Nikolai Gumilyov was born on April 15, 1886 in Kronstadt. His father, Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilyov, served as a ship's doctor, and after his resignation, the whole family moved to St. Petersburg.

Nikolai was a very weak and sickly boy. He suffered from regular headaches and a high sensitivity to loud sounds and strong smells. Because of his unhealthy appearance, the future poet was often attacked and ridiculed by his peers. In order not to put the child's health and vulnerable psyche at additional risk, the parents decided to transfer him to home schooling.

Gumilyov's literary gift woke up in early childhood, he wrote his first poem at the age of six. To improve their health, the family lived in Tiflis for three years, and after returning to Tsarskoye Selo, Nikolai resumed his studies at the gymnasium. At that time, he was fascinated by Nietzsche and spent all his free time reading his works.

A year before graduating from the gymnasium, the first collection of poems by Gumilyov, The Path of the Conquistadors, was published with the money of his parents.

travel poet

In 1906, the young poet leaves for Paris, where he attends lectures on literary criticism at the Sorbonne and becomes a frequent visitor to museums and art exhibitions. He meets Gillius, Bely, Merezhkovsky and shows them his work.

Passion for travel leads the poet to Egypt. After seeing the sights and spending all the cash, Gumilyov goes hungry for a while and even sleeps on the street. However, these difficulties did not greatly upset him, and after the trip he wrote a number of poems and stories.

The thirst for new emotions and adventures prompted Gumilyov to explore the Russian North. An interesting fact: with the assistance of the emperor, Gumilyov arranged an expedition to the Kuzovskaya archipelago. An ancient tomb was found there, inside of which an unusual “Hyperborean” comb was discovered.

Having met Academician Vasily Radlov, Gumilyov became interested in exploring the black continent and spent several years in Africa. After a trip to Somalia, he wrote the poem "Mik".

During the First World War Gumilev goes to the front. For the courage shown during the hostilities, he was awarded the rank of officer, in addition, the poet was awarded two St. George's crosses.

After the October Revolution, Gumilyov devoted himself entirely to literary creativity. In early 1921, he became chairman of the Petrograd department of the All-Russian Union of Poets, and in August he was arrested and taken into custody. After that, on a false charge, the poet was shot.

Personal life

As for his personal life, the poet was married twice. The most stormy relationship was with the poetess Anna Akhmatova. For a very long time and at first unsuccessfully, he sought her location, even made several suicide attempts. As a result, they got married, the son Leo was born, but the marriage ended in failure and divorce.

Gumilyov's second wife was a hereditary noblewoman Anna Nikolaevna Engelhardt.

He also had a short-term affair with actress Olga Vysotskaya, as a result of which a son, Orest, appeared, whose birth Gumilev never found out.

Creativity Gumilyov

All of Gumilyov's work depended on his worldview, where the main role was occupied by the goal of the triumph of the spirit over the body. All his life, the poet deliberately put himself in difficult situations for the reason that only at the moment of heavy loss and the collapse of hopes did true inspiration come to him.

One after another, his books are published:

• 1905 - "The Way of the Conquistadors";
• 1908 - "Romantic Flowers";
• 1910 - "Pearls";
• 1912 - "Alien Sky";
• 1916 - "Quiver";
• 1918 - "Bonfire", "Porcelain Pavilion" and the poem "Mick";
• 1921 - "Tent" and "Pillar of Fire".

Gumilyov's literary heritage has been preserved to the present day both in poetry and in prose.

In 2007, the famous singer Nikolai Noskov set the text of Gumilyov's poem "Monotonous flicker ..." to the music of A. Balchev. The result was a magnificent composition "Romance", on which the video of the same name was filmed.

In 1903, the family returned to Tsarskoye Selo, the poet entered the gymnasium, the director of which was the poet Innokenty Annensky.

In 1906, Gumilev graduated from high school and entered the Sorbonne in Paris.

In Paris, Gumilyov published the Sirius magazine, corresponded with Bryusov, to whom he sent his poems, articles and stories, some of them were published in the Symbolist magazine Libra.

Since 1907, Gumilyov traveled a lot, was three times in Africa. In 1913, as the head of the African expedition on a business trip of the Academy of Sciences, he made a trip to the Somali Peninsula.

In 1908 he returned to Russia and was enrolled in the Faculty of Law of St. Petersburg University, from 1909 he listened to lectures at the Faculty of History and Philology, but did not complete the course.

Since the spring of 1909, Nikolai Gumilev participated in the preparations for the publication of the Apollo magazine, where he became one of the main employees. In the same year, he became one of the founders of the poetic society "Academy of Verse" (Society of Zealots of the Artistic Word), which included poets Innokenty Annensky, Vyacheslav Ivanov and others.

In the autumn of 1911, Gumilyov, together with the poet Sergei Gorodetsky, created the literary association "Poets' Workshop", as well as the program of a new literary direction - acmeism.

In October 1912, the first issue of the journal "Hyperborey" was published, with Gumilyov as its editor.

During these years, the poet released several collections - "Romantic Flowers" (1908), "Pearls" (1910) and "Alien Sky" (1912), in which, in addition to his works, Gumilyov included translations of Theophile Gauthier's poems.

With the outbreak of the First World War (1914-1918), despite being exempted from military service, Nikolai Gumilyov volunteered for the front, enlisting as a volunteer in the Life Guards Lancers Regiment. By the end of 1915, he was awarded two St. George's Crosses (III and IV degrees). In March 1916, Gumilyov was promoted to ensign and transferred to the 5th Alexander Hussar Regiment. In 1917 he left for Paris in connection with the transfer to the Thessaloniki front. In January 1918, after the dissolution of the office of the military commissar, to which he was assigned, Gumilyov went to London, and then in April 1918 returned to Russia.

During the years of the war, Gumilyov did not stop literary: the collection "Quiver" (1916) was published, the plays "Gondola" (1917) and "Poisoned Tunic" (1917), a series of essays "Notes of a Cavalryman" (1915-1916) were written.

In 1918-1921, the poet was a member of the editorial board of the publishing house "World Literature", led the recreated "Workshop of Poets", and in 1921 - the Petrograd branch of the Union of Poets.

From 1919, he taught at the Institute of Art History, at the Institute of the Living Word, and in many literary studios.

Under the leadership of Gumilyov, a translation studio worked, he was a mentor to young poets from the "Sounding Shell" studio.

In August 1921, collections of his poems "Tent" and "Pillar of Fire" were published.

On August 3, 1921, Gumilyov was arrested on charges of anti-Soviet activities. On August 24, a resolution was issued by the Petrograd Provincial Extraordinary Commission on the execution of 61 people for participating in the "Tagantsevsky counter-revolutionary conspiracy", among those sentenced was Nikolai Gumilyov. For a long time the exact date of the poet's death was unknown. In 2014, when working with documents on executions in the period from 1918 to 1941, historians managed to find marks about the extradition of the poet for the execution of a death sentence. Gumilyov was shot on the night of August 26, 1921. In 1992, the poet was officially rehabilitated.

Gumilyov was married twice. In 1910-1918, his wife was the poetess Anna Akhmatova (real name Gorenko, 1889-1966), in 1912 their son Lev Gumilyov (1912-1992) was born - a well-known ethnologist, historian, archaeologist, orientalist, writer, translator. The second wife of Nikolai Gumilyov was Anna Engelhardt (1895-1942), daughter of the historian and literary critic Nikolai Engelhardt. From this union, a daughter, Elena, was born in 1919, who died of starvation during the siege of Leningrad in 1942.

Nikolai Gumilyov had a son, Orest Vysotsky (1913-1992), from actress Olga Vysotskaya. His memoirs about his father were published under the title "Nikolai Gumilyov through the eyes of his son."

The only museum of Nikolai Gumilyov in Russia is open in the city of Bezhetsk, Tver Region, in the village of Slepnevo in the preserved ancestral estate of the Gumilyov family.

There, in Bezhetsk, there is a monument to the poet and his family - his first wife Anna Akhmatova and son Lev Gumilyov. Monuments to Nikolai Gumilyov were opened in Koktebel (Crimea) and in the village of Shilovo, Ryazan Region.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources

• Moscow Nikolai Gumilyov

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “In a short publication it is not possible to describe all the places in St. Petersburg and its environs associated with Gumilyov’s stay there, however, a similar story about the poet’s Moscow addresses turned out to be possible, which is what this work is dedicated to.”

• Gumilyov. History of a duel

  Valery Shubinsky

  “In Russia in the second half of the century, the duel became a rare exotic outside the military environment. In 1894, there were military duels - almost the only case in world practice! are actually legalized. We are talking only about fights between officers by decision of the court of honor of the regiment. The mechanism is quite accurately described in the famous story by Kuprin.

• Gumilyov

  Julius Aikhenwald

  “The last of the conquistadors, a poet-warrior, a poet-at-arms with the soul of a Viking, consumed by longing for a foreign land, “an uneasy lover of foreign skies”, Gumilyov is a seeker and finder of the exotic.”

• Records about the Gumilyov family

  Alexandra Sverchkova

  “Mitya and Kolya were weather brothers. Both in appearance and in character, they were completely different from each other. From an early age, Mitya was distinguished by his beauty, had a frivolous character, was neat, loved order in everything and willingly made acquaintances. Kolya, on the contrary, was shy, clumsy, could not pronounce certain letters clearly for a long time, loved animals and did not recognize order in things or clothes.

