Anna Akhmatova
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the Russian poet whose work was celebrated in C20th both for its quality and for what it represented, written under censorship in the Stalin years. Her best known poem, Requiem, was written after her son was imprisoned partly as a threat to her and, to avoid punishment for creating it, she passed it on to her supporters to be memorised, line by line, rather than written down. She was a problem for the authorities and became significant internationally, as her work came to symbolise resistance to political tyranny and the preservation of pre-Revolutionary liberal values in the Soviet era.
Guests
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Katharine Hodgson No other episodes
Professor in Russian at the University of Exeter -
Alexandra Harrington No other episodes
Reader in Russian Studies at Durham University -
Michael Basker No other episodes
Professor of Russian Literature and Dean of Arts at the University of Bristol
Reading list
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Selected Poems
Anna Akhmatova (trans. Richard McKane) (Bloodaxe, 1989) Google Books → -
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova (trans. Judith Hemschemeyer, ed. Roberta Reeder) (Canongate, 2000) Google Books → -
The Word That Causes Death's Defeat: Poems of Memory
Anna Akhmatova (trans. Nancy K. Anderson) (Yale University Press, 2004) Google Books → -
In A Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Akhmatova
Susan Amert (Stanford University Press, 1992) Google Books → -
Personal Impressions
Isaiah Berlin (ed. Henry Hardy) (Pimlico, 1998) Google Books → -
Less than One: Selected Essays
Joseph Brodsky (Penguin, 1987) Google Books → -
The Akhmatova Journals: Volume I, 1938-41
Lydia Chukovskaya (trans. Milena Michalski and Sylva Rubashova) (Harvill, 1994) Google Books → -
Russian Literature and Its Demons
Pamela Davidson (ed.) (Berghahn Books, 2000) Google Books → -
The Acmeist Movement in Russian Poetry
Justin Doherty (Oxford University Press, 1994) Google Books → -
Anna of All the Russias: The Life of Anna Akhmatova
Elaine Feinstein (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005) Google Books → -
The Pillar of Fire and Selected Poems
Nikloay Gumilyov (trans. R. McKane) (Bloodaxe, 1999) -
Anna Akhmatova: A Poetic Pilgrimage
Amanda Haight (Oxford University Press, 1976) Google Books → -
The Poetry of Anna Akhmatova: Living in Different Mirrors
Alexandra Harrington (Anthem Press, 2006) Google Books → -
Twentieth-Century Russian Poetry: Reinventing the Canon
Katharine Hodgson, Joanne Shelton and Alexandra Smith (eds.) (Open Book Publishers, 2017) Google Books → -
Akhmatova's Petersburg
Sharon Leiter (Cambridge University Press, 1983) Google Books → -
Remembering Anna Akhmatova
Anatolii Naiman (trans. Wendy Rosslyn) (Halban, 1991) -
Anna Akhmatova: Poet and Prophet
Roberta Reeder (Allison & Busby, 1995) Google Books → -
The Prince, The Fool and the Nunnery: A Study of Akhmatova's Early Verse
Wendy Rosslyn (Avebury Publishing, 1984) -
The Speech of Unknown Eyes: Akhmatova's Readers on her Poetry
Wendy Rosslyn (ed.) (Astra Press, 1990) Google Books → -
Anna Akhmatova: Her Poetry
David Wells (Berg, 1996) Google Books →
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Programme ID: b09lw39p
Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09lw39p
Auto-category: 891.709 (Russian poetry)