ВЭЛФ (VELF)

The highest, most important aspect of the Akhmatovian psychotype is the regalism, royalty, aristocratic superiority felt in the spoken and written word. Anna Akhmatova’s poetry is a testament to such worldview:

Gold rusts and steel decays,

Marble crumbles away.

Everything is on the verge of death.

The most reliable thing on earth is sorrow,

And the most enduring — the almighty Word.

The Gospel of John echoed a similar pathos two millennia before (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”) While in John (a “pasternak”) we see the identification of existence with the emotional element, the Word, with Akhmatova one notices a necessary volitional aspect of nobility, the almighty Word. This feeling is what “akhmatova” feels destined towards, the prophetic mission of total power (1st Will) in the mystical-artistic sphere (2nd Emotion). As an introduction, it’s best to start with Anna’s own life as a means to understand such a personality. There is a striking contrast in how she was before and after her work reached position and status. Chukovsky wrote:

The young poet Nikolay Gumilyov led her over to me. Slender, elegant, she resembled a shy, fifteen-year-old girl. She did not make a move without her husband; she was publishing her first poems at that time and experiencing unusual, unexpectedly enormous triumphs. Two or three years passed, and in her eyes, her bearing, in her treatment of people, one of the main features of her personality became apparent: her dignity. Not conceit, not arrogance, not insolence, but dignity based on the invincible feeling of the great importance of her mission as a writer. At times, especially among guests, among strangers, she behaved with an intentional regal air, like an elegant woman of the world. That’s when you sensed within her that polish by which we native Petersburgians unmistakably recognize people raised in Tsarskoye Selo. I always felt that imprint in her voice, manner and gestures. The signs of this rare type of person are a strong sensitivity to music, poetry, and art, refined taste, an irreproachable correctness of carefully polished speech, extreme (slightly cold) politeness regarding strangers, and a total absence of passionate, strong, unrestrained gestures typical of a vulgar lack of control.

Of course, not every “akhmatova” is stoic, dignified like Akhmatova. The behavior of one’s tsarism is always set by their own CONCEPTUALIZATION, of how they should behave, and that is the determinant of the expression of their emotional world. She was a shy, but clearly ambitious woman that upon reaching a position of influence, put herself under the control of the IDEA of what a dignified poetess should act like, i.e: She started behaving to the demands of the regal, “alpha chicken” 1st Will. Such a program of the tsarina went with the best side of her nature, the emotional sensitivity to everything artistic of the 2nd Emotion, along its polished manner of speech. What is to be taken as principle is that every “akhmatova” strives for a sense of leadership, influence, and connection with a retinue, a group of followers of subjects they can emotionally infect. Next are descriptions about the different “akhmatova” figures contrasted.

Lennon in his youth:

The first fight I got in, I lost. I lost my nerve when I really got hurt. If there was a bit of blood, then you packed it in. After that, if I thought someone could punch harder than me, I said, ‘OK, we’ll have wrestling instead.’…I was aggressive because I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be the leader. It seemed more attractive than just being one of the toffees. I wanted everyone to do what I told them to do, to laugh at my jokes and let me be the boss.

John was known as the most problematic student in any age group or any course: a troublemaker and subversive who resisted doing serious work himself and tried his utmost to distract his fellow students from theirs. Most of his instructors quickly decided he was unteachable, demanded little or no work from him, and avoided any confrontation over his behavior.

Hitler’s behavior as a young adult:

He spent his time during the days drawing, painting, reading, or writing ‘poetry’; the evenings were for going to the theatre or opera; and the whole time he daydreamed and fantasized about his future as a great artist. He stayed up late into the night and slept long into the mornings. He had no clear aim in view. The indolent lifestyle, the grandiosity of fantasy, the lack of discipline for systematic work – all features of the later Hitler – can be seen in these two years in Linz.

Adolf was now aged eighteen but had still never earned a day’s income and was continuing his drone’s life without career prospects. Despite the advice of relatives that it was about time he found a job, he had persuaded his mother to let him return to Vienna, this time with the intention of entering the Academy.

As supreme leader of Germany:

In my recollection, there is no rounded image of Hitler’s personality. Rather, there are a number of images and shapes, all called Adolf Hitler and which were all Adolf Hitler, that can only with difficulty be brought together in overall relation to each other. He could be charming and then a little later utter opinions that hinted at a horrifying abyss. He could develop grand ideas and be primitive to the point of banality. He could fill millions with the conviction that only his will and strength of character guaranteed victory. And at the same time, even as Chancellor, he could remain a bohemian whose unreliability drove his colleagues to despair.

Two different profiles of the same power-driven artist type. Lennon was active and bellicose, Anna was honorable and controlled, and Hitler sacrificed his own interiority for deification. In reaching political grandeur, he became absent as a person, leaving only the ideal and image of the Führer. The work-intolerant artist, the Wagnerian lover of war and struggle soon moved from his loose bohemian self-concept to the absolute control and monitoring personality of a dictator. The tsarist forms the retinue, and the redundancy of the Will takes over the good-nature, flexible 2nd function: “genuine warmth and affection were missing. The shows of kindness and attentiveness were superficial. Hitler’s staff, like most other human beings, were of interest to him only as long as they were useful.”

