1. Personal life of Ivan Bunin
2. Interesting Facts

And van Bunin wrote that he did not belong to any literary school. He did not consider himself “neither a decadent, nor a symbolist, nor a romantic, nor a realist” - his work truly turned out to be beyond the Silver Age. Despite this, Bunin's works received worldwide recognition and became classics. “For the strict artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character in literary prose,” Bunin was the first of the Russian writers to receive the Nobel Prize.

Literary creativity of Ivan Bunin

Ivan Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh. Three and a half years later, the family moved to the Butyrka family estate in the Oryol province. Here, "in the deepest silence of the field", the boy became acquainted with folklore. During the day he worked with the peasants in the fields, and in the evenings he stayed with them to listen to folk tales and legends. Since the move, Bunin's creative path began. Here, at the age of eight, he composed his first poem, which was followed by essays and short stories. The young writer imitated in his style either Alexander Pushkin or Mikhail Lermontov.

In 1881, the Bunin family moved to the Ozerki estate - “a large and fairly prosperous village with three landowners’ estates, sunk in gardens, with several ponds and spacious pastures”. In the same year, Ivan Bunin entered the Yeletsk boys' gymnasium. The first impressions of life in the county town were bleak: “The transition from a completely free life, from the worries of my mother to life in the city, to the absurd strictures in the gymnasium and to the difficult life of those bourgeois and merchant houses where I had to live as a freeloader was also abrupt.”.

Bunin studied at the gymnasium for a little over four years: in the winter of 1886, after the holidays, he did not return to classes. At home he became even more interested in literature. In 1887, Bunin published his poems in the St. Petersburg newspaper “Rodina” - “Over the grave of S.Ya. Nadson" and "The Village Beggar", and a little later - the stories "Two Wanderers" and "Nefedka". In his work, he constantly turned to childhood memories.

In 1889, Ivan Bunin moved to Orel, in central Russia, “where the richest Russian language was formed and where almost all the greatest Russian writers, led by Turgenev and Tolstoy, came from”. Here the 18-year-old writer entered the service of the editorial office of the provincial newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik, where he worked as a proofreader and wrote theater reviews and articles. Bunin’s first poetry collection, “Poems,” was published in Orel, in which the young poet reflected on philosophical topics and described Russian nature.

Ivan Bunin traveled a lot and taught on foreign trips foreign languages. So the writer began to translate poetry. Among the authors were the ancient Greek poet Alcaeus, Saadi, Francesco Petrarca, Adam Mickiewicz, George Byron, Henry Longfellow. At the same time, he continued to write himself: in 1898 he published the poetry collection “Under the Open Air”, three years later - a collection of poems “Falling Leaves”. For "Falling Leaves" and his translation of "The Song of Hiawatha" Henry Longfellow Bunin received the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, in the poetic community, many considered the poet an “old-fashioned landscape painter.”

Being a true and major poet, he stands apart from the general movement in the field of Russian verse.<...>But on the other hand, he has an area in which he has reached the end points of perfection. This is the area of ​​​​pure painting, taken to the extreme limits that are accessible to the elements of the word.

Maximilian Voloshin

In 1905, the first Russian revolution broke out, and the country was engulfed in destructive peasant riots. The writer did not support what was happening. After the events of that time, Bunin wrote “a whole series of works that sharply depict the Russian soul, its peculiar interweavings, its light and dark, but almost always tragic foundations”.

Among them are the stories “Village” and “Sukhodol”, the stories “Strength”, “ A good life", "Prince among princes", "Lapti".

In 1909, the Academy of Sciences awarded Ivan Bunin the Pushkin Prize for the third volume of the Collected Works and translation of the mystery drama “Cain” by George Byron. Soon after this, the writer received the title of honorary academician in the category of fine literature, and in 1912 he became an honorary member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

Personal life of Ivan Bunin

Ivan Bunin's first love was Varvara Pashchenko. He met her at the editorial office of the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper. “Tall, with very beautiful features, wearing pince-nez,” At first, she seemed arrogant and overly emancipated to the young writer - but soon Bunin was already writing letters to his brother in which he described the intelligence and talents of his beloved. However, Varvara Pashchenko’s father did not allow her to officially marry Bunin, and she herself did not think about marrying the aspiring writer.

I love him very much and appreciate him as smart and good man, but we will never have a peaceful family life. It’s better, no matter how hard it is, for us to separate now than in a year or six months.<...>All this inexpressibly depresses me, I lose both energy and strength.<...>He constantly says that I belong to a vulgar environment, that I have ingrained bad tastes and habits - and this is all true, but again it’s strange to demand that I throw them away like old gloves... If you knew how I do this everything is hard!

From a letter from Varvara Pashchenko to Yuli Bunin, brother of Ivan Bunin

In 1894, Varvara Pashchenko left Ivan Bunin and married a wealthy landowner Arseny Bibikov, a friend of Bunin. The writer was very worried - his older brothers even feared for his life. Ivan Bunin later reflected the torment of his first love in the last part of the novel “The Life of Arsenyev” - “Lika”.

The writer's first official wife was Anna Tsakni. Bunin proposed to her a few days after they met. In 1899 they got married. Tsakni was 19 years old at that time, and Bunin was 27. However, some time passed after the wedding, and family life went wrong. Tsakni blamed her husband for callousness, he blamed her for frivolity.

It is impossible to say that she is a complete fool, but her nature is childishly stupid and self-confident - this is the fruit of my long and most impartial observations. She doesn’t even put a single word of mine, not a single opinion of mine about anything. She... is as undeveloped as a puppy, I repeat to you. And therefore there is no hope that I can develop her poor head at least in any way, no hope for other interests.

From a letter from Ivan Bunin to his brother Yuli Bunin

In 1900, Ivan Bunin left Anna Tsakni, who was pregnant at that time. A few years after the birth, the writer’s child became seriously ill and died. Ivan Bunin had no more children.

The second and last wife of Ivan Bunin was Vera Muromtseva. The writer met her in 1906 at a literary evening. They spent almost every day together, went to exhibitions, literary readings. A year later they began to live together, but they could not legitimize their relationship: Anna Tsakni did not give Bunin a divorce.

Ivan Bunin and Vera Muromtseva got married only in 1922, in Paris. They lived together for almost half a century. Vera Muromtseva became Bunin's devoted friend for life; together they went through all the hardships of emigration and war.

Life in exile and the Nobel Prize

Bunin perceived the October Revolution and Civil War as a catastrophe in the life of the country and his compatriots. From Petrograd he moved first to Moscow, then to Odessa. At the same time, he kept a diary in which he wrote a lot about the destructive power of the Russian revolution and the power of the Bolsheviks. Later, a book with these memories was published abroad under the title “Cursed Days.”

“Having drunk the cup of unspeakable mental suffering,” at the beginning of 1920, Bunin left Russia. Together with his wife, he sailed on a Greek ship from Odessa to Constantinople, and from there, through Sofia and Belgrade, to Paris. At that time, Russian emigrant journalists and exiled writers lived in the French capital, so it was often called the “district of Russian literature.”

Everything that remained in the USSR seemed alien and hostile to the writer. Abroad, he began to conduct social and political activities and soon became one of the main figures of the emigrant opposition. In 1920, Bunin became a member of the Parisian Union of Russian Writers and Journalists, wrote to the political and literary newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” and called for a fight against Bolshevism. At home, the writer was nicknamed a White Guard for his anti-Soviet position.

Abroad, Bunin began to publish collections of his pre-revolutionary works. These books were received warmly by European critics.

Bunin is a real Russian talent, bleeding, uneven and at the same time courageous and big. His book contains several stories that are worthy of Dostoevsky in power.

French monthly magazine of art and literature La Nervie, December 1921

During the years of emigration, Bunin worked a lot, his books were published almost every year. He wrote the stories “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, “Sunstroke”, “Tree of God”. In his works, Bunin sought to combine poetic and prosaic language, so figurative background details occupied an important place in them. For example, in “Sunstroke” the author picturesquely described the white-hot Volga landscape.

In 1933, Ivan Bunin completed the most significant work foreign period of creativity - the novel “The Life of Arsenyev”. It was for this that in the same year Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The author's name became world famous, but his glory was overshadowed by the fact that in Soviet Russia this achievement was kept silent and his works were not published.

The funds received from the Swedish Academy did not make Bunin rich. He gave a significant part of the prize to those in need.

As soon as I received the bonus, I had to give away about 120,000 francs. Yes, I don’t know how to handle money at all. Now this is especially difficult. Do you know how many letters I received asking for help? In the shortest possible time, up to 2000 such letters arrived.

Ivan Bunin

The last years of life and death of Bunin

The Second World War found the Bunins in the French city of Grasse. By that time, the money from the Nobel Prize had run out, and the family had to live from hand to mouth.

My fingers are cracked from the cold, I can’t swim, I can’t wash my feet, sickening white turnip soups. I was “rich” - now, by the will of fate, I suddenly became poor, like Job. I was “famous all over the world” - now no one in the world needs me - the world has no time for me!

Ivan Bunin

Meanwhile, Bunin continued to work. The 74-year-old writer noted in his diary: “Lord, extend my strength for my lonely, poor life in this beauty and work!” In 1944, he completed the collection “Dark Alleys,” which included 38 stories. Among them - " Clean Monday", "Ballad", "Muse", "Business Cards". Later, nine years later, he supplemented the collection with two more stories, “In the Spring, in Judea” and “Overnight.” The author himself considered the story “Dark Alleys” to be his best work.

The war reconciled the writer with the Bolshevik regime that he hated. Everything faded into the background, and the homeland came first. Bunin bought a map of the world and marked on it the course of military operations, which he read about in the newspapers. He celebrated the defeat of Hitler's army at Stalingrad as a personal victory, and during the days of the Tehran Conference, surprising himself, he wrote in his diary: “No, just think about what it’s come to - Stalin is flying to Persia, and I’m trembling, so that God forbid, something happens to him on the road.”. At the end of the war, the writer often thought about returning to his homeland.

