Part dream, part memory, The Akhmatova Project tells the story of the triumph of the human spirit over the vulgar oppression of a totalitarian regime through the dangerous miracle of poetry; a poem of the individual heart played against the backdrop of history.

“Anna Andreevna Akhmatova used poetry to give voice to the struggles and deepest yearnings of the Russian people, for whom she remains the greatest of literary heroines. She has lately come to symbolize for the world even beyond Russia the power of art to survive and transcend the terrors of our century.”

“More than any other art, poetry is a form of sentimental education, and the lines that Akhmatova readers learned by heart were to temper their hearts against the new era’s onslaught of vulgarity.... It was an instinctive reaction; the instinct being one of self-preservation, for the stampede of history was getting more and more audible." Joseph Brodsky

overwhelmed by her new fame, Akhmatova recites as her peers watch and listen.

A Stranger to Heaven and Earth
Judith Hemschemeyer,
The Akhmatova Project
created and directed by Nancy Keystone
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