Anna Akhmatova

It would take until 1959 for the majority of Stalin's political prisoners to be released.

Some, like Anna Akhmatova's son Lev Gumilov, they were sure that they would die in the gulag.

And as he is quoted in saying in 1955, Most likely, I will be rehabilitated posthumously.

The releases were not easy, as many of the Zex were skin and bones, aged beyond their years.

All men were brothers, campmates, all, branded as traitors, everyone.

The return of the victims of Stalin's would be a traumatic experience for both the Zex and the rest of the population.

As the great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova would write, quote, now those who were arrested will return and two Russians would be eyeball to eyeball.

The one that put people in the camps and the one put there.

I'll read you the first, I'll read you the first stanza of a poem called Roman Elegies by Joseph Brodsky.

And joseph brodsky is a uh born in in at that time i think it was leningrad also known as petersburg also known as stalingrad and uh at a very young age was picked up as a apprentice really to anna akhmatova which was russia's great poet at that time uh of the silver age as it's called and at that age like to be picked up by like the acknowledged greatest probably greatest russian poet of the um 19th early 20th century and uh he was obviously then ran afoul as everybody did of the communist authorities and fled to america and went on to win the nobel prize and as these days not many people in eastern it's just like 20 years later people don't tend to read joseph brodsky that much so i'm going to read you the first stanza of roman elegies The captive mahogany of a private Roman flat.

In the ceiling, a dust-covered crystal island.

At sunset, the window panes pan a common ground for the nebulous and the ironed.

So somehow with my grandmother and with transmission, and with the love in this transmission, what changes is that the same way that when I learn a bit of...

I don't know, of Chekhov or of Anna Akhmatova or Virginia Woolf or, you know, whomever.

I learned a bit.

And with time, it becomes mine because I know it by heart, but also because now it means things that it only means for me because it connects to the time when I learned it by heart, why I learned it by heart, to whom did I say it the first time by heart, etc.

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

Because somewhere there's simplicity and light by Anna Akhmatova.

because somewhere there's simplicity and light, transparent, warm, and joyous.

There, a neighbor talks with a girl at twilight over the fence, and only the bees hear the most tender of murmurings.

While we live with ceremony, difficulty, honoring the rites of our bitter meetings, where a sudden reckless gust breaks off the sentence begun.

But we'd not exchange for anything this granite city of fame and misfortune, the wide rivers of shining ice, the sunless gloomy gardens, the barely audible voice of the muse.

Anna Akhmatova was a Russian poet nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965 and 1966.

With a strong and clear leading female voice, she struck a chord in Russian literature.

But what was that?

That was the last toast by Anna Akhmatova, who was one of the most depressing 20th century Russian poets of all time.

So layered, so crazy, the translation made me cry.

Are you a fan of hers?

Am I Anna Akhmatova fan?

Yeah.

[laughs]

After all, many Russians are literary giants.

Joseph Bratinsky, Anna Akhmatova, and Ivan Boon, and among them, never obtained a college degree.

Lawmakers have made no secret of the reason that standards exist.

Literature is a matter of state importance, they wrote, central to the country's identity.

And so he started reading poetry by all of those, from those countries.

And I find his translation, I think some, well, I don't know the original language, so I can't really compare, but The Anna Akhmatova translations and there, you know, there is a lot of poetry written.

I don't know how to pronounce Gongora.

Is it Gongora or Gongora? The Spanish, the Portuguese poet.

The consequences will be far-reaching.

After all, many of Russia's literary giants, Joseph Brodsky, Anna Akhmatova, and Ivan Bunin among them, never obtained a college degree.

Lawmakers have made no secret of the reason these standards exist.

Literature, they said, is a matter of state importance, central to the country's identity.