Anna Akhmatova (pen name of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko, 1889-1966)
A poem written to save her son. 1949
Autograph manuscript poem signed ('Akhmatova'), 'Stikhi iz tsikla "Khvala Miru"' ('Verses from the cycle "In Praise of Peace"'), n.p., 1949.

In Russian. 12 lines on one page, 272 x 202mm; with a certificate of authentication by the department of manuscripts at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of World Literature.

A poem written to save her son. 'Where the desert is sleeping – there will be gardens, / The fields and smooth surface of lakes. / We'll once and forever wipe off the signs / Of war, for life to build up'.

Akhmatova had been publicly denounced by the infamous Andrei Zhdanov in 1946, and Akhmatova's son, Lev, was arrested in 1949 and sentenced to 10 years in the Siberian labour camps: her overtly propagandist cycle, 'In praise of peace', was published in Ogoniok in an attempt to secure his release. It was unsuccessful in this aim, and Lev remained in the camps until 1956, well after Stalin's death.

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