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

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin - the last Russian classic who captured Russia late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. “...One of the last rays of some wonderful Russian day,” wrote critic G. V. Adamovich about Bunin.
Ivan Bunin was born in the ancient noble family in Voronezh. Subsequently, the family moved to the Ozerki estate in the Oryol province (now Lipetsk region). Until the age of 11, he was raised at home, in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, in 1886 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius. I did a lot of self-education, fascinated by reading world and domestic literature. literary classics. At the age of 17 he began to write poetry, and in 1887 he made his debut in print. In 1889 he moved to Oryol and went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Oryol Vestnik. By this time, he had a long relationship with an employee of this newspaper, Varvara Pashchenko, with whom, against the wishes of his relatives, he moved to Poltava (1892).
Collections “Poems” (Eagle, 1891), “Under open air"(1898), "Leaf Fall" (1901).
1895 - personally met A.P. Chekhov, before that they corresponded. His acquaintances with Mirra Lokhvitskaya, K.D. Balmont, and V. Bryusov date back to the same time.
In the 1890s, he traveled on the steamship “Chaika” (“a bark with firewood”) along the Dnieper and visited the grave of Taras Shevchenko, whom he loved and later translated a lot. A few years later, he wrote the essay “At the Seagull,” which was published in the children’s illustrated magazine “Vskhody” (1898, No. 21, November 1).
On September 23, 1898, she married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni, the daughter of the populist revolutionary, a wealthy Odessa Greek Nikolai Petrovich Tsakni. The marriage did not last long, the only child died at the age of 5 (1905). Since 1906, Bunin has been cohabiting (the civil marriage was formalized in 1922) with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the niece of S. A. Muromtsev, Chairman of the State Duma Russian Empire 1st convocation.
In his lyrics, Bunin continued the classical traditions (collection “Falling Leaves,” 1901).
In stories and stories he showed (sometimes with a nostalgic mood) the impoverishment noble estates (« Antonov apples", 1900), the cruel face of the village ("Village", 1910, "Sukhodol", 1911), disastrous oblivion moral principles life (“Mr. from San Francisco”, 1915), a sharp rejection of the October Revolution and the power of the Bolsheviks in the diary book “ Damn days"(1918, published 1925); V autobiographical novel“The Life of Arsenyev” (1930) - a recreation of the past of Russia, the writer’s childhood and youth; the tragedy of human existence in the story “Mitya’s Love”, 1924, the collection of stories “Dark Alleys”, 1943, as well as in other works, wonderful examples of Russian short prose.
Translated “The Song of Hiawatha” by the American poet G. Longfellow. It was first published in the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper in 1896. At the end of that year, the newspaper’s printing house published “The Song of Hiawatha” as a separate book.
In April-May 1907 he visited Palestine, Syria and Egypt.
Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize twice (1903, 1909). On November 1, 1909, he was elected an honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature. In the summer of 1918, Bunin moved from Bolshevik Moscow to Odessa, occupied by Austrian troops. As the Red Army approached the city in April 1919, he did not emigrate, but remained in Odessa.
He welcomed the capture of the city by the Volunteer Army in August 1919, personally thanked General A.I. Denikin, who arrived in Odessa on October 7, and actively collaborated with OSVAG during Armed Forces South of Russia. In February 1920, when the Bolsheviks approached, he left Russia. Emigrated to France. During these years, he kept a diary, “Cursed Days,” which was partially lost, and which amazed his contemporaries with the precision of his language and his passionate hatred of the Bolsheviks.
In exile, he was active in social and political activities: he gave lectures, collaborated with Russian political organizations of nationalist and monarchist trends, and regularly published journalistic articles. In 1924, he issued a famous manifesto on the tasks of the Russian Abroad regarding Russia and Bolshevism: “Mission of Russian Emigration,” in which he assessed what happened to Russia and the Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin.
Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933 for "the rigorous mastery with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose."
Second world war(from October 1939 to 1945) spent in the rented villa “Jeannette” in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes department). Worked hard and fruitfully literary activity, becoming one of the main figures of the Russian Abroad. While in exile, Bunin wrote his best works, such as: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “ Sunstroke"(1925), "The Case of Cornet Elagin" (1925), and, finally, "The Life of Arsenyev" (1927-1929, 1933) and the cycle of stories "Dark Alleys" (1938-40). These works became a new word both in Bunin’s work and in Russian literature in general. According to K. G. Paustovsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” is not only the pinnacle work of Russian literature, but also “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.”
According to the Chekhov Publishing House, recent months life Bunin worked on literary portrait A.P. Chekhov, the work remained unfinished (in the book: “Loopy Ears and Other Stories”, New York, 1953). He died in his sleep at two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953 in Paris. According to eyewitnesses, on the writer’s bed lay a volume of L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection.” He was buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois cemetery in France.
In 1929-1954. Bunin's works were not published in the USSR. Since 1955, he has been the most published writer in the USSR of the first wave of Russian emigration (several collected works, many one-volume books). Some works (“Cursed Days”, etc.) were published in the USSR only with the beginning of perestroika.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin Russian writer, poet, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1909), the first Russian winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1933), was born on October 22 (Old Style - October 10), 1870 in Voronezh, in the family of an impoverished nobleman who belonged to the ancient noble family. Bunin's father is a minor official, his mother is Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, nee Chubarova. Of their nine children, five died in. Ivan spent his childhood on the Butyrki farm in the Oryol province, communicating with peasant peers.

