ABSTRACT
AnnaAkhmatova was the first of the four poets to have a poem published. She was still a schoolgirl when it appeared in 1907, in an obscure, short-lived Russian magazine — Sirius — brought out in Paris by Nikolay Gumilyov. Akhmatova and Gumilyov were to remain on friendly terms; and they were always to regard each other as literary allies, even though there is not much in common between the two bodies of verse. But they drifted further and further apart in their personal relations. Akhmatova seems to have derived little satisfaction from her vogue as a poet and a woman. That it caused her acute suffering is the burden of verses written in 1955, when she was in her middle sixties and was attempting to sum up the experiences of her youth. Gumilyov and Akhmatova were habitués, and she has described the scene in a disapproving lyric.
