Instead of a Preface/Dedication

Akhmatova opens with a statement under the title, “Instead of a Preface.” She explains the circumstances in which the cycle was born—“the frightening years of the Yezhov terror” (Line 1), when Stalin and his then-head of the secret police, Nikolai Yezhov, embarked on their execution campaign throughout Soviet Russia. Akhmatova’s son, Lev, was arrested and sent to prison on trumped-up charges. Akhmatova references this experience: “I spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in / Leningrad” (Lines 2-3), Leningrad being the Soviet name for the city of St. Petersburg.

While waiting in the long line outside the prison, Akhmatova recalls being addressed by another woman, “her lips blue with cold” (Line 5), who does not recognize Akhmatova as a famous poet. The woman momentarily transcends the “torpor” (Line 6) that defines the scene and asks Akhmatova, perhaps rhetorically, if it is possible to describe what is happening. Akhmatova immediately replies, “‘I can’” (Line 9), prompting a smile from the woman.

“Instead of a Preface” embodies, in these few lines, the key themes that will dominate the cycle. The line outside the prison is a snapshot of the autobiographical and historical reality of the time.