Requiem 1935-1940

by Anna Akhmatova, Mette Dalsgaard (Translator)

Akhmatovas digtcyklus Requiem, som blev til over det meste af tre decennier, er i sit udgangspunkt selvbiografisk. Det er forfatterens gribende vidnesbyrd og skamstøtte over Stalintidens rædsler. Men selv efter diktatorens død var Akhmatovas navn forkætret og fortiet. Requiem blev til at begynde med udbredt fra mund til mund og via samizdat (dvs. selvudgivelse; afskrifter). Sidenhen udkom der censurerede uddrag i sovjetiske antologier m.m., og kun i Vesten kunne det læses i sin helhed, såvel på russisk som i talrige oversættelser. Først i 1987 udkom det uforkortet i Sovjetunionen. I dag har det en uanfægtet klassikerstatus i Rusland og er blevet sat i musik af en lang række tonekunstnere.

Genres: Poetry, Russia, Classics, Russian Literature, Fiction, School, Literature

61 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

also known as: Анна Ахматова and Anna Ajmátova

Personal themes characterize lyrical beauty of noted work of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, pseudonym of Anna Andreevna Gorenko; the Soviet government banned her books between 1946 and 1958.

People credit this modernist of the most acclaimed writers in the canon.

Her writing ranges from short lyrics to universalized, ingeniously structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935-40), her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her work addresses a variety of themes including time and memory, the fate of creative women, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism. She has been widely translated into many languages, and is one of the best-known Russian poets of 20th century.

In 1910, she married the poet, Nikolay Gumilyov, who very soon left her for lion hunting in Africa, the battlefields of World War I, and the society of Parisian grisettes. Her husband did not take her poems seriously, and was shocked when Alexander Blok declared to him that he preferred her poems to his. Their son, Lev, born in 1912, was to become a famous Neo-Eurasianist historian.

Nikolay Gumilyov was executed in 1921 for activities considered anti-Soviet; Akhmatova then married a prominent Assyriologist Vladimir Shilejko, and then an art scholar, Nikolay Punin, who died in the Stalinist Gulag camps. After that, she spurned several proposals from the married poet, Boris Pasternak.

After 1922, Akhmatova was condemned as a bourgeois element, and from 1925 to 1940, her poetry was banned from publication. She earned her living by translating Leopardi and publishing essays, including some brilliant essays on Pushkin, in scholarly periodicals. All of her friends either emigrated or were repressed.

Her son spent his youth in Stalinist gulags, and she even resorted to publishing several poems in praise of Stalin to secure his release. Their relations remained strained, however. Akhmatova died at the age of 76 in St. Peterburg. She was interred at Komarovo Cemetery.

There is a museum devoted to Akhmatova at the apartment where she lived with Nikolai Punin at the garden wing of the Fountain House (more properly known as the Sheremetev Palace) on the Fontanka Embankment, where Akhmatova lived from the mid 1920s until 1952.

Reviews

[Michael Haase · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Tragic brilliance" is the best way I can think of describing these poems. They're like crystallized sorrow, resplendent in every way but painful to think upon. These verses memorialize the suffering of a countless mass of people during the Stalinist terror with such taut passion as I rarely see in poetry, either modern or classic. Every single word is bursting with emotion. It's hard to imagine that so much feeling can be condensed into such a slim binding. Reqiuem is only 18 pages long but has the force and fervor of an epic. It's an example of those miraculous gems which are begotten in times of great distress.

I cannot express my esteem for these poems enough. Their evocation is heartbreaking while the language is beautiful and inspiring. Do read them when you have the chance.

[eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beau d’une beauté simple et pourtant crevante de douleur ; une poésie qui dit l’attente, attente cruelle du fils emprisonné, attente d’une mort pas toujours salvatrice

[Revell Cozzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - possibly the best poem I have ever read. It makes me want to learn Russian so I can read it how it was originally written/spoken. Read for Russian Lit

[Reza · Rating 4 out of 5]

بخش اول کتاب که حدود ده پونزده صفحه‌ای میشه، اشعار آنا آخماتووا از مجموعه سوگ‌نامه‌ست که آقای ایرج کابلی به زیبایی تمام ترجمه کردن. این شعر‌ها رو آنا بین سال‌های ۱۹۳۹ تا ۱۹۴۵ در پی رفت آمد‌های مکررش به زندانی که پسرش رو دولت شوروی در اون حبس کرده بوده نوشته. اشعار تلخی هستند واقعاً. ترجمه شیوا و موزون هم به اثر گذاریشون کمک کرده.

