Thank you for your remarkable essay about our favorite poet, Anna Akhmatova. I still remember the very cold day of her burial service in Nikol'skyi Sobor in March 1966. Thousands of people were waiting outside, including my friends. We all loved her poetry, despite our professors' demand to read the communist leader of Leningrad, Zhdanov's article in the journal Zvezda (Star) about her as "half a prostitute and half a nun." I was planning to write about her life and poetry in my cycle of Russian Poets Before and After the Revolution, but stopped after writing about Marina Tsvetaeva, because when you love your poets, you relive their tragedies as your closest friends.
Yes, I remember that cold day in March, but I didn't attend the funeral service; my friends did and told me about the crowd of people around the church. Of course, they couldn't get inside because the church was already overcrowded. I lived in the University dormitory outside Leningrad, an hour on the train. But you're right, it was a sad and memorable day because we knew her poetry by heart, she was the best living poet, and we lived in the same city.
Yes, she died at a sanatorium near Moscow. So first she was brought to Moscow for a literary farewell because she was so world famous, the communists couldn't ignore her death,andthen, later, I don't remember the date, but it was Sunday, her burial service at the Sobor. Later, I lived close to Nikol'skyi Sobor, and their garden was a place of walks with my little daughter.
I like the Andersen volume, but have you read the recent volume of translations by Stephen Capus? Just astonishing. You can read Capus' version of Requiem here:
Her “Instead of a Preface” is a great achievment.
https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/akhmatova/requiem.html
Thank you for your remarkable essay about our favorite poet, Anna Akhmatova. I still remember the very cold day of her burial service in Nikol'skyi Sobor in March 1966. Thousands of people were waiting outside, including my friends. We all loved her poetry, despite our professors' demand to read the communist leader of Leningrad, Zhdanov's article in the journal Zvezda (Star) about her as "half a prostitute and half a nun." I was planning to write about her life and poetry in my cycle of Russian Poets Before and After the Revolution, but stopped after writing about Marina Tsvetaeva, because when you love your poets, you relive their tragedies as your closest friends.
To have attended this great poets funeral must have been so sad and so memorable at the same time.
Yes, I remember that cold day in March, but I didn't attend the funeral service; my friends did and told me about the crowd of people around the church. Of course, they couldn't get inside because the church was already overcrowded. I lived in the University dormitory outside Leningrad, an hour on the train. But you're right, it was a sad and memorable day because we knew her poetry by heart, she was the best living poet, and we lived in the same city.
She will be dead 60 years on the 5th March this year.
Yes, she died at a sanatorium near Moscow. So first she was brought to Moscow for a literary farewell because she was so world famous, the communists couldn't ignore her death,andthen, later, I don't remember the date, but it was Sunday, her burial service at the Sobor. Later, I lived close to Nikol'skyi Sobor, and their garden was a place of walks with my little daughter.
This is a lovely essay about one of my favourite poets. Anna spoke the truth of her time and now our time. What a courageous woman.
"Where in today’s Russia is a Mandelstam or a Joseph Brodsky?"
Her name is Olga Sedakova.
https://slantbooks.org/books/old-songs/
I like the Andersen volume, but have you read the recent volume of translations by Stephen Capus? Just astonishing. You can read Capus' version of Requiem here:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/anna-akhmatovas-requiem/