Bunin Ivan Alekseevich (1870-1953) - Russian writer, poet. The first Russian writer won the Nobel Prize (1933). He spent part of his life in exile.
Life and art
Ivan Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in an impoverished family noble family in Voronezh, from where the family soon moved to the Oryol province. Bunin's education at the local Yelets gymnasium lasted only 4 years and was discontinued due to the family's inability to pay for studies. Ivan's education was taken over by his elder brother Julius Bunin, who received a university education.
The regular appearance of poems and prose by young Ivan Bunin in periodicals began at the age of 16. Under the wing of his older brother, he worked in Kharkov and Orel as a proofreader, editor, and journalist in local print publishing houses. After an unsuccessful civil marriage with Varvara Pashchenko, Bunin leaves for St. Petersburg and then to Moscow.
Confession
In Moscow, Bunin is included in the circle of famous writers of his time: L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, V. Bryusov, M. Gorky. The first recognition comes to the novice author after the publication of the story "Antonov apples" (1900).
In 1901, Ivan Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize from the Russian Academy of Sciences for the published collection of poems Falling Leaves and the translation of the poem The Song of Hiawatha by G. Longfellow. The second time the Pushkin Prize was awarded to Bunin in 1909, along with the title of honorary academician of fine literature. Bunin's poems, which were in line with the classical Russian poetry of Pushkin, Tyutchev, Fet, are characterized by a special sensuality and the role of epithets.
As a translator, Bunin turned to the works of Shakespeare, Byron, Petrarch, Heine. The writer was fluent in English and studied Polish on his own.
Together with his third wife Vera Muromtseva, whose official marriage was concluded only in 1922 after a divorce from his second wife Anna Tsakni, Bunin travels a lot. From 1907 to 1914, the couple visited the countries of the East, Egypt, Ceylon, Turkey, Romania, Italy.
Since 1905, after the suppression of the first Russian revolution, the theme of the historical fate of Russia appeared in Bunin's prose, which was reflected in the story "The Village". The story of the unflattering life of the Russian village was a bold and innovative step in Russian literature. At the same time, in Bunin's stories (“Light Breath”, “Klasha”), female images are formed with passions hidden in them.
In 1915-1916, Bunin's stories were published, including "The Gentleman from San Francisco", in which they find a place for reasoning about the doomed fate of modern civilization.
Emigration
The revolutionary events of 1917 found the Bunins in Moscow. Ivan Bunin treated the revolution as the collapse of the country. This view, revealed in his diary entries of the 1918-1920s. formed the basis of the book Cursed Days.
In 1918, the Bunins left for Odessa, from there to the Balkans and Paris. In exile, Bunin spent the second half of his life, dreaming of returning to his homeland, but not fulfilling his desire. In 1946, upon the issuance of a decree granting Soviet citizenship to subjects of the Russian Empire, Bunin had a burning desire to return to Russia, but criticism of the Soviet authorities of the same year against Akhmatova and Zoshchenko forced him to abandon this idea.
One of the first significant works completed abroad was the autobiographical novel The Life of Arseniev (1930), dedicated to the world of the Russian nobility. For him, in 1933, Ivan Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, becoming the first Russian writer to receive such an honor. A significant amount of money received by Bunin as a bonus, for the most part, was distributed to those in need.
During the years of emigration, the theme of love and passion becomes the central theme in Bunin's work. She found expression in the works "Mitina's Love" (1925), "Sunstroke" (1927), in the famous cycle "Dark Alleys", which was published in 1943 in New York.
In the late 1920s, Bunin wrote a number of short stories - "Elephant", "Roosters", etc., in which his literary language is honed, trying to most concisely express the main idea of the work.
In the period 1927-42. Galina Kuznetsova lived with the Bunins, a young girl whom Bunin represented as his student and adopted daughter. She was associated with the writer love relationship, which the writer himself and his wife Vera experienced quite painfully. Subsequently, both women left their memories of Bunin.
Bunin experienced the years of the Second World War in the suburbs of Paris and closely followed the events on the Russian front. Numerous proposals from the Nazis, coming to him as a famous writer, he invariably rejected.
At the end of his life, Bunin published practically nothing due to a long and serious illness. His last works are "Memoirs" (1950) and the book "About Chekhov", which was not completed and was published after the author's death in 1955.
Ivan Bunin died on November 8, 1953. Extensive obituaries in memory of the Russian writer were placed in all European and Soviet newspapers. He was buried in a Russian cemetery near Paris.
No, it's not the landscape that attracts me,
It's not the colors 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 22, 1870 in Voronezh, on Dvoryanskaya Street. The impoverished landowners Bunins belonged to a noble family (V. A. Zhukovsky and poetess Anna Bunina - Bunin's ancestors).
In Voronezh, the Bunins appeared three years before the birth of Vanya, to teach their eldest sons: Yulia (13 years old) and Evgeny (12 years old). Julius was extremely capable of languages and mathematics, he studied brilliantly, Eugene studied poorly, or rather, did not study at all, he left the gymnasium early; he was a gifted artist, but in those years he was not interested in painting, he chased pigeons more. And about the youngerMotherLyudmila Alexandrovna said: Vanya was different from other children from birth, I always knew that he was special, no one has such a soul as he has.
In 1874, the Bunins decided to move from the city to the village to the Butyrki farm, in the Yelets district of the Oryol province, to the last estate of the family. That spring Julius graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal and in the fall had to leave for Moscow to enter the university's mathematics department.
In the village, little Vanya "heard enough" of songs and fairy tales from his mother and the yards.Buninwrote thathis memoriesOchildhoodyearsfrom seven are connected with the field, with peasant huts,theirinhabitants. He spent whole days disappearing in the nearest villages, grazing cattle with peasant children, traveling at night.Imitating the shepherd, he and his sister Masha ate black bread, radish, "rough and lumpy cucumbers," and "without realizing it, they shared the earth itself, all that sensual, material thing from which the world was created," wrote Bunin in an autobiographical novel " Arseniev's life". With a rare power of perception, he felt, by his own admission, "the divine splendor of the world", which is the main motive of his work. Buninalreadywas talan aspiring storyteller. About eight years old, Ivan wrote the first poem.
In the eleventh year he entered the Yelets gymnasium. At first he studied well, everything was easy; could memorize a whole page of poetry from one reading, if it interested him. But from year to year he studied worse, in the 3rd grade he remained for the second year.He did not graduate from the gymnasium, he later studied on his own under the guidance of his elder brother Yuliy Alekseevich, a candidate of the university.
In the autumn of 1889, Bunin began working at the editorial office of the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper,Hepublished in it his stories, poems, literary-critical articles and notes in the permanent section "Literature and Press". He lived by literary work and was in great need.In the editorial office, Bunin met Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who worked as a proofreader. His passionate love for her was marred 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 novel formed the plot basis of the fifth book of Arseniev's Life, which was published separately under the title Lika.
Many imagine Bunin dry and cold. V. N. Muromtseva-Bunina says: "True, sometimes he wanted to seem like that - he was a first-class actor," but "he who did not know him to the end cannot even imagine what kind of tenderness his soul was capable of." He was one of those who did not reveal himself 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 impetuously expressed his feeling of love, as he did in his letters to Varvara Pashchenko, combining in his dreams the image with everything beautiful that he found in nature, as well as in poetry and music .
At the end of August 1892, Bunin and Pashchenko moved to Poltava, where Julius Alekseevich worked as a statistician in the provincial zemstvo administration. He took both Pashchenko and his younger brother into his administration. In the Poltava zemstvo, the intelligentsia was grouped, involved in the populist movement of the 70-80s. The Bunin brothers were part of the editorial board of the Poltava Provincial Gazette, which since 1894 has been under the influence of the progressive intelligentsia. Bunin placed 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 worked in the newspaper "Kievlyanin". Now Bunin's poems and prose began to appear more often in "thick" magazines - "Vestnik Evropy", "The World of God", "Russian Wealth" - and attracted the attention of luminaries of literary criticism. N. K. Mikhailovsky spoke well of the story "The Village Sketch" (later entitled "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 Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper in 1891), by definition of the author himself, excessively intimate, gradually disappeared from his work, which now received more complete forms.
In 1893-1894, Bunin, in his words, "because of falling in love with Tolstoy as an artist", was a Tolstoyan and "adapted to the bondar trade." He visited the Tolstoyan colonies near Poltava and traveled to the Sumy district to the sectarians. Pavlovka - to the "Malevants", in their views close to the Tolstoyans. At the very end of 1893, he visited the Tolstoyan farm Khilkovo, which belonged to Prince. D. A. Khilkov. From there he went to Moscow to see Tolstoy and visited him on one of the days between January 4 and 8, 1894. The meeting made on Bunin, as he wrote, "an amazing impression." Tolstoy dissuaded Bunin from "giving up 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, with its villages and steppes, eagerly sought rapprochement with its people, eagerly listened to songs, their soul.” The year 1895 was a turning point in Bunin's life: after the "flight" of Pashchenko, who left Bunin and married his friend Arseniy Bibikov, he left the service in Poltava and went to St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow. November 21Bunin successfully read the story "To the End of the World"at a literary eveningin the hall of the Credit Society in St. Petersburg.Hismeetings with writers were varied: D. V. Grigorovich andone of the creators of "Kozma Prutkov"A. M. Zhemchuzhnikov, who continued the classical XIX century; Narodniks N. K. Mikhailovsky and N. N. Zlatovratsky; symbolists and decadents K. D. Balmont and F. K. Sologub. In December, in Moscow, Bunin met the leader of the Symbolists, Bryusov, and on December 12, in the "Big Moscow" hotel, he met Chekhov. He was very interested in Bunin's talent V. G. Korolenko - Bunin met him on December 7, 1896 in St. Petersburg at the anniversary of K. M. Stanyukovich; In the summer of 1897, in Lustdorf, near Odessa, Bunin metwith Kuppin
Literary "Wednesdays" in Teleshov's house. 1902
Top row from left to right: Stepan Skitalec, Fyodor Chaliapin, Evgeny Chirikov
Bottom row: Maxim Gorky, Leonid Andreev, Ivan Bunin, Nikolai Teleshov
In June 1898 Bunin left for Odessa.There he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (1879-1963). Family life did not go well and at the beginning of March 1900 they separated.
In early April 1899, Bunin visited Yalta, met with Chekhov, and met Gorky. During his visits to Moscow, Bunin visited N. D. Teleshov's "Wednesdays", which united prominent realist writers, willingly read his unpublished works; the atmosphere in this circle was friendly, no one was offended by frank, sometimes destructive criticism. April 12, 1900 Bunin arrived in Yalta, where the Art Theater staged Chekhov's "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya" and other performances. Bunin met Stanislavsky, Knipper, Rakhmaninov, with whom he forever established friendship.
The 1900s were milestones in lifeBuninA,Heconqueredrecognitionin literature. He spoke mainly with poetry.
On September 11, 1900, Bunin, together with Kurovsky, traveled to Berlin, Paris, to Switzerland, was in the Alps, climbed to a great height. On his return from abroad, he stopped in Yalta, lived in Chekhov's house, and spent "an amazing week" with Chekhov, who arrived from Italy a little later. In the Chekhov family, Bunin became, in his words, "one of his own"; with his sister Maria Pavlovna, he was in "almost brotherly relations." Chekhov was invariably "gentle, friendly, cared for him like an elder."Since 1899,Bunin metwith Chekhov annuallyin Yalta and in Moscow until the departure of Anton Pavlovich abroad in 1904. Chekhov predicted that Bunin would become a "great writer."Gorgeous, "in his opinion," Dreams "and" Gold Bottom ", in which "there are places just surprisingly."
At the beginning of 1901, a collection of poems "Leaf Fall" was published, which caused numerous reviews of critics. Kuprin wrote about the "rare artistic subtlety" in conveying the mood. Blok for "Falling Leaves" and other poems 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 Russian Academy Sciences, awarded to Bunin on October 19, 1903. Since 1902, Bunin's collected works began to appear in separate numbered volumes in Gorky's publishing house "Knowledge". And again travel - to Constantinople, to France and Italy, across the Caucasus. Ivan Bunin spoke about himself with a quote from Saadi: "I tried to survey the face of the world and leave in it the stamp of my soul." Growing up in the quiet of his parents' rural estates, he possessed some irrepressible thirst for travel. The East attracted him especially. He was even seriously interested in religions for some time, but at the same time he knew by heart Holy Bible. And lived according to Christian precepts. "You must always keep a candle in front of you," Bunin liked to repeat.
In November 1906, Ivan Bunin in the house of the writer Zaitsev, in Moscowmetwith Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva. INspringIn 1907, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna set off from Moscow to the countries of the East.They arrived there through Turkey, Greece, Egypt and reached the shores of the Holy Land on April 22. “We met the Bright Resurrection of Christ on the high seas,” recalled Muromtseva-Bunina. Ivan Alekseevich himself developed in detail the route of the pilgrimage to Palestine. The result of the pilgrimage was a book of essays - "travel poems in prose" - "Temple of the Sun".
