Born: June 11 [June 23, New Style], 1889, Bolshoy Fontan, near Odessa, Ukraine, Russian Empire
Died: March 5, 1966, Domodedovo, near Moscow,
Russia, U.S.S.R.
Anna Akhmatova, pseudonym of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, Russian lyric poet, is considered one of the greatest poets in the history of Russian literature. With Osip Mandelstam she was a leader of the early 20th-century acmeist movement, which called for use of poetic language that would convey exact meanings with simplicity and clarity.
Akhmatova was born near Odesa (Odessa), Ukraine, but spent most of her life in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Her first volumes of romantic lyrics, Vecher (Evening, 1912) and Chyotki (The Rosary, 1914), gained immediate popular and critical success. Later works, such as Anno domini MCMXXI (1922), introduced patriotic themes. Beginning in the early 1920s, publication of Akhmatova’s work, with a few exceptions, was banned by the Soviet regime led by Joseph Stalin, who felt that her poetry did not sufficiently promote Communist policy. This ban was gradually lifted following Stalin’s death in 1953. Rekviem (1963; Requiem, 1964) and Poema bez geroia (1962; Poem Without a Hero, 1973), considered her masterpieces, chronicle not only her own sufferings but also those of all Russians during Stalin’s reign.
