Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova (June 23, 1889 (June 11, Old Style and also St John's Eve) - 1966) was the nom-de-plume of Anna Adreevna Gorenko, one of the most significant Russian Acmeist poets.
Akhmatova was born in Bolshoy Fontan near Odessa. Her childhood does not appear to have been happy; her parents separated in 1905.
She married the poet Nikolai Gumilyev in 1910. Their son, born in 1912, was the writer Lev Gumilyev.
Gumilyev was executed in 1921 for activities considered anti-Soviet; Akhmatova was effectively silenced, unable to publish poetry, between 1925 and 1952. She died in Leningrad in 1966.
There is a museum devoted to Akhmatova at the Fountain House (more properly known as the Sheremetev Palace in St Petersburg), where Akhmatova lived from the mid 1920s until 1952.
