The Akhmatova Journals: 1938-41 [Hardcover]

Lydia Chukovskaya (Author), Milena Michalski (Author), Sylva Rubashova (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1994

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was one of the greatest Russian poets of this century, the contemporary and equal of Mandelstam, Pasternak, and Tsvetaeva. The first of three volumes of Chukovskaya's memoir is represented here.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Russian poet Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966), described by Chukovskaya as "famous and neglected, strong and helpless . . . a statue of grief, loneliness, pride, courage," springs vividly to life in this fragmentary diary. Chukovskaya, a fellow Russian writer who revered and befriended Akhmatova, recorded from memory their almost daily conversations in Leningrad. Along with animated discussions of Boris Pasternak, Osip Mandelstam, Aleksandr Blok, Freud, Joyce and many contemporaneous Russian writers, their talks contain veiled intimations of Akhmatova's fear and loathing of Stalin's terrorist police state. This installment of the diary concludes with the two friends evacuating besieged, war-torn Leningrad by train to Tashkent. Norman's stunning translations of 54 of Akhmatova's poems, while faithful to their traditional diction, simultaneously convey their emotional fireworks and modernist sensibility.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The daughter of beloved children's author Kornei Chukovsky and a novelist, scholar, and humans rights activist in her own right, Chukovskaya (To the Memory of Childhood, LJ 7/88) was also a good friend of Anna Akhmatova, one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century. Chukovskaya kept detailed accounts of her conversations with Akhmatova, presented here in the first of several projected volumes. This volume covers a critical time in the life of Akhmatova and of the Soviet Union: the terror was in full sway, war was in the offing, and Akhmatova's writing was deepening even as she tracked the fate of her imprisoned son. These terrible events come through, but they tend to get a bit swamped by the everyday details. The average reader would have preferred Chukovskaya to use these diary entries as the basis for a completely reworked memoir. Scholars, however, will rejoice in the authentic detail and the copious footnotes and endnotes, which provide enough background to enlighten even the most ignorant reader. Recommended primarily for academic collections.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1ST edition (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374223424
• ISBN-13: 978-0374223427
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,589,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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