• N. S. Gumilev. Extracts from the doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne

  Nikolay Otsup

  “On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the death of the poet, in 1926, I published memoirs about him in Latest News. I do not refuse a single line of my article. In terms of liveliness of impressions, the recent one is even much stronger than the old one, but I confess that later, when the chance of my frequent meetings with Gumilyov, our disputes, disagreements, misunderstandings, as well as outbursts of direct admiration, when all this moved away, only then little by little did not less close than the poet himself, his work became for me.

• N. S. Gumilev. Life and personality

  Gleb Struve

  “According to all reports, Gumilyov did not study well, especially in mathematics, and he graduated from the gymnasium late, only in 1906. But a year before graduating from the gymnasium, he published his first collection of poems called "The Way of the Conquistadors", with an epigraph from the then hardly known to many, and later so famous French writer Andre Gide, whom he obviously read in the original.

• Gumilyov in London: an unknown interview

  Elaine Rusinko

  "In May of 1917, Gumilev, then a cavalry officer in the Imperial Army, was ordered to the Salonikan front. However, bureaucratic restraints and the uncertainty of Russia "s continued participation in the war prevented him from returning to active duty, and for the next year, he remained in western Europe."

• Everything that I have the best, I learned from you ...

  Mikhail Tolmachev

  “The correspondence between Bryusov and Gumilyov has been unevenly preserved. Most of Gumilyov's letters to Bryusov have come down to us, thanks to the latter's careful storage of his archive and correspondence.

• Materials for the biography of N. Gumilyov

  Vera Luknitskaya

  “Pavel Nikolaevich Luknitsky began to collect materials on Gumilyov as early as 1923. First for his diploma at Petrograd University. And then - for posterity. He was sure that the time would come when everything he could collect in his “Works and Days of N. Gumilyov” would become useful to readers and researchers.”

• Brief literary and biographical chronicle

  Ivan Pankeev

  “April 3 (15), 1886, in Kronstadt, in the family of the ship's doctor Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilyov, the son Nikolai was born.”

• Chronicle

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “On April 3, as evidenced in the parish book kept at the Kronstadt Naval Military Hospital Alexander Nevsky Church, “the Senior Crew Doctor of the 6th Naval Crew Collegiate Councilor Stefan Yakovlevich Gumilyov and his legal wife Anna Ivanova, both of the Orthodox confession, had a son, Nikolai. »

• Newly found summary of N. S. Gumilyov's speech in the editorial office of the Apollo magazine on April 5, 1911

  Konstantin Lappo-Danilevsky

  “The circumstances of the second of three trips of N. S. Gumilyov to Abyssinia (departure from St. Petersburg on September 25, 1910 - return on March 25, 1911) are not well known - in fact, the information is reduced to two paragraphs in the “Works and Days of N. S. Gumilyov” , compiled by P. N. Luknitsky, which refers to the contacts of the poet with the Russian envoy B. A. Chemerzin, the presence at one of the solemn dinners at the court of the Abyssinian emperor, etc. ”

• Gumilyov and Kuzmin at the "evening of modern poetry" in Moscow on November 2, 1920 (according to the diary of M. A. Kuzmin)

  Sergei Shumikhin

  “The entries in Kuzmin’s Diary, apparently, were made retroactively, after returning to Petrograd, which explains the inaccuracy in the date of the Evening, recorded under November 1, while it took place on November 2, 1920.”

• Questionnaire of the Union of Poets with the answers of N. S. Gumilyov

  Vitaly Petranovsky, Andrey Stanyukovich

  “The questionnaire was published for the first time by A.N. Bogoslovsky according to a copy in: Vestnik RHD (1990, No. 160) without comments and without indicating the location of the original.”

• The main places associated with the life and work of N. S. Gumilyov

  Marina Kozyreva, Vitaly Petranovsky

  “Look at the biography and work of N. S. Gumilyov from this angle. He was born on an island, in Kronstadt, near the sea and ships. He spent his childhood in Tsarskoye Selo and in St. Petersburg, and in his adolescence, at the most critical time of maturity, he lived for three years in the Caucasus, in Tiflis.

• Alexander Blok and Nikolai Gumilyov after October

  V. V. Bazanov

  “Personal relationships and creative contacts between Blok and Gumilyov have an almost 15-year history, which, moreover, is very rich in very rapidly developing events.”

• Fate connecting thread (Larisa Reisner and Nikolai Gumilyov)

  Sofia Sholomova

  “Analyzing Gumilyov’s creative “credo”, delving into the circle of his poetic shrines, Reisner boldly introduces a number of clear and sometimes even harsh definitions into the fabric of the article. The surviving text reveals the hidden reading of the poet by another bright creative personality.

• Sirius Magazine (1907)

  N. I. Nikolaev

  "B. Unbegaun notes that this was the first literary journal to appear in Paris, the center of Russian political émigré periodicals.

• The second issue of the Ostrov magazine

  A. Terekhov

  "The Ostrov magazine was not the first experience of publishing for the 23-year-old Gumilyov."

• Gumilyov in London: unknown interview

  Elaine Rusinko

  “In May 1917, Nikolai Gumilyov, a cavalry officer of the tsarist army, was assigned to the Thessaloniki front. However, bureaucratic delays and the uncertainty of Russia's further participation in the war prevented him from returning to the active army.

• To my lovely queen...

  Irina Sirotinskaya

  “These books were carefully kept by her all her life. I imagine how her regal fingers touched their pages, how her stern eyes followed these lines, how the poet’s instinct either fished out precious pearls, or noted poetic analogues, how the woman’s soul was agitated by the memory of “enormous tragic love.”

• Under an unnecessary grid of longitudes and latitudes...

  S. I. Yastremsky

  “In the life of Nikolai Gumilyov, Africa occupied a special place. During his life he made four trips to North and East Africa, the longest of which was a trip to Abyssinia in 1913.

• To the study of the literary life of the 1920s. Two letters from E. A. Reisner to L. M. Reisner

  Nikolai Bogomolov

  “The history of Russian literature of the 1920s has not yet been written and, in all likelihood, will not be written soon. It seems that an indispensable condition for such an implementation should be not only the comprehension of the material already known to readers and researchers, but also the regular publication of documents relating to the period under study.

• In the blind passages of space and time

  Gennady Krasnikov

  “In essence, this is the history of the Russian European and Europeanism, which so powerfully, with the preservation of national identity, starting with Peter and Lomonosov, matured in Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and which, as it is now obvious, could become the foundation of the life of Russia XX centuries, but at first they were mediocrely ruined in the liberal eclipse and betrayal, in which the Russian intelligentsia, so idolized by us, is guilty, and then they were rooted out after the Russian apocalypse of the 17th year.

• Along the line of greatest resistance

  Igor Schaub

  “The list of those who were shot included 61 names. Gumilyov was listed in it at number 30; reported here: Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich, 33 years old, b. nobleman, philologist, poet, member of the board of the World Literature Publishing House, non-partisan, b. the officer."

• The return of Nikolai Gumilyov. 1986

  Vladimir Enisherlov

  “In the second half of the 20th century, attempts were made to return the name of Nikolai Gumilyov to literature in the Soviet Union more than once. But all the time, as if something mystical arose in the way of his poetry - something was wrong with the publishers, then the verses were removed by censorship at the last moment, then unexpectedly the first persons of the party hierarchy intervened.

• The sorcerer's daughter, the bewitched prince and everything: Alexei Tolstoy and Gumilyov

  Elena Tolstaya

  “Gumilyov has been in Paris since 1906. He did not get along with the Merezhkovskys and did not make a very good impression on Bryusov. Nevertheless, he corresponded with him and anxiously followed the ups and downs of The Fiery Angel, apparently somehow correlating it with his personal situation - love for Anna Gorenko: she seems hopeless to him, and in December 1907 he makes a suicide attempt. »

• "Virtual" Gumilyov, or analytical memories

  Dmitry Guzevich, Vitaly Petranovskiy

  “This work was born as a result of many years of discussions on topics related to literary criticism, but somewhat beyond its boundaries. We have given it a dialogic form in order to convey to the reader the spirit of our disputes. The second part was written by Dmitry Guzevich. Vitaly Petranovsky owns all the remarks and comments to it, as well as part one.

• Gumilyov

  Vadim Polonsky

  "In Paris, G. was interested in the occult, spiritualism, but this passion was short-lived and superficial."

• Nikolai Gumilyov at Lev Gumilyov's

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “1998… What associations will arise at the mention of this year? And if there is also a small hint - the month of August? The answer is obvious. Default, panic, everything seems to stop, good intentions and plans go to hell…”

• Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov: Date in Evpatoria

  Valery Meshkov

  “The fact is that there is no exact information about where and how Akhmatova and Gumilyov spent that summer either in the Chronicle or in other sources. At the same time, it is known that in subsequent years Gumilev did not miss the opportunity to see Anna in Sevastopol or in Kyiv.

• Unknown photographs of N. Gumilyov and other poets of the Silver Age

  Kirill Finkelstein

  “It would seem that specialists have already studied almost all archival materials and it is not necessary to expect the appearance of new photographs of the poet. But it turns out that upon closer examination, many “wonderful discoveries” can be brought by the home archives of compatriots, whose owners often do not suspect that the documents and photographs in their possession are of historical value.”

