He opened new horizons for the most discerning readers. He skillfully wrote captivating stories and stories. He had a subtle sense of literature and native language. Ivan Bunin is a writer, thanks to whom people looked at love differently.

On October 10, 1870, the boy Vanya was born in Voronezh. He grew up and was brought up in the family of the landowner of the Oryol and Tula provinces, who became impoverished because of the love of cards. However, despite this fact, it was not just that aristocracy was felt in the writer, because his family roots lead us to the poetess A.P. Bunina and the father of V.A.Zhukovsky - A.I.Bunin. The Bunin family was a worthy representative of the noble families of Russia.

Three years later, the boy's family moved to an estate on the Butyrka farm in the Oryol province. Many childhood memories of Bunin are associated with this place, which we can see between the lines in his stories. For example, in "Antonov apples" he describes with love and trepidation the family nests of relatives and friends.

Youth and education

In 1881, having successfully passed the exams, Bunin entered the Yelets gymnasium. The boy showed interest in learning and was a very capable student, but this did not apply to the natural and exact sciences. In his letter to his elder brother, he wrote that the exam in mathematics for him is "the most terrible". He did not graduate from high school, as he was expelled due to failure to appear from the holidays. He continued his studies with his brother Julius at the parental estate of Ozerki, with whom he became very close. Knowing about the child's preferences, the relatives focused on the humanities.

His first literary works belong to this period. At 15, the young writer creates the novel Hobby, but it is not published anywhere. The very first published poem was "Over the grave of S. Ya. Nadson" in the magazine "Rodina" (1887).

Creative way

This is where the period of Ivan Bunin's wanderings begins. Beginning in 1889, he worked for 3 years in the magazine "Orlovsky Vestnik", which published his small literary works and articles. Later he moved to his brother in Kharkov, where he arranged for him in the provincial council as a librarian.

In 1894 he went to Moscow, where he met Leo Tolstoy. As mentioned earlier, the poet already then subtly feels the surrounding reality, therefore in the stories "Antonov apples", "New Road" and "Epitaph" nostalgia for the outgoing era will be so sharply traced and dissatisfaction with the urban environment will be felt.

1891 - the year of the publication of the first collection of poems by Bunin, in which the reader first encounters the theme of the bitterness and sweetness of love, which permeate the works devoted to unhappy love for Pashchenko.

In 1897 a second book appeared in St. Petersburg - "To the End of the World and Other Stories."

Ivan Bunin has also shown himself to be a translator of works by Alkey, Saadi, Francesco Petrarca, Adam Mitskevich and George Byron.

The hard work of the writer gave its results. In Moscow in 1898 a collection of poetry "Under the open sky" appeared. In 1900, the collection of poems "Leaf Fall" was published. In 1903, Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize, which he received from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Every year the talented writer enriched literature more and more. 1915 is the year of his creative success. His most famous works were published: "The gentleman from San Francisco", "Light breath", "Chang's dreams" and "The grammar of love". The dramatic events in the country greatly inspired the master.

In his book of life, he began a new page after moving to Constantinople in the 1920s. Later he ends up in Paris as a political emigrant. He did not accept the coup and condemned the new government with all his heart. The most significant novel created during the period of emigration is The Life of Arseniev. For him, the author received the Nobel Prize in 1933 (the first for a Russian writer). This is a huge event in our history and a big step forward for Russian literature.

During the Second World War, the writer lives very poorly in the Janet villa. His work abroad does not find such a response as at home, and the author himself is sick from longing for his native land. Bunin's last literary work was published in 1952.

Personal life

1. The first was Varvara Pashchenko. This love story cannot be called happy. At first, the young lady's parents, who were categorically against the marriage of their daughter to a failed young man, who, moreover, was younger than her by a year, became an obstacle to their relationship. Then the writer himself was convinced of the dissimilarity of characters. As a result, Pashchenko married a wealthy landowner, with whom she had a close relationship secretly from Bunin. The author dedicated poetry to this break.
2. In 1898 Ivan married the daughter of the revolutionary migrant A. N. Tsakni. It was she who became a "sunstroke" for the writer. However, the marriage did not last long, since the Greek woman did not feel the same strong attraction to her husband.
3. His third muse was his second wife, Vera Muromtseva. This woman became truly Ivan's guardian angel. Just as a calm calm ensues after the shipwreck during a storm, so Vera appeared at the moment Bunin needed most. They have been married for 46 years.
4. But everything went smoothly only until the moment when Ivan Alekseevich brought his student, the novice writer Galina Kuznetsova, into the house. It was a fatal love - both were not free, both were separated by a chasm at age (she was 26, and he was 56). Galina left her husband for him, but Bunin was not ready to do the same with Vera. So the three of them lived for 10 years before the appearance of Marga. Bunin was in despair: another woman took his second wife away. This event was a big blow for him.

Death

In the last years of his life, Bunin is nostalgic for Russia and really wants to come back. But his plans never materialized. November 8, 1953 - the date of death of the great writer of the Silver Age, Ivan Bunin.

He made a huge contribution to the development of literary creativity in Russia, became a symbol of Russian émigré prose of the 20th century.

If you missed something in this article, write in the comments - we'll add.

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Biography

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

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

Collections "Poems" (Oryol, 1891), "Under the open sky" (1898), "Leaf fall" (1901; Pushkin Prize).

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

In the 1890s he traveled on the steamer "Chaika" ("bark with firewood") along the Dnieper and visited the grave of Taras Shevchenko, whom he loved and later translated a lot. Several years later, he wrote an essay "On the Seagull", which was published in the children's illustrated magazine "Shoots" (1898, No. 21, November 1).

In 1899 he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (Kakni), the daughter of a Greek revolutionary. The marriage was short-lived, 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, niece of SA Muromtsev, the first chairman of the First State Duma.

In lyric poetry, Bunin continued classical traditions (the collection Listopad, 1901).

In stories and stories he showed (sometimes with a nostalgic mood)
Depletion of noble estates ("Antonovskie apples", 1900)
The cruel face of the village ("Village", 1910, "Sukhodol", 1911)
The disastrous oblivion of the moral foundations of life ("The Lord from San Francisco", 1915).
Sharp rejection of the October Revolution and the Bolshevik regime in the diary book "Cursed Days" (1918, published in 1925).
In the autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1930) - a recreation of the past of Russia, childhood and youth of the writer.
The tragedy of 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 small prose.
He translated "Song of Hiawatha" by the American poet G. Longfellow. It was first published in the newspaper "Orlovsky Vestnik" in 1896. At the end of the same 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 an 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, it did not emigrate, but remained in Odessa and was going through a 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 cooperates with OSVAG (propaganda and information agency) under V.S.Yu.R. In February 1920, when approaching the Bolsheviks leaves Russia. Emigrates to France.

In emigration, he was active in social and political activities: he gave lectures, collaborated with Russian political parties and organizations (conservative and nationalist trends), and regularly published journalistic articles. He delivered the famous manifesto on the tasks of the Russian Diaspora in relation to Russia and Bolshevism: "The Mission of the Russian Emigration."

In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

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

Much and fruitfully engaged in literary activity, becoming one of the main figures in the Russian Diaspora.

In emigration, Bunin creates his best works: Mitya's Love (1924), Sunstroke (1925), The Case of Yelagin's Cornet (1925) and, finally, Arseniev's Life (1927-1929, 1933). These works became a new word both in Bunin's work and in Russian literature as a whole. And according to KG Paustovsky, "Life of Arseniev" is not only the summit work of Russian literature, but also "one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature." Laureate of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933.

According to the publishing house named after Chekhov, in the last months of his life Bunin worked on a literary portrait of A. P. Chekhov, the work remained unfinished (in the book: Looped Ears and Other Stories, New York, 1953).

