Anna Akhmatova (1889–1966) is the pen name of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, a twentieth-century Russian poet, writer, and translator whose poetry articulates themes of love, loss of country, and the determination to share her country’s fate under Soviet rule. Akhmatova achieved early acclaim and remained a significant figure in Russian cultural life despite artistic repression; when her writing was censored during the Soviet era, it was circulated secretly. Considered among her finest work are the poem cycle Rekviem (Requiem) and the long poem Poema bez geroia (Poem without a Hero).

Portrait by Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin.

Slepnevo, 1916

by Anna Akhmatova, translated by Carol Moldaw with Irina Ross

Like a white stone sunk down a well,
The memory inside me.

People on couch

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