SOURCE: "The Poet in the Trenches: The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova," in Literary Review, Vol. 37, No. 4, Summer, 1994, pp. 689-704.

In the following essay, Brody discusses the poems in The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, and Akhmatova's place in Russian literature.

Poetry not only occupies a central position in Russian society and plays a primordial role in the life of imagination, it is also a moral force. Russian poets have always been known for their assertion of the free spirit and opposition to tyranny both under the Tsars and the commissars. "When spiritual life is suppressed," Bella Akhmadulina, a contemporary Russian poet, told The Harvard Advocate, "people turn to the poet as confessor and priest. When a nation has Russia's difficulties, people seek something lofty, something spiritual" (Quoted by F. D. Reeve in Akhmadulina). In confrontations with the authorities, they fearlessly and consistently manned the intellectual trenches in...