Bella Akhmadulina
Poet
Pushkin Prize-winning, Russian New Wave poet known for her apolitical, relationship-themed poems. Her most their poetry collections include Music Lessons, Fever, and The String.
She was the only child of a Russian-Italian mother and a Tatar father, and she worked as a journalist at a Moscow newspaper before publishing her first poems in 1955.
She was a popular literary figure and orator who traveled widely and spoke to sold-out audiences in many nations.
She was married four times between 1954 and 1974 --to Yevgeny Yevtushenkoo, Yuri Nagibin, Eldar Kuliev, and Boris Messerer -- and had one daughter.
Her poetry was praised after her 2010 death by then-Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev.