“Un poeta sicuro” and her “Pi`u fedele interprete”. Anna Akhmatova in Raisa Ol’kenitsaya Naldi's translations

The article discusses the earliest translations of Anna Akhmatova’s poetry into Italian and the Italian reception of her oeuvre associated with them, especially the verses included in “Antologia dei poeti russi del XX secolo” (“Anthology of XX Century Russian Poets”, Milan, Treves, 1924), the first anthology of Russian poets in Italian, published by the translator-emigrant poet Raisa Ol’kenitskaya Naldi (1886-1978). The anthology appeared after Ettore Lo Gatto’s translations of Akhmatova in various magazines and in his work “Russian Poetry of the Revolution” (Poesia 308 Новый филологический вестник. 2019. №3(50). 309 russa della rivoluzione, Rome, Alberto Stock, 1923). The purpose of this article is to highlight 1) Ol’kenitskaya’s perception of Akhmatova and, therefore, the ‘Akhmatovsky canon’, presented in the 1924 collection and the subsequent collection edited by Ol’kenitskaya in 1962 (“Anna Akhmatova. Poetry”, Anna Achmàtova. Poesie, Milan, Nuova Accademia) and 2) Ol’kenitskaya’s translation methods (stanza, rhythm, phonetics, semantics) and strategy in light of the tradition begun by Lo Gatto and subsequent translations of Akhmatova’s poetry from 1924 to 1962. Lo Gatto noted the correctness and elegance of Ol’kenitskaya’s translation, calling her “the most accurate interpreter” of Akhmatova. In the anthology of 1924, Ol’kenitskaya chose poems from 1911 to 1917 (“Evening”, “Rosary”, “Plantain”, “White Pack”), in which the main stylistic, semantic and phonetic characteristics of Akhmatova’s work are concentrated. In the 1962 anthology, Akhmatova’s new collections are taken into account (“Reed”, “The Wind of War”, “The Moon at Zenith”, “Sixth Book”, “Dogrose Blossoms” and “Secrets of the Craft”), but Akhmatova continues to be considered by Ol’kenitskaya in the context of pre-revolutionary poetics.