Вокруг одной необычной телеграммы Анны Ахматовой

Abstract

A telegram from A. A. Akhmatova dated August 30, 1961 to the outstanding dog-trainer Lidiya Ivanovna Ostretsova concerning the death of her sheepdog Akbar was the impetus for writing this article. It appears to be the only telegram in Akhmatova’s epistolary written in response to the animal’s death. There is a legendary and inaccurate version of this telegram on the Internet; the document is cited according to the original in this paper. The article contains a brief presentation of the topic “Anna Akhmatova and animals” and describes Akhmatova’s special relationship to the Litdzhi (collie) which used to be a dog of her friends and neighbours in Komarovo – the Gitovichs, and explores her acquaintance with Akbar and L. I. Ostretsova, who trained Litdzhi, a dog of the poet Alexander Ilyich Gitovich and his wife Sylvia Solomonovna. The article contains fascinating oral memoirs by Tatiana Grigorievna Komarova, L. I. Ostretsova’s daughter, a film figure: her memories of A. A. Akhmatova, of her mother, whom those who knew her recalled as “an absolutely wonderful person”, of the Gitovich family and of the unique qualities of Akbar, who was called by the poet Aleksandr Ilich Gitovich “Lev Tolstoy among the dogs”. After his death, L. I. Ostretsova received support not only from Akhmatova - she received many telegrams from A. I. Gitovich, from such novelists, as Yu. P. Herman, Yu. G. Tomin, R. P. Pogodin, V. F. Panova... This story is based on several conversations with T. G. Komarova held in 2022 and authorised by the narrator. Moreover, the study also includes a number of other documents from T. G. Komarova’s archive, including an unknown late photograph of A. A. Akhmatova, and Akhmatova’s inscriptions from the archive of Ekaterina Andreevna Gitovich, the granddaughter of the Gitovichs, etc.