Sharon Leiter

Akhmatova's Petersburg Sharon Leiter

In the poetry of Anna Akhmatova the 19th century myth of Petersburg, the accursed, unreal city, is filtered through the vision of a poet born in Imperial Russia and destined to confront the terrors of Soviet rule. The city that emerges embodies loss and dislocation, continuity and miraculous survival. This scholarly and imaginative study (New York Review of Books) convincingly demonstrates that a good part of Akhmatovas verse could never have been written but for the Petersburg environment.(Russian Review). An extremely productive new approachjargon-free, highly recommended for specialists and informed readers. Library Journal