On December 5, 1909, according to the new style, the last known duel of poets took place on the Chernaya River in Saint Petersburg. At the very place where 72 years earlier Alexander Pushkin and Georges d'Anthès had faced each other in a deadly duel, 23-year-old Nikolai Gumilev and 32-year-old Maximilian Voloshin shot at each other. The name of this very river near Saint Petersburg is associated in our memory with the fateful duel of Pushkin and d'Anthès on February 9, 1837. There is no need to repeat the story of that duel. But the duel of two famous Russian poets, Nikolai Gumilev and Maximilian Voloshin, on the same Chernaya River 72 years later is known only to specialists.

This is almost the only case when a challenge to a duel was followed by the use of weapons. "What else is worth shooting for, if not for women and poetry," Gumilev claimed, and his duel with Voloshin happened because of a woman who wrote poetry. In literary circles, she became known under the mask of the mysterious Cherubina de Gabriak, who literally became a poetic sensation in 1909. The future duelists met her as a budding poetess, Elizaveta Dmitrieva, an unattractive but extraordinarily charming and passionate girl who quickly won their hearts. In the summer of 1909, Dmitrieva came to visit one poet (Voloshin) accompanied by another (Gumilev). The awkward situation required resolution, which after some inner turmoil and doubts was accepted: Gumilev was asked to leave, and Dmitrieva stayed with Voloshin. It was then that they invented the most vivid mystification of the Silver Age — Cherubina de Gabriak. The mythical biography of Cherubina included aristocratic Spanish-French origins, extraordinary beauty and a tragic fate, a secluded existence, and passionate religiosity. Dmitrieva’s poems under the pseudonym were sent to the editorial office of the newly launched magazine "Apollon," and soon the mystery of Cherubina captivated the minds of all Petersburg. Voloshin enjoyed the effect produced, while the unsuspecting Gumilev continued to suffer from unrequited love for Dmitrieva.

The evil genius behind Cherubina-Dmitrieva was the German poet and "Apollon" collaborator Johannes von Günther. In a fit of infatuation with him, the poetess not only revealed the secret of her pseudonym but also spoke about her complicated relationship with Gumilev. Günther did not prove trustworthy: he exposed the literary secret and began to convince Gumilev of Dmitrieva’s still warm feelings. On November 16, Gumilev made another proposal to Dmitrieva — and received another refusal. She recalled: "In 'Apollon' he stopped me and said: 'I ask you one last time: marry me,' I said: 'No!' He turned pale. 'Well then you will get to know me.' It was Saturday. On Monday Günther came to me and said that Gumilev at the 'Tower' said God knows what about me. I asked if he really said that? He repeated it to my face. I left the room. He already hated me. Two days later Voloshin struck him, there was a duel. Voloshin publicly insulted Gumilev, thus initiating the duel, in the studio of the artist Golovin. One of its participants, the future 'Red Count' Alexei Tolstoy, whom Voloshin asked to be his second, denied the fact of Gumilev’s obscene remarks. 'I know and assert that the accusation against him — that he uttered some careless words — was false: he did not say those words and could not have said them. However, out of pride and contempt, he remained silent, not denying the accusation; when the confrontation was arranged and he heard the lie face to face, he confirmed this lie out of pride and contempt.'

At the Mariinsky Theatre, upstairs, in Golovin’s huge studio, as large as a square, at half past ten, when under the grates, in the black abyss of the stage, the sounds of "Orpheus" were heard, a heavy scene took place just a few steps from me: poet Voloshin, rushing at Gumilev, insulted him. Annenkov, Golovin, V. Ivanov ran up to them. But Gumilev, upright, all tense, with his hands behind his back and clenched, had already regained control of himself. Right there he challenged Voloshin to a duel," Tolstoy recounted.

He wrote about the subsequent events as follows: "The next day early in the morning we shot near Novaya Derevnya by the Chernaya River — if not with the very pair of pistols with which Pushkin shot, then at least with ones contemporary to him. It was a wet, muddy spring, and my second, Shervashidze, who measured 15 paces for us over the hummocks, had a very hard time. Gumilev missed, my pistol misfired. He suggested I shoot again. I fired, afraid, due to my lack of skill, of hitting him. I missed, and that was the end of our duel. The seconds suggested we shake hands, but we refused."

Tolstoy gave a very vivid description of the events. According to him, the seconds with great difficulty managed to "persuade" Voloshin first, and then Gumilev, to the distance of 15 paces instead of five — it took a whole day of persuasion, while the duel took place at dawn. "A damp sea wind was blowing, and along the road bare willows whistled and swayed. Gumilev, calm and serious, with his hands in his pockets, watched our work, standing aside. Having left the city, we left the cars on the road and went to a bare field where there were snow-covered dumps. The opponents stood apart, we conferred, I was chosen the duel’s organizer. When I began counting the steps, Gumilev, watching me carefully, asked me to tell him that I was stepping too widely. I measured fifteen steps again, asked the opponents to stand in place, and began loading the pistols. There were no wads, I tore a handkerchief and stuffed it instead of wads. I handed the pistol to Gumilev first. He stood on a hummock, a long black silhouette visible in the dawn gloom. He wore a top hat and tailcoat, having thrown his fur coat on the snow. Running up to him, I fell waist-deep into a thawed water pit. He calmly waited for me to get out — took the pistol, and only then did I notice that he, without looking away, was staring with icy hatred at V., who stood with legs apart, without a hat. Having handed the second pistol to V., I, according to the rules, offered peace one last time. But Gumilev interrupted me, saying quietly and discontentedly: 'I came to fight, not to make peace,'" Tolstoy wrote.

After Voloshin’s misfires, his opponent categorically demanded a third shot, but the seconds, after consultation, refused him. Then Gumilev lifted his fur coat and went to the car.

And although in the memoirs the place is not indicated quite correctly, and the action unfolded not in spring but in autumn, and the distance was measured not by Shervashidze but by Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy, the fact remains unchanged: the duel took place and, fortunately, ended safely. The investigation into this duel lasted almost a year and ruled: Gumilev, as the one who gave cause for the duel, was sentenced to the maximum punishment — seven days of house arrest, Voloshin — to the minimum, one day of house arrest. Gumilev subsequently did not communicate and even did not greet Voloshin. Their reconciliation occurred only in June 1921.

The fates of the main participants turned out differently. Gumilev was shot by the Chekists near Petrograd in August 1921, Voloshin died in 1932 after a second stroke in Koktebel, and Tolstoy, after returning from emigration, surprisingly adapted well in the Soviet Union, entered the circle of Joseph Stalin’s friends, and lived until 1945.

Sources:

Kobrinsky A. Duel Stories of the Silver Age. Poets’ duels as a fact of literary life. St. Petersburg, 2007.

https://www.gazeta.ru/science/2019/12/04_a_12848312.shtml

https://gumilev.ru/about/77/