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Ivan Bunin (1870-1953) - born October 10 (Oct. 22, New Style), 1870 |
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Russian poet, short story writer, novelist who wrote of the decay of the Russian nobility and of peasant life. Ivan Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1933. He is considered one of the most important figures in Russian literature before the Revolution of 1917. Although Bunin wrote poetry throughout his creative life, he gained fame chiefly for his prose works. Bunins calm "classical" style had a closer kinship with the prose of the 19th-century – Turgenev, Tolstoy, Garšin, Chekhov – than with the modernist experiments of his own time. "Some critics have called me cruel and gloomy. I do not think that this definition is fair and accurate. But of course, I have derived much honey and still more bitterness from my wanderings throughout the world, and my observations of human life. I had felt a vague fear for the fate of Russia, when I was depicting her. It is my fault that reality, the reality in which Russia has been living for more than five years from now, has justified my apprehensions beyond all measure; that those pictures of mine which had once upon a time appeared black, and wide of the truth, even in the eyes of Russian people, have become prophetic, as some call them now?" (from 'Autobiographical note', in The Village by Ivan Bunin, translated from the original Russian text by Isabel Hapgood, Martin Secker, 1923, p. 11) Ivan Bunin was born on his parents' estate near the village of
Voronezh, central Russia. His father came from a long line of landed
gentry – serf owners until emancipation. Bunin's grandfather was a
prosperous landowner, who started to spent his property after the death
of his young wife. What little was left, Bunin's father drank and
played at card tables. By the turn of the century the family's fortune
was nearly exhausted. In early childhood Bunin witnessed the increasing
impoverishment of his family, who were ultimately completely ruined
financially. Much of his childhood Bunin spent in the family estate in Oryol province, where he became familiar with the life of the peasants. In 1881 he entered the public school in Yelets, but after five years he was forced to return home. Bunin's elder brother, who had studied at an university and had sat in prison for political his activities, encouraged him to write and read Russian classics, Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, and others. Bunin did not like Dostoevsky, he considred Tolstoy as a greater writer than Dostoevsky. At the age of seventeen Bunin made his debut as a poet, when his
poem appeared in a magazine in St. Petersburg. He continued to write
verse and published in 1891 his first story, 'Derevenskiy eskiz'
(Country Sketch) in N.K. Mikhaylovsky's journal Russkoye bogatstvo.
In 1889 Bunin followed his brother to Kharkov, where he became a local
government clerk. Bunin then took a job as an assistant editor of the
newspaper Orlovskiy Vestnik, and worked as a librarian, and
district-court statistician at Poltava. Bunin contributed short stories
to various newspapers, and started a correspondence with Anton Chekhov.
Bunin was also loosely connected with Gorky's Znahie group. In the early 1890s, Bunin lived with Varvara Pashchenko, the daughter of a doctor and an actress, who had been his classmate in Yelets. However, she married Bunin's friend and died in 1918 of tuberculosis. Bunin recalled his first love in the novella Mitina Lubov' (1925, Mitya's Love), about a young man, Mitya, who is torn apart by his love for Katia, an art student, who wants to keep her freedom. Bunin admired the work of Leo Tolstoy, but found impossible to follow the author's moral and sociopolitical ideas. Bunin sent him letters and a pamphlet of his verse. His first encounter with the forty-two years older Tolstoy was brief, and a disappointment for him. "Bunin was very upset because he had spent so little time with you," remarked the writer Nikolai Leontiev to Tolstoy. (The Liberation of Tolstoy: A Tale of Two Writers by Ivan Bunin, edited, translated from the Russian, and with an introduction and notes byThomas Gaiton Marullo and Vladimir T. Khmelkov, Northwestern University Press. 2001, p. xiv) In 1899 Bunin met Maxim Gorky, and dedicated his collection of poetry, Listopad (1901), for him. Bunin regularly visited Gorky at Capri from 1909 to 1913. "Like all Americans of means, he was very generous on his travels, and, like all of them, believed in the full sincerity and good-will of those who brought him food and drink with such solicitude, who served him from morn till night, forestalling his least wish; of those who guarded his cleanliness and rest, lugged his things around, summoned porters for him, delivered his trunks to hotels. Thus had it been everywhere, thus had it been on the ship, and thus was it to be in Naples as well." (The Gentleman from San Francisco, authorized translation from the Russian by Bernard Guilbert Guerney, Alfred A. Knopf, 1933, p. 288) From 1895 Bunin divided his time between St. Petersburg and Moscow.
