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Anna Akhmatova - Selected Poems including 'Requiem'
In Anna Akhmatova, Sappho’s individualistic female voice returns again. Born Anna Gorenko, in Odessa, on the Black Sea, she spent most of her life in St. Petersburg. In 1910 she married Nikolai Gumilev, a poet and leader of the Acmeist movement. He was shot as a counter-revolutionary in 1921. Remaining in St Petersburgh (renamed Leningrad) during the siege in the Second World War, and with her son, and her lover, Nikolai Punin, both sent to labour camps, she came to stand for the voice of an earlier Russia that had neither been silenced nor forgotten. Her great poem Requiem remembers the pain.
161 pages, ebook
Published January 1, 2005
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About the author
Anna Akhmatova
429 books958 followersalso known as: Анна Ахматова
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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 17, 2021
This stellar set of translations renders into English the poetry of Anna Ahkmatova ( 1889-1966) in a way that her close friend, Nobel Laureate Joseph Brodsky would have heartily approved. Brodsky wrote: "Akhmatova is a poet of strict meters, exact rhymes and short sentences. Her syntax is simple and free of gnomic convolutions. ... In an era marked by so much technical experimentation in poetry, she was blatantly non-avant-garde."
Akhmatova's love poetry is intense but never histrionic. She can be melancholic without ever resorting to self-pity. In fact she is capable of great humour when the subject of love. My favourite in this regard is "And No-one Came to Meet Me" which is about the indignity that Cinderella feels as she contemplates the procession of many feet that will try her on her glass slipper. The poem finishes with this verse:
My heart's bitter too
Knowing soon, soon,
My little white shoe
Will be tried by everyone.
Akhmatova's laments her friends who died in the great terror and other persecutions are profoundly moving but never melodramatic; were powerful but always dignified. The longest poem about the victims of purges is "Requiem" which is at least five times as long as any other work in collection and which lacks Akhmatova's typical efficiency. I much prefer " Has he sent no boat for me', which is a tribute to her husband Nikolai Gumilyov who was executed by the Soviet Secret Police (the Cheka) in 1921.
Has he sent no boat for me
Not even a black raft, or a swan?
In the spring of 1916
He promised he'd soon be there.
In the spring of 1916
He said I'd fly like a bird
Through darkness and death to his bed.
And brush his shoulder gently with my wings.
And his eyes still laugh into mine,
And now its the sixteenth spring.
What will I do? The angel of night
Speaks with me till the dawn.
Akhmatova's love poetry is intense but never histrionic. She can be melancholic without ever resorting to self-pity. In fact she is capable of great humour when the subject of love. My favourite in this regard is "And No-one Came to Meet Me" which is about the indignity that Cinderella feels as she contemplates the procession of many feet that will try her on her glass slipper. The poem finishes with this verse:
My heart's bitter too
Knowing soon, soon,
My little white shoe
Will be tried by everyone.
Akhmatova's laments her friends who died in the great terror and other persecutions are profoundly moving but never melodramatic; were powerful but always dignified. The longest poem about the victims of purges is "Requiem" which is at least five times as long as any other work in collection and which lacks Akhmatova's typical efficiency. I much prefer " Has he sent no boat for me', which is a tribute to her husband Nikolai Gumilyov who was executed by the Soviet Secret Police (the Cheka) in 1921.
Has he sent no boat for me
Not even a black raft, or a swan?
In the spring of 1916
He promised he'd soon be there.
In the spring of 1916
He said I'd fly like a bird
Through darkness and death to his bed.
And brush his shoulder gently with my wings.
And his eyes still laugh into mine,
And now its the sixteenth spring.
What will I do? The angel of night
Speaks with me till the dawn.
February 9, 2023
She's my new problematic fave. I didn't like this translation as much, having read other versions of the some of the poems.
I read her first book first and then reading this you see glimpses of the same beautiful imagery, tragic heartbreak, longing, and affairs. She discusses many of her friends and lovers (who I list out of interest for further research): I liked how she referenced so many others: Valeriya Sreznevskaya, Yunia Anrep, Osop Mandelshtam, Mikhail Bulgakov, Alexander Blok, Kuzmin-Karavaev, Mikhail Lozinsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Glebova-Sudeikina, Nikolai Nedobrovo, Vasily Komarovsky, Innokenty Annensky. I enjoyed her poem "Earthly fame is smoke:"
"Earthly fame is smoke,
It's not what I asked for.
I bring good fortune
To all my lovers.
One of them is alive,
In love with his darling.
The other turned to bronze
In the snowy square."
The collection becomes darker when the political elements come out and she starts writing memoirs of dead friends and desperate struggles under the Stalin regime.