He died in a dream at two o'clock in the morning from 7 to 8 November 1953 in Paris. Buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery.

In 1929-1954, Bunin's works were not published in the USSR. Since 1955 - the most published writer of the "first wave" in the USSR (several collected works, many one-volume editions).

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

Perpetuation of the name

In the city of Moscow there is Buninskaya alley street, next to the metro station of the same name. Also on Povarskaya Street, not far from the house where the writer lived, a monument was erected 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, a monument to Bunin is erected in the city center. There is a memorial plaque on the house where the writer was born.
The Bunin museums are located in Orel and Yelets.
In Efremov there is a house-museum of Bunin, where 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. The "Herbbook of Noble Clans" says that there are several old noble families of the Bunins, descended, according to legend, from Simeon Bunikevsky (Bunkovsky), who had a noble origin and left Poland in the 15th century to the Grand Duke Vasily Vasilyevich. His great-grandson, Alexander Lavrentyev's son Bunin, served in Vladimir, was killed in 1552 during the capture of Kazan. Poetess Anna Petrovna Bunina (1775-1828), poet V.A. Zhukovsky (illegitimate son of A.I.Bunin). Ivan Bunin's father is Alexei Nikolaevich Bunin, his mother is Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina, nee Chubarova. The Bunin family had nine children, but five died; older brothers - Julius and Eugene, younger sister - Maria. The noble family of the Chubarovs also had ancient roots. Lyudmila Alexandrovna's grandfather and father had family estates in the Oryol and Trubchevsky districts. The great-grandfather of Ivan Bunin on his father's side was also rich, his grandfather owned small plots of land in the Oryol, Tambov and Voronezh provinces, while his father was so wasteful that he went bankrupt, which was facilitated by the Crimean campaign and the move of the Bunin family in 1870 to Voronezh.

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. The lifestyle of Alexei Nikolaevich led to the fact that not only his own fortune, but also that which belonged to his wife was squandered or distributed. Ivan Bunin's father was an unusually strong, healthy, cheerful, determined, generous, quick-tempered, but easy-going man. Alexey Nikolaevich did not like to study, which is why he did not study at the Oryol gymnasium for long, 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 Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages, who taught in several cities, but then broke off all family ties and turned into a wanderer through the villages and estates. Educator Ivan Bunin spoke three languages, played the violin, painted with watercolors, wrote poetry; Ivan taught his pupil 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 means to educate the youngest son. Further education took place at home: to fully master the program of the gymnasium, and then the university, Ivan Bunin was helped by his elder brother Julius, 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 adolescence, Bunin's work was imitative: "most of all he imitated M. Lermontov, partly A. Pushkin, whom he tried to imitate even in his handwriting" (IA Bunin "Autobiographical Note"). In May 1887, the first work of Ivan Bunin appeared in print - the Petersburg weekly magazine Rodina published one of his poems. In September 1888 his poems appeared in the "Books of the Week", where the works of L.N. Tolstoy, Shchedrin, Polonsky.

An independent life began in the spring of 1889: Ivan Bunin, following his brother Julius, moved to Kharkov. Soon he visited the Crimea, and in the autumn began to work at the "Orlovsky Vestnik". In 1891, Ivan Bunin's student book Poems. 1887-1891 was published in the supplement to the newspaper "Orlovsky Vestnik". At the same time, Ivan Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who worked as a proofreader for the Oryol 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 was sent to serve as a librarian of the zemstvo council, and then as a statistician in the provincial council. 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, the first prose work of Bunin appeared in print - the story "A Village Sketch" was published in "Russian Wealth" (the title was chosen by the publishing house).

In January 1895, after his wife's betrayal, Ivan Bunin left the service and moved first to St. Petersburg and then to Moscow. In 1898 (some sources indicate 1896) Bunin married Anna Nikolayevna Tsakni, a Greek woman, daughter of a revolutionary and emigrant N.P. Tsakni. Family life was again unsuccessful and in 1900 the couple divorced, and in 1905 their son Nikolai died. In Moscow, the young writer got acquainted with many famous artists and writers: with Balmont, in December 1895 - with A.P. Chekhov, in late 1895 - early 1896 - with V.Ya. Bryusov. After meeting D. Teleshov, Bunin became a member of the literary circle "Wednesday". In the spring of 1899, in Yalta, he met M. Gorky, who later invited Bunin to cooperate with the Znaniye 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, but in reality they were not, - the beginning is by 1899. And the end - by 1917. Then it happened that a man with whom I had not had a single personal reason for enmity for twenty years, suddenly turned out to be an enemy for me, which for a long time caused horror and indignation in me. " In the spring of 1900 in the Crimea, Bunin met S.V. Rachmaninov and the actors of the Art Theater, whose troupe toured in Yalta. Literary fame to Ivan Bunin came in 1900 after the publication of the story "Antonov apples". In 1901, the Scorpion publishing house of the Symbolists published a collection of Bunin's poems "Listopad". 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) by the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize. In 1902 the publishing house "Knowledge" published the first volume of the works of I.A. Bunin. In 1905, Bunin, who lived in the National Hotel, witnessed the December armed uprising.

In 1906, Bunin met in Moscow with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva (1881-1961), who in 1907 became his wife and faithful companion until the end of her life. Later V.N. Muromtseva, gifted with literary abilities, wrote a series of books-memories of her husband ("Bunin's Life" 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 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 of Bunin's creative activity, 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 fall of 1912 - in the 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 visited Turkey, the countries of Asia Minor, Greece, Oran, Algeria, Tunisia and the outskirts of the Sahara, India, traveled to almost all of Europe, especially Sicily and Italy, was to Romania and Serbia.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin reacted extremely hostile to the February and October revolutions of 1917 and perceived them as a catastrophe. 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, at first he lived in Paris; from 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 for Literature. The official Soviet press explained the decision of the Nobel Committee by the intrigues 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 form of cooperation with the Nazi occupants and tried to constantly monitor events in Russia. In 1945 the Bunins returned to Paris. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin repeatedly expressed a desire to return to Russia, in 1946 he called the decree of the Soviet government "On the restoration of citizens of the former Russian Empire in USSR citizenship ..." as a "generous measure", but Zhdanov's decree on the magazines "Zvezda" and "Leningrad" (1946) , which trampled on A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko, led to the fact that Bunin forever abandoned the intention to return to his homeland. The last years of the writer were spent 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 was a 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 ("The Grass 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 - a novel, novellas, short stories, short stories, essays, poems, memoirs, translations of works of the classics of world poetry: "Poems" (1891; collection), "To the End of the World" (January 1897; collection of stories), "Under open air "(1898; collection of poems)," Antonovskie apples "(1900; story)," Pines "(1901; story)," New road "(1901; story)," Leaf fall "(1901; collection of poems; Pushkin Prize ), "Chernozem" (1904; story), "Temple of the Sun" (1907-1911; a cycle 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 short stories), "The gentleman from San Francisco" (1915; story), "Cursed Days" (1918, published 1925; diary entries about the events of the October Revolution and its aftermath), Mitya's Love (1925; collection of short stories), The Case of the Cornet Elagin (1927), Sunstroke (1927; collection of short stories), Life of Arseniev (1927-1929, 1933; autobiographical novel; a separate edition was published in 1930 in Paris); "Dark Alleys", (1943; cycle of short stories; published in New York), "Liberation of Tolstoy" (1937, philosophical and literary treatise on Leo Tolstoy, published in Paris), "Memoirs" (1950; printed in Paris ), "About Chekhov" (published posthumously in 1955, New York), translations - "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 adolescence in the impoverished estate of the Oryol province. The future writer did not receive a systematic education, which he regretted all his life. True, the elder brother Julius, who graduated from the university with brilliance, 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 to write early. He wrote essays, sketches, poems. In May 1887, the Rodina magazine published the poem "The Beggar" by 16-year-old Vanya Bunin. From that time on, his more or less constant literary activity began, in which there was a place for both poetry and prose.