In 1881, Ivan went to first grade at the gymnasium. In Yelets, the boy studied for about four and a half years - until mid-winter 1886, when he was expelled from the gymnasium for non-payment of tuition. Having moved to Ozerki, under the guidance of his brother Yuli, a university candidate, Ivan successfully prepared to pass the matriculation exams.

In the fall of 1886, the young man began writing the novel “Passion,” which he finished on March 26, 1887. The novel was not published.

Since the autumn of 1889, Bunin worked at the Orlovsky Vestnik, where his stories, poems and literary critical articles were published. The young writer met the newspaper's proofreader, Varvara Pashchenko, who married him in 1891. True, due to the fact that Paschenko’s parents were against the marriage, the couple never got married.

At the end of August 1892, the newlyweds moved to Poltava. Here the elder brother Julius took Ivan to his council. He even came up with a position as a librarian for him, which left enough time for reading and traveling around the province.

After the wife got together with Bunin’s friend A.I. Bibikov, the writer left Poltava. For several years he led a hectic life, never staying anywhere for long. In January 1894, Bunin visited Leo Tolstoy in Moscow. Echoes of Tolstoy's ethics and his criticism of urban civilization can be heard in Bunin's stories. The post-reform impoverishment of the nobility evoked nostalgic notes in his soul (“Antonov Apples”, “Epitaph”, “New Road”). Bunin was proud of his origins, but was indifferent to “blue blood,” and the feeling of social restlessness grew into the desire to “serve the people of the earth and the God of the universe, - God, whom I call Beauty, Reason, Love, Life and who permeates everything that exists.”

In 1896, Bunin’s translation of G. Longfellow’s poem “The Song of Hiawatha” was published. He also translated Alcaeus, Saadi, Petrarch, Byron, Mickiewicz, Shevchenko, Bialik and other poets. In 1897, Bunin’s book “To the End of the World” and other stories were published in St. Petersburg.

Having moved to the shore of the Black Sea, Bunin began to collaborate in the Odessa newspaper “Southern Review”, publishing his poems, stories, literary criticism. Newspaper publisher N.P. Tsakni invited Bunin to take part in the publication of the newspaper. Meanwhile, Ivan Alekseevich took a liking to Tsakni’s daughter Anna Nikolaevna. On September 23, 1898, their wedding took place. But life did not work out for the young people. In 1900 they divorced, and in 1905 their son Kolya died.

In 1898, a collection of Bunin’s poems “Under the Open Air” was published in Moscow, which strengthened his fame. The collection “Falling Leaves” (1901), which together with the translation of “The Song of Hiawatha” was awarded the Pushkin Prize of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1903, received enthusiastic reviews and earned Bunin the fame of “the poet of the Russian landscape.” The continuation of poetry was lyrical prose beginning of the century and travel sketches (“Shadow of a Bird”, 1908).

“Bunin’s poetry was already distinguished by its devotion to the classical tradition; this trait would later permeate all of his work,” writes E.V. Stepanyan. - The poetry that brought him fame was formed under the influence of Pushkin, Fet, Tyutchev. But she possessed only her inherent qualities. Thus, Bunin gravitates towards a sensually concrete image; The picture of nature in Bunin’s poetry is made up of smells, sharply perceived colors, and sounds. A special role is played in Bunin’s poetry and prose by the epithet, used by the writer as if emphatically subjective, arbitrary, but at the same time endowed with the persuasiveness of sensory experience.”

Not accepting symbolism, Bunin joined neorealist associations - the Knowledge partnership and the Moscow literary circle Sreda, where he read almost all of his works written before 1917. At that time, Gorky considered Bunin “the first writer in Rus'.”

Bunin responded to the revolution of 1905–1907 with several declarative poems. He wrote about himself as “a witness to the great and the vile, a powerless witness to atrocities, executions, torture, executions.”

Then Bunin met his true love- Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, daughter of Nikolai Andreevich Muromtsev, member of the Moscow City Council, and niece of Sergei Andreevich Muromtsev, Chairman of the State Duma. G.V. Adamovich, who knew the Bunins well in France for many years, wrote that Ivan Alekseevich found in Vera Nikolaevna “a friend who is not only loving, but also devoted with his whole being, ready to sacrifice himself, to give in in everything, while remaining a living person, without turning into a voiceless shadow".