• About two scenarios of one myth

  Vadim Perelmuter

  “... About twenty years ago they asked me to compose a preface to the book of Cherubina de Gabriak (E. I. Dmitrieva), which was then being prepared at the Crimean publishing house Tavria, where the compilers were Z. Davydov and Vl. Kupchenko - included all the works of the poetess, as well as memoirs of contemporaries and documents, in a word, the most complete (at that time) collection of texts related to this, in my opinion, the most striking hoax in the history of Russian literature of the twentieth century, and, perhaps, in throughout its history, not just the latest.

• Gumilyov Nikolai Stepanovich 1886-1921

  Lev Anninsky

  "Russian poet. The last four years of his life - formally - Soviet. The only one of the great poets of the Silver Age, who was executed by the Soviet government by a court verdict.

• Nikolai Gumilyov - Voloshin's second (a failed duel as a prehistory of the one that took place)

  Alexander Kobrinsky

  Voloshin did not hesitate for a minute. It was necessary to choose two people - the most trusted, the closest, to whom one could tell about what had happened and who could be invited to be seconds. These people turned out to be for Voloshin his close friend Alexei Tolstoy (who later became his second in November 1909) - and ... Nikolai Gumilyov.

• Nikolay Gumilev - meetings in Paris in 1917-1918

  Evgeny Stepanov, Andrey Ustinov

  “In the spring of 1917, after the changes that had taken place in Russia, accompanied by ever-increasing confusion in the army, the Hussar regiment was partially disbanded, and Gumilyov was to be transferred to a rifle regiment. Such a prospect clearly did not attract him, and he began to fuss about being transferred to the Russian Expeditionary Force, which fought in France and in Thessaloniki.

• Some facts from the life of N. S. Gumilyov

  P. Koryavtsev

  “Thus, we see that, despite the seeming total study and well-knownness of the biographies of the famous parents of Lev Nikolayevich Gumilyov, so far these biographies raise no less questions than before.”

• Nikolai Gumilyov and the Morning of Acmeism

  Valery Shubinsky

  “For some reason, Gumilyov - a soldier, a lover, a “lion hunter” and a “conspirator” - is remembered more than a hard-working writer. But this one, the last one, was the real one.”

• Passionarity of father and son

  Olga Medvedko

  “After the death of Nikolai Gumilyov in 1921, Anna Akhmatova came to Bezhetsk to decide where Leva should live next - in hungry and cold Petrograd or in more well-fed Bezhetsk.”

• Russian archipelago. Paris N. S. Gumilyov and A. A. Akhmatova

  Olga Kuzmenko

  “The article is devoted to the study of Russian literary Paris in the first half of the 20th century, the reflection of the Parisian period in the work of Russian writers Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova. The author studies Parisian routes, meetings, events of writers.

• Ideogram of love

  Grigory Kruzhkov

  “It is known that Gumilyov’s romance with Reisner survived the crisis in the early spring of 1917 and had no continuation. In April, Gumilyov began to fuss about sending him to the Thessaloniki front and left Russia in mid-May.

• Gumilyov and Odoevtseva in St. Petersburg (on the routes from the book by I. Odoevtseva "On the banks of the Neva")

  A. Govorova, M. Sergeeva

  “The article provides a “scenario” for one of the excursions for citizens based on the book by I. Odoevtseva “On the banks of the Neva.”

Memories

• Gumilyov before arrest

  Nina Berberova

  “Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov appears in my memory clearly and distinctly the way I knew him in the last ten days of his life before prison and death. We saw each other 7-8 times. Like all talented people, he was able and could be sometimes charming. In general, he lived “in his own way”, that is, he constantly invented life, himself, people, perceiving and creating his own atmosphere around him.

• Georgy Adamovich about Anna Akhmatova and Nikolai Gumilyov

  Georgy Adamovich

  “I remember the meetings at the Poets’ Workshop.” Almost invariably Gumilev spoke first, he spoke very confidently. Akhmatova was silent, she listened to Gumilyov, treated him a little ironically even then, although later, after his death, she, perhaps, changed her attitude towards him.

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Sergey Auslender

  “And when Gumilyov entered this awkward apartment, I understood the porter - such gentlemen really didn’t come to me. I saw a tall figure in a black coat, in a top hat, exaggerated, a little ironic. There was something pitiful about this fashion."

• From a letter to an unidentified person

  Alexander Shervashidze-Chachba

  “Immediately I had a childish thought: to replace the bullets with fake ones. I had the naivete to suggest this to my buddies! They, of course, indignantly refused.

• Nikolai Gumilyov

  Olga Mochalova

  “It was a fierce winter of 1919. Moscow was in ruins. Gumilyov and Kuzmin came to perform at the Polytechnic Museum. After the speech, N.S. went to the Kogans, where he was supposed to stop, and I went with him to the nearest lane. N.S. was wearing gray furs.”

• Nikolai Gumilyov

  Yuri Annenkov

  “I met Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov relatively rarely, although I knew him for many years and was on friendly terms with him. We were separated by the war of 1914. A heroic and sincere patriot, Gumilyov, immediately after her announcement, volunteered for the army, and, for his fearlessness, was even twice awarded the St. George Cross.

• Flirt with life

  Nina Serpinskaya

  “Gumilyov, on the contrary, is all in a fit, like a silver arrow ready to fly into the enemy or into the sky. From head to toe, pur sang is a full-blooded military, "male conqueror", impetuous, tense, active.

• From Revolution to Totalitarianism: Memoirs of a Revolutionary (fragment)

  Victor Serge

  “They shot the poet Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, my Parisian comrade-enemy. He lived in the House of Arts on the Moika with his young wife, a tall girl with a thin neck and the eyes of a frightened gazelle, in a spacious room, the walls of which were painted with swans and lotuses - the former bathroom of some merchant, a lover of this kind of wall poetics. The young wife received me in a state of panic.”

• Diary excerpts

  Vera Alpers

  “Yesterday I did something stupid, of course, by agreeing to go with Gumilyov to a separate office. What courage! The devil knows what it is! Maybe I'm too sure of myself. These things are very dangerous."

• Gumilyov

  Olga Hildebrandt-Arbenina

  “I was stunned! The poet Gumilyov, the famous poet, and the Cavalier of St. George, and the traveler in Africa, and the husband of Akhmatova ... and suddenly he looks at me like that ... He “slightly” moderated his gaze, and I was able to say something about poetry and poets. Anya then said with envy: “How smart you are! And I stand and mumble, I don’t know what. ”

• From an intimate diary

  Olga Hildebrandt-Arbenina

  “And she is in a hurry to meet Gumilyov. And then I suddenly meet them both. He seems to be smiling. But I sniffle contemptuously without looking. He wrote to her about love all summer ... "

• Nikolai Gumilyov

  Alexey Tolstoy

  “Often this spring I also visited him in Tsarskoye, in his hospitable, well-established, good, bureaucratic family. At that time, only his younger brother, a fifth grade gymnasium student, truly believed in Gumilyov, yes, maybe. a talking parrot in a large cage in the dining room. The hand-held white mouse, which Gumilyov carried in his pocket or sleeve, also belongs to the same time.

• "Pillar of Fire"

  Nikolay Minsky

  “From the smiling, intricately playful Kuzmin, it is not easy to move on to Gumilyov, who is equally involved in world joy, but concentrated, sober, living at a greater depth.”

• In memory of N. S. Gumilyov

  Solomon Posner

  “When summer comes, I’ll take a stick in my hands, a bag over my shoulders, and go abroad: somehow I’ll make my way,” said Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, when we said goodbye this spring, before my departure from Petrograd.

• Blok - Gumilyov

  Pyotr Struve

  “I remember Blok well, I hear his voice, his image stands in front of me and again raises in me thoughts that were once excited by meetings with this person and reading his works.”

• At the Tuchkov bridge

  Petr Ryss

  “Petrograd was already spat by sunflowers. The comrades commissars impudently drove cars around the city. They rotted in prisons everyone who wore cuffs. It was hungry, grey, vile. And from this melancholy I wanted to run wherever my eyes looked; but the Bolshevik grave became more and more difficult, it became more and more difficult to leave.

• winged soul

  Alexander Kuprin

  “There was something in it reminiscent of some wild and proud migratory bird: a small, round back, head on a high neck, a long straight nose, a round eye with a watchful side gaze, unhurried movements.”

• Blessed are the dead

  Andrey Levinson

  “When Blok died, when they found out that Gumilyov, “a poet, philologist, and former officer, had been shot,” these news hit the hearts. Needless to say: the dead and the killed, the secretly killed, the openly killed - both of us have "good press."

• Gumilyov, "Bonfire"

  Vladimir Shklovsky

  “Fifteen years ago I saw Gumilyov among the young Romano-Germanists at Petrograd University. Then we all studied several Western languages ​​at once, wrote poetry ourselves, and for the first time I recognized the names of Henri de Regnier, Lecomte de Lisle and many others.

• Gumilyov

  Andrey Levinson

  “When, a few months ago, N. S. Gumilyov was tortured and killed, I did not find the strength to tell about the poet: indignation and grief, the enormity of the crime temporarily obscured his image in intimate simplicity and his labor routine.”

• Sending to be shot

  Nikolai Volkovysk

  "The dear memory of Gumilyov requires the preservation of the accuracy and completeness of everything connected with his bloody death."

• N. S. Gumilyov

  Nikolai Volkovysk

  “On the low bank of the Neva, near the very wave that silently kissed the coastal sand, far from the bustle of the barely resurgent Petersburg, we sat for long evening hours and listened to Gumilyov reciting his poems.”

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Vladimir Pavlov

  “In those fateful August days in Petrograd, Georges Ivanov and Georgy Adamovich informed Pavlov that Gumilyov had been arrested. One of Gumilyov's accusations was that he allegedly participated in the drafting of some kind of counter-revolutionary appeal.

