Nikolai Stepanovich Gumilev (also Gumilyov; ; April 15 NS 1886 – August 26, 1921) was a poet, literary critic, traveler, and military officer. He was a cofounder of the Acmeist movement. He was husband of Anna Akhmatova and father of Lev Gumilev. Nikolay Gumilev was arrested and executed by the Cheka, the secret Soviet police force, in 1921. Early life and poems Nikolay Gumilev was born in the town of Kronstadt on Kotlin Island, into the family of Stepan Yakovlevich Gumilev (1836–1910), a naval physician, and Anna Ivanovna L'vova (1854–1942). His childhood nickname was "Montigomo," the Hawk's Claw. He studied at the gymnasium of Tsarskoye Selo, where the Symbolist poet Innokenty Annensky was his teacher. Later, Gumilev admitted that it was Annensky's influence that turned his mind to writing poetry. His first publication were verses I ran from cities into the forest () on September 8, 1902. In 1905 he published his first book of lyrics entitled The Way of Conquistadors. It comprised poems on most exotic subjects imaginable, from Lake Chad giraffes to Caracalla's crocodiles. Although Gumilev was proud of the book, most critics found his technique sloppy; later he would refer to that collection as apprentice's work. From 1907 and on, Nikolai Gumilev traveled extensively in Europe, notably in Italy and France. In 1908 his new collection Romantic Flowers appeared. While in Paris, he published the literary magazine Sirius, but only three issues were produced. On returning to Russia, he edited and contributed to the artistic periodical Apollon. At that period, he fell in love with a non-existent woman Cherubina de Gabriak. It turned out that Cherubina de Gabriak was the literary pseudonym for two people: and Maximilian Voloshin. On November 22, 1909, he had a duel with Voloshin over the affair. Gumilev married Anna Akhmatova on April 25, 1910. He dedicated some of his poems to her. On September 18, 1912, their child Lev was born. He would eventually become an influential and controversial historian. Travel to Africa Like Flaubert and Rimbaud before him, but inspired by exploits of Alexander Bulatovich and Nikolay Leontiev, Gumilev was fascinated with Africa and travelled there almost each year. He explored, helping development of Ethiopia, sometime hunted lions, and brought to the Saint Petersburg museum of anthropology and ethnography a large collection of African artifacts. His landmark collection The Tent (1921) collected the best of his poems on African themes, one