Since the end of 1906, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna met almost daily. Since the marriage with his first wife was not dissolved, they were able to get married only in 1922 in Paris.

Together with Vera Nikolaevna, Bunin traveled to Egypt, Syria and Palestine in 1907, and visited Gorky in Capri in 1909 and 1911. In 1910–1911 he visited Egypt and Ceylon. In 1909, Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize for the second time and he was elected an honorary academician, and in 1912 - an honorary member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (until 1920 - a fellow chairman).

In 1910, the writer wrote the story “The Village”. According to Bunin himself, this was the beginning of “a whole series of works that sharply depict the Russian soul, its peculiar interweavings, its light and dark, but almost always tragic foundations.” The story “Sukhodol” (1911) is the confession of a peasant woman, convinced that “the masters had the same character as the slaves: either to rule or to be afraid.” Heroes of the stories “Strength”, “ A good life"(1911), "Prince of Princes" (1912) - yesterday's slaves losing their human form in acquisitiveness; the story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” (1915) is about the miserable death of a millionaire. At the same time, Bunin painted people who had nowhere to apply their natural talent and strength (“Cricket”, “Zakhar Vorobyov”, “Ioann Rydalets”, etc.). Stating that he “is most interested in the soul of the Russian man in in a deep sense, an image of the psyche traits of a Slav,” the writer looked for the core of the nation in the element of folklore, in excursions into history (“Six-winged,” “Saint Procopius,” “The Dream of Bishop Ignatius of Rostov,” “Prince Vseslav”). This search was intensified by the First World War, towards which Bunin’s attitude was sharply negative.

October Revolution And Civil War summarized this socio-artistic research. “There are two types among the people,” wrote Bunin. - In one, Rus' predominates, in the other - Chud, Merya. But in both there is a terrible changeability of moods, appearances, “unsteadiness,” as they said in the old days. The people themselves said to themselves: “From us, like from wood, there is both a club and an icon,” depending on the circumstances, on who will process the wood.”

From revolutionary Petrograd, avoiding the “terrible proximity of the enemy,” Bunin left for Moscow, and from there on May 21, 1918, to Odessa, where the diary “Cursed Days” was written - one of the most furious denunciations of the revolution and the power of the Bolsheviks. In his poems, Bunin called Russia a “harlot” and wrote, addressing the people: “My people! Your guides led you to death.” “Having drunk the cup of unspeakable mental suffering,” on the twenty-sixth of January 1920, the Bunins left for Constantinople, from there to Bulgaria and Serbia, and arrived in Paris at the end of March.

In 1921, a collection of Bunin’s stories, “The Gentleman from San Francisco,” was published in Paris. This publication evoked numerous responses in the French press. Here is just one of them: “Bunin... a real Russian talent, bleeding, uneven and at the same time courageous and big. His book contains several stories that are worthy of Dostoevsky in power" (Nervie, December 1921).

“In France,” Bunin wrote, “I lived for the first time in Paris, and in the summer of 1923 I moved to the Alpes-Maritimes, returning to Paris only for some winter months.”

Bunin settled in the Belvedere villa, and below was an amphitheater of the ancient Provençal town of Grasse. The nature of Provence reminded Bunin of the Crimea, which he loved very much. Rachmaninov visited him in Grasse. Aspiring writers lived under Bunin's roof - he taught them literary skills, criticized what they wrote, and expressed his views on literature, history and philosophy. He talked about his meetings with Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky. Bunin’s closest literary circle included N. Teffi, B. Zaitsev, M. Aldanov, F. Stepun, L. Shestov, as well as his “students” G. Kuznetsova ( last love Bunin) and L. Zurov.

All these years, Bunin wrote a lot, his new books appeared almost every year. Following “Mr. from San Francisco,” the collection “Initial Love” was published in Prague in 1921, “Rose of Jericho” in Berlin in 1924, “Mitya’s Love” in Paris in 1925, and “Mitya’s Love” in the same place in 1929. Selected Poems" - Bunin's only poetry collection in emigration evoked positive responses from V. Khodasevich, N. Teffi, V. Nabokov. In “blissful dreams of the past,” Bunin returned to his homeland, recalled his childhood, adolescence, youth, “unquenched love.”

As noted by E.V. Stepanyan: “The binary nature of Bunin’s thinking - the idea of ​​the drama of life, associated with the idea of ​​the beauty of the world - imparts intensity of development and tension to Bunin’s plots. The same intensity of being is palpable in Bunin’s artistic detail, which has acquired even greater sensory authenticity compared to the works of early creativity.”

Until 1927, Bunin spoke in the newspaper “Vozrozhdenie”, then (for financial reasons) in “ Latest news", without joining any of the emigrant political groups.