In May 1945, the Bunins arrived in Paris, where they celebrated the day of victory over Nazi Germany. Here in 1946 they learned about their restoration to USSR citizenship and even wanted to return. In a letter to prose writer Mark Aldanov, Bunin wrote: “But here, too, a miserable, painful, anxious existence awaits us. So, after all, there is only one thing left to do: go home. As you can hear, this is what they really want and promise mountains of gold in every sense. But how to decide on this? I'll wait and think...” But after the Decree “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” of 1946, in which the USSR Central Committee criticized the work of Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, the writer changed his mind about returning.

Ivan Bunin died in Paris on November 8, 1953. The writer was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

1. In his youth, Ivan Bunin was a Tolstoyan. He dreamed “about a clean, healthy, “good” life among nature, by one’s own labors, in simple clothes”. The writer visited the settlements of followers of the Russian classic near Poltava. In 1894 he met Leo Tolstoy himself. This meeting had an effect on Bunin "amazing experience". Tolstoy advised the young writer not to “say goodbye,” but to always act according to his conscience: “Do you want to live a simple, working life? This is good, just don’t force yourself, don’t make a uniform out of it, you can be a good person in any life.”.

2. Bunin loved to travel. He traveled throughout the south of Russia, was in many eastern countries, knew Europe well, traveled through Ceylon and Africa. On his trips “he was interested in psychological, religious, historical questions,” he “strove to survey the faces of the world and leave in it the stamp of his soul”. Bunin created some of his works under the influence of travel impressions. For example, while traveling by boat from Italy, he came up with the idea for the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” and after a trip to Ceylon, he composed the story “Brothers.”

3. Bunin was outraged by urban writers who spoke about the countryside in their works. Many of them had never been to the countryside and did not understand what they were writing about.

One famous poet... said in his poems that he was walking, “disassembling ears of millet,” while such a plant does not exist in nature: as is known, there is millet, the grain of which is millet, and the ears (more precisely, panicles) grow so low, that it is impossible to disassemble them by hand while moving; another (Balmont) compared the harrier, an evening bird of the owl breed, gray-haired, mysteriously quiet, slow and completely silent when flying, with passion (“and the passion went away like a flying harrier”), admired the flowering of the plantain (“the plantain is all in bloom!”), although the plantain, growing on field roads with small green leaves, never blooms.

Ivan Bunin

4. In 1918, a decree “On the introduction of a new spelling” was issued, which changed the spelling rules and excluded several letters from the Russian alphabet. Bunin did not accept this reform and continued to write in accordance with old spelling. He insisted that Dark Alleys be published according to pre-revolutionary rules, but the publisher released the book according to new ones and confronted the author with a fait accompli. The writer even refused to publish his books in the new spelling by the American publishing house named after Chekhov.

5. Ivan Bunin was very sensitive to his appearance. Writer Nina Berberova in her autobiography recalled how Bunin argued that he was more handsome than Alexander Blok. And Vladimir Nabokov noted that Bunin was very worried about age-related changes: “When I met him, he was painfully preoccupied with his own aging. From the very first words we said to each other, he noted with pleasure that he stood straighter than me, although he was thirty years older.”.

6. Ivan Bunin had a least favorite letter - “f”. He tried to use it as little as possible, so in his books there were almost no heroes whose names included this letter. Literary chronicler Alexander Bakhrakh recalled Bunin telling him: “You know, they almost named me Philip. What could have happened - “Philip Bunin”. How vile it sounds! I probably wouldn’t even publish.”.

7. In the USSR, the first five-volume Collected Works of Bunin, shortened and cleared by censorship, after the revolution, was published only in 1956. It did not include “Cursed Days”, letters and diaries of the writer - this journalism was main reason silencing of the author's work in his homeland. It was only during perestroika that the author’s banned works were published in full.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh into an old impoverished noble family. The future writer spent his childhood on the family estate - on the Butyrki farm in the Yelets district of the Oryol province, where the Bunins moved in 1874. In 1881 he was enrolled in the first grade of the Yelets gymnasium, but did not complete the course, expelled in 1886 for failure to appear from vacation and non-payment of tuition. Return from Yelets I.A. Bunin had to move to a new place - to the Ozerki estate in the same Yeletsky district, where the whole family moved in the spring of 1883, fleeing ruin from the sale of land in Butyrki. He received further education at home under the guidance of his older brother Yuli Alekseevich Bunin (1857-1921), an exiled populist from the Black Revolution, who forever remained one of the closest to I.A. Bunin people.

At the end of 1886 - beginning of 1887. wrote the novel “Hobbies” - the first part of the poem “Peter Rogachev” (not published), but made his debut in print with the poem “Over the Grave of Nadson”, published in the newspaper “Rodina” on February 22, 1887. Within a year, in the same “Rodina” appeared and other poems by Bunin - “The Village Beggar” (May 17), etc., as well as the stories “Two Wanderers” (September 28) and “Nefedka” (December 20).

At the beginning of 1889, the young writer left his parents' home and began an independent life. At first, following his brother Julius, he went to Kharkov, but in the fall of the same year he accepted an offer to collaborate in the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper and settled in Orel. In the “Bulletin” I.A. Bunin “was everything he had to be - a proofreader, an editorial writer, and a theater critic”; he lived exclusively by literary work, barely making ends meet. In 1891, Bunin’s first book, “Poems of 1887-1891,” was published as a supplement to the Oryol Bulletin. The first strong and painful feeling dates back to the Oryol period - love for Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who agreed at the end of the summer of 1892 to move with I.A. Bunin to Poltava, where at that time Yuliy Bunin served in the zemstvo city government. The young couple also got a job in the government, and the newspaper Poltava Provincial Gazette published numerous essays by Bunin, written at the request of the zemstvo.

Literary labor oppressed the writer, whose poems and stories in 1892-1894. have already begun to appear on the pages of such reputable metropolitan magazines as “Russian Wealth”, “Northern Messenger”, “Bulletin of Europe”. At the beginning of 1895, after a break with V.V. Pashchenko, he leaves the service and leaves for St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow.

In 1896, Bunin’s translation into Russian of G. Longfellow’s poem “The Song of Hiawatha” was published as an appendix to the Orlovsky Messenger, which revealed the undoubted talent of the translator and has remained unsurpassed to this day in its fidelity to the original and the beauty of the verse. In 1897, the collection “To the End of the World and Other Stories” was published in St. Petersburg, and in 1898, a book of poems “Under the Open Air” was published in Moscow. In Bunin’s spiritual biography, the rapprochement during these years with the participants in the “environments” of the writer N.D. is important. Teleshov and especially the meeting at the end of 1895 and the beginning of friendship with A.P. Chekhov. Bunin carried his admiration for Chekhov’s personality and talent throughout his life, dedicating his last book to him (the unfinished manuscript “About Chekhov” was published in New York in 1955, after the author’s death).

At the beginning of 1901, the Moscow publishing house "Scorpion" published the poetry collection "Falling Leaves" - the result of Bunin's short collaboration with the Symbolists, which in 1903 brought the author, along with the translation of "The Song of Hiawatha", the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Acquaintance with Maxim Gorky in 1899 led I.A. Bunin in the early 1900s. to cooperate with the publishing house "Knowledge". His stories and poems were published in the “Collections of the Knowledge Partnership”, and in 1902-1909. The publishing house "Znanie" publishes the first collected works of I.A. in five separate unnumbered volumes. Bunin (volume six was published thanks to the publishing house “Public Benefit” in 1910).

The growth of literary fame brought I.A. Bunin and relative material security, which allowed him to fulfill his long-standing dream - to travel abroad. In 1900-1904. the writer visited Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy. Impressions from a trip to Constantinople in 1903 formed the basis of the story “Shadow of a Bird” (1908), from which in Bunin’s work begins a series of brilliant travel essays, later collected in the cycle of the same name (the collection “Shadow of a Bird” was published in Paris in 1931 G.).

In November 1906, in the Moscow house of B.K. Zaitsev Bunin met Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva (1881-1961), who became the writer’s companion until the end of his life, and in the spring of 1907 the lovers set off on their “first long journey” - to Egypt, Syria and Palestine.

In the fall of 1909, the Academy of Sciences awarded I.A. Bunin received the second Pushkin Prize and elected him an honorary academician, but it was the story “The Village,” published in 1910, that brought him genuine and widespread fame. Bunin and his wife still travel a lot, visiting France, Algeria and Capri, Egypt and Ceylon. In December 1911, in Capri, the writer finished the autobiographical story “Sukhodol”, which, being published in “Bulletin of Europe” in April 1912, was a huge success among readers and critics. On October 27-29 of the same year, the entire Russian public solemnly celebrated the 25th anniversary of I.A.’s literary activity. Bunin, and in 1915 in the St. Petersburg publishing house A.F. Marx published his complete works in six volumes. In 1912-1914. Bunin took an active part in the work of the “Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow”, and collections of his works were published in this publishing house one after another - “John Rydalets: stories and poems of 1912-1913.” (1913), "The Cup of Life: Stories of 1913-1914." (1915), "Mr. from San Francisco: Works 1915-1916." (1916).

October Revolution of 1917 I.A. Bunin did not accept it decisively and categorically; in May 1918, he and his wife left Moscow for Odessa, and at the end of January 1920, the Bunins left Soviet Russia forever, sailing through Constantinople to Paris. A monument to the sentiments of I.A. Bunin's diary "Cursed Days", published in exile, remained from the revolutionary time.

The entire subsequent life of the writer is connected with France. The Bunins spent most of the year from 1922 to 1945 in Grasse, near Nice. In exile, only one actual poetry collection of Bunin was published - “Selected Poems” (Paris, 1929), but ten new books of prose were written, including “The Rose of Jericho” (published in Berlin in 1924), “Mitya’s Love” ( in Paris in 1925), " Sunstroke"(ibid. in 1927). In 1927-1933 Bunin worked on his largest work, the novel “The Life of Arsenyev” (first published in Paris in 1930; the first complete edition was published in New York in 1952). In 1933, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize “for the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character in artistic prose.”

The Bunins spent the years of World War II in Grasse, which was under German occupation for some time. Written in the 1940s. the stories formed the book Dark Alleys, first published in New York in 1943 (the first complete edition was published in Paris in 1946). Already at the end of the 1930s. attitude of I.A. Bunin became more tolerant of the Soviet country, and after the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany, he became unconditionally friendly, but the writer was never able to return to his homeland.

In the last years of I.A.’s life. Bunin published his Memoirs (Paris, 1950), worked on the already mentioned book about Chekhov, and constantly amended his already published works, mercilessly shortening them. In his “Literary Testament,” he asked from now on to publish his works only in the latest author’s edition, which formed the basis of his 12-volume collected works, published by the Berlin publishing house “Petropolis” in 1934-1939.

I.A. died Bunin was buried on November 8, 1953 in Paris at the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

en.wikipedia.org

Biography

Ivan Bunin was born on October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh, where he lived the first three years of his life. Subsequently, the family moved to the Ozerki estate near Yelets (Oryol province, now Lipetsk region). Father - Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin, mother - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (nee Chubarova). Until the age of 11, he was raised at home, in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, in 1885 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius.

At the age of 17 he began to write poetry, and in 1887 he made his debut in print. In 1889 he went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik. By this time, he had a long relationship with an employee of this newspaper, Varvara Pashchenko, with whom, against the wishes of his relatives, he moved to Poltava (1892).

Collections “Poems” (Eagle, 1891), “Under the Open Air” (1898), “Leaf Fall” (1901; Pushkin Prize).

1895 - I personally met Chekhov, before that we corresponded.

In the 1890s, he traveled on the steamship “Chaika” (“a bark with firewood”) along the Dnieper and visited the grave of Taras Shevchenko, whom he loved and later translated a lot. A few years later, he wrote the essay “At the Seagull,” which was published in the children’s illustrated magazine “Vskhody” (1898, No. 21, November 1).

In 1899 he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (Kakni), the daughter of a Greek revolutionary. The marriage did not last long, the only child died at the age of 5 (1905). In 1906, Bunin entered into a civil marriage (officially registered in 1922) with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the niece of S. A. Muromtsev, the first chairman of the First State Duma.

In his lyrics, Bunin continued the classical traditions (collection “Falling Leaves,” 1901).

In stories and stories he showed (sometimes with a nostalgic mood)
Impoverishment noble estates (« Antonov apples", 1900)
The cruel face of the village (“Village”, 1910, “Sukhodol”, 1911)
Disastrous oblivion of the moral foundations of life (“Mr. from San Francisco”, 1915).
Strong rejection October revolution and the Bolshevik regime in the diary book “Cursed Days” (1918, published in 1925).
In the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev” (1930) there is a recreation of the past of Russia, the writer’s childhood and youth.
Tragedy human existence in the story (“Mitya’s Love”, 1925; collection of stories “ Dark alleys", 1943), as well as in other works, wonderful examples of Russian short prose.
Translated “The Song of Hiawatha” by the American poet G. Longfellow. It was first published in the newspaper “Orlovsky Vestnik” in 1896. At the end of that year, the newspaper's printing house published The Song of Hiawatha as a separate book.

Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize three times; in 1909 he was elected academician in the category of fine literature, becoming the youngest academician of the Russian Academy.

In the summer of 1918, Bunin moved from Bolshevik Moscow to Odessa, occupied by German troops. As the Red Army approached the city in April 1919, he did not emigrate, but remained in Odessa and experienced the period of Bolshevik rule there. Welcomes the capture of the city by the Volunteer Army in August 1919, personally thanks General A.I. Denikin, who arrived in the city on October 7, actively collaborates with OSVAG (propaganda and information body) under V.S.Yu.R.. In February 1920, during the approach Bolsheviks leave Russia. Emigrates to France.

In exile, he was active in social and political activities: gave lectures, collaborated with Russians political parties and organizations (conservative and nationalist), regularly published journalistic articles. He delivered a famous manifesto on the tasks of the Russian Abroad regarding Russia and Bolshevism: “The Mission of the Russian Emigration.”

In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

He spent the Second World War in a rented villa in Grasse.

He was extensively and fruitfully engaged in literary activity, becoming one of the main figures of the Russian Abroad.

In exile, Bunin creates his own best works: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “Sunstroke” (1925), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925) and, finally, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933). These works became a new word both in Bunin’s work and in Russian literature in general. And according to K. G. Paustovsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” is not only the pinnacle work of Russian literature, but also “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.” Laureate Nobel Prize in literature in 1933.

According to the Chekhov Publishing House, in recent months During his lifetime, Bunin worked on a literary portrait of A.P. Chekhov, the work remained unfinished (in the book: “Loopy Ears and Other Stories”, New York, 1953).

He died in his sleep at two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953 in Paris. He was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

In 1929-1954, Bunin's works were not published in the USSR. Since 1955, he has been the most published writer of the “first wave” in the USSR (several collected works, many one-volume books).

Some works (“Cursed Days”, etc.) were published in the USSR only with the beginning of perestroika.

Perpetuation of the name

In the city of Moscow there is a street called Buninskaya Alley, next to the metro station of the same name. Also on Povarskaya Street, not far from the house where the writer lived, there is a monument to him.
In the city of Lipetsk there is Bunin Street. In addition, streets with the same name are located in Yelets and Odessa.

In Voronezh there is a monument to Bunin in the city center. There is a memorial plaque installed on the house where the writer was born.
There are Bunin museums in Orel and Yelets.
In Efremov there is a house-museum of Bunin, in which he lived in 1909-1910.

Biography

Russian writer: prose writer, poet, publicist. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22 (Old Style - October 10) 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of an impoverished nobleman who belonged to an old noble family. In the "Armorial" noble families"it is said that there are several ancient noble families of the Bunins, descended, according to legend, from Simeon Bunikevsky (Bunkovsky), who had noble birth and left Poland in the 15th century to Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich. His great-grandson, Alexander Lavrentyev's son Bunin, served in Vladimir and was killed in 1552 during the capture of Kazan. The Bunin family included the poetess Anna Petrovna Bunina (1775-1828), the poet V.A. Zhukovsky (illegitimate son of A.I. Bunin). Ivan Bunin's father is Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin, his mother is Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina, nee Chubarova. There were nine children in the Bunin family, but five died; older brothers - Yuliy and Evgeniy, younger sister - Maria. The noble family of the Chubarovs also had ancient roots. Lyudmila Alexandrovna’s grandfather and father had family estates in Oryol and Trubchevsky districts. Ivan Bunin's great-grandfather on his father's side was also rich, his grandfather owned small plots of land in the Oryol, Tambov and Voronezh provinces, but his father was so wasteful that he went completely broke, which was facilitated by the Crimean campaign and the Bunin family's move to Voronezh in 1870.

The first three years of Ivan Bunin’s life were spent in Voronezh, then his father, who had a weakness for clubs, cards and wine (he became addicted to wine during the Crimean campaign), was forced to move with his family to his estate - to the Butyrki farm in the Yeletsky district of the Oryol province. Alexei Nikolaevich’s lifestyle led to the fact that not only his own fortune was squandered or given away, but also what belonged to his wife. Ivan Bunin's father was an unusually strong, healthy, cheerful, decisive, generous, quick-tempered, but easy-going man. Alexey Nikolaevich did not like to study, which is why he studied at the Oryol gymnasium for a short time, but he loved to read, reading everything that came to hand. Ivan Bunin's mother was kind, gentle, but with a strong character.

Ivan Bunin received his first education from his home tutor - the son of the leader of the nobility, who once studied at the Lazarevsky Institute of Oriental Languages, taught in several cities, but then broke all family ties and turned into a wanderer around villages and estates. Ivan Bunin's teacher spoke three languages, played the violin, painted in watercolors, and wrote poetry; He taught his pupil Ivan to read from Homer's Odyssey. Bunin wrote his first poem at the age of eight. In 1881 he entered the gymnasium in Yelets, but studied there for only five years, since the family did not have the funds to educate their youngest son. Further education took place at home: Ivan Bunin was helped to fully master the curriculum of the gymnasium and then the university by his older brother Yuli, who by that time had graduated from the university, spent a year in prison for political reasons and was sent home for three years. In his adolescence, Bunin’s work was of an imitative nature: “most of all he imitated M. Lermontov, partly A. Pushkin, whom he tried to imitate even in his handwriting” (I.A. Bunin “Autobiographical Note”). In May 1887, the work of Ivan Bunin first appeared in print - the St. Petersburg weekly magazine Rodina published one of his poems. In September 1888, his poems appeared in Books of the Week, where the works of L.N. Tolstoy, Shchedrin, Polonsky.

Independent life began in the spring of 1889: Ivan Bunin, following his brother Yuli, moved to Kharkov. Soon he visited Crimea, and in the fall he began working at Orlovsky Vestnik. In 1891, Ivan Bunin’s student book “Poems. 1887-1891” was published as a supplement to the newspaper “Orlovsky Vestnik”. At the same time, Ivan Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who worked as a proofreader for the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper. In 1891 she married Bunin, but since Varvara Vladimirovna’s parents were against this marriage, the couple lived unmarried. In 1892 they moved to Poltava, where brother Julius was in charge of the statistical bureau of the provincial zemstvo. Ivan Bunin entered the service as a librarian of the zemstvo government, and then as a statistician in the provincial government. During his life in Poltava, Ivan Bunin met L.N. Tolstoy. At various times, Bunin worked as a proofreader, statistician, librarian, and newspaper reporter. In April 1894, Bunin's first prose work appeared in print - the story "Village Sketch" (the title was chosen by the publishing house) was published in "Russian Wealth".

In January 1895, after his wife’s betrayal, Ivan Bunin left his service and moved first to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow. In 1898 (some sources indicate 1896) Bunin married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni, a Greek woman, the daughter of the revolutionary and emigrant N.P. Tsakni. Family life again it was unsuccessful and in 1900 the couple divorced, and in 1905 their son Nikolai died. In Moscow, the young writer met many famous artists and writers: with Balmont, in December 1895 - with A.P. Chekhov, at the end of 1895 - beginning of 1896 - with V.Ya. Bryusov. After meeting D. Teleshov, Bunin became a member of the Sreda literary circle. In the spring of 1899, in Yalta, he met M. Gorky, who later invited Bunin to collaborate with the Znanie publishing house. Later, in his “Memoirs,” Bunin wrote: “The beginning of that strange friendship that united us with Gorky - strange because for almost two decades we were considered great friends with him, but in reality we were not - this beginning refers by 1899. And the end - by 1917. Then it happened that a person with whom I had not had a single personal reason for enmity for twenty whole years suddenly turned out to be an enemy for me, who aroused horror and indignation in me for a long time." In the spring of 1900 in Crimea, Bunin met S.V. Rachmaninov and actors Art Theater, whose troupe toured in Yalta. Literary fame came to Ivan Bunin in 1900 after the publication of the story “Antonov Apples.” In 1901, the Symbolist publishing house "Scorpion" published a collection of Bunin's poems, "Falling Leaves." For this collection and for the translation of the poem by the American romantic poet G. Longfellow “The Song of Hiawatha” (1898, some sources indicate 1896) the Russian Academy of Sciences awarded Ivan Alekseevich Bunin the Pushkin Prize. In 1902, the publishing house "Znanie" published the first volume of the works of I.A. Bunina. In 1905, Bunin, who lived in the National Hotel, witnessed the December armed uprising.

In 1906, Bunin met in Moscow Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva (1881-1961), who became his wife in 1907 and faithful companion until the end of his life. Later V.N. Muromtseva, gifted with literary abilities, wrote a series of memoirs about her husband (“The Life of Bunin” and “Conversations with Memory”). In 1907, the young couple went on a trip to the countries of the East - Syria, Egypt, Palestine. In 1909, the Russian Academy of Sciences elected Ivan Alekseevich Bunin as an honorary academician in the category of fine literature. In 1910, Bunin set off on a new journey - first to Europe, and then to Egypt and Ceylon. In 1912, in connection with the 25th anniversary creative activity Bunin, he was honored at Moscow University; in the same year he was elected an honorary member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (in 1914-1915 he was the chairman of this society). In the autumn of 1912 - spring of 1913, Bunin again went abroad: to Trebizond, Constantinople, Bucharest, and the Bunins spent three winters in 1913-1915 in Capri. In addition to the listed places, in the period from 1907 to 1915, Bunin more than once visited Turkey, the countries of Asia Minor, Greece, Oran, Algeria, Tunisia and the outskirts of the Sahara, India, traveled almost all of Europe, especially Sicily and Italy, was in Romania and Serbia.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin reacted extremely hostilely to the February and October revolutions of 1917 and perceived them as a disaster. On May 21, 1918, Bunin left Moscow for Odessa, and in February 1920 he emigrated first to the Balkans and then to France. In France, for the first time he lived in Paris; in the summer of 1923 he moved to the Alpes-Maritimes and came to Paris only for some winter months. In emigration, relations with prominent Russian emigrants were difficult for the Bunins, especially since Bunin himself did not have a sociable character. In 1933, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, the first Russian writer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The official Soviet press explained the decision of the Nobel Committee as the machinations of imperialism. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, the Bunins settled in the south of France, in Grasse, at the Villa Jeannette, where they spent the entire war. Bunin refused any forms of cooperation with the Nazi occupiers and tried to constantly monitor events in Russia. In 1945 the Bunins returned to Paris. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin repeatedly expressed his desire to return to Russia; in 1946 he called the decree of the Soviet government “On the restoration of USSR citizenship to subjects of the former Russian Empire...” a “magnanimous measure,” but Zhdanov’s decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (1946) , which trampled A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko, led to Bunin forever abandoning his intention to return to his homeland. Last years the writer passed in poverty. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in Paris. On the night of November 7-8, 1953, two hours after midnight, Bunin died: he died quietly and calmly, in his sleep. On his bed lay the novel by L.N. Tolstoy's "Resurrection". Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, near Paris.

In 1927-1942, a friend of the Bunin family was Galina Nikolaevna Kuznetsova, who became a deep late affection of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin and wrote a number of memoirs ("Grasse Diary", article "In Memory of Bunin"). In the USSR, the first collected works of I.A. Bunin was published only after his death - in 1956 (five volumes in the Ogonyok Library).

Among the works of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin are novels, stories, short stories, essays, poems, memoirs, translations of works by classics of world poetry: “Poems” (1891; collection), “To the End of the World” (January 1897; collection of stories), “Under open sky" (1898; collection of poems), "Antonov Apples" (1900; story), "Pines" (1901; story), "New Road" (1901; story), "Falling Leaves" (1901; collection of poems; Pushkin Prize ), "Chernozem" (1904; story), "Temple of the Sun" (1907-1911; a series of essays about a trip to the countries of the East), "Village" (1910; story), "Sukhodol" (1911; story), "Brothers" (1914), “The Cup of Life” (1915; collection of stories), “The Master from San Francisco” (1915; story), “Cursed Days” (1918, published in 1925; diary entries about the events of the October Revolution and its consequences), “Mitya’s Love” (1925; collection of stories), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1927), “Sunstroke” (1927; collection of stories), “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933; autobiographical novel; a separate edition was published in 1930 in Paris); "Dark Alleys", (1943; a series of short stories; published in New York), "The Liberation of Tolstoy" (1937, a philosophical and literary treatise about L.N. Tolstoy, published in Paris), "Memoirs" (1950; published in Paris ), "About Chekhov" (published posthumously in 1955, New York), translations - "The Song of Hiawatha" by G. Longfellow (1898, in some sources - 1896; Pushkin Prize).

Biography

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh into a noble family. He spent his childhood and youth on an impoverished estate in the Oryol province. The future writer did not receive a systematic education, which he regretted all his life. True, the elder brother Yuli, who graduated from the university with flying colors, went through the entire gymnasium course with Vanya. They studied languages, psychology, philosophy, social and natural sciences. It was Julius who had a great influence on the formation of Bunin’s tastes and views.

Bunin began writing early. Wrote essays, sketches, poems. In May 1887, the magazine "Rodina" published the poem "Beggar" by sixteen-year-old Vanya Bunin. From that time on, his more or less constant literary activity, in which there was room for both poetry and prose.

Outwardly, Bunin's poems looked traditional both in form and in theme: nature, joy of life, love, loneliness, sadness of loss and new rebirth. And yet, despite the imitation, there was some special intonation in Bunin’s poems. This became more noticeable with the release of the poetry collection “Falling Leaves” in 1901, which was enthusiastically received by both readers and critics.

Bunin wrote poetry until the end of his life, loving poetry with all his soul, admiring its musical structure and harmony. But already at the beginning creative path a prose writer became more and more clearly evident in him, and so strong and deep that Bunin’s first stories immediately earned recognition from the famous writers of that time: Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev, Kuprin.

In 1898, Bunin married a Greek woman, Anna Tsakni, having previously experienced a strong love and subsequent strong disappointment with Varvara Pashchenko. However, by Ivan Alekseevich’s own admission, he never loved Tsakni.

In the 1910s, Bunin traveled a lot, going abroad. He visits Leo Tolstoy, meets Chekhov, actively collaborates with the Gorky publishing house "Znanie", and meets the niece of the Chairman of the First Duma A.S. Muromtsev, Vera Muromtseva. And although Vera Nikolaevna actually became “Mrs. Bunina” already in 1906, they were able to officially register their marriage only in July 1922 in France. Only by this time did Bunin manage to obtain a divorce from Anna Tsakni.

Vera Nikolaevna was devoted to Ivan Alekseevich until the end of his life, becoming his faithful assistant in all matters. Possessing great spiritual strength, helping to steadfastly endure all the hardships and hardships of emigration, Vera Nikolaevna also had a great gift of patience and forgiveness, which was important when communicating with such a difficult and unpredictable person as Bunin was.

After the resounding success of his stories, the story "The Village" appeared in print, becoming immediately famous - Bunin's first major work. This is a bitter and very brave work, in which the half-crazed Russian reality with all its contrasts, precariousness, and broken destinies appeared before the reader. Bunin, perhaps one of the few Russian writers of that time, was not afraid to tell the unpleasant truth about the Russian village and the downtroddenness of the Russian peasant.

“The Village” and the “Sukhodol” that followed it determined Bunin’s attitude towards his heroes - the weak, the disadvantaged and the restless. But hence comes sympathy for them, pity, a desire to understand what is happening in the suffering Russian soul.

In parallel with the rural theme, the writer developed in his stories the lyrical theme, which had previously appeared in poetry. Appeared female characters, although barely outlined - the charming, airy Olya Meshcherskaya (story " Easy breath"), the ingenuous Klasha Smirnova (story "Klasha"). Later, female types with all the lyrical passion will appear in the emigrant stories and stories of Bunin - "Ida", "Mitya's Love", "The Case of Cornet Elagin" and, of course, in his famous cycle "Dark Alleys".

In pre-revolutionary Russia, Bunin, as they say, “rested on his laurels” - he was awarded the Pushkin Prize three times; in 1909 he was elected academician in the category of fine literature, becoming the youngest academician of the Russian Academy.

In 1920, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna, who did not accept either the revolution or the Bolshevik power, emigrated from Russia, “having drunk the untold cup of mental suffering,” as Bunin later wrote in his biography. On March 28 they arrived in Paris.

Ivan Alekseevich returned to literary creativity slowly. Longing for Russia and uncertainty about the future depressed him. Therefore, the first collection of stories, "Scream", published abroad, consisted only of stories written in Bunin's happiest time - in 1911-1912.

And yet the writer gradually overcame the feeling of oppression. In the story “The Rose of Jericho” there are such heartfelt words: “There is no separation and loss as long as my soul, my Love, Memory lives! I immerse the roots and stems of my past into the living water of the heart, into the pure moisture of love, sadness and tenderness... "

In the mid-1920s, the Bunins moved to the small resort town of Grasse in the south of France, where they settled in the Belvedere villa, and later settled in the Janet villa. Here they were destined to live most of their lives, to survive the Second World War. In 1927, in Grasse, Bunin met the Russian poetess Galina Kuznetsova, who was vacationing there with her husband. Bunin was fascinated by the young woman, and she, in turn, was delighted with him (and Bunin knew how to charm women!). Their romance received wide publicity. The insulted husband left, Vera Nikolaevna suffered from jealousy. And here the incredible happened - Ivan Alekseevich managed to convince Vera Nikolaevna that his relationship with Galina was purely platonic, and they had nothing more than a relationship between a teacher and a student. Vera Nikolaevna, incredible as it may seem, believed. She believed it because she couldn’t imagine her life without Ian. As a result, Galina was invited to live with the Bunins and become “a member of the family.”

For almost fifteen years, Kuznetsova shared a common home with Bunin, playing the role of an adopted daughter and experiencing all the joys, troubles and hardships with them.

