I. Bunin’s attitude to the Russian revolution using the example of the story “Cursed Days”. Bunin

The problem of deep human feelings is very important for a writer, especially for one who feels subtly and experiences vividly. Therefore it plays a significant role. He dedicated many pages of his creations to her. True feeling and the eternal beauty of nature are often consonant and equivalent in the writer’s works. The theme of love in Bunin’s work runs alongside the theme of death. Strong feelings are not only joyful, they often disappoint a person, become the cause of torment and torment, which can lead to deep depression and even death.

The theme of love in Bunin's works is often associated with the theme of betrayal, because death for the writer is not only a physical state, but also a psychological category. The one who betrayed his own or others’ strong feelings died forever for them, although he continues to drag out his miserable physical existence. Life without love is boring and uninteresting. But not every person is able to experience it, just as not everyone is tested by it.

An example of how the theme of love is expressed in Bunin’s work is the story “Sunstroke” (1925).

It was exactly reminiscent in its strength of the feeling that gripped the lieutenant and the little tanned woman on the deck of the steamer. He suddenly invited her to get off at the nearest pier. They went ashore together.

To describe the passionate feelings that the characters experienced when they met, the author uses the following epithets: “impulsively”, “frenziedly”; verbs: “rushed”, “choked”. The narrator explains that their feelings were also strong because the heroes had never experienced anything like this in their lives. That is, feelings are endowed with exclusivity and uniqueness.

The morning together at the hotel is described as follows: sunny, hot, happy. This happiness is shaded by the ringing of bells, enlivened by a bright bazaar on the hotel square with various smells: hay, tar, the complex aroma of a Russian provincial town. Portrait of the heroine: small, stranger, like a seventeen-year-old girl (you can roughly estimate the heroine’s age - about thirty). She is not prone to embarrassment, is cheerful, simple and reasonable.

She tells the lieutenant about the eclipse, the strike. The hero does not yet understand her words; the “blow” has not yet shown its effect on him. He sees her off and returns still “carefree and easy” to the hotel, as the author says, but something is already changing in his mood.

To gradually increase anxiety, the description of the room was used: empty, not like that, strange, a cup of tea that she had not drunk. The feeling of loss is enhanced by the still lingering smell of her English cologne. The verbs describe the lieutenant's growing excitement: his heart clenched with tenderness, he hurries to light a cigarette, he slaps himself on the tops of his boots, he walks back and forth around the room, a phrase about a strange adventure, there are tears in his eyes.

Feelings are growing and require release. The hero needs to isolate himself from their source. He covers the unmade bed with a screen, closes the windows so as not to hear that market noise that he liked so much at first. And he suddenly wanted to die to come to the city where she lives, but realizing that this was impossible, he felt pain, horror, despair and the complete uselessness of his further life without her.

The problem of love is most clearly expressed in the forty stories of the cycle, which form an entire encyclopedia of feelings. They reflect their diversity, which occupies the writer. Of course, tragedy is more common on the pages of the series. But the author sings of the harmony of love, the fusion, the inseparability of the male and female principles. Like a true poet, the author is constantly looking for it, but, unfortunately, he does not always find it.

About love reveal to us his non-trivial approach to their description. He listens to the sounds of love, peers into its images, guesses silhouettes, trying to recreate the fullness and range of complex nuances of the relationship between a man and a woman.

Where and when was I.A. born? Bunin? What is known about his ancestry? Who were his parents?

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin was born on October 22, 1870 in Voronezh. He came from a noble but impoverished noble family. In ancient manuscripts, the first mention of Bunin’s ancestors dates back to the 15th century, when Simeon Bunkovsky, a native of Lithuania, entered military service with the Moscow prince. For Bunin's worldview, the antiquity of his noble family was of particular importance.

In 1881-1886, Bunin studied at the Yeletsk gymnasium, but did not graduate. In Yelets, he was forced to live in other people's houses, where his parents rented a room for him, and was very homesick for home and family. He was little interested in the government gymnasium program; the formalism of teaching suppressed his interests. Mathematics was very difficult for him. Such training ended in a nervous illness a few years later, and later he completed the gymnasium program at home, on the Ozerki estate, under the guidance of his older brother Yuli Alekseevich. The brothers subscribed to several literary magazines, read a lot and argued about what they read. During these years, Bunin already sent poems, articles and stories to metropolitan magazines.

Brother Yuli Alekseevich was for the writer the most spiritually close person in the family; Bunin corresponded with him throughout his life, he confided his thoughts, feelings, doubts and experiences to him. Julius was a Narodnaya Volya member, a man of revolutionary convictions; he lived on the family estate in those years because he was in prison and had recently been released from it under police supervision without the right to leave for three years. Communicating with his younger brother, he cultivated in him a love of freedom, independence of judgment, and sympathy for simple, disadvantaged people.

What were I.A.’s first literary experiments? Bunin?

Among Bunin's debut performances were poetry and prose. The first collection of poems by I.A. Bunin was published in 1891 in Orel. At first these were talented imitations. Thus, in the stories of 1892 “Tanka” and “Katryuk” one can feel the influence of populist writers and, above all, the Uspensky brothers, the main motives of the stories “At the Dacha” (1895), “In August” (1901) are inspired by the ethical teachings of L.N. Tolstoy. In Bunin’s first poetic experiments, echoes of N.A.’s poetry can be heard. Nekrasov (in the article “Village Beggar”, 1886), in the poem of 1887 “Over the grave of S.Ya. Nadson” you can hear Lermontov’s motifs. Young Bunin also has a poem “Imitation of Pushkin” (1890):

From idleness and lies, from vain amusements, I fled alone to my native fields,

I entered as a wanderer into the shadow of my oak forests,

Under their centuries-old canopies,

And, exhausted by the heat, I stand on the way And drink the life-giving moisture of the forest winds...

Oh, give me back my land, my youth,

And youthful sparkle of eyes, and youthful courage!

You see - I have not forgotten your beauty And, with a pure heart, I bless your world... To the promised fatherly land I bring the remnant of my proud strength.

The first stories were “Nefedka” and “Convulsive”. About his first prose experiments, Bunin wrote: “Feeling my own growth and due to many spiritual changes, I then destroyed the little that I wrote in prose, mercilessly” (“Autobiographical Notes”). Bunin's first works were published in periodicals: “Russian Wealth”, “New Word”, “World of God”, “North”.

In the book “Memoirs” (1950), Bunin wrote: “I began to publish in the late 80s... The so-called decadents and symbolists, who appeared a few years after that, claim that in those years Russian literature reached a dead end.”

Bunin spoke about the beginning of his writing career and his acquaintance with the literary world in his “Autobiographical Notes” and notes entitled “From the Notes.” “I entered the literary environment in the mid-90s. Here, unfortunately, I didn’t find either Fet or Polonsky, I didn’t find Garshin... But I also found not only Tolstoy himself, but also Chekhov; I found Ertel, also a wonderful person and the author of “The Gardenins,” a novel that will forever remain in Russian literature, I found Korolenko, who wrote his wonderful “Makar’s Dream,” I found Grigorovich... I found the poet Zhemchuzhnikov, one of the authors of “Kozma Prutkov,” who often visited him, and he called me his young friend... But in those years in Russia the fierce war between the populists and the Marxists was already in full swing, who believed the barefoot proletariat to be the stronghold of the future revolution... It was not long before that that I met Balmont, Bryusov, Sologub..." .

Are the pseudonyms of I.A. known? Bunin?

The first stories in the Oryol Bulletin and critical articles in Books of the Week (1890) by I.A. Bunin signed with the surname Chubarov (his mother was born Chubarova).

What is the attitude of I.A. Bunin to the revolution of 1917 and post-revolutionary events?

In October 1917, Bunin came to Moscow and here he experienced the revolution and the beginning of the Civil War. Since 1918, he was in Odessa, where he witnessed executions, violence, robberies, and kept a diary, which he called “Cursed Days” (1918-1920). In our country it was published only in the late 80s. The pain that Russia and Russian culture are dying, that the interests of ordinary people who have the right to life and happiness are being trampled on, became the main pathos of “Cursed Days”, the bitter refrain of this diary - the words: “The Russian man is disgraced!” In the Russian Revolution of 1917, the writer saw a bloody game, a terrible riot that destroys all national foundations, leads to the collapse of a great culture, and sows hatred of the intelligentsia, education, and spirituality.

Motifs of premonition of death, bitterness, and melancholy are also characteristic of Bunin’s lyrics of that time. Thus, in the poem “We sat by the stove in the hallway...” depicts the loneliness of people among the snowy steppes, the darkness of the night looking out the window, and enemies who can enter the house and destroy it at any moment. According to Bunin, this is a terrible age, a terrible world, not only threatening the lyrical hero, but also bringing death to the country and its culture. It is no coincidence that one of the leitmotifs of this poem is the image of the grave.

We sat by the stove in the hallway,

Alone, with the fire dying out,

In an old abandoned house,

In the steppe and remote side.

It is known that I.A. Bunin bowed to L.N. Tolstoy. What did this mean? Did they know each other?

