I Am Alive. It Hurts

The book "I Am Alive. It Hurts" opens to the reader the hidden world of the great poet Anna Akhmatova. Throughout her life, she kept records only for herself, yet she never abandoned the dream of someday turning these rough sketches into memoirs about the 20th century and the heavy trials she underwent alongside the Russian people. The new power that established itself in Russia in 1917 harshly punished figures of science and culture who did not respond to calls to serve the illusory communist ideals of universal well-being. Dissenters were systematically destroyed, either physically or morally. Twice she became a target of punitive resolutions of the Central Committee – in 1925 and 1946. Her poetry was called empty, ideologically void, and alien to the Soviet people. Tragically interrupted were her attempts to create a family: one by one, her husbands were repressed, her son Lev was sent to the camp twice, who nevertheless became an outstanding specialist in Eastern studies… But against all odds, the poetess lived and created, and her experiences will be conveyed through the texts collected in this book.