An amazingly well researched and lovingly written biography of the famous Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Akhmatova became a nationally known poet in imperial Russia before living thru world war one, the Bolshevik revolution, Stalin's terror and ban on her publication, the siege of Leningrad and world war two, and finally a thaw in Soviet government policy that lead to her world wide recognition. Along the way she interacted with seemingly all the famous writers of time, whether in or out of favor. A simply marvelous story that likely could not be swallowed if it were a piece of fiction. ( )

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was a legendary Russian poet and an icon for the people in Russia. To think of becoming and staying a poet was in Akhmatova's own words absurd, but she endured it. Feinstein draws on a wealth of material, including memoirs, letters, journals and interviews with Akhmatova's surviving friends. She started writing and reading her poems in Petrograd before 1913. Against the dramatic history of the Russia of the Tsar, the revolution of Lenin and than the hardest rules of Stalin, she paid a heavy price for her art and her personal passions and love affairs. Her work was banned from 1925 until 1940 and again following World War II. At the end of her life she got recognation in the west. Akhmatova wrote a lot of poetry. This verse from 'Northern elegies (september 1945) I found really moving:
"They've burnt my little toy town
And now there is no wormhole to the past
It is as if I were a river
Forced by this brutal age
to change my path.... ( )