The Vertical Stratum of Meaning: Palimpsest in the Poetic System of Anna Akhmatova's Poem Without a Hero

Identificator

EDN: DDFHPI ; УДК: 821.161.1.09

Authors

Osipova Nina Osipovna, Doctor of Philology, professor, Vyatka State University. Russia, Kirov. ORCID: 0000‑0002‑9247‑9279. E‑mail: nina.osipova@list.ru

Journal

HERALD OF HUMANITARIAN EDUCATION №2 (42), 2026

Section

PHILOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Pages

131-140

Abstract

The article examines the palimpsest as a structure‑forming principle of a literary text based on Anna Akhmatova's Poem Without a Hero. Drawing on Gérard Genette's concept, the author distinguishes the palimpsest from intertextuality: the former implies a vertical layering of meanings in which earlier texts remain visible beneath later ones. The study demonstrates that Akhmatova's poem is the most consistent example of palimpsestic poetics in 20th‑century Russian literature due to its multiple versions (1940–1965) and the coexistence of drafts, authorial commentary (Prose about the Poem), a ballet libretto, and fragments of a film script. The analysis covers several levels: the genre and textological level (the manuscript as a layered surface), the figurative palimpsest (the shimmering of prototypes, the layering of masks), the spatiotemporal structure ("through space," the effect of futurum exactum), sound polyphony, and cinematic montage. Special attention is paid to montage composition – parallel montage, dissolves, fade‑outs, and displacements – which brings the poem close to avant‑garde cinema (from German Expressionism to the Soviet school of Eisenstein and Pudovkin). These techniques create the effect of a "developing photographic plate," where each new layer does not cancel the previous one but shines through it. In addition, the article analyzes the role of smoke, fog, blizzard, and shadow as "mixing" media that ensure smooth transitions between temporal strata. The sound palimpsest is also considered – the shining through of the rhythms of Pushkin, Blok, Kuzmin, and Gumilyov in Akhmatova's verse. The author concludes that in Akhmatova's work the palimpsest functions not merely as a literary device but as a mode of thinking, connecting the modernist tradition with postmodern strategies of open, multilayered writing. The article is addressed to philologists, cultural scholars, and anyone interested in the poetics of 20th‑century Russian literature.

Keywords

Russian poetry of the 20th century A. Akhmatova Poem Without a Hero poetics palimpsest

Recieved

14.04.2025

Published

20.08.2026

References

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