The event “Nikolai Gumilev’s Africa”, held on April 18 at the Central House of Writers, is a look through the poet’s works dedicated to Africa
Written and photographed by Nikolai
Gumilev’s events, held on the poet’s birthdays, can be compared to a kaleidoscope. A year has passed, the hand of the time clock has made a complete turn, the tube with colored glasses of Nikolai Gumilev’s favorite poems turned and folded a new pattern, gave a new picture, a new look to poets, bards, artists and travelers.
The event “Nikolai Gumilev‘s Africa”, held on April 18 at the Central House of Writers, is a look through the poet’s works dedicated to Africa. Nikolai Gumilev’s poems inspired the “collector of Russian emigration poets”, the bard Viktor Leonidov, to the new song “Leopard”. He quoted the famous African legend – not listening to superstitions and taking home the skin of a slain leopard will lead to troubles. So the hero of the song paid the price: the spirit of the leopard returned and took revenge on the poet with a bullet of a executioner. And the poet Vyacheslav Kupriyanov was inspired by Gumilev to write his version of the poem “Hippopotamus”, in which the word “hip” was played out — part of the name of an African animal.
Nikolai Gumilev’s travelling campaigns prompted me as a traveler to follow in his footsteps to Africa and I repeated the poet’s routes through Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Virtual travel in the poet’s poems is like a real traveler in Chad and Madagascar.
And the artist Mikhail Pogarsky went on a spiritual art trip to the Abyssinian Ginir. Made several art exhibitions about it and published an art album” Following the route of Gumilev”.
Valery Baidin, a doctor of Slavic philology from France, took a fresh look at the connection between the poetry of Nikolai Gumilev and one of the founders of French symbolism, Arthur Rimbaud. Translated by Nikolai Gumilev, the poem “Vowels” by the French poet retained not only the meaning, but also the rhythm, as demonstrated by the art critic who read it in both languages. And those gathered in the hall remembered that in Ethiopian Harare there is a museum of the French poet Rimbaud, who had already given up writing poetry after leaving for Abyssinia. And we all hope that in future the museum of Nukolai Gumilev will appear too, as he is the poet who visited and described the ancient city and discovered and described the beauty of Africa for the Russian readers.
The decoration of the evening was the literary and musical composition “Anna and Nikolai” by the author’s art project of the Intellectual cabaret under the direction of Marina Tarakanova. The black costume of the lyrical hero, two spectacular women partners in a black and red dress. The expressive passionate tango is emphasized – the dance of love-rivalry between two great poets Nikolai Gumilev and his wife famous poetess Anna Akhmatova. Their poems were recited and they are like a challenge, like a duel of opposite protagonists. The emotional performance of young actors conveyed the whole range of complex feelings on their faces and performance.
Olga Medvedko, chairman of the Gumilyov Society, and Dmitry Streshnev, writer and orientalist, played the roles of the hosts of the event in a new way. Their outfits, chosen in the same style, caused delight and at the same time associations with Islamic North Africa and Central Africa. Olga returned just a week ago from Nigeria where she bought these stunning outfits. In her speech, she not only talked about the work done by the Gumilev Society, but also about her speech to the African public in Abuja, at the 1st Congress of the World Organization of Writers – WOW, where she held a round table talk “Nikolai Gumilev – a bridge between cultures and countries.” Yuri Shchegolkov, director of the Gumilev House Museum, spoke about many interesting projects the society is currently conducting in Bezhetsk (Gumilev’s native city) – the museum is being renovated, local libraries are replenished with books, the newspaper Literary City is being published, the association of bards, writers and composers BLIK is actively working, etc.
There were a lot of impressions from the evening: a crowded grateful hall, in which there were even students from the Congo and Ethiopia, a young talented actor of 15 years from the Voloshinsky Theater, Georgy Karatonov, reading the poem Captains, a multimedia performance by the bard and composer Gennady Ponomarev, who wrote a song based on these poems. The evening was certainly a success, the audience did not want to disperse and there was no end to the photo shoots.
And for a long time, the song Beatrice, which became the unofficial anthem of the Gumilev Society, based on the poems of Nikolai Gumilev, sounded in my head.
“The poet’s Secret Thoughts
In his whimsical heart
They became streams of light,
They became a noisy tide”
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