Metaphors of the path in the art and life of Nikolay Gumilev

Lecture 8 Metaphors of the path in the art and life of Nikolay Gumilev Plan of the lection: Biography and biographical myth. First romantic experiences. Genre of ballad. Time, history and modern age in poetry. The theme of exotics in the poetry by Nikolay Gumilev The World War I Philosophy of history: some thought upon The book Pillar of fire as the testament of the Poet Nikolay Gumilyov Video 1 First poetic experiences of young Nikolay Gumilyov Good day to everyone! In this section we are going to study the poetry by Nikolay Gumilyov. Watching the first video we will focus on the most typical problems (points) of the perception of his personality and poetry, as well as on the first books written by him. Nikolay Gumilyov is quiet fascinating both as an author and a character. And I didn’t use the word “character” by mistake. People usually say that Gumilyov’s life is no less interesting than his poems. Indeed, during his life Gumilyov went to several trips to Africa, took part in a duel and then in the World War I – as the soldier both of the Western and Eastern Fronts. He married the poet Anna Akhmatova, and then divorced her; had continuous conflicts with Alexander Block. And, finally, he was shot on charges of a counter-revolutionary conspiracy (plots) – this becoming the tragic and final point in his fate. I am afraid that if any writer provided his fictional character with such a biography, we might blame him for the lack of realism and truthfulness. Nevertheless, the fate of Nikolay Gumilyov was directly bounded with the same mindset to the creative life as the fate of Alexander Block. Gumilyov was writing poems about bravery, travelling, honesty of fate and its acceptance – and that’s the principles he built his own life upon. So, let us trace the course of our hero’s life as if we were reading a book about him. He was born in the family of Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilyov (28th of July 1936 – 6th of February 1910), a ship's physician from Kronstadt. His mother Gumilyova (née L’vova) Anna Ivanovna (4th of June 1854 – 24th of December 1922) was a very hospitable woman. Anna Akhmatova remembered her stay at Slepnyovo, Gumilyovy’s estate in Tver Region with an incredible warmth, paying special attention to how kind and hospitable Anna Ivanovna had been to her. The poet’s son, historian Lev Gumilyov, also shared very warm memories about his grandmother. Nikolay Steepanovich studied at Tsarskoye Selo Gymnasium chaired by the Headmaster Innokentiy Annensky – Gumilyov called him his Teacher and treated him with an incredible awe. Annensky was among the first people who read his poems. In 1906, when Gumilyov was 20, he finished school and went to Sorbonne to continue his education. His acquaintance to Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam dates back to that period. It is worth noting that both poets belonged to totally different social classes which members rarely became friends. The pale of settlement of Jews had still been prescriptive in Russia, so Mandelstam was facing anti-Semitism several times in during his life. However, in case of Gumilyov, nothing prevented them from becoming close friends and save this relationship through their whole lives. A year before Gumilyov entered Sorbonne in 1905, they published his book of poems, ‘The Way conquistadores’. So, already in the title of his first book, Nikolai Stepanovich states several points that are crucial for understanding all his future works. First of all, this is the mythologeme of the Path. Gumilyov, who named his muse as the Muse of Far Wanderings, deliberately built as a kind of Path, more biographical than mystical. His literary character, his persona thus inevitably turned out to be a traveler. From other variants of the Hero of the Way - a vagabond, a wanderer, a rogue, a pilgrim-pilgrim, he was distinguished by some warlike brave spirit. The hero of Gumilyov is, first of all, a warrior-hero. This explains the word the conquistadores in the title. Very often Nikolai Gumilyov is compared and likened to Rudyard Kipling. There is indeed a great literary similarity between them two (although it is much more striking between Konstantin Simonov and Kipling). However, one should not assume that the Russian poet approved colonialism and was an aggressive militarist. No, not all – despite the fact that he devoted his poems to Columbus, conquistadors and described war. It is highly unlikely that a companion of Haile Selassie I, who described Bedouin culture in details and considered himself a Bedouin by spirit (he even placed a respective epigraph to the ‘The Way conquistadores’ would deserve such a treatment. When he was talking about conquests, he meant first of all the conquest of the material world, the world of things – bringing back to yourself the whole joy of physical well-being. If Hlebnikov proclaim the war for time, then Gumilyov can by truly entitled as the fighter for the joys of Earthly existence. It is not by accident that an eternal “body-mind” dichotomy was so often analyzed by him. At the same time, conquistador is something exotic, that is a traveler that enters a new world full of colors. All these motives and themes resonate throughout whole Gumilyov’s art. However, ‘The