Daily life in Russia

The period just before and immediately following the Russian Revolution of 1917 was marked by the work of six spectacularly talented, difficult poets. Anna Akhmatova’s brief, finely chiseled lyrics brought her fame at the outset of her career, but later in life she produced such longer works as Requiem, written from 1935 to 1940 but published in Russia only in 1989, her memorial to the victims of Joseph Stalin’s purges (particularly her son, who was imprisoned in 1937).