Gumilev Teaching Poetry: Between Nietzscheanism and the Soviet Project

• In Event: The Art and Science of Teaching: Authors and Filmmakers as Educators

Abstract

Lioudmila Fedorova’s paper will explore the connection between Nikolai Gumilev’s poetry and his teaching philosophy and practices within the framework of such different institutions as the Institute of the Living Word, Proletkult studios, and even the Cultural-Enlightenment Commune of the Militia. His belief that poetry was a craft that could be taught caused a spectrum of reactions among his contemporaries and fellow writers—from negative criticism of his formalism by Blok or Chukovsky’s irony on one end to his students’ admiration on the other, as seen, for example, in Irina Odoevtseva’s memoirs.
I will discuss the paradoxical relationship between his romantic poetry, significantly influenced by Nietzsche’s ideas, and his dedication to the project of common public enlightenment promoted by Soviet authorities. This study is based on the memoirs and diaries of his contemporaries, as well as fragments of his poetic theory found in P. Luknitsky’s archive.

Author

• Milla (Lioudmila) Fedorova, Georgetown U