akhmatova’s 73rd birthday, Brodsky wrote two poems: “The roosters will crow and crow...” (from which she took the epigraph “You will write about us obliquely” for the poem “The Last Rose”) and “Behind the Churches , gardens, theaters..."

Roses were first mentioned in 1910, in the “Deception” cycle, in the first and fourth parts of this work. At the beginning of the first part it talks about “spring” roses. The rose in the world of the lyrical heroine is a flower that traditionally symbolizes love.

Three years later they turn into an obvious attribute of a love date:

Forgive me, cheerful boy,
That I brought you death -
For roses from the round platform,
For your stupid letters,
Because, daring and dark,
He turned dull with love.
“High vaults of the church...”, 1913

Remembering the deceased “boy” who was in love with her in the past, the lyrical heroine names among the signs of his love “roses from the round platform” and “stupid letters”.

Both works are brought together not only by the mention of Roses, but also by the peculiar similarity of the plot, which undergoes a role inversion. Lyrical heroes as if they change places. If the Deception series is about a young girl who falls “blindly” in love, then suffers severe disappointment, writes a letter and almost dies:

I wrote the words
What I didn’t dare say for a long time.
My head hurts,
My body feels strangely numb.
Deception, 1910

then in the work “High Vaults of the Church...” the lyrical heroine herself acts as such a “deceiver”, and the “boy” writes letters and dies.

The transformation of the Rose from a framing device into one of the main symbols of love additionally endows this image with “deadly” symbolism.

A year later, a similar situation repeats itself:

Gray-eyed was a tall boy,
Six months younger than me.
He brought me white roses
Muscat white roses,
And he asked me meekly: “Can I
Should I sit on the rocks with you?”
I laughed: “What do I need roses for?
They just hurt!” - "What, -
He replied, “Then what should I do?”
If so, I fell in love with you.”
Near the sea, 1914

This passage describes an episode that seemed to precede the suicide of the “cheerful boy” and probably served as one of its reasons. The lyrical heroine, as one might guess, rejected “roses from the round platform,” just as she now refuses to accept “nutmeg white roses” as a gift.

Chronologically, the first mention in the text of “the last roses” refers to the period of early creativity:

And into a secret friendship with the tall one,
Like a dark-eyed young eagle
I’m like in a pre-autumn flower garden,
She walked in with a light gait.
There were the last roses
And the transparent month swayed
On gray, thick clouds...
1917

These are already known to us “autumn” roses, probably from the same “greenhouse”, which this time is called a “flower garden”. If our guess is correct, then the very first time the “last roses” appear simultaneously with the first ones is back in the “Deception” cycle.

Taking into account the symbolism of the image of Rose in early works, the meaning of the later one seems obvious: the lyrical heroine asks the Lord to give her the opportunity to “feel again” the feeling of Love.

(excerpt from a book)

V.V. Corona

It is impossible to say with complete certainty which Rose is the very first in Akhmatova’s poetic world, so we will be guided by the author’s dating of the works.

Roses were first mentioned in 1910 in the cycle “Deception”, in the first and fourth parts of this work. At the beginning of the first part it is said about “spring” Roses:

This morning is drunk with the spring sun,

And on the terrace the smell of roses is more noticeable...

Oh, the heart loves sweetly and blindly!

and at the end of the fourth - about “autumn”:

Light autumn snow

Lay down on the croquet court.

The candles in the living room will be lit,

During the day their flicker is softer,

They will bring a whole bouquet

Roses from the greenhouse.

This “flowery” framing of the lyrical plot - the blind love of a young girl and subsequent disappointment - immediately allows us to conclude that the Rose in the world of the lyrical heroine is a Flower, traditionally symbolizing Love. Answering Gasparov’s question: “Which sensual coloring predominates in this image: color or smell?”, we can say: initially - smell. The lyrical heroine senses the “first roses” by the smell, which becomes “more and more audible.”

Roses seem to bloom in her world all year round(in the summer - in the garden, in the winter - in the greenhouse), and therefore accompany the main events of life. It is noteworthy that they are mentioned before meeting a lover, as one of the implicit attributes of the lyrical situation.

Three years later they turn into an obvious attribute of a love date:

Forgive me, cheerful boy,

That I brought you death -

For roses from the round platform,

For your stupid letters,

Because, daring and dark,

He turned dull with love.

"High vaults of the church...", 1913.

Remembering the deceased - a “boy” who was in love with her in the past - the lyrical heroine names among the signs of his love “roses from the round platform” and “stupid letters”.

Both works are brought together not only by the mention of Roses, but also by the peculiar similarity of the plot, which undergoes a role inversion. The lyrical characters seem to change places. If the Deception series is about a young girl who falls “blindly” in love, then suffers severe disappointment, writes a letter and almost dies:

I wrote the words

What I didn’t dare say for a long time.

My head hurts,

My body feels strangely numb.

Deception, 1910 -

then in the work “High Vaults of the Church...” the lyrical heroine herself acts as such a “deceiver”, and writes letters and the “boy” dies. The transformation of the Rose from a framing device into one of the main symbols of love additionally endows this image with “deadly” symbolism.

