Anna Akhmatova was the pen name of Anna Andreevna Gorenko, a Russian poet with a largely credited influence on Russian poetry.

Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to universalized, ingeniously structured cycles, such as Requiem, her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her work addresses a variety of themes including time and memory, the fate of creative women, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism.