麻豆约拍

Imagine writing a poem so controversial that you could not keep a hard copy or even read it aloud, let alone publish it.

Hear the voice of Anna Akhmatova, arguably the greatest poet of the USSR, reading one of Russia鈥檚 most controversial poems, Requiem. Written over three decades, the poem detailed the experiences of people who suffered under Stalinist purges of the 1930s - but wasn't published in Russian until 1963, long after the death of Stalin.

Tom Service reports from the museum dedicated to Akhmatova鈥檚 life and work in St. Petersburg, where he sees the matches that were kept to burn the poem's first pages after they had been memorised by her trusted friends.

This is the second of Ten Icons of a Russian Century, part of the Radio 3 season Breaking Free: A Century of Russian Culture.