Outwardly, Bunin's poems looked traditional both in form and in subject matter: nature, joy of life, love, loneliness, sadness of loss and a new rebirth. And yet, despite the imitativeness, there was some kind of special intonation in Bunin's poems. This became more noticeable with the publication in 1901 of the poetry collection "Listopad", 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 of his career, a prose writer was more and more clearly manifested in him, and so strong and deep that the first stories of Bunin immediately earned the recognition of the eminent writers of that time Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev, Kuprin.

In 1898, Bunin married a Greek woman, Anna Tsakni, after experiencing a strong love and the ensuing strong disappointment with Varvara Pashchenko. However, by his own admission Ivan Alekseevich, 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 "Knowledge", meets the niece of the chairman of the first Duma, AS Muromtsev, Vera Muromtseva. And although in fact Vera Nikolaevna became "Mrs. Bunina" already in 1906, they could officially register their marriage only in July 1922 in France. Only by this time Bunin managed to achieve 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 endure all the hardships and hardships of emigration, Vera Nikolaevna also had a great gift of patience and forgiveness, which was important when dealing with such a difficult and unpredictable person as Bunin was.

After the resounding success of his stories, Bunin's first major work, which immediately became famous, appears in print. This is a bitter and very courageous work, in which a semi-insane Russian reality with all its contrasts, precariousness, and fractured destinies appeared before the reader. Bunin, perhaps one of the few Russian writers of that time, was not afraid to tell the hard-hitting truth about the Russian village and the downtrodden Russian peasant.

The Village and the Sukhodol, which followed it, defined Bunin's attitude to his heroes - the weak, disadvantaged and restless. But hence the sympathy for them, pity, the desire to understand what is happening in the suffering Russian soul.

In parallel with the village theme, the writer developed in his stories and lyric, which was previously outlined in poetry. Female characters appeared, albeit barely outlined - charming, airy Olya Meshcherskaya (story "Light Breathing"), ingenuous Klasha Smirnova (story "Klasha"). Later, female types with all their lyrical passion will appear in emigre stories and stories by Bunin - Ida, Mitya's Love, The Case of Yelagin's Cornet 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 an 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 unspeakable cup of mental suffering," as Bunin later wrote in his biography. They arrived in Paris on March 28th.

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

Yet the writer gradually overcame the feeling of oppression. In the story "The Rose of Jericho" there are such heartfelt words: "There are no partings and losses, as long as my soul, my Love, Memory is alive! In the living water of my heart, in the pure moisture of love, sorrow and tenderness, I immerse the roots and stems of my past ... "

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, survive the Second World War. In 1927, in Grasse, Bunin met the Russian poetess Galina Kuznetsova, who was on vacation there with her husband. Bunin was fascinated by a young woman, she, in turn, was delighted with him (and Bunin knew how to charm women!). Their romance received widespread publicity. The offended husband left, Vera Nikolaevna suffered from jealousy. And here the incredible happened - Ivan Alekseevich managed to convince Vera Nikolaevna that his relationship with Galina is purely platonic, and they have nothing but the relationship between a teacher and a scholar. Vera Nikolaevna, as it seems incredible, believed. She believed because she could not imagine her life without Jan. As a result, Galina was invited to live with the Bunins and become a "family member".

For almost fifteen years Kuznetsova shared a common shelter 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, carried away by the opera singer Margo Stepun.

Ivan Alekseevich was shocked, he was oppressed not only by the betrayal of his beloved woman, but also with whom she had cheated! "How she (G.) poisoned my life - she still has poisoned 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 hardships and endless hardships, Bunin's prose was gaining new heights. The books "The Rose of Jericho", "Mitya's Love", collections of stories "Sunstroke" and "God's Tree" were published in a foreign land. And in 1930, the autobiographical novel "The Life of Arseniev" was published - a fusion of memoirs, memoirs and lyric and philosophical prose.

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

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

The awarding of the Nobel Prize was a huge event for the writer himself. Recognition came, and along 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, has become one of the best books in all the literature about Lev Nikolaevich. And in 1943 in New York, "Dark Alleys" was published - the pinnacle of the writer's lyrical prose, a true encyclopedia of love. In the "Dark Alley" you can find everything - and sublime experiences, and conflicting feelings, and violent passions. But the closest thing to Bunin was pure, light love, like the harmony of the earth with the sky. In "Dark Alleys" it is usually short and sometimes instantaneous, but its light illuminates the hero's entire life.

Some critics of that time accused Bunin's Dark Alley of pornography and senile sensuality. Ivan Alekseevich was offended by this: "I think" Dark Alleys "is the best that I have written, and they, idiots, think that I have disgraced my gray hair with them ... 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 FA 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 seductions ... What a“ excess ”there! a thousandth part of how men of all tribes and peoples "consider" everywhere, always women from their ten years of age to 90 years. "

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. "It's still amazing to tetanus! After 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 7 to 8 November 1953 Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died quietly. The funeral service was solemn - in the Russian church on Rue Daru in Paris, with a large crowd of people. All the newspapers - both Russian and French - had extensive obituaries.

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

Literature.

Elena Vasilieva, Yuri Pernatiev. "100 Famous Writers", "Folio" (Kharkov), 2001.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Biography

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

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

In Voronezh, the Bunins appeared three years before the birth of Vanya, to train their elder sons: Julia (13 years old) and Evgeny (12 years old). Julius was unusually capable of languages \u200b\u200band mathematics, he studied brilliantly, Eugene studied poorly, or rather, did not study at all, dropped out of the gymnasium early; he was a gifted artist, but in those years he was not interested in painting, he chased pigeons more. As for the youngest, his mother, Lyudmila Aleksandpovna, always said that "Vanya was different from the rest of the children from the very birth", that she always knew that he was "special", "no one has such a soul as him." ...

In 1874, the Bunins decided to move from town to village to the Butyrki farm, to the Yeletsk district of the Oryol province, to the last family estate. This spring, Julius graduated from the gymnasium course with a gold medal and in the fall had to leave for Moscow to enter the mathematical faculty of the university.

In the village, little Vanya "heard a lot" of songs and fairy tales from his mother and households. Memories of his childhood - from the age of seven, as Bunin wrote, - are blessed with him "with the field, with peasant huts" and their inhabitants. He spent whole days walking through the nearest villages, grazing cattle with the peasant children, going at night, and was wandering with some of them.

Podpazhivaya podpaska, he and his sister Masha ate black bread, red, "rough and lumpy cucumbers", and for this trip, "without realizing it, they communicated the earth itself, all that sensual, material, from which the world was created," wrote Bunin in the autobiographical novel "Life of Arsenyev". Even then, with a rare power of perception, he felt, by his own conception, "the divine splendor of the world" - the main motive of his creativity. It was in this age that an artistic perception of life was found in him, which, in particular, was expressed in the ability to depict people with facial expressions and gestures; he was already a talented storyteller then. About eight years old Bunin wrote his first poem.

In the eleventh year he entered the Yelets gymnasium. At first he studied well, everything was easy; could, from one reading, memorize a poem in a whole page, if it interested him. But from year to year, the studies went worse, in the third grade he remained for the second year. The teachers were mostly gray and insignificant people. In the gymnasium, he wrote poetry, imitating Lermontov, 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, and then studied independently under the guidance of his elder brother Yulia Alekseevich, a university candidate. In the autumn of 1889, he began his work in the editorial office of the newspaper "Orlovsky Vestnik", often he was an actual editor; published in it his stories, poems, literary criticism articles, and notes in the permanent section "Literature and Printing". He lived by literary work and was in great need. My father fell apart, in 1890 he sold his estate in Ozerki without a manor, and having lost his estate, in 1893 he moved to Kmenka to his sister, mother and Masha - to Vasilyevskoye to Bunin's cousin Sofya Nikolaevna Pushhnikova. There was nowhere to wait for the young poet for help.

In the editorial office, Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, the daughter of a doctor from Yelets, who worked as a cofounder. His passionate love for her was overshadowed at times 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 youthful romance formed the plot basis of the fifth book "The Life of Arseniev", which was published separately under the title "Lika".

Many imagine Bunin to be dry and cold. VN Mutomtseva-Bunina says: "It is true, sometimes he wanted to seem like that - he was a first-rate actor," but "whoever did not know him to the end cannot imagine what kind of tenderness his soul was capable of." He was one of those who did not open up before 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 abruptly expressed his feeling of love, as he did in letters to Varvara Pashchenko, combining in his dreams the image with everything beautiful that he had acquired in nature, in poetry and music. With this aspect of his life - restraint in passion and the search for an ideal in love - he reminds Goethe, who, by his own admission, in "Vertere" is much autobiographical.

At the end of August 1892, Bunin and Pashchenko moved to Poltava, where Yuliy Alekseevich worked as a statistician in the provincial zemstvo administration. He took over both Pashchenko and his younger brother. In the Poltava Zemstvo there was a group of intelligentsia, part of the people's movement of the 70-80s. The Bunin brothers were included in 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 "on the fight against harmful insects, on the harvest of bread and grasses." As he believed, so many of them were printed that they could make up three or four volumes.

He also collaborated with the Kievlyanin newspaper. Now poems and prose of Bunin began to appear more often in "thick" magazines - "Herald of Europe", "Peace of God", "Russian wealth" - and attracted the attention of the corphews of literary criticism. NK Mikhailovsky praised the story "Derevensky Sketch" (later titled "Tanka") and wrote about the author that he would become 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 an appendix to the newspaper "Orlovsky Vestnik" in 1891), by definition of the author himself, not at all intimate, gradually disappeared from his work, which received now more forms.

In 1893-1894, Bunin, in his words, "from falling in love with Tolstoy as an artist", was a Tolstoyan and "applied to bondar craft". He visited the colonies of Tolstoyans near Poltava and went to the Sumy district to the sectarians with. Pavlovka - "Malevanians", in their views close to the Tolstoyans. At the very end of 1893 he visited the Tolstoyans of the Khilkovo farm, which belonged to Prince. YES. Khilkov. From there he went to Moscow to Tolstoy and visited him on one of the days between 4 and 8 January 1894. The meeting produced on Bunin, as he wrote, "an amazing impression." Tolstoy and dissuaded him from "becoming empty 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 in its villages and steppes, eagerly sought rapprochement with its people, eagerly listened to songs, his soul." 1895 was a turning point in Bunin's life: after the "flight" of Pashchenko, who left Bunin and married his friend Arseny Bibikov, in January he left the service in Poltava and went to Petersburg, and then to Moscow. Now he entered the literary environment. The great success at the literary evening held on November 21 in the hall of the Credite Society in St. Petersburg encouraged him. There he read the story "To the Edge of the World".

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

In June 1898, Bunin left for Odessa. Here he became close to members of the "Association of South Russian Artists" who were going to "Thursday", befriended the artists E.I. Bukovetsky, V.P. Kurovsky (about her in Bunin's poem "In Memory of a Friend") and P.A. Nilus (from him Bunin took something for the stories "Galya Ganskaya" and "Dreams of Chang").

In Odessa, Bunin married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (1879-1963) on September 23, 1898. Family life did not go well, Bunin and Anna Nikolaevna separated at the beginning of March 1900. Their son Kolya died on January 16, 1905.

At the beginning of April 1899, Bunin visited Yalta, met with Chekhov, met Gorky. During his trips to Moscow, Bunin visited N.D. Teleshov, who united prominent writers-realists, willingly read his unpublished works; the atmosphere in this circle reigned friendly, someone did not take offense at the frank, sometimes destructive criticism. On April 12, 1900, Bunin arrived in Yalta, where the Art Theater staged for Chekhov his "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya" and other performances. Bunin met Stanislavsky, Knipper, S.V. Rachmaninov, with whom he had a friendship forever.

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

September 11, 1900 went with Kurovsky to Berlin, Paris, Switzerland. In the Alps, they climbed to great heights. Upon his return from foreign countries, Bunin ended up in Yalta, lived in Chekhov's house, spent with Chekhov, who arrived from Italy a little later, "an amazing week." In the Chekhov family, Bunin became, in his words, "his own man"; with his sister Maria Pavlovna he was in "almost brotherly relationship." Chekhov was with him invariably "gentle, courteous, caring like an elder." Bunin met with Chekhov, starting in 1899, every year, in Yalta and in Moscow, during the four years of their friendship, until Anton Pavlovich's departure abroad in 1904, where he died. Chekhov said that a "great writer" would emerge from Bunin; he wrote in the story "The Pines" as "very new, very fresh and very good." "Magnificent", in his opinion, "Dreams" and "Golden Bottom" - "there are places just surprisingly."

At the beginning of 1901, a collection of poems "Leaf Fall" was published, which caused numerous criticisms. Kuppin wrote about a "rare artistic subtlety" in the transmission of mood. Blok for "The Leaf Fall" and other poems recognized Bunin as "one of the main places" among contemporary Russian poetry. "Leaf Fall" and the translation of "Songs about Hiawatha" by Longfellow were awarded the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences, awarded to Bunin on October 19, 1903. Since 1902, a collection of works by Bunin began to appear in separate numbered volumes at the Znaniye publishing house of Gorky. And again travels - to Constantinople, to France and Italy, across the Caucasus, and so all his life he was attracted by different 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 Muttseva, daughter of a member of the Moscow City Council and niece of the Chairman of the First State Duma S.A. Mutomtseva. On April 10, 1907, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna departed from Moscow to the countries of the East - Egypt, Syria, Palestine. On May 12, having completed their "first distant journey", they went ashore in Odessa. Their life together began with this journey. About this country - a cycle of stories "The Shadow of the Bird" (1907-1911). 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. About the depiction of the East by Bunin Yu.I. Eichenwald wrote: "He is captivated by the East, the" luminous countries ", which he now recalls with an unusual lyric word ... For the East, biblical and modern, Bunin knows how to find the appropriate style, solemn and at times, as it were, flooded with the sultry waves of the sun, adorned precious incrustations and Arabesque images; and when it comes to this about a gray-haired old man, lost in the distance of religion and morphology, you get the impression that some stately chariot of humanity is moving in front of us. "

Bunin's prose and poems have now acquired new colors. A wonderful colorist, he, according to P.A. Nilus, "principles of painting" resolutely accepted the literature. The preceding prose, as Bunin himself noted, was such that "made some critics treat" him, for example, "as a melancholic lyricist or a singer of noble estates, a singer of idylls," but his literary gift was discovered, 1909 years ". These new traits offered Bunin's story "The Shadow of a Bird". The Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin in 1909 the second Pushkin Prize for poetry and translations by Byron; the third - also for poetry. In the same year, Bunin was elected an honorary academician.

The story "Village", published in 1910, caused great controversy and was the beginning of Bunin's immense popularity. For "Depevnya", the first big thing, followed by other stories and stories, as Bunin wrote, "sharply depicting the Russian soul, its light and dark, often tragic foundations", and his "merciless" works provoked "passionate hostile responses." During these years, I felt how every day my literary strength was growing more and more. ”Gorky wrote to Bunin that“ no one took a village so deeply, so historically. ”Bunin broadly captured the life of the Russian people, concerns the problems of historical, national and what was the spite of the day - war and revolution - depicts, in his opinion, "in the footsteps of Radishchev," the village of his day without any ado. After the Bunin story, with its "merciless truth" based on a deep knowledge of the "muzhik kingdom", it became impossible to portray the peasants in the tone of folk idealization.

