Anna Barkova

Anna Alexandrovna Barkova , 16 July 1901 – 29 April 1976, was a Soviet Russian poet, journalist, playwright, essayist, memoirist, and writer of fiction. She was imprisoned for more than 20 years in the Gulag.

Early life Anna Alexandrovna Barkova was born into the family of a private school janitor in the textile town of Ivanovo in 1901. She was allowed to attend the school because of her father's position, a rare opportunity for a young working-class girl in pre-revolutionary Russia.

In 1918, she enrolled as a member of the Circle of Genuine Proletarian Poets, a writers group based in Ivanovo. and in 1922 she moved to Moscow to act as his secretary. Also in 1922, her first poetry collection Woman was published with a foreword by Lunacharsky. In 1923 her play Nastasya Bonfire was published.

In 1934, Barkova was denounced and arrested, and some of her poetry was used against her as evidence. She was sentenced to five years imprisonment. She endured a repeat arrest in November 1947, when she was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment and five years of restricted rights. Her second conviction was overturned in December 1955 and she was freed. She was rehabilitated in October 1957, then arrested for a third time in November, and sentenced again to 10 years in prison and five years of restricted rights. She was finally freed when this third conviction was overturned in May 1965. She also suffered two periods of exile from 1940 to 1947 (spent in Kaluga) and from 1965 to 1967.

English translations A Few Autobiographical Facts and Tatar Anguish, (poems), from An Anthology of Russian Women's Writing, 1777–1992, Oxford, 1994.