Quiver (collection of poems by Gumilyov)

According to many researchers of the poetic traditions of the Silver Age , “Quiver” is considered the first collection, marking the onset of a mature period of Gumilyov’s work ^{[2] [3]} . One of the key motives reflected in a number of poems included in this collection are the motives for gaining faith, Christian mercy, compassion, saving the soul, rejection of war and violence. If earlier the lyrical hero Gumilyov deeply experienced the tragic feeling of his inability to improve reality, then in the new collection he sees "the light on Mount Tabor." It is in the "Quiver" that the hero, after long wanderings, painful wanderings and searches that seemed endless, finally finds the Truth ^[4] .

A large number of poetic texts included in the collection reflect significant concepts of the Christian universe that refer to sacred semantics, for example, the Padua Cathedral : “Yes, this temple is marvelous and sad, It is temptation, joy and thunder ...”. A number of poetic works are devoted to temple symbols and emblems, for example, St. Mark's Cathedral in the poem “Venice” (“And on the heights of the cathedral, Where the mosaics shine, Chu, pigeon choir Sigh, coo and splash”), St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (from poems "Rome"), as well as Russian Orthodox realities, for example, the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in the poem "Old Manors". This appeal to sacred symbols, to elements of temple culture to a large extent brings Gumilyov’s poetry of this period to a great extent to the worldview of the 1905-1906 Bloc . Also among the symbolic dominants of the "Quiver" can be called the actualization of biblical subjects and hagiographic traditions. The motive for gaining Christianity in the soul and mind is connected with Gumilyov’s personal creative growing up, who, in the face of the cruelty of the outbreak of war and gaining a tragic life experience, reinterprets his life’s path, as if saying goodbye to the era of a carefree “conquistador” and a restless, naive seeker of fantastic worlds (collections “ The Way Conquistadors "of 1905 and" Romantic Flowers "of 1907). He also breaks ties with the period of an active search for his own dream country, guessing hidden values ​​hidden from uninitiated prying eyes ( Pearls of 1910). In The Quiver, N. S. Gumilev refers to the source of Eternal Wisdom, just as Alexander Aleksandrovich Blok once dedicated his poetry to Sophia , Divine Wisdom, and World Soul .

An important characteristic of “Quiver” is the observance of the principle of structural-stylistic and genre-thematic unity of poems. All thoughts and feelings of the lyrical hero are permeated with the sensation of the “sun of the spirit”, moral enlightenment, deep spiritual illumination, joy from finding the path to soul salvation. A lot of space in the collection is occupied by the military theme, which is associated with the sensation of a miraculous transformation of a person, when he, fulfilling God's will, realizes himself in the context of history and fulfills his mission. The main motives of Gumilyov’s military poems are the desire for self-sacrifice, the need for heavenly and earthly glory, personal valor and courage, and the rejection of the horrors of military reality.

The key to understanding the character of the lyrical hero of the collection is the semantic filling of the name. A quiver can act as an attribute of a warrior, and in ancient Greek mythological representations a quiver with golden arrows belonged to Apollo , the god of arts and the patron of muses . The name could be connected with the acmeistic worldview of Gumilyov, who, being the ideologist of the new art direction of the Silver Age, admitted to being addicted to the Apollonian trend in art. Also, the title of the collection clearly expresses associations with Old Testament meanings, in particular, with the Book of Isaiah , in which the image of a quiver and arrows is very common: "I likened my tongue to a pointed sword, covered me in the shadow of His hand; made me a sharpened arrow, in Me quiver kept; said to me: “you are My servant, Israel, My glory will appear in you (Isa. 49: 2-3).” Equally, the ancient and Old Testament interpretations of the image form a single semantic dominant stated in the name and point to such entities hero, like a monk warrior, poet the prophet (cf. " Prophet " by A.S. Pushkin (1826), gaining the highest truth and striving to convey it to others.

The collection begins with the poem “In memory of Annensky”, which is dedicated to the bright lyric poet, literary researcher and critic Innokenty Fedorovich Annensky (director of the Tsarskoye Selo gymnasium, where N. S. Gumilyov studied), who was a teacher and mentor to the young poet. Nevertheless, the key poem of the collection is most often referred to as the “Pentecostal iambic”, which concentrates the basic meanings and expresses the main idea. This poem, which is of a confessional nature, is dedicated to the translator, poet Mikhail Lozinsky , Gumilyov’s comrade-in-arms on the “ Workshop of Poets ”. In "Pentecostal Yambas," the author seems to summarize the entire previous tradition of poetic understanding of the world and points to the emergence of a future concept of his artistic work. The lyrical hero of the poem is experiencing a cruel drama: he loses his beloved, becomes disillusioned with the world around him and feels the aimlessness of his years, but suddenly a new call arises in the distance, and he “runs to the place where people fled,” without hesitation going to war. Entrusting himself to a higher power, feeling a calling from God, he feels himself to be the protector of eternal values, which gives him the opportunity to regain inner spiritual harmony.

An important way in the poems that make up the collection “Quiver” is the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the presence of which the lyrical hero often senses, guesses in his environment. She is a symbol of last hope, all-forgiving and ennobling; often it is to her from the bottom of her soul that the hero praises a desperate prayer: "The most honest of the most honest cherubs, the Most glorious of the most glorious seraph, of the earthly hopes of heavenly fulfillment."

The collection "Quiver" reflects a completely new Christian worldview of the author, which replaced pagan love of freedom and "conquistador" search. Among the deeply meaningful motives that refer to the Christian principle are noted moral courage, faith in the justice of God’s will, spiritual sacrifice, a sense of pantheistic harmony. One of the most important dominants is the rethinking of the role of war as a world fire of history, in which the past is fantastically melted and a new life is born.

• A copy of the collection from the A. A. Blok library, digitized by the IRLI RAS