Edition in Russian and English.

    Before the revolution, Akhmatova was a wildly popular young poet who lived a bohemian life. She was one of the leaders of a movement of poets whose ideal was “beautiful clarity”—in her deeply personal work, themes of love and mourning are conveyed with passionate intensity and economy, her voice by turns tender and fierce. A vocal critic of Stalinism, she saw her work banned for many years and was expelled from the Writers’ Union—condemned as “half nun, half harlot.” Despite this censorship, her reputation continued to flourish underground, and she is still among Russia’s most beloved poets. Here are poems from all her major works—including the magnificent “Requiem” commemorating the victims of Stalin’s terror—and some that have been newly translated for this edition About The Author: Anna Akhmatova was born Anna Gorenko in 1888 and died in 1966. A popular poet of the Acmeist school, she took a pseudonym when her upper-class father objected to her "decadent" choice of career. She was married to the Acmeist poet Gumilev from 1910 until 1918, and spent time in Paris, where she posed nude for Modigliani. After the Revolution, Akhmatova remained silent for two decades. Her ex-husband was executed in 1921, their son was imprisoned for sixteen years, and her third husband died in a Siberian prison camp. She began publishing again at the outbreak of World War II, and her writings regained popularity despite being harshly denounced by the Soviet regime in 1946 and 1957 for "bourgeois decadence." Ejected from the Writers' Union in 1946, she was made its president two years before her death in 1966.

    Piebald dog running along the shore --Duishen --Mother-Earth --To have and to lose --The cranes fly early.Librarian's Note: The ISBN 5050024331 for this book was also used by "To Live Your Life and Other Stories" by Victor Astafiev.

    Pushkin pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling-mixing drama, romance, and satire-associated with Russian literature ever since and greatly influencing later Russian writers. Pushkin published his first poem at the age of fifteen, and was widely recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo. He gradually became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals; in the early 1820s he clashed with the government, which sent him into exile in southern Russia. While under the strict surveillance of government censors and unable to travel or publish at will, he wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov: A Drama in Verse. Critics consider many of his works masterpieces, such as the poem The Bronze Horseman and the drama The Stone Guest. He also wrote The Daughter of the Commandant and Marie: A Story of Russian Love, and The Queen of Spades.