Anna Akhmatova is an outstanding poetess of the 20th century. Her life and creative path cannot be called easy. The Soviet propaganda machine slandered her, created difficulties and obstacles, but the poetess remained a strong and unshakable patriot of her country. Her civic lyrics are aimed at telling everyone why they should love and be proud of their native land.
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova wrote “Native Land” in 1961. At this time, the poetess was in the Leningrad hospital. The poem is part of the collection “A Wreath for the Dead.”
“Native Land” belongs to the civil lyrics of the great poetess - therefore the motive for writing the work is very clear. For Akhmatova, the post-war period was difficult period: personal family tragedies and the inability to publish freely, but the poetess did not give up and continued to write. Anna Andreevna’s patriotic poems were created as if in secret; she was forbidden to freely publish her works. Since the mid-50s, she was not allowed to live in peace, but she did not allow herself to break down and wrote again and again that her native country, although not ideal (“does not seem like a promised paradise”), still remains beloved. At the same time, many artists (writers, poets, playwrights, actors) left the country, disappointed and somewhat humiliated. They all lost faith in the Motherland, did not see anything positive, but Akhmatova saw, tried to feel in this darkness at least the slightest ray of light and found it. She found it in the nature of Russia - in its incredible nature - the nurse of the entire Russian people.
Genre, direction and size
“Native Land” is a deeply patriotic lyrical work. Akhmatova herself defined the genre of this poem as civil poetry. Strong love and respect for one’s country - these are the feelings that permeate these lines.
Anna Andreevna worked within the framework of the direction - Acmeism. The poem is small in volume - 14 lines, the first 8 of which are written in iambic, and the last 6 in anapest. Loose cross rhyme (ABAB) creates the impression of free composition. It is worth noting that the type of rhyme indicates the informality of the dialogue between the lyrical heroine and the audience. The work is not subject to a strict external form.
Composition
A trained reader will immediately notice some similarities between Akhmatova’s “Native Land” and Lermontov’s “Motherland”. In both poems, in the first lines, the poets deny pathos and patriotism, but only that which has become somewhat typical for people - glorification, hymns. Masters of words point to a “different” love, which does not have to be proven with “incense” on the chest and poems. Both poets say that true love to the Motherland is devoid of external manifestations and is not directed at the viewer - this is an intimate feeling, personal for each person, unlike anyone else.
It is also worth noting that in this poem Russia is precisely the land, the place fertile soils, not a country with military merits. This is exactly the kind of homeland that appears before ordinary people, for whom Akhmatova writes.
Compositionally, the poem can be divided into two parts.
- In the first part, the denial of excessive expression in the manifestation of love for the Motherland comes to the fore.
- In the second part there is an explanation of what the Motherland is for the poetess herself: “dirt on the galoshes,” “crunch on the teeth.”
Images and symbols
Poems of this type always contain the image of the Motherland. In this work, Akhmatova focuses readers’ attention on the fact that the homeland is not a country, but a land in the literal sense - loose, dirty, its own!
The poem is not replete with a lot of symbols, because it is not required. The poetess does not write about the Motherland as an artistic image, she depicts everything simply and clearly, describes what the motherland is for her, and what she personally is ready to do for the fatherland.
Of course, it is worth noting that in a lyrical work there is almost always an image of a lyrical hero. In this poem, the lyrical heroine is the poetess herself, Akhmatova depicts her own thoughts, what is close to her - the Motherland in its nature, the earth, native landscapes, familiar and beloved landscapes.
Themes and mood
The main theme of “Native Land” is the image of a beloved country, but not traditionally - majestically and in a military way, but from the everyday side - the native land, a place of hard work and titanic labor.
From the very first lines, each reader begins to experience the feelings and mood that the poetess herself experienced - love. Akhmatova selflessly and devotedly loves Rus', does not shout about it to the whole world, but loves in her own way, for what is close to her. She soberly evaluates the Motherland, does not idealize it, because there are no universal ideals in the world that everyone would like: a person finds in the totality of pros and cons what is close to him, and for this he begins to love, beautifully, sacrificially, selflessly.
