Lidiia Chukovskaia, The Akhmatova Journals. 1941
Lydia Chukovskaia and Anna Akhmatova evacuated from Chistopol to Tashkent in the fall of 1941. Both were prominent figures in the Soviet literary establishment, they received priority treatment during their evacuation.
On 28 July 1941, together with the families of some Moscow writers, Lyusha, Ida and my four-year-old nephew Zhenya, I was sent by steamer to Chistopol.
It was there that I lived through the newspaper editorial “The Enemy is at the Gates of Leningrad,” and my meeting with Tsvetaeva and the death of Tsvetaeva.
And it was there, in October 1941, that Anna Andreevna, having been evacuated by plane from Leningrad to Moscow, came to join me. From there, we made the journey to Tashkent together.
About Anna Andreevna’s arrival in Chistopol and about our journey together, only a few occasional and brief entries in my diary survive. Here they are?
20 October 1941
Today, Anna Andreevna told me: “I have made up my mind. I am going with you.” [to Tashkent]
Ida is already buying meat, eggs, honey and bread for the journey. I would like to know how long our journey will last. And – will we survive it?
28 October 1941 (On board the Kazan-Tashkent train)
Anna Andreevna doesn’t leave the window. “I’m glad to be seeing so much of Russia .”
Boarding was difficult. For about four hours we sat on the platform in total darkness, on our belongings, waiting for the train which was supposed to be arriving at any moment. Anna Andreevna stayed silent throughout – it was a heavy silence, like in the prison queue?
When at last the train pulled in, Ida boarded it first with our things. Then me, holding Lyusha by the hand. Ida grabbed her, and I helped Anna Andreevna on Our carriage is over-crowded. It keeps jolting, it’s hard to write.
30 October 1941
At one station, where the train stood for a long time, Marshak and Kvitko came to see us. They offered to transfer Anna Andreevna to their carriage – it was warmer, softer and more spacious.
5 November 1941
A trainload of Volga Germans. There was nowhere for it to stop. Freight carriages; the doors had been slid open; you could see children, women, washing on lines. We heard they’ve been traveling for over a month, and no one will accept them.
At the stations, on the platforms, there were women, children, bundles in heaps. Eyes, eyes? When Anna Andreevna looks at these women and children, her face somehow starts to look like their faces. A peasant woman, a refugee
8 November 1941
The desert.
We have been stuck a long time between stations. Camels in the distance. I’ve realized for the first time that they are beautiful, not ugly; the caravan is swaying along with a harmonious, stately motion.
9 November. Tashkent. The hotel
K.I. met us at the station by car. He drove Ida and the children to his place, then drove Anna Andreevna and me to the hotel.
Source: Lydia Chukovskaia, The Akhmatova Journals. Trans. Milena Michalski and Sylva Rubashova. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), pp. 184-193.