AKA Anna Andreyevna Gorenko

Born: 11-Jun-1889
Birthplace: Bol'shoy Fontan, Ukraine
Died: 5-Mar-1966
Location of death: Leningrad, Russia
Cause of death: Heart Failure
Remains: Buried, Komarovo Cemetery, St. Petersburg, Russia

Gender: Female
Religion: Russian Orthodox
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Poet

Nationality: Russia
Executive summary: Poem Without a Hero

Anna Akhmatova won great fame as an Acmeist poet early in her life, only to fall out of favor with the Communist party and be condemned by Stalin's regime for her so-called "bourgeois" and "individualistic" subject matter. Following her husband's execution, Akhmatova spent thirty years of her life under government surveillance, dependent on friends for her survival. She was forbidden from writing, yet a few of her poems managed to be smuggled out: when permitted a visitor, Akhmatova would silently write a line on a leaf of cigarette paper and pass it to her guest, who would memorize the line and burn the scrap. Only after Stalin's death was she permitted to publish again and receive the recognition in her own country that she had attained abroad.

Husband: Nikolai Gumilyov (poet, b. 1886, m. 1910, div. 1918, d. 1921 execution)
Son: Lev Gumilyov (historian, b. 1912, d. 1992)
Husband: Voldemar Shileiko (div.)
Husband: Nikolai Punin (d. 1956 gulag)

Is the subject of books:
Anna Akhmatova: A Poetic Pilgrimage, 1976, BY: Amanda Haight

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