A Swallow’s
Nest of Luminaries.
Mr. Lastochkin:
The Magnificent Third.
Posting #6.
“…Люцифер подарил мне шестого коня –
И Отчаянье было названье ему.”
“…Lucifer
presented me with a sixth stallion –
And
its name was Despair.”
N. S. Gumilev. A Ballad. 1918.
As
for N. S. Gumilev’s participation in the so-called Tagantsev conspiracy in the
Revolutionary Petrograd in 1921, using Western sources, I established that it
wasn’t so. I was able to reconstruct the following picture:
Following
the February 1917 Revolution in Russia, and amidst the collapse of the Russian
army in W. W. I, Gumilev made the decision to leave Petrograd in May 1917 via
Finland, Sweden, and Norway, in order to reach Paris, where he intended to join
the Expeditionary Corps of General Franchet d’Esperey.
On
his way to Paris, Gumilev spent some time in London, where he became acquainted
with the renowned English translator of Chinese poetry Arthur Waley who was
working at the British Museum. The point is that throughout his participation
in WWI Gumilev did not write poetry, but his Notes of a Cavalryman were published in the newspaper Stock Exchange News from February 3,
1915 to September 11, 1916.
Apparently,
during his break from war when Gumilev lived in Paris from July 1917 until
January 1918, he became interested in Chinese poetry and collected all material
he could get on this particular subject. Thus a new poetry collection was born,
which the poet called The Porcelain
Pavilion.
Having
no knowledge of Eastern languages, Gumilev was using the works of Judith
Gautier, Le Marquis d’Hervey-Saint-Denis, Huart, and Arthur Waley.
He
was especially interested in the French
Anthology of Chinese Poetry compiled by the Oriental scholar, poet and
historical writer Judith Gautier, daughter of the French poet Theophile
Gautier, and a passionate lover of the great German Richard Wagner.
Helped
by translations from Chinese made by these authors into European languages Gumilev
wrote their imaginative renderings into the Russian language, never borrowing
from the poems in translation, but using a general historical overview of
classical Chinese literature. Even the names used by Gautier and Gumilev do not
coincide.
With
regard to prospective military service, Gumilev considered himself an expert on
Abyssinia. Africa, which Gumilev loved, and was greatly interested in, was
always in his memories and on his mind, during his stay in Paris. He even
submitted a note where he provided information on the local tribes in the
places he had been to before and even on the military potential of these
tribes. In this manner Gumilev expressed his serious desire to be sent to the
Mesopotamian Front. Evidence of that is his letter to the editorial board of
the Parisian newspaper Latest News,
which the paper published in its #444 of September 27, 1921, discovered by Professor
Gleb P. Struve, whose material I am using in this chapter. [Complete Works of N. S. Gumilev in 4
Volumes. Ed. by G. P. Struve. Vol. IV, p. 632. N. S. Gumilev Legacy: A Letter to the Editorial Board.]
“Before leaving France, the late poet lived at my place in Passy.
He left in early 1918 on the invitation of English War Office to Mesopotamia
with a cavalry detachment, but instead found himself in Archangelsk whence he
got to Petrograd. On his departure [for Mesopotamia], he left in my possession for safekeeping a
box with books and a considerable number of paintings, engravings, drawings,
and an album, bought in Paris.
Alexander Tsibrak.
This letter was sent by him to be passed on to his inheritors or
closest friends.”
***
“Of great help in this case
could be French military archives. Having written his memorandum On Drafting Volunteers Among Abyssinians
Into Adversary Armies, Gumilev ought to have submitted it to French High
Command or to the Minister of War himself.”
***
And
so it is quite likely that having run out of money and getting no help in
London, where B. V. Anrep, Gumilev’s acquaintance from Peterburg working for
the Russian magazine Apollon,
introduced him to the literary circles there. Thus he brought Gumilev to Lady
Ottoline Morrell, a well-known society hostess whose home was a gathering place
for writers and artists, including D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley.
In
Gumilev’s London archive there are notebooks with a number of literary
addresses and also numerous book titles on English and other literatures, which
Gumilev intended either to read or to buy.
Also
in London, Gumilev became acquainted with the famous English writer G. K.
Chesterton one of his notebooks contains the address of the journal The New Age, to which Chesterton was
closely connected.
However,
neither getting acquainted with Chesterton and Arthur Waley, a famous
Orientalist and curator of the Oriental Department of the British Museum, nor a
note from the famous Russian painter D. Stepletsky to the incomparable Marquise
Casati (in case Gumilev would be going via Rome on his way to Salonika or
Mesopotamia) – nothing helped Gumilev at all…
[The supremely
eccentric Marquise Casati was an Italian patroness of the arts famous for her
exuberant manner of dress, which would much later inspire such great designers
as the amazing John Galliano of Christian Dior, and Karl Lagerfeld of Chanel. A
play about her, starring Vivien Leigh, and a movie starring Ingrid Bergman,
further testify to her lasting fame.]
...Having
received not a single offer from English magazines and with the British War
Office invitation to Mesopotamia falling through, N. S. Gumilev had nothing
else to do but to return to his homeland, where he resumed teaching students
how to write poetry, in Petersburg’s various literary studios.
He
also served from 1919 until 1921 on the editorial board of Maxim Gorky’s
Publishing House World Literature, and was picked as member of a
special commission for the preparation of “Dramatization
of Cultural History” under the
chairmanship of Gorky.
There
was a plan to include in this series two Gumilev plays: Actaeon and Gondla.
And
so, both the researcher and the reader can see that having returned to Russia,
Gumilev led a productive life, both working and publishing his works, and had
as a friend the most influential Russian writer at the time: Maxim Gorky.
Having such an interesting career, and being elected in February 1921 Chairman
of the Petrograd Branch of the All-Russian Union of Poets, he seemed firmly
established in the highest echelon of Russian hierarchy until just a few months
later the roof collapsed on him.
To
be continued…
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