Video: The tragic fate of the son of Anna Akhmatova: what Lev Gumilyov could not forgive his mother
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
25 years ago, on June 15, 1992, a prominent scientist-orientalist, historian-ethnographer, poet and translator, whose merits remained underestimated for a long time, passed away - Lev Gumilev … His entire life path was a refutation of the fact that "the son is not responsible for the father." He inherited from his parents not fame and recognition, but years of repression and persecution: his father Nikolai Gumilyov was shot in 1921, and his mother - Anna Akhmatova - became a disgraced poetess. Despair after 13 years in the camps and constant obstacles in pursuing science was compounded by mutual misunderstandings in the relationship with the mother.
On October 1, 1912, a son, Lev, was born to Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov. In the same year, Akhmatova published her first poetry collection "Evening", then - the collection "Rosary", which brought her recognition and brought her to the literary avant-garde. The mother-in-law suggested that the poetess take her son up for raising - both spouses were too young and busy with their own affairs. Akhmatova agreed, and this was her fatal mistake. Until the age of 16, Leo grew up with his grandmother, whom he called "the angel of kindness," and rarely saw his mother.
His parents soon separated, and in 1921 Lev learned that Nikolai Gumilyov had been shot on charges of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy. In the same year, his mother visited him, and then disappeared for 4 years. “I realized that no one needed it,” Lev wrote in despair. He could not forgive his mother for being alone. In addition, his aunt formed in him the idea of an ideal father and a "bad mother" who abandoned an orphan.
Many of Akhmatova's acquaintances assured that in everyday life the poetess was completely helpless and could not even take care of herself. She was not published, she lived in cramped conditions and believed that with her grandmother, her son would be better. But when the question arose about Lev's admission to the university, she took him to Leningrad. At that time, she married Nikolai Punin, but she was not the hostess in his apartment - they lived in a communal apartment, together with his ex-wife and daughter. And Lev was there at all on bird's rights, he slept on a chest in an unheated corridor. In this family, Leo felt like a stranger.
Gumilyov was not admitted to the university because of his social origin, and he had to master many professions: he worked as a laborer in tram control, a worker on geological expeditions, a librarian, an archaeologist, a museum worker, etc. In 1934 he finally managed to become a student Faculty of History, Leningrad State University, but a year later he was arrested. Soon he was released "for lack of corpus delicti", in 1937 he was reinstated at the university, and in 1938 he was again arrested on charges of terrorism and anti-Soviet activities. This time he was given 5 years in Norillag.
At the end of his term in 1944, Lev Gumilyov went to the front and went through the rest of the war as a private. In 1945 he returned to Leningrad, recovered again at Leningrad State University, entered graduate school and after 3 years defended his Ph. D. thesis in history. In 1949 he was arrested again and sentenced without charge to 10 years in the camps. Only in 1956 was he finally released and rehabilitated.
At this time, the poetess lived in Moscow with the Ardovs. Rumors reached Lev that she spent the money received for transfers on gifts to Ardov's wife and her son. It seemed to Leo that his mother was saving on parcels, rarely wrote and was too frivolous about him.
Lev Gumilyov was so offended by his mother that he even wrote in one of his letters that if he were the son of a simple woman, he would have become a professor long ago, and that his mother "does not understand, does not feel, but only languishes." He reproached her for not bothering to get him released, while Akhmatova feared that petitions on her behalf could only aggravate his situation. In addition, the Punins and Ardovs convinced her that her efforts could harm both her and her son. Gumilev did not take into account the circumstances in which his mother had to be, and the fact that she could not write to him frankly about everything, since her letters were censored.
After his return, the misunderstanding between them only intensified. It seemed to the poetess that his son had become overly irritable, harsh and touchy, and he still accused his mother of indifference to him and his interests, of a disdainful attitude towards his scientific works.
In the last 5 years they have not seen each other, and when the poetess fell ill, strangers took care of her. Lev Gumilyov defended his doctorate in history, followed by another in geography, although he never received the title of professor. In February 1966, Akhmatova fell ill with a heart attack, her son came from Leningrad to visit her, but the Punins did not let him into the ward - allegedly protecting the weak heart of the poetess. On March 5, she was gone. Lev Gumilyov survived his mother by 26 years. At 55, he got married and spent the rest of the days in peace and quiet.
They never found a way to each other, did not understand and did not forgive. Both became victims of a terrible time and hostages of a monstrous situation in which Lev Gumilyov had to pay all his life for being the son of his parents. Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov: love as eternal pain
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