A year later, a similar situation repeats itself:

Gray-eyed was a tall boy,

Six months younger than me.

He brought me white roses

Muscat white roses,

And he asked me meekly: “Can I

Should I sit with you on the rocks?"

I laughed: “What do I need roses for?

Only the injections hurt!" - "Well, -

He replied, “Then what should I do?”

If so, I fell in love with you."

Near the sea, 1914.

At the same time, two more “sensual” signs of Rose are indicated - White color and “causticity,” the ability to inflict painful injections. For the young lyrical heroine, a rose is not only a conventional symbol of love, but also an object in which she feels both smell and color, and tactilely - also “causticity”. The latter is probably one of the reasons for refusing a closer relationship with the “boy” who is in love with her.

To summarize, we can say that the symbolism of the image of Rose in early work Akhmatova is quite traditional.

Last roses

It is no less difficult to say which Roses are the “last” in Akhmatova’s poetic world. These include Roses, mentioned in this capacity by the author himself, regardless of the real chronology, and those that are found in latest works. Chronologically, the first mention in the text of “the last roses” refers to the period of early creativity:

And into a secret friendship with the tall one,

Like a young eagle with dark eyes,

I’m like in a pre-autumn flower garden,

She walked in with a light gait.

There were the last roses

And the transparent month swayed

On gray, thick clouds...

These are already known to us “autumn” Roses, probably from the same “greenhouse”, which this time is called a “flower garden”. If our guess is correct, then the very first time the “last roses” appear simultaneously with the first ones is back in the “Deception” cycle.

IN new situation an episode is described that seems to precede the appearance of “a whole bouquet of roses.” The lyrical heroine is just entering “the flower garden” (“into secret friendship”). Let us remember that “blinding love” (aka the Guide) “leads faithfully and secretly.” The expression “secret friendship” in this context is the author’s euphemism for the concept of “blind love”. Further development the situation is known - the lyrical heroine will “see the light”, the Roses in the “flower garden of her soul” will be cut and turned into a “bouquet”. The secret will become clear.

The basis for such a forecast is the typical Akhmatova principle of development of the lyrical plot. Initially, as a rule, it describes the last act of the drama, and then, returning to the same plot, details the previous episodes. The calendar chronology of events occurring in the poetic world does not coincide with the logic of their development. On this basis, we interpret the entry of the lyrical heroine into the “flower garden” with the “last roses” as an episode preceding their removal from the “greenhouse”.

The last rose

Morozova and I should bow to each other,

To dance with Herod's daughter-in-law,

Fly away from Dido's fire with smoke,

To go to the fire with Zhanna again.

God! You see I'm tired

Resurrect, and die, and live.

Take everything, but this scarlet rose

Let me feel fresh again.

Taking into account the symbolism of the image of Rose in the early works, the meaning of the later one seems obvious: the lyrical heroine asks the Lord to give her the opportunity to “feel again” the feeling of Love.

This is how you can understand the content of this work, limiting yourself to the textual context and the early intratextual one. The “historical background” against which this request is stated is not directly related to the image of Rose, and the new signs of her sensual coloring - scarlet and freshness - do not look like significant differences. “Scarlet” in Akhmatova’s poetic world is the color of Fire, and “fresh” is a non-specific epithet that characterizes the quality of the pristine nature of any object that is especially valued by the author (freshness of feelings, freshness of wind, freshness of snow, etc.).

But is The Last Rose “the last”? Chronologically, the most recent is a completely different one - “The Fifth Rose”. Based on the author's logic of plot development, we can assume that the image of Rose is most fully revealed in this work. He will be considered as the Last (very last) Rose of Anna Akhmatova.

Fifth rose

Were you called Soleil or Tea?

And what else could you be,

But it became so extraordinary

That I can't forget you.

You shone with a ghostly light,

Reminiscent of the Garden of Eden,

To be a Petrarchan sonnet

It could, and the best of the sonatas.

And we will wet our lips in you,

And bless my house,

You were like love... But however,

It's not about love at all.

To Schubert's "Hungarian Divertissement".

This work is a typical author's definition of a new concept. The core of the defined concept is “My Rose”, and its shell is a list of seven objects indicating different shades of intra-textual meanings. Reconstructing these objects according to a set of features reminiscent of Rose, we obtain the following list:

"My Rose" (this)

Sun ("You were called Soleil...")

Garden of Eden (reminds me)

Poems (could be a "Petrarccan sonnet")

Music (could be "best of sonatas")

Wine ("And we will wet our lips in you...)

Blesser (“And you bless my house...”)

Love ("You were like love...")

The objects listed by the author indicate the possible forms of Rose’s existence in the world of the lyrical heroine or the forms of her incarnation. The first of these forms (in order of listing) is the Sun, as evidenced by the “French” name of the Rose - Soleil. This is, as it were, a “real” name that reveals the existential essence of the object. When translated into a commonly understood language, it loses its meaning and is therefore duplicated in the original language. Taking into account Rose's first name, we can say that she is the earthly embodiment of Heavenly Fire.