Way conquistadores’ is more like a book for the young people. In the aftermath, the poet would include the most successful and bright poems in his second book by changing them significantly. His first poetic experiences and first published book lead to the correspondence with Brusov who became another poetical tutor to Gumilyov. Meanwhile, he makes correspondence with Anna Gorenko, the future Akhmatova who she met in Tsarskoye Selo and who was to become such a significant person in his life and fate. In the autumn 1908 Nikolay Stepanovich made his dream come true – for the first time in his life, he went to Africa. However, it was just an Egypt rooted and explored by European tourists in some way. Even Balmont had been there. However, in his future travelling Gumilyov would go further and further from the traditional, typical tourist paths. As for Egypt which was full of European Amateurs of Antiquity, it will be reflected in Gumilyov’s piece “Don Juan” – an amazingly curious travesty with eternal story (plot). Before this, in January 1908, Gumilyov published another book in Paris – “Romantic flowers”. In general, he never denied his genetic bond with the poets of Parnas, especially his passion for Théophile Gautier. “Romantic flowers” are partly rewritten texts from the first book, and in this new versions of them one may see steps to the future wonderful clarity: the poet thickens the images as if he were getting rid of the past fog of symbolism. It can be clearly seen even on the language level: long arrows of adjectives get substituted by nouns. The book “Romantic flowers” came out with dedication to Anna Andreevna Gorenko. And then 1910 became the year of development for both his biography and art theme. In 1910 his “Pearls” collection was published which can be considered the last so-called “symbolic collection” written by this poet. On the 25th of April of the same year Gumilyov got married to Anna Andreevna Gorenko (Akhmatova) at the St.Nicholas Church in The Mykilska Slobidka (Kiev). This marriage was one of the most spoken event of the time, evoking loads of conversations and gossips in the bohemian Saint-Petersburg. Lots of young women who considered themselves Anna’s friends assured that deep down she didn’t truly love Gumilyov. Anna Akhmatova herself made an ironic remark that she just desperately wanted to get out of Kiev when Nikolay promised her life in Paris. Those girls, who were in love with Gumilyov, stated that they were his true love, not Anna. One of the poet’s biographers even explained all disasters and failures in Gumilyov’s life by marriage to Akhmatova, mainly basing his statement on her famous line «My loved ones were brought to destruction. /By the force of my spell: they are gone». . A lot of people explained their divorce by the fact that Akhmatova as a poet quickly gained much more popularity than Gumilyov. However, Gumilyov himself stayed rather calm (at least outward) and compared their marriage to the famous Browning couple where Elizabeth had been popular than her husband during their lifetime while Robert’s poems became worshipped afterwards. This comparison is much deeper than it may seem at the first glance: their poems also bared some resemblance to say nothing about the fact than Nikolay Stepanovich was a rather a talented translator and his translations of Browning poems are one of the best. As for Gumilyov’s attitude towards Akhmatova, later in one of his last poems ‘My readers’ he would write: And when a beautiful woman, the only woman in their world, says: Not you, I don’t love you, I teach them to smile and leave and never come back. These verses clearly resemble other ones – a famous poem by Akhmatova: And shouted, choking: «I meant it all in fun. Don’t leave me, or I’ll die of pain.» He smiled at me — oh so calmly, terribly — and said: «Why don’t you get out of the rain?» So, that’s some sort of a dialogue between two pets through the decade where Gumilyov who once had written about Akhmatova “ “ speaks about her in this way “ “ (it is this quote that help to identify the addresse. I think is the best evidence of what Nikolay Gumilyov really felt towards Anna Akhmatova during their relationships. Video 2 The development of Acmeism and participation in the World War 1 Good day to everyone! In this video we will discuss in detail some issues concerning the development of Acmeism, the further development of his individual poetry and also pay attention to the events of the World War 1. In 1911 together with Gorodetskiy, Gumilyov founded "Workshop of Poets" that was formed in opposition to the “Tower” and became the core of the future Acmeism. We discussed this on our previous lecture. "Workshop of Poets" gives rise to the new movement, so in 1912 they published two manifestos by Acmeists, one of them being written by Gumilyov. In the same year “The Alien Sky” went public – the book that is generally considered to be the first Acmeistic one by Gumilyov. Anna Andreevna Akhmatova stated, though, that all Gumilev’s poetry was remarkably consistent making an integral and united way from the first to the last book. The same undoubtedly can be said about his life path. On the 1st of October 1912 the couple had their first baby – Lev Gumilyov, a future historian and geographer. The very circumstances of his