The process, flexible Emotion wants to influence and infect people’s moods and states, but the Will takes hold of such good nature, and instead transforms it into an ability to persuade, convince, impose what one believes on to others. And the 2nd Emotion is like a bard, preferring to sing and write about the ordinary day-to-day elements of life rather than the 1st Emotion’s exaggerated intensity in conveying moods. While for the latter there is always some grand, theater-like effect being conveyed, the former seeks the precision of cinematic acting. This was true for Akhmatova, and that explains her distancing from the Symbolist school of poetry and focus on the subtlety of interconnected imagery and states:

Chulkov commented: ‘Schopenhauer, annoyed by feminine chattiness, suggested they [female poets] be shut up. What would he have said if he had read Akhmatova’s poems? She is one of the most silent of poets; her words are sparse, restrained, severe; strained and concentrated emotions are couched in simple, precise and harmonic form.” He noted the lack of metaphors, strict selection of words, daring use of rhyme, unique rhythm, juxtaposition of images, and the touching irony of her verse.

Although some are lyrical monologues, frequently her poems are in the form of a dialogue with narration. Laconic remarks, interrupted conversation, monologue and dialogue alternate, crossing on several psychological levels. Akhmatova also creates unusual combinations of adjectives and nouns to produce a metaphorical effect—“broad sound,” “trembling February.” The same adjective may be positive or negative, depending on the context: white may be the color of a bridal veil or a shroud, yellow roses may signify joy, but a yellow sky evokes anxiety. She devises oxymorons, combinations of opposites, such as “bitter fame” and “joyful grief.”⁷² Wendy Rosslyn points out that the use of everyday words gives the impression that Akhmatova’s verses are deceptively simple.

The legendary philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (“akhmatova”) had a similar emotionally dialogical style: His use of pseudonyms and characters to convey different contrasting worldviews. Here, the almighty Word is also present, though much different. Kierkegaard sought a profound, personal connection with God, a pure subjectivity that transcended the existent ethical norms. It’s a leap of faith in which one becomes whole, complete, achieving total sovereignty over oneself. Again, the Word (Emotion) is a servant of the “I” (Will).

The attractiveness of the “akhmatova” is partially a consequence of the developed emotional apparatus. But much like everything the 2nd function produced, its fruits are poisoned by the intentions of the 1st Will. It’s enough to mention the many romantic and sexual adventures of Akhmatova, or even Lermontov’s infamous pleasure in seducing and abandoning women with the sole purpose of confirming his own power over them: “Lermontov, having found himself the very soul of the high society, liked to entertain himself by driving young women mad, feigning love for several days, just in order to upset matches.” His Byronic hero and Pechorin reflects Lermontov’s own soul and paints a full portrait of the psychotype: A sensitive, but arrogant man chronically dissatisfied by a sense of nihilistic meaninglessness, and because of that indulges in the continuous seduction of women as a game of conquest:

“Tell me,” she finally whispered, “is it fun for you to torture me? I should really hate you. Ever since we have known each other, you have given me nothing but suffering . . .” Her voice trembled, she leaned toward me, and lowered her head onto my breast.

“Perhaps,” I thought, “this is exactly why you loved me: joys are forgotten, but sadness, never...”

The 3rd Logic and 4th Physics not only don’t ease the psychotype’s taste for mysticism, but intensify it with the strongest doubts and questions about the realm of speculation and value of life. Philosophy, systematically speaking, is the secret aspiration they’re openly disdainful of (it might’ve been this skepticism that led Schopenhauer to write “The Art of Being Right”, a mockery of dogmatic thinking). They’re more comfortable not with rigorous constructs of reason like Plato (“plato”) or Spinoza (“lao-tzu”), but a philosophy for sorrowful hearts. In The World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer fully captured the dreadful feeling of existing, of feeling one’s physical lifelessness in the continuous enslavement to the irrational and illogical Will:

To this world, to this scene of tormented and agonised beings, who only continue to exist by devouring each other, in which, therefore, every ravenous beast is the living grave of thousands of others, and its self-maintenance is a chain of painful deaths; and in which the capacity for feeling pain increases with knowledge, and therefore reaches its highest degree in man, a degree which is the higher the more intelligent the man is; to this world it has been sought to apply the system of optimism, and demonstrate to us that it is the best of all possible worlds. The absurdity is glaring.

From what can be said about appearance, they’re elegant and dress modestly, while liking to have one or two features that stand out. Their speech is sensitive but strong, and there is an element of conviction that easily infects any listener. They’re the most gifted in artistically creative pursuits, but may use their charisma for ordinary, selfish gratification. The worldview is intense and dark, often melancholic and with a hopeless wish for grandiosity and purpose. Philosophy and intelligence are what they admire the most, and anything is abandoned for the sake of a good ordinary conversation. A connection with the mystical, religious and prophetic is often present. Weak and fragile, the body doesn’t show much signs of vitality, and one gets the feeling in their eyes they’re always sorrowful, even when they laugh.

Noteworthy examples

Adolf Hitler

Anna Akhmatova

Arthur Schopenhauer

Coco Chanel

Dante Alighieri

John Lennon

Mikhail Lermontov

Søren Kierkegaard

Grigory Alexandrovich Pechorin (“A Hero of Our Time”)

Melisandre (“A Song of Ice and Fire”)