High vaults of the church
Bluer than the firmament...
Forgive me, cheerful boy,
What did death bring to you -
For roses from the round platform,
For your stupid letters,
Because, daring and dark,
He turned dull with love.
I thought: you deliberately -
How do you want to be an adult?
I thought: languidly vicious
You can't love like brides.
But everything turned out to be in vain.
When the cold came,
You were already watching dispassionately
Follow me everywhere and always,
As if he was saving up signs
My dislike. Sorry!
Why did you take vows
The path of suffering?
And death stretched out its hands to you...
Tell me what happened next?
I didn't know how fragile the throat is
Under the blue collar.
Forgive me, cheerful boy,
My tortured little owl!
Today I'm leaving the church
It's so hard to go home.
November 1913
Tsarskoe Selo
Illustration for the poem “High vaults of the church...”. Artist A. Kumirova.
It is believed that the poem “High Vaults of the Church...” is dedicated to the memory of Mikhail Lindeberg, a young officer who shot himself on December 23, 1911. Akhmatova convinced herself that she was to blame for this catastrophe: she knew that the young man was in love with her, but, due to the frivolity of her youth, she did nothing to prevent the outcome.
But, it seems, not only this tragic incident formed the basis of the poem.
In 1908, Anna Gorenko and Nikolai Gumilev broke up, as it seemed to them, forever. Nikolai Stepanovich returned to Paris, Anna left for Sevastopol. There I received news from Paris: Kolya tried to commit suicide, doctors are fighting for his life, but the situation is serious. The reassuring telegram arrived only a few days later... This incident is summarized in Akhmatova’s “Notebooks”:
...I have known Tolstoy’s story about suicide in 1908 for a very long time. Tolstoy confirmed it in Tashkent (1942). M. Zenkevich also knows this story. Telegramme: “Viverai toujours”. (Received in Sevastopol, Malaya Morskaya, Martino’s house.)
The death of a young admirer could not help but return Anna to those tragic days of 1908, when she, having received a telegram about Gumilyov’s attempt to commit suicide, did not know for almost a week whether Nikolai would survive.
Several details indicate that Lindeberg is not the only hero of this poem. Firstly, the heroine mourns the poor lover in the church, while Mikhail was a Lutheran and is buried in the Lutheran part of the Volkov cemetery. But Gumilyov admired Catholic church architecture in both Italy and Poland, and taught Anna to understand its sublime beauty. In addition, turning mentally to the suicide, Akhmatova calls him a “cheerful boy.” Meanwhile, the same words have already been spoken a year ago and presented to Gumilyov (to whom she almost brought death!) - in a poetic memory of their first meeting in Tsarskoe Selo: “These linden trees probably haven’t forgotten our meeting, my cheerful boy.” .
And this is hardly negligence or forgetfulness: Anna Andreevna believed in the fate of “strange encounters”, in the mysticism of fatal coincidences. And there really was something both mystical and fatal here. Anya Gorenko and Kolya Gumilev met on December 24, 1903. Almost on the same day of the calendar - December 23 - Mikhail Lindeberg shot himself. By the will of fate, two unforgettable dates coincided and merged into one poetic experience. The assumption (the addressee of the poem “High Vaults of the Church...” is not only Lindeberg, but also Gumilyov) is confirmed by this detail. Akhmatova writes: “I didn’t know how fragile the throat is under a blue collar.” The blue collar is also a Gumilyov sign. When Anna and Nikolai met again in 1909, after his Paris attempt at “suicide,” he was already a student at St. Petersburg University and wore a uniform with a high blue collar!
Anna Andreevna Akhmatova
High vaults of the church
Bluer than the firmament...
Forgive me, funny 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.
I thought: you deliberately -
How do you want to be an adult?
I thought: languidly vicious
You can't love like brides.
But everything turned out to be in vain.
When the cold came,
You were already watching dispassionately
Follow me everywhere and always,
As if he was saving up signs
My dislike. Sorry!
Why did you take vows
The path of suffering?
And death stretched out its hands to you...
Tell me what happened next?
I didn't know how fragile the throat is
Under the blue collar.
Forgive me, funny boy,
My tortured little owlet!
Today I'm leaving the church
It's so hard to go home.
A short romantic novella, presented in poetic form, has an eternal plot: it tells about the tragic end of unrequited love.
The perspective shows the disharmonious relationship between the two main characters. On the one hand, there is the “cheerful boy” who burst into the life of the lyrical heroine as an exalted and admiring admirer. His love, misunderstood and unaccepted, faced with coldness and indifference, led to despair and led to a fatal step. On the other hand, there is a “languidly vicious” lady, the opposite of a girl-bride, playing with other people’s feelings, like a cat with a captured chick. But this is only the first impression and part of the truth: the image of the femme fatale in Akhmatov’s lyrics is much more complex than generally accepted romantic cliches. The cold, sophisticated beauty is devoid of empty coquetry and has no desire to seduce: she is deeply religious and capable of repentance, anticipates the pangs of conscience and fears them.
The heroine is shocked by her untimely death, but even on this piercing note, a motive of duality arises: she shows curiosity, strange for a Christian, trying to look beyond the boundaries of earthly life. Feeling the sinfulness of a fleeting thought, in the last quatrain the personal narrative returns to the theme of repentance and mental suffering.
Interestingly, three people became the prototypes of the suicidal lover. The collective image is inspired by the fates of young officers Mikhail Lindenberg and Vsevolod Knyazev, who were familiar to the author.