birth – the eve of the World War, revolution, the death of his father, acts of repression he himself would suffer from in the future – all that did not promise him an easy life. In 1913, despite the birth of his son and his wife being in a bad health condition, Gumilyov made an expedition to Africa in cooperation with the Academy of Sciences. Later, his son, who spent a lot of time on scientific expeditions, would fully understand and justify him, saying that such proposals should never be declined easily. In 1914 the World War 1 began. At the beginning of it Gumilyov he applied as volunteer to the cavalry to become an uhlan. Though his health condition gave him a ground for exemption from military service, Gumilyov insisted on, nonetheless, being admitted as a volunteer and soon after training he was sent to the Eastern Front. By that time his relationship with Anna Akhmatova were in crisis but war and the constant risk of death postponed their divorce. These military events are reflected in the book "Notes of a Cavalryman". It stands out somehow against the background of other works of literature about the World War I. First of all, it has very little hatred of the enemy in it. The poet retains a chivalrous attitude towards the Germans - they are valiant opponents in his opinion. In addition, the very nature of the Eastern Front differs from the Western one, with its trench lines and Flanders mud. Whether this or the calm disposition of the soul of the author himself explains the somewhat different tonality of the author of these notes. At the same time, in the war texts by Gumilyov there is also a lot that brings him closer to other front-line poets, such as Richard Aldington. And this participation in the war sharply distinguishes everything that is written in the trench from what was written in the rear area. In comparison to the latter, even the militarist Ernst Jünger will seem to be a reserved protocol operator. Cross of St. George 2nd class was firstly awarded to Gumilyov for his participation in reconnaissance missions in Volhynia. A poem Lullaby by Akhmatova has such verses: Долетают редко вести К нашему крыльцу, Подарили белый крестик Твоему отцу. Было горе, будет горе, Горю нет конца, Да хранит святой Егорий Твоего отца. For the second time he was awarded with St. George 3rd class for fighting back night attacks of the enemy. On March 28, 1916, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Western Front No. 3332, Gumilyov was promoted to warrant officer with a transfer to the 5th Hussar Alexandria regiment. The Alexandria regiment - the famous "black hussars" ("hussars of death", "immortal hussars"), one of the most famous glorified regiments of the Russian army, distinguished by their "dead head" talisman - a white skull on a black background. That was a regiment where Gumilyov was proud to take service. Empress Alexandra Fedorovna had been still the chief which made the subsequent execution of the royal family particularly painful for the poet. Several regimental poems have come down to us, written "on the occasion" and connected with certain events in the life of the regiment. At the same time, Gumilyov's colleagues recalled that there were much more of these texts. In 1917, finding the army completely decayed and seeking active combats, Gumilyov decided to transfer to the Thessaloniki front and went to the Russian expeditionary force in Paris. The poet's path ran through Sweden and Norway. Gumilyov liked Sweden very much, in a letter to the writer Larisa Reisner, with whom he probably had an affair, he calls Sweden “a nice toy.” This same impression formed the basis for the poem “Stockholm” and for other references to Scandinavian themes in such poems as “Olga”, “ On the North Sea ”. The revolution forces him to return. His military experience is reflected in the two books, published in 1916 and 1918, “The Quiver” and “The Campfire”. These books can be undoubtedly considered as examples of mature poetics by Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov. In addition, they are highly interesting as a rare example of the Russian military poems devoted to World War I. They are the ones that truly reflect a real experience of the combatant, not some propaganda or verses written in the rear area. There a lot of similar works in English, but very few in Russian, unfortunately. However, among his military poems Gumilyov has some extraordinary pieces. Here is a poem which is called ‘Childhood’ and indeed opens up (begins) as some sort of childhood memories: I loved the great meadows and their honey scent and clumps of trees, and dry grass and bull’s horns in the grass. The second verse develops another theme - unity with all the living, still described through the naïve child’s eyes, distinguishing it from more common pantheism of the romantism. Every dusty bush along the road shouted, “I’m playing with you! Walk around me, watch out, and you’ll see who I really am!” And then subject of death is raised. Its appearance reminds of calendar cycle change, natural for all the living. It is no coincidence that it is brought by the autumn wind that ends boy’s games and separates him from his fellow-herbs. This sudden knowledge of his own imminent death becomes a strange and sweet secret for the persona: Only the fierce autumn