The Akhmatova Journals

Trade Paper – $24.95

ISBN 978-0-8101-1940-6

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Contributors

Lydia Chukovskaya (Author)

Milena Michalski (Translator)

Sylva Rubashova (Translator)

Publication Date

April 2002

The Akhmatova Journals

Volume 1: 1938-1941

Lydia Chukovskaya

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) was one of the greatest Russian poets of this century. But during her life she was subjected to scathing critical attacks, denounced as "half-nun, half-whore," and then expelled from the Writers' Union. She also endured severe personal losses. Akhmatova's friend Lydia Chukovskaya (1907-96) kept intimate diaries of her conversations with the great poet. First published in the U.S.S.R. in 1987, The Akhmatova Journals offers a rare look into the day-to-day life of Akhmatova.

About the Author

Lydia Chukovskaya, the daughter of the eminent critic and children's writer Kornei Chukovsky, was a passionate defender of Russian letters and human rights. Her books include Sofia Petrovna and To the Memory of Childhood, both published by Northwestern University Press.

Reviews

"I was overwhelmed by Lydia Chukovskaya's sustained conversation with her friend. . . . The unforgettable is on every page." --Bruce Chatwin, London Observer

"[T]he journals record . . . an intellectual friendship between two women whose knowledge of Russian and world literature was breathtakingly large. . . . At times, the Akhmatova-Chukovskaya conversations are like fragments from a Dostoyevsky novel."
--Wall Street Journal

"A deeply moving book. . . . Apart from what it tells us about a great poet, it is a detailed and vivid description of the intellectually and imaginatively rich lives of a heroic handful of human beings." --Isaiah Berlin, Times Literary Supplement