In 1930, Ivan Alekseevich wrote “The Shadow of a Bird” and completed, perhaps, the most significant work period of emigration - the novel “The Life of Arsenyev”.

Vera Nikolaevna wrote in the late twenties to the wife of the writer B.K. Zaitseva about Bunin’s work on this book:

“Ian is in a period (not to jinx it) of binge work: he sees nothing, hears nothing, writes all day without stopping... As always during these periods, he is very meek, gentle with me in particular, sometimes he reads what he has written to me alone - this is his "a huge honor". And very often he repeats that he has never been able to compare me with anyone in my life, that I am the only one, etc.”

The description of Alexei Arsenyev’s experiences is wreathed in sadness about the past, about Russia, “which perished before our eyes in such a magical short term" Bunin managed to translate even purely prosaic material into poetic sound (series short stories 1927–1930: “Calf’s Head”, “The Romance of the Hunchback”, “Rafters”, “The Killer”, etc.).

In 1922, Bunin was nominated for the Nobel Prize for the first time. His candidacy was nominated by R. Rolland, as reported to Bunin by M.A. Aldanov: “...Your candidacy was announced and announced by a person extremely respected throughout the world.”

However, the Nobel Prize in 1923 was awarded to the Irish poet W.B. Yeats. In 1926, negotiations were again underway to nominate Bunin for the Nobel Prize. Since 1930, Russian emigrant writers resumed their efforts to nominate Bunin for the prize.

The Nobel Prize was awarded to Bunin in 1933. The official decision to award Bunin the prize states:

“By decision of the Swedish Academy on November 9, 1933, the Nobel Prize in Literature for this year was awarded to Ivan Bunin for the rigorous artistic talent with which he recreated literary prose typical Russian character."

Bunin distributed a significant amount of the prize he received to those in need. A commission was created to distribute funds. Bunin told Segodnya newspaper correspondent P. Nilsky: “... As soon as I received the prize, I had to give out about 120,000 francs. Yes, I don’t know how to handle money at all. Now this is especially difficult. Do you know how many letters I received asking for help? In the shortest possible time, up to 2,000 such letters arrived.”

In 1937, the writer completed the philosophical and literary treatise “The Liberation of Tolstoy” - the result of lengthy reflections based on his own impressions and testimonies of people who knew Tolstoy closely.

In 1938, Bunin visited the Baltic states. After this trip, he moved to another villa - “Zhannette”, where he spent the entire Second World War in difficult conditions. Ivan Alekseevich was very worried about the fate of his Motherland and enthusiastically accepted all the reports about the victories of the Red Army. Bunin dreamed of returning to Russia until last minute, but this dream was not destined to come true.

Bunin failed to complete the book “About Chekhov” (published in New York in 1955). His the last masterpiece- poem “Night” - dated 1952.

On November 8, 1953, Bunin died and was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois near Paris.

Based on materials from “100 Great Nobel Laureates” Mussky S.

• Biography

Publications in the Literature section

“Russia lived in him, he was Russia”

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

About Ivan Bunin

"I was born October 10, 1870(all dates in the quote are indicated in the old style. - Editor's note) in Voronezh. He spent his childhood and early youth in the village, and began writing and publishing early. Quite soon criticism also turned its attention to me. Then my books were awarded the highest award three times Russian Academy Sciences - Pushkin Prize. However, I was not more or less widely known 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 village, traveled a lot in Russia and outside Russia: in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Palestine, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, in the tropics.

My popularity began from the time I published my “Village”. This was the beginning of a whole series of my works, which 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 my literary strength becoming stronger every day. But then war broke out, and then revolution. I was not one of those who was taken by surprise by it, for whom its size and atrocities were a surprise, but still the reality exceeded all my expectations: no one who did not see it will understand what the Russian revolution soon turned into. This spectacle was sheer horror for anyone who had not lost the image and likeness of God, and from Russia, after Lenin seized power, hundreds of thousands of people who had the slightest opportunity to escape fled. I left Moscow on May 21, 1918, lived in the south of Russia, which passed from hand to hand between whites and reds, and on January 26, 1920, having drunk the cup of unspeakable mental suffering, I emigrated first to the Balkans, then to France. In France, I lived for the first time in Paris, and in 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. While in exile, I wrote ten new books.”

Ivan Bunin wrote about himself in “Autobiographical Notes”.

When Bunin came to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, it turned out that all passers-by knew his face: photographs of the writer were published in every newspaper, in store windows, and on cinema screens. Seeing the great Russian writer, the Swedes looked around, and Ivan Alekseevich pulled his lambskin cap over his eyes and grumbled: "What's happened? A perfect success for the tenor".

