The Russian Revolution and its grim aftermath transformed the world into which Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) had been born, radically altering the poet's life and art. At the time of the Revolution, Akhmatova's exquisite love lyrics had made her one of Russia's leading poets, but the mass social forces unleashed by the Revolution were inimical to her lyric genius. In the 1920's her work was subjected to vicious ideological attacks in the press and was officially barred from. publication. Akhmatova fell silent. When she began writing again in the late 1930s, her poetry was much changed--formally,...