This love of Ivan Alekseevich was both happy and painfully difficult. She also turned out to be immensely dramatic. In 1942, Kuznetsova left Bunin, becoming interested in the opera singer Margot Stepun.

Ivan Alekseevich was shocked, he was depressed not only by the betrayal of his beloved woman, but also by whom she cheated with! “How she (G.) poisoned my life - she’s still poisoning me! 15 years! Weakness, lack of will...”, he wrote in his diary on April 18, 1942. This friendship between Galina and Margot was like a bleeding wound for Bunin for the rest of his life.

But despite all the adversities and endless hardships, Bunin’s prose gained new heights. The books “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, collections of stories “Sunstroke” and “Tree of God” were published abroad. And in 1930, the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev” was published - a fusion of memoirs, memoirs and lyrical-philosophical prose.

On November 10, 1933, newspapers in Paris came out with huge headlines “Bunin - Nobel laureate.” For the first time since the existence of this prize, the award for literature was presented to a Russian writer. Bunin's all-Russian fame grew into worldwide fame.

Every Russian in Paris, even those who had not read a single line of Bunin, took this as a personal holiday. The Russian people experienced the sweetest of feelings - a noble sense of national pride.

Being awarded the Nobel Prize was a huge event for the writer himself. Recognition came, and with it (albeit for a very short period, the Bunins were extremely impractical) material security.

In 1937, Bunin finished the book “The Liberation of Tolstoy,” which, according to experts, became one of best books in all literature about Lev Nikolaevich. And in 1943, “Dark Alleys” was published in New York - the pinnacle of the writer’s lyrical prose, a true encyclopedia of love. In “Dark Alleys” you can find everything - sublime experiences, conflicting feelings, and violent passions. But what was closest to Bunin was pure, bright love, similar to the harmony of earth and sky. In “Dark Alleys” it is, as a rule, short, and sometimes instantaneous, but its light illuminates the hero’s entire life.

Some critics of that time accused Bunin's "Dark Alleys" of either pornography or senile sensuality. Ivan Alekseevich was offended by this: “I consider “Dark Alleys” the best thing I wrote, and they, idiots, think that I disgraced my gray hairs with them... The Pharisees do not understand that this is a new word, a new approach to life,” - he complained to I. Odoevtseva.

Until the end of his life he had to defend his favorite book from the “Pharisees.” In 1952, he wrote to F.A. Stepun, the author of one of the reviews of Bunin’s works: “It’s a pity that you wrote that in “Dark Alleys” there is some excess of consideration of female charms... What an “excess” there! I only gave a thousandth part of how men of all tribes and peoples “look” everywhere, always at women from the age of ten until the age of 90.”

The writer devoted the last years of his life to working on a book about Chekhov. Unfortunately, this work remained unfinished.

Ivan Alekseevich made his last diary entry on May 2, 1953. “This is still amazing to the point of tetanus! In some, very short time, I will be gone - and the affairs and fate of everything, everything will be unknown to me!”

At two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died quietly. The funeral service was solemn - in the Russian church on Daru Street in Paris with a large crowd of people. All newspapers - both Russian and French - published extensive obituaries.

And the funeral itself took place much later, on January 30, 1954 (before that, the ashes were in a temporary crypt). Ivan Alekseevich was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve des Bois near Paris. Next to Bunin, seven and a half years later, his faithful and selfless life partner, Vera Nikolaevna Bunina, found her peace.

Literature.

Elena Vasilyeva, Yuri Pernatyev. "100 famous writers", "Folio" (Kharkov), 2001.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Biography

"No, it's not the landscape that attracts me,
It’s not the colors that I’m trying to notice,
And what shines in these colors -
Love and joy of being."
I. Bunin

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 23, 1870 (October 10, old style) in Voronezh, on Dvoryanskaya Street. The impoverished landowners Bunins belonged to a noble family, among their ancestors - V.A. Zhukovsky and poetess Anna Bunina.

The Bunins appeared in Voronezh three years before Vanya was born, to train their eldest sons: Yulia (13 years old) and Evgeniy (12 years old). Julius was extremely capable of languages ​​and mathematics, studied brilliantly, Evgeniy studied poorly, or rather, did not study at all, and left school early; he was a gifted artist, but in those years he was not interested in painting, he was more interested in chasing pigeons. As for the youngest, his mother, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, always said that “Vanya was different from other children from birth,” that she always knew that he was “special,” “no one has a soul like his.” .

In 1874, the Bunins decided to move from the city to the village to the Butyrki farm, in the Yeletsky district of the Oryol province, to the last estate of the family. This spring, Julius graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal and in the fall was supposed to leave for Moscow to enter the mathematics department of the university.

In the village, little Vanya “heard enough” of songs and fairy tales from his mother and the servants. Memories of his childhood - from the age of seven, as Bunin wrote - are connected with “the field, with peasant huts” and their inhabitants. He spent whole days wandering around the nearby villages, herding cattle with peasant children, traveling at night, and making friends with some of them.

Imitating the shepherd, he and his sister Masha ate black bread, radishes, “rough and lumpy cucumbers,” and at this meal, “without realizing it, they partook of the earth itself, of all that sensual, material from which the world was created,” wrote Bunin in the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arsenyev". Even then, with a rare power of perception, he felt, by his own admission, the “divine splendor of the world” - the main motive of his work. It was at this age that an artistic perception of life was revealed in him, which, in particular, was expressed in the ability to portray people with facial expressions and gestures; He was a talented storyteller even then. When he was eight years old, Bunin wrote his first poem.

In his eleventh year he entered the Yelets Gymnasium. At first I studied well, everything came easy; could remember a whole page of poetry from one reading if it interested him. But year after year, his studies went worse; he remained in the third grade for the second year. The majority of teachers were dull and insignificant people. In the gymnasium, he wrote poetry, imitating Lermontov and Pushkin. He was not attracted by what is usually read at this age, but read, as he said, “whatever.”

He did not graduate from high school; he then studied independently under the guidance of his older brother Yuly Alekseevich, a candidate at the university. In the autumn of 1889, he began working in the editorial office of the newspaper "Orelsky Vestnik", often he was the actual editor; He published his stories, poems, literary-critical articles, and notes in the permanent section “Literature and Printing”. He lived by literary work and was in great need. The father went bankrupt, in 1890 he sold the estate in Ozerki without the estate, and having lost the estate, in 1893 he moved to Kmenka to live with his sister, his mother and Masha moved to Vasilievskoye to Bunin’s cousin Sofya Nikolaevna Pusheshnikova. There was nowhere for the young poet to wait for help.

In the editorial office, Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, the daughter of an Yelets doctor who worked as a proofreader. His passionate love for her was at times overshadowed by quarrels. In 1891 she got married, but their marriage was not legalized, they lived without getting married, the father and mother did not want to marry their daughter to a poor poet. Bunin's youth novel formed the plot of the fifth book, "The Life of Arsenyev", which was published separately under the title "Lika".

Many people imagine Bunin as dry and cold. V.N. Muromtseva-Bunina says: “True, sometimes he wanted to seem like that - he was a first-class actor,” but “whoever did not know him completely cannot imagine what tenderness his soul was capable of.” He was one of those who did not open up to everyone. He was distinguished by the great strangeness of his nature. It is hardly possible to name another Russian writer who, with such self-forgetfulness, so impulsively expressed his feelings of love, as he did in letters to Varvara Pashchenko, combining in his dreams an image with everything beautiful that he found in nature, in poetry and music. In this side of his life - restraint in passion and search for an ideal in love - he resembles Goethe, who, by his own admission, has much that is autobiographical in Werther.

At the end of August 1892, Bunin and Pashchenko moved to Poltava, where Yuli Alekseevich worked as a statistician in the provincial zemstvo government. He took both Pashchenko and his younger brother into his management. In the Poltava zemstvo there was a group of intelligentsia involved in the populist movement of the 70-80s. The Bunin brothers were members of the editorial board of the Poltava Provincial Gazette, which had been under the influence of the progressive intelligentsia since 1894. Bunin published his works in this newspaper. By order of the zemstvo, he also wrote essays “about the fight against harmful insects, about the harvest of bread and herbs.” As he believed, so many of them were printed that they could make up three or four volumes.

He also contributed to the newspaper "Kievlyanin". Now Bunin's poems and prose began to appear more often in "thick" magazines - "Bulletin of Europe", "World of God", "Russian Wealth" - and attracted the attention of the luminaries of literary criticism. N.K. Mikhailovsky spoke well of the story “Village Sketch” (later entitled “Tanka”) and wrote about the author that he would make a “great writer.” At this time, Bunin's lyrics acquired a more objective character; autobiographical motifs characteristic of the first collection of poems (it was published in Orel as a supplement to the newspaper "Orelsky Vestnik" in 1891), according to the author himself, too intimate, gradually disappeared from his work, which was now receiving more complete forms.

In 1893-1894, Bunin, in his words, “from falling in love with Tolstoy as an artist,” was a Tolstoyan and “adapted to the Bondar craft.” He visited Tolstoyan colonies near Poltava and went to Sumy district to visit sectarians in the village. Pavlovka - "Malevans", in their views close to Tolstoyans. At the very end of 1893, he visited the Tolstoyans of the Khilkovo farm, which belonged to the prince. YES. Khilkov. From there he went to Moscow to see Tolstoy and visited him one day between January 4 and 8, 1894. The meeting made a “stunning impression” on Bunin, as he wrote. Tolstoy dissuaded him from “saying goodbye to the end.”

In the spring and summer of 1894, Bunin traveled around Ukraine. “In those years,” he recalled, “I was in love with Little Russia, its villages and steppes, eagerly sought rapprochement with its people, eagerly listened to their songs, their soul.” 1895 was a turning point in Bunin’s life: after the “flight” of Pashchenko, who left Bunin and married his friend Arseniy Bibikov, in January he left his service in Poltava and went to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow. Now he was entering the literary environment. The great success at the literary evening, held on November 21 in the hall of the Credit Society in St. Petersburg, encouraged him. There he gave a reading of the story "To the End of the World."

