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Details
AKHMATOVA, Anna (1889-1966). Typescript, 'Rekviem 1935-1940gg', the preface dated St Petersburg, 1 April 1957.
In Russian, 9 pages, 206x145mm, bifolia, carbon typescript with some penciled emendations and the addition of the date '19 August 1939. Fontanka' (short tear in the blank margin of the last leaf; occasional light staining). Provenance: Aleksandr Alekseevich Kholodovich (1906-1977, linguist; given to him by Akhmatova in 1962).
A samizdat typescript of Rekviem, 'one of the greatest lyrical sequences in the Russian language' (Feinstein), given by Akhmatova to Kholodovich, the linguist with whom she collaborated on various translation projects in the 1950s to support herself when she was not allowed to publish her own work. During those decades of prohibition, which Akhmatova calls her 'vegetarian years', she relied on memory and such samizdat editions distributed among friends for the preservation of her work. This one was given to Kholodovich in 1962, probably also the year that it was typed; Akhmatova made a few manuscript emendations and added the composition date '19 August 1939. Fontany dom' under 'K smerti'. Rekviem is her towering monument to the suffering of the Russian nation during Stalin's purges. This masterpiece was eventually published, in Russian, in Munich in 1963, but the full text was not published in Russia until 1987. RBH and ABPC record no samizdat Rekviem having been offered at auction. Feinstein, Anna of all the Russias (London: 2005), p.171; Martin, 'Collecting Anna Akhmatova', in Caxtonian vol.15, no.4, pp.1-13. (See also lots 106, 107 and 109.)
In Russian, 9 pages, 206x145mm, bifolia, carbon typescript with some penciled emendations and the addition of the date '19 August 1939. Fontanka' (short tear in the blank margin of the last leaf; occasional light staining). Provenance: Aleksandr Alekseevich Kholodovich (1906-1977, linguist; given to him by Akhmatova in 1962).
A samizdat typescript of Rekviem, 'one of the greatest lyrical sequences in the Russian language' (Feinstein), given by Akhmatova to Kholodovich, the linguist with whom she collaborated on various translation projects in the 1950s to support herself when she was not allowed to publish her own work. During those decades of prohibition, which Akhmatova calls her 'vegetarian years', she relied on memory and such samizdat editions distributed among friends for the preservation of her work. This one was given to Kholodovich in 1962, probably also the year that it was typed; Akhmatova made a few manuscript emendations and added the composition date '19 August 1939. Fontany dom' under 'K smerti'. Rekviem is her towering monument to the suffering of the Russian nation during Stalin's purges. This masterpiece was eventually published, in Russian, in Munich in 1963, but the full text was not published in Russia until 1987. RBH and ABPC record no samizdat Rekviem having been offered at auction. Feinstein, Anna of all the Russias (London: 2005), p.171; Martin, 'Collecting Anna Akhmatova', in Caxtonian vol.15, no.4, pp.1-13. (See also lots 106, 107 and 109.)
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