“No foreign sky protected me, no stranger’s wing shielded my face. I stand as witness to the common lot, survivor of that time, that place. Anna Akhmatova
“In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me… and asked me in a whisper… “Can you describe this?” And I said: “I can.”Anna Akhmatova
“And when the war broke out, its real horrors, its real dangers, its menace of real death were a blessing compared with the inhuman reign of the lie, and they brought relief because they broke the spell of the dead letter.Boris Pasternak
“One by one forging his laws, to be flung Like horseshoes at the head, the eye, or the groin. And every killing is a treat For the broad-chested Ossete. Osip Emilevich Mandelstam