Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us. 
[1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningrad]

So begins a famous poem by Anna Akhmatova. 'Not under foreign skies, Nor under foreign wings protected' is familiar but I did not know where it came from, or understand what it was about, until I read something by a man who kept it in his wallet, through many travels in the Cold War years, and tried to learn it by heart.

Some translations have “‘Could you describe this?' And I answered ‘I can.’” But I prefer the version above, which seems to emphasise not so much that the poet is capable of describing, but that she steps forward bravely as an individual human witness.

If you want to know why the journalist tried to memorise the poem, and about Akhmatova’s story, see http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20180515-requiem-how-a-poem-resisted-stalin