Meaning
The poem is philosophical; it is impossible to immediately answer what the Motherland is. Only at the end of the text is the author’s position and idea of the poem visible - a person can call a region his own only if he intends to live in it until the end of his days, despite the difficulties and obstacles. I immediately want to draw a parallel with my mother: no one exchanges her for another, she is with us to the end. Kinship and blood ties cannot be changed in any way. So they don’t change the fatherland, even if it is not affectionate or beautiful. The poetess proved from her own experience that a true patriot can remain loyal to his country. Akhmatova says that the Fatherland is the true value of humanity, eternal, true, enduring.
I would like to note that the theme of the homeland for Akhmatova is one of the main thoughts in her work. She had a negative attitude towards those who left the country in search of better life, although the country treated her very cruelly - her husband ended up in the grave, her son served his sentence in prison. These torments influenced the poetess’s work, creating an indescribable tragedy of the lyrics.
Means of artistic expression
The poem “Native Land” cannot be classified as a lyrical work that is replete with visual and expressive means, because the poetess wanted to convey everything simply and freely. One of the few tropes is the epithet “bitter dream,” which conveys the pain of the Russian person. The comparison “we do not make it in our souls an object of purchase and sale” is very expressive. The poetess again focuses on the fact that the Motherland is the most intimate and dear thing for people, something that cannot even be assessed. The lines “Yes, for us it’s dirt on the ears” are very metaphorical. Yes, for us it’s a crunch in the teeth.” The author shows exactly why he loves his native land.
It is worth noting that the very manner of writing this poem is artistic medium. Anna Andreevna wanted this lyrical work Laconically and simply show how and why you can love your Motherland. It seems to prove that the Fatherland is loved not externally, not in public, but secretly and intimately, each in his own way. To convey this as easily and naturally as possible, the poetess deliberately does not load the text with detailed metaphors, hyperboles and gradations, which every reader must think about before fully comprehending.
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Analysis of the poem “Native Land”
A. Akhmatova's poem "Native Land" reflects the theme of the Motherland, which very keenly worried the poetess. In this work, she created the image of her native land not as a sublime, holy concept, but as something ordinary, self-evident, something that is used as a certain object for life.
The poem is philosophical. The title goes against the content, and only the ending encourages you to think about what the word “native” means. “We lie down in it and become it,” writes the author. “Becoming” means merging with her into one whole, just as people were, not yet born, one with their own mother in her womb. But until this merger with the earth comes, humanity does not see itself as part of it. A person lives without noticing what should be dear to the heart. And Akhmatova does not judge a person for this. She writes “we”, she does not elevate herself above everyone else, as if the thought of her native land for the first time forced her to write a poem, to call on everyone else to stop the course of their everyday thoughts and think that the Motherland is the same as one’s own mother . And if so, then why “We don’t carry them on our chests in treasured amulet”, i.e. is the earth not accepted as sacred and valuable?
With pain in her heart, A. Akhmatova describes the human attitude towards the earth: “for us it is dirt on our galoshes.” How is that considered dirt with which humanity will merge at the end of life? Does this mean that a person will also become dirt? The earth is not just dirt underfoot, the earth is something that should be dear, and everyone should find a place for it in their heart!
In addition to the analysis of “Native Land”, read other essays:
- “Requiem”, analysis of Akhmatova’s poem
- “Courage”, analysis of Akhmatova’s poem
- “I clenched my hands under a dark veil...”, analysis of Akhmatova’s poem
- “The Gray-Eyed King,” analysis of Akhmatova’s poem
- “Twenty-one. Night. Monday", analysis of Akhmatova’s poem
- “The Garden”, analysis of the poem by Anna Akhmatova
- “Song of the Last Meeting”, analysis of Akhmatova’s poem
The theme of the homeland in the works of Anna Akhmatova occupies one of the most important places. The poetess often thought about the fact that a person can belong to something greater than himself. And in particular, he is connected by invisible ties with his native land. Similar motives prompted the poetess to write the work “Native Land” in 1961. This was the final period in Akhmatova’s work.
A work about the relationship to the earth
An analysis of Akhmatova’s “Native Land” can begin with the fact that from the first lines the work provokes bewilderment in the reader. After all, the patriotic name is absolutely at odds with its content. There are no laudatory odes in it, and the main image - the native land - is compared to mud stuck to galoshes. However, this comparison speaks much louder and more meaningfully than any praise addressed to the homeland. An analysis of the poem “Native Land” by Akhmatova demonstrates that the poetess does not distinguish herself from the Russian people, and she writes that among the broad masses the concept of “Motherland” has begun to depreciate. People forget what their native land should mean to them, they do not realize its holiness and take it for granted. The homeland is compared to mud on galoshes.
Changing attitude towards the shrine
The poem cannot be called intricate. It is written in simple but sincere language. An analysis of Akhmatova’s “Native Land” shows: at the beginning of the poem, the poetess notes that people do not carry land in “cherished amulet.” Once upon a time in ancient times the land was called “holy”, but in post-revolutionary times the attitude towards it became different. Everything that was endowed with a mystical meaning was refuted. The people began to love the homeland itself as a native land, and the land was assigned the role of fertile soil.
By the beginning of the 60s of the last century, the tradition of worshiping the native land was a thing of the past. However, the poetess reminds us that reverence for the native land should live in every person. It is impossible to destroy ethnic memory that has accumulated over centuries. Of course, those people who do not work in the fields do not pay attention to the land. But without this very “dirt” that sticks to the galoshes, life is impossible. And the earth must be revered, if only for the reason that after death, every person returns to it and gives it his mortal body. IN in simple words Akhmatova has a deep sacred meaning.
Reproof
When analyzing “Native Land” by Anna Akhmatova, a student can point out: the work is quite short, but it has a powerful accusatory force. The final lines reveal the most important philosophical truth about the attitude towards one’s native land. A person becomes one again with his native land after he dies. He turns into a part of it, and in these words the poetess opens her eyes to the fact that the earth is not ordinary dirt. According to the plan, the analysis of the poem “Native Land” by Akhmatova should contain an indication that this work reflects the theme of the homeland. This topic was the most important for the poetess. The homeland should have a sacred status; everyone who has an idea of their essence and their calling should remember it.
The poetess’s attitude towards her native land
The analysis of Akhmatova’s “Native Land” can be supplemented with information about how the poetess herself related to her homeland. Akhmatova was a true patriot. She forever connected her life with her native Russia and did not leave the country even after the difficult trials that befell her. People refused to publish her works, and her son was arrested twice. Akhmatova's first husband was shot. However, even all these terrible circumstances could not extinguish the love for her native land in her heart.
Akhmatova did not move to Europe either in 1917 or later, when N. Gumilyov persistently invited her with him. She did not understand how one could be happy in foreign lands. The poetess survived all the horrors of besieged Leningrad and mortal danger. Akhmatova was even under threat of reprisals. And in her work she writes about the land as fertile black soil, which is still revered by grain growers to this day.
Two meanings of the word "earth"
In the analysis of Akhmatova’s “Native Land,” it can be pointed out that the work reveals two meanings of the word “land” - on the one hand, it is the homeland in which a person is born, lives and dies; on the other hand, it is the soil thanks to which the people feed. And these values do not oppose each other. On the contrary, they complement each other with their meaning and content. Each line of the work reveals one meaning of this concept, then another. But for Akhmatova herself, these words are inseparable, because one is impossible without the other.
Not only for the poetess, but also for other people, her native land did not become the promised paradise. During Akhmatova’s time, many were subjected to persecution and persecution. The earth remained a “crunch in the teeth”, but it was to blame for the troubles ordinary people no - after all historical events created by those who rule the people. The earth is a physical form capable of giving life. The final part of the work indicates that a person born on earth at the end of his life becomes part of it. And this major events in the circle of life, which gives the earth the status of a shrine.
Analysis of the poem “Native Land” by Akhmatova: size of the poem
It is also especially worth noting the unusual size in which the poetic work is written. It begins with iambic pentameter. Then this size is replaced by a three-foot anapest, and after that by a four-foot anapest. Why did the poetess find it necessary to switch rhythms like this? This is necessary in order to divide the poem into emotional parts of different meaning and a logical conclusion to the work.
Anna Akhmatova
Native land
And there are no more tearless people in the world,
More arrogant and simpler than us.
1922
We don’t carry them on our chests in our treasured amulet,
We don’t write poems about her sobbingly,
She doesn't wake up our bitter dreams,
Doesn't seem like the promised paradise.
We don’t do it in our souls
Subject of purchase and sale,
Sick, in poverty, speechless on her,
We don't even remember her.
Yes, for us it’s dirt on our galoshes,
Yes, for us it's a crunch in the teeth.
And we grind, and knead, and crumble
Those unmixed ashes.
But we lie down in it and become it,
That's why we call it so freely - ours.
1961 Leningrad
Read by I. Churikova
"Analysis of the poem" by A. Akhmatova "Native Land".
The late Anna Andreevna Akhmatova leaves the genre of the “love diary”, a genre in which she knew no rivals and which she left, perhaps even with some apprehension and caution, and goes on to think about the role and fate of the poet, about religion, about craft , fatherland. There is a keen sense of history.
Akhmatova wrote about A.S. Pushkin: “He does not close himself off from the world, but goes towards the world.” This was also her road - to peace, to a sense of community with it. Thinking about the fate of the poet leads to thinking about the fate of Russia and the world.
The epigraph of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova’s poem “Native Land” contains the final two lines of a poem composed by Akhmatova herself in the post-revolutionary years. And it begins like this: “I am not with those who threw the earth / To be torn apart by enemies.” A.A. Akhmatova did not then want to join the ranks of emigrants, although many of her friends ended up abroad. The decision to remain in Soviet Russia was neither a compromise with the Soviet people nor an agreement with the course she had chosen. The point is different. Akhmatova felt that only by sharing her fate with her own people could she survive as a person and as a poet. And this premonition turned out to be prophetic. In the thirties and sixties, her poetic voice acquired unexpected strength and power. Having absorbed all the pain of her time, her poems rose above it and became an expression of universal human suffering.
The poem “Native Land” sums up the poet’s attitude towards his homeland. The name itself has a double meaning. “Earth” is both a country with the people inhabiting it and with its own history, and simply the soil on which people walk. Akhmatova, as it were, returns the lost unity to meaning. This allows her to introduce wonderful images into the poem: “dirt on galoshes”, “crunch on teeth” - which receive a metaphorical load.
There is not the slightest bit of sentimentality in Anna Akhmatova’s attitude towards her native land. The first quatrain is built on the negation of those actions that are usually associated with the manifestation of patriotism: “We don’t carry it on our chests in treasured incense, / We don’t write poems about her sobbing…”. These actions seem unworthy to her: they do not contain a sober, courageous view of Russia. Anna Akhmatova does not perceive her country as a “promised paradise” - too much in Russian history testifies to the tragic sides of Russian life. But there is no resentment here for the actions that the native land “brings to those living on it.” There is a proud submission to the lot that it presents to us. In this submission, however, there is no challenge. Moreover, it does not conscious choice. And this is the weakness of Akhmatova’s patriotism. Love for Russia is not for her the result of a completed spiritual path, as it was with Lermontov or Blok; this love was given to her from the very beginning. Her patriotic feeling is absorbed with her mother's milk!
m and therefore cannot be subjected to any rationalistic adjustments. The connection with the native land is felt not even in the spiritual, but in the physical level: the earth is an integral part of our personality, because we are all destined to bodily merge with it - after death: “But we lie down in it and become it, / That’s why we call it so freely - ours.”
The poetry of Anna Andreevna Akhmatova “was nourished - even in the initial poems - by a feeling of homeland, pain for the homeland, and this theme sounded louder in her poetry... No matter what she wrote about in recent years“, in her poems there was always a persistent thought about the historical destinies of the country with which she is connected with all the roots of her being.”
K. Chukovsky