“For the first time since the establishment of the Nobel Prize, you awarded it to an exile. For who am I? An exile enjoying the hospitality of France, to which I, too, will forever remain grateful. Gentlemen of the Academy, allow me, leaving aside myself and my works, to tell you how wonderful your gesture is in itself. There must be areas of complete independence in the world. Undoubtedly, around this table there 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, something to which we owe civilization. For a writer, this freedom is especially necessary - for him it is a dogma, an axiom.”

From Bunin's speech at the Nobel Prize ceremony

However, his feeling for his homeland and the Russian language was enormous and he carried it throughout his life. “We took Russia, our Russian nature with us, and wherever we are, we cannot help but feel it”, - Ivan Alekseevich said about himself and about millions of the same forced emigrants who left their fatherland during the turbulent 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 and subjected to an unceremonious and humiliating search. In October 1939, Bunin settled in Grasse 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 poverty and hunger. He treated the conquerors with hatred and sincerely rejoiced at the victories of the Soviet and allied troops. In 1945 he moved permanently from Grasse to Paris. I have been sick a lot in recent years.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died in his sleep on the night of November 7–8, 1953 in Paris. He was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois.

“I was born too late. If I had been born earlier, my writing memories would not have been like this. I wouldn’t have had 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 befell him..."

I.A. Bunin. Memories. Paris. 1950

“Start reading Bunin - be it “Dark Alleys”, “ Easy breath", "Cup of Life", " Clean Monday", "Antonov's Apples", "Mitya's Love", "The Life of Arsenyev", and you will immediately be captured and enchanted by the unique Bunin Russia with all its charming signs: ancient churches, monasteries, bell ringing, village graveyards, ruined "noble nests", with its rich colorful language, sayings, jokes, which you will not find either in Chekhov or Turgenev. But that’s not all: no one has so convincingly, so psychologically accurately and at the same time laconicly described the main feeling of a person - love. Bunin was endowed with a very special property: vigilance of observation. With amazing accuracy he could draw psychological picture any person seen, give a brilliant description of natural phenomena, changes in moods and changes in the lives of people, plants and animals. We can say that he wrote on the basis of keen vision, sensitive hearing and keen sense of smell. And nothing escaped him. His memory of a wanderer (he loved to travel!) absorbed everything: people, conversations, speech, colors, noise, smells.”,” literary critic Zinaida Partis wrote in her article “Invitation to Bunin.”

Bunin in quotes

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

The story "Bernard" (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 in the hope of this meeting - and all in vain...”

The story “In Paris”, collection “Dark Alleys” (1943)

“And he felt such pain and such uselessness of all his later life without her, that he was seized by horror and despair.”
“The room without her seemed somehow completely different than it was with her. He was still full of her - and empty. It was strange! There was still the smell of her good English cologne, her unfinished cup was still standing on the tray, but she was no longer there... And the lieutenant’s heart suddenly sank with such tenderness that the lieutenant hurried to light a cigarette and walked back and forth around the room several times.”

Short story "Sunstroke" (1925)

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

Short story "The Blind Man" (1924)

“You wake up and lie in bed for a long time. There is silence throughout the whole house. You can hear the gardener carefully walking through the rooms, lighting the stoves, and the firewood crackling and shooting. Ahead lies a whole day of peace in the already silent, winter-like estate. Slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find a cold and wet apple accidentally forgotten in the wet leaves, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you’ll get down to reading books—grandfather’s books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, similar to church breviaries, smell wonderful with their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some kind of pleasant sour mold, old perfume..."

The story “Antonov Apples” (1900)

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

Collection “Cursed Days” (1926–1936)

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh into a noble family. He spent his childhood and youth on an impoverished estate in the Oryol province.

He spent his early childhood on a small family estate (the Butyrki farm in Yeletsky district, Oryol province). At the age of ten he was sent to the Yeletsk gymnasium, where he studied for four and a half years, was expelled (for non-payment of tuition fees) and returned to the village. Systematic education future writer I didn’t get it, which I regretted all my life. True, the elder brother Yuli, who graduated from the university with flying colors, went through the entire gymnasium course with Vanya. They studied languages, psychology, philosophy, social and natural sciences. It was Julius who had a great influence on the formation of Bunin’s tastes and views.

An aristocrat in spirit, Bunin did not share his brother’s passion for political radicalism. Julius, sensing the literary abilities of his younger brother, introduced him to Russian classical literature, advised me to write it myself. Bunin read Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov with enthusiasm, and at the age of 16 he began to write poetry himself. In May 1887, the magazine "Rodina" published the poem "Beggar" by sixteen-year-old Vanya Bunin. From that time on, his more or less constant literary activity began, in which there was a place for both poetry and prose.

Started in 1889 independent life- with a change of professions, with work in both provincial and metropolitan periodicals. While collaborating with the editors of the newspaper "Orlovsky Vestnik", the young writer met the newspaper's proofreader, Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who married him in 1891. The young couple, who lived unmarried (Pashchenko's parents were against the marriage), subsequently moved to Poltava (1892) and began to serve as statisticians in the provincial government. In 1891, Bunin's first collection of poems, still very imitative, was published.

