Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova (1889 – 1966) is the pen-name of Anna Andreevna Gorenko who was born near the Black Sea port of Odessa, to an upper-class family. She is widely recognised as one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century and was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1965. Her work ranges from short lyric poems to longer cycles such as Requiem which explores Stalin’s rule of terror.