مابقی کتاب زندگی‌نامه مختصری از آنا و شرح دوران زندگیشه. تعدادی از صفحات هم عکس‌های اشخاص زندگی آناست و البته عکس‌های خودش که به نظرم با چاپ ضعیف و ابعاد کوچک و رنگ سیاه و سفید، این عکس‌ها قرار نمی‌گرفتن بهتر بود. حدود شیش هفت‌تا از شعرای آنا که تو مجموعه سوگ‌نامه نبودن هم در این بخش زندگی‌نامه گنجونده شده‌.

در کل مجموعه خوب و جامعی هست برای هر کسی که می‌خواد با این شاعر و سبک شعرش آشنایی کلی‌ای پیدا کنه.

[Eva Helena · Rating 4 out of 5]

“And then something like the shadow of a smile crossed what had once been her face.”

(read for Russian literature course)

(first read in November 2025, reread in January 2026 in preparation for my exam and I loved it even more, it's so heartbreaking)

[César Carranza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Я не читаю многи стихи, но есть такие которие мне очень нравятся, а вот кто, очень красиво и грусто, есть такое ощущение что у нее много печальное чувство, красиво очень, трогательно.

[Salomé]

Toujours très beau, toujours très juste la poésie d’Anna Akhmatova.

[Zeynab · Rating 3 out of 5]

سوگ نامه
با ترجمه ایرج کابلی

الهام گرفته از حال و هوای صف طولانی مادران زندانیان جلوی زندان لنینگراد ، در روسیه استالینی

[Amanda Axelsson Viberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastiskt fint. Svenska översättningen var så mycket sämre än den engelska dock.

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

For seventeen months I've called you
To come home, I've pleaded
—O my son, my terror!—grovelled
At the hangman's feet.
All is confused eternally—
So much, I can't say who's
Man, who's beast any more, nor even
How long till execution.
Simply the flowers of dust,
Censers ringing, tracks from a far
Settlement to nowhere's ice.
And everywhere the glad
Eye of a huge star's
Still tightening vice.

[منوچهر محور]

غم این شعرها برایم ملموس بود: ناچاری و بیچارگی، توهین و تحقیر، ناامیدی و دربه‌دری و صبری که می‌دانی به جایی نمی‌رسد

دو تا ترجمه انگلیسی رکوئیم را خواندم؛ اولی از جودیت همشمیر که رایگان دانلود کردم. دومی پای همین صفحه در یکی از ریویوها آمده. دومی بسیار بهتر بود تازه متوجه شدم اولی چقدر گنگ است. وای بر ترجمه فارسی که یا از متن انگلیسی هست یا از متن فرانسه با وجود این همه مترجم روسی که در مملکت پراکنده...۰

[Anaïs · Rating 5 out of 5]

magnifique, émouvant, sublime

[David Sand · Rating 5 out of 5]

læst til studiet

flot på alle måder

[Lizzie]

#lerosclássicos

💔

[Ángel Cabeza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recomendadísimo, el descubrimiento del año

[Lou]

très frustrée de cette traduction (misogyne à mes yeux mais je ne lis pas le russe donc comment l'affirmer)

[Candelabro · Rating 3 out of 5]

sad af

[Maude Genter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Akhmatova you have my heart and soul
Parfois j’aimerai être aussi intense qu’elle et après je me dis que vu son lore je préfère pas

[Yani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un poema desgarrador, muy personal de Ajmátova (o Akhmatova). Eso sí: hay que revisar la biografía antes o tener una buena edición anotada para poder apreciarlo. Algunos de los versos son de los que quedan resonando en la cabeza del lector por la carga inmensa de significado que tienen, además de la preciosa elección de palabras, por supuesto. Me dieron ganas de leer más obras de esta autora.

[Lauralee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anna wrote these poems while her husband and son were imprisoned. She would stand outside the prison and wait for hours for the chance to glimpse them. The poems are passionate with religious allusions. Like Pasternak's poetry.

[جابر طاحون · Rating 4 out of 5]

رأيت كيف تتهدم الوجوه
و كيف يطل الخوف من تحت الجفون
و كيف أن بضعة خطوط مسماريةعلي الصفحات
تحفر الآلام علي الخدود
كيف أن خصلات الشعر
تسطع فجأة كالفضة
بعد أن كانت رمادية و سوداء
كيف أن البسمات تذبل علي الشفاة المستكينة
و كيف يرتجف الرعب نفسه
في الضحكات الجافة

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

αρχίζει να μ´αρέσει η Αχμάτοβα πιο πολύ και απ´τη ζουμπρόφκα

[Alice YC · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in need of words to describe suffering and then I discovered this poem. 2026 will be the year of Akhmatova for me. Poets of previous years have been Mary Oliver, Bukowski, Milosz, Plath, Li-Young Lee...

Some of my favourite lines:

Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.

Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously been just a face.