Bunin developed his view of the Russian countryside partly under the influence of travel, "after cutting a foreign slap in the face." The village is depicted not motionless, new trends penetrate into 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, confirmed the realist traditions of Russian classical literature in an age when they were attacked and rejected by the modernists and decadents. It captures the wealth of observations and colors, the strength and beauty of the language, the harmony of the picture, the sincerity of tone and honesty. But "Village" is not conventional. People who were mostly new in Russian literature appeared in it: Krasov's brothers, Tikhon's wife, Rodka, Molodaya, Nikolka Sery and his son Deniska, girls and women at the wedding of Molodoy and Denis. Bunin himself noted this.

In the middle of 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 the middle of April 1911. The diary of their voyage is "Many waters". There are also stories about this journey "Brotherhood", "City of Kings of Kings". What the Englishman felt in "The Brothers" is autobiographical. According to Bunin, travel in his life played a "huge role"; regarding his troubles even developed, as he said, "a certain philosophy." The diary of 1911 "Many waters", published almost unchanged in 1925-1926, is a high sample of lyrical prose new both for Bunin and for Russian literature.

He wrote that "it is something akin to Maupassant." Close to this prose are the stories that immediately precede the diary - "The Shadow of the Bird" - the poem in the prose, as the author himself defined their genre. From their diary - a transition to "Sukhodol", which synthesized the experience of the author of "Village" in the creation of everyday and lyrical prose. "Sukhodol" and the short stories, soon later written, marked Bunin's new creative rise after "Village" - in the sense of great psychological depth and complexity of the images, as well as the novelty of the genre. In "Sukhodol" in the foreground is not historical Russia with its way of life, as in "Derevna", but "the soul of a Russian person in the deepest sense of the word, an image of the devil of the psyche of a Slav," Bunin said.

Bunin went his own way, did not adhere to any fashionable literary stitching or groupings, as he put it, "did not throw out any banners" and did not proclaim any husks. Kpitika noted the powerful language of Bunin, 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. In his poems - a huge sense of history. A reviewer of the "Herald of Europe" magazine wrote: "His historical syllable is unparalleled in our poetry ... Proposition, precision, beauty of the language have been brought to the limit. There is hardly another poet whose syllable would be so unadorned, everyday as here; Dozens of pages you will not find a single epithet, no other comparison, not a single metaphor ... such a simplification of the poetic language without sacrificing poetry is only within the power of true talent ... With regard to pictorial accuracy, Mr. Bunin has no rivals among Russian poets " ...

The book "The Cup of Life" (1915) touches upon the deep problems of human existence. French writer, poet and literary critic Rene Gil wrote to Bunin in 1921 about the Chalice of Life created in French: “How complicated it 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 with something strange and disturbing, emanating from the very act of life! This kind of suggestion, the suggestion of that secret that surrounds the action, we know also in Dostoevsky; but in him it comes from the unbalance of the unbalanced characters , because of his nervous passion, which hovers, like some exciting aura, around some cases of madness.On the contrary: everything is the radiation of life, full of strength, and worries precisely by its own forces, by the forces of the original, where complexity, something is hidden under the visible unity inescapable, violating the usual to a clear norm. "

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

Bunin was fascinated by his doctrine of the value of the human person. And he saw in each of the people in some measure "concentration ... of high forces", to the knowledge of which, Bunin wrote in the story "Returning to Rome," Socrates called. In his enthusiasm for Socrates, he followed Tolstoy, who, as V. Ivanov said, went "along the paths of Socrates in search of a norm of goodness." Tolstoy was close to Bunin and the fact that for him kindness and beauty, ethics and aesthetics are hot. "Beauty as a crown of goodness," wrote Tolstoy. Bunin asserted in his work the eternal values \u200b\u200b- goodness and beauty. This gave him a sense of connection, merging with the past, the historical continuity of being. "Brothers", "Lord from San Francisco", "Looped ears", based on the real facts of modern life, are not only accusatory, but deeply philosophical. "Brotherhood" is a particularly graphic example. This is a story about the eternal themes of love, life and death, and not only about the dependent existence of colonial peoples. The embodiment of the intention of this story is equally based on the impressions of the trip to Ceylon and on the myth of Mary - the legend of the god of life and death. Mara is an evil demon of Buddhists - at the same time - the personification of being. Bunin took a lot for prose and poems from Russian and world folklore, his attention was attracted by Buddhist and Muslim legends, Syrian traditions, Chaldean, Egyptian myths and myths of idolaters of the Ancient East, legends of the Arabs.

He had a huge sense of homeland, language, history. Bunin said: "all these sublime words, wondrous beauty of the song, cathedrals - all this is needed, all this has been created for 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, appreciated folk art, but was exceptionally clear about fakes and ostentatious style russe. - and the correct one - his review of Gorodetsky's poems is an example of this. Even Blok's "Kulikovo field" is, in my opinion, a wonderful thing, it annoyed him precisely because of his "too Russian" style ... He said - "this is Vasnetsov" But he had a different attitude to the fact that it was not a “maskarad”: I remember, for example, something about “The Word about Igor's regiment.” The meaning of his words was approximately the same as in Pushkin's words: all the poets who have gathered together cannot compose such a miracle! But the translations of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" outraged him, in particular, Balmont's translation. there was a rare rumor for falsehood, for the "pedal": as soon as he heard falsehood, gave in a rage. Because of this, he loved Tolstoy so much and as once, I remember, said: "Tolstoy, who nowhere does not have a single exaggerated word ..."

In May 1917, Bunin arrived in the village of Glotovo, in the Vasilievskoye estate, Oryol province, lived here all summer and autumn. On October 23, my wife and I left for Moscow, on October 26 we arrived in Moscow, lived on Povarskaya (now - Vorovskogo street), in Baskakov's house No. 26, apt. 2, from the parents of Vera Nikolaevna, Mutomtsevs. The time was troubling, there were battles, "past their windows, wrote AE Gruzinsky. On November 7, AB Derman, - along the Povarskaya gun was thundering." In Moscow Bunin lived the winter of 1917-1918. A watch was set up in the lobby of the house, where the Muttsevs' apartment was located; the doors were locked, the gates were laid with logs. Bunin was also on duty.

House on the Vasilievsky estate (village Glotovo, Oryol province), where, according to Bunin, the story "Easy Breathing"

Bunin became involved in literary life, which, in spite of everything, with all the rapidity of social, political and military events, despite the chaos and hunger, nevertheless did not stop. He visited the "Book Publishing of Writers", took part in his work, in the literary circle "Wednesday" and in the Art Journal.

On May 21, 1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna left Moscow - through Orsha and Minsk to Kiev, then to Odessa; January 26 st. 1920 sailed to Constantinople, then through Sofia and Belgrade arrived in Paris on March 28, 1920. Long years of emigration began - 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, Petersburg; that poetry is only there, but in the new world he does not catch it."

Bunin as an artist all the time grew. "Mitya's Love" (1924), "Sunstroke" (1925), "The Case of Kornet Elagin" (1925), and then "Life of Arseniev" (1927-1929, 1933) and many other works marked new achievements in the Russian public. Bunin himself spoke about the "piercing lyricism" of "Mitya's love". This is most exciting in his stories and stories of the last three decades. In them also - one can say in the words of their author - a certain "fashion", poetry. In the course of these years, the sensory perception of life has been excitingly transferred. Contemporaries noted the great philosophical meaning of such works as "Mitya's love" or "Life of Arseniev". In them Bunin broke through "to a deep metaphysical sensation of the tragic nature of man." K.G. Paustovsky wrote that "The Life of Arseniev" 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) - in a page, half a page, and sometimes in 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 was initiated not by Tergenev, as some of his contemporaries claimed, but by Tolstoy and Chekhov. Professor of the Sofia University P. Bitsilli wrote: "It seems to me that the collection" God's Tree "is the most perfect of all Bunin's creations and the most revealing. There is no other such beautiful laconicism, such clarity and subtlety of writing, such creative freedom, such a Therefore, no other contains so much data for studying his method, for understanding what lies in its basis and on what it, in essence, disappears. This is the seemingly simple, but also the most rare and a valuable quality that Bunin shares with the most honest Russian writers, with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov: honesty, hatred of all falsehood ... ".

