Nikolai Gumilev

Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (also Gumilyov; Russian: Николай Степанович Гумилёв; 15 April [O.S. 3 April] 1886 – 26 August 1921) was a Russian poet, literary critic, traveler, and military officer. He was a co-founder of the Acmeist movement. He was the husband of Anna Akhmatova and the father of Lev Gumilev. Nikolai Gumilev was arrested and executed by the Cheka, the secret Soviet police force, in 1921.

Nikolai Gumilev

Quotes

• Солнце, сожги настоящее
  Во имя грядущего,
  Но помилуй прошедшее!
  • Sun, burn the present in the name of the future, but have mercy on the past!
  • "Prayer", Pearls (1907–1910), Richard McKane, tr. The Pillar of Fire and Selected Poems (1999), p. 65, Burton Raffel & Alla Burago, tr. Selected Works of Nikolai S. Gumilev (1972), p. 44

• И вам чужд тот безумный охотник,
  кто взойдя на нагую скалу —
  в пьяном счастье в тоске безотчетной
  прямо в солнце пускает стрелу.
  • That crazy hunter is alien to you
    Who having climbed the naked cliff
    In drunken happiness, in unaccountable anguish,
    Lets go an arrow right at the sun.
  • "To a Girl", Alien Sky (1910–1912), McKane (1999), p. 73

• И как пчелы в улье опустелом
  Дурно пахнут мертвые слова.
  • And like bees in a deserted hive
    Dead words smell bad.
  • "The Word", Pillar of Fire (1918–1921), McKane (1999), p. 166