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the executive board of the USSR Union of Writ-
ers and was awarded the Soviet state prize for lit-
erature (1968). The relationship of modernity to
tradition remained a central theme of his work,
but in later works, such as The Day Lasts More
than a Hundred Years (1980), he linked them to
broader themes like space travel, science fiction,
and a more direct treatment of his characters'
Stalinist past. In the late 1980s as a member of
the editorial board of Novyi Mir (New World) and
editor in chief of Inostrannaya literatura (Foreign
Literature) he played an important role in bring-
ing previously suppressed Soviet and foreign lit-
erature to Soviet readers at a crucial juncture in
the development of Mikhail Gorbachev's glas-
nost (openness) campaign. He was elected to the
landmark Congress of People's Deputies (1989),
as well as to its Supreme Soviet. Gorbachev
made him a member of his Presidential Council
in March 1990 and appointed him ambassador
to Luxembourg in 1990-91.
of Moscow, 1,800 miles away to the west,
allowed its scholars greater latitude in pursuing
alternative research paths. The relatively open
political and scholarly environment of Akadem-
gorodok was sharply curtailed after 1968, as part
of the overall conservative backlash that fol-
lowed the WARSAW PACT invasion of Czechoslo-
vakia. Nevertheless, Akademgorodok continued
to contribute to Soviet intellectual and scientific
life in the 1970s and 1980s. Two influential
advisers to Mikhail GORBACHEV in the late Soviet
period, the sociologist Tatiana Zaslavskaya and
the economist Abel Aganbegyan, came from the
Akademgorodok scholarly environment.
Akhmadulina, Bella Akhatovna
(1937-
)
poet
A member of the group of young poets that
included Yevgenii YEVTUSHENKO and Andrei Voz-
nesensky, who formed part of a short-lived liter-
ary renaissance in the early 1960s, Akhmadulina
became, like them, a leading literary celebrity in
the GORBACHEV era. Born in Moscow of Italian-
Tatar background, Akhmadulina graduated from
the Gorky Institute of Literature. Her poems,
lyrical and personal, drew from the Acmeist tra-
dition begun by Anna AKHMATOVA , Osip MANDEL -
STAM , and Nikolai GUMILEV . Although a volume
of her poetry, Struna, appeared in 1962, she was
published sporadically in the intervening years,
especially after the conservative reaction that set
in during the BREZHNEV era. At one time married
to Yevtushenko, she was awarded the state prize
for poetry in 1989. She traveled widely but,
although respected as an important Russian poet,
never achieved the same public impact as her
early colleagues.
Akademgorodok
The third-largest research and educational cen-
ter in contemporary Russia, Akademgorodok is
a town of close to 100,000 inhabitants, located
in the vicinity of the city of Novosibirsk in south-
central Siberia. The town, a planned community,
derives its name from the Russian term for “aca-
demic town” and was established in a scenic
location on the northeast edge of the Novosi-
birsk Reservoir formed from the damming of the
OB River. Founded in 1958, Akademgorodok
has since been the seat of the Siberian branch of
the Russian (USSR) ACADEMY OF SCIENCES , and
numerous research organizations and institu-
tions. In 1959, Novosibirsk State University was
established within the city limits. Established on
the initiative of the COMMUNIST PARTY and the
USSR Academy of Sciences with the goal of
decentralizing scientific research while con-
tributing to the overall development of Siberia,
Akademgorodok quickly staked out an impor-
tant place in Soviet intellectual life. The town's
distance from the more closely regulated world
Akhmatova, Anna Andreevna
(1889-1966)
poet
Born Anna Gorenko near ODESSA of Ukrainian
parentage, Akhmatova survived personal tribula-
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