"Petrograd, 1919"
Caged in this savage capital
No one wishes to come to our aid,
Because we choose to remain here,
Because, in love with our city,
More than the wings of liberty
"Is this century worse than before?"
"Don't taunt your heart with earthly joys"
And don't ask god for anything
"Parting" is a poem I loved a lot. Especially The Last Toast:
I drink to our ruined house,
To all of life's evils too,
To our mutual loneliness,
And I, I drink to you -
To eyes, dead and cold,
To lips, lying and treacherous,
To the age, coarse, and cruel,
To the fact no gods has saved us
I wanted to read Requiem and of course the poetry darkens with imagery of Black Marias and red prison walls. She paints the picture of terror, mistrust, and loneliness. "Who's beast, and who's man" She is imprisoned for 17 months and her son was arrested and spent 10 years in a prison camp. The nature images turn to "prison poplars" and "prison pigeons"
"See the prison poplars sway,
Without a sound - oh what a crow
Of innocent lives all end today..."
Note: problematic because of being upper class and the lateral violence in the poem below. The way Virginia Woolf describes women in literature is insightful while this is just bigoted and odd:
"From - Secrets of the Trade: VII Epigram"
Could Beatrice have written like Dante;
Or Laura have glorified love's flame?
I taught women how to utter...
But Lord, how to silence them again!
Note: even if her relations with women were bi-romantic THAT ISN'T STRAIGHT @ the biographers who say "Why couldn't they just be friends?" There is definitely a historical erasure of a queer identity happening with Akhmatova. Loved the collection though <3
I read her first book first and then reading this you see glimpses of the same beautiful imagery, tragic heartbreak, longing, and affairs. She discusses many of her friends and lovers (who I list out of interest for further research): I liked how she referenced so many others: Valeriya Sreznevskaya, Yunia Anrep, Osop Mandelshtam, Mikhail Bulgakov, Alexander Blok, Kuzmin-Karavaev, Mikhail Lozinsky, Mikhail Lermontov, Glebova-Sudeikina, Nikolai Nedobrovo, Vasily Komarovsky, Innokenty Annensky. I enjoyed her poem "Earthly fame is smoke:"
"Earthly fame is smoke,
It's not what I asked for.
I bring good fortune
To all my lovers.
One of them is alive,
In love with his darling.
The other turned to bronze
In the snowy square."
The collection becomes darker when the political elements come out and she starts writing memoirs of dead friends and desperate struggles under the Stalin regime.
"Petrograd, 1919"
Caged in this savage capital
No one wishes to come to our aid,
Because we choose to remain here,
Because, in love with our city,
More than the wings of liberty
"Is this century worse than before?"
"Don't taunt your heart with earthly joys"
And don't ask god for anything
"Parting" is a poem I loved a lot. Especially The Last Toast:
I drink to our ruined house,
To all of life's evils too,
To our mutual loneliness,
And I, I drink to you -
To eyes, dead and cold,
To lips, lying and treacherous,
To the age, coarse, and cruel,
To the fact no gods has saved us
I wanted to read Requiem and of course the poetry darkens with imagery of Black Marias and red prison walls. She paints the picture of terror, mistrust, and loneliness. "Who's beast, and who's man" She is imprisoned for 17 months and her son was arrested and spent 10 years in a prison camp. The nature images turn to "prison poplars" and "prison pigeons"
"See the prison poplars sway,
Without a sound - oh what a crow
Of innocent lives all end today..."
Note: problematic because of being upper class and the lateral violence in the poem below. The way Virginia Woolf describes women in literature is insightful while this is just bigoted and odd:
"From - Secrets of the Trade: VII Epigram"
Could Beatrice have written like Dante;
Or Laura have glorified love's flame?
I taught women how to utter...
But Lord, how to silence them again!
Note: even if her relations with women were bi-romantic THAT ISN'T STRAIGHT @ the biographers who say "Why couldn't they just be friends?" There is definitely a historical erasure of a queer identity happening with Akhmatova. Loved the collection though <3
June 20, 2024
C'est mon premier recueil d'Anna Akhmatova et je n'aurais pu mieux choisir pour découvrir l'étendue de son talent et de sa prose pour lesquels j'ai eu un coup de cœur immédiat. C'était la première fois que je lisais un recueil de poésie Russe et j'ai trouvé particulièrement intéressant sa manière d'aborder la thématique de la guerre et la place que cette dernière a pris dans sa vie (Anna Akhmatova est restée près des siens même quand elle aurait pu fuir) et par extension dans son écriture poétique et son processus créatif plus global (elle a été censurée et nombre de ses amies ont appris ses vers par cœur pour qu'ils parviennent jusqu'à nous, lecteurs). Je n'ai qu'un seul regret: avoir été trop happée par le livre pour avoir pris le temps de l'annoter. Il me tarde déjà de le relire !
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews