Russian Poets Before and After Revolution

NIKOLAI GUMILIOV

1886-1921

Nikolai Gumiliov, photo, Appelbaum.

Not yet once you will remember me…

With these words, Nikolai Gumiliov began one of his poems, addressing them to a woman he was infatuated with at the time (Ekaterina Debus, French with Russian roots.) She remembered the poet and even tried to find Anna Akhmatova, his former wife. Still, the country was prohibited from pronouncing his name and remembering the poet for almost seventy years. Only after the crash of the Soviet Union did Russia remember this name - Nikolai Gumiliov, and three volumes of his poetry and prose were published in 1991. Too late, none of his close relatives, not his first wife, the famous poet herself, Anna Akhmatova, nor their son, Lev Gumiliov, four times arrested by the KGB and freed only after Stalin’s cult was unmasked, moreover his parents or friends could have imagined in their time that the name of the poet–Nikolai Gumilov will find his glory.

Nikolay Gumiliov lived a short, brave, and adventurous life. For his 35 years, he has traveled a lot, including Europe, Africa, and the East. Without special military school and having the squinting right eye, he excelled in WWI, receiving two orders of St. George from Nikolai II. Our famous literary theoretic, Mikhail Bakhtin, remembered how he met Gumiliov at the Petrograd Philosophical Society in December 1914: He was in uniform, officer, guard… scull and bones were on his epaulets. Legions of death, it seems. During the war, in 1917, Gumiliov was sent to Paris for the Military mission of the Russian Provisional Government. After the Revolution and Brest’s peace agreement, new Soviet Russia got out of the war, and the military part of the Russian Army in France– 16,000 Russians turned out needless to the new Soviet Government. But Gumiliov decided to return to Petrograd, as his Boris Anrep told: He longed to return to Russia. His wife, Anna Akhmatova, and their son were there. The other woman, Anna Engelgardt, also was waiting for him.

Anna Akhmatova, 1914. Artist O.Della-Vos- Kardovskaya

The marriage of Gumiliov and Akhmatova is impossible to call happy, though he was in love with Anna Gorenko (her real name), probably from the time of their first meeting, in 1903, at Christmas. Soon, he gave her a gold ring with a diamond as their secret engagement. She told this story to her friends: He was 17, and she- only 14, being a student at a female grammar school in the Tsar Village. They were in her room, and suddenly, they heard her mother’s steps close to her room. She became nervous and, trying to remove the ring, she dropped it into a slit between the floorboards. Gumiliov became so upset that began to lift the floor but couldn’t find the ring. There is the Russian saying: what fell down, it is lost. Or if it went through the slit, it’s ominous, and Gumiliov believed this omen. But he waited seven years for her consent on the marriage after all their tiffs and quarrels:

Masquerade

For the others, you will stay eternally strange

And only for me –infinitely known,

And believe me, I hide from people and masks

That I know you, tsarina of Sodom.

Under the mask, I hear her youthful laughter.

… … …

She slipped away from me like a snake

And pulled off her mask and looked into my eyes,

And I understood a lot in that innermost hour

But my terrible oath I don’t break.

Tsarina, tsarina, you see, I am your captive,

Take my body, take my soul.

Both families, Gumiliov and Gorenko, lived in Tsar Selo, as it was called in Russian. His father was a naval doctor, and his mother was from a noble family, L’vovs, who owned the ancestral estate Birches in Riazan’s province. Her father was also employed by the Navy as a high-profile navy engineer.

Tsar Nikolai II feared so much of the terrorists in Petersburg, so he decided to live in the village, in his summer palace. As Akhmatova remembered, there was a lot of gossip about the Tsar court’s life.

Both Nikolai and Anna were fascinated by poetry, and both wrote poems. If Anna was a good student, Nikolai was an idler; during his classes, he was busy with reading. His favorite was Mark Twain, Tom Sawyer, and Huckleberry Finn. He called these books Iliad and Odysseys of Childhood. He read adventure novels or kept himself busy by drawing endlessly during his classes. His teachers threatened to repeat one year or two or throw him out of the gymnasium, but the school director Innokenty Annensky, a well-known poet, stood up for him, recognizing in the young man a poetical talent.