• two shadows

  Yuri Rakitin

  “If the image of Blok is all foggy, tender, as if covered in a haze, as if from a painting by the French artist Career, then the portrait of Gumilyov should have been painted either by the famous David, or even better by some of our serf Borovikovsky against the background of battle armor and certainly in uniform. Blok and Gumilyov were created by Petersburg.

• sentimental journey

  Viktor Shklovsky

  “Below walked, without bending at the waist, Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov. This man had a will, he hypnotized himself. There were young people around him. I do not like his school, but I know that he was able to raise people in his own way.

• Gumilyov in Paris

  K. Parchevsky

  “The February revolution found N. Gumilyov in Paris1 as an ensign of the Alexandria Hussar Regiment, which was part of the military units sent by the Russian command to France for operations on the Western Front.”

• Knight for an hour

  Vasily Nemirovich-Danchenko

  “An inexpressible sadness blew over me from Gumilyov’s small, elegantly published book “To the Blue Star”. As if from the distant, no one knows where the lost grave of the murdered poet, his barely distinguishable voice called me.

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya

  “In the spring of 1907, we moved from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoye Selo and rented an apartment on the ground floor of a small two-story house by Belovzorova on Konyushennaya Street. The Gumilyovs lived on the second floor of this house.

• N. S. Gumilyov

  Nikolay Otsup

  “When I was brought in at the beginning of 1918 to get acquainted with N. S. Gumilyov, I immediately remembered that I had already seen and heard him somewhere. Where? At first, I remember "The Comedians' Halt" at the end of 1915 or at the beginning of 1916. A volunteer with a St. George cross reads his poems.

• Gumilyov and Blok

  Vladislav Khodasevich

  “Blok died on the 7th, Gumilyov on August 27, 1921. But for me they both died on August 3rd. Why - I will tell below.

• Russian conquistador. Memories of the poet Gumilyov

  Anatoly Vulfius

  “Gumilyov studied at the Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium in the same class as my brother, and I quite clearly remember the time of his literary undertakings.”

• Gumilyov and "Workshop of Poets"

  Vladislav Khodasevich

  “It seems that in 1911 (I cannot vouch for accuracy) a poetic association arose in St. Petersburg, which received the nickname “Poets' Workshop.”

• In memory of Gumilyov

  Georgy Adamovich

  “These days I remember the arrest and subsequent execution of N. S. Gumilyov. It was in August 1921—how long ago! Like soldiers in a war, months are now counted for us in years. But the fact that events are erased or faded in memory. No, like looking through binoculars from the back - everything is completely clear and distinct, but removed to a great distance.

• Blok and Gumilyov

  Georgy Ivanov

  ““Next in line” was Gumilyov. I don’t know whether the fairy was good or evil, putting her gift - self-love in Gumilyov’s cradle. Extraordinary, burning, passionate. This gift helped Gumilyov become what he is - the pride of Russian poetry; this gift led him to his death.”

• Evening at Annensky

  Georgy Adamovich

  “The Tsarskosels were all a little bit dedicated and seemed to be bound by mutual responsibility.”

• "In the middle of the earthly journey". (Life of Gumilyov)

  Georgy Ivanov

  “The Last Days of Gumilyov. - Childhood. - A plan to conquer the world. Three trips to Africa. - Sending to the front. - In the days of the revolution. Second marriage. - Literary work. - Before the execution.

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Victor Iretsky

  “23 years ago. 1908 year. A very strange person appears in the editorial office - for the editorial office of a Russian newspaper. He is wearing a top hat and white kid gloves. He is all springy, starched, arrogant. This is also striking because he is very ugly. Even ugly."

• 10th anniversary of the execution of N. S. Gumilyov

  Peter Pilsky

  “Gumilyov in front of the Chekists. - Gumilyov on Blok. - It is impossible to know. - Chastity. - My memories. - Turn. - Art for ... - Gumilyov about poetry. - Five themes. - The revolution. - Premonition of death. - Blue Star. - Before the end.

• About Gumilyov

  Georgy Ivanov

• Companion's notes (excerpt from the book)

  Lev Nikulin

  “The book of the writer Lev Veniaminovich Nikulin tells about what he saw not only as a satellite, but also as a participant in revolutionary upheavals, about meetings with famous people of that era: Larisa Reisner and F. Raskolnikov, M. Andreeva and others.”

• Diary of the House of the Poet (excerpt)

  Maximilian Voloshin

  “But I didn't speak. You believed the words of that crazy woman ... However ... if you are not satisfied, then I can answer for my words, as then ... ""

• One and a half eyed archer

  Benedikt Livshitz

  “... I don’t know what the Stray Dog was supposed to be according to the original plan of the founders who established it at the Art Society of the Intimate Theater, but in the thirteenth year it was the only island in night Petersburg where literary and artistic youth, in the form of a general rule, did not have not a penny for the soul, I felt at home. ”

• On the screen Gumilyov

  Andrey Bely

  “They teased the poor fellow, who stood stupidly,” writes A. Bely, “went from a pure heart to the poets.” Then Merezhkovsky appeared and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, said with a French pronunciation: “You, my dear, got in the wrong place! You don't belong here." And then Gippius pointed to the door with a lorgnette.

• Around the name of N. S. Gumilyov

  Nikolay Otsup

  “On the fourteenth anniversary of the death of N. S. Gumilyov, I don’t want to remember the circumstances of his death. It is better to remember something from his life and, if possible, something that was hardly or not mentioned at all.

• Gumilyov and Blok

  Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky

  “... It was especially interesting to see him in a conversation with Gumilyov. They clearly did not like each other, but did not express their dislike in any way: moreover, each of their conversations seemed to be a subtle duel of mutual politeness and courtesy.

• Poets of the Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium

  Dmitry Klenovsky

  “I began to look closely at Gumilyov in the gymnasium. But with caution - after all, he was older than me by 6 or 7 classes! That's why I didn't see it properly... And if I remember anything, it's purely external. I remember that he was always especially clean, even smartly dressed.

• Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov

  Anna Gumilyova

  “I had to read in the press some biographical information about my late brother-in-law, the poet N. S. Gumilyov, but, often finding them incomplete, I decided to share my personal memories of him. In my memoirs, I will call the poet by name - Kolya, as I always called him.

• About Gumilyov. (1886-1921)

  Leonid Strahovsky

  “On August 25, 1921, Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, one of the most beautiful Russian poets, was shot, who brought Russian poetry back to purity, simplicity, accuracy and clarity after it was clogged with nebulous symbolists. »

• Works and days of N. S. Gumilyov.

  Gleb Struve

  “Information about what Gumilyov worked on in 1919-21 can be found in the Bulletin of Literature magazine (this magazine is very rare abroad).”

• Nikolai Gumilyov (1886-1921)

  Sergei Makovsky

  “The young man was thin, slender, in an elegant university frock coat with a very high, dark blue collar (then fashion), and combed carefully in the middle. But his face was not distinguished by good looks: a shapelessly soft nose, thick pale lips and a slightly squinting look (I did not immediately notice white chiseled hands).

• Memories

  Tatiana Vysotskaya

  “My numerous studios, musical and theatrical experiences enriched my worldview, expanded my horizons and artistic impressionability. Only life itself, life, as they say, personal, had its charms, I - in any case - did not refuse that for every young girl is the charm, poetry and beauty of this life.

• Nicolas Gumilyov: Un témoignage sur l'homme et sur le poète

  Sergei Makovsky

  "Assurément, l" hérédité, le milieu, l "époque sont trois sources qui contribuent à produire un écrivain. Mais le hasard et les contingences entrent pour beaucoup dans le résultat final, dans l "oeuvre créatrice. Ces contingences biographiques, nous les nommons, après coup, le destin de l" écrivain. Et la première place y revient à l "amour et aux amours de l" écrivain, surtout s "il est poète."

• From "Memoirs of Alexander Blok"

  Nadezhda Pavlovich

  “Blok was supported by Rozhdestvensky, Erberg, Shkapskaya and I; Lozinsky, Grushko, Kuzmin, Akhmatova remained neutral. A large group of young people united around Gumilyov; they were the most active and were proud of the nickname "gumilyat."

• Russian Paris, 1906-1908

  Alexander Bisk

  “The real notes are a “small story”. When you think about how much work researchers put in to discover new materials about the life of some third-rate poet of Pushkin's time, what archives you have to unfold, you willy-nilly decide that the most insignificant facts from the Silver Age era cannot be discarded, but must somehow be preserved for future generations."

• Nikolay Gumilyov according to personal memories

  Sergei Makovsky

  “Gumilyov began to visit every day and liked me more and more. I liked his calm pride, unwillingness to be frank with the first comer, a sense of dignity, which, I must say, Russians often lack.

• Studio "World Literature"

  Elizabeth Polonskaya

  “Most of all, the name of Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, a strict master of verse, the head of the school of acmeists, who gathered a group of talented poets around him in the last pre-revolutionary years, attracted the Studio of World Literature.”

• Nikolai Gumilyov

  Nikolai Chukovsky

  “I first saw Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov in Kuokkala, in our garden, in the summer of 1916, one Sunday. He knew little of my parents at the time and arrived wearing a black business card and a starched collar that propped up his cheeks. It was hot, the guests were drinking tea in the garden under the Christmas tree, and it was eerie and pitiful to look at the lean, straight man in black with his head up and unmoving. He looked like that smoked whitefish, put on a stick sticking out of his mouth, which my mother always treated our Sunday guests.