"I keep looking for a place where I could find some warmth but find
only hellish weather instead," he said to Gorky. (The Liberation of Tolstoy: A Tale of Two Writers, p. xvi) Bunin traveled much,
married in 1898 Anna Tsakni, whom he left two years later; she was
pregnant at that time. By the turn of the century, Bunin had published
over 100 poems. He gained fame with such stories as 'On the Farm,' 'The
News From Home,' 'To the Edge of The World,' 'Antonov Apples', and 'The
Gentleman from San Francisco' (1915), which depicts an American
millionaire who cares only about making money. He dies in a luxury
Italian hotel and is shipped home in the hold of a luxury liner.
Several tales focused on the life of peasants and landowners, but after
the revolution of 1905 Bunin's peasant themes took on a darker tone.
The author considered the folk ignorant, violent, and totally unfit
to take a hand in government. "What a terrible gallery of convicts!" he said of the Bolsheviks in the spring of 1918. (Cursed Days: A Diary of Revolution, translated from the Russian, with and introduction and notes, by Thomas Gaiton Marullo, Ivan R. Dee, 1998, p. 74) As a translator Bunin was highly regarded. He published in 1898 a translation of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha, for which he was awarded by the Russian Academy of Science the Pushkin Prize in 1903. "I was working with ardent love for a book that was dear to me since childhood, and with great conscientiousness," Bunin said, "as this was a small homage of my gratitude to a great poet who gave me much pure and lofty joy." (Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape by Lauret Savoy, Counterpoint Press, 2015, p. 57) Bunin's other translations include Lord Byron's Manfred and Cain, Tennyson's Lady Godiva, and works from Alfred de Musset, and François Coppée. In 1909 the Academy elected Bunin one of its twelve members. After Bunin's first marriage ended, his companion from 1907 was Vera
Muromtseva, but he continued to have affairs, most notably with Galina
Kuznetsova, his student, and Margarita Stepun, the sister of his
friend. Formally Bunin and Vera Muromtseva were married in 1922. Bunin
once regretted that he never met the heroine of Anna Karenina
in real life: "As far as I'm concerned, there is no more captivating
image of a woman than she," he confessed. "I could never – and still
cannot – recall her without emotion. I am simply in love
with her." (The Liberation of Tolstoy: A Tale of Two Writers, p. 162) At the age of 40, Bunin published his first full-length work, Derevnia (1910, The Village), which was composed of brief episodes in the Russian provinces at the time of the Revolution of 1905. The story, set in the author's birthplace, was about two peasant brothers – one a cruel drunk, the other a gentler, more sympathetic character. The Village made Bunin famous in Russia. Bunin's realistic portrayal of village life stirred much controversy. However, after the Revolutuion, work was recommended by the Proletkult. "These «ruthless» works caused passionate discussions among our Russian critics and intellectuals who, owing to numerous circumstances peculiar to Russian society and – in these latter days – to sheer ignorance or political advantage, have constantly idealized the people. In short, these works made me notorious; this success has been confirmed by more recent works." ('Autobiography' by Ivan Bunin, Nobel Lectures: Literature 1901-1967, edited by Horst Frenz, World Scientific Publishing Co., 1999, p. 317) Bunin's Sukhodol (1912, Dry Valley) was a veiled biography of his family, a eulogy to the the gentry estate. Before World War I Bunin traveled in Ceylon, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, and other countries – these journeys provided much material for his poetry and prose works. Between 1912 and 1914 Bunin spent three winters with Gorky on Capri. After
revolution in October 1917, Bunin left
Moscow and moved to Odessa for two years, eventually leaving Russia on
the last French ship to sail from Odessa. "What the Russian Revolution
turned into very soon, none will comprehend who hs not seen it. This
spectacle was utterly unbeatable to any one who had not ceased to be a
man in the image and likeness of God, and all who had a chance to flee,
fled from Russia." (from 'Autobiographical note', in The Village, p. 10) In Sofia he was robbed of his
academic gold medals and money; his wife lost her diamonds. He
emigrated to France, where he settled in Grasse. In his diary Okayannye dni (Cursed Days) Bunin
bitterly
attacked the Bolshevik regime, and the Red Guard, which represented for
him anarchy and disorder. "The Congress of Soviets. A speech by Lenin.
Oh, how beastly this all is! I read in a newspaper about corpses lying
at the bottom of the sea: murdered, drowned officers. And then they go
put on A Musical Snuffbox [literary café in Moscow]," he wrote in March
1918. (Ibid., p. 65) Bunin's other later works include the autobiographical novel Zhizn arsen'eva: u istoka dnej (1933, The Life of Arsenyev), Temnye allei (1946, Shadowed Paths), written during the Nazi occupation, and Vospominaniya (1950, Memories and Portraits). Unlike Vladimir Nabokov, Bunin wrote in exile only of Russia. He had been frequently
mentioned as a possible Nobel winner, and the whole process had became
a burden him. In the émigré press, he was classified as a as
a representative of the literary past. Nabokov
was his rival and they were juxtaposed in a number of articles and
interviews. Kirill Zajcev, a Russian critic, praised that Bunin's The Life of Arsenev brings joy to the reader, but he did not like the first installment of Nabokov's The Defense:
"Thank God, one does not need to read this depressing and most talented
description of people who have nothing to live by, to strive for."
