(1892-1941) stands in relation to Akhmatova as Euripides does to Sophocles. She’s difficult, riddling, cynical, driven by spiritual longings that can never be satisfied. Sickened by the expat society of Russia in exile from the revolution, she returned to her homeland, where she found Stalin’s rule so unendurable she hanged herself. A passionate epistolary friend of Rilke, her language was as daring as his, but unlike him never floated free of meaning.