Vsevolod Knyazev
Both men's lives were cut short early. The poetess attributed the blame for the death of the first to herself; evil tongues blamed the brilliant bohemian actress Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, Akhmatova’s faithful friend and muse, for the death of the second.
Anna Akhmatova and Glebova-Sudeikina
But most accurately, the image of the hero is closest to the poetess’s husband Nikolai Gumilyov: this is indicated by both biographical data and significant details appearing in the poem.
Nikolay Gumilyov
The setting of the novella is unusual for Akhmatova's lyrics - it is not an Orthodox church, but a Catholic church. It is known that during their European trip the Gumilev couple was interested in Gothic architecture, which was strikingly different from the Russian tradition. Another important detail is the persistent definition of “cheerful boy” in relation to the lyrical hero. Appearing in other works of the early period, this phrase, according to researchers, correlates with the meetings of young Anna with her future husband.
“High vaults of the church...” Anna Akhmatova
High vaults of the church
Bluer than the firmament...
Forgive me, funny 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.I thought: you deliberately -
How do you want to be an adult?
I thought: languidly vicious
You can't love like brides.But everything turned out to be in vain.
When the cold came,
You were already watching dispassionately
Follow me everywhere and always,As if he was saving up signs
My dislike. Sorry!
Why did you take vows
The path of suffering?And death stretched out its hands to you...
Tell me what happened next?
I didn't know how fragile the throat is
Under the blue collar.Forgive me, funny boy,
My tortured little owlet!
Today I'm leaving the church
It's so hard to go home.
Analysis of Akhmatova’s poem “High Vaults of the Church...”
A short romantic novella, presented in poetic form, has an eternal plot: it tells about the tragic end of unrequited love.
The perspective shows the disharmonious relationship between the two main characters. On the one hand, there is the “cheerful boy” who burst into the life of the lyrical heroine as an exalted and admiring admirer. His love, misunderstood and unaccepted, faced with coldness and indifference, led to despair and led to a fatal step. On the other hand, there is a “languidly vicious” lady, the opposite of a girl-bride, playing with other people’s feelings, like a cat with a captured chick. But this is only the first impression and part of the truth: the image of the femme fatale in Akhmatov’s lyrics is much more complex than generally accepted romantic cliches. The cold, sophisticated beauty is devoid of empty coquetry and has no desire to seduce: she is deeply religious and capable of repentance, anticipates the pangs of conscience and fears them.
The heroine is shocked by her untimely death, but even on this piercing note, a motive of duality arises: she shows curiosity, strange for a Christian, trying to look beyond the boundaries of earthly life. Feeling the sinfulness of a fleeting thought, in the last quatrain the personal narrative returns to the theme of repentance and mental suffering.
Interestingly, three people became the prototypes of the suicidal lover. The collective image is inspired by the fates of young officers Mikhail Lindenberg and Vsevolod Knyazev, who were familiar to the author. Both men's lives were cut short early. The poetess attributed the blame for the death of the first to herself; evil tongues blamed the brilliant bohemian actress Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, Akhmatova’s faithful friend and muse, for the death of the second. But most accurately, the image of the hero is closest to the poetess’s husband Nikolai Gumilyov: this is indicated by both biographical data and significant details appearing in the poem.
The setting of the novella is unusual for Akhmatova's lyrics - it is not an Orthodox church, but a Catholic church. It is known that during their European trip the Gumilev couple was interested in Gothic architecture, which was strikingly different from the Russian tradition. Another important detail is the persistent definition of “cheerful boy” in relation to the lyrical hero. Appearing in other works of the early period, this phrase, according to researchers, correlates with the meetings of young Anna with her future husband.
Reading the poem “High Vaults of the Church” by Anna Andreevna Akhmatova is not easy (learning is even more difficult). It seems to be an ordinary plot, an eternal theme of unrequited love, like the world. It seems that the standard lyrical heroes are “a cheerful boy” and “a languidly vicious lady.” But not everything is so simple in this work.
The text of Akhmatova’s poem “High Vaults of the Church” is full of secret meaning, symbols and autobiographical half-hints. Is the lyrical hero made up? No...Perhaps it was Mikhail Lindenberg, who died early because of unrequited love, and the poetess took the blame for whose death, or Vsevolod Knyazev, for whose death secular gossips accused actress Olga Glebova-Sudeikina, Akhmatova’s friend, or perhaps it was himself Nikolai Gumilyov, after all, it was the poetess herself who characterized her future husband as a “dear boy.” Is the “languidly vicious lady” simple? Can her image be considered a standard literary cliche? No...The image is complex and multifaceted. Question: “Why does the Orthodox Akhmatova transfer the action to a Catholic church?” The answer suggests itself that this was done to enhance the tragic, somewhat gothic effect... but again, not everything is so simple. Only after reading the poem in full, having analyzed it in a literature lesson in the 11th grade, can one understand that Anna Akhmatova is not predictable, she leads along the complex roads of lyricism and does not pursue the task of being straightforwardly autobiographical.
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High vaults of the church
Bluer than the firmament...
Forgive me, funny 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.
I thought: you deliberately -
How do you want to be an adult?
I thought: languidly vicious
You can't love like brides.
But everything turned out to be in vain.
When the cold came,
You were already watching dispassionately
Follow me everywhere and always,
As if he was saving up signs
My dislike. Sorry!
Why did you take vows
The path of suffering?
And death stretched out its hands to you...
Tell me what happened next?
I didn't know how fragile the throat is
Under the blue collar.
Forgive me, funny boy,
My tortured little owlet!
Today I'm leaving the church
It's so hard to go home.
