Anna Akhmatova (1889 – 1966)

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1913 is awarded to Rabindranath Tagore “because of his profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse, by which, with consummate skill, he has made his poetic thought, expressed in his own English words, a part of the literature of the West”

C.H. Woolfe, Acting Colonial Secretary, introducing Tagore at Singapore’s Victoria Theatre on 25th July, 1927: “You have before you one of the world’s greatest men.”

Academic Sergei Oldenburg wrote: “When we meet the great Indian poet here, we will be meeting a person who, in Bengali words, has said what we all understand and feel”.

In his article “The Indian Tolstoy”, Anatoly Lunacharsky, the Soviet people’s commissar (minister) of education, stated: “Tagore’s works are so full of colour, subtle spiritual experiences and truly noble ideas that they now constitute a treasure of human culture”.

Rabindranath Tagore writes music for his words, and one understands at every moment that he is so abundant, so spontaneous, so daring in his passion, so full of surprise, because he is doing something which has never seemed strange, unnatural, or in need of defense.

Chinese poet Xu Zhimo, who became a very close friend of Tagore’s, was asked by the LectureAssociation in Beijing to accompany the poet during his stay in China and act as interpreter whennecessary. Xu Zhimo was overjoyed to be able to wait upon ‘one of the greatest spirits the world has ever seen.’ He wrote…