Where was Bunin born in what city? Ivan Bunin - biography, information, personal life

1. Personal life of Ivan Bunin
2. Interesting Facts

And van Bunin wrote that he did not belong to any literary school. He did not consider himself “neither a decadent, nor a symbolist, nor a romantic, nor a realist” - his work truly turned out to be beyond the Silver Age. Despite this, Bunin's works received worldwide recognition and became classics. “For the strict artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character in literary prose,” Bunin was the first of the Russian writers to receive the Nobel Prize.

Literary creativity of Ivan Bunin

Ivan Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh. Three and a half years later, the family moved to the Butyrka family estate in the Oryol province. Here, "in the deepest silence of the field", the boy became acquainted with folklore. During the day he worked with the peasants in the fields, and in the evenings he stayed with them to listen to folk tales and legends. Since the move, Bunin's creative path began. Here, at the age of eight, he composed his first poem, which was followed by essays and short stories. The young writer imitated in his style either Alexander Pushkin or Mikhail Lermontov.

In 1881, the Bunin family moved to the Ozerki estate - “a large and fairly prosperous village with three landowners’ estates, sunk in gardens, with several ponds and spacious pastures”. In the same year, Ivan Bunin entered the Yeletsk boys' gymnasium. The first impressions of life in the county town were bleak: “The transition from a completely free life, from the worries of my mother to life in the city, to the absurd strictures in the gymnasium and to the difficult life of those bourgeois and merchant houses where I had to live as a freeloader was also abrupt.”.

Bunin studied at the gymnasium for a little over four years: in the winter of 1886, after the holidays, he did not return to classes. At home he became even more interested in literature. In 1887, Bunin published his poems in the St. Petersburg newspaper “Rodina” - “Over the grave of S.Ya. Nadson" and "The Village Beggar", and a little later - the stories "Two Wanderers" and "Nefedka". In his work, he constantly turned to childhood memories.

In 1889, Ivan Bunin moved to Orel, in central Russia, “where the richest Russian language was formed and where almost all the greatest Russian writers, led by Turgenev and Tolstoy, came from”. Here the 18-year-old writer entered the service of the editorial office of the provincial newspaper “Orlovsky Vestnik”, where he worked as a proofreader and wrote theater reviews and articles. Bunin’s first collection of poetry, “Poems,” was published in Orel, in which the young poet reflected on philosophical topics and described Russian nature.

Ivan Bunin traveled a lot and taught foreign languages ​​during his trips abroad. So the writer began to translate poetry. Among the authors were the ancient Greek poet Alcaeus, Saadi, Francesco Petrarca, Adam Mickiewicz, George Byron, Henry Longfellow. At the same time, he continued to write himself: in 1898 he published the poetry collection “Under the Open Air”, three years later - a collection of poems “Falling Leaves”. For "Falling Leaves" and his translation of "The Song of Hiawatha" Henry Longfellow Bunin received the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences. However, in the poetic community, many considered the poet an “old-fashioned landscape painter.”

Being a true and major poet, he stands apart from the general movement in the field of Russian verse.<...>But on the other hand, he has an area in which he has reached the end points of perfection. This is the area of ​​​​pure painting, taken to the extreme limits that are accessible to the elements of the word.

Maximilian Voloshin

In 1905, the first Russian revolution broke out, and the country was engulfed in destructive peasant riots. The writer did not support what was happening. After the events of that time, Bunin wrote “a whole series of works that sharply depict the Russian soul, its peculiar interweavings, its light and dark, but almost always tragic foundations”.

Among them are the stories “Village” and “Sukhodol”, the stories “Strength”, “Good Life”, “Prince among Princes”, “Lapti”.

In 1909, the Academy of Sciences awarded Ivan Bunin the Pushkin Prize for the third volume of the Collected Works and translation of the mystery drama “Cain” by George Byron. Soon after this, the writer received the title of honorary academician in the category of fine literature, and in 1912 he became an honorary member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature.

Personal life of Ivan Bunin

Ivan Bunin's first love was Varvara Pashchenko. He met her at the editorial office of the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper. “Tall, with very beautiful features, wearing pince-nez,” At first, she seemed arrogant and overly emancipated to the young writer - but soon Bunin was already writing letters to his brother in which he described the intelligence and talents of his beloved. However, Varvara Pashchenko’s father did not allow her to officially marry Bunin, and she herself did not think about marrying the aspiring writer.

I love him very much and appreciate him as an intelligent and good person, but we will never have a peaceful family life. It’s better, no matter how hard it is, for us to separate now than in a year or six months.<...>All this inexpressibly depresses me, I lose both energy and strength.<...>He constantly says that I belong to a vulgar environment, that I have ingrained bad tastes and habits - and this is all true, but again it’s strange to demand that I throw them away like old gloves... If you knew how I do this everything is hard!

From a letter from Varvara Pashchenko to Yuli Bunin, brother of Ivan Bunin

In 1894, Varvara Pashchenko left Ivan Bunin and married a wealthy landowner Arseny Bibikov, a friend of Bunin. The writer was very worried - his older brothers even feared for his life. Ivan Bunin later reflected the torment of his first love in the last part of the novel “The Life of Arsenyev” - “Lika”.

The writer's first official wife was Anna Tsakni. Bunin proposed to her a few days after they met. In 1899 they got married. Tsakni was 19 years old at that time, and Bunin was 27. However, some time passed after the wedding, and family life went wrong. Tsakni blamed her husband for callousness, he blamed her for frivolity.

It is impossible to say that she is a complete fool, but her nature is childishly stupid and self-confident - this is the fruit of my long and most impartial observations. She doesn’t even put a single word of mine, not a single opinion of mine about anything. She... is as undeveloped as a puppy, I repeat to you. And therefore there is no hope that I can develop her poor head at least in any way, no hope for other interests.

From a letter from Ivan Bunin to his brother Yuli Bunin

In 1900, Ivan Bunin left Anna Tsakni, who was pregnant at that time. A few years after the birth, the writer’s child became seriously ill and died. Ivan Bunin had no more children.

The second and last wife of Ivan Bunin was Vera Muromtseva. The writer met her in 1906 at a literary evening. They spent almost every day together, went to exhibitions and literary readings. A year later they began to live together, but they could not legitimize their relationship: Anna Tsakni did not give Bunin a divorce.

Ivan Bunin and Vera Muromtseva got married only in 1922, in Paris. They lived together for almost half a century. Vera Muromtseva became Bunin's devoted friend for life; together they went through all the hardships of emigration and war.

Life in exile and the Nobel Prize

Bunin perceived the October Revolution and Civil War as a catastrophe in the life of the country and his compatriots. From Petrograd he moved first to Moscow, then to Odessa. At the same time, he kept a diary in which he wrote a lot about the destructive power of the Russian revolution and the power of the Bolsheviks. Later, a book with these memories was published abroad under the title “Cursed Days.”

“Having drunk the cup of unspeakable mental suffering,” at the beginning of 1920, Bunin left Russia. Together with his wife, he sailed on a Greek ship from Odessa to Constantinople, and from there, through Sofia and Belgrade, to Paris. At that time, Russian emigrant journalists and exiled writers lived in the French capital, so it was often called the “district of Russian literature.”

Everything that remained in the USSR seemed alien and hostile to the writer. Abroad, he began to conduct social and political activities and soon became one of the main figures of the emigrant opposition. In 1920, Bunin became a member of the Parisian Union of Russian Writers and Journalists, wrote to the political and literary newspaper “Vozrozhdenie” and called for a fight against Bolshevism. At home, the writer was nicknamed a White Guard for his anti-Soviet position.

Abroad, Bunin began to publish collections of his pre-revolutionary works. These books were received warmly by European critics.

Bunin is a real Russian talent, bleeding, uneven and at the same time courageous and big. His book contains several stories that are worthy of Dostoevsky in power.

French monthly magazine of art and literature La Nervie, December 1921

During the years of emigration, Bunin worked a lot, his books were published almost every year. He wrote the stories “Rose of Jericho”, “Mitya’s Love”, “Sunstroke”, “Tree of God”. In his works, Bunin sought to combine poetic and prosaic language, so figurative background details occupied an important place in them. For example, in “Sunstroke” the author picturesquely described the white-hot Volga landscape.

In 1933, Ivan Bunin completed the most significant work of his foreign period of creativity - the novel “The Life of Arsenyev”. It was for this that in the same year Bunin was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The author's name became world famous, but his glory was overshadowed by the fact that in Soviet Russia this achievement was kept silent and his works were not published.

The funds received from the Swedish Academy did not make Bunin rich. He gave a significant part of the prize to those in need.

As soon as I received the bonus, I had to give away about 120,000 francs. Yes, I don’t know how to handle money at all. Now this is especially difficult. Do you know how many letters I received asking for help? In the shortest possible time, up to 2000 such letters arrived.

Ivan Bunin

The last years of life and death of Bunin

The Second World War found the Bunins in the French city of Grasse. By that time, the money from the Nobel Prize had run out, and the family had to live from hand to mouth.

My fingers are cracked from the cold, I can’t swim, I can’t wash my feet, sickening white turnip soups. I was “rich” - now, by the will of fate, I suddenly became poor, like Job. I was “famous all over the world” - now no one in the world needs me - the world has no time for me!

Ivan Bunin

Meanwhile, Bunin continued to work. The 74-year-old writer noted in his diary: “Lord, extend my strength for my lonely, poor life in this beauty and work!” In 1944, he completed the collection “Dark Alleys,” which included 38 stories. Among them are “Clean Monday”, “Ballad”, “Muse”, “Business Cards”. Later, nine years later, he supplemented the collection with two more stories, “In the Spring, in Judea” and “Overnight.” The author himself considered the story “Dark Alleys” to be his best work.

The war reconciled the writer with the Bolshevik regime that he hated. Everything faded into the background, and the homeland came first. Bunin bought a map of the world and marked on it the course of military operations, which he read about in the newspapers. He celebrated the defeat of Hitler's army at Stalingrad as a personal victory, and during the days of the Tehran Conference, surprising himself, he wrote in his diary: “No, just think about what it’s come to - Stalin is flying to Persia, and I’m trembling, so that God forbid, something happens to him on the road.”. At the end of the war, the writer often thought about returning to his homeland.

In May 1945, the Bunins arrived in Paris, where they celebrated the day of victory over Nazi Germany. Here in 1946 they learned about their restoration to USSR citizenship and even wanted to return. In a letter to prose writer Mark Aldanov, Bunin wrote: “But here, too, a miserable, painful, anxious existence awaits us. So, after all, there is only one thing left to do: go home. As you can hear, this is what they really want and promise mountains of gold in every sense. But how to decide on this? I'll wait and think...” But after the Decree “On the magazines “Zvezda” and “Leningrad” of 1946, in which the USSR Central Committee criticized the work of Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, the writer changed his mind about returning.

Ivan Bunin died in Paris on November 8, 1953. The writer was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

1. In his youth, Ivan Bunin was a Tolstoyan. He dreamed “about a clean, healthy, “good” life among nature, by one’s own labors, in simple clothes”. The writer visited the settlements of followers of the Russian classic near Poltava. In 1894 he met Leo Tolstoy himself. This meeting had an effect on Bunin "amazing experience". Tolstoy advised the young writer not to “say goodbye,” but to always act according to his conscience: “Do you want to live a simple, working life? This is good, just don’t force yourself, don’t make a uniform out of it, you can be a good person in any life.”.

2. Bunin loved to travel. He traveled throughout the south of Russia, was in many eastern countries, knew Europe well, traveled through Ceylon and Africa. On his trips “he was interested in psychological, religious, historical questions,” he “strove to survey the faces of the world and leave in it the stamp of his soul”. Bunin created some of his works under the influence of travel impressions. For example, while traveling by boat from Italy, he came up with the idea for the story “Mr. from San Francisco,” and after a trip to Ceylon, he composed the story “Brothers.”

3. Bunin was outraged by urban writers who spoke about the countryside in their works. Many of them had never been to the countryside and did not understand what they were writing about.

One famous poet... said in his poems that he walked, “disassembling ears of millet,” while such a plant does not exist in nature: millet, as we know, exists, the grain of which is millet, and the ears (more precisely, panicles) grow so low that it is impossible to disassemble them by hand while moving; another (Balmont) compared the harrier, an evening bird of the owl breed, gray-haired, mysteriously quiet, slow and completely silent when flying, with passion (“and the passion went away like a flying harrier”), admired the flowering of the plantain (“the plantain is all in bloom!”), although the plantain, growing on field roads with small green leaves, never blooms.

Ivan Bunin

4. In 1918, a decree “On the introduction of a new spelling” was issued, which changed the spelling rules and excluded several letters from the Russian alphabet. Bunin did not accept this reform and continued to write in accordance with the old spelling. He insisted that Dark Alleys be published according to pre-revolutionary rules, but the publisher released the book according to new ones and confronted the author with a fait accompli. The writer even refused to publish his books in the new spelling by the American publishing house named after Chekhov.

5. Ivan Bunin was very sensitive to his appearance. Writer Nina Berberova in her autobiography recalled how Bunin argued that he was more handsome than Alexander Blok. And Vladimir Nabokov noted that Bunin was very worried about age-related changes: “When I met him, he was painfully preoccupied with his own aging. From the very first words we said to each other, he noted with pleasure that he stood straighter than me, although he was thirty years older.”.

6. Ivan Bunin had a least favorite letter - “f”. He tried to use it as little as possible, so in his books there were almost no heroes whose names included this letter. Literary chronicler Alexander Bakhrakh recalled Bunin telling him: “You know, they almost named me Philip. What could have happened - “Philip Bunin”. How vile it sounds! I probably wouldn’t even publish.”.

7. In the USSR, the first five-volume Collected Works of Bunin, shortened and cleared by censorship, after the revolution, was published only in 1956. It did not include “Cursed Days,” letters and diaries of the writer - this journalism was the main reason for the silencing of the author’s work in his homeland. It was only during perestroika that the author’s banned works were published in full.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 10 (22), 1870 in Voronezh into an old impoverished noble family. The future writer spent his childhood on the family estate - on the Butyrki farm in the Yelets district of the Oryol province, where the Bunins moved in 1874. In 1881 he was enrolled in the first grade of the Yelets gymnasium, but did not complete the course, expelled in 1886 for failure to appear from vacation and non-payment of tuition. Return from Yelets I.A. Bunin had to move to a new place - to the Ozerki estate in the same Yeletsky district, where the whole family moved in the spring of 1883, fleeing ruin from the sale of land in Butyrki. He received further education at home under the guidance of his older brother Yuli Alekseevich Bunin (1857-1921), an exiled populist from the Black Revolution, who forever remained one of the closest to I.A. Bunin people.

At the end of 1886 - beginning of 1887. wrote the novel “Hobbies” - the first part of the poem “Peter Rogachev” (not published), but made his debut in print with the poem “Over the Grave of Nadson”, published in the newspaper “Rodina” on February 22, 1887. Within a year, in the same “Rodina” appeared and other poems by Bunin - “The Village Beggar” (May 17), etc., as well as the stories “Two Wanderers” (September 28) and “Nefedka” (December 20).

At the beginning of 1889, the young writer left his parents' home and began an independent life. At first, following his brother Julius, he went to Kharkov, but in the fall of the same year he accepted an offer to collaborate in the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper and settled in Orel. In the “Bulletin” I.A. Bunin “was everything he had to be - a proofreader, an editorial writer, and a theater critic”; he lived exclusively by literary work, barely making ends meet. In 1891, Bunin’s first book, “Poems of 1887-1891,” was published as a supplement to the Orlovsky Messenger. The first strong and painful feeling dates back to the Oryol period - love for Varvara Vladimirovna Pashchenko, who agreed at the end of the summer of 1892 to move with I.A. Bunin to Poltava, where at that time Yuliy Bunin served in the zemstvo city government. The young couple also got a job in the government, and the newspaper Poltava Provincial Gazette published numerous essays by Bunin, written at the request of the zemstvo.

Literary day labor oppressed the writer, whose poems and stories in 1892-1894. have already begun to appear on the pages of such reputable metropolitan magazines as “Russian Wealth”, “Northern Messenger”, “Bulletin of Europe”. At the beginning of 1895, after a break with V.V. Pashchenko, he leaves the service and leaves for St. Petersburg, and then to Moscow.

In 1896, Bunin’s translation into Russian of G. Longfellow’s poem “The Song of Hiawatha” was published as an appendix to the Orlovsky Messenger, which revealed the undoubted talent of the translator and has remained unsurpassed to this day in its fidelity to the original and the beauty of the verse. In 1897, the collection “To the End of the World and Other Stories” was published in St. Petersburg, and in 1898, a book of poems “Under the Open Air” was published in Moscow. In Bunin’s spiritual biography, the rapprochement during these years with the participants in the “environments” of the writer N.D. is important. Teleshov and especially the meeting at the end of 1895 and the beginning of friendship with A.P. Chekhov. Bunin carried his admiration for Chekhov’s personality and talent throughout his life, dedicating his last book to him (the unfinished manuscript “About Chekhov” was published in New York in 1955, after the author’s death).

At the beginning of 1901, the Moscow publishing house "Scorpion" published the poetry collection "Falling Leaves" - the result of Bunin's short collaboration with the Symbolists, which in 1903 brought the author, along with the translation of "The Song of Hiawatha", the Pushkin Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Acquaintance with Maxim Gorky in 1899 led I.A. Bunin in the early 1900s. to cooperation with the publishing house "Knowledge". His stories and poems were published in the “Collections of the Knowledge Partnership”, and in 1902-1909. The publishing house "Znanie" publishes the first collected works of I.A. in five separate unnumbered volumes. Bunin (volume six was published thanks to the publishing house “Public Benefit” in 1910).

The growth of literary fame brought I.A. Bunin and relative material security, which allowed him to fulfill his long-standing dream - to travel abroad. In 1900-1904. the writer visited Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy. Impressions from a trip to Constantinople in 1903 formed the basis of the story “Shadow of a Bird” (1908), with which in Bunin’s work begins a series of brilliant travel essays, later collected in the cycle of the same name (the collection “Shadow of a Bird” was published in Paris in 1931 G.).

In November 1906, in the Moscow house of B.K. Zaitseva Bunin met Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva (1881-1961), who became the writer’s companion until the end of his life, and in the spring of 1907 the lovers set off on their “first long journey” - to Egypt, Syria and Palestine.

In the fall of 1909, the Academy of Sciences awarded I.A. Bunin received the second Pushkin Prize and elected him an honorary academician, but it was the story “The Village,” published in 1910, that brought him genuine and widespread fame. Bunin and his wife still travel a lot, visiting France, Algeria and Capri, Egypt and Ceylon. In December 1911, in Capri, the writer completed the autobiographical story “Sukhodol”, which, being published in “Bulletin of Europe” in April 1912, was a huge success among readers and critics. On October 27-29 of the same year, the entire Russian public solemnly celebrated the 25th anniversary of I.A.’s literary activity. Bunin, and in 1915 in the St. Petersburg publishing house A.F. Marx published his complete works in six volumes. In 1912-1914. Bunin took an intimate part in the work of the “Book Publishing House of Writers in Moscow”, and collections of his works were published in this publishing house one after another - “John Rydalets: stories and poems of 1912-1913.” (1913), "The Cup of Life: Stories of 1913-1914." (1915), "Mr. from San Francisco: Works 1915-1916." (1916).

October Revolution of 1917 I.A. Bunin did not accept it decisively and categorically; in May 1918, he and his wife left Moscow for Odessa, and at the end of January 1920, the Bunins left Soviet Russia forever, sailing through Constantinople to Paris. A monument to the sentiments of I.A. Bunin's diary "Cursed Days", published in exile, remained from the revolutionary time.

The entire subsequent life of the writer is connected with France. The Bunins spent most of the year from 1922 to 1945 in Grasse, near Nice. In exile, only one actual poetry collection of Bunin was published - “Selected Poems” (Paris, 1929), but ten new books of prose were written, including “The Rose of Jericho” (published in Berlin in 1924), “Mitya’s Love” ( in Paris in 1925), “Sunstroke” (ibid. in 1927). In 1927-1933. Bunin worked on his largest work, the novel “The Life of Arsenyev” (first published in Paris in 1930; the first complete edition was published in New York in 1952). In 1933, the writer was awarded the Nobel Prize “for the truthful artistic talent with which he recreated the typical Russian character in artistic prose.”

The Bunins spent the years of World War II in Grasse, which was under German occupation for some time. Written in the 1940s. the stories formed the book Dark Alleys, first published in New York in 1943 (the first complete edition was published in Paris in 1946). Already at the end of the 1930s. attitude of I.A. Bunin became more tolerant of the Soviet country, and after the victory of the USSR over Nazi Germany, he became unconditionally friendly, but the writer was never able to return to his homeland.

In the last years of I.A.’s life. Bunin published his “Memoirs” (Paris, 1950), worked on the already mentioned book about Chekhov and constantly amended his already published works, mercilessly shortening them. In his “Literary Testament,” he asked from now on to publish his works only in the latest author’s edition, which formed the basis of his 12-volume collected works, published by the Berlin publishing house “Petropolis” in 1934-1939.

I.A. died Bunin was buried on November 8, 1953 in Paris at the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin- outstanding Russian writer, poet, honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1909), laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933.

Born in Voronezh, where he lived the first three years of his life. Later the family moved to an estate near Yelets. Father - Alexey Nikolaevich Bunin, mother - Lyudmila Aleksandrovna Bunina (nee Chubarova). Until the age of 11, he was raised at home, in 1881 he entered the Yeletsk district gymnasium, in 1885 he returned home and continued his education under the guidance of his older brother Julius. At the age of 17 he began to write poetry, and in 1887 he made his debut in print. In 1889 he went to work as a proofreader for the local newspaper Orlovsky Vestnik. By this time, he had a long relationship with an employee of this newspaper, Varvara Pashchenko, with whom, against the wishes of his relatives, he moved to Poltava (1892).

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

1895 - personally met Chekhov, before that they corresponded.

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

In 1899 he married Anna Nikolaevna Tsakni (Kakni), the daughter of a Greek revolutionary. The marriage did not last long, the only child died at the age of 5 (1905). In 1906, Bunin entered into a civil marriage (officially registered in 1922) with Vera Nikolaevna Muromtseva, the niece of S. A. Muromtsev, the first chairman of the First State Duma.

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

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

* Impoverishment of noble estates (“Antonov apples”, 1900)
* The cruel face of the village (“Village”, 1910, “Sukhodol”, 1911)
* Disastrous oblivion of the moral foundations of life (“Mr. from San Francisco”, 1915).
* Sharp rejection of the October Revolution and the Bolshevik regime in the diary book “Cursed Days” (1918, published in 1925).
* In the autobiographical novel “The Life of Arsenyev” (1930) there is a recreation of the past of Russia, the writer’s childhood and youth.
* The tragedy of human existence in short stories about love (“Mitya’s Love”, 1925; collection of stories “Dark Alleys”, 1943).
* Translated “The Song of Hiawatha” by the American poet G. Longfellow. It was first published in the newspaper “Orlovsky Vestnik” in 1896. At the end of the same year, the newspaper’s printing house published “The Song of Hiawatha” as a separate book.

Bunin was awarded the Pushkin Prize three times; in 1909 he was elected academician in the category of fine literature, becoming the youngest academician of the Russian Academy.

In the summer of 1918, Bunin moved from Bolshevik Moscow to Odessa, occupied by German troops. As the Red Army approached the city in April 1919, he did not emigrate, but remained in Odessa. He welcomes the occupation of Odessa by the Volunteer Army in August 1919, personally thanks Denikin, who arrived in the city on October 7, and actively cooperates with OSVAG (propaganda and information body) under the All-Russian Socialist Republic. In February 1920, when the Bolsheviks approached, he left Russia. Emigrates to France.

In exile, he was active in social and political activities: he gave lectures, collaborated with Russian political parties and organizations (conservative and nationalist), and regularly published journalistic articles. He delivered a famous manifesto on the tasks of the Russian Abroad regarding Russia and Bolshevism: The Mission of the Russian Emigration.

He was engaged in literary activities extensively and fruitfully, already in emigration confirming the title of a great Russian writer and becoming one of the main figures of the Russian Abroad.

Bunin creates his best works: “Mitya’s Love” (1924), “Sunstroke” (1925), “The Case of Cornet Elagin” (1925) and, finally, “The Life of Arsenyev” (1927-1929, 1933). These works became a new word both in Bunin’s work and in Russian literature in general. And according to K. G. Paustovsky, “The Life of Arsenyev” is not only the pinnacle work of Russian literature, but also “one of the most remarkable phenomena of world literature.” Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1933.

According to the Chekhov publishing house, in the last months of his life Bunin worked on a literary portrait of A.P. Chekhov, the work remained unfinished (in the book: “Looping Ears and Other Stories”, New York, 1953). He died in his sleep at two o'clock in the morning from November 7 to 8, 1953 in Paris. He was buried in the cemetery of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois. In 1929-1954. Bunin's works were not published in the USSR. Since 1955, he has been the most published writer of the “first wave” in the USSR (several collected works, many one-volume books). Some works (“Cursed Days”, etc.) were published in the USSR only during perestroika.

Ivan Bunin was born in 1870 into the family of a nobleman, former officer Alexei Bunin, who by that time had gone broke. The family was forced to move from their estate to the Oryol region, where the writer spent his childhood. In 1881 he entered the Yelets Gymnasium. But he fails to get an education; after 4 classes, Ivan returns home, because his ruined parents simply do not have enough money for his education. Older brother Julius, who managed to graduate from university, helped complete the entire gymnasium course at home. The biography of Bunin - a man, a creator and creator - is full of unexpected events and facts. At the age of 17, Ivan published his first poems. Soon Bunin moved to Kharkov to live with his older brother and went to work as a proofreader for the Orlovsky Vestnik newspaper. In it he publishes his stories, articles and poems.

In 1891 the first collection of poetry was published. Here the young writer meets Varvara - his girl’s parents did not want their marriage, so the young couple secretly leaves for Poltava. Their relationship lasted until 1894 and led to the writing of the novel “The Life of Arsenyev.”

Bunin's biography is amazing, full of meetings and interesting acquaintances. 1895 becomes a turning point in the life of Ivan Alekseevich. A trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg, meeting Chekhov, Bryusov, Kuprin, Korolenko, first success in the literary society of the capital. In 1899, Bunin married Anna Tsakni, but this marriage did not last long. 1900 - story “Antonov Apples”, 1901 - collection of poems “Leaf Fall”, 1902 - collected works published by the publishing house “Znanie”. Author - Ivan Bunin. The biography is unique. 1903 - Pushkin Prize awarded! The writer travels a lot: Italy, France, Constantinople, the Caucasus. His best works are stories about love. About unusual, special love, without a happy ending. As a rule, this is a fleeting, random feeling, but of such depth and strength that it breaks the lives and destinies of the heroes. And this is where Bunin’s difficult biography comes into play. But his works are not tragic, they are filled with love, happiness from the fact that this great feeling happened in life.

In 1906, at a literary evening, Ivan Alekseevich met Vera Muromtseva,

a quiet young lady with huge eyes. Again, the girl’s parents were against their relationship. Vera was in her final year of study and was writing her diploma. But she chose love. In April 1907, Vera and Ivan went on a trip together, this time to the east. For everyone they became husband and wife. But they got married only in 1922, in France.

For his translations of Byron, Tennyson, and Musset in 1909, Bunin again received the Pushkin Prize and became an honorary academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. In 1910, the story “The Village” appeared, which caused a lot of controversy and made the author popular. Having been with Gorky in 1912-1914. In Italy, Bunin wrote his famous story “The Gentleman from San Francisco.”

But Ivan Alekseevich Bunin did not welcome the year. The writer's biography is not easy. In 1920, his family He was accepted in the West as a major Russian writer and became the head of the Union of Russian Writers and Journalists. New works are being published: “Mitya’s Love”, “The Case of Cornet Elagin”, “Sunstroke”, “God’s Tree”.

1933 - Bunin’s biography surprises again. He becomes the first Russian. By that time the writer was very popular in Europe. Bunin was an opponent of the Nazi regime. During the war years, despite losses and hardships, he did not publish a single work. During the occupation of France, he wrote a series of nostalgic stories, but published them only in 1946. In the last years of his life, Ivan Alekseevich did not write poetry. But he begins to treat the Soviet Union with warmth and dreams of returning. But his plans were interrupted by death. Bunin died in 1953, as did Stalin. And only a year later his works began to be published in the Union.