BOOKS IN BRIEF
The Word that Causes Death’s Defeat: Poems of Memory by Anna Akhmatova, Translated by Nancy K. Anderson (Yale, 352 pp., $30) The Russian poet Anna Akhmatova stands at the pinnacle of the mountain range of Joseph Stalin’s millions of victims. All were swept into the horror of the Stalinist murder machine, some executed after frame-up trials, others sent away as officials to distant places, many more to prisons, concentration camps, hard labor in Siberian and Arctic mines, or to their deaths on suicide missions.
Akhmatova, among the most gifted of all Russian poets, saw her lovers Nikolai Gumilyov and Osip Mandelstam–also distinguished poets–perish at the hands of the secret police. The first was shot for counterrevolutionary plotting, the second, considered by many the greatest Russian poet after Pushkin, died of a heart attack in a punitive work camp. Akhmatova’s son Lev Gumilyov was sent into the darkness where he was driven mad (he became one of Russia’s most prolific and bizarre Jew-baiters).
Akhmatova had been known to the Russian public as a poet of love, spirituality, and patriotism. She was also remembered as a target of extraordinary public abuse by the highest stratum of Stalinist bosses, who denounced her as “both nun and harlot, mixing fornication and prayer,” in the tasteful words of Stalin’s culture boss, Andrei Zhdanov. Such insults were cast at her after she produced notable works of lyrical devotion to Russia, while it fought off the Nazi invaders in World War II.
In the aftermath of Stalin’s death Akhmatova became more famous for her composition of two great, even immortal, poems on Russian history: Requiem, begun in 1935 and completed with an introductory note in 1961, and Poem Without a Hero (1940-1962). Numerous Russian patriots and others concerned for the collective memory of Stalin’s victims know her Requiem, which deals with her son’s arrest and imprisonment, by heart. The poem includes unsurpassably chilling lines: The stars of death rose and stood above / And Russia, guiltless, tormented, writhed, / Trampled under boots stained with blood / And crushed by the Black Marias’ tires.
Yale University Press has gained due honor for its distinguished Annals of Communism series, to which this volume is a worthy addition. Translator and editor Anderson’s presentation of Akhmatova’s historical poems, backed up by extensive biography and other academic apparatus, is useful. The volume is marred only by the absence of Russian originals alongside the translated verse (bilingual is always better), and by the artificiality of some of the renditions into English, in which clarity and exactitude have been sacrificed for the sake of rhyme.
A pair of sentences in this book is heavily poignant: “There are people still alive who knew Akhmatova. Yet with the fall of the Soviet Union, the world in which she lived already seems far from us.” The investigative files on purge victims were stamped by Moscow’s secret police officers, “To Be Preserved Forever.” The poetry of Akhmatova about that grim time should still be read far and wide, and read again, in every language.
–Stephen Schwartz
GREAT MOMENTS IN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“To my brother, Gerry Anderson, for being there for me through thick and thin, and for helping me with this manuscript. . . .
“To my children, Brando and Dilly, whom I love desperately, for giving me the idea and inspiration for staying home and writing so I could spend more time with them . . . the universe does validate good decisions.
“To Eric Shaw Quinn–of course . . . my partner in crime on this project–are you me or am I you? The lines have blurred and you are wearing my shoes . . . and they’re trashed–you’ve walked more than a mile!
“To my editor, Brenda . . . you have always been a great supporter and believed in this from the start. . . . To Judith–the boss at Simon and Schuster!–thanks for allowing me to be creative and not forcing me into a ‘Pammyland’ concept! I’m on to you–all is forgiven.
“To Hefner, for helping to build interesting adventures in our lives, empowering women . . . and for just being you!
“To David LaChapelle, Luca, and Jesus . . . talented, genius, eccentric, and honest! My favorite people–friends whom I lean on and who put me out if I catch on fire. You remind me of what’s important besides family: art.”
–From Pamela Anderson’s Star Struck