• N. S. Gumilyov

  Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky

  “For a long time I have wanted to write down what the memory of one remarkable person has preserved, communication with whom left a mark on my entire future literary life. In addition, this man was a poet whose name should not fade away in our literature.

• Memories

  Lev Ahrens

  “I remember Gumilyov from Tsarskoye Selo. I was then a high school student, I studied with his nephew, Kolya Sverchkov, and Gumilyov was already finishing high school.

• Maitre

  Ida Nappelbaum

  “We practiced in a narrow, long, unremarkable room. At a narrow long table. Nikolai Stepanovich was sitting at the head of the table, with his back to the door. The students sat around the table. Somehow it so happened that our places were assigned to us by themselves.

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Yuri Sheinmann

  “This synodic made a great impression on the deputies. During the entire reading, not a single sound interrupted the silence. There were no questions or speeches. So Zinoviev took the floor. And they parted in silence.

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Leonid Borisov

  “Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, not only to me alone, but to everyone who saw him at least once, seemed to be an elderly man, much older than his years.”

• About N. S. Gumilyov

  Natalia Semevskaya

  “I remember one of the commandments of Nikolai Stepanovich: “Every poet writes on behalf of someone, but not necessarily about himself.” Giving examples of this statement of his, he referred to Akhmatova, who "writes on behalf of all abandoned women."

• Mikhail Slonimsky

  “I saw Nikolai Stepanovich talking with the writer Sergei Kolbasyev. They met in Sevastopol in the years when the civil war had not yet ended. Gumilyov said that this was the same "lieutenant who led the gunboats under the fire of enemy batteries."

• Letter about Gumilyov

  Yuri Yanishevsky

  “With pleasure I will tell you ... everything that I remember about my joint service with N. S. Gumilyov in the regiment of Her Majesty's Lancers. Both of us arrived at the same time in Krechevitsy (Novgorod province) in the Guards Reserve Regiment and were enrolled in the march squadron of the Life Guards of Her Majesty's Ulansky Regiment.

• What I remembered about Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov

  Doriana Slepyan

  “I also remember how often Nikolai Stepanovich invited me to parties at the former Zubovsky mansion on St. Isaac’s Square.”

• Of unwritten memories

  Olga Grudtsova

  “The news of Gumilyov’s arrest stunned everyone. But, it seems to me, no one believed in the seriousness of this event, they thought: they would release him and he would come ... "

• My meeting with N. S. Gumilyov

  N. Dobryshin

  “Gumilyov went to war 1914-1917. Volunteer and served as volunteers of Her Majesty Empress Alexandra Feodorovna's Life-Ulan Regiment, in which the attitude towards volunteers was extremely harsh: they lived with the soldiers, ate from a common boiler, slept on straw and often side by side on the ground.

• About books and authors / Nikolai Gumilyov

  Georgy Adamovich

  “For reasons that are known to anyone who is even slightly interested in literature, Gumilyov is still banned in the Soviet Union. In this sense, those writers who, according to the now common formula, were repressed in the 1930s, were more fortunate. They are talked about, they are remembered.

• Under the east wind

  Johannes von Gunther

  “I met him on the first day. He was the leader of a small opposition against me - and perhaps the first to receive me. At first, we were inseparable. In "Apollo" he was in charge of the poetry department and had to read all the poems that were sent - these were avalanches.

• From letters about N. S. Gumilyov

  Mikhail Larionov

  “Nikolai Stepanovich and I saw each other every day almost until he left for London. Then he came to Paris for 1-2 days before leaving for St. Petersburg, where he went via London.

• Forever and ever

  Olga Mochalova

  “He offered to come to his room. “Do you have any special architecture there? I’m sure not,” I replied. “Tomorrow we will meet at the entrance to the park. You come with me.”

• That's what Gumilyov said

  Irina Odoevtseva

  “Gumilyov said that there is no higher title in the world than the title of a poet. Poets, in his opinion, are the best representatives of humanity, they most fully embody the image and likeness of God, they discover what is inaccessible to mere mortals.

• Posts about Gumilyov

  Julian Oksman

  “Gumilyov was in some kind of fantastic wide-open reindeer coat, which he received on Gorky’s personal order, either in the World Literature, or in the House of Scientists.”

• About the production of "Gondla"

  Gayane Khalaydzhieva

  “We got together just before midnight. Two people were sitting in the hall: N. S. Gumilyov and S. M. Gorelik. All the actors were trembling. But the performance went well. At about 2 a.m. Gumilyov was already leaving, and everyone went to see him off.

• N. S. Gumilev and A. A. Akhmatova

  Ekaterina Kardovskaya

  “My parents rented an apartment on the first floor of this house, and then the large Gumilev family lived on the second. The layout of both apartments was the same; although it had seven, but small, and often just small rooms.

• From the Oral Book

  Nikolai Tikhonov

  “To justify the name of the house - “House of Arts”, studios were set up in it. The criticism studio was led, for example, by Korney Chukovsky, poetry - by Gumilyov ... Volynsky founded the dance school and was in charge of this studio.

• Memories of N. S. Gumilyov

  Korney Chukovsky

  “He seemed to me somehow ceremonial, arrogant and stiff. The face is ash-gray, narrow, long, there is no blood on the cheeks, dressed foppishly, in a foreign manner: a top hat, kid gloves, a high collar on a thin and weak neck.

• About N. S. Gumilyov

  Lev Nappelbaum

  “He smiled with some kind of half-smile, looked as if from under his eyelids. And there were a little droopy eyes, you can feel it in the photo. Some kind of charm that only he had was transmitted to absolutely everyone around him. In essence, he was not yet an elderly person, only 35 years old, but he made a very significant impression - a master, it was felt that he was a master.

• Memories of Gumilyov

  Sofia Erlich

  “I carefully keep the whole appearance of Nikolai Stepanovich in my memory, and as I remember him, I will tell you.”

• Gumilyov

  Lydia Ginzburg

  “If Gumilyov had realized the “Poetics” he had conceived, then it would have turned out to be a book, in all likelihood, very unscientific, very normative and intolerant, and therefore highly valuable - as a projection of a creative personality and as a set of incomparable craft experience.

• "Gumilyov spoke to me..."

  Dmitry Bushen

  “Nikolai Stepanovich was stately, tall, but his face was ugly. However, very interesting. When he spoke, everything was so interesting that you forgot how he looked.

• Confession

  Cherubina de Gabriac

  “For the first time I saw N. S. in June 1907 in Paris in the studio of the artist Sebastian Gurevich, who painted my portrait. He was still quite a boy, with a pale, mannered face, a lisping voice, and in his hands he held a small snake of blue beads. She impressed me the most."

• Life and poetry of Nikolai Gumilyov

  Vladimir Enisherlov

  “In 1926, in the book “Nekrasov”, K. I. Chukovsky published his famous questionnaire “Modern poets about Nekrasov”. The questionnaire was answered in 1919 by N. S. Gumilyov.”

• Meetings

  Vladimir Pyast

  “This publication consists of excerpts relating to Gumilyov from Piast's book "Meetings", published in 1929 and has not been republished since then. Vladimir Alexandrovich Pyast (Pestovsky), 1886-1940 - poet, memoirist, critic. See our article about him in the Sagittarius magazine, No. 6, 1986.”

• Memories of Gumilyov and Akhmatova

  Vera Nevedomskaya

  “I still remember my first impression of the meeting with Gumilyov and Akhmatova in their Slepnev. On the veranda, where we drank tea, Gumilyov entered from the garden; on the head - a lemon-colored fez, on the legs - lilac socks and sandals, and to this a Russian shirt.

• Notes by Anna Akhmatova about Nikolai Gumilyov

  Anna Akhmatova

  “The notebooks of Anna Akhmatova, which are stored in the Central State Archive of Literature of the USSR and are now being prepared for publication in the Akhmatova volume of the Literary Heritage, contain many entries relating to the work of Nikolai Gumilyov and the history of their personal relationships.”

• Daphnis and Chloe

  Valeria Sreznevskaya

  “With Kolya Gumilyov, then a seventh-grade schoolboy, Anya met in 1904, on Christmas Eve. We left the house, Anya and I with my younger brother Seryozha, to buy some decorations for the Christmas tree, which we always had on the first day of Christmas.

• From the memoirs of N. S. Gumilyov

  Erich Hollerbach

  "An incorrigible romantic, a vagabond adventurer, a 'conquistador', an indefatigable seeker of dangers and strong sensations - such was he."

• Memories of Cherubin de Gabriac

  Maximilian Voloshin

  “... Vyacheslav Ivanov probably suspected that I was the author of Cherubina, as he told me: “I really appreciate Cherubina's poems. They are talented. But if it's a hoax, then it's genius." He counted on the fact that "the crow will croak." However, I didn't croak. A. N. Tolstoy told me for a long time: “Come on, Max, this will not end well.”

• tower dweller

  Andrey Bely

  “... Vyacheslav loved comic fights, pitting me with Gumilyov, who appeared at one o'clock, to spend the night (did not ripen in his Tsar's), in a black, exquisite tailcoat, with a top hat, in a glove; he sat like a stick, with a haughty, slightly ironic, but good-natured face; and parried Ivanov's attacks with a look.

• My meetings with Anna Akhmatova

  Georgy Adamovich

  “I can’t remember exactly when I first saw Anna Andreevna. It was probably about two years before the First World War in the Romano-Germanic Seminary of St. Petersburg University.

• Mitya and Kolya

  Alexandra Sverchkova

  “The love of poetry woke up early in the boy, he began to think deeply about life, he was struck by the words in the Gospel: “you are gods” ... and he decided to improve himself. Living in Beryozki, he began to behave in a completely incomprehensible way: he disappeared for days, then it turned out that he had dug a cave for himself on the river bank and spent time there in fasting and meditation. He even tried to perform miracles! .. "

• From memories

  Vera Lurie

  “Another seminar that I went to was called “Version”, its leader was Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov. Gumilyov was a monarchist, an absolute opponent of the Soviet regime.

• In the middle of the earthly journey

  Ivan Pankeev

  “The poet lived for thirty-five years; now his second life has come - his return to the reader. Yes, without Gumilyov, Russian literature - not only poetry, but also criticism and prose - is not complete. This gap is being filled now. But this cannot and should not end the conversation about the poet, whose work not only in the Silver Age of Russian poetry was of great importance, but also influenced the further development of literature.

• Notes for myself

  Innokenty Basalaev

  “Or here's another. Already in the twenties. There is a Literary Evening in the present House of Radio. Gumilyov appears with his new wife - Anna Nikolaevna, sharp-nosed, narrow-minded; she is with her friend, also Anna. One of the other usually said: “And Annochka is even more stupid than me!”.

• From a diary that I don't keep

  Julian Oksman

  “October 13, 1959, Tuesday ... Anna Andreevna Akhmatova dined with us today. During the few months that we did not see each other, she - in a purely external way - changed a lot. Somehow she became stouter - not only she gained weight, but she “looked out” all over and at the same time got stronger, calmed down, became even more monumental than she was. By the age of seventy, the last raid of Akhmatova's era, not only "Rosary", but also "Anno Domini", disappeared. But I still remember her from "The Halt of the Comedians", in the evenings of poets at St. Petersburg University. I remember the very young and proudly refined Akhmatova, the period of her first great successes, Akhmatova, immortalized by Modigliani and Altman, in the verses of Gumilyov and Mandelstam ... "

• Valery Bryusov and his entourage

  Bronislava Pogorelova

  “It was a clear spring day. Sister Ioanna Matveyevna and I were sitting together at afternoon tea. V. Ya. came out of his office, and not alone. It turned out that he had a guest, whom he brought with him. There was nothing unusual in such an appearance. Around four or five o'clock writers and editors came in every now and then, and everyone had long been accustomed to them. But the guest who appeared that day was unusual. “Gumilyov,” he introduced himself somehow too self-confidently. Everything about him was amazing.”

• Silhouette in the rain

  D. Ivanov, Yuri Tsvetkov

  “It was hard not to notice that Orest Nikolaevich was biased, almost painfully, towards literary criticism, memories of his father, assessments of the events of his life, sometimes questioning the very reliability of some events.”

• Vyacheslav Ivanov about Gumilyov

  Vyacheslav Ivanov

  "The tragic circumstances of the death of N. S. Gumilyov led to the fact that the story of V. I. Ivanov's acquaintance with him was presented almost as an idyll."

• An excerpt from the book "Bread and Matzah"

  Sofia Erlich

  “Almost from the first words, I felt like a student who had an exam. Gumilyov clearly wanted to find out what a young, novice author was like.

• My italics. Autobiography (excerpt from the book)

  Nina Berberova

  “After the 'lecture', Gumilyov suggested that the students play hide and seek, and everyone began to run around him with pleasure, blindfolding his eyes with a handkerchief. I could not force myself to run with everyone together - this game seemed to me to be something artificial, I wanted more poetry, more conversations about poetry, but I was afraid that my refusal would seem offensive to them, and did not know what to decide on.

• Nikolai Gumilyov and Fedor Sologub about firewood

  Yu. D. Levin

  “Actually, the “wood-burning theme” was raised by Gumilyov (it was still absent in Lerner’s poem that opened the album).”

• Memories. Gumilyov

  Vera Lurie

  “The famous poetess Vera Lurie (1901 St. Petersburg - 1998 Berlin), whose memoirs the Studio magazine begins to publish, was a member of the literary circle of young poets Nikolai Gumilyov “Sounding Shell”. Since 1921, Vera Lurie lived in Berlin. Her memoirs, which she worked on in the last years of her life, written in German, were not completed and therefore were not published in Germany.

• Anna Akhmatova: "My destiny is to be his wife"

  Tatiana Yurskaya

  “The swimming season is over, the town of Trouville has gone into hibernation, and then an event occurred that excited the entire small local population: a policeman arrested a certain mysterious foreigner.”

• Tiflis friends of Gumilyov. (Washington finds)

  Julius Zyslin

  “Once, while visiting the house of the mathematician Lev Sirota, I, having nothing to do, began to look through a selection of his books from Russian poetry. Gumilyov was presented here by the Tbilisi edition of 1988, which at that time was not in the collection of my literary and musical museum (recently in New York, this book was presented to me by the former editor-in-chief of the Tbilisi Merani publishing house, Ushangi Rizhinashvili).

• Blue Tuesdays

  taffy

  “There was such a poet Vasily Kamensky. I don’t know if he is alive and exists as a poet, but already in exile I read about him - there was a dispute in St. Petersburg “Is Vasily Kamensky a genius?” After that, I never met his name again and know nothing about him. He was talented and unique."

• “Is it possible for a woman to praise a dead woman? ..”

  Olga Vaksel

  “There was a circle of poets at the institute, which I immediately joined, led by Gumilyov. It was called "Laboramus". And soon there was a split in the circle, and the other half began to call themselves "Metaxa", we called them: "we, dachshunds."

• "Period Adamovich" in the life of Gumilyov. (Extract from the book)

  Alexander Kolmogorov

  “From the end of December 1913, the aspiring poet Georgy Ivanov, having parted with Osip Mandelstam by that time, began to appear in the night literary and artistic cafe “Stray Dog” on Mikhailovskaya Square in St. Petersburg with a new friend - Georgy Adamovich.

• How the Bezhetsky penates of Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova were born

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “Memoirs of Evgeny Evgenievich Stepanov, how the Bezhets penates of N. S. Gumilyov and A. A. Akhmatova were born. About the people who stood at the origins of this movement.

About doom

• Protocol testimony gr. Tagantseva

  Vladimir Tagantsev

  “The poet Gumilyov, after Herman’s story, turned to him at the end of November 1920. Gumilyov claimed that a group of intellectuals was connected with him, that he could dispose of this group and, in case of a speech, agreed to go out into the street.”

• Handwritten testimony of N. S. Gumilyov

  Nikolai Gumilyov

  “I hereby confirm that Vyacheslavsky was with me alone, and when I spoke with him about a group of people who could take part in the uprising, I had in mind not anyone specific, but just about ten people I met with acquaintances from among former officers who were capable, in in turn, organize and lead volunteers, who, in my opinion, would not be slow to join the group already formed.

• Gumilyov - as we knew him (On the fifth anniversary of the execution)

  Boris Khariton

  “I cite these little things that characterize Gumilyov’s appearance, because even his fans, with the exception of a small group of Petersburgers, know only his beautiful poems and could read very little about him, but meanwhile he was a very interesting, very special person. ."

• Tagantsevskaya riddle

  Alexander Amfiteatrov

  “Regarding my article on Gumilyov, Professor S, a former collaborator, one of the closest associates of the St. Petersburg World Literature, writes to me from France: “I would like to tell you something that I know. Gumilyov undoubtedly took part in the Tagantsev conspiracy and even played a prominent role there.

• About Trotsky's retinue train, the execution of Gumilyov and a basket of proclamations

  Georgy Ivanov

  “In winter, a young officer came to Gumilyov with someone's recommendation and offered to take part in the conspiracy. It seems that the proclamation was serious. It seems that this young officer was not personally a provocateur. He was the victim of a provocation. Gumilyov accepted the offer.

• sentry honor

  Alexander Amfiteatrov

  “I did not believe and continue not to believe in his involvement in that conspiracy, for an imaginary connection with which he was shot, in the so-called “Tagantsevo”. Here he had nothing to do with it - I have quite definite grounds for this assertion - just as most of the 61 people shot in this deplorable case had nothing to do with it, if only anyone at all had anything to do with it, starting with Tagantsev himself.

• Once again about the place of execution of N. S. Gumilyov

  Irina Punina

  “The place of execution of N. S. Gumilyov can be determined more precisely if the archives of the Cheka are available, but it is not known whether the places of executions were recorded at that time. It has been suggested that not all of them were shot at the same time. The newspaper report was published on September 1…”

• Half way from half truths

  D. Zubarev, F. Perchenok

  “A number of evidence relates specifically to N. S. Gumilyov. B. Khariton reported that Gumilyov showed him proclamations in the days of Kronstadt. I. Odoevtseva wrote about Gumilyov's confession of involvement in the underground, about weapons and money in his house, and then in an interview with Voprosy Literatury she remembered another member of the underground - an unnamed poet, whom Gumilyov told her about.

• Last text by N. S. Gumilyov

  Mikhail Elzon

  “Lord, forgive my sins, I am going on my last journey. N. Gumilyov.”