His impressions from more and more new meetings with writers were varied and sharp. D.V. Grigorovich and A.M. Zhemchuzhnikov, one of the creators of “Kozma Prutkov”, who continued the classic 19th century; populists N.K. Mikhailovsky and N.N. Zlatovpatsky; symbolists and decadents K.D. Balmont and F.K. Solgub. In December in Moscow, Bunin met the leader of the Symbolists V.Ya. Bryusov, December 12 at the “Big Moscow” hotel - with Chekhov. I was very interested in the talent of V.G. Bunin. Korolenko - Bunin met him on December 7, 1896 in St. Petersburg at the anniversary of K.M. Stanyukovich; in the summer of 1897 - with Kuprin in Lustdorf, near Odessa.

In June 1898, Bunin left for Odessa. Here he became close to the members of the “Association of South Russian Artists” who gathered for “Thursdays”, and became friends with the artists E.I. Bukovetsky, V.P. Kurovsky (Bunin’s poems “In Memory of a Friend” about her) and P.A. Nilus (Bunin took something from him for the stories “Galya Ganskaya” and “Chang’s Dreams”).

In Odessa, Bunin married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (1879-1963) on September 23, 1898. Family life was not going well; Bunin and Anna Nikolaevna separated in early March 1900. Their son Kolya died on January 16, 1905.

At the beginning of April 1899, Bunin visited Yalta, met with Chekhov, and met Gorky. On his visits to Moscow, Bunin attended “Wednesdays” by N.D. Teleshov, which united prominent realist writers, willingly read his not yet published works; The atmosphere in this circle was friendly; no one was offended by frank, sometimes destructive criticism. On April 12, 1900, Bunin arrived in Yalta, where the Art Theater staged his “The Seagull,” “Uncle Vanya” and other performances for Chekhov. Bunin met Stanislavsky, Knipper, S.V. Rachmaninov, with whom he established a forever friendship.

The 1900s were a new frontier in Bunin's life. Repeated travels through the countries of Europe and to the East widened the world before his eyes, so greedy for new impressions. And in the literature of the beginning of the decade, with the release of new books, he won recognition as one of best writers of your time. He performed mainly with poetry.

On September 11, 1900, he went with Kurovsky to Berlin, Paris, and Switzerland. In the Alps they rose to great heights. Upon returning from abroad, Bunin ended up in Yalta, lived in Chekhov’s house, and spent an “amazing week” with Chekhov, who arrived from Italy a little later. In Chekhov's family, Bunin became, as he put it, “one of our own”; He had an “almost brotherly relationship” with his sister Maria Pavlovna. Chekhov was always “gentle, friendly, and cared for him like an elder.” Bunin met with Chekhov, starting in 1899, every year, in Yalta and Moscow, during four years of their friendly communication, until Anton Pavlovich’s departure abroad in 1904, where he died. Chekhov predicted that Bunin would become a “great writer”; he wrote in the story "Pines" as "very new, very fresh and very good." “Great”, in his opinion, are “Dreams” and “Bonanza” - “there are places that are simply surprising.”

At the beginning of 1901, a collection of poems “Falling Leaves” was published, which attracted numerous critical reviews. Kuprin wrote about the “rare artistic subtlety” in conveying mood. For “Falling Leaves” and other poems, Blok recognized Bunin’s right to “one of the main places” among modern Russian poetry. "Falling Leaves" and Longfellow's translation of "The Song of Hiawatha" were awarded the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences, awarded to Bunin on October 19, 1903. Since 1902, the collected works of Bunin began to appear in separate numbered volumes in Gorky's publishing house "Knowledge". And again traveling - to Constantinople, to France and Italy, throughout the Caucasus, and so all his life he was attracted to various cities and countries.

Photo of Vera Muromtseva with Bunin's inscription on the back: V.N. Bunin, early 1927, Paris

On November 4, 1906, Bunin met in Moscow, in the house of B.K. Zaitseva, with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, daughter of a member of the Moscow City Council and niece of the Chairman of the First State Duma S.A. Muromtseva. On April 10, 1907, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna set off from Moscow to the countries of the East - Egypt, Syria, Palestine. On May 12, having completed their “first long journey,” they went ashore in Odessa. This is where their journey began living together. The cycle of stories “Shadow of the Bird” (1907-1911) is about this journey. They combine diary entries - descriptions of cities, ancient ruins, art monuments, pyramids, tombs - and legends of ancient peoples, excursions into the history of their culture and the death of kingdoms. On the depiction of the East by Bunin Yu.I. Aikhenwald wrote: “He is captivated by the East, the “luminous countries”, which he now remembers with the unusual beauty of the lyrical word... For the East, biblical and modern, Bunin knows how to find the appropriate style, solemn and sometimes as if flooded with the sultry waves of the sun, decorated precious inlays and arabesques of imagery; and when we talk about gray antiquity, lost in the distances of religion and mothology, you get the impression that some majestic chariot of humanity is moving before us.”

Bunin's prose and poetry now acquired new colors. An excellent colorist, he, according to P.A. Nilus, “the principles of painting” decisively instilled in literature. The previous prose, as Bunin himself noted, was such that it “forced some critics to interpret” him, for example, “as a melancholic lyricist or a singer of noble estates, a singer of idylls,” and his literary activity was revealed “more brightly and variedly only from 1908, 9 years." These new features permeated Bunin's prose stories "Shadow of the Bird." The Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin the second Pushkin Prize in 1909 for poems and translations of Byron; the third - also for poetry. In the same year, Bunin was elected honorary academician.

The story "The Village", published in 1910, caused great controversy and was the beginning of Bunin's enormous popularity. “The Village,” the first major work, was followed by other stories and short stories, as Bunin wrote, “sharply depicting the Russian soul, its light and dark, often tragic foundations,” and his “merciless” works evoked “passionate hostile responses.” During these years, I felt how my literary powers were becoming stronger every day." Gorky wrote to Bunin that “no one has taken the village so deeply, so historically.” Bunin widely captured the life of the Russian people, touches on problems of historical, national, and what was the topic of the day - war and revolution - depicts, in his opinion, “in the footsteps of Radishchev”, a contemporary village without any beauty, after Bunin’s story, with its “merciless truth”, based on a deep knowledge of the “peasant kingdom”, It became impossible to portray the peasants in the tone of populist idealization.

Bunin developed his view of the Russian village partly under the influence of travel, “after a sharp slap in the face abroad.” The village is not depicted as motionless, new trends penetrate it, new people appear, and Tikhon Ilyich himself thinks about his existence as a shopkeeper and innkeeper. The story “The Village” (which Bunin also called a novel), like his work as a whole, affirmed the realistic traditions of Russian classical literature in a century when they were attacked and rejected by modernists and decadents. It captures the richness of observations and colors, the strength and beauty of the language, the harmony of the drawing, the sincerity of tone and truthfulness. But "Village" is not traditional. People appeared in it, mostly new to Russian literature: the Krasov brothers, Tikhon’s wife, Rodka, Molodaya, Nikolka Gray and his son Deniska, girls and women at Molodaya and Deniska’s wedding. Bunin himself noted this.

In mid-December 1910, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna went to Egypt and further to the tropics - to Ceylon, where they stayed for half a month. We returned to Odessa in mid-April 1911. The diary of their voyage is “Many Waters.” The stories “Brothers” and “City of the King of Kings” are also about this journey. What the Englishman felt in “Brothers” is autobiographical. According to Bunin, travel played a “huge role” in his life; Regarding travel, he even developed, as he said, “a certain philosophy.” The 1911 diary “Many Waters,” published almost unchanged in 1925-1926, is a high example of lyrical prose that was new both for Bunin and for Russian literature.

He wrote that “this is something like Maupassant.” Close to this prose are the stories immediately preceding the diary - “The Shadow of a Bird” - poems in prose, as the author himself defined their genre. From their diary - a transition to "Sukhodol", which synthesized the experience of the author of "The Village" in creating everyday prose and lyrical prose. “Sukhodol” and the stories, soon written, marked a new creative rise of Bunin after “The Village” - in the sense of great psychological depth and complexity of images, as well as the novelty of the genre. In Sukhodol, what is in the foreground is not historical Russia with its way of life, as in “Village,” but “the soul of a Russian person in the deep sense of the word, an image of the features of the Slav’s psyche,” said Bunin.

Bunin went his own way in my own way, did not join any fashionable literary trends or groups, in his words, “did not throw out any banners” and did not proclaim any slogans. Critics noted Bunin's powerful language, his art of raising “everyday phenomena of life” into the world of poetry. For him there were no “low” topics unworthy of the poet’s attention. His poems have a great sense of history. A reviewer for the magazine "Bulletin of Europe" wrote: "His historical style is unparalleled in our poetry... Prosaism, accuracy, beauty of the language are brought to the limit. There is hardly another poet whose style would be so unadorned, everyday, as here; throughout dozens of pages you will not find a single epithet, not a general comparison, not a single metaphor... such a simplification of poetic language without damage to poetry is only possible by true talent... In terms of pictorial accuracy, Mr. Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets" .

The book "The Cup of Life" (1915) touches on the deep problems of human existence. The French writer, poet and literary critic Rene Gil wrote to Bunin in 1921 about the “Cup of Life” created in French: “How complex everything is psychologically! And at the same time - this is your genius, everything is born from simplicity and from the very accurate observation of reality: an atmosphere is created where you breathe something strange and disturbing, emanating from the very act of life! We know this kind of suggestion, the suggestion of that secret that surrounds the action, in Dostoevsky, but with him it comes from the abnormality of imbalance; characters, because of his nervous passion, which hovers, like a certain exciting aura, around some cases of madness. With you it’s the other way around: everything is a radiation of life, full of strength, and it disturbs precisely with its own forces, primitive forces, where under the visible unity lurks complexity, something inescapable, violating the usual clear norm.”

Bunin developed his ethical ideal under the influence of Socrates, whose views were set forth in the writings of his students Xenophon and Plato. More than once he read the semi-philosophical, semi-poetic work of the “divine Plato” (Pushkin) in the form of a dialogue - “Phidon”. After reading the dialogues, he wrote in his diary on August 21, 1917: “How much Socrates said in Indian and Jewish philosophy!” “The last minutes of Socrates,” he notes in his diary the next day, “as always, greatly worried me.”