wind, roaring, could stop my games: my heart would thump, it was heaven itself, I felt sure I would die/ This death is purely natural, though. This unity with all the living somehow diminishes this tragedy of loneliness and isolation essential for every human being. With my friends, never alone, with soft warm flowers, with cool cold flowers, and up over those far-off skies I would guess it all, all at once. If I love this new game, this war and its big bangs, it’s simply that human blood is no more sacred than the emerald juice from a blade of grass. Here the reproach of militarism, violence and glorification of violence is eliminated in a quite unexpected way: human existence is not sole, isolated or unique. This is part of nature, of its cycle. On the one hand, it denies human its right for tragic uniqueness and treating every death as a tragedy but at the same time it returns him the whole world. On the 5th of August 1918, soon after Nikolay Gumilyov returned to Russia, he divorced Anna Akhmatova. Video 3 The book of poems Pillar of fire Welcome everyone. This video will focus on the book of poems "The Pillar of Fire" and the post-war period of the life of Nikolay Stepanovich Gumilyov. After the revolution, he actively participates in the literature process. He revives the Workshop of Poets, teaches in the studio of the House of Arts, his students including the future Serapion brothers, one of whom, Nikolay Tikhonov, will pick up a lot from his teacher. In addition, Gumilyov is working on translations for the World Literature series. Together with Korney Chukovsky, he creates one of the first works on the theory of literary translation. In 1920, he married Anna Engelhardt for the second time. In 1921 he published a book of poetry "Tent". He is preparing the book "The Pillar of Fire" which will be perceived both as the pinnacle of creativity and as a testament of the poet himself. This perception is no coincidence. The book opens with the verse Memory, which contains a sequence of roles-images of Gumilyov himself: a dreamy boy ("a witch-child"), a decadent poet, a navigator and a shooter, a warrior and ends with a vision of New Jerusalem, citing the Revelation of John the Theologian. For an artist who always spoke of himself as of an Orthodox, for a person who, according to the recollections of Vladislav Khodasevich, was distinguished, among other things, by his everyday piety, and finally for a poet who, in his most serious works, considered death precisely from the Christian perspective (see, for example , the poem I and you) - the ending is logical and makes perfect sense. The next poem - "Forest" - is a return to the romantic aesthetics of "scary poems", that Gumilyov's early poetry is so specific for. However, this return comes to a new stage, and therefore the forest not only turns into exotic nightmares ("Cat-headed woman softly stepped into the night ") in the first place, but becomes an allusion to Dante. The next two texts are difficult to perceive otherwise as programmatic. So, Word is again associated with the name of John the Theologian, but not with Revelation (a text that was quite popular at the beginning of the twentieth century), but with the Gospel of John, its first lines “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. " One of the fundamental differences between Acmeistic poetry and symbolism lied in a totally different attitude to the word. For the Symbolists, the word is imperfect, it is vague. The word is the best tool for expressing the inexpressible and learning the unknowable. This attitude is literally mystical. Here the word becomes some sort of a mediator. For Acmeism as it was understood by Gumilyov, the word is a goal. It does not refer us to the divinity, but contains the divinity itself. That is why Osip Mandelstam was sympathetic to the name-worshipers and the heritage of the hesychasts. The next text is The Sixth Sense, which contains reasoning about the causes of poetry. It is a kind of metaphysical longing, a feeling, probably akin to what the existentialists would later call "abandonment" (Geworfenheit), which can be seen in his early poems. In general, the book of poems The Pillar of Fire contains all the key features specific for the Gumilyov’s poetry: narration, plasticity of imagery, and the mythological expressions of consciousness together with a very specific, modernist era. Thus, as an example of a specific narration in the author's poetry, one can cite the poem Bird-Girl, which is written quite in the spirit of Browning's introspective drama. It is some kind of legend where we only see the climax, the roots and consequences which are rather vague to us. The name of the area, the legendary Breton forest of Brosseliana, where, as legend claims, the tomb of Merlin is located – does not shed any light on what is happening - it is rather a locus of miracles. Makovsky's mystical interpretation of this text does not seem plausible either. Irina Odoevtseva, in her memoirs, mentioned that the bird-girl “seemed to have left the pictures of Samokish-Sudakova” and this was not a positive characteristic. At the same time, this understatement, the very focus on the narration, the inevitability of a tragic final - all this follows exactly the tradition of Robert Browning whose reader and translator was