Bunin and his women. Unsuccessful marriage (Anna Tsakni)

A tall, blue-eyed Moscow beauty, a smoothly combed blonde with a knot of hair sliding down her neck - this is how writer Valentin Kataev described Vera. The niece of the chairman of the First State Duma, according to the recollections of contemporaries, was unusually beautiful. Some noted her Leonardian eyes, others spoke of her resemblance to Madonna. Bunin himself wrote about her: “I fell in love with this cameo profile.”

A young maiden from an intelligent professorial environment went down in history as the muse of a famous writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. She was not afraid of condemnation from society, living for many years with Ivan Alekseevich in a civil marriage, tolerated the writer’s many hobbies and accepted the situation when 56-year-old Bunin became interested in 26-year-old poetess Galina Kuznetsova.

On Vera Muromtseva’s birthday, the site recalls the family happiness of the wife of the writer, noted by the Nobel Committee for “the strict skill with which he developed the traditions of Russian classical prose.”

Meeting with destiny

“When close people told me that I was sacrificing myself by deciding to live with him outside of marriage, I was very surprised,” Vera Nikolaevna recalled in her memoirs.

Before meeting her, Bunin was already married. His marriage with Anna Tsakni could not be called happy. He noted coldness on her part, and when their only son died at the age of 5, there were almost no moments connecting the spouses. They separated.

In the quiet beauty Vera, he was able to find what he was missing - a trembling heart, a vulnerable soul and boundless self-sacrifice. A girl from an old noble professorial family was not afraid to challenge society, and, despite condemnation from her relatives, she went on a long trip with Bunin. This happened in April 1907. Then Bunin was 37 years old, and she was 25. Their relationship remained unformed for many years. Only in 1922 did they get married in France.

And then, in 1907, their relationship was just beginning. New countries awaited them - Syria, Greece, Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, Germany - and new novels. As Andrei Sedykh, Bunin’s literary secretary, wrote, Ivan Alekseevich “loved to see young, talented women around him, courted them, flirted, and this need only intensified over the years.” At the same time, according to the recollections of a family friend, “he loved his wife Vera Nikolaevna with real, even some kind of superstitious love... He would not exchange Vera Nikolaevna for anyone.”

Vera Muromtseva. 1890s. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Bunin did not part with her even when a young poetess appeared on his life’s path.

“Let him love Galina...”

A meeting that changed the way of life of the writer, who lived in a small town in the south of France, took place in the late twenties. Bunin met 26-year-old Galina Kuznetsova, the wife of a white officer, on the beach in Grasse. The young girl’s enthusiastic look made the 56-year-old man’s heart beat faster. The girl was ready to do a lot for the attention of her idol. She told her husband that she was in love and that she was leaving him. Bunin did not leave his Faith. At first he was torn between Grasse and Paris, where Galina lived. But then he made a decision that was convenient only for him, but which his wife and mistress accepted. He moved Galina to his villa, presenting Vera Nikolaevna with the fact that now the young poetess would live with him either as a student or as a secretary.

Portrait of Ivan Bunin by Leonard Turzhansky Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

“Let him love Galina... if only this love makes his soul sweet...,” Vera left a note in her diary.

Many acquaintances looked at this love triangle with bewilderment. Even in 1933, when Ivan Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize, there were two women next to him.

How women lived in such an environment can be judged from the diaries they kept. In some entries, Vera Nikolaevna complained that there was very little money and that she was even forced to wear Galina’s things. In others, Kuznetsova described how she and Bunin traveled to Cannes and amused themselves, allegedly looking for villas for themselves.

“With what pleasure we climbed along some steep paths, looked into the gates of other people’s villas, walked around them, and even climbed into one, locked, uninhabited, with an untidy garden, where abandoned goldfish swam in the pool and pale November flowers hung from the porch railings. roses. Then, standing at a height, they looked at the sunset with unprecedented transitions of tones... What beauty, what languor...” she wrote in her Grasse Diary.

“Galya has finally left”

Years passed, but the situation did not get easier. On the contrary, new characters appeared in history - the young writer Leonid Zurov and the opera singer Margarita Stepun, the sister of the writer Fyodor Stepun. Now Ivan Alekseevich had to accept the truth - the women who idolized him had connections on the side.

His official wife began to take care of “dear Lenechka”, who was staying at the Bunins’ villa, with tenderness. And Margarita turned out to be fascinated by his “student” Galina.

At first, Stepun even lived with the Bunins, but constant conflicts made her stay in the villa impossible. Together with Galina, Margot went to Germany.

“Galya has finally left. The house became deserted, but easier,” Vera wrote in her diary.

Bunin moved Galina to his villa, presenting Vera Nikolaevna with the fact that now the young poetess would live with them. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Bunin died in November 1953 in Paris. His wife survived him by eight years. Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva-Bunina was buried in the same grave with her husband at the Parisian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

A writer who has managed to derive the formula for an ideal woman must, of course, be a true connoisseur of female beauty. “Black eyes boiling with resin... eyelashes black as night, a gently playing blush, a thin figure, longer than an ordinary arm - you know, longer than usual! “a small leg, a moderately large chest, a properly rounded calf, shell-colored knees, sloping shoulders” - Ivan Bunin, like an inveterate Pygmalion, spent his whole life looking for Galatea from which he could fashion his ideal. He found her in his declining years.

