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“Such grief might make the mountain stoop, reverse the waters where they flow, but cannot burst these ponderous bolts that block us from the prison cells crowded with mortal woe...”

“Essay - The Obverse of Stalinism: Akhmatova's self-serving charisma of selflessness by Alexander Zholkovsky”

“English translations of 5 miniature poems, 1911-1917”

“Anna Akhmatova: Scripts, Not Scriptures" by Alexander Zholkovsky”

“English translations of Clenched My Hands... Grey Eyed King”

“Each of our lives is a Shakespearean drama raised to the thousandth degree. Mute separations, mute black, bloody events in every family. Invisible mourning worn by mothers and wives. Now the arrested are returning, and two Russias stare each other in the eyes: the ones that put them in prison and the ones who were put in prison. A new epoch has begun. You and I will wait for it together.”

Resonant Thoughts

"England laughed at American authorship and we sent her Emerson and Uncle Tom's Cabin. From its destitution of trees, Scotland was once a by-word; now it is a garden of beauty. Five generations ago, Br…"

— Frederick Douglass

Social Activism1818–1895

#writing

"Writers don't own their words. Since when do words belong to anybody? 'Your very own words,' indeed! And who are you?"

— Brion Gysin

Literature1916–1986

#writing

"Transcendence remains because that light, all in everything, transcends the universe and the species it inhabits at this stage."

— Pope Francis

Religion1936–2025

#writing

"I do not think there is much to add to what I have said here, except to observe that it is a national duty - I had almost said a moral one - for all those who speak Irish to speak it to their children…"

— Douglas Hyde

Literature1860–1949

#family