1. Anna Akhmatova
AKHMATOVA IS READING THE OPENING OF “REQIUEM”: THE TITLE, THE YEARS OF COMPOSITION, AND THEN TWO BRIEF INTRODUCTIONS -- ONE IN VERSE AND ONE IN PROSE. DO YOU HEAR THE POEM BEGIN WITH “NYET” (“NO”)? HOW DOES HER VOICE CHANGE? CAN YOU HEAR THE RHYMES? CAN YOU HEAR HER VOICE CHANGE AGAIN WHEN SHE FINISHES READING THE POEM AND BEGINS THE PROSE?

2. The voice you just heard was an older Akhmatova
The voice you just heard was an older Akhmatova. The recording must have been made abroad (probably when she was accepting a literary award in Italy or England), since the poem was never published in the Soviet Union during her lifetime. “Reqiuem,” included in our anthology, is her most famous work for non- Russians, although her early lyrical poems are perhaps just as beloved by Russian readers.

3. Akhmatova’s Requiem, poems of witness
Requiem was composed during and about the most traumatic years of Stalin’s regime, the “Yezhovshchina” ( , when Yezhov headed Stalin’s secret police). Also called “The Great Purge,” during this period millions of citizens were arrested, one million of executed immediately, millions more dying in labor camps.
Like so many writings, thoughts, and other artistic expressions, Requiem had to be hidden from the Soviet authorities for decades. As her apartment was probably bugged, Akhmatova wrote out many of these poems, letting her friend Lydia Chukovskaya silently read and memorize them; then she burned them in an ashtray. Only decades later could the poems be published in Russia.

4. SOME RELEVANT HISTORICAL FACTS
1934, 2/3rds of Central Committee of the Communist Party executed
, under forced collectivization, 6 million peasants died
, absurd “show trials” in Moscow, concocted charges of conspiracy leading to execution of many high officials (eventually both Yezhov and his successor, Beria, were also executed)
1921, Akhmatova’s first husband Gumilev executed
1925, 2-volume work about to be published by Akhmatova is withdrawn from printing, resolution from the Central Committee bans publication of Akhmatova
, ban on publication of Akhmatova
1930, Futurist poet Mayakovsky (formerly enthusiastic Soviet propagandist) commits suicide
1935, Akhmatova’s son Lev arrested, rearrested in 1938, when he was tortured and first condemned to die, then sent to Siberian labor camp 1939; rearrested in 1949 and sentenced to 10 years in Siberia, but he was released in 1958
1938, Akhmatova’s friend Mandelshtam arrested, dies in 1939 in a camp
1940, Akhmatova allowed to read poetry over the radio, airlifted to Central Asia during the siege of Leningrad, generally briefly rehabilitated in order to inspire population during WWII (See the poem, “Courage.”)
1946, Akhmatova again denounced by authorities, report by Andrei Zhdanov, Minister of Culture, condemning Akhmatova’s “individualism”; she is expelled from the Writers’ Union
1954 (shortly after Stalin’s death, the beginning of “the Thaw”), Writers’ Union calls on Akhmatova & Zoschenko (another writer denounced with Akhmatova in 1946) to speak to a British delegation of writers. When they ask the Soviet writers’ opinion of the Zhdanov denunciation, Zoschenko says “At first, I thought it was unjust, but then I realized it was correct.” Akhmatova responds (later explaining this is the only way to respond “properly”) that the Zhdanov was “completely correct.”

5. PUBLICATIONS AND PARTIAL RECOGNITIONS
Section #7 of Requiem was published without a title in a Soviet literary journal in 1940 (that journal was closed by the authorities after Akhmatova was later officially denounced).
During WWII, she spoke on the radio to the beseiged Leningrad population, was airlifted to Moscow, and found her way to Central Asia. She later gave poetry readings in hospitals in Uzbekistan and in a museum in Moscow.
4 of the 17 parts of Requiem were published in the section “Reed” in the 1961 Soviet collection of her work (Poems ). [Sneaky! “Reed” was chosen because of its association with the following legend: Two sisters murdered their younger sister on the shore of a river. A reed springs up where blood was spilled. A shepherd makes a pipe for himself out of the reed, and his music sings of the secret crime.]

6. Earlier in her life she had been well-known in the bohemian artistic circles of the 1910s in which the artist/poet was generally an unconventional figure.
With husband Gumilyov, Mandelshtam, and others, she started an important poetic movement, Acmeism, which defined itself in opposition to the older Symbolists.
AKHMATOVA BEFORE THE 1917 REVOLUTION (sketched by Modigliani in Paris, 1911)

7. As a young woman she was also seen as an unconventional beauty.
In addition to Modigliani, many other artists sketched, sculpted, or painted her. She enjoyed manipulating her image, not only as a poet but as a woman. According to poet Joseph Brodsky, Akhmatova’s first “poem” was the creation of her pseudonym, Akhmatova, inspired by “Akhmat- khan,” a maternal ancestor. (Her father did not want her using the aristocratic family name, Gorenko, for the frivolous publishing of poems.)

8. The poet is reading her early lyric, “I wrung my hands…
The poet is reading her early lyric, “I wrung my hands….” (Unfortunately, we do not have a recording of her reading this poem as a young woman.)

9. FINAL YEARS
A few years after Stalin’s death in 1953, the “thaw” enabled a partial rehabilitation of various intellectuals. Although censored, some of Akhmatova’s poems were again published.
Akhmatova’s son was released.
Akhmatova was able to travel to Italy and England to receive literary prizes.
She mentored a number of young poets in St. Petersburg, among them Joseph Brodsky (later winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature).

10. Akhmatova and Brodsky
In fact, in the 1960’s, in manuscript form, some sections of “Requiem” circulated among Soviets at the same time that people were circulating the transcript of Joseph Brodsky’s trial. These two texts became closely identified at that time. Brodsky had been arrested and charged with “having a worldview damaging to the state, decadence and modernism, failure to finish school, and social parasitism…” He was sentenced to five years of hard labor, although his sentence was later reduced. Here is part of the trial, which, with Akhmatova’s “Requiem,” came to symbolize the figure of the artist/poet/individual against the state:
Judge: And what is your profession in general?
Brodsky: Poet translator.
Judge: Who recognized you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?
Brodsky: No one. And who enrolled me in the ranks of humanity?
Judge: Did you study this?
Brodsky: This?
Judge: To become a poet. You did not try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?
Brodsky: I didn’t think you could get this from school.
Judge: How then?
Brodsky: I think that it comes from God.

11. Akhmatova is reading the final poem from “Requiem” here….
By the way, two degrees of separation exist between you and this famous poet.
Akhmatova spent time with Brodsky; Dworkin spent an afternoon with Brodsky; now you are spending time with Dworkin….
Akhmatova is reading the final poem from “Requiem” here….