Anna Akhmatova: Russian Poet


"Born in Odessa, Anna Akhmatova spent her youth in Twarkoye Selo, the
imperial retreat outside St. Petersburg. In 1910, she began an unhappy
marriage with a well-known poet, Nikolai Gumilev, with whom she had
one son. Along with Osip Mandelstam, they soon became leaders of the new
Acmeist school of Russian poetry, marked by the use of language as a tool;
for precise meaning and by fidelity to the world of things and lived experience.
As Akhmatova's work developed, this aesthetic grew into an increasingly strong
sense of mission in her life: to bear witness as a poet to the experience of compatriots,
whatever it might be.

In 1921, Gumilev was executed by the Bolsheviks, and in 1925 Akhmatova,
along with many of her poet contemporaries, was officially banned from publishing.
She then earned her living by scholarship and translation, with only a brief respite
during the 1940s when she was again permitted to publish. Throughout the harrowing
decades of Stalinism, she suffered many of the sorrows of the Russian people—
her son and her third husband were jailed, her husband eventually died while in
confinement, and many of her closest friends were killed or committed suicide.
Among the many poets who were casualties of the period were Mandelstam and
Marina Tsvetaeva, also a friend of many years standing. Known throughout this
time for her personal integrity and courage, Akhmatova was finally rehabilitated
after the dictator's death, and ended her life as an elder literary figure much beloved
by younger writers and the general public.


(fromWoman in Praise of the Sacred, one of the most
excellent anthologies to appear in recent years, edited
and with commentary by the North American
poet, Jane Hirshfield)