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# Bulgakov and Akhmatova Were Not Friends
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/bulgakov-i-akhmatova-ne-byli-druzhny/
- Published: 2025-09-12T16:33:30.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T09:15:19.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Books, Observations, Society Pages

Bulgakov and Akhmatova were not friends. Having met in 1933 at the artist Nikolay Radlov's, they saw each other only a few times, when Akhmatova came to visit the Bulgakovs. By all appearances there were no more than seven meetings. Even so, in that short time Akhmatova did manage to read Bulgakov some of her poems.

And when he died, she wrote a poem in his memory:

> This I give you in place of funeral roses,  
> In place of the smoke of incense;  
> You lived so sternly, and to the end you bore  
> A magnificent contempt.  
> You drank wine, you jested as no one else did  
> And within stifling walls you gasped for breath,  
> And the terrible guest you let in yourself  
> And with her alone you remained.  
> And you are gone, and everything around is silent  
> About a sorrowful and lofty life,  
> Only my voice, like a flute, will sound  
> Even at your silent funeral feast.  
> Oh, who could have thought that I, half-mad,  
> I, the mourner of days long perished,  
> I, smouldering on a slow fire,  
> Who have outlived everything, forgotten everything,  
> Would have to commemorate one who, full of strength,  
> And of bright designs, and of will,  
> As if only yesterday had spoken with me,  
> Hiding the tremor of mortal pain.

*Literal translation*

Now they have met again, as portraits, on the backs of chairs. At the RBC Style stand at Cosmoscow, two chairs by the artist Alexander Lavrov are on show, with leather bas-relief portraits of Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Bulgakov on their backs. I would not have dared to sit on such a chair, but it was interesting to see.

The person Akhmatova was friends with was Bulgakov's widow, and in that light it would perhaps have been more fitting to seat the two of them side by side, in case they had not finished talking.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_17922@12-09-2025_19-33-30.jpg)