In Palestine, Ivan Alekseevich first saw the rose of Jericho. An inconspicuous gray-brown withered ball like our tumbleweed. But it's worth lowering it into the water, right thererosebegins to open, opening its greened branches with barely pinkish tips. About Bunin's depiction of the East, Yu. I. Aikhenvald wrote: "He is captivated by the East," luminiferous countries ", about which he now recalls with the unusual beauty of a lyrical word ...Bunincan findfor the East, biblical and modern, the corresponding style, solemn and sometimes as if flooded with sultry waves of the sun, decorated with precious inlays and imagery arabesques; and when we are talking about the gray-haired antiquity, lost in the distances of religion and mythology, you feel the impression that some majestic chariot of mankind is moving before us.Bunin's prose and verses took on new colors. These new features inspired Bunin's prose stories "Shadow of a Bird". The Academy of Sciences awarded Bunin in 1909 the second Pushkin Prize for poetry and translations of Byron; third - also for poetry. In the same year, Bunin was elected an 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 novels and stories, as Bunin wrote, "sharply painting the Russian soul, its light and dark, often tragic foundations", and his "merciless" works caused "passionate hostile responses." During these years, I felt how my literary forces were growing stronger every day. " Gorky wrote to Bunin that "no one took the village so deeply, so historically." Bunin widely captured the life of the Russian people, touched on historical, national problems and what was the topic of the day - war and revolution - depicts, in his opinion, "in the footsteps of Radishchev," a modern village without any beauty. After Bunin's story, with its "merciless truth", based on a deep knowledge of the It became impossible to portray the peasants in the tone of Narodnik idealization.
A look at the Russian countryside was developed by Bunin partly under the influence of travel, "after a sharp slap in the face abroad." The village is depicted as not immobile, new trends penetrate it, new people appear, and Tikhon Ilyich himself thinks about his existence as a shopkeeper and tavern keeper. 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 an age when they were attacked and denied 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 in Russian literature: the Krasov brothers, Tikhon's wife, Rodka, Young, Nikolka Gray and his son Deniska, girls and women at the wedding of Young and Deniska. 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. They returned to Odessa in the middle of April 1911. The diary of their voyage is "Many Waters". About this journey - also the stories "Brothers", "City of the King of Kings". What the Englishman felt in The Brothers is autobiographical. According to Bunin, travel in his life played a "great role"; regarding wanderings, he even developed, as he said, "a certain philosophy." The diary of 1911, "Many Waters", published almost unchanged in 1925-26, is a high example of a new lyric prose for Bunin and 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 determined their genre. From their diary - the transition to "Dry Valley", in which the experience of the author of "Village" in creating everyday prose and lyric prose was synthesized. "Dry Valley" and the short stories written soon after marked Bunin's new creative rise after "The Village" - in the sense of great psychological depth and complexity of images, as well as the novelty of the genre. In "Dry Valley" in the foreground is not historical Russia with its way of life, as in "The Village", but "the soul of a Russian person in the deepest sense of the word, the image of the traits of the psyche of a Slav," said Bunin.
Bunin went his own way, did not join any fashionable literary currents or groups, as he put it, "did not throw out any banners" and did not proclaim any slogans. Criticism noted the powerful language of Bunin, his art of raising "everyday phenomena of life" into the world of poetry. There were no "low" topics unworthy of the poet's attention for him. There is a great sense of history in his poems. The reviewer of the journal "Vestnik Evropy" wrote: "His historical style is unparalleled in our poetry... Prosaism, accuracy, beauty of language are brought to the limit. There is hardly another poet whose style would be so unadorned, everyday, as here; dozens of pages you will not find a single epithet, not a general comparison, not a single metaphor ... such a simplification of the poetic language without prejudice to poetry is only possible for 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. The French writer, poet and literary critic René Gil wrote to Bunin in 1921 about the French-made "Cup of Life": "How complicated everything is psychologically! exact observation of reality: an atmosphere is created where one breathes something strange and disturbing, emanating from the very act of life! , because of his nervous passion, which hovers, like some kind of exciting aura, around some cases of madness. You have the opposite: everything is a radiation of life, full of strength, and disturbs precisely by its own forces, primordial forces, where under the visible unity lies complexity, something inescapable, violating the usual, but clear norm."
Bunin worked out his ethical ideal under the influenceessaysSocrates, set forth by his students Xenophon and Plato. He read a semi-philosophical, semi-poetic work of the "divine Plato" (Pushkin) in the form of a dialogue - "Phidon". Bunin wrote in his diary on August 21, 1917: "How much Socrates said in Indian, in Jewish philosophy!" "The last minutes of Socrates, as always, greatly disturbed me."Bunin was fascinated by his doctrine of the value of the human person. And he saw in each of the people to a certain extent "concentration ... of high powers", to the knowledge of which, Bunin wrote in the story "Returning to Rome", called Socrates. In his enthusiasm for Socrates, he followed Leo Tolstoy, who, as V. Ivanov said, went "following the paths of Socrates in search of the norm of good." Tolstoy was also close to Bunin because for him the concepts of goodness and beauty, ethics and aesthetics were inseparable. "Beauty is like a crown of goodness," Tolstoy wrote. Affirmation of eternal values - goodness and beautyin creativity, gaveBuninfeeling of connection, fusion with the past, historical successionthe essence of being. "Brothers", "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Loopy Ears", based on the real facts of modern life, are not only accusatory, but also philosophical. "Brothers" is a story about the eternal themes of love, life and death, and not just about the dependent existence of colonial peoples. The embodiment of the idea of this story is equally based on the impressions of a trip to Ceylon and on the myth of Mar - a legend about 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 poetry from Russian and world folklore, Buddhist and Muslim legends, Syrian traditions, Chaldean, Egyptian myths and myths of the idolaters of the Ancient East, the legends of the Arabs attracted his attention.
AtBuninbut it was hugesense of homeland, language, history. He said: all these sublime words, marvelous beauty of the song, "cathedrals - all this is needed, all this was created over the centuries ...". People's speechbecameone of the sources of his creativity.
In May 1917 Buninwith my wifearrived in the village of Glotovo, in the estate of Vasilyevsky, Oryol province. In October, they left for Moscow, lived on Povarskaya (now Vorovsky Street), in Baskakov's house No. 26, with the parents of Vera Nikolaevna. The time was alarming, past their windows, along Povarskaya, a gun rattled. Bunin spent the winter of 1917-1918 in Moscow. In the lobby of the house where the Muromtsevs had an apartment, a watch was established; the doors were locked, the gates were blocked with logs. On duty and Bunin.