The year 1895 became a turning point in the writer’s fate. After Pashchenko got along with Bunin’s friend A.I. Bibikov, the writer left his service and moved to Moscow, where his literary acquaintances took place with L.N. Tolstoy, whose personality and philosophy had a strong influence on Bunin, with A.P. Chekhov, M. Gorky, N.D. Teleshov.

Since 1895, Bunin has lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Literary recognition came to the writer after the publication of such stories as “On the Farm”, “News from the Motherland” and “At the End of the World”, dedicated to the famine of 1891, the cholera epidemic of 1892, the resettlement of peasants to Siberia, as well as impoverishment and the decline of the small landed nobility. Bunin called his first collection of stories “At the End of the World” (1897). In 1898, Bunin published the poetry collection “Under the Open Air,” as well as a translation of Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” which received very high praise and was awarded the Pushkin Prize of the first degree.

In 1898 (some sources indicate 1896) he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni, a Greek woman, the daughter of the revolutionary and emigrant N.P. Tsakni. Family life again it was unsuccessful and in 1900 the couple divorced, and in 1905 their son Nikolai died.

On November 4, 1906, an event occurred in Bunin’s personal life that had an important influence on his work. While in Moscow, he meets Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the niece of the same S.A. Muromtsev, who was the chairman of the First State Duma. And in April 1907, the writer and Muromtseva went together on their “first long journey,” visiting Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. This journey not only marked the beginning of their life together, but also gave birth to a whole cycle of Bunin’s stories “The Shadow of a Bird” (1907 - 1911), in which he wrote about the “luminous countries” of the East, their ancient history and amazing culture.

In December 1911, in Capri, the writer finished autobiographical story“Sukhodol”, which, being published in “Bulletin of Europe” in April 1912, was a huge success among readers and critics. On October 27-29 of the same year, the entire Russian public solemnly celebrated the 25th anniversary of I.A.’s literary activity. Bunin, and in 1915 in the St. Petersburg publishing house A.F. Marx left him full meeting works in six volumes. In 1912-1914. Bunin took an active part in the work of the “Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow”, and collections of his works were published in this publishing house one after another - “John Rydalets: stories and poems of 1912-1913.” (1913), "The Cup of Life: Stories of 1913-1914." (1915), "Mr. from San Francisco: Works 1915-1916." (1916).

The First World War brought Bunin “great spiritual disappointment.” But it was during this senseless world massacre that the poet and writer especially acutely felt the meaning of the word, not so much journalistic as poetic. In January 1916 alone, he wrote fifteen poems: “Svyatogor and Ilya”, “A Land without History”, “Eve”, “The day will come - I will disappear...” and others. In them, the author fearfully awaits the collapse of the great Russian power. Bunin reacted sharply negatively to the revolutions of 1917 (February and October). Pathetic figures of the leaders of the Provisional Government, as he believed Great master, were only capable of leading Russia to the abyss. His diary was dedicated to this period - the pamphlet "Cursed Days", first published in Berlin (Collected works, 1935).

In 1920, Bunin and his wife emigrated, settling in Paris and then moving to Grasse, a small town in the south of France. You can read about this period of their life (until 1941) in Galina Kuznetsova’s talented book “The Grasse Diary”. A young writer, a student of Bunin, she lived in their house from 1927 to 1942, becoming Ivan Alekseevich’s last very strong passion. Vera Nikolaevna, infinitely devoted to him, agreed to this, perhaps the most great sacrifice in her life, understanding the emotional needs of the writer (“For a poet, being in love is even more important than traveling,” Gumilyov used to say).

In exile, Bunin created his best works: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “Sunstroke” (1925), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925) and, finally, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933). These works became a new word both in Bunin’s work and in Russian literature in general. And according to K. G. Paustovsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” is not only the pinnacle work of Russian literature, but also “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.”
In 1933, Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, as he believed, primarily for “The Life of Arsenyev.” When Bunin came to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize, people in Sweden already recognized him by sight. Bunin's photographs could be seen in every newspaper, in store windows, and on cinema screens.

With the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, the Bunins settled in the south of France, in Grasse, at the Villa Jeannette, where they spent the entire war. The writer closely followed events in Russia, refusing any form of cooperation with the Nazi occupation authorities. He experienced the defeat of the Red Army very painfully eastern front, and then sincerely rejoiced at her victories.

In 1945, Bunin returned to Paris again. Bunin repeatedly expressed his desire to return to his homeland, decree Soviet government 1946 “On the restoration of USSR citizenship to subjects of the former Russian Empire...” called “a magnanimous measure.” However, Zhdanov’s decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (1946), which trampled A. Akhmatova and M. Zoshchenko, forever turned the writer away from his intention to return to his homeland.

Although Bunin's work received wide international recognition, his life in a foreign land was not easy. The latest collection of short stories, Dark Alleys, written during the dark days of the Nazi occupation of France, went unnoticed. Until the end of his life he had to defend his favorite book from the “Pharisees.” In 1952, he wrote to F.A. Stepun, the author of one of the reviews of Bunin’s works: “It’s a pity that you wrote that in “Dark Alleys” there is some excess of consideration of female charms... What an “excess” there! I gave only a thousandth how men of all tribes and peoples “consider” women everywhere, always from the age of ten until the age of 90.”

At the end of his life, Bunin wrote a number of more stories, as well as the extremely caustic “Memoirs” (1950), in which Soviet culture is subject to harsh criticism. A year after the appearance of this book, Bunin was elected the first honorary member of the Pen Club. representing writers in exile. IN last years Bunin also began work on his memoirs about Chekhov, which he planned to write back in 1904, immediately after the death of his friend. However, the literary portrait of Chekhov remained unfinished.

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

Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:	Voronezh, Russian Empire
Date of death:
A place of death:	Paris, France
Occupation:	Poet, prose writer
	Pushkin Prize, 1st class, for his translation of Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha"; Nobel Prize in Literature (1933) "for the rigorous skill with which he develops the traditions of Russian classical prose."

Perpetuation of the name

Works

Film adaptations

Perpetuation of the name

(October 10 (22), 1870, Voronezh - November 8, 1953, Paris) - Russian writer, poet, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1909), winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933.

Biography

Ivan Bunin was born on October 10 (22), 1870 into an old impoverished noble family 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 - Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin, mother - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (nee Chubarova). Until the age of 11, he was raised at home, in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, in 1885 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius. He engaged in self-education a lot, being fond of reading world and domestic literary classics. At the age of 17 he began to write poetry, and in 1887 he made his debut in print. In 1889 he moved to Oryol and went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Oryol Vestnik. By this time, he had a long relationship with an employee of this newspaper, Varvara Pashchenko, with whom, against the wishes of his relatives, he moved to Poltava (1892).

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

1895 - met Chekhov personally, before that they corresponded.

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

In 1899 he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni, the daughter of the populist revolutionary N.P. Tsakni. The marriage did not last long, the only child died at the age of 5 (1905). In 1906, Bunin entered into a civil marriage (officially registered in 1922) with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the niece of S. A. Muromtsev, Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Empire of the 1st convocation.

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

In stories and stories he showed (sometimes with a nostalgic mood)

Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize three times. On November 1, 1909, he was elected an honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature.

In the summer of 1918, Bunin moved from Bolshevik Moscow to Odessa, occupied by German troops. As the Red Army approached the city in April 1919, he did not emigrate, but remained in Odessa. He 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 body) under V.S.Yu.R. In February 1920, when the Bolsheviks approached, he left Russia. Emigrates to France. During these years, he kept a diary, “Cursed Days,” which was partially lost, striking his contemporaries with the precision of his language and his passionate hatred of the Bolsheviks. In exile, he was active in social and political activities: gave lectures, collaborated with Russians political parties and organizations (conservative and nationalist), regularly published journalistic articles. He delivered a famous manifesto on the tasks of the Russian Abroad regarding Russia and Bolshevism: “The Mission of the Russian Emigration.” Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933.

He spent the Second World War (from October 1939 to 1945) in the rented villa “Jeannette” in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes department).

Bunin refused any forms of cooperation with the Nazi occupiers and tried to constantly monitor events in Russia. In 1945 the Bunins returned to Paris. Bunin repeatedly expressed his desire to return to Russia; in 1946 he called the decree of the Soviet government “On the restoration of USSR citizenship to subjects of the former Russian Empire...” a “magnanimous measure,” but Zhdanov’s decree on the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” (1946), which trampled A. Akhmatov and M. Zoshchenko, led to Bunin forever abandoning his intention to return to his homeland.

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

In exile, Bunin wrote his best works, such as: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “Sunstroke” (1925), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925), and, finally, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933 ) and the cycle of stories "Dark Alleys" (1938-40). These works became a new word both in Bunin’s work and in Russian literature in general. According to K. G. Paustovsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” is not only the pinnacle work of Russian literature, but also “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.” In the last years of his life he wrote extremely subjective “Memoirs”.

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: “Looping Ears and Other Stories”, New York, 1953).

He died in his sleep at two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953 in Paris. According to eyewitnesses, on the writer’s bed lay a volume of L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “Resurrection.” He was buried in the cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, France.

