ABSTRACT
Akhmatova became embroiled in the Terror through the second arrest of her son Lyov Gumilyov in 1938. It occurred in Leningrad on 10 March, even as the last and most spectacular of the era’s three chief judicial pageants was taking place in Moscow. The blow distressed Akhmatova all the more because she felt guilty for rejecting a maternal role during his boyhood — having left him to be brought up by his grandmother while she herself was writing poems about what a bad mother she was. Akhmatova wrote as follows about her separation from Punin, for once admitting herself partly to blame for their incompatibility. Akhmatova whispered her lines to Chukovskaya in fear of hidden microphones, or burnt scribbled copies in the stove after they had been memorized, and in this way she taught her friend the celebrated cycle Requiem, consisting of fifteen thematically linked lyrics.