In 1933, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, as he believed, primarily for "Life of Arseniev". When Bunin arrived in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, in Sweden he was already recognized by sight. Bunin's photographs could be seen in every newspaper, in shop windows, on the screen of the cinematography. On the street, the Swedes, seeing a Russian writer, looked around. Bunin pulled a fluffy hat over his eyes and grumbled: - What is it? Perfect tenor success.

The remarkable Russian writer Boris Zaitsev talked about the Nobel days of Bunin: "... You see, what - we were some of the last people there, emigres, and suddenly the emigre writer was awarded an international award! To the Russian writer! .. And they were not awarded for some political writings there, but still for artistic ... I was writing at that time in the newspaper "Vozrozhdenie" ... So I was urgently instructed to write a front page about receiving the Nobel Prize. It was very late, I remember what happened ten in the evening, when I was informed. The first time in my life I went to the printing house and wrote at night ... I remember that I went out in such an excited state (from the printing house), went out to place d "Italie and there, you know, I went around everything bistro and in every bistro he drank a glass of cognac to the health of Ivan Bunin! .. I arrived home in such a cheerful frame of mind .. at three o'clock in the morning, at four, maybe ... "

In 1936, Bunin set off 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 faced fascist practices; he was arrested and subjected to a traceless and humiliating search. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grass at the villa "Jeannette", 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 dark and cruel alleys". This book, according to Bunin, "speaks about the tragic and about many tender and beautiful, - I think this is the best and most original thing that I have written in my life."

With the Germans, Bunin did not publish anything, although he lived in great lack of money and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred, rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945 he forever parted with Grass and on the first of May returned to Paris. He has been ill 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, while emigrating, Bunin wrote ten new books.

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

Bunin is now read in all European languages \u200b\u200band in some Eastern languages. We have it published in millions of copies. In his 80th birthday, in 1950, François Moriak wrote to him about his admiration for his work, about the sympathy that inspired his personality and such a cruel fate. Andre Gide in a letter published in the newspaper "Figaro" 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 do not know writers ... who have sensations would be more accurate and at the same time unexpected. " Bunin's creativity was admired by R. Rolland, who called him a "genius artist", Anri de Rainier, T. Mann, R.-M. Rilke, Jerome Jer, Yaroslav Ivashkevich. Reviews German, French, English, etc. the press from the beginning of the 1920s and later were for the most part voted on, confirming the world recognition behind it. Back in 1922, The Nation and Athenaeum, an English magazine, wrote of The Master of San Francisco and The Village as extremely significant; in this review everything is sprinkled with great praises: "A new planet in our sky !!.", "Apocalyptic force ...". In the end: "Bunin won a place for himself in all the literature." Bunin's prose was compared to the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, saying that he "renewed" Russian art "both in form and in content. In the realism of the last century, he introduced new features and new paints, which brought him closer to the Impressionists.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died on the night of November 8, 1953 in the hands of his wife in extreme poverty. In his memoirs, Bunin wrote: "I was born too late. Had I been born before, my writer's memories would not have been like that. I wouldn’t have to go through ... 1905, then the first world war, followed by the 17th year and its continuation , Lenin, Stalin, Hitler ... How not to envy our forefather Noah! Only one flood fell to his lot ... "Bunin was buried at the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery near Paris, in a crypt, in a zinc coffin.

You are a thought, you are a dream. Through a smoky blizzard
Crosses are running - outstretched hands.
I listen to a brooding fir tree -
Singing ringing ... Everything is just thought and sounds!
What lies in the grave, do you?
Parting, sorrow was marked
Your hard way. Now they are gone. CREST
They keep only the good. Now you are a thought. You are eternal.

Publications of the section Literature

"Russia lived in him, he was Russia"

The writer and poet Ivan Bunin was born on October 22, 1870. The last pre-revolutionary Russian classic and the first Russian Nobel laureate in literature was distinguished by independence of judgment and, according to the apt expression of Georgy Adamovich, “I saw right through people, unerringly guessed what they would prefer to hide”.

About Ivan Bunin

“I was born on October 10, 1870(all dates in the quote are in the old style. - Note ed.) in Voronezh. He spent his childhood and early youth in the countryside, and began to write and publish early. Pretty soon the criticism also drew attention to me. Then my books were awarded three times by the highest award of the Russian Academy of Sciences - the Pushkin Prize. However, I did not have a more or less wide fame for a long time, because I did not belong to any literary school. In addition, I did not move much in the literary environment, lived a lot in the countryside, traveled a lot in Russia and outside Russia: in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and the tropics.

My popularity began from the time when I published my "Village". This was the beginning of a whole series of my works that sharply depicted the Russian soul, its light and dark, often tragic foundations. In Russian criticism and among the Russian intelligentsia, where, due to ignorance of the people or political considerations, the people were almost always idealized, these "merciless" works of mine evoked passionate hostile responses. During these years, I felt how every day my literary strength was growing stronger. But then the war broke out, and then the revolution. I was not one of those who were taken by surprise by it, for whom its size and atrocities were a surprise, but still the reality surpassed all my expectations: what the Russian revolution soon turned into, no one who had not seen it would understand. This spectacle was a complete horror for everyone who did not lose the image and likeness of God, and from Russia, after the seizure of power by Lenin, hundreds of thousands of people fled, having the slightest opportunity to escape. I left Moscow on May 21, 1918, lived in the south of Russia, which passed from hand to hand between white and red, and on January 26, 1920, having drunk a cup of untold mental suffering, I emigrated first to the Balkans, then to France. In France, I first lived in Paris, since the summer of 1923 I moved to the Alpes-Maritimes, returning to Paris only for some winter months.

In 1933 he received the Nobel Prize. In emigration I have written ten new books. "

Ivan Bunin wrote about himself in "Autobiographical Notes".

When Bunin arrived in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, it turned out that all passers-by knew him by sight: the writer's photographs were published in every newspaper, in shop windows, on the cinema screen. Seeing the great Russian writer, the Swedes looked around, and Ivan Alekseevich pulled a sheep's hat over his eyes and grumbled: "What? Perfect tenor success ".

“For the first time since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, you awarded it to an exile. For who am I? An exile who enjoys the hospitality of France, to which I too will forever remain grateful. Gentlemen, members of the Academy, let me, leaving aside myself and my works, tell you how beautiful your gesture is in itself. There must be areas of complete independence in the world. Undoubtedly, around this table are representatives of all kinds of opinions, all kinds of philosophical and religious beliefs. But there is something unshakable that unites us all: freedom of thought and conscience, to which we owe civilization. For a writer, this freedom is especially necessary - for him it is a dogma, an axiom. "

From the speech of Bunin at the presentation of the Nobel Prize

However, he had a great feeling of homeland and the Russian language and he carried it through his whole life. "We took Russia, our Russian nature with us, and wherever we are, we cannot but feel it"- said Ivan Alekseevich about himself and about the millions of similar forced emigrants who left their fatherland in the dashing revolutionary years.

"Bunin did not have to live in Russia to write about it: Russia lived in him, he was Russia."

Writer's secretary Andrey Sedykh

In 1936, Bunin went on a trip to Germany. In Lindau, he first encountered the fascist order: he was arrested, subjected to an unceremonious and humiliating search. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grass at the Villa Jeannette, where he lived throughout the war. Here he wrote his "Dark Alleys". However, under the Germans, he did not publish anything, although he lived in great lack of money and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred, sincerely rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945 he moved from Grasse to Paris for good. I was ill a lot in recent years

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in his sleep on the night of November 7-8, 1953 in Paris. Buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery.

“I was born too late. Had I been born earlier, this would not have been my writer's memories. I wouldn't have to survive ... 1905, then the First World War, followed by the 17th year and its continuation, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler ... How not to envy our forefather Noah! Only one flood fell to his lot ... "

I.A. Bunin. Memories. Paris. 1950

"Start reading Bunin - be it" Dark Alleys "," Light Breathing "," Chalice of Life "," Clean Monday "," Antonovskie Apples "," Mitya's Love "," Arseniev's Life ", and you will immediately be possessed by a unique Bunin's Russia with all its lovely signs: old churches, monasteries, bell ringing, village graveyards, ruined "noble nests", with its rich colorful language, sayings, jokes that you will not find either in Chekhov or Turgenev. But this is not all: no one so convincingly, so psychologically accurately and at the same time laconically described the main human feeling - love. Bunin was endowed with a very special property: vigilance of observation. With amazing accuracy, he could draw a psychological portrait of any person he saw, give a brilliant description of natural phenomena, changes in moods and changes in the life of people, plants and animals. We can say that he wrote on the basis of keen eyesight, keen hearing and keen sense of smell. And nothing escaped him. His memory of a wanderer (he loved to travel!) Absorbed everything: people, conversations, speech, color, noise, smells ", - wrote the literary critic Zinaida Partis in her article "An invitation to Bunin".

Bunin in quotes

“God gives each of us, along with life, this or that talent and imposes on us the sacred duty not to bury it in the ground. Why why? We don't know that. But we must know that everything in this incomprehensible world for us must certainly have some meaning, some kind of high God's intention aimed at ensuring that everything in this world “was good,” and that the diligent fulfillment of this God's intention is always our service to him, and therefore both joy and pride ... "

The Bernard story (1952)

“Yes, from year to year, from day to day, you secretly expect only one thing - a happy love meeting, you live, in essence, only the hope for this meeting - and everything is in vain ...”

Story "In Paris", collection "Dark alleys" (1943)

"And he felt such pain and such a uselessness of his whole future life without her that he was seized by horror, despair."
“The number without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was weird! She also smelled of good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still on the tray, but she was gone ... And the lieutenant's heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to smoke and walked up and down the room several times.

The story "Sunstroke" (1925)

"Life is, undoubtedly, love, kindness, and a decrease in love, kindness is always a decrease in life, there is already death."

The Blind Man (1924)

“You wake up and lie in bed for a long time. There is silence throughout the house. You can hear how the gardener carefully walks through the rooms, lighting the stoves, and how the firewood crackles and shoots. Ahead - a whole day of rest in the already silent winter estate. You will slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find in the wet foliage an accidentally forgotten cold and wet apple, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you will start working on books - grandfather's books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, similar to church missal books, smell gloriously of their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some pleasant sour mold, old perfume ... "

Story "Antonovskie apples" (1900)

"What an old Russian disease, this longing, this boredom, this spoiledness - the eternal hope that some frog with a magic ring will come and do everything for you: you just have to go out on the porch and throw the ring from hand to hand!"
"Our children, our grandchildren will not even be able to imagine the Russia in which we once (that is, yesterday) lived, which we did not value, did not understand - all this power, complexity, wealth, happiness ..."
“I walked and thought, or rather, I felt: if now I managed to escape somewhere, to Italy, for example, to France, it would be disgusting everywhere - the man would be disgusted! Life made me feel so keenly, so keenly and carefully examine him, his soul, his disgusting body. That our former eyes - how little they saw, even mine! "

Collection "Cursed Days" (1926-1936)

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is the last classic of pre-revolutionary Russia and the first Russian owner of the main literary award - the Alfred Nobel. His works, which have become the golden fund of artistic culture, have been translated into all European languages, repeatedly filmed. Among them: "Life of Arseniev", "Mitya's love", "Sunstroke", "The gentleman from San Francisco", "Antonov apples".

Childhood

The future literary genius was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh. His father, a landowner who was impoverished due to a lack of business skills, addiction to cards and alcohol, belonged to an old noble family that gave his homeland many outstanding minds, including the leading figure of the Russian word Vasily Zhukovsky. Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin was a generous and artistically gifted person.

Mother, Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Chubarova, came from a princely family (according to family legend), was distinguished by a compliant, poetic and gentle nature, in contrast to a hot-tempered and reckless spouse.

In total, the couple had 9 children, but four survived: Julius, Zhenya, Maria and Ivan. When Vanya was 4 years old, the family had to return for financial reasons to their impoverished "noble nest" - Butyrki in the Oryol region.

Vanechka was known as his mother's favorite, having a similar delicate and impressionable nature. He learned to read early, amazed with imagination, curiosity, composed the first verse at the age of 7-8.

In 1881 he was sent to the Yelets gymnasium, where he studied for 5 years without earning a certificate: the young man was so homesick that he did not study well and was eventually sent home.

Subsequently, the lack of formal education depressed him, but did not prevent him from being known as a great writer. The young man learned the gymnasium program under the guidance of his brother Julia, who was 10 years old, who graduated with honors from the university and had a special influence on the formation of his brother's personality. Among the literary idols of Ivan were Pushkin, Fet, Tyutchev, Lermontov, Semyon Nadson.

The beginning of the way

In 1887, Bunin's literary career began. The publication "Rodina" published his poems "Over the grave of S. Ya. Nadson" and "The Village Beggar". In 1889 he left the estate, having received an offer from Orel to take a place at the editor of a local newspaper. Previously, he went to Kharkov to his brother Yuli, where he worked in a zemstvo office, and then visited the south in the Crimea.

During his collaboration with Orlovsky Vestnik, he published his debut poetry book Poems, published in the Observer, Niva, Vestnik Evropy publications, earning approval from eminent writers, including Chekhov.

Ivan Bunin - Poems

In 1892 the writer moved to Poltava, where, under the patronage of Julia, he got a job in the statistics department of the provincial self-government body. He talked a lot with free-thinkers-populists, visited Tolstoy settlements, in 1894 met with their founder Leo Tolstoy, reflecting his ideas in the story "At the Countryside."

Creative achievements

A year later, he entered the literary circles of St. Petersburg, then Moscow, became close with Alexander Kuprin, Valery Bryusov, Konstantin Balmont, met Anton Chekhov, Nikolai Teleshov, worked fruitfully. Among his close friends there were also many artists and musicians, including Sergei Rachmaninoff. Art has always attracted Ivan Alekseevich. Since childhood, he was endowed with increased sensitivity and susceptibility to sounds, colors, which affected the peculiarities of creativity, its expressive picturesqueness.

In 1896 he saw the light of his translation of "The Song of Gayawat" by Henry Longfellow, which is now recognized as unsurpassed. Later he translated Saadi, T. Shevchenko, F. Petrarch, A. Mitskevich. In 1900, the Epitaph and the famous Antonov Apples appeared, which provided him with real literary fame. The “Listopad” was also warmly received, which brought in 1903 the prestigious Pushkin Prize of the Academy of Sciences (or rather, half of it, being awarded together with Peter Weinberg).