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

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

Perpetuation of the name

• In Moscow there is a street called Buninskaya Alley, next to the metro station of the same name.
• In the city of Moscow on Povarskaya Street, not far from the house in which the writer lived, a monument was erected to him.
• On October 17, 1992, a monument to I. A. Bunin was unveiled in Orel. Sculptor O. A. Uvarov. Around the same time central Library named after Krupskaya was renamed the Bunin Library (abbreviated as “Buninka” by local residents).
• One of the streets in the center of Odessa is named after the great writer and poet I.A. Bunina

Works

• On "Chaika"
• 1900 - “Antonov apples”
• 1910 — “Village”
• 1911 — “Sukhodol”
• 1915 - “Mr. from San Francisco”
• 1916 - “Easy Breathing”
• 1918 - “Cursed Days” (published 1925)
• 1924 — “Mitya’s Love”
• 1925 — “Sunstroke”
• 1925 — “The Case of Cornet Elagin”
• 1930 - “The Life of Arsenyev”
• "Mothers"
• 1896 - “The Song of Hiawatha” (translation from English into Russian)
• "Lapti"
• 1938 — “Dark Alleys”
• 1937 - “Caucasus”

Film adaptations

• “Summer of Love” - melodrama based on the story “Natalie”, director Felix Falk, Poland-Belarus, 1994
• “The Grammar of Love” - a film-play based on the stories “Tanya”, “In Paris”, “The Grammar of Love”, “Cold Autumn” from the series “Dark Alleys”, directed by Lev Tsutsulkovsky, Lentelefilm, 1988

Perpetuation of the name

• In Moscow there is Buninskaya Alley, next to the metro station of the same name.
• In Lipetsk there is Bunin Street. In addition, streets with the same name are located in Yelets and Odessa.
• A monument to Bunin was erected in Voronezh; Library No. 22 is named after him; There is a memorial plaque installed on the house where the writer was born.
• In the village of Ozerki, Stanovlyansky district, Lipetsk region, where he spent his childhood and teenage years Bunin, in the 90s the manor house was recreated on the original foundation; On the site of the unpreserved Butyrki farm, 4 km from Ozyorki, where Bunin lived with his grandmother during his childhood, a cross and a memorial stele were erected.
• In 1957, in Orel, in the Museum of Oryol Writers of the Oryol United Literary Museum of I. S. Turgenev, a hall dedicated to the life and work of Bunin was opened. In the following decades, a unique, largest Bunin collection in Russia was collected in Orel, numbering more than six thousand items of original materials: iconography, manuscripts, letters, documents, books, and personal belongings of the writer. The predominant part of this collection consists of materials from Bunin’s pre-revolutionary archive, transferred to Orlovsky literary museum widow of the writer's nephew K. P. Pusheshnikova. Bunin's authentic personal belongings - photographs, autographs, books - associated with the emigrant period of his work were received by the museum from V. N. Muromtseva-Bunina, L. F. Zurov, A. Ya. Polonsky, T. D. Muravyova, M Green. The furniture from Bunin's Parisian office was kept for a long time in the family of the writer N.V. Kodryanskaya, who sent it to Orel from Paris in 1973 through the Soviet embassy in France. On December 10, 1991, in Orel, on Georgievsky Lane, in a noble mansion of the 19th century, the I. A. Bunin Museum was opened.
• In Efremov, in a house in which in 1909-1910. Bunin lived, his museum is open.
• In Moscow, on Povarskaya Street, not far from the house in which the writer lived, a monument to Bunin was erected on October 22, 2007. The author is sculptor A. N. Burganov. The writer is represented standing in full height, lost in thought, with a cloak thrown over his arm. His stately figure, calm gesture of folded hands, proudly raised head and penetrating gaze emphasize aristocracy and greatness.
• On October 17, 1992, a monument to I. A. Bunin was unveiled in Orel. Author - famous sculptor V. M. Klykov. Around the same time, the Krupskaya Central Library was renamed the Bunin Library (abbreviated as “Buninka” by local residents).
• In Voronezh, on October 13, 1995, a monument to I. A. Bunin was unveiled. The author is Moscow sculptor A. N. Burganov. The opening of the monument was timed to coincide with the 125th anniversary of the writer’s birth. Bunin is depicted sitting on a fallen tree, with a dog at his feet. According to the sculptor himself, the writer is depicted at the time of parting with Russia, experiencing anxiety and at the same time hope, and the dog clinging to his feet is a symbol of the departing nobility, a symbol of loneliness.

• In 2000, a film dedicated to Bunin, “The Diary of His Wife,” was shot.
• In the city of Efremov, in front of the railway station, on October 22, 2010, on the occasion of the 140th anniversary of the writer, a monument to Bunin was unveiled. The monument is a repetition of the statue (this time only waist-high), previously installed in Moscow (sculptor A. N. Burganov).
• One of the streets in the center of Odessa is named after the great writer and poet I. A. Bunin
• In 2006, the Rossiya TV channel released Alexei Denisov’s original film “Cursed Days. Ivan Bunin”, based on the writer’s diary “Cursed Days”.