Eternal themes in the works of Bunin. To help students
Great Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate, poet, publicist, literary critic and prose writer-translator. It is these words that reflect Bunin’s activities, achievements and creativity. The whole life of this writer was multifaceted and interesting, he always chose his own path and did not listen to those who tried to “restructure” his views on life, he was not a member of any literary society, much less political party. He can be considered one of those individuals who were unique in their creativity.
Earliest childhood
Born on October 10 (Old Style), 1870 in the city of Voronezh a little boy Ivan and whose work will leave a bright mark in Russian and world literature in the future.
Despite the fact that Ivan Bunin came from an ancient noble family, his childhood did not pass in big city, and in one of the family estates (it was a small farm). Parents could afford to hire a home teacher. The writer recalled more than once during his life the time when Bunin grew up and studied at home. He spoke only positively about this “golden” period of his life. With gratitude and respect I remembered this student of Moscow University, who, according to the writer, awakened in him a passion for literature, because, despite such a young age, little Ivan read “The Odyssey” and “English Poets”. Even Bunin himself later said that this was the very first impetus for poetry and writing in general. Ivan Bunin showed his artistry quite early. The poet's creativity found expression in his talent as a reader. He read excellently own works and interested the most dull listeners.
Studying at the gymnasium
When Vanya was ten years old, his parents decided that he had reached the age when it was already possible to send him to a gymnasium. So Ivan began studying at the Yelets gymnasium. During this period, he lived away from his parents, with his relatives in Yelets. Entering the gymnasium and studying itself became a kind of turning point, because it was really difficult for the boy, who had lived with his parents all his life and had practically no restrictions, to get used to the new city life. New rules, strictures and prohibitions entered his life. Later he lived in rented apartments, but also did not feel comfortable in these houses. His studies at the gymnasium lasted relatively short, because after only 4 years he was expelled. The reason was non-payment of tuition and absence from vacation.
The external path
After everything he has experienced, Ivan Bunin settles on the estate of his deceased grandmother in Ozerki. Guided by the instructions of his older brother Julius, he quickly completes the gymnasium course. He studied some subjects more diligently. And even a university course was taught on them. Yuli, the elder brother of Ivan Bunin, was always distinguished by his education. That's why he helped younger brother learning. Yuliy and Ivan had a fairly trusting relationship. For this reason, it was he who became the first reader, as well as a critic of the early creativity Ivan Bunin.
First lines
According to the writer himself, his future talent was formed under the influence of the stories of relatives and friends that he heard in the place where he spent his childhood. It was there that he learned the first subtleties and features native language, listened to stories and songs, which in the future helped the writer find unique comparisons in his works. All this the best way influenced Bunin's talent.
He began writing poetry at a very early age. Bunin's work was born, one might say, when the future writer was only seven years old. When all the other children were just learning to read and write, little Ivan had already begun to write poetry. He really wanted to achieve success, mentally comparing himself with Pushkin and Lermontov. I read with enthusiasm the works of Maykov, Tolstoy, Fet.
At the very beginning of professional creativity
Ivan Bunin first appeared in print at a fairly young age, namely at 16 years old. Bunin's life and work have always been closely intertwined with each other. Well, it all started, of course, small, when two of his poems were published: “Over the grave of S. Ya. Nadson” and “The Village Beggar.” Within a year, ten of his best poems and his first stories, “Two Wanderers” and “Nefedka,” were published. These events became the beginning of the literary and writing activity of the great poet and prose writer. For the first time, the main theme of his writings emerged - man. In Bunin’s work, the theme of psychology and the mysteries of the soul will remain key until the last line.
In 1889, young Bunin, under the influence of the revolutionary-democratic movement of the intelligentsia - the populists, moved to his brother in Kharkov. But soon he becomes disillusioned with this movement and quickly moves away from it. Instead of collaborating with the populists, he leaves for the city of Orel and there he begins his work in the Orlovsky Vestnik. In 1891, the first collection of his poems was published.
First love
Despite the fact that throughout his life the themes of Bunin’s work were varied, almost the entire first collection of poems is imbued with the experiences of young Ivan. It was at this time that the writer had his first love. He lived in a civil marriage with Varvara Pashchenko, who became the author’s muse. This is how love first appeared in Bunin’s work. The young people often quarreled and did not find a common language. Everything that happened in their life together made him disappointed every time and wonder, is love worth such experiences? Sometimes it seemed that someone from above simply did not want them to be together. At first it was Varvara’s father’s ban on the wedding of young people, then, when they finally decided to live in a civil marriage, Ivan Bunin unexpectedly finds a lot of disadvantages in their life together, and then becomes completely disappointed in it. Later, Bunin comes to the conclusion that he and Varvara are not suitable for each other in character, and soon the young people simply break up. Almost immediately, Varvara Pashchenko marries Bunin’s friend. It brought a lot of worries to the young writer. He becomes completely disillusioned with life and love.
Productive work
At this time, Bunin's life and work are no longer so similar. The writer decides to sacrifice personal happiness and devotes himself entirely to work. During this period, everything becomes clearer tragic love in the works of Bunin.
Almost at the same time, fleeing loneliness, he moved to his brother Julius in Poltava. There is an upsurge in the literary field. His stories are published in leading magazines, and he is gaining popularity as a writer. The themes of Bunin's work are mainly devoted to man, the secrets of the Slavic soul, the majestic Russian nature and selfless love.
After Bunin visited St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1895, he gradually began to enter the larger literary environment, into which he fit very organically. Here he met Bryusov, Sologub, Kuprin, Chekhov, Balmont, Grigorovich.
Later, Ivan begins to correspond with Chekhov. It was Anton Pavlovich who predicted to Bunin that he would become a “great writer.” Later, carried away by moral sermons, he makes him his idol and even certain time trying to live by his advice. Bunin asked for an audience with Tolstoy and was honored to meet the great writer in person.
