Anna Akhmatova

I had no idea until my daily Bloomsbury Day in Literary History e mail arrived in my inbox, that today was the anniversary of the death of Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Requiem would rate in my top ten poetry choices if ever required, some previous thoughts on Anna Akhmatova here.
Here's a transcript of that e mail and suddenly perhaps it adds a yet another perspective to my choice of book today  

Anna Akhmatova dies 1966 in Leningrad

Born in 1889, Akhmatova was a founder member of the Acmeist movement in Russia with her husband, the poet Gumilev, and Osip Mandelstam. Gumilev was executed in 1921 on a charge of anti-Soviet activity, and the years of terror which followed under Stalin led to the banning of Akhmatova's work in 1925 and to what became known as her 'years of silence'. Although unable to publish, Akhmatova was writing what would become her major works: the cycle Requiem for Stalin's victims and Poem Without a Hero, started after Mandelstam's death in 1938 and worked upon for twenty years.
Her other close contemporary Marina Tsvetayeva committed suicide in 1941.
Akmatova ensured her own survival, and that of her work during these years, by committing her poems to memory and writing nothing down. Respect for the Word was a Acmeist principle and Akhmatova is seen as a true keeper of the Word:

'we will preserve you our Russian Language,
the great Russian word.
Pure and free we will uphold you
and hand you on to our children's children,
and save you from captivity
forever!'

(from 'Courage').