In October 1905, at 19, he published his first book of poems, Road of the Conquistadors. (On his mother’s means.) Romantic poetry of conquerors and exotic countries will be the themes of his following books. In the summer of 1906, he went to Paris to study in Sorbonne. He published his second book, Romantic Flowers, in 1908. Both books marked the influence of symbolism, which he later categorically refused, starting a new direction in Russian literature – Akmeism.

While poetry was his life, his passion was a journey to the far-off lands. The confirmation of his passion became the refined poem Giraffe. Reading the poem, we won’t even understand that the author had never been in Africa, on the lake Chad.

Giraffe

Today, I see your glance is unusually sad

And your hands are unusually thin, hugging your knees.

Listen: far off, a long way off, by the lake of Chad

Wanders exquisite giraffe.

He is graceful, lithe, and voluptuous.

An enchanting pattern decorates his skin,

Only the moon can compare with it,

Splitting up and swinging on the lake’s water.

I know the fairy tales of the mysterious countries

About a black maiden and the passion of a young chief.

But you inhaled the heavy mist for so long,

You don’t want to believe in anything but rain.

And how can I tell you about the tropical garden,

About the tall palms, about the smell of the inconceivable grass…

Are you crying? Listen… far off, on the lake of Chad

Wanders an exquisite giraffe.

In the same 1908, 22-years Gumiliov departs for Egypt, hiding from his parents on his trip. From this first trip, the exotics of Africa and hunting wild animals would follow him constantly throughout his short life.

After returning from Egypt, he entered Petersburg University, Philology- History Faculty. Full of enthusiasm, in the fall of the next year, he opened an art society – Verse Academy together with Viacheslav Ivanov (his famous Tower you have to remember from my essay about Blok), with participants such as Blok, Annensky (director of his former gymnasium), Makovsky, and others. V. Ivanov gives his Tower for the meetings. They discuss poetry and the rules of versification. But it’s not enough for him.

1909- He publishes a new poetical journal, Apollo, with Makovsky. Journal would exist until 1917, after the Revolution, when Bolsheviks closed it as not wanted. This journal becomes the bulwark of a new poetical direction - Acmeism. The meaning of Greek – acme is a point, a top. Acmeists chose it as their method: to write to the supreme degree of everything as real, concrete, and clear. They also used the term “clarism” because of the principle of clarity in their poetry. Word has to be exact and precise; verse has to be “impassive, as marble or metal. They denied completely ”labored” Symbolism. They offered a cult of a thing, a materialistic approach to poetical language.

It was a relatively small group: Gumiliov, their leader; C. Gorodetsky, A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, M, Kuzmin, B. Sadovsky, M. Zenkevich, and V. Narbut- the best-known of the group. Some other poets could come for discussions and leave or stay in the group. It was a world of young, talented, enthusiastic people with raging passions and ambitions, sometimes leading to scandals. So, on 19 November 1909, Gumiliov, in the artist Golovin’s studio, showed some displeasure about poetess Cherubina de Gabrian (pseudonym). Max Voloshin, close to Acmeists, decided that Gumiliov was very rude in his words about his friend- poetess, and slapped Gumiliov in his face. How had Gumiliov reacted? Like Russian poets, Pushkin and Lermontov before him_ called Voloshin to duel. His seconds were his acmeists friends, Znosko-Borovsky and M. Kuzmin, who left the description of the duel in his Diary of 1934, published only in 1998, after the end of Communists. In the eyes of Communists, Kuzmin could be prosecuted twice- as an acmeist and a homosexual. He was banned but stayed alive, though his life was miserable. His best years were with the acmeists, and here is the description of the duel:

