Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova , pseud. of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko , 1888-1966, Russian poet of the Acmeist school. Her brief lyrics, simply and musically written in the tradition of Pushkin, attained great popularity. Her themes were personal, emotional, and often ironic. Among her most popular volumes are Chiotki [the rosary] (1914) and Iva [the willow tree] (1940). She was married to the Acmeist poet Gumilev until 1918. Akhmatova remained silent for two decades. She began publishing again at the outbreak of World War II, after which her writings regained popularity. A courageous critic of Stalinism with a large underground following, she was harshly denounced by the Soviet regime in 1946 and 1957 for "bourgeois decadence."

Bibliography: See her Selected Poems (tr. 1969), Poems of Akhmatova (tr. 1973), and The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova (1990, in Russian and English translation); her autobiographical writings in My Half Century: Selected Prose (1992), ed. by R. Meyer; biographies by A. Haight (1976, repr. 1990), R. Reeder (1995) and E. Feinstein (2006); study by S. N. Driver (1972).

Akhmatova, Anna (1889–1966) Russian poet. Akhmatova's simple, intense lyrics and personal themes appear in The Rosary (1914) and The Willow Tree (1940). Her longest work, Poem Without a Hero (trans. 1971), is her masterpiece. Although officially ostracized for “bourgeois decadence”, she remained popular in the Soviet Union. Her poems, published in full in 1990, confirmed her as one of Russia's greatest poets.