The patriotic poetry of Gennady Rakitin has won him quite a following in Russia over the past year. His odes to Vladimir Putin and emotive verses in support of Russia’s war in Ukraine drew appreciation on social media and even the occasional honourable mention in Russian poetry prizes.
But Rakitin’s admirers did not realise one thing: the 18 poems published under his name were in fact Russian translations of Nazi verses penned in the 1930s and 1940s.