After reading “Confession”, “What is my faith” by L.N. Tolstoy, Bunin was shocked, decided to live a simple working life, became close to the Tolstoyans in Poltava, who taught everyone the “correct life.” In 1894, Bunin met Tolstoy personally, thanks to one of the Poltava Tolstoyans, Volkenstein. L. Tolstoy remembered Father I. Bunin, whom he met near Sevastopol, and advised “not to make “Tolstoyism” your uniform, because in any life you can be a good person.” As Bunin noted in his “Autobiographical Notes,” “Tolstoy himself refused to let me say goodbye to the end.” After moving to Moscow, Bunin met with Tolstoy more than once; they corresponded for some time (see: L. Tolstoy. Correspondence with Russian writers. In 2 vols. M., 1978).

In 1937, the memoir-philosophical treatise “The Liberation of Tolstoy” was created. Here Bunin wrote about his passion for the ideas of the great writer: “... I passionately dreamed of a clean, healthy, “good” life among nature, with my own labors, in simple clothes, and most importantly, again from falling in love with Tolstoy as an artist, I became a Tolstoyan "

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Literature

Features of the theme of love in the works of I.A. Bunin

Performed:

9th grade student

Teacher:

Markovich L.V.

1 Introduction 3

2 Main part

1) Views of Bunin 6

2) “Dark Alleys” 10

3) "Natalie" 12

4) “Clean Monday” 14

3 Conclusion 17

4 Bibliography 20

introduction

“Love is an intimate and deep feeling directed at another person, human community or idea. Love includes impulse and the will to constancy, taking shape in the ethical demand for fidelity. Love arises as the most free and “unpredictable” expression of the depths of personality; it cannot be forced or overcome,” - this is exactly the definition of love that I.T. Frolov’s philosophical dictionary gives us, but how can a person who has never experienced love, after reading this definition, understand what kind of feeling it is. Certainly not. Love is a feeling that cannot be defined. Each person will have his own, because love is individual and in some sense unique, reflecting the unique features of each person’s life path. In addition, we can say that love is the pursuit of an ideal. When a person falls in love, his love becomes the living embodiment of an ideal that already exists for him not somewhere in the distant future, but today, now, this minute. Having fallen in love, a person begins to see and appreciate in his beloved what sometimes others do not see or appreciate. Love inspires people to write poetry, music, paintings. A person always thinks about love, needs it, waits for it, strives for it. And people have no stronger feeling than love. Neither fear, nor envy, nor malicious hatred - nothing can overcome love.

In literature, the theme of love is one of the eternal themes. An endless number of works have been and will be written about love.

The topic of my essay is “Features of the theme of love in the collection of stories by I.A. Bunin “Dark Alleys”.”

Bunin's stories made a strong impression on me. When you read works on the same topic by different authors, you seem to involuntarily compare them, noticing similarities and differences. Most often it happens that the plots are different, the authors present the problem differently, but they see it the same way. However, the first time I read Bunin’s stories, I was amazed at how he not only presents, but also sees love. I discovered a completely different, unlike anything else, “Bunin’s love.” I wanted to understand and understand Bunin’s views on love, which is why I chose this topic for the essay.

I believe that the theme of love is relevant, and I would like to express its relevance in the words of the Russian writer Maxim Gorky: “Life without love is not life, but existence. It is impossible to live without love; that is why the soul was given to man, to love.” Indeed, as long as Peace exists on Earth, people will experience this great feeling - love. After reading the collection of stories “Dark Alleys,” I found out that love for Bunin is the greatest happiness bestowed on man. But eternal doom hangs over her. Love is always associated with tragedy; true love does not have a happy ending, because a person has to pay for moments of happiness. To prove this, I set myself the following tasks:

Study the biography of Bunin and his views on love.

Research critical literature related to the topic of the essay.

Analyze some of the stories included in the collection “Dark Alleys”.

Draw conclusions and present material on this topic

Bunin's views

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is one of the most prominent Russian writers of the twentieth century. In 1933 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was excellent at both poetry and prose, both short stories and novels. Speaking about Bunin, one cannot remain silent about the main circumstance of his literary and everyday fate. In 1917, the social drama of a writer who always lived in the interests of Russia began. Not understanding the October Revolution, the writer left his homeland forever in 1920. Emigration became a truly tragic milestone in Bunin’s biography. Poverty and indifference were painful to bear for Ivan Alekseevich. However, the terrible events with the Nazis coming to power were perceived immeasurably more acutely. Bunin constantly monitored the front and hid people persecuted by the Nazis. He saw the victory of the Russian people over the Germans. In 1945, he was happy for his Fatherland. A. Bobrenko cites the bitter words of Ivan Alekseevich, spoken on March 30, 1943: “... the days pass in great monotony, in weakness and idleness. About a year and a half ago, I wrote a whole book of new stories in a very short time, now I only occasionally pick up the pen - my hands fall off: why and for whom should I write?” We are talking here about stories published under the general title “Dark Alleys.” The first version of the collection appeared in the USA in 1943. Then Bunin, also in a “short time,” enlarges it and publishes it in 1946 in Paris. Working on the collection was a source of spiritual inspiration for Bunin during the war years. The author himself considered the works of the collection “Dark Alleys”, begun and completed

