Annensky: Twenty Five Poems

Annensky, Innokenty (1855–1909), translated by Kline, A. S. (contact-email)

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Innokenty Annensky (1855-1909) was born in Omsk but raised and educated in Saint Petersburg. Scarcely published as a poet in his lifetime, his career was spent as a professor and administrator in Tsarskoe Selo — the site of an imperial palace and township, fifteen miles south of Saint Petersburg. He translated classical Greek (in particular the plays of Euripides), and was the author of numerous essays and reviews. The poet Nikolai Gumilev (the husband of the poet Anna Akhmatova) graduated from the school of which Annensky was the director, and called him ‘the last of Tsarskoe Selo’s swans’. Praised initially by the Symbolists, the clarity, imagery and mood of his poetry later inspired Gumilev to form the Acmeist group, which included Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam.

Author Details

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Kline, A. S.

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