Russian Poet Anna Akhmatova and the Berlin Wall's Takedown

Posted by mshupe 5 years, 1 month ago to Culture
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"One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there): ‘Can you describe this?’ And I said: ‘I can.’ Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face."
SOURCE URL: https://www.centerforindividualism.org/the-poetic-justice-warrior-who-eternalized-the-great-terror-behind-the-berlin-wall-anna-akhmatova/


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  • Posted by 5 years, 1 month ago
    Literature teacher Lisa VanDamme instructs us how important it is to teach students the heights of human virtue and depths of human depravity. She uses Anna Akhmatova to teach students what real depravity looks like.
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  • Posted by $ Abaco 5 years, 1 month ago
    Wow. That's powerful stuff. Actually got teary-eyed from that. As a father I can understand the horror that mother felt having her son taken like that, for nothing.

    Reminds me of a piece of literature I talked about here in the past and I, again, compel my fellow Objectivists to read. "The Stones Cry Out , A Cambodian Childhood". This book changed my life. Even though it was written through the eyes of a child with no real bias other than the desire to survive - the relevance to modern times and the horror of collectivism and totalitarianism hits like a sledge hammer. In reading it I acquired a sharpness, a focus on what really matters...

    Thanks for sharing that, mshupe...
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    • Posted by 5 years, 1 month ago
      Thank you for your kind words and the book recommendation. I had not heard of it and will look into it. In my mind, this article was begging to be written, and the anniversary of the Berlin Wall gave me a wonderful premise to introduce Akhmatova's Requiem. The was too help the reader understand real despair and realize that our society is dominated by a culture with little or no depth of soul, as Lisa VanDamme describes it. People whose lives and consciences have no gravity because of their progressive indoctrination. You get it! Please share this.
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