Gumilyov. It is a narration, but a narration, organized in a fully unique way, uncommon, for example, of the previous ballad tradition. The Russian poet also refers to Browning's experience, including that literary technique when it is not a lyrical hero who acts as a narrator but some other character. In addition, he uses a reduced plot, fragmentarity, and still narration is much more typical of him than of any Russian poets. Now let us speak about plasticity and physicality. For sure, this partly goes back to the traditional perception of antiquity (highly valued by both Gumilyov and Mandelstam) and to the experience of reading the literature of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance - Villon, Rabelais and Shakespeare with their fullness and joy of perception of bodily existence. Here are two stanzas from the second part of his triptych "Soul and Body": A gold sunset turned copper, green rust spread on clouds, and I ordered my body to reply. <…> “I splash in salt waves: I love that. I listen to hawks screaming: I love that. And I love to gallop on an unbroken horse, across meadows fragrant with seeds and smells. Here Gumilyov's love for myth, for an attempt, if not to reproduce, then at least to perceive an archaic consciousness - all these are features of the modernist mode, which bring him closer to European writers at the turn of the century. This can also be seen in his poem "Modernity" and in "Stockholm". The way he composes his poem "Star Terror" is worth paying special attention too as it is rather remarkable. It tells the story of a tribe that for the first time sees the starry sky, for the first time looks up to it. And the tribe perceives it not in the way in which Kant did - as an evidence of the wisdom of the Creator or creation, some reminder of the moral law - but directly, as something inexpressibly beautiful: Greatly annoyed she answered: — I see nothing. Only the sky, Curved, black, empty, And in the sky there are sparks everywhere Like spring flowers in a marsh. — The old man became thoughtful and said: — Look again! — And once more Garra Looked at the sky for a long, long while. — No, — she said, — it is not little flowers, It is simply golden fingers Pointing us to the plain, And the sea and the mountains of the Zends, Revealing all that is happening, Happening, happening. The child's consciousness here, as it were, domesticates the far and alien sky (this is practically an auto-quote from Gumilyov, sending us to his book Alien Sky), she seems to capture it, making it belong to her, in the same way as the poet himself made this world belong to him. The ending of the text makes perfect sense: He grieved for his fall From the steep slope, for his bruised knees, For both Gar and his widow, and the time Gone by when the people gazed On the plain where their herds grazed, On the water where their sails ran, On the grass where their children played, But not at the black sky where unattainable Alien stars were sparkling. On the one hand, you may even see some adherence to the principles of symbolism here. Something he reproached them for – a love for distant stars instead of attention to a joyful world around us. However, it cannot be said that Gumilyov had no metaphysical ambitions at all. Once in his manifesto, he formulated his principles as follows: "always follow the path of greatest resistance." And this statement indeed truly reflects his poetry, gives fuller understanding of it. When the whole world is left behind you, there is only one last step - a step through, a step beyond the edge of heaven. And this inaccessibility of the stars is, in fact, the flower that the conquistador picks with the last, posthumous effort in his first, iconic poem. And so, the development of this idea of following the path of greatest resistance lies at the heart of the text My Readers and is perceived by many as a kind of testament and declaration of the author’s own credo: They’re not insulted with sick nerves, in my poems, not embarrassed by my heartfelt feelings, not bored with pregnant hints about what’s left in an egg when it’s eaten: but when bullets whistle, when waves crack in ships, I teach them not to be afraid, not to be afraid, and to do what must be done. The reader of Gumilyov turns out to be similar to the author - he is also a leader, a warrior, a traveler. That is why he expects an appropriate attitude from the writer. And, as we have said more than once in the course of this recording, the text ends with the last movement, the last meeting, filled here with love for life in its entirety as well as incredible humility: And in their last hour, when a red mist spreads across their eyes, I’ll teach them how to remember all their cruel, lovely lives, all at once, and their country, loved and strange, and how to stand in God’s presence and speak simple, wise words, and wait, calm, for His Judgment. Video 4 The end of the poet’s path Good day to everyone. In this video we are going to discuss a poem “A Stray tram” and how the poet’s life came to its tragic end. “A Stray tram” is a very curious text. Perhaps, even those how do not really appreciate the poetry by Nicolay Stepanovich Gumilyov value this text as truly brilliant. A lot of people considered this poem to be uncharacteristic for Gumilyov: instead of exotic names and titles, tsarinas (empresses) and their slaves he writes a text devoted to Mashen’ka and finishes it with very simple words as if he were breathing them out: I never guessed there is so much love, Mashenka, and so much sadness. It seems to contradictory to his poetry in general. However, the text is full of citations that are typical for Gumilyov: references to Rembo, Bodler, his specific auto quotes. At the same time, Tram is very closely associated to what is called the "Petersburg text" - a certain set of all texts associated with the theme of Saint-Petersburg, having the tendency to be reproduced in subsequent texts. Gumilyov's poem fits naturally in this category of “Petersburg text”. On the one hand, it absorbs the toponymy of Petersburg ("The true stronghold of the Orthodox/ On top of St. Isaac’s is fixed,"), and the texts are generally connected with Petersburg. Thus, the appearance of the monument to Peter, the famous Bronze Horseman, is no coincidence and obviously connects this text with the Pushkin tradition. On the other hand, "Tram" has so much organics about St. Petersburg that it will itself form the basis of the next texts belonging to this tradition. There are many ways to interpret the Stray Tram. To begin with, there are a number of biographical interpretations where they saw MA Kuzmina-Karavaeva, Shukhardina, Akhmatova behind "Mashenka". In addition, mystical and occult interpretations with the journey to India of the Spirit, new birth, special dense symbolism. There are stricter philological interpretations as well, in addition to the influences mentioned above, which emphasize the influence of The Captain's Daughter by Pushkin, Derzhavin, Apollinaire and so on. I will not dwell on them in detail, I just want to point out the amazing feature of this text - it combines this density, the complexity of images as well as incredibly touching sentiment, and tenderness, which are always bound to be simple (and that’s the beauty of them). So the dreadful images flashing one after another - the executioner, the severed heads, the dead old man are suddenly interrupted by this desperate cry of the usually restrained author: And a plank fence in an alley, A three-windowed house, lawn turned gray... Driver, make this thing stop, Right now, driver, make it stop. Another significant event of 1921 was the staging of the play Gondla that probably turned out to be the poet's most successful dramatic experience. There the writer refers to the northern myth he had always had passion for. Once upon a time in his first book he included a poem addressed to the heroes of the Celtic epic - Cuchulainn, Finn, Ossian. Here he refers to it again, creating a play based on this plot, confronting the Viking warriors and the Christian Celts in his work. They would only stage this play posthumously but soon afterwards cancel it on political grounds. Meanwhile, Gumilyov continues to work on the poem Dragon, which was to become his own ethos with its own completely unique world. However, his work was abruptly interrupted when, in 1921, Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilyov was arrested by the Cheka, charged with a counterrevolutionary conspiracy and then shot. Gumilyov's participation in the so-called conspiracy of the "Petrograd military organization of V. N. Tagantsev", on charges of which he was shot, remains a debatable issue. Irina Odoevtseva, in her memoir On the Banks of the Seine, points out that Nikolay Gumilyov was involved in the conspiracy and even agreed to write a proclamation for them, which he then inadvertently lost somewhere. However, this recollection cannot be seen fully convincing, because it says no concrete facts about the degree of the poet's involvement in the society of the conspirators. Anna Akhmatova, who spoke very unflatteringly about the memoirs of Odoevtseva and the memories of Georgy Ivanov, Odoevtseva's husband, denied Gumilyov's participation in the conspiracy. However, this attitude could be influenced by both the general hostility of Akhmatova towards these people as well as her efforts to rehabilitate Gumilyov and publish his poems. This process would have been impossible without the poet being proven innocent. For this, it was required to separate him from the Tagantsev case, while the issues of the legitimacy of the arrest, of the process and, in general, the legitimacy of the authorities, that had just come to power by a coup d'état, could not be considered or discussed. Recent studies, including the work of Oleg Andershanovich Lekmanov who made commentaries on the memoirs of Irina Odoevtseva, show that, first of all, there really was a conspiracy and that Gumilyov was quite close to the conspirators and, probably, sympathized with their ideas. Later, however, he got disappointed with them and began to move away from them, but at this moment the initially unsuccessful and poor coup attempt was revealed by the Cheka. The name of the poet and non-commissioned officer of the tsarist army Nikolay Gumilyov, who had already attracted considerable attention of the new government with his demonstrative contempt to it, finally popped up during the interrogation process. According to the memoirs, during the execution the poet was courageous; he was joking, smoking a cigarette and refused to use blindfolds.