“No foreign sky protected me,
no stranger's wing shielded my face.
I stand as witness to the common lot,
survivor of that time, that place.
— 1961”

— Anna Akhmatova

Translated in Poems of Akhmatova (1973) by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward
No, not under a foreign heavenly-cope, and
Not canopied by foreign wings
I was with my people in those hours,
There where, unhappily, my people were.
Translated by D. M. Thomas
No, not under the vault of another sky,
not under the shelter of other wings.
I was with my people then,
there where my people were doomed to be.
Translator unknown.
Requiem; 1935-1940 (1963; 1987)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Anna Akhmatova 99

Russian modernist poet 1889–1966

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