Bunin was fascinated by his doctrine of value human personality. And he saw in each of the people, to some extent, “concentration ... of high forces,” to the knowledge of which, Bunin wrote in the story “Returning to Rome,” Socrates called for. In his enthusiasm for Socrates, he followed Tolstoy, who, as V. Ivanov said, went “following the paths of Socrates in search of the norm of goodness.” Tolstoy was close to Bunin in that for him goodness and beauty, ethics and aesthetics are at liberty. “Beauty is like the crown of goodness,” wrote Tolstoy. Bunin affirmed eternal values ​​in his work - goodness and beauty. This gave him a feeling of connection, unity with the past, historical continuity of existence. “Brothers”, “Lord from San Francisco”, “Looping Ears”, based on real facts of modern life, are not only accusatory, but deeply philosophical. "Brothers" is a particularly clear example. This is a story on eternal themes love, life and death, and not just about the dependent existence of colonial peoples. The embodiment of the concept of this story is equally based on the impressions of the trip to Ceylon and on the myth of Mara - the legend of the god of life and death. Mara is the evil demon of Buddhists - at the same time - the personification of existence. Bunin took a lot of prose and poetry from Russian and world folklore; his attention was attracted by Buddhist and Muslim legends, Syrian legends, Chaldean, Egyptian myths and myths of idolaters of the Ancient East, legends of the Arabs.

His sense of homeland, language, history was enormous. Bunin said: “all these sublime words, wondrous beauty of songs, cathedrals - all this is needed, all this has been created over the centuries...”. One of the sources of his creativity was folk speech. Poet and literary critic G.V. Adamovich, who knew Bunin well and communicated closely with him in France, wrote to the author of this article on December 19, 1969: Bunin, of course, “knew, loved, and appreciated folk art, but was extremely clear about fakes based on it and about ostentatious style russe. Cruel - and correct - his review of Gorodetsky's poems is an example of this. Even Blok's "Kulikovo Field" - a wonderful thing, in my opinion, irritated him precisely because of his "too Russian" attire... He said - "this is Vasnetsov" , that is, masquerade and opera. But he treated things that were not “masquerade” differently: I remember, for example, something about “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” The meaning of his words was approximately the same as in Pushkin’s words: all the poets gathered together could not create such a miracle! But the translations of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” outraged him, in particular, Balmont’s translation. Because of the fakeness of the exaggerated Russian style or meter, he despised Shmelev, although he recognized his talent in general. He had a rare ear for falsehood, for the “pedal”: as soon as he heard falsehood, he flew into a rage. Because of this, he loved Tolstoy so much and once, I remember, he said: “Tolstoy, who does not have a single exaggerated word anywhere...”

In May 1917, Bunin arrived in the village of Glotovo, on the Vasilyevskoye estate, Oryol province, and lived here all summer and autumn. On October 23, my wife and I left for Moscow; on October 26, we arrived in Moscow and lived on Povarskaya (now Vorovskogo Street), in Baskakov’s house No. 26, apt. 2, with Vera Nikolaevna’s parents, the Muromtsevs. The time was alarming, battles were going on, “past their windows,” wrote A.E. Gruzinsky on November 7 to A.B. Derman, “a gun thundered along Povarskaya.” Bunin lived in Moscow during the winter of 1917-1918. A guard was set up in the lobby of the building where the Murmtsevs had an apartment; the doors were locked, the gates were blocked with logs. Bunin was also on duty.

A house on the Vasilievsky estate (the village of Glotovo, Oryol province), where, according to Bunin, the story “Easy Breathing” was written

Bunin became involved in literary life, which, in spite of everything, with all the rapidity of social, political and military events, with devastation and famine, still did not stop. He visited the “Book Publishing House of Writers”, took part in its work, in the literary circle “Sreda” and in the Art Circle.

On May 21, 1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna left Moscow - through Orsha and Minsk to Kyiv, then to Odessa; January 26, old style 1920 sailed to Constantinople, then via Sofia and Belgrade arrived in Paris on March 28, 1920. Began long years emigration - in Paris and in the south of France, in Grasse, near Cannes. Bunin told Vera Nikolaevna that “he cannot live in the new world, that he belongs to the old world, to the world of Goncharov, Tolstoy, Moscow, St. Petersburg; that poetry is only there, and in the new world he does not grasp it.”

Bunin grew as an artist all the time. "Mitya's Love" (1924), "Sunstroke" (1925), "The Case of Cornet Elagin" (1925), and then "The Life of Arsenyev" (1927-1929, 1933) and many other works marked new achievements in Russian prose. Bunin himself spoke about the “piercing lyricism” of “Mitya’s Love.” This is what is most exciting about his stories and stories of the last three decades. They also - one might say in the words of their author - have a certain “fashionability”, poetic quality. The prose of these years excitingly conveys a sensory perception of life. Contemporaries noted the great philosophical meaning of such works as "Mitya's Love" or "The Life of Arsenyev." In them, Bunin broke through “to a deep metaphysical feeling of the tragic nature of man.” K.G. Paustovsky wrote that “The Life of Arsenyev” is “one of the most remarkable phenomena in world literature.”

In 1927-1930, Bunin wrote short stories ("Elephant", "The Sky Above the Wall" and many others) - a page, half a page, and sometimes several lines, they were included in the book "God's Tree". What Bunin wrote in this genre was the result of a bold search for new forms of extremely laconic writing, which began not with Tergenev, as some of his contemporaries claimed, but with Tolstoy and Chekhov. Professor of Sofia University P. Bicilli wrote: “It seems to me that the collection “The Tree of God” is the most perfect of all Bunin’s creations and the most revealing. No other one has such eloquent laconicism, such clarity and subtlety of writing, such creative freedom, such truly royal domination over matter. Therefore, no other contains so much data for studying his method, for understanding what lies at its basis and on what it, in essence, is exhausted. This is the most seemingly simple, but also the most rare. and a valuable quality that Bunin has in common with the most truthful Russian writers, with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov: honesty, hatred of all falsehood...".

In 1933, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, as he believed, primarily for “The Life of Arsenyev.” When Bunin came to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, people in Sweden already recognized him by sight. Bunin's photographs could be seen in every newspaper, in store windows, and on cinema screens. On the street, the Swedes, seeing the Russian writer, looked around. Bunin pulled his lambskin cap over his eyes and grumbled: “What is it?” A perfect success for the tenor.

The wonderful Russian writer Boris Zaitsev spoke about Bunin’s Nobel days: “...You see, well, we were some last people there, emigrants, and suddenly an emigrant writer was awarded an international prize! A Russian writer!.. And they awarded it not for some political writings, but still for artistic ones... At that time I was writing in the newspaper "Vozpozhdenie"... So I was urgently assigned to write an editorial about receiving the Nobel Prize. It was very late, I remember that it was ten in the evening when they told me this. For the first time in my life, I went to the printing house and wrote at night... I remember that I came out in such an excited state (from the printing house), went to place d'Italie and there, you know, I went around all the bistros and drank a glass in each bistro cognac for the health of Ivan Bunin!.. I came home in such a cheerful mood... at about three in the morning, four, maybe..."

In 1936, Bunin went on a trip to Germany and other countries, as well as to meet with publishers and translators. In the German city of Lindau, for the first time he encountered fascist ways; he was arrested and subjected to an unceremonious and humiliating search. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grasse at the Villa Jeannette and lived here throughout the war. Here he wrote the book “Dark Alleys” - stories about love, as he himself said, “about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys.” This book, according to Bunin, “talks about the tragic and many tender and beautiful things - I think that this is the best and most original thing I have written in my life.”

Under the Germans, Bunin did not publish anything, although he lived in great poverty and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred and rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945, he said goodbye to Grasse forever and returned to Paris on the first of May. He has been sick a lot in recent years. Nevertheless, he wrote a book of memoirs and worked on the book “About Chekhov,” which he did not manage to finish. In total, Bunin wrote ten new books while in exile.

In letters and diaries, Bunin talks about his desire to return to Moscow. But in old age and illness, it was not easy to decide to take such a step. The main thing was that there was no certainty whether hopes for a quiet life and the publication of books would come true. Bunin hesitated. The “case” about Akhmatova and Zoshchenko, the noise in the press around these names finally determined his decision. He wrote to M.A. Aldanov on September 15, 1947: “Today a letter from Teleshov - wrote on the evening of September 7... “What a pity that you did not experience that period when your big book was typed, when you were so expected here, when you could have been full up to his neck, and rich, and in such great esteem! “After reading this, I tore my hair out for a whole hour. And then I immediately calmed down, remembering what could have been for me instead of satiety, wealth and honor from Zhdanov and Fadeev...”

Bunin is now read in all European languages ​​and in some Eastern languages. Here it is published in millions of copies. On his 80th birthday, in 1950, François Mauriac wrote to him about his admiration for his work, about the sympathy that his personality and his cruel fate inspired. Andre Gide, in a letter published in the Le Figaro newspaper, says that on the threshold of his 80th birthday he turns to Bunin and greets him “on behalf of France,” calls him a great artist and writes: “I don’t know writers... who have the sensations would be more accurate and at the same time unexpected." R. Rolland admired Bunin's work and called him " a brilliant artist", Henri de Regnier, T. Mann, R.-M. Rilke, Jerome Jerome, Yaroslav Ivashkevich. Reviews from the German, French, English, etc. press from the beginning of the 1920s onwards were mostly enthusiastic, which established him worldwide recognition. Back in 1922, the English magazine “The Nation and Athenaeum” wrote about the books “The Master from San Francisco” and “The Village” as extremely significant; in this review everything was showered with great praise: “A new planet on ours.” sky!!.", "Apocalyptic power...". At the end: "Bunin has won himself a place in world literature." Bunin's prose was equated to the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, while saying that he "updated" Russian art "and in form and in content." He brought new features and new colors to the realism of the last century, which brought him closer to the impressionists.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died on the night of November 8, 1953 in the arms of his wife in terrible poverty. In his memoirs, Bunin wrote: “I was born too late. If I had been born earlier, my writing memories would not have been like this. I would not have had to go through... 1905, then the First World War, followed by the 17th year and its continuation , Lenin, Stalin, Hitler... How can one not envy our forefather Noah! Only one flood befell him..." Bunin was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery near Paris, in a crypt, in a zinc coffin.

