About Anna Akhmatova: Anna Andreyevna Gorenko was a Russian modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.
Courage: Great Russian word, fit for the songs of our children's children, pure on their tongues, and free.
All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.
It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace.
Who will grieve for this woman? Does she not seem too insignificant for our concern? Yet in my heart I never will deny her, Who suffered death because she chose to turn.
I should be proud to have my memory graced, but only if the monument be placed... here, where I endured three hundred hours in line before the implacable iron bars.
My shadow serves as the friend I crave.