• The case of the "Petrograd military organization of V.N. Tagantsev"

  Vladimir Chernyaev

  “On July 24, 1921, the Cheka reported in the press about the liquidation of a major conspiracy headed by V. N. Tagantsev, which had the goal of an armed uprising in Petrograd, the North-Western and Northern regions. The Chekists presented the “Tagantsev Case” as a “second Kronstadt” (in March 1921). 833 people were prosecuted, 96 of them were shot by sentence and killed during detention, 83 were sent to a concentration camp, 11 were extradited from the province, imprisoned in a children's colony 1, 448 were released with and without credit for imprisonment (the fate of the others is unknown). »

• Death accepted with dignity

  Vladimir Polushin

  “August 25, 1921 will forever remain a black day in the history of the Russian Silver Age. On this day, one of the most remarkable poets of the early twentieth century was killed - a romantic, conquistador and traveler, a knight of Russian Poetry Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov.

• There are many ways to kill a poet

  Sergei Luknitsky

  “Published documents, materials, references, summaries, etc. are the story of the death and rehabilitation of Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, betrayed in 1921 by the authorities of the workers and peasants - by execution.

• In the hour of the hyena

  Yuri Zobnin

  “We do not know for certain the details of the execution in Bernhardovka. But in the low, marshy wasteland, not far from that forest glade, people gather every year at the end of August. And there stands a simple iron cross, welded from two pipes, and small boulders lie around: symbolic tombstones of poets killed and tortured in Russia ... "

• I defend Gumilyov

  Sergei Luknitsky

  “A lawyer, like a poet, suddenly becomes. 25 years ago, on the day of my father's death - he had not yet been buried, and already from the executive committee they came with a centimeter to calculate the surplus of the resulting living space, my mother said: "If you were a lawyer, we would not be so humiliated now ...". Before his death, dad said: “It’s a pity that you are a journalist, if you were a lawyer, you would have completed the rehabilitation of Gumilyov. I did not make it in time. Take care of your mother and don’t squander the archive.”

• Mysteries of the death of N. Gumilyov

  Anatoly Dolivo-Dobrovolsky

  “In August 1996, 75 years have passed since the tragic death of the great Russian poet Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, who was shot by Petrograd Chekists, presumably on August 24 or 25, somewhere in the area of ​​Berngardovka station near Petrograd, in the valley of the river. Lubya. August 1921 was a mournful month for Russian poetry: on August 7, another remarkable Russian poet, Alexander Blok, Gumilyov's eternal rival and antagonist, died.

• The death of N. S. Gumilyov as a literary fact

  Andrey Miroshkin

  “The work is devoted to the history of understanding the death of N. S. Gumilyov, and this event is studied as a literary fact. As is known, this concept was most clearly formulated by Yu. N. Tynyanov. Any fact of a writer's biography, like the whole biography as a whole, the researcher argued, can, under certain circumstances, become a literary fact.

• Panikhida for Gumilyov

  Igor Belza

  “I also told Boris Viktorovich that in the 1920s Gumilyov’s poems were often heard in Kyiv from the stage performed by Georgy Artabolevsky, who, with his pathetic reading of The Lost Tram, brought Kiev women to tears, which shed at memorial services for the murdered creator of this mournful masterpiece. Russian poetry. And he admitted to Tomashevsky that already in his student years, Gumilyov's work forever became an inseparable part of my spiritual life and entered my music.

• Crimean tent of Nikolai Gumilyov

  Alexey Vasiliev

  “In May 1921, Osip Mandelstam introduced Gumilyov to a certain Vladimir Pavlov, a young energetic man, a poet, an admirer of the work of Nikolai Stepanovich. New acquaintances soon found a common language - their relationship became friendly. Petersburg poets appreciated in Pavlov not so much his poems as "the ability to get alcohol."

• Historians have established the exact date of the death of Nikolai Gumilyov

  author unknown

  “In St. Petersburg, historians have established the exact date of the death of the poet Nikolai Gumilyov. When working with documents on executions in the period from 1918 to 1941, scientists managed to find marks about the extradition of the poet for the execution of the death sentence. Gumilyov was shot on the night of August 26, 1921, among 57 convicted in the case of a conspiracy against the Soviet regime.

Manuscripts and autographs

• Agreement with Alexander Vasilyevich Krestin

  Nikolai Gumilyov

  "Petrograd on December 29, 1919. We, the undersigned Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov, on the one hand, and Alexander Vasilyevich Krestin, on the other hand, have concluded this agreement."

War

• Poet at war. Part 3. Issue 7

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “The third and final part of the documentary chronicle “The Poet at War” will be devoted to the military service of Nikolai Gumilyov abroad, after he was seconded to the Russian Expeditionary Force in May 1917.”

• Adjutant of the Provisional Government

  I. A. Kurlyandsky

  “In the spring of 1917 (after being evacuated for treatment) Gumilyov lived in Petrograd with his old friend, the poet and translator M. L. Lozinsky. Nikolai Stepanovich "sincerely and naively was indignant at the lack of assembly, anarchy in the troops, stupid thinking."

• Volyn Odyssey of the poet Nikolai Gumilyov

  Sergei Gupalo

  “As soon as the First World War began, Nikolai Gumilyov immediately looks for an opportunity to get to the front. The main obstacle was health, as he had previously been declared unfit for military service due to strabismus.

• Poet and warrior of the First World War N. S. Gumilyov

  L. Sorina

  “We are slowly restoring our historical memory. The First World War still remains in Russia without heroes, without their names, without monuments to the soldiers who fell in the World War. The memorable date, the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War, was first celebrated in our country in 2004.”

• Non-academic comments

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “If Bulgakov’s formula “manuscripts do not burn” always worked in life, then this volume of N. S. Gumilyov’s epistolary legacy, most likely, should have opened with a letter to Anya Gorenko. And for all their correspondence, one volume was hardly enough ... "

• Non-academic comments - 2

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “Only seven months separate Gumilyov’s return from the first “hunting” trip to Abyssinia and a little more than three months from returning from his honeymoon trip with Akhmatova to Paris from the second - the most mysterious and long trip to Abyssinia, similar to flight. From whom and from what?

• Non-academic comments - 3

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “For reasons beyond the author's control, the third Non-Academic Commentaries came out with a delay of one issue. But, as they say, everything that is done is for the best. Because of this delay and thanks to a happy coincidence, firstly, a number of significant additions and corrections were made to the work.

• Recent non-academic comments - 4

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “In the first “military” issue, I will have to touch on the topic of the poet’s “private life”, although digging into it, building all kinds of speculation, making “discoveries” in this area is not particularly interesting for me personally. After all, that’s why she and “personal life” are the business of every person, and judging this from the outside is an occupation of little honor. However, the vast majority of biographical "monographs" focus on this.

• Poet at war. Part 1. Issue 1

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “The beginning of the military service of Nikolai Gumilyov, about its first two months, was described in detail at the end of the fourth “Non-Academic Commentaries”. However, before proceeding to a further description, we will try to answer one, involuntarily arising - "elementary question". Why did Nikolai Gumilyov suddenly decide to go to war?

• Poet at war. Part 1. Issue 2

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “As it was said in the previous issue, the Life Guards Ulansky regiment spent the beginning of November on vacation in Kovno, about which Gumilyov managed to write to Lozinsky, briefly talking about his “baptism of fire.”

• Poet at war. Part 1. Issue 3

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “Gumilyov returned to the regiment still in Poland before the start of its loading, although the end point of the route, as it turned out, was located much closer to Petrograd, in places already familiar from previous military operations.”

• Poet at war. Part 1. Issue 4

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “As it was said in the previous issue, despite the fact that, during the re-examination by the medical commission, they wanted to recognize Nikolai Gumilyov as unfit to continue military service, he, ignoring the opinion of the doctors, returned to the front at the very end of May or the beginning of June.”

• Poet at war. Part 1. Issue 5

  Evgeny Stepanov

  “As it was said, with a high degree of probability, in August Gumilyov briefly left the regiment, visiting Petrograd. Two suggestions were made about the possible timing of such a trip - either at the beginning of August or at the end of the month. Most researchers, relying on Akhmatova's story to Luknitsky in 1925 (or 1927), believe that such a trip took place at the beginning of the month.

• Poet at war. Part 2. Issue 6

  Evgeny Stepanov

  "The second part of the documentary chronicle "The Poet at War" will be devoted to the further military service of Nikolai Gumilyov after his transfer from the Life Guards Uhlan Regiment to the 5th Alexandria Hussar Regiment."

Notes

• Duel of writers

  author unknown

  “In yesterday's issue “St. Rumors "reported about the incident between the writers Maximilian Voloshin and Gumilyov and the possibility of a duel between them."

• The Case of the Writers-Duelists

  author unknown

  “The district court considered today the case of the poet Gumilyov and the novelist M. Voloshin. The first was accused of being challenged to a duel, the second of accepting the challenge.

• Gumilyov's poetry

  Mikhail Bestuzhev

  “Seven years ago, the young poet N. Gumilyov published a book of poems entitled “The Way of the Conquistadors”; in 1908, his "Romantic Flowers" came out, which then screamed into the book "Pearls", published in 1910, and this year a new collection of his poems appeared - "Alien Sky". In them, N. Gumilyov declared himself a talented poet, who knows no rival among the young in the ability to gracefully master the music of verse. His last two books can be considered already quite mature and finished.

• Book (09/24/1912)

  author unknown

  “M. Kuzmin, who was silent for a long time, wrote a long story “Dreamers”, which will be published in the Niva magazine. This magazine, in general, rather energetically attracts such notorious "Appolonists" as Auslender, Gumilyov, Kuzmin and others.

• Book (8.10.1912)

  author unknown

  “Petersburg is expected to publish a new monthly magazine, Hyperborea.”