It happened like this when only the dead
were smiling, glad of their release,
That Leningrad hung around its prisons
Like a worthless emblem, flapping its piece.

It isn't me, someone else is suffering. I couldn't.
Not like this.

Everything has become muddled forever -
I can no longer distinguish
who is an animal, who a person

I have a lot of work to do today;
I need to slaughter memory,
Turn my living soul to stone
Then teach myself to live again. . .

To death
You will come anyway - so why not now?
I wait for you; things have become too hard.

Madness with its wings
has covered half my soul
It feeds me fiery wine
And lures me into the abyss.

That's when I understood
While listening to my alien delirium
That I must hand the victory
To it.

But there, where the mother stood silent,
Not one person dared to look.

I have learned how faces fall,
How terror can escape from lowered eyes,
How suffering can etch cruel pages
Of cuneiform-like marks upon the cheeks.

I'd like to name you all by name, but the list
Has been removed and there is nowhere else to look.

I will never forget one single thing. Even in new grief.

[Samuel Pineda · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Y no pido por mí sola, que pido
por cuantas compartieron aquel trance
con un frío de lobos, bajo un tórrido julio,
ante un muro de un rojo deslumbrante”

Qué intensidad se haya en este poemario sobre las víctimas del movimiento comunista en la época de Lenin. Ana Ajmatova escribe con una sutileza, una belleza y un desgarro tan agradables como profundos. He disfrutado bastante estos poemas aunque creo que, en la mayoría de ocasiones, se quedan cortos y se confunden entre ellos, lo cual es una pena, ya que la pluma de la autora es tremenda. Investigaré más títulos de esta.

[Keira Konson · Rating 5 out of 5]

captivating and heartbreaking as all forms of russian art seem to be. akhmatova writes about the unwritable horrors of the Great Terror with honesty, brilliance, and deep sorrow. the religious imagery used throughout forces the reader to wrestle with the question of where God could possibly be find outside a soviet prison, standing in a line every day for 17 years.

[Manel Hedhili · Rating 5 out of 5]

Une description poétique du calvaire vécu par une mère séparée de son fils .... Cette poétesse me laisse en larmes ....

" Voilà une femme malade,

Cette femme, de solitude,

Son mari est mort, son fils prisonnier,

Priez pour moi, veuillez prier. "

[michelle]

Грустно грустно, стихи обычно не читаю

[Mila Mitrovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

“У меня сегодня много дела:
Надо память до конца убить,
Надо, чтоб душа окаменела,
Надо снова научиться жить”

[\tonio]

you will come in any case–so why not now?
how long i wait and wait. the bad times fall.
i have put out the light and opened the door
for you, because you are simple and magical.

[Asalla Othman · Rating 3 out of 5]

تقول الكاتبة في بداية هذه القصائد .. خلال السنوات المرعبة لمحاكم الرهاب الستاليني كنت سجينة لمدة 17ةشهراً ضمن طابور من النساء المعتقلات في أحد سجون ليننغراد ، لأن ثمة شخص ما وبشكل ما قد اعترف ضدي .وذات مرة كانت تقف خلفي امرأة مزرقة الشفاه .. وبالطبع لم تكن قد سمعت باسمي ، ومن شدة الرعب والبرد همست في أذني سائلة : أتستطيعين أن تصفي كل الذي يجري هنا ؟
فأجبت : نعم .
وهنا ارتسم مايشبه البسمة على هذا الذي كان وجهها ذات يوم ..
مقتطفات مما كُتب :

كان هذا حينما ابتسم الميت
مبدياً فرحاً هادئاً
حينما قادته ثرثرته البريئة
إلى سجون مدينته ليننغراد .
..........
قادوك عند الفجر
فتبعتك كما يتبع المرء جنازة ..
..........
لقد ألقى العالم بنفسه في الفوضى ..
أنني لا أمتلك الوضوح ..
من أمسى وحشاً، من بقي إنساناً؟
وهل سيكون عليَّ انتظار لحظة الإعدام طويلاً؟
.........
هناك قريباً من النهاية ..
احمل معي نجمة هائلة .
..........
لدي اليوم أعمال كثيرة ..
يجب القضاء على الذاكرة ..
يجب أن تتحجر الروح
يجب معاودة الحياة ثانية ..
..........
مادمت ستأتي .. فلم ليس الآن ؟
.........
إنما الكلمات
وحدها هي العزاء الأخير .
.........
لا تبكي عليّ يا أمي ..
أنا هنا في القبر !
.......
أحميني .. أحميني أيتها الريح
فأحبابي لم يأتوا بعد
لقد كنت مثلك حرةً أيتها الريح
ولكنني تماديت في العيش أطول ..
* الترجمة ظلمت الكتاب