Ivan Bunin

The love of the writer and Galina Kuznetsova, who was thirty years younger than him, became a real challenge to society, especially since such a piquant love triangle was formed: a husband, his aging wife and a new passion. “Imagine, they live like this - the three of them,” people around them gossiped. But this was the case when the opinions of others were least of all interested in lovers. All boundaries were erased by a powerful influx of feelings. “He has some kind of magical power,” Galina wrote about Bunin in her diary, admitting that this power cannot be resisted.

Women of genius

“True love does not choose” - this is how Bunin once and for all defined his attitude towards the main of “human passions”. He, a writer and poet, a “singer of love,” needed constant nourishment of feelings, so he threw himself headlong into each new novel, as if into a pool.

Entire volumes can be written about Bunin’s women. The most significant novels of the writer remained in history, which became known through letters and diaries. Bunin himself did not have the habit of boasting about his victories on the love front. Meanwhile, his first long-term relationship began when Bunin was only 19 years old. He met his beloved Varvara Pashchenko at the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper, where he worked as a correspondent. The girl’s parents categorically opposed the marriage, so the lovers lived in what is called a “civil marriage.” However, after a while, Varvara fell in love with Bunin’s friend and married him.

A few years later, Bunin marries Anna Tsakni. But the marriage turned out to be short and unhappy. His and Anna's only son died at the age of five. Apart from their son, the spouses had nothing in common; Bunin complained many times about his wife’s coldness: “How many times have I revealed to her my soul, full of the best tenderness, she doesn’t feel anything.”

Ivan Bunin and Vera Muromtseva

After breaking up with Tsakni, Bunin met the woman with whom he was destined to live until his death. Vera Muromtseva, who grew up in a noble, professorial family, was called by her friends “the natural-born wife of a writer.” The tall “cameo-faced” blonde caught Bunin’s eye at one of the literary evenings. They started dating secretly. An old story repeated itself - Vera’s parents opposed her romance, and the girl agreed to live with Bunin in a “civil marriage”, without a wedding. “I came up with an idea, we need to do translations, then it will be pleasant to live and travel together - everyone has their own business, and we won’t be bored...” - this is how Bunin saw their life together, and Vera meekly agreed to leave her family, studies, and hobbies for the sake of beloved. Over the next few years, all she did was take care of the house and do her best to provide comfort and coziness to her genius. Despite everyday difficulties and difficult conditions of “nomadic life”, the couple are quite happy. But this serene happiness, alas, leaves them in Grasse, a small town in the south of France, where Bunin meets his last passionate love - Galina Kuznetsova.

Meeting with an idol

Galina Kuznetsova was born into an old noble family and received a classical education at the Kyiv Women's Gymnasium. She married a lawyer, a white officer, quite early, and together with her husband she left for Constantinople. Later the couple moved to Prague, and then to France.

The relationship with her husband did not work out; Galina blamed him for “weakness of character.” They lived very poorly. To somehow escape from sad thoughts, Galina began writing poetry and prose. It is published in literary magazines, and critics give it favorable reviews. Galina gradually enters the literary circle and makes new, useful acquaintances. One of these acquaintances turned out to be truly fateful. Philologist and poet Modest Hoffman introduced the aspiring poetess to Ivan Bunin. It happened in Grasse, on the beach where Bunin was doing a traditional swim. The writer was fascinated by the beautiful stranger, and she turned out to be completely unable to resist his magnetism. “You are my idol,” Galina admitted that evening. Returning from Grasse, she immediately announced to her husband that she was leaving him. After a stormy scandal, during which her husband cried and swore to kill his rival, Galina became a free woman. From this moment her long and passionate romance with the great writer begins.

Galina Kuznetsova

Under the same roof

For almost a year, the lovers met in a small rented apartment in Paris. Bunin was torn between Paris and Grasse, his wife and his new lover. Of course, Vera guessed about her husband’s passion. A poetess I know said that Vera “went crazy and complained to everyone she knew about Ivan Alekseevich’s betrayal.” The couple even had a stormy showdown, after which Bunin left for Paris. But the writer did not intend to divorce his wife, he did not want to lose his established life, and over the years of his life his wife became a close person to him. “Love Vera? Like this? It’s like loving your arm or leg...” Bunin once said with surprise. In turn, Vera could not leave her adored genius. "I love him. And I can’t do anything about it,” she answered questions from her friends.

Galina also suffered, waiting for the next date with her beloved, not knowing whether he would come this time or not. It all ended with Bunin confronting his wife with a fact: Galina would live with them as a secretary, student and adopted daughter. Vera had no choice but to agree and close her eyes to the relationship between “teacher” and “student”.

Victor Borisov-Musatov "Walk at Sunset"

“Let him love Galina... if only this love makes his soul sweet...,” Vera wrote in her diary. Her love was so sacrificial that she agreed to endure the presence of her husband’s passion nearby. Galina also had a hard time, but she tried to maintain a fragile balance in the house, hoping that over time Bunin would make a choice in her favor. This not entirely typical relationship story dragged on for fifteen years. What was going on in the souls of all the participants in the “love triangle” all these years, one can only guess. In their diaries, all three make careful entries, not a single extra word. However, sometimes, no, no, and some strange details of “life together” will flash. For example, Vera in her notes complained about poverty, said that she only had two and she often wore “Galina’s clothes.” In Galina’s “Grasse Diary,” pent-up dissatisfaction periodically breaks through: “one has to reckon with I.A.’s character, but for all the twenty years of her life next to him, she cannot reconcile with him,” she writes about Vera.

Tangled connections

Over time, the “triangle” turned into a “square”. The writer Leonid Zurov settled in the villa, whom Vera began to closely patronize. Guardianship resulted in Zurov's devoted love for Vera, which Bunin, of course, knew about. The situation in the house became tense. “I don’t know how to behave so that there are good relationships in the house,” Galina writes in her diary.

If at first Galina seemed to be bewitched by Bunin, then the intense years in the “love triangle” help her to cast off these spells. She finally dares to admit to herself that Bunin will never leave his wife. From that moment on, she began to think about the future: “It’s really impossible to live like that without independence, as if in ‘half-children’.” To live in the position of either a secretary or a student, to catch sidelong glances at herself, to faithfully look into the eyes of a genius, giving up her own ambitions - no, this is not what she dreamed of! Unlike Vera, Galina is more decisive. In addition, she realized that she no longer liked leading the reclusive life that Bunin insisted on. This lifestyle fueled the writer, but completely deprived Galina herself of strength. And then the Nobel Prize arrived, which Bunin went to receive together with both “wives.”

It was probably at that moment that Galina realized how sad it was to remain in the shadow of a great writer. How much effort went into reprinting manuscripts, literary discussions, and in the end, she cannot even claim to be the muse of a genius. After all, Vera will always be the “official muse” as the writer’s wife. After the award ceremony, on the way from Sweden to France, the Bunin couple, together with Galina, stop to stay with the writer Fyodor Stepun. There Galina fell ill, and the Bunins went home, leaving the young woman in the care of the writer. Far from Bunin, Galina was finally freed from her passion for him. Moreover, a new period is beginning in her life. She unexpectedly fell in love with Stepun's sister, opera singer Margarita Stepun. When she returns to Grasse, he follows her.

suitcases Together with Margarita she leaves for Germany. “Galya has finally left. The house became deserted, but easier,” Vera writes in her diary with relief.

Bunin, on the one hand, was very worried about the break with Galina. On the other hand, he quickly came to terms with the loss, as always, switching to creativity. After parting with his “last romantic prize,” he wrote the famous cycle of stories “Dark Alleys.” “You know, there are so few happy meetings in the world,” he will say in one of the stories. But, it seems, there are happy partings. In any case, Vera was close to her beloved husband until the end of her life and did not share him with anyone else. Galina found her happiness with Marga.

“For the rest of her life, Stepun kept her in her paws... they entered the service and lived quite decently... everything was fine,” wrote a close friend of the family. Love-addiction is a thing of the past. But Galina still went down in history as the muse of the great writer. Based on her “Grasse Diary,” the famous film “The Diary of His Wife” was made, thanks to which the name of Galina Kuznetsova forever remained associated with the name of Ivan Bunin.

Photo: East News, Legion-Media.ru, ITAR-TASS

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is one of the most lyrical and piercing authors in all Russian literature. The central theme of all his work has always been passionate and all-consuming love. To create true masterpieces telling about this deep and beautiful feeling, the writer needed inspiration, which he certainly drew from relationships with women.

Love in Bunin's life

The writer's trembling and tender heart always thirsted for love. From a young age, young Bunin tried to find personal happiness. True, he did not always succeed.

There were many sad and tragic stories in his life. Such was his first relationship with Varvara Pashchenko. The girl was older than the writer, and the age difference prevented the young people from getting married - Varvara’s father was categorically against it.

Despite this, the relationship between them continued for some time, until Varvara left Bunin for a rich landowner.

Another love failure befell Bunin in his first marriage. His chosen one this time was a beauty with exotic Greek beauty - Anna Tsakni.

The writer passionately fell in love with this wayward and beautiful woman, but Anna never responded to him with the same deep feeling, and was not at all interested in her husband’s life.

As a result, the marriage broke up. Bunin experienced this breakup very hard.

Vera Muromtseva is the main love in the writer’s life

Real happiness and peace came to Bunin only at the age of thirty-six. It was at this time that he met Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva.

Calm, reserved and even somewhat cold, at first she behaved rather distantly. And Bunin, it would seem, did not show much interest in the girl.

Only later did he realize that the external coldness was dictated only by a good upbringing, and behind the reserved shell was hidden a very gentle and kind soul. And Vera Nikolaevna soon fell in love with Bunin with all her heart and gave him all her warmth and care.

For the first time in a long time, the writer felt truly happy. The lovers made several trips together: to Egypt, Palestine, Vienna, Algeria, France, Capri, Tunisia.

The happiness of Bunin and Muromtseva seemed endless, but then a bloody revolution began. A supporter of the traditional monarchy, the writer did not accept the changes that had taken place in the country. Fearing for their lives, Bunin and Muromtseva fled to Odessa, where they lived for about two years, and then emigrated to France, which hospitably received the writer and his faithful lover and became Bunin’s second homeland.

Life in exile and discord in relationships

Having moved to France, the lovers settled in Grasse, near Nice. Only here, far from their homeland and after almost sixteen years of their relationship, did they finally get married and officially become husband and wife.

It would seem that nothing disturbed their peace, until Vera was faced with her husband’s betrayal. On the seashore in Grasse, Bunin met an emigrant from Russia, Galina Kuznetsova, who was married. The writer was overcome by a long-forgotten feeling of all-consuming passion. Galina could not resist his charms and immediately left her husband and settled in the Bunins’ house.

For Vera Nikolaevna this was a real blow. At first she had no idea how to live on, but then she made a very courageous decision. She hospitably welcomed Galina into her home and did not interfere with the development of her relationship with Bunin.

This was the beginning of a strange and difficult period in the writer’s life. Living under the same roof with him were the faithful, kind and understanding Vera and the young beauty Galina, who at first quarreled and rowed a lot, but in the end even became friends. Despite this, the atmosphere in the house remained very tense and unhealthy.

Lifelong love

In the end, this story of “life with three” took a very unexpected turn: Galina announced that she was leaving Bunin, and for a woman, Margot Stepun. Bunin took this news tragically. His grief was aggravated by the fact that Galina and her new beloved settled in the Bunins’ house and lived there for almost eight years.

Only when they left this house did relative calm reign again in the lives of Ivan Alekseevich and Vera, who had been dutifully waiting for him all this time.

The devoted and loving wife forgave the writer all the suffering she had to go through. In all, even the most difficult moments, she supported Bunin, surrounding him with care, warmth and understanding.

The writer spent the last years of his life in poverty and oblivion, but Vera Nikolaevna was always there, until Bunin’s death. The woman outlived her beloved husband by eight years, and never for one second stopped loving him and admiring his work.

After her death, Vera, as she herself bequeathed, was buried at the feet of her husband in the Paris cemetery of Saint-Genevieve-des-Bois.

Despite all the difficulties, betrayal, misunderstanding, poverty, illness and other problems, this loving woman forgave Bunin everything and became the only happy love story in his life.

Portrait of Ivan Bunin. Leonard Turzhansky. 1905

♦ Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born into an old noble family in the city of Voronezh, where he lived the first few years of his life. Later the family moved to the Ozerki estate (now Lipetsk region). At the age of 11 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, but at the age of 16 he was forced to stop studying. The reason for this was the ruin of the family. The reason for which, by the way, was the excessive spending of his father, who managed to leave both himself and his wife penniless. As a result, Bunin continued his education on his own, although his older 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. He read a lot, studied foreign languages, and showed talent as a writer at an early age. However, he was forced to work for several years as a proofreader at Orlovsky Vestnik in order to feed his family.

♦ Ivan and his sister Masha spent a lot of time as children with shepherds, who taught them to eat different herbs. But one day they almost paid with their lives. One of the shepherds suggested trying henbane. The nanny, having learned about this, hardly gave the children fresh milk, which saved their lives.

♦ At the age of 17, Ivan Alekseevich wrote his first poems, in which he imitated the works of Lermontov and Pushkin. They say that Pushkin was generally an idol for Bunin

♦ Anton Pavlovich Chekhov played a big role in Bunin’s life and career. When they met, Chekhov was already an accomplished writer and managed to direct Bunin’s creative fervor along the right path. They corresponded for many years and thanks to Chekhov, Bunin was able to meet and join the world of creative personalities - writers, artists, musicians.

♦ Bunin did not leave an heir to the world. In 1900, Bunin and Tsakni had their first and only son, who, unfortunately, died at the age of 5 from meningitis.

♦ Bunin’s favorite pastime in his youth and until his last years was to determine the face and entire appearance of a person by the back of his head, legs and arms.

♦ Ivan Bunin collected a collection of pharmaceutical bottles and boxes, which filled several suitcases to the brim.

♦ It is known that Bunin refused to sit at the table if he was the thirteenth person in a row.

♦ Ivan Alekseevich admitted: “Do you have any least favorite letters? I can't stand the letter "f". And they almost named me Philip.”

♦ Bunin was always in good physical shape, had good flexibility: he was an excellent horseman, and danced “solo” at parties, plunging his friends into amazement.

♦ Ivan Alekseevich had rich facial expressions and extraordinary acting talent. Stanislavsky invited him to the art theater and offered him the role of Hamlet.

♦ A strict order always reigned in Bunin’s house. He was often ill, sometimes imaginary, but everything obeyed his moods.

♦ An interesting fact from Bunin’s life is the fact that he did not live most of his life in Russia. Regarding the October Revolution, Bunin wrote the following: “This sight was sheer horror for anyone who had not lost the image and likeness of God...”. This event forced him to emigrate to Paris. There Bunin led an active social and political life, gave lectures, and collaborated with Russian political organizations. It was in Paris that such outstanding works as “The Life of Arsenyev”, “Mitya’s Love”, “Sunstroke” and others were written. In the post-war years, Bunin had a more benevolent attitude towards the Soviet Union, but could not come to terms with the power of the Bolsheviks and, as a result, remained in exile.

♦ It must be admitted that in pre-revolutionary Russia Bunin received the widest recognition from both critics and readers. He occupies a strong place on the literary Olympus and can easily indulge in what he has dreamed of all his life - travel. The writer traveled to many countries in Europe and Asia throughout his life.

♦ During the Second World War, Bunin refused any contacts with the Nazis - he moved in 1939 to Grasse (the Alps-Maritimes), where he spent virtually the entire war. In 1945, he and his family returned to Paris, although he often said that he wanted to return to his homeland, but, despite the fact that after the war the USSR government allowed people like him to return, the writer never returned.

♦ In the last years of his life, Bunin was sick a lot, but continued to work actively and be creative. He died in his sleep from November 7 to 8, 1953 in Paris, where he was buried. The last entry in I. Bunin’s diary reads: “This is still amazing to the point of tetanus! In some, very short time, I will be gone - and the affairs and fates of everything, everything will be unknown to me!”

♦ Ivan Alekseevich Bunin became the first emigrant writer to be published in the USSR (already in the 50s). Although some of his works, for example the diary “Cursed Days,” were published only after perestroika.

Nobel Prize

♦ Bunin was first nominated for the Nobel Prize back in 1922 (Romain Rolland nominated him), but in 1923 the prize was awarded to the Irish poet Yeats. In subsequent years, Russian emigrant writers more than once renewed their efforts to nominate Bunin for the prize, which was awarded to him in 1933.

♦ The official statement of the Nobel Committee stated: “By the decision of the Swedish Academy of November 10, 1933, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Ivan Bunin for the strict artistic talent with which he recreated a typically Russian character in literary prose.” In his speech when presenting the prize, the representative of the Swedish Academy, Per Hallström, highly appreciating Bunin’s poetic gift, particularly focused on his ability to describe real life with unusual expressiveness and accuracy. In his response speech, Bunin noted the courage of the Swedish Academy in honoring the emigrant writer. It is worth saying that during the presentation of the awards for 1933, the Academy hall was decorated, against the rules, only with Swedish flags - because of Ivan Bunin - a “stateless person”. As the writer himself believed, he received the prize for “The Life of Arsenyev,” his best work. World fame fell upon him suddenly, and just as unexpectedly he felt like an international celebrity. Photographs of the writer were in every newspaper and in bookstore windows. Even random passersby, seeing the Russian writer, looked at him and whispered. Somewhat confused by this fuss, Bunin grumbled: "How the famous tenor is greeted...". Being awarded the Nobel Prize was a huge event for the writer. Recognition came, and with it material security. Bunin distributed a significant amount of the monetary reward received to those in need. For this purpose, a special commission was even created to distribute funds. Subsequently, Bunin recalled that after receiving the prize, he received about 2,000 letters asking for help, in response to which he distributed about 120,000 francs.

♦ Bolshevik Russia did not ignore this award either. On November 29, 1933, a note appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta “I. Bunin is a Nobel laureate”: “According to the latest reports, the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1933 was awarded to the White Guard emigrant I. Bunin. The White Guard Olympus nominated and in every possible way defended the candidacy of the seasoned wolf of the counter-revolution, Bunin, whose work, especially of recent times, replete with motifs of death, decay, doom in the context of a catastrophic world crisis, obviously fell into the court of the Swedish academic elders.”

And Bunin himself liked to remember the episode that happened during the writer’s visit to the Merezhkovskys immediately after Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize. The artist burst into the room X, and, not noticing Bunin, exclaimed at the top of his voice: "We survived! Shame! Shame! They gave Bunin the Nobel Prize!" After that, he saw Bunin and, without changing his facial expression, cried out: "Ivan Alekseevich! Dear! Congratulations, congratulations from the bottom of my heart! Happy for you, for all of us! For Russia! Forgive me for not having time to personally come to witness..."

Bunin and his women

♦ Bunin was an ardent and passionate man. While working at a newspaper, he met Varvara Pashchenko (“I was struck down, to my great misfortune, by long love”, as Bunin later wrote), with whom he began a whirlwind romance. True, it didn’t come to a wedding - the girl’s parents did not want to marry her off to a poor writer. Therefore, the young people lived unmarried. The relationship, which Ivan Bunin considered happy, collapsed when Varvara left him and married Arseny Bibikov, a friend of the writer. The theme of loneliness and betrayal is firmly established in the poet’s work - 20 years later he will write:

I wanted to shout after:

“Come back, I have become close to you!”

But for a woman there is no past:

She fell out of love and became a stranger to her.

Well! I’ll light the fireplace and drink...

It would be nice to buy a dog.

After Varvara's betrayal, Bunin returned to Russia. Here he was expected to meet and become acquainted with many writers: Chekhov, Bryusov, Sologub, Balmont. In 1898, two important events occur at once: the writer marries a Greek woman Anne Tsakni (daughter of a famous revolutionary populist), and a collection of his poems “Under the Open Air” is also published.

You, like the stars, are pure and beautiful...

I catch the joy of life in everything -

In the starry sky, in flowers, in aromas...

But I love you more tenderly.

I'm happy only with you alone,

And no one will replace you:

You are the only one who knows and loves me,

And one understands why!

However, this marriage did not last long: after a year and a half, the couple divorced.

In 1906 Bunin met Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva - the writer’s faithful companion until the end of his life. Together the couple travels around the world. Vera Nikolaevna did not stop repeating until the end of her days that when she saw Ivan Alekseevich, who was then always called Yan at home, she fell in love with him at first sight. His wife brought comfort into his unsettled life and surrounded him with the most tender care. And from 1920, when Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna sailed from Constantinople, their long emigration began in Paris and in the south of France in the town of Graas near Cannes. Bunin experienced severe financial difficulties, or rather, they were experienced by his wife, who took household affairs into her own hands and sometimes complained that she did not even have ink for her husband. The meager fees from publications in emigrant magazines were barely enough for a more than modest life. By the way, after receiving the Nobel Prize, the first thing Bunin did was buy his wife new shoes, because he could no longer look at what his beloved woman was wearing and wearing.

However, Bunin’s love stories do not end there either. I will dwell in more detail on his 4th great love - Galina Kuznetsova . The following is a complete quote from the article. It's 1926. The Bunins have been living in Graas at the Belvedere Villa for several years. Ivan Alekseevich is a distinguished swimmer, he goes to the sea every day and does large demonstration swims. His wife does not like “water procedures” and does not keep him company. On the beach, an acquaintance approaches Bunin and introduces him to a young girl, Galina Kuznetsova, a budding poetess. As happened more than once with Bunin, he instantly felt an intense attraction to his new acquaintance. Although at that moment he could hardly imagine what place she would take in his future life. Both later recalled that he immediately asked if she was married. It turned out that yes, and she is vacationing here with her husband. Now Ivan Alekseevich spent whole days with Galina. Bunin and Kuznetsova

A few days later, Galina had a sharp explanation with her husband, which meant an actual breakup, and he left for Paris. It’s not hard to guess what state Vera Nikolaevna was in. “She went crazy and complained to everyone she knew about Ivan Alekseevich’s betrayal,” writes poetess Odoevtseva. “But then I.A. managed to convince her that he and Galina had only a platonic relationship. She believed, and believed until her death...” Kuznetsova and Bunin with his wife

Vera Nikolaevna really wasn’t pretending: she believed because she wanted to believe. Idolizing her genius, she did not let thoughts come close to her that would force her to make difficult decisions, for example, to leave the writer. It ended with Galina being invited to live with the Bunins and become “a member of their family.” Galina Kuznetsova (standing), Ivan and Vera Bunin. 1933

The participants in this triangle decided not to record the intimate details of the three of them for history. One can only guess what and how happened at the Belvedere villa, as well as read in the minor comments of the house guests. According to some evidence, the atmosphere in the house, despite external decency, was sometimes very tense.

Galina accompanied Bunin to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize along with Vera Nikolaevna. On the way back, she caught a cold, and they decided that it was better for her to stay for a while in Dresden, in the house of Bunin’s old friend, the philosopher Fyodor Stepun, who often visited Grasse. When Kuznetsova returned to the writer’s villa a week later, something subtly changed. Ivan Alekseevich discovered that Galina began to spend much less time with him, and more and more often he found her writing long letters to Stepun’s sister Magda. In the end, Galina got Magda an invitation from the Bunin couple to visit Graas, and Magda came. Bunin made fun of his “girlfriends”: Galina and Magda almost never parted, they went down to the table together, walked together, retired together in their “little room”, allocated at their request by Vera Nikolaevna. All this lasted until Bunin suddenly saw the light, as did everyone around him, regarding the true relationship between Galina and Magda. And then he felt terribly disgusted, disgusted and sad. Not only did the woman he loved cheat on him, but to cheat with another woman - this unnatural situation simply infuriated Bunin. They loudly sorted things out with Kuznetsova, not embarrassed by either the completely confused Vera Nikolaevna or the arrogantly calm Magda. The reaction of the writer’s wife to what was happening in her house is remarkable in itself. At first, Vera Nikolaevna breathed a sigh of relief - well, finally this life of three that was tormenting her would end, and Galina Kuznetsova would leave the hospitable home of the Bunins. But seeing how her beloved husband was suffering, she rushed to persuade Galina to stay so that Bunin would not worry. However, neither Galina was going to change anything in her relationship with Magda, nor Bunin could no longer tolerate the phantasmagoric “adultery” happening before his eyes. Galina left the writer’s home and heart, leaving him with a spiritual wound, but not the first one.

However, no novels (and Galina Kuznetsova, of course, was not the writer’s only hobby) changed Bunin’s attitude towards his wife, without whom he could not imagine his life. This is how family friend G. Adamovich said about it: “...for her endless loyalty, he was infinitely grateful to her and valued her beyond all measure...Ivan Alekseevich in everyday communication was not an easy person and, of course, he himself was aware of this. But the more deeply he felt everything he owed to his wife. I think that if in his presence someone had hurt or offended Vera Nikolaevna, he, with his great passion, would have killed this person - not only as his enemy, but also as a slanderer, as a moral monster, unable to distinguish good from evil, light from darkness."

Bunin Ivan Alekseevich (1870-1953) - Russian poet and writer, his work dates back to the Silver Age of Russian art, in 1933 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Childhood

Ivan Alekseevich was born on October 23, 1870 in the city of Voronezh, where the family rented housing in the Germanovskaya estate on Dvoryanskaya Street. The Bunin family belonged to a noble landowner family; among their ancestors were the poets Vasily Zhukovsky and Anna Bunina. By the time Ivan was born, the family was impoverished.

Father, Alexei Nikolaevich Bunin, served as an officer in his youth, then became a landowner, but in a short time squandered his estate. Mother, Bunina Lyudmila Aleksandrovna, as a girl belonged to the Chubarov family. The family already had two older boys: Yuliy (13 years old) and Evgeny (12 years old).

The Bunins moved to Voronezh three cities before Ivan’s birth to educate their eldest sons. Julius had extremely amazing abilities in languages ​​and mathematics, he studied very well. Evgeniy was not at all interested in studying; due to his boyish age, he preferred chasing pigeons through the streets. He dropped out of the gymnasium, but in the future he became a gifted artist.

But about the youngest Ivan, mother Lyudmila Aleksandrovna said that he was special, from birth he was different from the older children, “no one has a soul like Vanechka.”

In 1874, the family moved from the city to the village. It was the Oryol province, and the Bunins rented an estate on the Butyrka farm in Yeletsky district. By this time, the eldest son Julius had graduated from the gymnasium with a gold medal and was planning to go to Moscow in the fall to enter the university’s Faculty of Mathematics.

According to the writer Ivan Alekseevich, all his childhood memories are of peasant huts, their inhabitants and endless fields. His mother and the servants often sang folk songs to him and told him fairy tales. Vanya spent whole days from morning to evening with peasant children in the nearest villages; he became friends with many, grazed cattle with them, and went on night trips. He liked to eat radishes and black bread, lumpy, rough cucumbers with them. As he later wrote in his work “The Life of Arsenyev,” “without realizing it, at such a meal the soul joined the earth.”

Already at an early age, it became noticeable that Vanya perceived life and the world around him artistically. He loved to show people and animals with facial expressions and gestures, and was also known in the village as a good storyteller. At the age of eight, Bunin wrote his first poem.

Studies

Until the age of 11, Vanya was raised at home, and then he was sent to the Yeletsk gymnasium. The boy immediately began to study well; subjects were easy for him, especially literature. If he liked a poem (even a very large one - a whole page), he could remember it from the first reading. He was very fond of books, as he himself said, “he read whatever he could at the time” and continued to write poetry, imitating his favorite poets ─ Pushkin and Lermontov.

But then the education began to decline, and already in the third grade the boy was left for the second year. As a result, he did not graduate from high school; after the winter holidays in 1886, he announced to his parents that he did not want to return to school. Julius, at that time a candidate at Moscow University, took over his brother’s further education. As before, Vanya’s main hobby remained literature; he re-read all the domestic and foreign classics, and even then it became clear that he would devote his future life to creativity.

First creative steps

At the age of seventeen, the poet’s poems were no longer youthful, but serious, and Bunin made his debut in print.

In 1889, he moved to the city of Orel, where he got a job at the local publication “Orlovsky Vestnik” to work as a proofreader. Ivan Alekseevich was in great need at that time, since his literary works did not yet bring good income, but he had nowhere to wait for help. The father went completely broke, sold the estate, lost his estate and moved to live with his sister in Kamenka. Ivan Alekseevich’s mother and his younger sister Masha went to visit relatives in Vasilyevskoye.

In 1891, Ivan Alekseevich’s first collection of poetry, entitled “Poems,” was published.

In 1892, Bunin and his common-law wife Varvara Pashchenko moved to live in Poltava, where his elder brother Yuli worked in the provincial zemstvo government as a statistician. He helped Ivan Alekseevich and his common-law wife get a job. In 1894, Bunin began publishing his works in the newspaper Poltava Provincial Gazette. The zemstvo also commissioned him to write essays on grain and herb crops and on the fight against insect pests.

Literary path

While in Poltava, the poet began to collaborate with the newspaper “Kievlyanin”. In addition to poetry, Bunin began to write a lot of prose, which was increasingly published in quite popular publications:

• "Russian wealth";
• "Bulletin of Europe";
• "Peace of God."

The luminaries of literary criticism paid attention to the work of the young poet and prose writer. One of them spoke very well of the story “Tanka” (at first it was called “Village Sketch”) and said that “the author will make a great writer.”

In 1893-1894 there was a period of Bunin’s special love for Tolstoy, he traveled to the Sumy district, where he communicated with sectarians who were close in their views to the Tolstoyans, visited Tolstoyan colonies near Poltava and even went to Moscow to meet the writer himself, which had an effect on Ivan Alekseevich has an indelible impression.

In the spring-summer period of 1894, Bunin took a long trip around Ukraine; he sailed on the steamship “Chaika” along the Dnieper. The poet was literally in love with the steppes and villages of Little Russia, longed for communication with the people, listened to their melodic songs. He visited the grave of the poet Taras Shevchenko, whose work he loved very much. Subsequently, Bunin worked a lot on translations of Kobzar’s works.

In 1895, after breaking up with Varvara Pashchenko, Bunin left Poltava for Moscow, then to St. Petersburg. There he soon entered the literary environment, where in the fall the writer’s first public performance took place in the hall of the Credit Society. At a literary evening, he read the story “To the End of the World” with great success.

In 1898, Bunin moved to Odessa, where he married Anna Tsakni. In the same year, his second poetry collection, “Under the Open Air,” was published.

In 1899, Ivan Alekseevich traveled to Yalta, where he met Chekhov and Gorky. Subsequently, Bunin visited Chekhov in Crimea more than once, stayed for a long time and became “one of their own” for them. Anton Pavlovich praised Bunin's works and was able to discern in him the future great writer.

In Moscow, Bunin became a regular participant in literary circles, where he read his works.

In 1907, Ivan Alekseevich traveled through the eastern countries, visited Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. Returning to Russia, he published a collection of short stories, “The Shadow of a Bird,” where he shared his impressions of his long journey.

In 1909, Bunin received the second Pushkin Prize for his work and was elected to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences in the category of fine literature.

Revolution and emigration

Bunin did not accept the revolution. When the Bolsheviks occupied Moscow, he and his wife went to Odessa and lived there for two years, until the Red Army arrived there too.

At the beginning of 1920, the couple emigrated on the ship "Sparta" from Odessa, first to Constantinople, and from there to France. The writer’s entire subsequent life passed in this country; the Bunins settled in the south of France not far from Nice.

Bunin passionately hated the Bolsheviks, all of this was reflected in his diary entitled “Cursed Days,” which he kept for many years. He called “Bolshevism the most base, despotic, evil and deceitful activity in the history of mankind.”

He suffered greatly for Russia, he wanted to return to his homeland, he called his entire life in exile an existence at a junction station.

In 1933, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. He spent 120 thousand francs from the monetary reward received to help emigrants and writers.

During the Second World War, Bunin and his wife hid Jews in their rented villa, for which in 2015 the writer was posthumously nominated for the award and the title Righteous Among the Nations.

Personal life

Ivan Alekseevich’s first love happened at a fairly early age. He was 19 years old when at work he met Varvara Pashchenko, an employee of the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper, where the poet himself worked at that time. Varvara Vladimirovna was more experienced and older than Bunin, from an intelligent family (she is the daughter of a famous Yelets doctor), and also worked as a proofreader, like Ivan.

Her parents were categorically against such a passion for their daughter; they did not want her to marry a poor poet. Varvara was afraid to disobey them, so when Bunin invited her to get married, she refused to get married, but they began to live together in a civil marriage. Their relationship could be called “from one extreme to another” - sometimes passionate love, sometimes painful quarrels.

Later it turned out that Varvara was unfaithful to Ivan Alekseevich. While living with him, she secretly met with the wealthy landowner Arseny Bibikov, whom she later married. And this despite the fact that Varvara’s father, in the end, gave his blessing to his daughter’s marriage to Bunin. The poet suffered and was disappointed; his youthful tragic love was later reflected in the novel “The Life of Arsenyev.” But still, the relationship with Varvara Pashchenko remained pleasant memories in the poet’s soul: “First love is great happiness, even if it is unrequited”.

In 1896, Bunin met with Anna Tsakni. A stunningly beautiful, artistic and wealthy woman of Greek descent, men pampered her with their attention and admired her. Her father, a wealthy Odessa resident Nikolai Petrovich Tsakni, was a revolutionary populist.

In the fall of 1898, Bunin and Tsakni got married, a year later they had a son, but in 1905 the baby died. The couple lived together for very little time; in 1900 they separated, ceased to understand each other, their views on life were different, and estrangement occurred. And again Bunin experienced this painfully; in a letter to his brother, he said that he did not know whether he could continue to live.

Calm came to the writer only in 1906 in the person of Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, whom he met in Moscow.

Her father was a member of the Moscow City Council, and her uncle presided over the First State Duma. Vera was of noble origin and grew up in an intelligent professorial family. At first glance, she seemed a little cold and always calm, but it was this woman who was able to become Bunin’s patient and caring wife and be with him until the end of his days.

In 1953, in Paris, Ivan Alekseevich died in his sleep on the night of November 7–8; next to his body on the bed lay L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “Sunday.” Bunin was buried in the French cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.