A life of learning
The Russian dissident Irina Ratushinskaya used poetry as a form of resistance during her imprisonment by the Soviet authorities in the early 1980s. On the transport train to the prison, at any point of contact with other prisoners she would recite poems, original or classic. Memorised poems were written out and exchanged between prisoners. When she was denied writing materials, she scratched her poems onto bars of soap with matchsticks, washing them away after she had memorised them. She transferred them to cigarette paper when she could, and they were smuggled out of prison to be published in the West.
For Ratushinskaya, as for many other prisoners past and present, the work of