Ivan Bunin - Leaf fall

6 years later, the writer was again awarded this literary award (for volumes 3 and 4 of the Collected Works in 5 volumes), sharing it this time with Alexander Kuprin. Almost simultaneously, he became the youngest (39-year-old) holder of the academic title "Honorary Academician" at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Development of creative activity

After the revolutionary events of 1905, the prevailing theme in the works of the master of the pen instead of the "requiem" of manor life became the drama of the country's historical share. But he remained true to his style and the precepts of great literature, rejecting any avant-garde and modernism - he still wrote realistically, concisely, poetically reflecting nature and revealing the psychological subtleties of characters. The undoubted masterpieces of this period include "The Village", "Sukhodol", where the author shocked readers with horrific pictures of peasant life without embellishment, as well as stories filled with a philosophical meaning: "Good Life", "Brothers", "John the Wepthal", "Mister from San -Francisco ”,“ The Chalice of Life ”,“ The Grammar of Love ”.

In 1907, the writer and his wife made their cherished first "journey", visiting Egypt. Later he enjoyed traveling a lot to different countries (Turkey, Ceylon, Romania, Italy, Syria, Palestine). Colleagues-participants of the literary and artistic circle "Wednesday", of which he became a member, even gave him the nickname "fidget". The impressions of the trips were reflected in the book "The Shadow of the Bird", published in 1931 in Paris.

He did not favor the Bolsheviks and their leaders; he perceived the coup as the beginning of the death of his native state and as a personal tragedy, capturing the ongoing terror in his diary "Cursed Days". In 1918 he left Moscow, moving to Odessa, and two years later he was forced to leave his homeland forever.

Abroad

In 1920, the writer settled in France, spending the warm season in the southeast of the country in the medieval town of Grasse, and the winter months in Paris. The separation from his native land and mental suffering paradoxically had a positive effect on his work.

In exile, he wrote ten new books, true pearls of world literature. Among them: "The Rose of Jericho", which included poetry and prose based on travels to the East, "Mitya's Love" about a young man who died from unhappy love, "Sunstroke", which described a passion that arose as an obsession and inspiration. His short stories, which were included in the collection "God's Tree", also became unique compositions.

"Mitya's love" - \u200b\u200bI. Bunin

In 1933, the writer who reached the literary Olympus received the Alfred Nobel award. The choice of the Committee was largely influenced by the appearance of his brilliant work "Life of Arseniev", where he lyrically, boldly and deeply recreated his past and his homeland.

During the Second World War, the writer lived in Grasse, in distress from financial problems. He did not support the idea of \u200b\u200ba certain part of the Russian emigration, ready to welcome the Nazis who were capable of destroying Bolshevism, on the contrary, he welcomed the accomplishments of the Soviet armed forces. In 1943 the collection of short stories "Dark Alleys" about thoughts, feelings and love colored with sorrow, recognized as the pinnacle of the writer's short prose, was published.

After the war, the writer again moved to Paris, where he received an offer from the head of the Soviet embassy A. Bogomolov to leave for the USSR. According to K. Simonov, the writer really wanted to go, but his age and attachment to France stopped him.

Personal life of Ivan Bunin

The writer's half-child love was Emilia, a young governess of the neighbors. He devoted several chapters to the description of this feeling in The Life of Arseniev. And his first common-law wife was Varya Pashchenko, the daughter of a fairly well-to-do doctor, a graduate of the Yeletsk gymnasium, a proofreader of the Orlovsky Vestnik. She conquered 19-year-old Ivan with her intelligence and beauty. But the girl wanted to have a more wealthy life partner nearby, and in 1894 she left him.

The next muse, the Greek Anna Tsakni, the daughter of the Odessa owner of the "Southern Review", the writer met in 1898. They got married, but the joint living of the young did not work out. He wanted to create in Moscow, and his wife decided to return to her native Odessa. When she, already pregnant, left, the writer suffered a lot. In 1900, their son Kolenka was born, who died at the age of 5 from scarlet fever.

The next chosen one of the writer was Vera Muromtseva, a highly educated beauty, the niece of the head of the State Duma. The young people met in Moscow in 1906. Since Tsakni at first did not agree to give a divorce, they were able to marry only in 1922, and lived together for 46 years. She called her husband Jan, loved him very much and even forgave infidelity.

The last beloved of the writer was the Russian poet Galina Kuznetsova. Their whirlwind romance began in 1926. A year later, the young passion left her husband and began to live with the Bunin family, shocking the society of Russian emigrants. But in 1933, she presented another surprise to those around her - she entered into a love affair with Margarita, the sister of the philosopher and literary critic Fyodor Stepunov. In connection with this turn of events, the writer, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was in a state of absolute despair.

At the age of 84, the writer died. He was buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin. Born October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh - died November 8, 1953 in Paris. Russian writer, poet, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1909), the first Russian laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1933).

Ivan Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 into an old noble family in Voronezh. Since 1867, the Bunin family rented an apartment in the Hermanovskaya estate (Prospect Revolyutsii, 3), where the future writer was born and lived for the first three years of his life. Father - Alexei Nikolaevich Bunin (1827-1906), in his youth was an officer, mother - Lyudmila Alexandrovna Bunina (nee Chubarova; 1835-1910).

Later the family moved to the Ozerki estate in the Oryol province (now the Lipetsk region). Until the age of 11 he was brought up at home, in 1881 he entered the Yelets district gymnasium, in 1886 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his elder brother Julius. He did a lot of self-education, being carried away by reading world and national literary classics. At the age of 17, he began to write poetry, in 1887 - his debut in print. In 1889 he moved to Oryol and went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik. By this time, his long relationship with the employee of this newspaper, Varvara Pashchenko, with whom, against the wishes of relatives, they moved to Poltava (1892).

Collections "Poems" (Eagle, 1891), "Under the open sky" (1898), "Leaf fall" (1901).

“There was Russia, there was a great house, bursting with all belongings, inhabited by a mighty family, created by the blessed labors of many and many generations, consecrated by the worship of God, the memory of the past and all that is called cult and culture. What did they do with it? housekeeper by the complete destruction of literally the whole house and unheard of fratricide, all that nightmare-bloody booth, the monstrous consequences of which are incalculable ... The planetary villain, shaded by a banner with a mocking call for freedom, brotherhood, equality, sat high on the neck of the Russian "savage" and called trample on conscience, shame, love, mercy ... A geek, a moral idiot from birth, Lenin showed the world something monstrous, amazing, just in the midst of his activity, he ruined the greatest country in the world and killed millions of people, and in broad daylight they argue: he is a benefactor of humanity or not?"

Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933 for "the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose."

The Second World War (from October 1939 to 1945) he spent in the rented villa "Jeannette" in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes department).

Much and fruitfully engaged in literary activity, becoming one of the main figures in the Russian Diaspora.

In emigration, Bunin wrote his best works, such as: "Mitya's Love" (1924), "Sunstroke" (1925), "The Case of the Cornet Elagin" (1925), and, finally, "The Life of Arsenyev" (1927-1929, 1933 ) and a cycle of stories "Dark Alleys" (1938-40). These works became a new word both in Bunin's work and in Russian literature as a whole. According to K. G. Paustovsky, "Life of Arseniev" is not only the summit work of Russian literature, but also "one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature."

According to the Chekhov Publishing House, in the last months of his life, Bunin worked on a literary portrait of A. P. Chekhov, the work remained unfinished (in the book: Looped Ears and Other Stories, New York, 1953). He died in a dream at two o'clock in the morning from 7 to 8 November 1953 in Paris. According to eyewitnesses, on the writer's bed was a volume of Leo Tolstoy's novel "Resurrection". Buried in the Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois cemetery in France.

In 1929-1954. Bunin's works were not published in the USSR. Since 1955 - the most published writer of the first wave of Russian emigration in the USSR (several collected works, many one-volume editions).

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

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is the last Russian classic to capture Russia in the late 19th - early 20th centuries. “… One of the last rays of some wonderful Russian day,” critic GV Adamovich wrote about Bunin.