You are a thought, you are a dream. Through the smoky snowstorm
Crosses are running - arms outstretched.
I listen to the pensive spruce -
A melodious ringing... Everything is just thoughts and sounds!
What lies in the grave, is that you?
Marked by separations and sadness
Your hard way. Now they are gone. Crosses
They keep only the ashes. Now you are a thought. You are eternal.

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich (1870-1953), prose writer, poet, translator.

Born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh into a well-born but impoverished noble family. Bunin spent his childhood partly in Voronezh, partly on an ancestral estate near Yelets (now in the Lipetsk region).

Absorbing traditions and songs from his parents and courtyard servants, he early discovered artistic abilities and rare impressionability. Having entered the Yelets gymnasium in 1881, Bunin was forced to leave it in 1886: there was not enough money to pay for training. The course at the gymnasium, and partly at the university, was completed at home under the guidance of his older brother, member of the People’s Will, Yuli.

Bunin published his first collection of poems in 1891, and five years later he published a translation of the poem by the American romantic poet G. Longfellow “The Song of Hiawatha,” which, together with the later collection of poems “Falling Leaves” (1901), brought him 1903 Pushkin Prize of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

In 1909, Bunin received the second Pushkin Prize and was elected an honorary academician. At the end of the 19th century. He increasingly comes forward with stories, at first similar to picturesque sketches. Gradually, Bunin became more and more noticeable both as a poet and as a prose writer.

Wide recognition came to him with the publication of the story “The Village” (1910), which shows contemporary to the writer rural life. The destruction of patriarchal life and ancient foundations is depicted in the work with a harshness that was rare at that time. The end of the story, where the wedding is described as a funeral, takes on a symbolic meaning. Following “The Village”, based on family legends, the story “Sukhodol” (1911) was written. Here the degeneration of the Russian nobility is depicted with majestic gloom.

The writer himself lived with a premonition of an impending catastrophe. He felt the inevitability of a new historical turning point. This feeling is noticeable in the stories of the 10s. "John the Weeper" (1913), "The Grammar of Love", "The Master from San Francisco" (both 1915), "Easy Breathing" (1916), "Chang's Dreams" (1918).

Bunin met the revolutionary events with extreme hostility, documenting the “bloody madness” in his diary, later published in exile under the title “Cursed Days” (1918, published in 1925).

In January 1920, together with his wife Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the writer from Odessa sailed to Constantinople. From then on, Bunin lived in France, mainly in Paris and Grasse. In emigration they spoke of him as the first among modern Russian writers.

The story “Mitya's Love” (1925), the books of stories “Sunstroke” (1927) and “The Tree of God” (1931) were perceived by contemporaries as living classics. In the 30s short stories began to appear, in which Bunin showed an exceptional ability to compress enormous material into one or two pages, or even several lines.

In 1930, a novel with an obvious autobiographical “lining” - “The Life of Arsenyev” - was published in Paris. In 1933, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize. This is an event behind which, essentially, stood the fact of recognition of the literature of emigration.

During the Second World War, Bunin lived in Grasse, eagerly followed military events, lived in poverty, hid Jews from the Gestapo in his house, and rejoiced at victories Soviet troops. During this time, he wrote stories about love (included in the book “Dark Alleys”, 1943), which he himself considered the best of all that he had created.

The writer’s post-war “warmth” towards Soviet power was short-lived, but it managed to quarrel with many long-time friends. Bunin spent his last years in poverty, working on a book about his literary teacher A.P. Chekhov.

In October 1953, Ivan Alekseevich’s health condition deteriorated sharply, and on November 8 the writer died. The cause of death, according to Dr. V. Zernov, who observed the patient last weeks, became cardiac asthma and pulmonary sclerosis. Bunin was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois. The monument on the grave was made according to a drawing by the artist Alexandre Benois.

"After a century he says
The poet - and his syllable rings -
Autumn painted in crimson.
And the cemetery sleeps sadly,
Where in a foreign land does he lie?
And he looks sadly from above..."
From a poem by Tamara Khanzhina in memory of Bunin

Biography

An amazing fact, but this talented, brilliant, educated and sophisticated man did not receive a good education in his youth. Most of the knowledge and interest in literature, philosophy and psychology was instilled in Ivan Bunin by his older brother, who graduated with honors from the university and worked a lot with the boy. Perhaps it was thanks to his brother Yuli that Bunin was able to discover his literary talent.

Bunin's biography can be read like a novel with an exciting plot. All his life, Bunin changed cities, countries and, which is no secret, women. One thing remained constant - his passion for literature. He published his first poem at the age of 16 and already at 25 he shone in the literary circles of both capitals of Russia. Bunin's first wife was the Greek Anna Tsakni, but this marriage did not last long, Bunin's only son died at the age of five, and after a while the writer met the main woman in his life - Vera Muromtseva. It was with her, who later became Bunin’s official wife, that the writer emigrated to France, failing to accept Bolshevik power.

While living in France, Bunin continued to write, where he created his best works. But he did not stop thinking about Russia, yearning for it, grieving his abdication. However, these experiences only benefited his work; it is not without reason that Bunin’s stories, poems and short stories are today considered the golden heritage of Russian literature. For the skill with which he developed the traditions of Russian classical prose, eighty-year-old Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature - the first Russian writer. During all the years of emigration, Bunin had his wife, Vera, by his side, who steadfastly endured both her husband’s difficult character and his hobbies on the side. Until the very last day, she remained his faithful friend, and not just his wife.

While in France, Bunin constantly thought about returning to Russia. But seeing what was happening to his compatriots who believed in the benevolence of the Soviet government and returned home, the writer abandoned this idea year after year. Bunin's death occurred in the 84th year of his life in his modest apartment in Paris. The cause of Bunin's death, according to the doctor's conclusion, was a whole bunch of diseases - heart failure, cardiac asthma and pulmonary sclerosis. Bunin's funeral service took place in a Russian church in Paris, then the body was placed in a zinc coffin in a temporary crypt - Bunin's wife hoped that she would still be able to bury her husband in Russia. But, alas, this was not allowed to happen, and on January 30, 1954, Bunin’s funeral took place with the transfer of his coffin from the temporary crypt. Bunin's grave is located in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris.

Bunin's wives - first wife Anna (left) and second wife Vera (right)

Life line

October 10, 1870 Date of birth of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin.
1881 Admission to Yelets Gymnasium.
1892 Moving to Poltava, working in the newspapers “Poltava Provincial Gazette”, “Kievlyanin”.
1895 Success in the literary society of Moscow and St. Petersburg, acquaintance with Chekhov.
1898 Marriage to Anna Tsakni.
1900 Parting with Tsakni, trip to Europe.
1901 Release of Bunin's collection of poems "Falling Leaves".
1903 Awarding Bunin the Pushkin Prize.
1906 The beginning of a relationship with Vera Muromtseva.
1909 Awarding Bunin the Pushkin Prize, election as an honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature.
1915 Publication of Bunin's complete works in the supplement to the Niva magazine.
1918 Moving to Odessa.
1920 Emigration to France, to Paris.
1922 Official marriage with Vera Muromtseva.
1924 Writing Bunin's story "Mitya's Love".
1933 Awarding Bunin the Nobel Prize in Literature.
1934-1936 Publication of Bunin's collected works in Berlin.
1939 Transfer to Grasse.
1945 Return to Paris.
1953 Completion of Bunin's collection of stories "Dark Alleys".
November 8, 1953 Date of death of Bunin.
November 12, 1953 Funeral service, placing the body in a temporary crypt.
January 30, 1954 Bunin's funeral (reburial).

Memorable places

1. The village of Ozerki, the former estate of the Bunins, where the writer spent his childhood.
2. Bunin’s house in Voronezh, where he was born and lived the first three years of his life.
3. Bunin Literary and Memorial Museum in Yelets, in the house where Bunin lived as a high school student.
4. Bunin House-Museum in Efremov, where Bunin periodically lived and worked in 1906-1910. and on which a memorial plaque in memory of Bunin is installed.
5. St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, of which Bunin was elected honorary academician.
6. Bunin’s house in Odessa, where Bunin and Muromtseva lived in 1918-1920. before his departure to France.
7. Bunin’s house in Paris, where he lived periodically from 1922 to 1953. and where he died.
8. Bunin’s house in Grasse, Villa “Jeanette”, at the entrance to which there is a memorial plaque in memory of Bunin.
9. Bunin’s house in Grasse, Villa Belvedere.
10. Monument to Bunin in Moscow.
11. Monument to Bunin in Orel.
12. Monument to Bunin in Voronezh.
13. Cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois, where Bunin is buried.

Episodes of life

Bunin had not only literary, but also acting talent. He had very rich facial expressions, he moved and danced well, and was an excellent rider. It is known that Konstantin Stanislavsky himself invited Bunin to play the role of Hamlet in the theater, but he refused.

The last years of his life, Ivan Bunin lived practically in poverty. The money he received Nobel laureate, the writer immediately went to parties and receptions, helping emigrants, and then unsuccessfully invested in some business and completely went broke.

It is known that Ivan Bunin, like many writers, kept a diary. He made his last entry on May 2, 1953, a few months before his death, which he apparently already foresaw due to deteriorating health: “This is still amazing to the point of tetanus! In some, very short time, I will be gone - and the affairs and fates of everything, everything will be unknown to me!”

Covenant

“What a joy it is to exist! Just to see, at least to see only this smoke and this light. If I had no arms and legs and I could only sit on a bench and look at the setting sun, then I would be happy with it. You only need one thing - to see and breathe.”

Documentary film dedicated to Ivan Bunin, from the series “Geniuses and Villains”

Condolences

“Tsar Ivan was a great mountain!”
Don Aminado (Aminodav Peysakhovich Shpolyansky), satirist poet

“He was an extraordinary writer. And he was an extraordinary man.”
Mark Aldanov, prose writer, publicist

“Bunin is a rare phenomenon. In our literature, in language, this is the peak above which no one can rise.”
Sergei Voronin, novelist

“All his life Bunin waited for happiness, wrote about human happiness, looked for ways to it. He found it in his poetry, prose, in his love for life and for his homeland and said great words that happiness is given only to those who know. Bunin lived a complex, sometimes contradictory life. He saw a lot, knew a lot, loved and hated a lot, worked a lot, sometimes made cruel mistakes, but all his life his greatest, most tender, unchanging love was his native country, Russia.”
Konstantin Paustovsky, writer