Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova ({{lang-ru|????? ?????????}}, real name ????? ?????????? ????????) (June 23, 1889 (June 11, Old Style and also St. John's Eve) - March 5, 1966) was the pen name of Anna Andreevna Gorenko, head and soul of St Petersburg tradition of Russian poetry in the course of half a century.

Silver Age

In 1912, she published her first collection, entitled Evening. It contained brief, psychologically taut pieces which English readers may find distantly reminiscent of Robert Browning and Thomas Hardy. They were acclaimed for their classical diction, telling details, and the skilful use of colour.

Related Topics:
1912 - Robert Browning - Thomas Hardy

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By the time her second collection, the Rosary, appeared in 1914, there were thousands of women composing their poems "after Akhmatova". Her early poems usually picture a man and a woman involved in the most poignant, ambigious moment of their relationship. Such pieces were so much imitated and later parodied by Nabokov and others, that it prompted Akhmatova to exclaim: "I taught our women how to speak but don't know how to make them silent".

Related Topics:
1914 - Nabokov

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Together with her husband, Akhmatova enjoyed a high reputation in the circle of Acmeist poets. Her aristocratic manners and artistic integrity won her the titles of the "Queen of the Neva" and the "soul of the Silver Age", as the period came to be known in the history of Russian poetry. Many decades later, she would recall this blessed time of her life in the longest of her works, the "Poem Without Hero" (1940-65), inspired by Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.

Related Topics:
Acmeist poets - Pushkin - Eugene Onegin

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