A great poet is much more than a lyrist or a verse writer, a great poet is a person of deep imaginitive and expressive capabilities with a special sensitivity to the world around them. Anna Akhmatova is a great poet. Even more specifically, Anna Akhmatova is a great poet of Russia. In the late 19th Century, Russia's Tsarist autocracy was under siege. Oppositional political parties were formed, in violation of the law. One of these parties was the "Social Democratic Party." Lenin was the leader of a faction of this group called the "Bolsheviks." The Bolsheviks were devoted to socialism and worked toward the goals of revolution and the overthrow of the Tsar. The Bolsheviks would eventually succeed. It was in the crossroad of these revolutionary events that Anna Akhmatova was born in 1889. She witnessed as a child the reign of the last Russian Tsar, Nicholas II.
             Anna was interested in poetry early on in her life. She told her father of her ambitions, and he told her not to shame the family name by becoming a "decadent poetess." At age 6 he forced her to take a pen-name, and she chose the last name of her maternal Great Grandmother, Akhmatova. That same year, the Revolution of 1905 took place. Thousands marched to the Tsar's palace, and many were shot by palace guards on "Bloody Sunday."
             It was in 1910, 5 years after the Revolution of 1905 Anna's poetic appetite would be nourished. Anna married Nikolai Gumilev. Nikolai embodided the inner beauty Anna had always dreamed of possessing. He was a romantic, a poet and adventurer captivated with North Africa. Nikolai led Anna's poetry where it needed to go. He founded a literary movement in Russia called "Acmeism." Acmeism was reaction to the current Symbolism poetry. The Acmeists emphasized clarity and directness, in contrast to the Symbolists, who the Acmeists believed fogged their poetry with ideologies like mysticism and symbols. They bealived if you had something to say, you...