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Melvyn Bragg

Alexandra Harrington

Michael Basker

Katharine Hodgson

Simon Tillotson

In Our Time: Anna Akhmatova

Anna Akhmatova

18/01/2018

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, Anna Akhmatova

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the celebrated Russian poet.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) whose work was banned under Stalin and who lived under constant threat of the gulags.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the Russian poet whose work was celebrated in C20th both for its quality and for what it represented, written under censorship in the Stalin years. Her best known poem, Requiem, was written after her son was imprisoned partly as a threat to her and, to avoid punishment for creating it, she passed it on to her supporters to be memorised, line by line, rather than written down. She was a problem for the authorities and became significant internationally, as her work came to symbolise resistance to political tyranny and the preservation of pre-Revolutionary liberal values in the Soviet era.

The image above is based on 'Portrait of Anna Akhmatova' by N.I. Altman, 1914, Moscow

With

Katharine Hodgson
Professor in Russian at the University of Exeter

Alexandra Harrington
Reader in Russian Studies at Durham University

And

Michael Basker
Professor of Russian Literature and Dean of Arts at the University of Bristol

Producer: Simon Tillotson.

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