Anna Akhmatova

In 1808, Spain is taken over by Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon disposed of the existing monarchy and installed his brother, Joseph, as head of state. The resulting war against France and Britain lasted nearly to the Mexican Revolution as Napoleon’s government falls into disarray and the revolutionaries began to gain momentum. Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla was a middle aged priest living in the parish of Dolores. Hidalgo was a Crillo by birth, and had a pro-Indian sentiment. He organized his…

As Anna Akhmatova is the Queen of Russian poetry, I found it most appropriate to pick the first poetic analysis to be of The Gray-Eyed King. Hardly anyone contests Akhmatova’s wide influence on all of poetry throughout Eastern Europe (and beyond); each of the Greats after her (Tsvetaeva, Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Brodsky) have cited her as an influence on their poems. In terms of poetic influence, I wish to then descend the poetic “family line.” While Akhmatova is clearly the poetic…

focused on the sadness, horror, or other emotions that came with war, though some left ambiguity as to exactly how they felt. Four of the authors during this time, having different locations in various wars, were Anna Akhmatova, Randall Jarrell, Marco Vesovic, and W. B. Yeats. Akhmatova, a Russian, and Yeats, an Irishman, each encountered the turmoil caused by World War 1. However, Jarrell writes from an American standpoint about World War 2 and Vesovic, born in Montenegro, speaks about the Serb…

Anna Akhmatova’s poetry offers a channel to weave deeply personal reflection, reconciling it within the public realm. Akhmatova was one of the great pre-revolutionary poets in Russia. Russian culture is one which highly values artistic fervour and intellect. Yet in 1923, Akhmatova was expelled from the writers’ union and banned from publishing. Examining the story of Akhmatova in Requiem, as recounted by the social and political theorist…

Literature written by a female hand has been rare, but tremendously influential on society’s readers and writers alike. One of the effects of their writing has been a greater insight to being a female in a male dominated world. The fact it has been so sparse throughout history gives the first clue. It is very hard for a woman to voice an opinion, let alone be heard by those around her. Those few female authors that have been published have given the world a precious gift and a deeper…

Andrei Zhdanov was born on the 26th of February, 1896 in Mariupol, in what is now southeastern Ukraine. His family was forced to travel throughout Russia in order to find work after his father died when Zhdanov was four years old. The family settled in the city of Tver, and Zhdanov began studying at a vocational school at the age of nine. Like many Russians he became interested in Bolshevik ideas while working in factories and began taking a role in political rallies in 1912 and by 1915 Zhdanov…

characteristic of melancholic approach to trauma. Instead, Rose emphasizes the need to begin inaugurated mourning in an attempt to mend the brokenness of social and political thought and reconciling it with actuality. Turning to a discussion of Anna Akhmatovas’ poem Requiem, which was a poem committed to memory I will observe inaugurated mourning in the public realm, which cannot occur in Athens, but in New…

The events that took place subsequent to Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953 transformed the Soviet Communism and way of life in many different ways. Essentially, the transformation of Soviet life after the Thaw can be said to have undergone three phases: introduction of reforms during Khrushchev’s era, the Brezhnev stagnation, and Gorbachev reforms that ultimately led to the Soviet Union dissolving in 1991. When Nikita Khrushchev rose to power, he made significant reforms including policies of peace…

Although socialist realist literature was a continuation of the traditional realism in that it also depicted the same subjects, it was a cessation of the latter since it significantly different from the latter in terms of its form and functions. While the nineteenth century Russian realism, best represented by the works of Anton Chekhov and Lev Tolstoy, depicts life as it is and criticizes it, socialist realism depicts life as what the Bolsheviks – this point is especially important since they…

I’m sure we’ve all heard of Billy Collins at some point and time; whether it was on NPR or an ad on the Internet, everyone probably has come across him at some point. Why I say this is because he’s become such a known poet, he has performed for Congress after 9/11, sold many copies of his published works, and been named “America’s first truly poet since Robert Frost” and to be named that, that mean’s he’s made it. There might be some confusion as to why Collins is so popular if someone hasn’t…