Bunin joined the literary life, which, despite the impetuousness of social, political and military events, with devastation and famine, did not stop. Heparticipated in the work"Book publishing houses of writers", in the literary circle "Wednesday", in the Art circle.
On May 21, 1918, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna left Moscow - through Orsha and Minsk to Kyiv, then to Odessa; in January 1920 they sailed to Constantinople, then through Sofia and Belgrade they 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 his wife 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 catch it."Ivan Alekseevich returned to literary creativity slowly. Longing for Russia, uncertainty about the future oppressed him. Because the firstreleased abroadthe collection of short stories "Scream" consisted only of stories written in the happiest time for Bunin - 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 is alive! In the living water of the heart, in the pure moisture of love, sadness and tenderness, I immerse the roots and stems of my past ... "WritteneBuninin exile:"Mitina's Love" (1924), "Sunstroke" (1925), "The Case of Cornet Elagin" (1925), "The Life of Arseniev" (1927-1929, 1933) the works marked new achievements in Russian prose. Bunin himself spoke of the "poignant lyricism" of Mitya's Love. This is most captivating in his novels and short stories of the last three decades. They also - one might say in the words of their author - a kind of "wisdom", poetry. In the prose of these years, the sensory perception of life is excitingly conveyed. Contemporaries noted the great philosophical meaning of such works as Mitina's Love and Arseniev's Life. In them, Bunin broke through "to a deep metaphysical feeling of the tragic nature of man." Paustovsky characterized "The Life of Arseniev" as "one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature."
In 1927-30, Bunin wrote short stories ("Elephant", "Sky over 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 concise writing, the beginning of which was laid not by Tergenev, as some of his contemporaries claimed, but by Tolstoy and Chekhov. Professor of Sofia University P. Bitsilli wrote: “It seems to me that the collection “God’s Tree” is the most perfect of all Bunin’s works and the most revealing. no other, therefore, contains so much data for studying his method, for understanding what lies at its basis and on what it, in essence, is exhausted. and a valuable quality that connects Bunin with the most truthful Russian writers, with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov: honesty, hatred of any falsehood ... ".
In 1933 Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for the rigorous artistic talent with which he recreated in literary prose a typically Russian character". When Bunin came to receive the prize,to Stockholme histhey recognized it, since Bunin's photographs could be seen in the newspaper, in shop windows, on the cinema screen. swedeslooked back, seeing a Russian writer. Bunin pulled his lambskin hat over his eyes and grumbled:What's happened? The perfect success of the tenor.
The writer Boris Zaitsev spoke about Bunin's Nobel days: "... You see, what - we were some kind of last people there, emigrants, and suddenly an emigrant writer was awarded an international prize! A Russian writer! .. And they were awarded not for any - then there are political writings, but for fiction ... I was writing at that time in the Vozrozhdenie newspaper ... So I was urgently instructed to write an editorial about receiving the Nobel Prize. It was very late, I remember that it was ten in the evening, when I This was reported. 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, went around all the bistros and in every bistro drank a glass of cognac for the health of Ivan Bunin!
In 1936, Bunin went on a trip to Germany and other countries to meet publishers and translators. In the German city of Lindau, for the first time, he encountered fascist locks; Bunin was arrested and unceremoniously searched. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grasse at the Villa Jeannette,Herehe lived through the whole war and wrote the book "Dark Alleys" -. According to Bunin, thislove stories"about her "dark" and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys", she"talks about the tragic and about many things tender and beautiful - I think that this is the best and most original thing that I wrote in my life."
Under the Germans, Bunin did not print anything, 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 said goodbye to Grasse forever and returned to Paris in May.
Ivan Alekseevich repeatedly expressed a desire to return to Russia, in 1946 he called the decree of the Soviet government "On the restoration of citizenship of the USSR subjects of the former Russian Empire...", but Zhdanov's decree on the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad (1946), which trampled on Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Zoshchenko, led Bunin to forever abandon his intention to return to his homeland.
Ivan Alekseevich made his last diary entry on May 2, 1953. “It is still amazing to the point of tetanus!
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 the Rue Daru in Paris with a large gathering of people. All newspapers - both Russian and French - placed extensive obituaries.
In his memoirs, Bunin wrote: “I was born too late. If I had been born earlier, my writing memories would not have been like that. , Lenin, Stalin, Hitler ... How not to envy our forefather Noah! Only one flood fell to his lot ... "
You are a thought, you are a dream. Through the smoky blizzard
Crosses are running - outstretched hands.
I listen to the pensive spruce -
A melodious ringing... Everything is just a thought and sounds!
What lies in the grave, are you?
Parting, sadness was marked
Your hard way. Now they are gone. Crosses
They keep only ashes. Now you are a thought. You are eternal.
http://bunin.niv.ru/bunin/bio/biografiya-1.htm
The first Russian Nobel laureate Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is called a jeweler of the word, a prose writer-painter, a genius of Russian literature and the brightest representative of Silver Age. Literary critics agree that in Bunin's works there is a relationship with paintings, and in terms of attitude, the stories and novels of Ivan Alekseevich are similar to canvases.
Childhood and youth
Ivan Bunin's contemporaries argue that the writer felt "breed", innate aristocracy. There is nothing to be surprised: Ivan Alekseevich is a representative of the oldest noble family, rooted in the 15th century. The Bunin family coat of arms is included in the coat of arms of the noble families of the Russian Empire. Among the ancestors of the writer is the founder of romanticism, the writer of ballads and poems.
Ivan Alekseevich was born in October 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of a poor nobleman and petty official Alexei Bunin, married to his cousin Lyudmila Chubarova, a meek but impressionable woman. She bore her husband nine children, of whom four survived.
The family moved to Voronezh 4 years before the birth of Ivan to educate their eldest sons Yuli and Evgeny. They settled in a rented apartment on Bolshaya Dvoryanskaya Street. When Ivan was four years old, his parents returned to the Butyrka family estate in the Oryol province. Bunin spent his childhood on the farm.
The love of reading was instilled in the boy by his tutor, a student of Moscow University, Nikolai Romashkov. At home, Ivan Bunin studied languages, focusing on Latin. The first books of the future writer that he read on his own were The Odyssey and a collection of English poems.
In the summer of 1881, Ivan's father brought him to Yelets. The youngest son passed the exams and entered the 1st grade of the male gymnasium. Bunin liked to study, but this did not apply to the exact sciences. In a letter to his older brother, Vanya admitted that he considers the math exam "the most terrible." After 5 years, Ivan Bunin was expelled from the gymnasium in the middle of the school year. The 16-year-old boy came to his father's estate Ozerki for the Christmas holidays, but never returned to Yelets. For non-appearance at the gymnasium, the teachers' council expelled the guy. Ivan's elder brother Julius took up further education.
