SOURCE: Rydel, Christine. “Bella Akhmadulina's Literary Odyssey.” In Critical Essays on the Prose and Poetry of Modern Slavic Women, edited by Nina A. Efimov, Christine D. Tomei, and Richard L. Chapple, pp. 195-215. Lampeter, Wales: Edwin Mellen Press, 1998.

In the following essay, Rydel explores Akhmadulina’s childhood and sense of place as inspiration for her poetry.

In the first poem of her 1983 collection Tajna (The Secret), Bella Axmadulina informs her readers that she “has a secret of wondrous blooming” (“U miny tajna cudnоgо цvitinsy”) and will reveal it to them only when the lilies-of-the-valley appear.¹ She goes on to tease her readers by never wholly explaining what her secret is; instead, all through the collection she hints that its meaning lies in nature, especially flowers. One cannot blame the poet for her reticence; after all, she has been pursuing the secret since her youth. Somewhere in her...