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Akhmatova

Akhmatova

1889 - 1966 (77)
You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.
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Biography

Anna Akhmatova was one of the most prominent Russian poets of the twentieth century. She was born near Odessa on June 23, 1889, into an aristocratic family. After her parents divorced in 1905, she remained with her mother. She began writing poetry at the age of eleven. Akhmatova studied law at the University of Kiev and, in 1910, married the well-known poet Nikolay Gumilev. When she first read some of her poems to him, he tried to discourage her, saying, “Why not become a dancer? You are so flexible!” He was mistaken; within a few years, her talent had eclipsed his own. In 1912, she published her first poetry collection, *Evening*, followed in 1914 by *Rosary*, a collection of short lyrical poems and personal confessions that brought her widespread acclaim in literary circles. The same year as her first publication, she gave birth to a son, Lev. Her marriage, however, proved unhappy and conventional. After the October Revolution of 1917, Akhmatova faced years of persecution, censorship, humiliation, and restrictions on her work. Unlike many of her contemporaries, she refused to emigrate. In 1921, Gumilev was executed as an enemy of the Soviet state. Later, Akhmatova briefly married a much older professor and subsequently had a long relationship with the art historian and critic Nikolai Punin. Between 1935 and 1940, she wrote *Requiem*, a lyrical masterpiece dedicated to the victims of Joseph Stalin's terror. The work was inspired largely by the arrest and imprisonment of her son Lev in 1937. In 1949, Lev was arrested again and exiled to Siberia. In a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to secure his release, Akhmatova wrote several poems praising Stalin, though she later requested that these works be excluded from her collected writings. Following Stalin's death, publication of her poetry, essays, and translations resumed. Akhmatova gained international recognition and became one of the most celebrated voices of Russian literature. She died on March 5, 1966, in Domodedovo, near Moscow.