The location for the duel was chosen- Old Village. Voloshin’s second was Count Tolstoy (nothing to do with Lev Tolstoy, but he had a very interesting biography- first- emigration to Paris; then, he returned and became Stalin’s favorite.) All four of them had dinner at the restaurant, where they discussed the details of the duel and where and how to get pistols. Gumilev, surrounded by Tower's tragic love, was calm and touching. Slept very little. In the early morning of 22 November, Sunday, Gumiliov awoke calm, prayed, and was ready. Went to breakfast with Albert. On the street took a motor (taxi). It was crowded but merry. Nearly collided with the first motor, which stuck in the snow. Took up the position on the marsh and fell through the water. The count managed well. The adversaries with the long pistols in their hands looked very picturesque. When a shot rang out, they stayed safe and sound. Max misfired. Another shot. Another misfire. Stopped the duel. Drove back to town. Stack in the snow. Set off again. It was merry. Later, Kolia (Gumiliov’s short name) pined about the futility of the duel. (Life of Nikolai Gumiliov. Remembrances of Contemporaries. L. 1991)

In Apollo, Gumiliov published a cycle of poems, Captains, calling them the Discoverers of the New Lands:

In the polar seas and the southern

They don’t fear hurricane

Let sea rave and lash

A crest of waves lifts to the sky

Not one tremble in front of thunder.

Not one furls sails.

1910, 25 April, he married Anna Gorenko after seven years of declarations of love. Wedding ceremony in Kiev. Why- Kiev? Maybe because her father was Ukrainian, Gorenko is the Ukrainian name. Troubles in the family life began after Kiev, as Gumilev noticed in his poem: From Liar of Snake, 1911:

From liar of snake

From the town of Kiev

I took not a wife but a witch

Call her-[she] winces

Hug her-[she] bristles

When comes out the moon- [she] languishes,

And looks and moans,

As she buries somebody --

And wants to drown herself.

… …

Keeps silent-only shivers

And all the time, she is feeble

I pity her, the guilty,

A bird, the injured

A birch, the sapped

Over dry spring, conjured by God.

They spent their honeymoon in Paris.

From the poem She of 1912, you can see how well he understood his wife- poet, and how he loved her:

I know woman: silence,

Bitter fatigue from words

… …

Her soul opened greedily

Only to the copper music of verse.

In the face of life, pleasingly sharing,

[She is] Arrogant and deaf.

… …

Impossible to call her beautiful,

But she is my happiness.

 Their friends remembered that Gumiliov and Akhmatova had a difficult but poetic relationship. Akhmatova about Gumiliov: Very early, I became almost Lilith for Gumiliov (in his poems), i.e., a mean beginning in a woman… He told me he couldn’t listen to music because it reminded him of me.

In the same1910, he went to Africa to hunt wild animals.

191O was a year full of events for him. He also published a new book of poems, A Pearl, dedicated to his older friend- symbolist V. Briusov.

In the fall of 1911, Acmeists organized the Guild of Poets, which officially became a new trend in Russian Literature. They opened their cabaret, Stray Dog, in the basement of a building across from the Russian Museum, Petersburg’s downtown. Entrance to the cabaret was only by invitation. Sergei Sudeikin, an artist close to Acmeists, painted the walls with flowers of evil (under Baudelaire’s influence) and birds. (Nothing was saved for the absence of photos.) All the wall- paintings, provocative, mysterious, and humorous… transferred patrons into a world far away from reality… into the magic of the theatrical world, in the words of N. Evreinov. M. Kuzmin created a Hymn for cabaret, From this basement’s birthday… The idea of cabaret came to Boris Pronin, a theater activist and organizer of literary cabarets in Petersburg and Moscow.

The menu was very simple and cheap. Every late evening, after the theater performances, the invited public came to the cabaret for poets’ reading and stayed until five- to six am. For that was made a small stage. The names of the poets reading their work were well known to the public: Gumiliov, Mandestam, Kuzmin, Akhmatova, and Mayakovsky. Blok was never there, though they had invited him many times. N. Pakhomov, director of museums and Lermontov’s specialist, remembers cabaret: he often saw Mayakovsky in his striped blouse, one stripe is black, another- yellow, black-yellow, black-yellow, was sitting on the proscenium and in his incredible voice announced the next reader. And sometimes he also read his verses… Akhmatova, Mandelstam…He threw back his head and didn’t read… his verses… it was something special,… his drawling voice, so, … very interesting. He continued, Akhmatova read …I remember her very well proportioned, good figure, in the tightly fit black dress. She read: I wore a black skirt/ to seem shapelier…

In 1915, on 11 February, happened a famous scandal in cabaret. The leading cause was Mayakovsky’s reading of his poem To You, a satirical challenge to the bourgeoisie, pharmaceutical chemists, as ironically he called them. Akhmatova remembered: It was like an action of thunder, even fainting-fits happened among the public… They screamed, but Mayakovsky was standing on the proscenium, totally calm and smoking a huge cigar… Yes, I remember him like this: Very beautiful, very young (22 years), with big eyes, among howling philistines. in the notes of O. Berggolts, One Hundred and Forty Suns, Literary Russia, 1963, #129).