• Bronze Horseman

  author unknown

  “A new society of the club of literary figures has opened in Petrograd - the Bronze Horseman.”

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov (1886-1921) was born in Kronstadt near St. Petersburg. His father was a Kronstadt ship's doctor. At the age of 8, Nikolai was sent to the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium, but for health reasons he was transferred to home schooling. When Nikolai was 9 years old, the family moved to St. Petersburg. At the age of 10, Gumilyov entered the Gurevich gymnasium. When Gumilyov was in the 4th grade, due to his brother's illness, the family moved to the Caucasus, to Tiflis. Nikolay lost a year, having studied twice in the 4th grade.

Once again, he stayed for the second year at the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium (he returned in the 7th grade), from which he was almost expelled. The director, Innokenty Annensky, stood up for the young poet. Gumilyov graduated from high school only at the age of 20 and left for Paris, studied at the Sorbonne, where he published the literary magazine Sirius.

At the age of 26, in 1912, Gumilyov entered St. Petersburg University at the Faculty of History and Philology.

The beginning of creativity

According to Akhmatova, Gumilyov composed his first poem at the age of 6. The poem of the high school student Gumilyov was published in the Tiflis Leaflet.

The first collection of poems "The Way of the Conquistadors" was published at the expense of the Gumilyovs when the poet was 19 years old. This collection attracted the attention of Bryusov, who became the young poet's mentor.

The second collection, "Romantic Flowers", was published by 22-year-old Gumilyov.

From 1908 to 1910 Gumilyov was a frequent guest at Vyacheslav Ivanov's "Tower", listened to lectures in Society of zealots of the artistic word, headed the department of criticism in the Apollo magazine (editor S. Makovsky), where he published Letters on Russian Poetry.

Gumilyov the traveler

While still studying at the Sorbonne, Gumilyov traveled to Italy and France. The first trip to the East, to the Levant, Gumilyov undertook in 1907.

Having received money for the second collection, the poet went on a second journey. After passing through Turkey and Greece, he ended up in Egypt, where he ran out of money. Gumilyov returned to Petersburg.

Gumilyov's next expeditions were organized to Africa. The result of these expeditions was the replenishment of the Kunstkamera with valuable exhibits.

In 1908, Gumilyov visited Abyssinia, made acquaintance with the Negus Menelik 2 and studied the life of the people in the article “Did Menelik die?”

The second trip to Abyssinia took place in 1913. Gumilyov set himself the goal of studying and civilizing the wild tribes in the Danakil desert. The Academy of Sciences corrected his itinerary. Gumilyov with his companions (nephew Nikolai Sverchkov and the Turkish consul Mozar Bey, whom he met in Istanbul) traveled a path full of dangers.

Lyubov Gumilyova

At the age of 20, in Paris, Gumilyov met Elizaveta Dmitrieva, whom he proposed to in 1909. But she preferred Maximilian Voloshin, although she subsequently did not marry him. But because of her, Gumilyov and Voloshin fought in a duel, in which no one was hurt.

In 1910 Gumilev married Akhmatova. In 1912, their son Leo was born. The couple were soul mates. But gradually the relationship fizzled out. Divorce became possible in 1918 in Soviet Russia.

In 1919 Gumilyov married Anna Engelhardt.

mature creativity. Gumilyov-master

In 1910, Gumilyov's third collection "Pearls" was published, which included the poem "Captains" and the previous collection "Romantic Flowers". Some critics still called the new collection of the 26-year-old master a student one.

In 1911, the association "Workshop of Poets" was created (included Mandelstam, Gorodetsky, Akhmatova), in which Gumilyov had the title of "syndic" (master). It was in the "Workshop of Poets" that a new direction was born - acmeism, which, in contrast to symbolism, stood up for the accuracy and objectivity of images. Members of the association founded the publishing house and the journal "Hyperborey". The "workshop" existed until 1914.

In 1912, the collection "Alien Sky" was published, in which the first songs of the poem "The Discovery of America" ​​were printed.

The theme of the First World War is reflected in the collection Quiver (1916).

The collection "To the Blue Star" (poetry 1918, published in 1923) is dedicated to Gumilyov's love for Elena du Boucher, a Parisian whom he met in 1917.

In 1918, the collection "Bonfire" was published.

In Soviet Russia, Gumilyov occupied an active social and literary position. He lectured on poetic creativity, was a member, then chairman of the Petrograd department of the All-Russian Union of Poets, participated in Gorky's project "History of Culture in Pictures", offering his poems and plays.

As the head of the "Sounding Shell" studio, Gumilyov taught the skill of young poets.

Gumilyov-military

In 1914 Gumilyov volunteered for the front. During the years of the First World War, Gumilyov showed himself as a brave intelligence officer and officer, he was awarded three St. George's crosses. In between military service, Gumilyov was engaged in literary activities, traveled around Europe.

Arrest and execution

Gumilyov did not hide his monarchist convictions in Soviet Russia. At the beginning of August 1921, he was arrested as a member of the anti-Soviet Tagantsev conspiracy. On August 24, Gumilyov was sentenced to death, and on August 26 he was shot. The place of execution and burial is unknown. Gumilyov was rehabilitated in 1992, but it remains a mystery whether he participated in the conspiracy, simply knew about it, or there was no conspiracy at all.

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov (1886-1921) was born in Kronstadt. Father is a marine doctor. He spent his childhood in Tsarskoye Selo, studied at the gymnasium in St. Petersburg and Tiflis. He wrote poetry from the age of 12, the first printed performance at the age of 16 was a poem in the newspaper "Tiflis Leaf".

In the autumn of 1903, the family returned to Tsarskoe Selo, and Gumilyov graduated from the gymnasium there, the director of which was Ying. Annensky (studied poorly, passed the final exams at the age of 20). The turning point is an acquaintance with the philosophy of F. Nietzsche and the verses of the Symbolists.

In 1903 he met the schoolgirl A. Gorenko (the future Anna Akhmatova). In 1905, the author published the first collection of poems - "The Way of the Conquistadors", a naive book of early experiences, which, nevertheless, has already found its own energetic intonation and the image of a lyrical hero, a courageous, lonely conqueror, has appeared.

In 1906, after graduating from high school, Gumilyov leaves for Paris, where he listens to lectures at the Sorbonne and makes acquaintances in the literary and artistic environment. He attempts to publish the Sirius magazine, in the three published issues of which he is published under his own name and under the pseudonym Anatoly Grant. He sends correspondence to the magazine "Vesy", the newspapers "Rus" and "Rannee Utro". In Paris, and also in the author's edition, the second collection of Gumilyov's poems, "Romantic Poems" (1908), dedicated to A. A. Gorenko, was published.

With this book, the period of mature creativity of N. Gumilyov begins. V. Bryusov, who praised - in advance - his first book, states with satisfaction that he was not mistaken in his predictions: now the poems are "beautiful, elegant and, for the most part, interesting in form." In the spring of 1908, Gumilyov returned to Russia, made acquaintance with the St. Petersburg literary world (Vyacheslav Ivanov), acted as a constant critic in the newspaper Rech (later he began to publish poems and stories in this publication).

In autumn he makes his first trip to the East - to Egypt. Enters the law faculty of the capital's university, soon transferred to the historical and philological. In 1909 he took an active part in the organization of a new edition - the Apollon magazine, in which later, until 1917, he published poems and translations and maintained a permanent column "Letters on Russian Poetry".

Collected in a separate book (Pg., 1923), Gumilyov's reviews give a vivid picture of the literary process of the 1910s. At the end of 1909, Gumilyov left for Abyssinia for several months, and when he returned, he published a new book -.

April 25, 1910 Nikolai Gumilyov marries Anna Gorenko (their relationship broke up in 1914). In the autumn of 1911, a "Poets' Workshop" was created, which manifested its autonomy from symbolism and the creation of its own aesthetic program (Gumilyov's article "The Heritage of Symbolism and Acmeism", published in 1913 in "Apollo"). The Gumilev's poem (1911), which was included in his collection (1912), was considered the first acmeist work in the Workshop of Poets. At this time, Gumilyov's reputation as a "master", "sindik" (head) of the Poets' Workshop, one of the most significant modern poets, was firmly established.

In the spring of 1913, as the head of the expedition from the Academy of Sciences, Gumilyov left for Africa for six months (to replenish the collection of the ethnographic museum), kept a travel diary (excerpts from the African Diary were published in 1916, a more complete text was published recently).

At the beginning of the First World War, N. Gumilyov, a man of action, volunteered for a lancer regiment and deserved two St. George's crosses for his bravery. In "Birzhevye Vedomosti" in 1915 his "Notes of a Cavalryman" were published.

At the end of 1915, a collection was published, his dramaturgic works - "Child of Allah" (in "Apollo") and "Gondla" (in "Russian Thought") - were published in magazines. The patriotic impulse and intoxication with danger soon pass, and he writes in a private letter: "Art is dearer to me than both war and Africa."

Gumilyov goes to the hussar regiment and seeks to be sent to the Russian expeditionary force on the Thessaloniki front, but along the way he is delayed in Paris and London until the spring of 1918. This period includes a cycle of his love poems, which compiled the posthumously published book "Kenya Star" (Berlin, 1923) .

In 1918, upon returning to Russia, Gumilyov worked intensively as a translator, preparing the epic about Gilgamesh, poems by French and English poets for the publishing house World Literature. Writes several plays, publishes poetry books