Literature
Ivan Bunin's creative biography began in Ozerki. In the estate, he continued to work on the novel “Passion” begun in Yelets, but the work did not reach the reader. But the poem of the young writer, written under the impression of the death of an idol - the poet Semyon Nadson - was published in the Rodina magazine.
In his father's estate, with the help of his brother, Ivan Bunin prepared for the final exams, passed them and received a matriculation certificate.
From the autumn of 1889 to the summer of 1892, Ivan Bunin worked in the journal Orlovsky Vestnik, where his stories, poems and literary criticism were published. In August 1892, Julius called his brother to Poltava, where he got Ivan a job as a librarian in the provincial government.
In January 1894, the writer visited Moscow, where he met with a congenial soul. Like Lev Nikolaevich, Bunin criticizes urban civilization. In the stories "Antonov apples", "Epitaph" and " new road”Guess nostalgic notes for the passing era, one feels regret for the degenerate nobility.
In 1897, Ivan Bunin published the book "To the End of the World" in St. Petersburg. A year earlier he had translated Henry Longfellow's poem The Song of Hiawatha. Bunin's translation included poems by Alkey, Saadi, Adam Mickiewicz and.
In 1898, Ivan Alekseevich's poetry collection Under the Open Sky was published in Moscow, warmly received by literary critics and readers. Two years later, Bunin presented poetry lovers with a second book of poems - Falling Leaves, which strengthened the author's authority as a "poet of the Russian landscape." Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1903 awards Ivan Bunin the first Pushkin Prize, followed by the second.
But in the poetic environment, Ivan Bunin earned a reputation as an "old-fashioned landscape painter." In the late 1890s, “fashionable” poets became favorites, bringing the “breath of city streets” to Russian lyrics, and with its restless heroes. in a review of Bunin's collection Poems, he wrote that Ivan Alekseevich found himself aloof "from the general movement", but from the point of view of painting, his poetic "canvases" reached "the end points of perfection." Critics call the poems “I Remember a Long Winter Evening” and “Evening” as examples of perfection and adherence to the classics.
Ivan Bunin, the poet, does not accept symbolism and critically looks at the revolutionary events of 1905-1907, calling himself "a witness to the great and vile." In 1910, Ivan Alekseevich published the story "The Village", which marked the beginning of "a whole series of works that sharply depict the Russian soul." The continuation of the series is the story "Dry Valley" and the stories "Strength", " A good life”,“ Prince in princes ”,“ Bast shoes.
In 1915, Ivan Bunin was at the height of his popularity. His famous stories "The Gentleman from San Francisco", "Grammar of Love", "Easy Breath" and "Chang's Dreams" are published. In 1917, the writer leaves revolutionary Petrograd, avoiding the "terrible proximity of the enemy." Bunin lived in Moscow for six months, from there in May 1918 he left for Odessa, where he wrote the diary "Cursed Days" - a furious denunciation of the revolution and the Bolshevik government.
Portrait "Ivan Bunin". Artist Evgeny Bukovetsky To the writer who so fiercely criticizes new power, it is dangerous to stay in the country. In January 1920, Ivan Alekseevich leaves Russia. He leaves for Constantinople, and in March he ends up in Paris. A collection of short stories called "The Gentleman from San Francisco" was published here, which the public greets enthusiastically.
Since the summer of 1923, Ivan Bunin lived in the Belvedere villa in ancient Grasse, where he visited him. During these years, the stories "Initial Love", "Numbers", "The Rose of Jericho" and "Mitina's Love" were published.
In 1930, Ivan Alekseevich wrote the story "The Shadow of a Bird" and completed the most significant work created in exile - the novel "The Life of Arseniev." The description of the hero's experiences is covered with sadness about the departed Russia, "who died before our eyes in such a magically short time."
In the late 1930s, Ivan Bunin moved to the Jeannette Villa, where he lived during the Second World War. The writer was worried about the fate of his homeland and joyfully met the news about the slightest victory of the Soviet troops. Bunin lived in poverty. He wrote about his predicament:
“I was rich - now, by the will of fate, I suddenly became poor ... I was famous all over the world - now no one in the world needs ... I really want to go home!”
The villa was dilapidated: the heating system did not function, there were interruptions in electricity and water supply. Ivan Alekseevich told his friends in letters about the "cave continuous hunger." In order to get at least a small amount, Bunin asked a friend who had left for America to publish the collection Dark Alleys on any terms. The book in Russian with a circulation of 600 copies was published in 1943, for which the writer received $300. The collection includes the story "Clean Monday". The last masterpiece of Ivan Bunin - the poem "Night" - was published in 1952.
Researchers of the prose writer's work have noticed that his novels and stories are cinematic. For the first time, a Hollywood producer spoke about the film adaptation of Ivan Bunin's works, expressing a desire to make a film based on the story "The Gentleman from San Francisco." But it ended with a conversation.
In the early 1960s, Russian directors drew attention to the work of a compatriot. A short film based on the story "Mitya's Love" was shot by Vasily Pichul. In 1989, the screens released the picture "Unurgent Spring" based on the story of the same name by Bunin.
In 2000, the director's biography film "The Diary of His Wife" was released, which tells the story of relationships in the family of the prose writer.
The premiere of the drama "Sunstroke" in 2014 caused a resonance. The tape is based on the story of the same name and the book Cursed Days.
Nobel Prize
Ivan Bunin was first nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1922. The Nobel Prize winner was busy with this. But then the prize was given to the Irish poet William Yeats.
In the 1930s, Russian emigrant writers joined the process, and their efforts were crowned with victory: in November 1933, the Swedish Academy awarded Ivan Bunin a literature prize. The appeal to the laureate said that he deserved the award for "recreating in prose a typical Russian character."
Ivan Bunin spent 715 thousand francs of the prize quickly. Half in the first months he distributed to those in need and to everyone who turned to him for help. Even before receiving the award, the writer admitted that he received 2,000 letters asking for help with money.
3 years after the Nobel Prize, Ivan Bunin plunged into habitual poverty. Until the end of his life, he did not have his own house. Best of all, Bunin described the state of affairs in a short poem "The bird has a nest", where there are lines:
The beast has a hole, the bird has a nest.
How the heart beats, sadly and loudly,
When I enter, being baptized, into a strange, rented house
With his old knapsack!
