From the translator: "The work of N. A. Otsup" N. S. Gumilev. “His life, work and times” is his dissertation, forcedly written by an émigré writer in French in the early 50s and remaining “out of print.” To me, as one of Otsup’s then students at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, the author personally donated a typewritten copy of it. It seems time to “snatch” this work from the “abyss” of oblivion and familiarize the Russian public with it. The original French text does not contain a table of contents (The dissertation and the book are not “identical.”) But all sections of the work. were outlined and generally demarcated. On this basis, it became possible to compile a detailed table of contents for the convenience of understanding the text, corresponding to the instructions of the author himself. As for the reverse translation of quotes from French into Russian, I found almost all the sources. This applies primarily to. poems by Gumilev and other poets. Only in the area of quotations in prose, especially when it comes to oral memories, there were some “black holes” left. Here I myself had to “return” Otsup’s translations into Russian. I ask your indulgence in advance for these few and often “literal” translations for accuracy.”