Remembering Stray Dog, Mayakovsky wrote in 1926 that the Bohemians were a society of refined, witty, and talented people who were there, by no means, to drink.

While participating in the work of Apollo, Guild of Poets, and Stray Dog, Gumiliov became a father. On October 1, 1912, Anna Akhmatova gave birth to their son, Lev. Unfortunately for the child, his parents were so preoccupied with their disagreements about life that the child was sent to Gumiliov’s parents to their estate, The Birches, in the Riazan’ province. (The apostrophized sign means that “n” is pronounced as a soft “n”.)

In 1913, Gumiliov made his next trip to Africa, visiting Turkey and Egypt on the way to Somalia. The Academy of Science's Geography Department organized this trip to study the lives of the aborigines, and Gumiliov supervised the group because of his knowledge of Africa.

1914- WWI. Gumiliov, the initiator in everything, volunteered for service in the Tsar Guard. But he couldn’t pass the test on shooing in the target because he suffered from a squint in his right eye. For the next try, he, imperceptibly for the others, took the gun into his left hand and was successful. He loved the army despite the death, the hunger, and the endless tiredness:

Like a dog on a heavy chain,

A machine gun yaps behind the woods.

And shrapnels hum like the bees

Collecting brightly red honey.

He sent to Apollo his war articles, Cavalryman’s Notes, and poems, sometimes patriotic, like this: The Lord’s Prayer / Better than bread feeds us. It was in the time when the army suffered from hunger. Wrote Akhmatova, You know that poets are prophets, believing that this war is victorious and he will stay alive. He got his first and later second Cross of Saint George and received NCO, then ensign and sent to the Officer school, but got pneumonia and went to Yalta (a city on the Black Sea) for convalescence. He published his military poems in the book Quiver.

Returning to Petrograd, he immersed himself in work at Apollo, spending nights in Stray Dog. At that time, he had a lover, beautiful Larisa Reisner, future Valkyrie of Revolution. He didn’t even hide his affair with her. All his friends knew about it. All but Akhmatova. Once, she went to the other artistic café, Comedian’s Shelter, and, leaving, she said goodbye to Larisa, whom she saw there. It touched Larisa to tears; disturbed, she told Akhmatova that she didn’t expect Anna to talk to her. Later, speaking about the liaison between her husband and Larisa to her friend (Luknitsky, Meetings with Anna Akhmatova), she said: I didn’t know that. He met Reisner at the House of Rendezvous on Gorokhvoi. Larisa Reisner left her notes about this affair: I loved him so much, I would go anywhere to him. By the way, they both were married.

Nevertheless, Gumiliov returned to the Army. In 1915, he was decorated by his second Saint George, as he wrote about it in his poem: a billet didn’t touch his breast,/ But St. George touched it twice. Akhmatova didn’t share his patriotism as many of their friends.

The next several years of war and Russian turmoil were dark and incomprehensible for our participants. Anna Akhmatova, still his wife but hoping for divorce, and the other woman, Anna Engelgardt, craving to be his wife, both received rare letters from Gumiliov from different strange places such as Salonika, or less exotic but more pleasant, as Paris. What Russian Army was doing in Paris? It became more evident only recently when archives were open again- after the end of the Soviet Union.

To be continued

My dear readers, I hope my modest wish for you to pay for my essays, Russian Poets Before and After Revolution, won’t be a big burden to you. Writing my essays is a very pleasant job for me. Still, it takes a lot of time and work to find and read the material about my poets, to read and choose the best poems, to collect all the necessary pieces together, and to translate all the material into English.

Thank you.