Personal life
The young writer met his first love when he worked at the Oryol Herald. Varvara Pashchenko - a tall beauty in pince-nez - seemed to Bunin too arrogant and emancipated. But soon he found in the girl interesting interlocutor. A romance broke out, but Varvara's father did not like the poor young man with vague prospects. The couple lived without a wedding. In his memoirs, Ivan Bunin calls Barbara just that - "an unmarried wife."
After moving to Poltava, the already difficult relations escalated. Varvara, a girl from a wealthy family, was fed up with a beggarly existence: she left home, leaving Bunin a farewell note. Soon Pashchenko became the wife of actor Arseny Bibikov. Ivan Bunin suffered a hard break, the brothers feared for his life.
In 1898, in Odessa, Ivan Alekseevich met Anna Tsakni. She became the first official wife of Bunin. In the same year, the wedding took place. But the couple did not live together for long: they broke up two years later. The only son of the writer, Nikolai, was born in marriage, but in 1905 the boy died of scarlet fever. Bunin had no more children.
The love of Ivan Bunin's life is the third wife of Vera Muromtseva, whom he met in Moscow, on literary evening in November 1906. Muromtseva, a graduate of the Higher Women's Courses, was fond of chemistry and spoke three languages fluently. But Vera was far from literary bohemia.
The newlyweds married in exile in 1922: Tsakni did not give Bunin a divorce for 15 years. He was the best man at the wedding. The couple lived together until the very death of Bunin, although their life cannot be called cloudless. In 1926, rumors about a strange love triangle appeared among the emigrants: a young writer Galina Kuznetsova lived in the house of Ivan and Vera Bunin, to whom Ivan Bunin had by no means friendly feelings.
Kuznetsov is called last love writer. She lived at the villa of the Bunin spouses for 10 years. Ivan Alekseevich survived the tragedy when he learned about Galina's passion for the sister of the philosopher Fyodor Stepun - Margarita. Kuznetsova left Bunin's house and went to Margo, which caused the writer's protracted depression. Friends of Ivan Alekseevich wrote that Bunin at that time was on the verge of insanity and despair. He worked for days on end, trying to forget his beloved.
After parting with Kuznetsova, Ivan Bunin wrote 38 short stories included in the collection Dark Alleys.
Death
In the late 1940s, doctors diagnosed Bunin with emphysema. At the insistence of doctors, Ivan Alekseevich went to a resort in the south of France. But the state of health has not improved. In 1947, 79-year-old Ivan Bunin spoke for the last time to an audience of writers.
Poverty forced to seek help from the Russian emigrant Andrei Sedykh. He secured a pension for a sick colleague from the American philanthropist Frank Atran. Until the end of Bunin's life, Atran paid the writer 10,000 francs a month.
In the late autumn of 1953, Ivan Bunin's health deteriorated. He didn't get out of bed. Shortly before his death, the writer asked his wife to read the letters.
On November 8, the doctor declared the death of Ivan Alekseevich. It was caused by cardiac asthma and pulmonary sclerosis. The Nobel laureate was buried at the cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois, the place where hundreds of Russian emigrants were buried.
Bibliography
- "Antonov apples"
- "Village"
- "Dry Valley"
- "Easy breath"
- "Chang's Dreams"
- "Lapti"
- "Grammar of Love"
- "Mitina's love"
- "Cursed Days"
- "Sunstroke"
- "The Life of Arseniev"
- "Caucasus"
- "Dark alleys"
- "Cold autumn"
- "Numbers"
- "Clean Monday"
- "The Case of Cornet Yelagin"
The great Russian writer, Nobel Prize winner, poet, publicist, literary critic and prose translator. It is these words that reflect the activities, achievements and creativity of Bunin. The whole life of this writer was multifaceted and interesting, he always chose his own path and did not listen to those who tried to “rebuild” his views on life, he was not a member of any literary society, and even more so a political party. It can be attributed to those personalities who were unique in their work.
earliest childhood
On October 10 (according to the old style), 1870, a little boy Ivan was born in the city of Voronezh, and whose work in the future will leave a bright mark on Russian and world literature.
Despite the fact that Ivan Bunin came from an ancient noble family, his childhood did not pass at all in a big city, but in one of the family estates (it was a small farm). Parents could afford to hire a home teacher. About the time when Bunin grew up and studied at home, the writer recalled more than once during his life. He spoke only positively about this "golden" period of his life. With gratitude and respect, he remembered this student of Moscow University, who, according to the writer, awakened in him a passion for literature, because, despite such a young age, which little Ivan read, there were Odyssey and English Poets. Even Bunin himself later said that this was the very first impetus to poetry and writing in general. Ivan Bunin showed artistry early enough. The poet's creativity found expression in his talent as a reader. He excellently read his own works and interested the most dull listeners.
Studying at the gymnasium
When Vanya was ten years old, his parents decided that he had reached the age when it was already possible to send him to the gymnasium. So Ivan began to study at the Yelets gymnasium. During this period, he lived away from his parents, with his relatives in Yelets. Entering the gymnasium and studying itself became a kind of turning point for him, because the boy, who had lived with his parents all his life before and had practically no restrictions, was really difficult to get used to the new city life. New rules, strictness and prohibitions entered his life. Later, he lived in rented apartments, but he also did not feel comfortable in these houses. Studying at the gymnasium did not last long, because after 4 years he was expelled. The reason was non-payment of tuition and failure to appear from the holidays.
External path
After everything experienced, Ivan Bunin settles in the estate of his deceased grandmother in Ozerki. Guided by the instructions of his older brother Julius, he quickly passes the course of the gymnasium. Some subjects he taught more diligently. And he even took a university course. Julius, the elder brother of Ivan Bunin, has always been distinguished by his education. Therefore, it was he who helped his younger brother in his studies. Julia and Ivan had a fairly trusting relationship. For this reason, it was he who became the first reader, as well as a critic of the earliest work of Ivan Bunin.
First lines
According to the writer himself, his future talent was formed under the influence of the stories of relatives and friends that he heard in the place where he spent his childhood. It was there that he learned the first subtleties and peculiarities of his native language, listened to stories and songs, which in the future helped the writer to find unique comparisons in his works. All this the best way influenced Bunin's talent.
He began writing poetry at a very early age. Bunin's work was born, one might say, when the future writer was only seven years old. When all the other children were just learning to read, little Ivan had already begun to write poetry. He really wanted to achieve success, mentally compared himself with Pushkin, Lermontov. I read with enthusiasm the works of Maikov, Tolstoy, Fet.
At the very beginning of professional creativity
Ivan Bunin first appeared in print, also at a fairly young age, namely at the age of 16. The life and work of Bunin in general have always been closely intertwined. Well, it all started, of course, small, when two of his poems were published: "Over the grave of S. Ya. Nadson" and "The village beggar." During the year, ten of his best poems and the first stories "Two Wanderers" and "Nefyodka" were published. These events became the beginning of the literary and writing activities of the great poet and prose writer. For the first time, the main theme of his writings was identified - man. In Bunin's work, the theme of psychology, the mysteries of the soul, will remain key to the last line.
In 1889, young Bunin, under the influence of the revolutionary-democratic movement of the intelligentsia - populists, moved to his brother in Kharkov. But soon he becomes disillusioned with this movement and quickly moves away from it. Instead of cooperating with the populists, he leaves for the city of Orel and there begins his work in the Oryol Bulletin. In 1891 the first collection of his poems was published.
First love
Despite the fact that throughout his life the themes of Bunin's work were diverse, almost the entire first collection of poems is saturated with the experiences of young Ivan. It was at this time that the writer had his first love. He lived in a civil marriage with Varvara Pashchenko, who became the author's muse. So for the first time love manifested itself in the work of Bunin. Young people often quarreled, did not find a common language. Everything that happened in their life together, each time made him disappointed and wondered, is love worth such experiences? Sometimes it seemed that someone from above simply did not want them to be together. First, it was Varvara's father's ban on the wedding of young people, then, when they nevertheless decided to live in a civil marriage, Ivan Bunin unexpectedly finds a lot of minuses in their life together, and then he is completely disappointed in her. Later, Bunin concludes for himself that he and Varvara do not suit each other in character, and soon the young people simply part. Almost immediately, Varvara Pashchenko marries Bunin's friend. This brought many experiences to the young writer. He is disappointed in life and love completely.
Productive work
At this time, Bunin's life and work are no longer so similar. The writer decides to give up personal happiness, all given to work. During this period, tragic love comes through brighter in Bunin's work.
Almost at the same time, fleeing loneliness, he moved to his brother Julius in Poltava. There is a rise in the literary field. His stories are published in leading magazines, in writing he is gaining popularity. The themes of Bunin's work are mainly devoted to man, the secrets of the Slavic soul, the majestic Russian nature and selfless love.
After Bunin visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1895, he gradually began to enter into a large literary environment, in which he very organically fit in. Here he met Bryusov, Sologub, Kuprin, Chekhov, Balmont, Grigorovich.
Later, Ivan begins to correspond with Chekhov. It was Anton Pavlovich who predicted to Bunin that he would become a "great writer." Later, carried away by moral sermons, he makes his idol out of him and even tries to live according to his advice for a certain time. Bunin asked for an audience with Tolstoy and was honored to meet the great writer in person.
A new step on the creative path
In 1896, Bunin tries himself as a translator works of art. In the same year, his translation of Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha was published. In this translation, Bunin's work was seen by everyone from the other side. His contemporaries recognized his talent at its true worth and highly appreciated the work of the writer. Ivan Bunin received the Pushkin Prize of the first degree for this translation, which gave the writer, and now also the translator, a reason to be even more proud of his achievements. To receive such high praise, Bunin literally did a titanic work. After all, the translation of such works itself requires perseverance and talent, and for this the writer also had to learn it on his own English language. As the result of the translation showed, he succeeded.
Second attempt at marriage
Remaining free for so long, Bunin decided to marry again. This time, his choice fell on a Greek woman, the daughter of a wealthy emigrant A. N. Tsakni. But this marriage, like the last one, did not bring joy to the writer. After a year of married life, his wife left him. In marriage, they had a son. Little Kolya died very young, at the age of 5, from meningitis. Ivan Bunin was very worried about the loss of his only child. The further life of the writer developed in such a way that he had no more children.
mature years
The first book of short stories entitled "To the End of the World" was published in 1897. Almost all critics rated its content very positively. A year later, another poetry collection "Under the open sky" was published. It was these works that brought the writer popularity in the Russian literature of that time. Bunin's work was briefly, but at the same time capacious, presented to the public, which highly appreciated and accepted the author's talent.
But Bunin's prose really gained great popularity in 1900, when the story "Antonov apples" was published. This work was created on the basis of the writer's memories of his rural childhood. For the first time, nature is vividly depicted in Bunin's work. It was the carefree time of childhood that awakened in him the best feelings and memories. The reader plunges headlong into that beautiful early autumn that beckons the prose writer, just at the time of picking Antonov apples. For Bunin, according to him, these were the most precious and unforgettable memories. It was joy, real life and carelessness. And the disappearance of the unique smell of apples is, as it were, the extinction of everything that brought the writer a lot of pleasure.
Reproaches of noble origin
Many ambiguously regarded the meaning of the allegory “the smell of apples” in the work “Antonov apples”, since this symbol was very closely intertwined with the symbol of the nobility, which, due to Bunin’s origin, was not at all alien to him. These facts caused many of his contemporaries, such as M. Gorky, to criticize Bunin's work, saying that Antonov apples smell good, but they do not smell democratic at all. However, the same Gorky noted the elegance of literature in the work and Bunin's talent.
Interestingly, for Bunin, reproaches about his noble origin meant nothing. He was alien to swagger or arrogance. Many at that time were looking for subtexts in Bunin's works, wanting to prove that the writer regretted the disappearance of serfdom and the leveling of the nobility as such. But Bunin pursued a completely different idea in his work. He was not sorry for the change of the system, but it was a pity that all life passes, and that we all once loved with full heart, but this is also a thing of the past ... He was sad that he no longer enjoys his beauty .
Wanderings of the writer
Ivan Bunin was in his soul all his life. Probably, this was the reason that he did not stay anywhere for a long time, he liked to travel to different cities, where he often drew ideas for his works.
Starting in October, he traveled with Kurovsky around Europe. Visited Germany, Switzerland, France. Literally 3 years later, with another friend of his - the playwright Naydenov - he was again in France, visited Italy. In 1904, having become interested in the nature of the Caucasus, he decides to go there. The journey was not in vain. This trip, many years later, inspired Bunin to a whole cycle of stories "The Shadow of a Bird" that are connected with the Caucasus. The world saw these stories in 1907-1911, and much later the story of 1925 “Many Waters” appeared, also inspired by the wondrous nature of this region.
At this time, nature is most clearly reflected in Bunin's work. It was another facet of the writer's talent - travel essays.
"Find your love, keep it..."
Life brought Ivan Bunin together with many people. Some passed and passed away, others stayed for a long time. An example of this was Muromtseva. Bunin met her in November 1906, at a friend's house. Clever and educated in many areas, the woman was indeed his best friend, and even after the death of the writer she prepared his manuscripts for publication. She wrote the book "The Life of Bunin", in which she placed the most important and Interesting Facts from the writer's life. He told her more than once: “Without you, I would not have written anything. I'd be gone!"
Here love and creativity in Bunin's life find each other again. Probably, it was at that moment that Bunin realized that he had found the one he had been looking for for many years. He found in this woman his beloved, a person who will always support him in difficult times, a comrade who will not betray. Since Muromtseva became his life partner, the writer wanted to create and compose something new, interesting, crazy with renewed vigor, this gave him vitality. It was at that moment that the traveler wakes up in him again, and since 1907 Bunin has traveled half of Asia and Africa.
World recognition
In the period from 1907 to 1912, Bunin did not stop creating. And in 1909 he was awarded the second Pushkin Prize for his Poems 1903-1906. Here we recall the person in Bunin's work and the essence of human actions, which the writer tried to understand. Many translations were also noted, which he did no less brilliantly than he composed new works.
On November 9, 1933, an event occurred that became the pinnacle of the writer's writing activity. He received a letter informing him that Bunin was being awarded the Nobel Prize. Ivan Bunin is the first Russian writer to receive this high award and prize. His work reached its peak - he received worldwide fame. Since then, he began to be recognized as the best of the best in his field. But Bunin did not stop his activities and, as a truly famous writer, he worked with redoubled energy.
The theme of nature in Bunin's work continues to occupy one of the main places. The writer writes a lot about love. This was an occasion for critics to compare the work of Kuprin and Bunin. Indeed, there are many similarities in their works. They are written in a simple and sincere language, full of lyrics, ease and naturalness. The characters of the heroes are spelled out very subtly (from a psychological point of view.) Here, to the best of sensuality, there is a lot of humanity and naturalness.
Comparison of the work of Kuprin and Bunin gives reason to highlight such common features of their works as the tragic fate of the protagonist, the assertion that there will be retribution for any happiness, the exaltation of love over all other human feelings. Both writers claim in their work that the meaning of life is in love, and that a person endowed with the talent to love is worthy of worship.
Conclusion
The life of the great writer was interrupted on November 8, 1953 in Paris, where he and his wife emigrated after starting in the USSR. He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.
It is simply impossible to briefly describe Bunin's work. He created a lot in his life, and each of his works is worthy of attention.
It is difficult to overestimate his contribution not only to Russian literature, but also to world literature. His works are popular in our time both among young people and among the older generation. This is really the kind of literature that has no age and is always relevant and touching. And now Ivan Bunin is popular. The biography and work of the writer cause many interest and sincere reverence.
He opened new horizons for the most demanding readers. He skillfully wrote fascinating stories and short stories. He was sensitive to language and native language. Ivan Bunin is a writer, thanks to whom people took a different look at love.
On October 10, 1870, the boy Vanya was born in Voronezh. He grew up and was brought up in the family of a landowner in the Oryol and Tula provinces, who became impoverished because of his love for cards. However, despite this fact, the writer did not just feel aristocratic, 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 the estate on the Butyrka farm in the Oryol province. Many childhood memories of Bunin are connected with this place, which we can see between the lines in his stories. For example, in "Antonov apples" he describes with love and awe 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 older brother, he wrote that the math exam was “the most terrible” for him. He did not graduate from the gymnasium, as he was expelled due to absence from the holidays. He continued his studies with his brother Julius at the Ozerki parental estate, with whom he subsequently became very close. Knowing about the preferences of the child, the relatives focused on the humanities.
His first literary works belong to this period. At 15, the young writer creates the novel "Passion", but it is not published anywhere. The very first published poem was “Over the Grave of S. Ya. Nadson” in the Rodina magazine (1887).
creative path
Here begins the period of wanderings of Ivan Bunin. Starting in 1889, he worked for 3 years in the Orlovsky Vestnik magazine, in which his small literary works and articles were published. Later he moved to his brother in Kharkov, where he arranged for him in the provincial government as a librarian.
In 1894 he went to Moscow, where he met with Leo Tolstoy. As mentioned earlier, the poet even then subtly feels the surrounding reality, therefore, in the stories “Antonov apples”, “New road” and “Epitaph”, nostalgia for the passing era will be so sharply traced and dissatisfaction with the urban environment will be felt.
1891 is the year of the publication of the first collection of poems by Bunin, in which the reader first encounters the theme of bitterness and sweetness of love, which permeate the works dedicated to unhappy love for Pashchenko.
In 1897, the second book appeared in St. Petersburg - "To the End of the World and Other Stories".
Ivan Bunin also distinguished himself as a translator of the works of Alcaeus, Saadi, Francesco Petrarch, Adam Mickiewicz and George Byron.
The writer's hard work paid off. In Moscow in 1898, a poetry collection "Under the open sky" appeared. In 1900, a 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", "Easy Breath", "Chang's Dreams" and "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 exile. 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 Arseniev's Life. For him, the author received Nobel Prize in 1933 (the first for a Russian writer). This is a grand event in our history and big step forward for Russian literature.
During the Second World War, the writer lives very poorly in the Villa Janet. His work abroad does not find such a response as at home, and the author himself is sick of longing for his native land. Bunin's last literary work was published in 1952.
Personal life
- The first was Varvara Pashchenko. This love story cannot be called happy. At first, the young lady's parents became an obstacle to their relationship, who were categorically against the marriage of their daughter to a failed young man, who, moreover, was a year younger than her. Then the writer himself became convinced of the dissimilarity of the characters. As a result, Pashchenko married a wealthy landowner, with whom she had a close relationship secretly from Bunin. The author dedicated poems to this gap.
- In 1898 Ivan marries the daughter of a migrant revolutionary A. N. Tsakni. It was she who became the "sunstroke" for the writer. However, the marriage did not last long, since the Greek woman did not experience the same strong attraction to her husband.
- His third muse was his second wife, Vera Muromtseva. This woman truly became Ivan's guardian angel. As after the crash of a ship during a storm, a calm lull follows, so Vera appeared at the most necessary moment for Bunin. They have been married for 46 years.
- But everything was smooth only until the moment when Ivan Alekseevich brought his student into the house - the beginning writer Galina Kuznetsova. It was a fatal love - both were not free, both were separated by an abyss in age (she was 26, and he was 56 years old). 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 go back. But his plans never came to fruition. 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 literary creativity in Russia, became a symbol of Russian émigré prose of the 20th century.
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