New bilingual anthology Russia is Burning: Poems of the Great Patriotic War (Smokestack Books, 2020) includes examples of poems by Anna Alekseeva (“On the lips, an incandescent word.” A. Alekseeva (1899-1945), AB No. 30, “On the Way”), translated by Maria Bloshtein, Boris Dralyuk and Caroline Walton.

Anthology editor and compiler Maria Bloshtein also translated and supplied commentary for much of the large volume’s contents.

Maria Bloshtein and Boris Dralyuk are known as translators and editors for The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry and for many other books and projects.

Caroline Walton is the author of The Besieged: A Story of Survival (Biteback Publishing, 2011), a book on the siege of Leningrad. In The Besieged, Walton devotes pages to Alekseeva’s fate and legacy.

Since the publication of AB № 30, “On the Way,” our editorial staff has continued to decipher Alekseeva’s recently discovered poetic archive.

Listen to a round table about the anthology.

Read Alekseeva’s poems in Russian in the issue. More poetry and biographical translations forthcoming, hopefully!