('Vladimir Nabokov and Ivan Bunin: A Reconstruction' by Maxim D. Shrayer, Russian Literature, Volume 43, Issue 3, 1 April 1998, p. 339) Bunin ignoned the younger writer. According to a story, after receiving the Nobel prize,
Bunin was stopped by the Gestapo in Berlin on his way to Paris. Nobel
winner or not, he was interrogated, searched, stripped. and searched
again – the excuse was jewel
smuggling – and he had to drink a dose of castor oil. An empty bucket
was placed behind him. (Conversations with Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Robert Golla, University Press of Mississippi, 2017, p. 177) Dissenting voices
suggested that the prize should have gone to Maxim Gorky. During World
War II Bunin, who was a strong opponent of Nazism, remained in France.
The Bunins sheltered Alexander Bakhrakh, a Jew in his house at Grasse
throughout the Occupation. Parisian anti-Semites from the newspaper La Renaissance ("Vozrozhdenie") called
him "the kike father" because he had a lot of Jewish friends. (Ivan Bunin: The Twilight of Emigre Russia, 1934-1953: A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Memoirs, edited and with an Introductionn and Noted by Thomas Gaiton Marullo, Ivan R. Dee, 2002, p. 210) Bunin died of a heart attack in a Paris attic flat on November 8,
1953. He was destitute after helping many Russian exiles. The Soviet writer Konstantin Paustovski, who admired Bunin, highlighted The Life of Arsenyev
as a yet unknown genre – neither a short novel, nor a novel, nor a long
short story. The second part, LIKA, was published in 1939. Bunin
modified his views of the Soviet Union after World War II, and a
five-volume selection of his work came out in his native
country. For further reading: Proza I.A. Bunina: filosofiia, poėtika, dialogi by N.V. Prashcheruk (2023); Ivan Bunin: biograficheskiĭ punktir by Tatʹiana Dviniatina (2 vols., 2019); Preodolevshiĭ modernizm: tvorchestvo I.A. Bunina ėmigrantskogo perioda by E.R. Ponomarev (2019); I.A. Bunin i imena teatralʹnoĭ Rossii by Galina Pikuleva (2018); Bunin i Nabokov: istoriia sopernichestva by Maksim D. Shraer (2015); I.A. Bunin i izobrazitelʹnoe iskusstvo by T.M. Bonami (2014); Bunin: zhizneopisanie by Aleksandr Baboreko (2009); Poezja emigracyjna Iwana Bunina: 1920-1953 by Jolanta Brzykcy (2009); Bunin i Rakhmaninov: biograficheskiĭ ėkskurs by Gavriil Simonov, Liudmila Kovalëva-Ogorodnova (2006); Moskovskaia bylʹ Ivana Bunina by Galina Pikuleva (2004); Ein Meisterwerk im Zwielicht: Ivan Bunins narrative Kurzprosaverknüpfung Temnye allei zwischen Akzeptanz und Ablehnung: eine Genrestudie by Hella Reese (2003); Ivan Bunin by Mikhail Roshchin (2000); If You See Buddha: Studies in the Fiction of Ivan Bunin by Thomas Gaiton Marullo (1998); The Narratology of the Autobiography by Alexander R. Zweers (1997); Ivan Bunin: From the Other Shore, 1920-1933: a Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction, edited by Thomas Gaiton Marullo (1995); Ivan Bunin: Russian Requiem, 1885-1920, ed. and trans.Thomas Gaiton Marullo (1993); Ivan Bunin by Julian W. Connolly (1982); Ivan Bunin: A Study of His Fiction by James B. Woodward (1980); Die Erzählungen Ivan Bunins 1890-1917: eine systematische Studie über Form und Gehalt by Annette Elbel (1975); The Works of Ivan Bunin by Serge Kryzytski (1971); Proza Ivana Bunina by Anatoliĭ Volkov (1969; Die Lebensanschauung Ivan Aleksejevic Bunins nach seinem Prosawerk by Baldur Kirchner (1968); Ivan Alekseevich Bunin; ocherk tvorchestva by O.N. Mikhal̆ov (1967); I.A. Bunin, ocherk tvorchestva by Vl. Afanas'ev (1966) - Suomeksi Buninilta on ilmestynyt myös Valitut kertomukset (1970) - Film on Bunin's later years: Dvevnik ego zheny, dir. by Aleksei Uchitel, starring Andrei Smirnov, Galina Tjunina, Jevgeni Mironov, Jelena Morozova (2000) Selected works:
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