from 1937 to 1944, its highest achievement. I.V. Odintsova recalled “Bunin’s heated objections to a remark about his fame: “What did this Nobel Prize - and how much I dreamed about it - bring me? Some damn shards. And did foreigners appreciate me? So I wrote my best book, “Dark Alleys,” but not a single French publisher wants to take it.” The stories in this cycle are fictional, which Bunin himself emphasized more than once. However, everything, including their retrospective form, is caused, as always in art, by the state of the author’s soul. A.V. Bakhrakh once asked: “Ivan Alekseevich, have you ever tried to compile your Don Juan list?” To which Bunin replied: “Then it would be better to make a list of unused opportunities, but your tactless question awakened a swarm of memories in me. What an amazing time - youth! There were so many meetings, unforgettable moments! Life passes quickly, and we begin to appreciate it only when everything else is behind us.” Such moments of return to the most vivid, powerful experience are reproduced in the cycle. The mood for him is given by N.P. Ogarev’s poem “An Ordinary Tale,” to which Bunin does not very accurately refer when explaining the origin of his story “Dark Alleys.” The collection “Dark Alleys” became the embodiment of all the writer’s many years of thoughts about love, which he saw everywhere, since for him this concept was very broad. He sees love in a special light. At the same time, it reflects the feelings that each person experienced. From this point of view, love is not some special, abstract concept, but, on the contrary, common to everyone. The main theme of the cycle is the theme of love, but it is no longer just love, but love that reveals the most secret corners of the human soul, love as the basis of life and as that illusory happiness that we all strive for, but, alas, so often miss. “Dark Alleys” is a multifaceted, diverse work. Bunin shows human relationships in all manifestations: sublime passion, quite ordinary desires, novels “out of nothing to do,” animal manifestations of passion.

Bunin is in love with love. For him, this is the most beautiful feeling on earth, incomparable to anything else. And yet love destroys destinies. The writer never tired of repeating that every strong love avoids marriage. An earthly feeling is only a short flash in a person’s life, and Bunin tries to preserve these wonderful moments in his stories. In the collection “Dark Alleys” we will not find a single story where love would end in marriage. Lovers are separated either by relatives, or by circumstances, or by death. It seems that death for Bunin is preferable to a long family life side by side. It shows love at its peak, but never at its decline.

Critics have repeatedly spoken about the tragic nature of Bunin’s views, which united love and death. But this is how he himself explained to I.V. Odoevtseva this motive: “Don’t you really know that love and death are inseparable? Every time I experienced a love catastrophe - and there were many of these love catastrophes in my life, or rather, almost every love of mine was a catastrophe - I was close to suicide. This means that the writer did not at all initially, not naturally, connect the light of life and the darkness of non-existence. But only in a catastrophic situation.

The words of one unknown philosopher are very close to the views of the writer: “They sought and idolized love. She was lost and not taken care of. “Love doesn’t exist,” people said, but they themselves died of love.”

According to Bunin, love is a certain highest main moment of existence that illuminates a person’s life, and Bunin in the face of love sees the opposition to death: if a person’s life is filled with love, then it lasts longer. But for Bunin, “happy, lasting” love, with which he simply has nothing to do, is not so important as short-lived love, which, like a flash, illuminates a person’s life, filling it with joyful emotions. Such love for Bunin quickly ends, but does not die, and with this idea of ​​love, Ivan Alekseevich Bunin writes a series of short stories under the general title “Dark Alleys.” First of all, all the stories are united by the motif of memories of youth and homeland. All or almost all of the stories in “Dark Alleys” are told in the past tense. Sometimes it is explicitly stated that past events are being reproduced. “In that distant time, he spent himself especially recklessly...” - “Tanya.” “He didn’t sleep, lay there, smoked and mentally looked at that summer” - “Rusya” “That summer I put on a student cap for the first time” - “Natalie.” In another case, the effect of the past is conveyed more subtly. For example, in "Clean

Monday” “Every evening the coachman rushed me at this hour on a stretching trotter...”, and in the end

definitely: “In the fourteenth year, on New Year’s Eve, there was the same quiet, sunny evening as that unforgettable one...”. Everywhere we talk about what human memory has retained.

At first glance, it may seem that all the stories are similar to each other and satisfy only such thematic divisions of the book as: love, life, death. But these themes coexist and intertwine in every story. Bunin himself designated parts of “Dark Alleys” with Roman numerals: I, II, III, placing the stories under them, probably in a strict sequence known only to him. Vyacheslav Shugaev, in his book “The Experiences of a Reading Person,” tried to decipher Roman numerals in more detail so that the connections and differences between the parts would become clearer. Perhaps we can assume that the main motive, indicated by the number I, is whimsicality, the whimsicality of the emergence of passion, its inappropriateness in the world around us and the necessity of retribution for this inappropriateness: broken, ruined destinies. Number II - the impossibility of separation for those who love - they can

either die, or fill your future life with the torment of memories and longing for departed love. Number III - the inscrutability of the female soul, its dark, sublime frantic service to passion. But perhaps all this is not true. In Bunin, kindred spirits unite in love, there is so much sacrificial devotion in this union, so much frenzied tenderness in the “struggle not equal to two hearts,” that love seems to overflow beyond the limits prepared for it by nature and tragically extinguishes. It was these inexpressible heartaches, caused not by a lack of love, but by its excess, that worried Bunin most of all, as a manifestation, it is appropriate to assume, of a purely Russian understanding of feeling. For love, or rather, tormented by love, Russian people went to the chopping block, to hard labor, shot themselves, went on a spree, and became a monk. We need fervor, akin to religious, in the service of love - this is what Bunin stood for and preached in “Dark Alleys”.

For analysis, I chose, in my opinion, the most striking works from each part.

"Dark alleys"

This story depicts a chance meeting of people who loved each other thirty years ago. The situation is quite ordinary: a young nobleman easily parted with the serf girl Nadezhda who was in love with him and married a woman from his circle. And Nadezhda, having received her freedom from the masters, became the owner of an inn and never got married, had no family, no children, and did not know ordinary everyday happiness. Throughout her life she carried her love for the master who had once seduced her. He is not able to rise to her high feelings, to understand why Nadezhda did not marry “with such beauty that she had.” How can you love one person all your life? Meanwhile, for Nadezhda Nikolenka remained an ideal, the one and only, for the rest of her life. “No matter how much time passed, she lived alone,” she confesses to Nikolai Alekseevich. Everything passes, but not everything is forgotten... I could never forgive you. Just as I didn’t have anything more valuable than you in the world at that time, I didn’t have anything later.” She could not change herself, her feelings. And Nikolai Alekseevich realized that in Nadezhda he had lost “the most precious thing he had in life.” But this is a momentary epiphany. Leaving the inn, he “remembered with shame his words and the fact that he kissed her hand, and was immediately ashamed of his shame.” And yet it was difficult for him to imagine Nadezhda as his wife, the mistress of the St. Petersburg house, the mother of his children. This gentleman attaches too much importance to class prejudices to prefer genuine feelings to them. But he paid for his cowardice with a lack of personal happiness.

How differently the characters in the story interpret what happened to them! For Nikolai Alekseevich, this is “a vulgar, ordinary story,” but for Nadezhda, not dying memories, many years of devotion to love.

Yes, perhaps Nadezhda is not happy now, many years later, but how strong that feeling was, how much joy it brought, that it is impossible to forget about it. That is, love for the heroine is happiness, but happiness with the constant, aching pain of memories.

"Natalie"

The love story of first-year student Meshchersky for the young beauty Natalie Senkevich is conveyed in his memoirs about a long period - from his first acquaintance with the girl to her untimely death. Memory brings out the unusual, incomprehensible in the past and helps to understand it. Meshchersky's friends called him a “monk.” He himself did not want to “violate his purity, to seek love without romance.” Natalie is not only not vicious, but has a proud, refined soul. They immediately fell in love with each other. And the story is about their breakup and long loneliness. There is only one external reason - an unexpectedly awakened feeling on the eve of a meeting with Natalie, the young man’s attraction to the bodily charms of his cousin Sonya. The internal process is very complex. As always with Bunin, all the eventual turns are barely indicated. The phenomenon that occupies the author is deeply comprehended in its internal development. Already at the end of the second chapter, a contradiction is felt in the hero’s thoughts:

“... how can I now live in this duality - in secret meetings with Sonya and next to Natalie, the very thought of whom already covers me with such pure love delight.” Why is there a rapprochement with Sonya? The writer reveals its external causes - the common desire among young people for early sensuality, the girl’s premature female maturity, her bold and free disposition.

But the main thing is not in them. Meshchersky himself cannot tear himself away from the hot embrace. His memory preserves the intoxication of these meetings. Fully aware of the criminality of his dual behavior, he cannot choose one thing for himself.

The question seems painfully insoluble to the young man: “Why did God punish me so much, for which he gave me two loves at once, so different and so passionate, such painful beauty of Natalie’s adoration and such bodily rapture for Sonya.” He first calls both experiences love. Only time will tell the poverty and deceitfulness of purely physical intimacy. It was enough for Meshchersky not to see Sonya for five days, and he forgot his sensual obsession, but it happened too late; Natalie found out about the betrayal. And Natalie’s long-term separation (her marriage with an unloved person, Meshchersky’s own relationship with a peasant woman) only fueled an unquenchable high feeling, giving both a genuine, albeit secret and short, marriage. The author ends the happiness of the lovers with the last, as if casually mentioned, phrase of the story: “In December, she died on Lake Geneva in premature birth.”

The main character, and this is where he differs from many, carries in his soul the rare gift of adoration for his beloved, and has the ability to understand his mistakes (even if not immediately, with great losses). And yet Meshchersky is unhappy for a long time, lonely, shocked by his own, so unexpected guilt.

The story “Natalie” revealed a new facet of the writer’s artistic generalizations. For the first time in Bunin, a person overcomes the imperfection of his consciousness, feels dissatisfaction from purely carnal pleasures, and the memory of them brings sobering. But such an experience is rare. For the most part, other feelings win out. Apparently, this is why the author ends the union of Meshchersky and Natalie with her death.

"Clean Monday"

Recognition of a hero, but how impulsive they are, internally abrupt, uncertain. And the reader immediately understands why to the Narrator (he is nameless, like her) everything seems like an obsession and a surprise. “I don’t know how all this should end”; “For some reason she studied at the courses...”; “What was left for me but hope”; “...for some reason we went to Ordynka.” Moreover, from the very beginning he admits that he “tried not to think, not to overthink it.” Only he is more open, kind, but frankly frivolous, subject to the power of chance and the elements. It was not for him to understand his friend, the complete opposite of himself. The refined skill of the writer was reflected here in the fact that in the language of such a person he was able to convey all the complex, serious nature of the heroine. Wouldn't it have been easier to tell the story from her perspective? But then we would not feel the exclusivity of this female character. “And as much as I was prone to talkativeness, she was so silent: she was always thinking about something, she seemed to be mentally delving into something” - this is the first impression of the mysterious woman. The inconsistency of her behavior is immediately apparent: mockery of abundant food, luxury and participation in lunches and dinners “with a Moscow understanding of the matter”; irony over theatrical and other tinsel and constant social entertainment; accepting a man’s impudent caresses and refusing to have a serious conversation about their relationship. “I didn’t resist anything, but I was silent all the time.” The heroine’s hidden desires also suddenly shocked the fan. They spent every evening in the best restaurants in Moscow, taking advantage of their wealth, youth, striking everyone with their rare beauty. And then, at her suggestion, they ended up in the Novodevichy Convent. It turned out that she goes to the Rogozhskoe cemetery, where the flavor of pre-Petrine Russia is so strong, to the Kremlin cathedrals, to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, and is fascinated by ancient Russian texts.

The author expands his impressions of this internally contradictory nature of the heroine with reference to the no less different origins of the capital. Moscow of those years, indeed, was a combination of the hoary antiquity of monasteries and cathedrals with the latest cultural achievements: the Art Theater, the work of the Symbolists, the works of L. Andreev, the translated works of Spitzler. The realities of such a varied environment are unobtrusively included in the narrative. Unobtrusively, because the heroine’s inner gaze is directed towards these contradictions. The writer speaks not so much about the intellectual development of this strange woman, but about the struggle in her soul of different aspirations. It is not for nothing that V. Bryusov is mentioned with his not devoid of vulgarity novel “Fire Angel”. Przybyshevsky, who spoke out against the “old” morality, “drunken” skits: And on the other hand, the Orthodox monasteries, finally, the heroine uttered the words of the Russian legend: “And the Devil instilled in his wife a flying serpent for fornication. And this serpent appeared to her in human nature, extremely beautiful...” This is the peak of the clash of opposites: “permissiveness,” the vulgarity of pleasures and suppression of the flesh, asceticism, purification of the spirit. It is these incompatible impulses that a woman unites in her being. Again, the subtext expresses the dream of merging the healthy demands of human happiness with the highest spiritual beauty. A dream that goes back to the ideal of love.

The heroine, however, believes in the wisdom of Tolstoy’s Platon Karataev: “Our happiness, my friend, is like water in delirium: if you pull it, it’s inflated, but if you pull it out, there’s nothing.” Nevertheless, she tries to “drink” her share of joy.

In a kaleidoscope of changing scenes: a restaurant, an evening living room, the Novodevichy Cemetery, Egorov’s tavern, the skit party of the Art Theater - the decision of the heroine of the story grows in separate “seeds”: from a grin at the talkativeness of her admirer, to submission to his caresses, to the exclamation: “It’s true, how you like me love!”, to admiring him, “deeply beautiful,” to the last step - sharing his passion. But, apparently, she got little from that night; in the morning she left for a monastery forever. And there she did not find peace - she continued to grieve.

What does the heroine of the story “Clean Monday” cleanse herself of? It seems clear - from an idle worldly life. Then why, after “Forgiveness Sunday,” does she find herself in the arms of a man? No, there were other sins behind her: pride, contempt for people. She wanted to trust them and her feminine strength, to love the best person she met on her life’s path. And I couldn’t. The story is written with unusual conciseness and virtuosic depiction. Every stroke, color, detail plays an important role in the external movement of the plot and becomes a sign of some internal trends (what is the last black-velvet secular outfit of the heroine in combination with the hairstyle of the Shamakhan queen). In vague forebodings and mature thoughts, the bright, changeable appearance of this woman, the author embodied his ideas about a contradictory atmosphere, about the complex layers of the human soul, about the emergence of some new moral ideal. It is not surprising that Bunin considered “Clean Monday” the best story in the collection.

Conclusion

In the theme of love, Bunin reveals himself as a man of amazing talent, a subtle psychologist who knows how to convey the state of the soul that is wounded by love. The writer does not avoid complex, frank topics, depicting the most intimate human experiences in his stories. Over the centuries, many word artists have dedicated their works to the great feeling of love, and each of them has found something unique and individual in this theme. From my work it follows that the peculiarity of Bunin, the artist, is that he considers love to be a tragedy, a catastrophe, madness, a great feeling, capable of both infinitely elevating and destroying a person. Bunin also especially sees the images of the heroes of his stories.

The image of a woman is the attractive force that constantly attracts Bunin. He creates a gallery of such images, each story has its own. The writer addresses the destinies of completely different women. Social status ceases to matter when feelings come into play. A woman is inseparable from nature. It is almost always connected to a forest, a field, the sea, or clouds. She is part of it and therefore, apparently, is endowed with such spontaneous, uncontrollable power as wind, lightning, flood. Perhaps, under the influence of this force, so much mental torment was brought into “Dark Alleys”? all the images delight, it seems that the author is in love with each of them. All the feelings that these women experience have a right to exist. Let this be the first bright love, passion for an unworthy person, a feeling of revenge, lust and worship. And it makes absolutely no difference whether you are a peasant or a lady. The main thing is that you are a woman.

The male images in Bunin's stories are somewhat darkened, blurred, and the characters are not too defined. In almost all the stories, the man is the same: ardent, spiritually vigilant, full of compassion for a woman and somewhat contemplative - this is how a man should be who is worthy of love and finds it. Bunin deliberately does not endow him with characteristic uniqueness, so that it does not prevent the hero in all his love searches and adventures from being heartily attentive, sensually observant and tirelessly admiring a woman, worshiping her spiritual secrets. It is important for the writer to understand what feelings these men experience, what pushes them towards women, why they love them. The reader does not need to know what this or that man is like, what he looks like, what his advantages and disadvantages are. He participates in the story insofar as love is a feeling of two.

Love is a mysterious element that transforms a person’s life, giving his fate a unique flavor against the backdrop of ordinary everyday stories, filling his earthly existence with special meaning. Yes, love has many faces and is often inexplicable. This is an eternal mystery, and every reader of Bunin’s works seeks his own answers, reflecting on the mysteries of love. The perception of this feeling is personal, and therefore someone will treat what is depicted in the book as a “vulgar story,” while others will be shocked by the great gift of love, which, like the talent of a writer, is not given to everyone. Every young person will find in Bunin’s works something consonant with his own thoughts and experiences, and will touch the great mystery of love. This is what makes the author of “Dark Alleys” always a modern writer, arousing deep reader interest. Readers may sometimes have a question: does the writer create artificial barriers on the heroes’ path to happiness? No, the fact is that people themselves do not strive to fight. They can experience happiness, but only for a moment, and then it disappears like water into sand. And that’s why many of Bunin’s stories are so tragic. Sometimes in one short line the writer reveals the collapse of hopes, the harsh mockery of fate. The stories of the “Dark Alleys” series are an example of amazing Russian psychological prose, in which love has always been one of the eternal secrets that word artists sought to reveal. Ivan Alekseevich Bunin, in my opinion, was one of those brilliant writers who came closest to solving this mystery.

Bibliography

1. Arkhangelsky A.A.; Russian writers - Nobel laureates bonuses;

Moscow, 1991

2. Adamovich G.V.; Loneliness and freedom./ Comp., author. preface and approx. V. Kreid / M.: Republic, 1996.

3. Bunin I.A.; Collected works in 9 volumes; Moscow, “Fiction”, 1967.

4. Bunin I.A.; Poems, stories, novellas; Moscow, “Fiction”, 1973.

5.Russian writers; Bio-bibliographic dictionary./Ed. P.A.Nikolaeva / Moscow, “Enlightenment”, 1990.

6. Smirnova L.A.; I.A.Bunin: Life and creativity; Book for teachers; Moscow, “Enlightenment”, 1991.

7. Philosophical Dictionary./ Ed. I.T. Frolova. – 6th ed. reworked and additional/. Moscow, Politizdat, 1991.

8. Shugaev V.M.; Experiences of a reading person; Moscow, Sovremennik, 1988.

At all times, the theme of love has been the main one; many writers glorified the relationship between a man and a woman. Ivan Alekseevich was no exception; he writes about love in many stories. Love is the purest and brightest feeling in the world. The theme of love is eternal in any era.

In Bunin's works, the writer describes the intimate and secret things that happen between two people. The work of Ivan Alekseevich can be divided into periods. Thus, the collection “Dark Alleys,” written during the World War, is dedicated entirely to love. The collection contains so much love and warm feelings, it is simply filled with love.

Bunin believes that love is a great feeling, even if this love is unrequited. The writer believes that any love has the right to life. Also, having read the stories of Ivan Alekseevich, you can see that love in his works goes next to death. He seems to draw the line that behind a great bright feeling there can be death.

In some of his stories, Bunin writes that love is not always beautiful and sunny, and maybe the love story will end tragically. So, for example, in the story “Sunstroke” his characters meet on a ship, where a wonderful feeling flares up between them. The girl in love tells the lieutenant that the feeling that visited them was like a sunstroke that clouded their minds. She says that she has never experienced anything like this and is unlikely to ever experience it. Unfortunately, the lieutenant realizes very late how much he fell in love with the girl, because he did not even know her last name or where she lives.

The lieutenant was ready to die for one more day spent with the girl he loved so much. He was overwhelmed with feelings, but they were big and bright.

In another story, Bunin describes the unrequited love of a young guy for a girl who does not pay any attention to him. Nothing pleases a girl and even a guy’s love doesn’t make her happy. At the end of the story, she goes to a monastery, where she thinks she will find happiness.

In another story, Ivan Alekseevich writes about a triangle in which a guy cannot choose between passion and love. The whole story he rushes between girls and everything ends tragically.

In Bunin's works, where he writes about love, all aspects of this feeling are described. After all, love is not only joy and happiness, but also suffering and grief. Love is a great feeling that you often have to fight for.

Essay Theme of love in the works of Bunin

The theme of love has always been and is an integral part of any work. I. A. Bunin revealed it especially clearly in his stories. The writer described love as a tragic and deep feeling; he tried to reveal to the reader all the secret corners of this strong attraction.

In Bunin’s works, such as “Dark Alleys”, “Cold Autumn”, “Sunstroke”, love is shown from several sides. On the one hand, this feeling can bring great happiness, on the other hand, a bright and ardent feeling inflicts deep wounds on a person’s soul, causing days of only suffering.

For the author, love was not just a naive feeling, it was strong and real, often accompanied by tragedy, and in some moments, death. The theme of love, in different periods of his creative path, was revealed from different sides. At the beginning of his work, Bunin described love between young people as something easy, natural and open. She is beautiful and gentle, but at the same time she can be disappointing. For example, in the story “Dawn All Night” he describes the strong love of a simple girl for a young man. She is ready to give all her youth and soul to her loved one, to completely dissolve in him. But reality can be cruel, and as often happens, falling in love passes and a person begins to look at many things differently. And in this work he clearly describes the breakdown of a relationship that brought only pain and disappointment.

At a certain period of his time, Bunin emigrated from Russia. It was at this time that love became a mature and deep feeling for him. He began to write about her with sadness and longing, remembering his past years of life. This is clearly reflected in the novel “Mitya’s Love,” written by him in 1924. At first everything goes well, feelings are strong and reliable, but later they will lead the main character to death. Bunin wrote not only about the mutual love of two young people, but in some of his works one can also find a love triangle: “The Caucasus” and “The Fairest of the Sun.” The happiness of some inevitably brings heartache and disappointment for others.

Love played a special role in his great work, “Dark Alleys,” written during the war years. In it, it is depicted as great happiness, despite the fact that it ends in tragedy in the end. The love of two people who met each other in adulthood is shown in the story “Sunstroke.” It was during this period of life that they so needed to experience this true feeling. The love of a lieutenant and a mature woman was doomed in advance and could not unite them for life. But after parting, she left the sweet bitterness of pleasant memories in their hearts.

In all his stories, Bunin glorifies love, its diversity and contradictions. If there is love, a person becomes infinitely bright, the true beauty of his inner world and values ​​​​in relation to his loved one are revealed. Love in Bunin’s understanding is a true, selfless, pure feeling, even if after a sudden outbreak and attraction it can lead to tragedy and deep disappointment.

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

Ivan Bunin

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

Women of genius

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

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

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

Ivan Bunin and Vera Muromtseva

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

Meeting with an idol

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

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

Galina Kuznetsova

Under the same roof

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

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

Victor Borisov-Musatov "Walk at Sunset"

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

Tangled connections

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

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

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

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

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

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

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