The tragic, majestic figure of the poet, Anna Akhmatova, reigns supreme in the cultural/literary history of 20th century Russia. This collection in English of her prose works is a beautiful volume: an imposing size, heavy paper, clear, clean font. It is filled with many photographs of A.A. from throughout her life, and the notes are helpful in sorting all the people and literary references she makes in her writing.

Her prose consists mainly of portraits of the people she knew (a who's who of early 20th century writers and poets) for a memoir that she never actually got around to completing, letters to various friends, and her research on Pushkin. Reading her articles on Pushkin made me want to go back and reread him, something that is always rewarding.

One thing I must say about the article on Pushkin's Death is that, while it is a wonderful, intricate work of research, it is also an academic genre that is a little baffling for non-Russians especially. I remember a woman I once met who was a book editor, and she was driven to despair by a client she had (a Russian) whose book was on a Russian scientist, and the client insisted on including photographs of the scientist's parents, childhood home, the school were he studied, the desk he sat at and other such ephemera. The editor couldn't make the writer understand that none of that was pertinent to anyone and that it made the book seem less serious.

To Russians Pushkin is a cult figure and therefore, nothing about him is trivial: his poetry is sacred, it is memorized and recited at any opportunity, every aspect of his life, and especially his death, has been analyzed and written about in scholarly tomes. Akhmatova's research zeroes in on the various 'factions' (pro or contra Pushkin) surrounding him that lead to the fatal duel. The research involved a minute reading and interpreting of letters, memoirs, official reports-- all to decipher who started what rumor and what the intentions of said parties were. It is both fascinating and lurid at the same time. ( )