A new step on the creative path
In 1896, Bunin tried himself as a translator works of art. In the same year, his translation of Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha” was published. In this translation, everyone saw Bunin’s work from a different perspective. His contemporaries recognized his talent and highly appreciated the writer’s work. Ivan Bunin received the Pushkin Prize of the first degree for this translation, which gave the writer, and now also the translator, a reason to be even more proud of his achievements. To receive such high praise, Bunin did literally titanic work. After all, the translation of such works itself requires perseverance and talent, and for this the writer also had to learn English on his own. As the result of the translation showed, he succeeded.
Second attempt to get married
Remaining free for so long, Bunin decided to get married again. This time his choice fell on a Greek woman, the daughter of a wealthy emigrant A. N. Tsakni. But this marriage, like the last one, did not bring joy to the writer. After a year of married life, his wife left him. In their marriage they had a son. Little Kolya died very young, at the age of 5, from meningitis. Ivan Bunin was very upset about the loss of his only child. It happened that way future life the writer that he had no more children.
Mature years
The first book of stories entitled “To the End of the World” was published in 1897. Almost all critics assessed its content very positively. A year later, another collection of poems, “Under open air" It was these works that brought the writer popularity in Russian literature that time. Bunin's work was brief, but at the same time succinct, presented to the public, who highly appreciated and accepted the author's talent.
But Bunin’s prose really gained great popularity in 1900, when the story “Antonov Apples” was published. This work was created based on the writer’s memories of his rural childhood. For the first time, nature was vividly depicted in Bunin’s work. It was precisely the carefree time of childhood that awakened in him the most best feelings and memories. The reader plunges headlong into that beautiful early autumn, which beckons the prose writer, just at the time of collection Antonov apples. For Bunin, these, as he admitted, were the most precious and unforgettable memories. It was joy real life and carefree. And the disappearance of the unique smell of apples is, as it were, the extinction of everything that brought the writer a lot of pleasure.
Reproaches for noble origin
Many ambiguously assessed the meaning of the allegory “the smell of apples” in the work “Antonov Apples”, since this symbol was very closely intertwined with the symbol of the nobility, which, due to Bunin’s origin, was not at all alien to him. These facts became the reason that many of his contemporaries, for example M. Gorky, criticized Bunin’s work, saying that Antonov apples smell good, but they do not smell democratic at all. However, the same Gorky noted the elegance of literature in the work and Bunin’s talent.
It is interesting that for Bunin, reproaches about his noble origin meant nothing. Swagger or arrogance was alien to him. Many people at that time looked for subtexts in Bunin’s works, wanting to prove that the writer regretted the disappearance of serfdom and the leveling of the nobility as such. But Bunin pursued a completely different idea in his work. He was not sorry for the change of system, but sorry for the fact that all life is passing, and that we all once loved with our full hearts, but this is also becoming a thing of the past... He was sad that he no longer enjoyed its beauty .
The Wanderings of a Writer
Ivan Bunin was in the soul all his life. This was probably the reason that he did not stay anywhere for a long time, he loved to travel to different cities, where he often got ideas for his works.
Starting in October, he traveled with Kurovsky throughout Europe. Visited Germany, Switzerland, France. Literally 3 years later, with another friend of his - the playwright Naydenov - he was again in France and visited Italy. In 1904, becoming interested in the nature of the Caucasus, he decided to go there. The journey was not in vain. This trip, many years later, inspired Bunin to write a whole series of stories, “The Shadow of a Bird,” which are associated with the Caucasus. The world saw these stories in 1907-1911, and much later the 1925 story “Many Waters” appeared, also inspired by the wondrous nature of this region.
At this time, nature is most clearly reflected in Bunin’s work. This was another facet of the writer’s talent - travel essays.
"Whoever finds your love, keep it..."
Life brought Ivan Bunin together with many people. Some passed and died, others stayed for a long time. An example of this was Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva. Bunin met her in November 1906, at a friend’s house. Smart and educated in many fields, the woman really was his best friend, and even after the writer’s death she prepared his manuscripts for publication. She wrote the book “The Life of Bunin”, in which she placed the most important and Interesting Facts from the life of a writer. He told her more than once: “I wouldn’t have written anything without you. I would have disappeared!
Here love and creativity in Bunin’s life find each other again. Probably, it was at that moment that Bunin realized that he had found the one he was looking for long years. He found his beloved in this woman, a person who would always support him in Hard time, a comrade who will not betray. Since Muromtseva became his life partner, the writer has new strength he wanted to create and compose something new, interesting, crazy, it gave him vitality. It was at that moment that the traveler in him woke up again, and since 1907 Bunin traveled half of Asia and Africa.
World recognition
In the period from 1907 to 1912, Bunin did not stop creating. And in 1909 he was awarded the second Pushkin Prize for his “Poems 1903-1906”. Here we remember the man in Bunin’s work and the essence of human actions, which the writer tried to understand. Also noted were many translations, which he did no less brilliantly than he composed new works.
On November 9, 1933, an event occurred that became the pinnacle of the writer’s writing activity. He received a letter informing him that Bunin had been awarded the Nobel Prize. Ivan Bunin is the first Russian writer to be awarded this high award and bonuses. His creativity reached its peak - he gained worldwide fame. From then on, he began to be recognized as the best of the best in his field. But Bunin did not stop his activities and, as indeed famous writer, worked with redoubled energy.
The theme of nature in Bunin’s work continues to occupy one of the main places. The writer also writes a lot about love. This became a reason for critics to compare the works of Kuprin and Bunin. Indeed, there are many similarities in their works. They are written in simple and sincere language, full of lyricism, ease and naturalness. The characters' characters are written very subtly (with psychological point vision.) There is a degree of sensuality here, a lot of humanity and naturalness.
A comparison of the works of Kuprin and Bunin gives rise to highlight such common features their works, such as the tragic fate of the main character, the assertion that for any happiness there will be retribution, the exaltation of love over all other human feelings. Both writers, through their work, argue that the meaning of life is love, and that a person endowed with the talent to love is worthy of worship.
Conclusion
The life of the great writer was interrupted on November 8, 1953 in Paris, where he and his wife emigrated after starting in the USSR. He is buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.
It is simply impossible to briefly describe Bunin's work. He created a lot during his life, and each of his works is worthy of attention.
It is difficult to overestimate his contribution not only to Russian literature, but also to world literature. His works are popular in our time among both young people and the older generation. This is truly the kind of literature that has no age and is always relevant and touching. And now Ivan Bunin is popular. The biography and work of the writer arouse interest and sincere veneration among many.
The main themes in the works of Ivan Alekseevich Bunin - eternal themes: nature, love, death
Bunin belongs to the last generation of writers from noble estate, which is closely related to the nature of the central zone of Russia. “Few people can know and love nature like Ivan Bunin can,” wrote Alexander Blok in 1907. No wonder Pushkin Prize in 1903 it was awarded to Bunin for his collection of poems “Falling Leaves,” glorifying Russian rural nature. In his poems, the poet connected the sadness of the Russian landscape with Russian life into one inseparable whole. “Against the background of a golden iconostasis, in the fire of falling leaves, gilded by sunset, stands an abandoned estate.” Autumn - the “quiet widow” - is in unusual harmony with empty estates and abandoned farmsteads. “The native silence torments me, the nests of my native desolation torment me.” Bunin’s stories, which are similar to poetry, are also imbued with this sad poetry of withering, dying, desolation. Here is the beginning of his famous story “Antonov Apples”: “I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn flowers.” freshness..." And this smell of Antonov apples accompanies him in all his wanderings and in the capitals of the world as a memory of his Motherland: "But in the evenings,” writes Bunin, “I read old poets, relatives to me in everyday life and in many of my moods, finally ", simply by location - central Russia. And the drawers of my table are full of Antonov apples, and the healthy autumn aroma transports me to the village, to the landowners' estates."
Along with the degeneration of the noble nests, the village is also degenerating. In the story "The Village" he describes the courtyard of a rich peasant family and sees “darkness and dirt” - both in the physical, and in the mental, and in moral life". Bunin writes: "The old man is lying there, dying. He is still alive - and already in Sentsy the coffin has been prepared, pies are already being baked for the funeral. And suddenly the old man gets better. Where was the coffin to go? How to justify spending? Lukyan was then cursed for five years for them, lived with reproaches from the world, and starved to death." And here is how Bunin describes the level of political consciousness of the peasants:
Do you know why the court came?
Judge the deputy... They say he wanted to poison the river.
Deputy? Fool, is this really what deputies do?
And the plague knows them...
Bunin’s point of view on the people is polemically pointed against those lovers of the people who idealized the people and flattered them. The dying Russian village is framed by a dull Russian landscape: “White grain rushed askance, falling on a black, poor village, on bumpy, dirty roads, on horse manure, ice and water; the twilight fog hid endless fields, all this great desert with its snows, forests, villages and cities - the kingdom of hunger and death..."
The theme of death will receive varied coverage in Bunin’s work. This is both the death of Russia and the death of an individual. Death turns out to be not only the resolver of all contradictions, but also the source of absolute, purifying power (“Transfiguration”, “Mitya’s Love”).
Bunin’s story “The Gentleman from San Francisco” was understood more deeply by Alexander Tvardovsky: “In the face of love and death, according to Bunin, the social, class, and property lines that separate people are erased by themselves - everyone is equal before them.” Averky from “The Thin Grass” dies in the corner of his poor hut: a nameless gentleman from San Francisco dies having just gotten ready to have a good lunch in the restaurant of a first-class hotel on the warm sea coast. But death is equally terrible in its inevitability. By the way, when this most famous of Bunin's stories is interpreted only in the sense of exposure capitalism and the symbolic harbinger of its death, then they seem to lose sight of the fact that for the author the idea of exposure and a millionaire is much more important common end, about the insignificance and ephemerality of his power in the face of the same mortal outcome for everyone."
Death, as it were, allows one to see a person’s life in its true light. Before physical death, the gentleman from San Francisco suffered spiritual death.
“Until the age of 58, his life was devoted to accumulation. Having become a millionaire, he wants to get all the pleasures that money can buy: ... he thought of holding the carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at this time the most selective society flocks, where Some enthusiastically indulge in car and sailing races, others in roulette, others in what is commonly called flirting, and still others in shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from cages over the emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately knock their white lumps on earth...1 - this is not life, it is a form of life, devoid of internal content. The consumer society has eradicated from itself all the human ability for Sympathy, condolences. The death of the gentleman from San Francisco is perceived with displeasure. After all, “the evening was irreparably ruined,” the owner the hotel feels guilty, gives his word that he will take “all measures in his power" to eliminate the trouble. Money decides everything: guests want to have fun for their money, the owner does not want to lose profit, this explains the disrespect for death, which means moral decline of society, dehumanization in its extreme manifestation.
The deadness of bourgeois society is symbolized by “a thin and flexible pair of hired lovers: a sinfully modest girl with drooping eyelashes, with an innocent hairstyle, and a tall young man with black hair, as if glued on, pale with powder, in the most elegant patent leather shoes, in narrow, long coattails, tailcoat - a handsome man, looking like a huge leech." And no one knew how tired this couple was of pretending to be in love. And what stands underneath them, at the bottom of the dark hold. No one thinks about the futility of life in the face of death.
Many of I. A. Bunin’s works and the entire cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” are devoted to the theme of love. “All the stories in this book are only about love, about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys,” Bunin wrote in one of his letters. Bunin himself considered this book the most perfect in craftsmanship. Bunin sang not platonic, but sensual love, surrounded by a romantic aura. Love, in Bunin’s understanding, is contraindicated in everyday life, any duration, even in a desired marriage; it is an insight, a “sunstroke”, often leading to death. He describes love in all its states, where it barely dawns and will never come true ("Old Port"), and where it languishes unrecognized ("Ida"), and where it turns into passion ("The Killer"). Love captures all thoughts, all spiritual and physical potentials of a person - but this state cannot last long. So that love does not fizzle out, does not exhaust itself, it is necessary to part - and forever. If the heroes themselves do not do this, then rock, fate intervenes in their lives: one of the lovers dies. The story "Mitya's Love" ends with the hero's suicide. Death here is interpreted as the only possibility of liberation from love.
Similar abstracts:
The main personality trait of I. Bunin and his artistic gift cannot, perhaps, be called anything other than a heightened sense of the world, the subtlest and with the keenest feeling life. Bunin had some kind of original love for the land.
In many of his works, I. A. Bunin strives for broad artistic generalizations. He analyzes the universal human essence of love and discusses the mystery of life and death.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin - writer of fine psychological characteristics who knows how to sculpt a character in detail or environment. With a simple plot, one is struck by the wealth of thoughts, images and symbolism that are inherent in the artist.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is one of the largest representatives of critical realism of the twentieth century. He entered literature at the end of the last century, during the difficult and difficult years of the social and spiritual crisis of Russian society.
Analysis lyric poem"Evening".
The story “The Village,” published in 1910, caused great controversy and was the beginning of Bunin’s enormous popularity.
Bunin's works are very rich various forms allegorical expressiveness. The writer uses symbolism everywhere: both in the titles of the stories and in their plots.
Bunin belongs to the last generation of writers from a noble estate, which is closely connected with the nature of central Russia. “Few people can know and love nature as I. A. Bunin can,” wrote Alexander Blok in 1907.
The story takes place on a large passenger ship traveling from America to Europe. And during this journey main character story, an elderly gentleman from San Francisco dies. It would seem like an ordinary thing, nothing special. What attracted the author to this story?
Bunin’s story “Mr. from San Francisco” has a highly social orientation, but the meaning of these stories is not limited to criticism of capitalism and colonialism.
Only in the mid-50s in the Soviet state was the first (very incomplete) collected works of I. A. Bunin published in five volumes. In the mid-60s, a collection was published in nine volumes. Several monographs, collective collections, the 84th volume of “Literary Heritage” (1973), and dozens of dissertations are dedicated to I. A. Bunin. IN last years introduced into scientific circulation new archival materials. At conferences dedicated to Bunin's work, problems that previously did not stop attention are increasingly discussed. Bunin is correlated with A. Chekhov, L. Tolstoy, M. Gorky. Not always successful. Thus, fair objections were raised by V. Linkov’s book “The World and Man in the Works of L. Tolstoy and I. Bunin” (Moscow, 1990), where the author contrasts Bunin with L. Tolstoy and, more broadly, Russian classical realism. Even more serious claims were made by S. Sheshunova (“Questions of Literature”, 1993, No. 4) against V. Lavrov’s book “Cold Autumn. Ivan Bunin in exile" (Moscow, 1989), an extremely simplified fictional narrative about Bunin, distorting his relationships with emigrant writers. And here is the book by Yu. Maltsev “Ivan Bunin. 1870-1953,” written abroad and published in Moscow in 1994, is very interesting.
We will try to identify the features of Bunin the artist in the formulation of the problems that became the main ones for him: love and death, man in the natural world, the originality of the Russian national character.
Many researchers of Bunin's work noted how characteristic feature his poetics are the interweaving of the light and dark sides of life, internal and external causes in explaining situations and phenomena, the connection of socio-historical events with everyday life. The contradictions of reality were combined with the inconsistency of Bunin’s assessments of people’s behavior, with the ambiguity of his attitude towards the people.
The theme of the village occupied a significant place in Bunin’s work. In works on this topic, the writer emphasized the moments of spiritual awakening of his heroes. Some of his characters are talkative, others are silent and withdrawn. Most often, their attempts to understand themselves are unsuccessful; the questions and doubts they have do not receive an answer. And the questions themselves are sometimes only imaginary. The old man expresses his bewilderment in the story “Cuckoo” (1898): “It’s true, even without me a lot of people will be left, but even then, I have to say: I have a reason to disappear for. It’s also not for nothing that I was destined to be born on White light" Outwardly, the unremarkable Sverchok (“Cricket”, 1911) justifies the need for a goal in life in his own way: “I’ve been like this since time immemorial, it’s unknown where my soul is held, but I kept dragging on, living and would have lived just as long if there was a reason for it.” " Bunin not only states the underdevelopment and limitations of men, but also their active reluctance to live meaningfully. Let us remember the hero of the story “The Cheerful Yard” (1911), his “dumb irritation.”
However, more often than not, Bunin observes in people from among the people, albeit failed, but persistent attempts of the heroes to realize themselves, to overcome the feeling of loneliness. It seems that the meaning of the story about the absurd “exploits” of Zakhar Vorobyov cannot be reduced only to a senseless waste of mental strength. It is no coincidence that he “with all his being wanted to do something out of the ordinary.”<...>he himself felt that he belonged to some other breed than other people.” The final touch at the end of the story is also significant - the hero’s willingness to take the blame for his own death.
None of the heroes depicted by Bunin, no matter what typical, root features are present in him, seems to the writer to be the main one, claiming a central position. If Zakhar Vorobyov was always striving for something extraordinary, then the character in the story “Care” (1913) with sincere “gratitude to God” said that during his long life (“I’ve been living for about ten years now”) there was nothing interesting in it. And - again - not the author, but the character himself testifies to this.
In an effort to understand their own lives, Bunin’s men also rise to an understanding of social inequality. The writer discovers not silent submission, but recognition of the irregularity and unrighteousness of social orders in his heroes.
So far we have been talking about Bunin's stories from 1890-1910. The writer's observations of folk characters are demonstrated with more special force in his stories.
Usually, in works about Bunin, the Krasov brothers from the story “The Village” (1911) are interpreted as exponents of different types of national character - one is a kulak, the other is a truth-seeker. Having achieved wealth, Tikhon “even now often called his life hard labor, a noose, a golden cage.” Sad conclusions did not exclude self-respect: “It means there was a head on his shoulders, if from a poor boy who barely knew how to read, it was not Tishka who came out, but Tikhon Ilyich...” The author brings Tikhon to the realization of how lonely he is, how little he knows even about his wife, how little he thought about his own life. In a different vein, but just as self-critically, Kuzma thinks about himself: “Russian, brother, music: living like a pig is bad, but still I live and will live like a pig.” His life is undoubtedly more spiritual, but when summing up, he admits defeat. From time to time Kuzma turned to himself with questions: “For whom and for what does this thin tradesman, already gray from hunger and strict thoughts, live in the world?<...>What should we do next? He is not ready to put an end to it: “...I still wanted to live - to live, to wait for spring.” The closer to the end, the sadder the hero’s thoughts. Comparing his fate with the life of his brother, Kuzma equates himself with him: “Our song with you is sung. And no candles will save us.”
In progress artistic research characters, Bunin tests the readiness (or unreadiness) of the heroes to at least partially implement their thoughts in practice. Perhaps this is most clearly manifested in situations when a dependent person suddenly turns out to be disrespectful, rude, and allows himself to be insolent to his masters, those on whom his piece of bread depends. Let us remember the old worker Tikhon (“I hear from trynda,” he answers a rude shout). With irony, the author writes about Gray, who expects life changes from the Duma. The much more developed Kuzma forces himself to draw a parallel between himself and Gray: “Oh, after all, he, like Gray, is poor, weak-willed, all his life he has been waiting for some happy days for work".
Bunin analyzes the self-awareness of the people both in novels and short stories. The writer notes not just bitterness, but conscious hatred of the masters, ready to result in cruel reprisals and even brutal murder (“Night Conversation”, 1911; “Fairy Tale”, 1913).
In the structure of the works, the role of characters is significant, trying to understand the interests of the people, to understand the essence of the peasant character. In their perception of peasant life, these intellectual heroes show at least naivety, talking about tempting beautiful fate peasant (“Antonov apples”, 1900; “Meliton”, 1901). In the narrator's memoirs, these ideas are not corrected, but are emphatically related to the past, the immature view of youth.
Clear confrontation between different characters social groups in Bunin’s works, it is realized primarily by the peasants, while the intellectual heroes, like Tolstoy’s, are ready to show sincere interest in the fate of the people. Let us remember how in the story “Dreams” (1903) the men did not want to come to terms with even the silent presence of an outside listener - “it is not the master’s business to listen to the peasant’s fables.” A similar situation is developed in more detail in “Night Conversation” (1911), where the writer makes it clear what the “hobbies” of the peasant life of a dropout high school student are worth. The author only slightly comments (“as he thought,” “he would have thought all his life”) of the hero’s judgments, doubting their truth. The main part of the story is a dialogue between peasants, in which memories of reprisals against landowners and murders that so frightened and discouraged the high school student are heard.
Revealing the concept folk character in Bunin’s works, we draw attention to the fact that the author’s attitude is revealed in descriptions of the situation, brief landscape sketches, expressive emotional details. For example, the story about Tikhon Krasov is constantly accompanied by remarks about dirt throughout Durnovka and on the road. The symbolically gloomy sky, rain, and pre-storm atmosphere in the story about Kuzma Krasov are perceived in the same way. At the same time, the story about the life of the village residents with all its disorder is told by the writer in an emphatically calm tone, not revealing even a shadow of empathy, even if we are talking about the extreme degree of impoverishment, the tragedy of loneliness. The more dispassionate the narrative sounds about the heroes’ confrontation with life’s adversities, the silent “carrying of their cross,” the brighter their mental fortitude. In some cases, the reader guesses the author's attitude in the ironic intonation, in revealing the obvious meaninglessness of the character's behavior.
When identifying diverse types of national character, the principle of an in-depth comparison of characters by their behavior and everyday life, by their health, and by their reaction to life’s adversities is interesting. Comparisons are made between people who are close in family relationships, but distant in their spiritual disposition. These comparisons are not intended to reveal similarities and differences, but rather reveal human individuality more deeply and create a feeling of the impossibility of reducing characters to common denominator, explain them only by the influence of the environment and circumstances.
Many of Bunin’s works end (or begin) with the death of the hero. Moreover, death is not the price to pay for happiness. In some cases, she emphasizes the strength and unusualness of the happy moments of life (“Natalie”, 1941). In others, it marks the fragility of happiness and life in general (“Mr. from San Francisco,” 1915). Thirdly, the very perception of the hero’s death by the narrator (“Pines”, 1901) is important.
“Mr. from San Francisco” is one of Bunin’s darkest stories. There is no love in it, no poetry. Cold analysis exposes the situation. The gentleman has worked all his life, and now he is finally ready to live and enjoy. But now death overtakes him. Happiness bought with money is illusory. The writer makes no attempt to show psychological condition master, his thoughts, feelings. Yu. Maltsev in his book, using this story as an example, compares the depiction of death by Bunin and Tolstoy. In “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Tolstoy gives his hero the opportunity to realize his life himself, to understand that he lived “wrong,” and to defeat death with consciousness and a new feeling. Bunin's hero death comes suddenly, there is no process of dying and awareness. You cannot come to terms with death.
The motive of the impossibility of reconciliation with death human mind Bunin switches to comprehending the intuitive perception of life. The focus on intuition apparently also determined the choice of the central character in the story “Chang's Dreams” (1916). Life position The captain is given in a reflected, but accurately reproduced formula of two opposing ideas about the modern world: “life is unspeakably beautiful and life is conceivable only for crazy people.” At the end of the story, the antinomy is removed by the third version of the truth, which was revealed to Chang himself after the death of the captain: “In this world there should be only one truth, the third, and what it is is known to the last Master, to whom Chang should soon return.” . Throughout the entire story, Bunin maintains the perspective - images through the dreams of the “old drunkard” Chang. What is inaccessible to a person preoccupied with earthly problems is felt by a dog. The third truth is the truth independent of man God's peace, nature, where life and suffering, life and death, life and love are inseparable.
Analyzing Bunin's prose, Yu. Maltsev pays a lot of attention to the category of memory. Memory connects the “dream of life” and “reality”, life and awareness of life, distant and close. All of Bunin’s works created in exile breathe with the memory of Russia. The theme of Russia cannot be considered in his work as “one of...” Russia, Russian nature, Russian people are the core big world, his world, carried away with him, in himself.
Some critics in the late 80s wrote about the book “Cursed Days” only as a reflection of the author’s hatred of the Bolshevik government. The assessment of “Cursed Days” in the work of Voronezh researcher V. Akatkin (“Philological Notes”, 1993, No. 1) is much more convincing. He draws attention to the etymology of the title, interpreting, according to Dahl, “damnation” as an unworthy life “in sin.”
During the period of emigration, Bunin wrote “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1939) and a book of stories “ Dark alleys"(1937-1944). main topic“Dark Alleys” - love. Love, according to Bunin, is the greatest happiness and inevitable suffering. In any case, this is a “gift of the gods.” Analyzing this book in detail, Yu. Maltsev traces with many examples how the author’s presence is manifested in the stories, what is unique about Bunin’s view on issues of gender. For Bunin, as for V. Rozanov, according to Yu. Maltsev, sex is devoid of sin. Bunin does not divide love into carnal and spiritual; for him, carnal love becomes spiritualized in its own way.
Many of the stories in “Dark Alleys” begin with the hero’s intuitive premonition of happiness. Each situation here is unique and at the same time recognizable to the reader from his own experience.
One of wonderful works Bunina emigrant period— “The Liberation of Tolstoy” (1937). Bunin argued with Lenin’s assessment, with those contemporaries to whom Tolstoy seemed “outdated.” Making sense of life path and Tolstoy’s “departure,” Bunin once again tested his own concept of life and death.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) is called “the last classic.” In his stories, novellas, and poems, Bunin shows the whole range of problems late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. The themes of his works are so diverse that they seem to be life itself.
The main theme of the early 1900s is the theme of Russia's fading patriarchal past. We see the most vivid expression of the problem of a change of system, the collapse of all the foundations of noble society in the story "Antonov apples". Bunin regrets Russia's fading past, idealizing the noble way of life. Best memories Bunin's stories about his former life are saturated with the smell of Antonov apples. He hopes that together with the dying noble Russia The roots of the nation will still remain in its memory.
In the mid-1910s, the themes and problems of Bunin's stories began to change. He moves away from the topic of Russia's patriarchal past to criticism of bourgeois reality. A striking example this period is his story "Mr. from San Francisco".
Bunin's collection “Dark Alleys” is entirely dedicated to love. Most of the stories were written during World War II in Grasse, France, amid the “dark, pleading wail of a siren” and the “very loud rumble and hum” of airplanes. According to V.N. Muromtseva, the writer’s wife, while working on a book about love, found it easier to “endure the unbearable.” Apparently, only by thinking about the eternal (namely, love is eternal), a person can worthily survive the transitory, even such a terrible transitory as war.
The theme of love is interpreted in different ways in Bunin’s stories, but in this interpretation, one can undoubtedly find common features. Thus, in the collection there is not a single story where the relationship between a girl and a young man ended in marriage. The writer depicts not ordinary earthly desires, not just the need to procreate, but a real miracle - that high feeling called love. In Bunin's love, as in life, there is always tragedy. After all, love is too strong a shock to last long. Maybe that's why the heroes of his stories break up or even die. But love remains in their hearts forever.
All works in the collection are united by the motif of memories of youth and homeland.
Story "Dark alleys", which gave the collection its title, was written, as Bunin himself admitted, “very easily, unexpectedly.”
The story of the relationship between Nadezhda and Nikolai Alekseevich, the heroes of the story “Dark Alleys,” is simple, like life itself. Thirty years later, people met who once loved each other very much. She is the owner of a “private room” at the post station, he is a “slender old military man” who stopped in the autumn bad weather to rest and have lunch. The owner of the warm and tidy room turned out to be Nadezhda, “a beautiful woman beyond her age,” dark-haired, “with dark fluff on her upper lip.” She found out ex-lover right away, she said that she didn’t get married because she loved him all her life, despite the fact that he “heartlessly” left her. I was never able to forgive. Nikolai Alekseevich married, as it seemed to him, for love, but he was not happy: his wife left him, cheating on the one who “loved her madly”, his son grew up to be a “scoundrel” and a “spendthrift”.
This, it seems, is the whole story, in which nothing can be corrected. And is it necessary to change anything? Does this make sense? Bunin does not give answers to such questions. We don’t know what happened in the former lives of our heroes. However, it seems that at that time Nikolai Alekseevich’s relationship with the beautiful serf Nadezhda seemed like a slight flirtation. Even now he is perplexed: “What nonsense! This same Nadezhda is not the innkeeper, but my wife, the mistress of my St. Petersburg house, the mother of my children?”
Nadezhda has nothing left in her life except memories of her first love, although she lives strong and “gives money in interest.” She is respected for her fairness, her straightforwardness, her intelligence.
Nikolai Alekseevich left, unable to cope with the surging feelings, remembering the magical poems that he once read to his beloved: “The scarlet rose hips were blooming all around, there were dark linden alleys...”.
This means that the mark on the soul remained quite deep, the memories did not recede. And who isn’t flattered to be the only one in life? The splinter in my heart is firmly lodged, now forever. How else? After all, it turned out that more love never happened. The chance is given only once. They needed to take advantage of it, perhaps by going through a break with family, misunderstanding and condemnation from friends, and perhaps even giving up their career. All this is within the capabilities of a real Man, capable of loving and protecting his Woman. For such a person there are no class differences; he does not accept the law of society as mandatory, but challenges it.
But our hero can neither understand nor appreciate his actions, so repentance does not occur. But love lives in the heart of Nadezhda, who does not stoop to reproaches, complaints, or threats. She is full of human dignity and grateful to fate, which gave her, at the end of her days, a meeting with the one whom she once called “Nikolenka,” to whom she gave “her beauty, her fever.”
True love demands nothing in return, asks for nothing. “Love is beautiful,” because only love can be answered with love...
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. 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 provided big influence on the formation of Bunin’s tastes and views.
Bunin began writing early. Wrote essays, sketches, poems. 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, in which there was room for both poetry and prose.
Outwardly, Bunin's poems looked traditional both in form and in theme: nature, joy of life, love, loneliness, sadness of loss and new rebirth. And yet, despite the imitation, there was some special intonation in Bunin’s poems. This became more noticeable with the release in 1901 poetry collection"Falling Leaves", enthusiastically received by both readers and critics.
Bunin wrote poetry until the end of his life, loving poetry with all his soul, admiring its musical structure and harmony. But already at the beginning creative path a prose writer became more and more clearly evident in him, and so strong and deep that Bunin’s first stories immediately earned recognition from the famous writers of that time: Chekhov, Gorky, Andreev, Kuprin.
In 1898, Bunin married a Greek woman, Anna Tsakni, having previously experienced a strong love and subsequent strong disappointment with Varvara Pashchenko. However, by Ivan Alekseevich’s own admission, he never loved Tsakni.
In the 1910s, Bunin traveled a lot, going abroad. He visits Leo Tolstoy, meets Chekhov, actively collaborates with the Gorky publishing house "Znanie", and meets the niece of the Chairman of the First Duma A.S. Muromtsev, Vera Muromtseva. And although Vera Nikolaevna actually became “Mrs. Bunina” already in 1906, they were able to officially register their marriage only in July 1922 in France. Only by this time did Bunin manage to obtain a divorce from Anna Tsakni.
Vera Nikolaevna was devoted to Ivan Alekseevich until the end of his life, becoming his faithful assistant in all matters. Possessing great spiritual strength, helping to steadfastly endure all the hardships and hardships of emigration, Vera Nikolaevna also had a great gift of patience and forgiveness, which was important when communicating with such a difficult and unpredictable person as Bunin was.
After the resounding success of his stories, the story "The Village" appeared in print, becoming immediately famous - Bunin's first major work. This is a bitter and very brave work, in which the half-crazed Russian reality with all its contrasts, precariousness, and broken destinies appeared before the reader. Bunin, perhaps one of the few Russian writers of that time, was not afraid to tell the unpleasant truth about the Russian village and the downtroddenness of the Russian peasant.
“The Village” and the “Sukhodol” that followed it determined Bunin’s attitude towards his heroes - the weak, the disadvantaged and the restless. But hence comes sympathy for them, pity, a desire to understand what is happening in the suffering Russian soul.
In parallel with the rural theme, the writer developed in his stories the lyrical theme, which had previously appeared in poetry. Appeared female characters, although barely outlined - the charming, airy Olya Meshcherskaya (story " Easy breath"), ingenuous Klasha Smirnova (story "Klasha"). Later female types with all their lyrical passion will appear in Bunin’s emigrant stories and stories - “Ida”, “Mitya’s Love”, “The Case of Cornet Elagin” and, of course, in his famous cycle “Dark Alleys”.
IN pre-revolutionary Russia Bunin, as they say, “rested on his laurels” - he was awarded the Pushkin Prize three times; in 1909 he was elected academician for the category belles lettres, becoming the youngest academician of the Russian Academy.
In 1920, Bunin and Vera Nikolaevna, who did not accept either the revolution or the Bolshevik power, emigrated from Russia, “having drunk the untold cup of mental suffering,” as Bunin later wrote in his biography. On March 28 they arrived in Paris.
TO literary creativity Ivan Alekseevich returned slowly. Longing for Russia and uncertainty about the future depressed him. Therefore, the first collection of stories, "Scream", published abroad, consisted only of stories written in Bunin's happiest time - in 1911-1912.
And yet the writer gradually overcame the feeling of oppression. In the story “The Rose of Jericho” there are such heartfelt words: “There is no separation and loss as long as my soul, my Love, Memory lives! I immerse the roots and stems of my past into the living water of the heart, into the pure moisture of love, sadness and tenderness... "
In the mid-1920s, the Bunins moved to the small resort town of Grasse in the south of France, where they settled in the Belvedere villa, and later settled in the Janet villa. This is where they were destined to live. most of your life, to survive the Second world war. In 1927, in Grasse, Bunin met the Russian poetess Galina Kuznetsova, who was vacationing there with her husband. Bunin was fascinated by the young woman, and she, in turn, was delighted with him (and Bunin knew how to charm women!). Their romance received wide publicity. The insulted husband left, Vera Nikolaevna suffered from jealousy. And here the incredible happened - Ivan Alekseevich managed to convince Vera Nikolaevna that his relationship with Galina was purely platonic, and they had nothing more than a relationship between a teacher and a student. Vera Nikolaevna, incredible as it may seem, believed. She believed it because she couldn’t imagine her life without Ian. As a result, Galina was invited to live with the Bunins and become “a member of the family.”
For almost fifteen years, Kuznetsova shared a common home with Bunin, playing the role of an adopted daughter and experiencing all the joys, troubles and hardships with them.
This love of Ivan Alekseevich was both happy and painfully difficult. She also turned out to be immensely dramatic. In 1942, Kuznetsova left Bunin, becoming interested in the opera singer Margot Stepun.
Ivan Alekseevich was shocked, he was depressed not only by the betrayal of his beloved woman, but also by whom she cheated with! “How she (G.) poisoned my life - she’s still poisoning me! 15 years! Weakness, lack of will...”, he wrote in his diary on April 18, 1942. This friendship between Galina and Margot was like a bleeding wound for Bunin for the rest of his life.
But despite all the adversities and endless hardships, Bunin’s prose gained new heights. The books “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, collections of stories “Sunstroke” and “Tree of God” were published abroad. And in 1930, the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev” was published - a fusion of memoirs, memoirs and lyrical-philosophical prose.
On November 10, 1933, newspapers in Paris came out with huge headlines “Bunin - Nobel laureate". For the first time since the existence of this prize, the award for literature was presented to a Russian writer. Bunin's all-Russian fame grew into worldwide fame.
Every Russian in Paris, even those who had not read a single line of Bunin, took this as a personal holiday. The Russian people experienced the sweetest of feelings - a noble sense of national pride.
Being awarded the Nobel Prize was a huge event for the writer himself. Recognition came, and with it (albeit for a very short period, the Bunins were extremely impractical) material security.
In 1937, Bunin finished the book “The Liberation of Tolstoy,” which, according to experts, became one of best books in all literature about Lev Nikolaevich. And in 1943, Dark Alleys was released in New York - the pinnacle lyrical prose writer, a true encyclopedia of love. In “Dark Alleys” you can find everything - sublime experiences, conflicting feelings, and violent passions. But what was closest to Bunin was pure, bright love, similar to the harmony of earth and sky. In “Dark Alleys” it is, as a rule, short, and sometimes instantaneous, but its light illuminates the hero’s entire life.
Some critics of that time accused Bunin's "Dark Alleys" of either pornography or senile voluptuousness. Ivan Alekseevich was offended by this: “I consider “Dark Alleys” the best thing I wrote, and they, idiots, think that I disgraced my gray hairs with them... The Pharisees do not understand that this is a new word, a new approach to life,” - he complained to I. Odoevtseva.
Until the end of his life he had to defend his favorite book from the “Pharisees.” In 1952, he wrote to 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 only gave a thousandth part of how men of all tribes and peoples “look” everywhere, always at women from their tenth birthday to the age of 90.”
The writer devoted the last years of his life to working on a book about Chekhov. Unfortunately, this work remained unfinished.
Your last diary entry Ivan Alekseevich made on May 2, 1953. “This is still amazing to the point of tetanus! In some, very short time, I will be gone - and the affairs and fate of everything, everything will be unknown to me!”
At two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin died quietly. The funeral service was solemn - in the Russian church on Daru Street in Paris with a large crowd of people. All newspapers - both Russian and French - published extensive obituaries.
And the funeral itself took place much later, on January 30, 1954 (before that, the ashes were in a temporary crypt). Ivan Alekseevich was buried in the Russian cemetery of Saint-Genevieve des Bois near Paris. Next to Bunin, after seven and a half years, his faithful and selfless life partner, Vera Nikolaevna Bunina, found her peace.
Ivan Alekseevich Bunin (1870-1953) is called “the last classic.” Bunin's reflections on the deep processes of life result in perfect art form, where the originality of the composition, images, details are subordinated to the author’s intense thought.
In his stories, novellas, and poems, Bunin shows us the whole range of problems of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The themes of his works are so diverse that they seem to be life itself. Let's trace how the themes and problems of Bunin's stories changed throughout his life.
- a) The main theme of the early 1900s was the theme of Russia’s fading patriarchal past. We see the most vivid expression of the problem of a change of system, the collapse of all the foundations of noble society in the story “Antonov Apples”. Bunin regrets Russia's fading past, idealizing the noble way of life. Bunin’s best memories of his former life are saturated with the smell of Antonov apples. He hopes that, together with the dying Russia of the nobility, the roots of the nation will still be preserved in its memory.
- b) In the mid-1910s, the themes and problems of Bunin's stories began to change. He moves away from the theme of Russia's patriarchal past to a critique of bourgeois reality. A striking example of this period is his story "The Master from San Francisco." With the smallest details, mentioning every detail, Bunin describes the luxury that is true life gentlemen of the new time. At the center of the work is the image of a millionaire who doesn’t even have his own name, since no one remembered it - and does he even need one? This collective image American bourgeois. “Until the age of 58, his life was devoted to accumulation. Having become a millionaire, he wants to get all the pleasures that money can buy: ... he thought of holding the carnival in Nice, in Monte Carlo, where at this time the most selective society flocks, where some enthusiastically indulge in automobile and sailing races, others roulette, others to what is commonly called flirting, and fourth to shooting pigeons, which soar very beautifully from cages over the emerald lawn, against the backdrop of a sea the color of forget-me-nots, and immediately hit the ground with white lumps...” - this is a life deprived internal content. The consumer society has erased everything human in itself, the ability for empathy and condolences. The death of the gentleman from San Francisco is perceived with displeasure, because “the evening was irreparably ruined,” the hotel owner feels guilty, and gives his word that he will take “all measures in his power” to eliminate the trouble. Money decides everything: guests want to have fun for their money, the owner does not want to lose profit, this explains the disrespect for death. Such is the moral decline of society, its inhumanity in its extreme manifestation.
- c) There are a lot of allegories, associations and symbols in this story. The ship "Atlantis" acts as a symbol of civilization; The gentleman himself is a symbol of the bourgeois well-being of a society where people eat deliciously, dress elegantly and do not care about the world around them. They are not interested in him. They live in society as if in a case, closed forever to people of another circle. The ship symbolizes this shell, the sea symbolizes the rest of the world, raging, but in no way touching the hero and others like him. And next to it, in the same shell, are the people who control the ship, working hard at the gigantic firebox, which the author calls the ninth circle of hell.
There are many biblical allegories in this story. The hold of a ship can be compared to the underworld. The author hints that the gentleman from San Francisco sold his soul for earthly goods and is now paying for it with death.
Symbolic in the story is the image of a huge, rock-like devil, who is a symbol of the impending catastrophe, a kind of warning to humanity. It is also symbolic in the story that after the death of the rich man, the fun continues, absolutely nothing has changed. The ship sails in the opposite direction, only with the body of the rich man in a soda box, and ballroom music thunders again “among the mad blizzard sweeping over the ocean that was buzzing like a funeral mass.”
d) It was important for the author to emphasize the idea of the insignificance of human power in the face of the same mortal outcome for everyone. It turned out that everything accumulated by the master has no meaning before that eternal law to which everyone, without exception, is subject. Obviously, the meaning of life is not in acquiring wealth, but in something else that cannot be assessed monetaryly or aesthetic wisdom. The theme of death receives varied coverage in Bunin’s work. This is both the death of Russia and the death of an individual. Death turns out to be not only the resolver of all contradictions, but also the source of absolute, purifying power (“Transfiguration”, “Mitya’s Love”).
Another of the main themes of the writer’s work is the theme of love. The cycle of stories “Dark Alleys” is devoted to this topic. Bunin considered this book the most perfect in artistic skill. “All the stories in this book are only about love, about its “dark” and most often very gloomy and cruel alleys,” wrote Bunin. The collection “Dark Alleys” is one of the last masterpieces of the great master.
In the literature of Russian diaspora, Bunin is a star of the first magnitude. After being awarded the Nobel Prize in 1933, Bunin became a symbol of Russian literature throughout the world.
