Week 13 Reading Notes B: Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova 1888-1966 (565-574)

Rusian poet

Female writer

Used universal themes of emotion

Expresses herself in a very personal and intimate way. (565)

Her mother was “an independent woman of revolutionary sympathies. (565)

She took her pen name from her maternal great-grandmother

She was highly educated and completed her degree. (566)

She studied law briefly before switching to literature.

Married Nikolai Gumilyov in 1910 (566). He too was a poet.

“Akhmatova rejected the romantic, quasi-religious aims of Russian symbolism and valued clarity, concreteness, and closeness to the things of this earth. “ (566)

“Although Akhmatova and Gumilyov divorced, his arrest and execution for counterrevolutionary activities in 1921 put her status into question.” (566)

The death of her friends and the arrest of her son and her partner lead her to he inspiration that resulted in Requiem. Stalin’s “Great Purge” of 1935-1938 was a terrible time for the people and millions were sent to prison camps. (556)

After the death of Stalin-1953, Requiem was published “without her consent” (566)

“Her death, in1 966, signaled the end of an era in modern Russian poetry, for she was the last of the famous “quartet”...” (567)

“We rose as if for an early service, Trudged through the savage capital And met there, more lifeless than dead: The sun is lower and Neva mistier, But hope keeps singing from afar.” (569)- I enjoyed this passage as it shows the bleakness they face. There may not have been many dead bodies, though some there had to have been some since their quantities are compared. She brings in the sun and brightens the tone as she writes of hope. She may have said she rejected the romantic but I thing this passage is just that. She does use themes close to the earth but she embellished with a flair the dark and makes it beautiful. And to me that is romantic.

“The stars of death stood above us and innocent Russia writhed under bloody boots…” (569) - So moving and profound. She is painting a vivid picture of the injustice done and of the torment of the innocent people. They were lower than animals. Yet slightly higher than the jewish in concentration camps. They did not belong and their home land told them so. Their crime was existing. And the price they paid was their blood.