One Torn Letter by Anna Akhmatova

Abstract

For the first time, this article presents a torn and discarded letter by Anna Akhmatova, which was glued and preserved by Pavel Luknitsky. Part of the letter and the appeal to the addressee are lost, so in the archive (Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences) the document is listed as a letter to an unidentified person. The publisher determines the addressee and date according to the content and presumably restores some lost words. Attribution and restoration of gaps are accompanied by a detailed justification. The letter, written on March 27, 1925, was addressed to Akhmatova’s mother, Inna Erasmovna Gorenko, who at that time lived with her sister Anna Erasmovna Vakar and her family in severe poverty in the former Vakar estate in Podolsk province (now Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine). The article describes the main characters in the letter and the difficult circumstances of Akhmatova’s life at this time, which are half-hidden behind a few lines of text. The article also provides comments on the names mentioned in the letter. It reveals the relationship between Akhmatova and the poet Maria Shkapskaya; it tells us about a little-known friend of Akhmatova to whom she dedicated her poem, “If the moon’s horror is splashing...” (1928), — about Mikhail Zimmerman, assistant director-administrator at the former Mariinsky Theatre. A study of his file in the fund of the Directorate of Academic Theatres (Central State Archive of Literature and Art) reveals several facts about his biography.

Keywords

• anna akhmatova
• collection of letters
• textual criticism
• inna erasmovna gorenko
• anna erasmovna vakar
• mikhail zimmerman
• maria shkapskaya.