Description

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) is among the most moving and revered voices in Russian literature. A poet of passion and conscience, she was persecuted after the Revolution and under Stalin, but chose to remain in Russia and bear witness. Her works capture a rich emotional world – poems such as A Ride and By the Seashore reflect a complex attitude to love or explore the duality of her own nature, while others, such as Courage and In 1940, evoke the horrors of war. And in her two great poem cycles, Requiem and Poem without a Hero, she creates a heart-rending depiction of a mother waiting outside a prison for news of her son and a magical layering of the old, joyous St Petersburg upon a tormented Leningrad.